The Evolution of Technology

Posts Tagged ‘check’

Earlier this week, in checking Phandroid, I noticed the following item. Apparently, Google has trashed the Just In section from the Android Market. I hadn’t noticed myself, because I hadn’t checked the Just In section for months. Apparently developers aren’t too happy about this, as it’s one way they can stand out from the larger, more prominent app developers. But in my experience the Just In section isn’t useful at all, and I can’t imagine developers get much traffic from it.

The normal disclaimer applies here: I am not a developer, so I don’t know exactly what generates them the most traffic. But I am an end user, and a voracious one at that. I’m always checking out various apps, wither by large or small developers, that can enhance my Android experience. In that experience, I’ve found the Just In section largely useless.

When I first started blogging here, I went to the Just In section all the time. It was a place, I thought, where I could find the latest Android apps and bring them to the AndGeeks readers. Truth be told, I don’t think I ever actually wrote about any of the apps I found there. What I found consisted mostly of apps I didn’t care about, or otherwise porn. Lot of porn. But that’s what happens when you open the floodgates for developers. You get lots of porn.

With the rise of smartphones has come the rise of useful applications — as in, applications that are directly useful in every day situations. One type of app that has gained prominence is the kind that splits up your restaurant bill. Divvying up the check is a time-worn ritual that no one wants to experience. It can get contentious, and no one wants that after a satisfying meal. There are plenty of these apps in the Market, but 1) we haven’t yet covered one here, and 2) even if we did I’d still feature Bill Splitter. It’s a great app, found on the xda blog, that takes care of literally everything you need when splitting a bill among friends or business associates.

You can essentially enter your receipt into the app. Once you enter each item and its price, you can assign a person to those items. Then, after adding custom tax and tip percentages, you get a readout of exactly what each person owes. There is no mistaking, no estimating, no “accidentally” underpaying. Everything is in front of you, in concrete terms. You can even send each person a receipt via SMS. That should make it easier on your poor waiter, too, if you all decide to pay with credit cards.

How many times have you gone to adjust the media volume on your Android, only to accidentally adjust the ringer volume instead? This has happened to me hundreds of times, so I’m sure it’s far from an isolated problem. The issue is that when you open up a media app, such as Pandora, you have to wait until the app is fully loaded before you can adjust the media volume. Adjust it a little too soon and you’ll end up adjusting the ringer volume, which can cause you problems later. I’ve also had problems on the lock screen, where I accidentally mute the ringer. This can lead to unnecessarily missed calls. Thankfully, there is an app that can help you keep that under control.

There aren’t many instances where I really have to change my ringer volume. It typically goes from ring to vibrate to silent, with no real volume increments. Yet because the volume rocker changes the ringer volume on any non-media screen, and because there’s a mute slider on the lock screen, sometimes I inadvertently switch something that I’d rather not. That might be turning the ringer all the way down to silent, or it might be flipping the handset over to silent mode. Worse, I sometimes accidentally switch my phone out of silent mode, which can create all sorts of problems.

If you’re tired of the boring interfaces used by many other media players, you might want to check out the latest from LauncherPro developer Fredrico Carnales. He previously teased his latest project, a new music player, and now we’re getting a look at it. It’s largely based on the stock music app, but it adds some flair. The above screenshot puts that on display. The app automatically downloads images such as this for the band you’re currently listening to. This includes album art as well. The interface is pretty intuitive as well, and it includes other add-ons such as Last.FM scrobbling. You won’t find this in the Market quite yet, but you can just head to Ubermusic.com or click the download link here to get the APK. If you’ve got some room on your handset, this is definitely worth the try.

Via Android Police.

This post originated at AndGeeks.com – home to all things Android! Also a great source of info about Android Phones.

Check out UberMusic from LauncherPro’s developer

AndGeeks – Android News and Reviews

There is a tendency, and I succumb to it, to call a minor technological advancement the greatest thing ever. The concept of depositing checks by taking a picture of it with your phone definitely qualified. No, it might not top other great inventions of mankind, but man, it is really, really convenient. My bank has the feature, and I use it all the time. Hell, I don’t even mind it when people write me checks any more. So when iPhone users got this functionality last year, I was insanely jealous. I mean, the ability to deposit checks directly to PayPal means I can take better advantage of the .018% money market account I’ve got! And now I can. PayPal has issued an update to its Android app, and it sure does include mobile check depositing. The whole thing is a boon, really, since I can do almost anything on my Android that I can do from my computer. If you’re a PayPal user, I don’t see any reason to not download the PayPal app from the Market.

This post originated at AndGeeks.com – home to all things Android! Also a great source of info about Android Phones.

PayPal for Android adds check depositing feature