The Evolution of Technology

Posts Tagged ‘provides’

The gym has really changed since my younger years. Back then I’d talk to other guys about sports and women. Now? Well, we still talk about women, but it seems that people are more interested in talking technology than they are sports. (Jeremy Lin excepted.) That’s fine by me, of course. The other day at the gym, while hitting the heavy bag, I was talking with someone about MMA apps. MMA apps? I asked. What could they really do? The guy then instructed me to download the MMA Zone app and see for myself. Now I get what he’s talking about. This is one useful Android app.

No, the app will not teach you Brazilian jiujitsu. It will, however, hit you with a constant MMA fix. In the Market it’s called All In One MMA, and that’s really what it is. It hits MMA from all angles: news about the professionals, gear reviews — and a store — plus videos and other useful resources. It’s damn useful for entrenched MMA fans, and absolute must-have for newbies.

The luster of Angry Birds has worn off by now, right? I mean, I was addicted as the next guy, but after a while I just got sick of shooting those birds into those pigs. Yet I always need a game or two on my Android to keep me occupied when I don’t have signal strength to watch Futurama on Netflix. I’ve looked at some games on here in the past, and the common theme is that they involve a bit more thinking than your average game. The same is true of Twisted Arrows, the latest in my collection.

Found via the xda blog, Twisted Arrows has a simple premise. Just move the ball from its current position to the finish circle. Of course, if it were that easy you wouldn’t have to think much. Each square is a different color, and it has a set of arrows on it. You can only move in the direction an arrow points. Now comes the part that makes you think. Each color square rotates to a different degree when you land on it. Orange doesn’t rotate, green rotates 90 degrees, yellow rotates 180 degrees, and blue rotates 270 degrees. So you’ll see those arrows pointing in various directions, but they’re going to flip the second you land on them.

Ever since I got my Android, it has become my default portable music player. While that often doesn’t bode well for the device’s battery life, it also saves me the hassle of carrying around multiple rectangular gadgets. It was just an OK substitution at first, but as the Android platform advanced — especially with the addition of Google Music’s cloud streaming — it became the perfect replacement for my MP3 player. Well, not quite perfect. The one thing it noticeably lacked was a quality audiobook interface. There are some apps for that, though, and Akimbo’s ranks near the top. If you’re an audiobook addict, I highly recommend it for your Android device.

There are a few important features of any audiobook player, and Akimbo Audiobook Player seemingly has them all. First, it is compatible with the popular audiobook formats: M4A, M4B, and MP3. The M4s are the most typically popular audiobook format, since they are bookmarkable. That is, they remember the place where you left off so you can pick right back up in your next session. But Akimbo’s software remembers your spot even in MP3 files, so you can play audiobooks in all formats — you know, so long as they’re not DRM protected. It can also pick out chapter breaks, so you can browse through the books with ease.

As I’ve chronicled in this space, the search for the best Android media syncing app has been a long one. For a while I settled with doubleTwist, and that worked well for what it was. But the more I used it the more I got annoyed by the minor bugs, and eventually I was manually managing my music. That’s not what I want, since playlist sync is high on my list of desires. And so I looked around and found a few that appeared worthy. When I read Phandroid’s walk-through of iSyncr, I knew it had potential. Once I tried it, I was hooked. It’s such a simple solution, and it doesn’t require you to install an additional media manager on your computer.

The way the app works is actually quite clever. When you first run the app it walks you through a tutorial, so you’ll know what to do right away. The process involves installing iSyncr on your SD card. That’s where you’ll run the app, so you’ll need to mount the card. From there you just click on the iSyncr icon, and you’ll see a new window pop up. It should look familiar, as it contains all the sections of your iTunes library, including Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Books, your playlists, and more. From there syncing is easy.

One feature we’re starting to see on nearly every new smartphone is a front-facing camera. This was actually a pretty big deal back in 2008, when RIM was reportedly going to place on on the original BlackBerry Bold. That never happened, though, and it was two more years before front-facing cameras became a fad. Now they’re out in the wild, which makes video conferencing a cinch. You have a few options when it comes to this, and Qik might be the best among them.

Qik started as a mobile video sharing platform, which made plenty of sense. Before there were front-facing cameras there were rear-facing ones, and people used these to create videos from their smartphones. While uploading to YouTube was a clear option, Qik created its platform strictly for mobile. It has since been acquired by Skype, and so it has expanded its reach. Now it covers video calling, and it might be the most complete solution on the market.

How do you most commonly use your Android? I know people who have all different primary purposes. For me, it has been multimedia. Whether it’s music or video, I always have something queue’d up for when I leave the apartment. The only complaint I have in that department is the lack of a native, and comprehensive, media sync application — such as iPhone has with iTunes and BlackBerry has with Desktop Manager. There are a few alternatives — in the past we’ve covered doubleTwist and SyncMate. Today we’re looking at another, a beta app called Instinctiv.

I’m digging this app for its simplicity. You see a minimal amount of controls on the home screen, and other screens give you basically everything you need. That makes for a simple, smooth user interface. That’s what I’m really looking for in a music app. Sure, bells and whistles are nice, and in some cases I like having them. But I’d say that 90 percent of the time I just want a straight forward, intuitive interface that lets me play the music I want to play in the manner I want to play it. Having an easy syncing implementation helps, too.