Words With Friends

Basically: Scrabble ... if you enjoy playing scrabble, this is a must have game for your phone.

Has a neat "apple-esque" messaging client built in for some in-game chatting and you can set it to notify you that  it's your turn.

It is part of the "Zynga" game network so there are some benefits if you login with their account.


It's free ... and available on the android market

Netflix!

The netflix app is the long awaited streaming media app for most android devices.  It's been out for a couple of weeks now but recently has been made available to almost all phones.  It's definitely higher quality than youtube and of course, you now have access to premium movies and tv shows right on your droid.  PERFECT for traveling or waiting rooms or just to give the kids something to watch when waiting for the food to arrive at a restaurant.

Works just like any other "Watch Instantly" device  (Wii, PS3, some Blu-Ray players) ...  The only drawback is that it's a pretty big install, even with SD card install, it takes up over 15mb of  on the phone memory.

As for performance, there's a bit of loading time as the app starts up, but streaming is starts up fast and is of pretty high quality and the app hasn't "crashed" yet and this running on my OG Droid!

If you have Netflix already, then you must get this since it's free for all subscribers.


Get it now from the android market »

Amazon App Store: FREE STUFF DAILY!

(Sorry for the hibernation, been very busy at work and at home ... I'm still busy but will try and carve out some time to add content.)

If you haven't already gotten it, please go visit the Amazon.com and get their amazon app store for android IMMEDIATELY.

Every day, they offer a free "premium" app that normally costs between $2 and $4. Not all are gems, but every now and then they hit one out of the park.  Best part is, once you "buy" it, it's yours to install/uninstall anytime you feel like it!

Notable apps:

• angry birds rio
• fruit ninja
• sound hound
• pic say pro
• and just today they offered Plants vs Zombies 

Best thing is, these aren't "free" versions ... these are the full, no-adverts, all content versions as if you paid for them yourself!  And it's from a trusted source.

Note: your phone must alllow "install install from unknown sources" enabled in order you use the amazon app store.  Also, apps installed this way will not have the update notifications that normal apps can have, you must launch the amazon app for it to check for updates.

Sirius/XM App: strong content weak app.

Home Screen

Are you currently a Sirius/XM subscriber?
Did you know that for $3 more a month you can add access to their Browser version?

This allows you to listen to most of their stations via ANY web browser.
Did you also know that this ALSO allows you to access this same content on you Adnroid phone.

Keep in mind, you need to have at least ONE full subscription at $12.99 in order to get the $3 price for this. If you don't have a physical satellite radio or car account subscription,  the web-only fee jumps to $12.99.

Channels

On to the app: I hate to say this, but if it wasn't for my desperate need for OnA, ESPN  and some news channels: I probably wouldn't use this app since it has some lacking features and (so far) uncorrected bugs.

What I like:  
well, it simply allows me to listen to XM content on my phone.
The "favorites" screen lets me see what's on at the same time.
Pausing.
*Multi-tasking (listen to XM, do other stuff ... as long is it's not GPS)

Favorites

What I don't like: 
Audio quality is not as good as others apps (they should hire the Pandora people).
It allows you to add favorites, but not re-sort them.
The space taken up by the station logo is too big, and the font for the song/artist is too small.
All but useless "home" screen which only shows current station/artist/song.
NO LANDSCAPE MODE.
"swipe left/right" doesn't switch screens.
No bookmarking artists or recording playback (does have  "pause")
Not ALL channels are there and  the existing ones are slightly different depending if you have XM or Sirius.

Notifier

Needs a STRONG data signal for streaming.
Loss of data signal causes one of three things to happen:
- it will throw up a pop-up informing you of the loss.
- it will simply stop streaming music and will require a quit/restart to fix.
- it will lock up and will require a force close or task-killer to fix.

GPS or Navigation use causes XM to stop streaming.


In a nutshell:
Get it, If you ALREADY have XM/Sirius in one of your cars. This is cheaper way to add additional access.



The app itself is free and has trial subscription period so you can see if you like it!

Get Sirius/XM app from the android market »

Simi Widgets: lightweight apps that pack a punch!

Simi-Folders and Simi - Clock:  These are some nice minimalistic widgets for your home screen. Because I have one of the original droids, I am always faced with the issue of slowdown and performance.  One of the practices I use to remedy this is to not use too many widgets on the home screens. If I do, they tend to be very simple ones that do not require a whole lot of the phone's resources.  I have found that these 2 widgets by Simi are very  friendly to my phone.

The widgets in the natural habitat.

Selecting a folder to edit

 Simi-Folder: is a widget that allows you to create nice custom folders on your home screens. What's the difference between this and just creating normal folders? The folders (once set up) are saved in the application, which means if you delete a simi-folder from the home screen, you don't need to rebuild it like you would a normal folder.  You just re-add it the widget.  There are also a lot of style settings that allow you to customize the look-n-feel of each folder.  Once you get one folder to look the way you like, you can apply that style to additional folders.  I've made several "template" folders that I don't place on my home-screens for just that purpose so I can quickly change the styles to match the home screen wallpaper.

Editing a folder

Pressing "Faves" shows this.

Simi-Clock:  Just like Simi-Folders, this widget has a ton of visual customizations and also acts as an additional way of launching any application you like.  For example, I love the default weather and news app that android has so I use the "on-tap" function of simi-clock to launch it. Simi-Clock has 3 tappable regions that you can assign any shortcut to.



Both of these widgets are free and are available on the android market right now.

• Get Simi-Folder »
• Get Simi-Clock »

Note: there are "donate" versions of each one of these for $2.14 if you are feeling generous.

TOYS: Green Lantern Stuff ...

This is sort of droid related, since I took the videos and pictures WITH my droid ...


I am stoked for the new Green Lantern movie ... the latest trailer (if you haven't seen it) was really cool and I like Ryan Reynolds, who is Green Lantern in his 4th "superhero/comicbook" role:


His others:

• Deadpool (Xmen Origins)
• Captain Excellent (Paper Man)
• Hannibal King (Blade 3)

Anyway, ever since Star Wars, just about EVERY movie now gets child toy tie-ins (notable missteps in this practice: Alien, Rambo and  Battlefield: Earth)


Well, I recently was sent 2 toys for me  my kids to play with and see how they are.

A Hal Jordan Action Figure complete with "giant energy fist" and wearable power-ring


A Gauntlet/Gatling Gun (Colossal Cannon) thing that really shoots.

Lets start with the action figure. It's your standard "star wars figure" 3.5 inch size action figure that surprisingly really looks like Mr. Reynolds.  The molding is really nice and though it lacks elbows and knees, the articulation is pretty good.  

 It also came with what I can best describe as a giant snot-fist that can be stuck to the end of his arm.  But due to it being around 3 times the size of the figure, it woefully unbalances the tiny figure and he cannot stand on his own with it attached.  But it does stay on once it's on so  my son was able to run around with it pretending to punch stuff.

The ring is nice  and well sculpted and is the right size for any 5-8 year old but unfortunately doesn't light up or even glow ... bit of a disappointment there. 

On to the the Power Gun.  It's sort of a "gauntlet" that you load up to 10 discs into. Inside the toy, there is a trigger that when gripped, causes the outer part of the gauntlet to rotate (like a gattling gun), emit a rat-at-at gun sound, light up and best of all ... shoot off a disc.  


It's semi-automatic, firing off a disc for every squeeze of the trigger.  

To be honest, this thing was a lot of fun. The discs don't really fire all that fast, in fact, they kind of spin off like little frisbees.  So you're not going to hurt anyone or any thing (pets included).

It's easy to load and so far took the abuse of both my 4 year old and my 7 year old.  Even with no discs loaded, it's fun since it will still spin, light up and make a machine-gun-noise.  It even has a switch underneath for single gun shot noise, never-ending, parent-maddening, non-stop machine gun noises, and (best of all) ..."off".




The only drawbacks I can think of:

•  like any "shooting toy", the discs are easy to lose. 
•  It's also a tad big.  

Scratch that last one: being big is actually a benefit ... since it's big enough for me to play with use.


Here is the gun in action:



Here are some hi-res images of the toys:

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Dad Central Consulting on behalf of Mattel and received Green Lantern toys to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

PowerAmp: the best music player there is ...

player screen

Google provides a nice music player with android that will more than suffice if you want a basic music player for casual use. However, those of you looking for something with more functionality and snazzier interface should try PowerAmp.

equalizer

Over the past year, I have tried MANY different players. Each one had some nice feature that I liked but not one had the one feature that this one has.  An Equalizer.  Of all the music apps on the market that I tried, this was the only one with an adjustable equalizer.  For someone that likes to use his phone in his car or with a blue-tooth headsets or wired headphones: this is a must have feature.

track list

Another great feature, that I have only seen in ONE other player (winAmp) is the gesture-navigation on the album art.  Swipe left goes back one track. Swipe right: goes foward.  Swipe up or down will change albums or artists.  I love this feature since in the car, it's REALLY hard to find and press the small  "<<" ">>" buttons while driving.

It also lets you control the app from the lock-screen by placing some buttons there as well.  No need to wake up the phone, swipe to unlock to access the controls.





Other major features:

home screen widget

- plays mp3, mp4/m4a (including alac), ogg, wma*, flac, wav, ape, wv, tta
- 10 band graphical equalizer for all supported formats, presets, custom presets, per-song/per-output preset assignment
- separate Bass and Treble adjucement
- plays songs from folders and from system media library
- downloads missing album art
- 4 widgets, with album art and without it
- lock screen (2 widget types) with optional Direct Unlock (to home)
- headset support, automatic Resume on headset connection (can be disabled in settings)
- tag editor


Almost every app I have has been free.  This was one of the first I ever paid for and it's truly worth the $5.

There's a 30day trial if you'd  like to demo it first.

Get it now from the android market »