Articles about Mobile App

Popular music streaming service Spotify has rolled out a beta of its first Android app optimized for devices running Ice Cream Sandwich.

The most current version of the app, available in Google Play, was built for Android Gingerbread, and no version was released for Honeycomb. Google Play says the Gingerbread version is compatible with Ice Cream Sandwich devices, but this is not strictly true, and installing the Gingerbread version didn't guarantee local playback or playlisting, so this beta is a ramp-up to a significant release for Spotify.

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Something that irritates many iOS users, and drives a large number of them to go as far as jailbreaking their phones and tablets, is the fact that Apple is so strict about what apps are able to do. The guidelines for getting into the App Store mean that it is not possible for any app to replicate an existing feature of iOS, nor access system settings in any way that Apple deems inappropriate. Despite this, Bluetooth OnOff has found its way in to the App Store, providing easy access to Bluetooth settings.

Due to battery draining, it is not a good idea to leave Bluetooth enabled when it is not being used. With this in mind, it is strange to find that in order to switch Bluetooth off, Apple makes users jump through a series of hoops in a process that takes several taps. Bluetooth OnOff is a simple little utility that reduces this to a one or two tap process so if you need to enable Bluetooth for a quick gaming session, you can do so in around a second.

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Do you find that you never have time to read the articles you discover online? In the past you may have turned to Read It Later to bookmark a site so that you can refer back to it later, but now there is a new analogy to work with. Read It Later has been re-launched as Pocket, so you can now ‘pocket’ those stories you don’t have time to read right now and save them to your online account ready for when you have more spare time.

The rebranding is more than just a change of name; there are also new features that you can take advantage of as well as a redesigned interface. Whether you are surfing the web in your preferred browser, or you discover an interesting link on Twitter or Facebook, Pocket enables you to quickly and effectively bookmark pages, images and videos so you can easily access them later. Content can be saved using a browser extension or using the dedicated iOS or Android apps.

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Developer tool and software company Sencha Inc. on Tuesday announced a new brand in HTML5 UI design and coding called Sencha Architect 2. The software is aimed at Web designers and users who want to create cross-platform HTML5 apps in a visual, drag and drop environment.

Sencha Architect 2 is an upgrade from the company's Ext Designer HTML5 layout product and can be used with Sencha's other products Touch 2 and Ext JS 4 to facilitate touch-based mobile app development or development of standalone desktop Web apps. Sencha says it dropped the name "Designer" because it no longer described the functionality of the software. It's moved from being a User Interface design tool to a more all-encompassing package that lets engineers and designers work together in the same environment.

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Comodo Group has released new versions of its backup tools for Windows users. COMODO Backup 4.1.2 introduces a number of new features, including an automatic option for creating WinPE-based rescue discs, while Comodo Cloud 2.1.6 is a maintenance release offering a number of minor bug fixes.

COMODO Backup 4.1.2 allows users to back up selected files and entire drive images to just about any location, including external drives, optical discs, network, FTP and, of course, Comodo’s own cloud-storage servers, with 5GB of online storage provided free of charge. Comodo Cloud 2.1.6 is Comodo’s standlone client for exclusively connecting to your Comodo cloud-based backup space via Windows -- a mobile app is also available for iOS and Android users.

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Some really strange stuff (I want to use the other "s" word, but content filters) comes into the BetaNews Tips box. I'm paying more attention to what's in it this week, given my 7-day Google Reader fast. Weirdness knows no bounds, nor my perplexity to embrace and share it. I swear to debating for 10 minutes about sharing this video. It's strange. Topical. From a vlogger with 26,664 subscribers (now I'm one of them). And, sheepishly confess, made me laugh.

Hell, I even liked the text of the email before the video link and made it the headline. If Instagram is worth one billion bucks... You got me Khyan Mansley. Commenters don't be cruel.

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Enterprise software company SAP on Tuesday announced it plans to expand its presence in mobile applications by acquiring enterprise app developer Syclo for an undisclosed sum. Syclo provides field service and mobile asset management solutions to industries like utilities, oil & gas, manufacturing and biomedical.

Syclo's SMART family of enterprise mobile applications already integrate with SAP's ERP and CRM products and include a dozen different categories: Work Management, Service Management, Inventory, Auditing, Inspecting, Scheduling, Task Managment, Asset Management, Sales, and so on.

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The official Tumblr app was a late-comer to Android, and, sigh, hasn't kept pace in the years since. That's all changed. Today's update simply puts the iOS version to shame. Surely this lead can't last.

Tumblr for Android has a spiffy new user interface, which look and feel -- including post-type icons -- is more like the social network. The revamped UI is the real deal; well close to it. The app is speedier, and that includes photo browsing as well as loading blogs and posting to them. By comparison, Tumblr for iOS looks ugly and lacking. Access to Tumblr Radar from the Android app rocks. Still there are omissions that favor Tumblr for iOS, such as audio uploads. I'm surprised this feature isn't available on the Android app (Wasn't it once?).

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50 million people downloaded OMGPOP's Draw Something over the past two months, and it's at the top of the App Store charts. But for those of us who connected our Facebook accounts to the app, there's an even bigger problem: it stores a Facebook access token in plain text.

Want that in plain English? A hacker gets this little file, and he's got access to your private data.

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I occasionally do. My wife does every day, multiple times, either using her Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket or Amazon Kindle. "In the US, 88 percent of tablet owners and 86 percent of smartphone owners said they used their device while watching TV at least once during a 30-day period", Nielsen says today. That's me. "For 45 percent of tablet tapping Americans, using their device while watching TV was a daily event". That's my better half. What about you?

I do tend to use my smartphone more often than a tablet while watching TV, that's to Shazam music -- something I frequently do everywhere. I was a deejay in an earlier life and compulsively search for good music. I'm not alone. Shazam audio QR codes appeared in Super Bowl ads for Best Buy, Pepsi and Toyota, among others. I see more QR codes in ads and TV shows every day. They're everywhere, and in some surprising places.

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Much has been made of Taposé in recent days, with a great detail of attention being focused on the new iPad app being based on the failed Microsoft Courier project. But it is important to look at this as a piece of software in its own right.

Taken at face value, this is an app that could easily been seen as trying to be all things to all people, but the simple fact: it is a fully-featured tool. Packing notes, maps, word processor, web browser, drawing tools and much more, this is an app that can turn its hand to many tasks.

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Mobile app developer WeaverMobile USA announced on Thursday that its formerly iOS-exclusive photography management app PhotoBox! has launched on Android.

The application can be thought of as "Lightroom for Facebook," giving users the ability to find, manage, add effects to, and share photos posted to Facebook, as well as perform batch uploads and downloads, to tag/untag, like/unlike, and comment. It provides a pretty robust toolkit for editing photos, adding filters, drawing, and adding text.

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Instagram dutifully led the charge of vintage camera filter apps, but did so as an iOS exclusive since its beginnings in 2010.

Today, after effectively "conquering" iOS by being named Apple's iPhone app of the year for 2011, Instagram has moved onto the next great frontier, the Android platform.

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Google isn't waiting for the install base of Android users to move to Ice Cream Sandwich, not that carriers or handset manufacturers help much (if you're waiting for that upgrade from Gingerbread, you know what I mean). Today the search and information giant updated Google Maps for Android to version 6.5, packing in capabilities specific to version 4.x. Don't you feel cheated? I would.

Google offers the best to a minority of users, and small is too big a word to describe them. According to Google's official stats, as of March 5, Ice Cream Sandwich accounts for a mere 1.6 percent of Android devices. But, hey, many of these users are the bleeding edge of influencers Google should want to reach -- and keep enthusiastic.

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Today, cloud-storage provider Box updated its iPad and iPhone app to include support for the newly-launched Box OneCloud. The service is Box.com’s pitch to the enterprise and business market for the “post-PC era”, providing users with a means of using their iPad to directly edit documents that can be stored online, collaborated on and shared with other users as well as accessed via desktop.

Box for iPhone and iPad 2.7.1 is a free-for-personal use app that allows users to access the contents of their Box accounts via their iOS device. The app also allows users to upload files back to the service as well as edit them using supported apps on the mobile.

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