Pinterest has finally released an official Android app. Pinterest is a very popular social network that has grown faster than any social platform in history and has finally joined the world of mobile apps. They have started to show off their mobile platform on Android and IOS. Pinterest relies on its users to pin items for their friends to share likes and dislikes in the form of a picture and small description. The mobile app has been long awaited and many have been impatiently waiting for quit some time.
The official Pinterest app for Android looks a lot like the Pinterest website and has been laid out very well for mobile devices. You can view your tiled homepage with all of your friends pins. A few of the features that you will notice is the fact that you can search for items you would like to pin, friends items to re-pin and comment on pins. A few other items you might be interested to hear is in the app is the ability to search for friends to follow.
You can get the official Pinterest app by searching for it on Google Play. Please let us know what you think of the new app and anything that you notice we haven’t mentioned here. While we don’t really Pinterest my wife will be ecstatic when I let her know the app is available.
When you travel with kids you know its quite the task to keep them entertained, now Sprint has a solution called the Disney Junior Sprint ID pack. This ID pack give your child many of the great shows and games that keep them entertained at home on the go. Some of the features that you will see are Disney Junior games, Disney Junior Facebook, Disney Junior Videos, and Disney Junior Wallpapers. See more detail of each below:
Disney Junior Games: Keep kids entertained and engaged with games from DisneyJunior.com featuring Jake and the Never Land Pirates – including Izzy’s Pirate Puzzles and Jake’s Treasure Hunt.
Disney Junior Facebook: Parents can get the latest tips, recipes and sneak peeks on what is happening on all of the Disney Junior Facebook pages.
Disney Junior Videos: Your child can watch select episodes of their favorite Disney Junior shows on demand. Full episodes of Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Doc McStuffins are among those available using the Sprint TV app.
Disney Junior Wallpaper: Customize your phone with wallpapers featuring your child’s favorite Disney Junior characters.
View the full press release on the Disney Junior Sprint ID Pack below:
Disney Junior ID Pack Offers On-the-Go Access to Disney Junior Shows and Games for Your Child Right from Your Sprint Phone
Easily Customize Smartphone with Disney Junior Videos, Games, Wallpapers, Facebook Content
BURBANK, Calif. & OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), August 13, 2012 – Are you a mom or dad who wants to keep your young kids entertained in the car while running errands around town or during a road trip? Now all you have to do is reach into your purse or pocket and pull out something you always have on hand – your Sprint Android-powered smartphone. Disney Junior ID, a new offering that loads select Sprint smartphones with Disney Junior content for preschoolers in a few simple clicks, is available starting today.
The Disney Junior ID pack transforms parents’ smartphones into something kids ages 2 to 7 will enjoy whether out and about or at home. By simply selecting the Disney Junior ID pack icon from a library of more than 45 Sprint ID packs, the phone will automatically download apps, widgets and wallpapers from some of your child’s favorite shows, and other Disney Junior-related content.
Kids can watch a selection of their favorite shows with on-demand episodes, play engaging games, and keep up with some of their favorite Disney Junior characters right on the phone. Additionally, parents can get tips, ideas and more with the Disney Junior Facebook pages feed that is available to them via the new ID pack.
The Disney Junior ID pack includes the following widgets and content:
Disney Junior Games: Keep kids entertained and engaged with games from DisneyJunior.com featuring Jake and the Never Land Pirates – including Izzy’s Pirate Puzzles and Jake’s Treasure Hunt.
Disney Junior Facebook: Parents can get the latest tips, recipes and sneak peeks on what is happening on all of the Disney Junior Facebook pages.
Disney Junior Videos: Your child can watch select episodes of their favorite Disney Junior shows on demand. Full episodes of Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Doc McStuffins are among those available using the Sprint TV app.
Disney Junior Wallpaper: Customize your phone with wallpapers featuring your child’s favorite Disney Junior characters.
“Lately more and more moms and dads are finding fun mobile phone apps that their kids will enjoy, but rather than searching through an app store with thousands of apps, wondering which ones are best, we’ve simplified the process – they can simply click on the Disney Junior ID pack and get access to their kids’ favorite shows and games,” said Kevin McGinnis, vice president-Product, Sprint. “We are excited to offer this robust mobile experience and we’re thrilled to make this available to our customers.”
The Disney Junior ID pack is available on select Sprint ID-capable devices, including LG Viper™ 4G LTE, LG Optimus Elite™, LG Optimus™ S, LG Marquee™, Motorola PHOTON™ 4G, Samsung Galaxy S II, Samsung Epic™ 4G, Samsung Conquer™ 4G, Samsung Transform™, Samsung Replenish™, Kyocera Milano™ and ZTE Fury™.
The Disney Junior ID pack is free to download with an Everything Data plan from Sprint. Users can download up to four additional ID packs onto their phone, in addition to Disney Junior, such as ESPN, MTV, or non-branded ID packs like Home Base, which features shopping, fitness and recipe apps, or Socially Connected, with apps to keep in touch with friends while out and about. To see all Sprint ID packs, visit www.sprint.com/sprintid. For more information about Disney Junior’s ID pack visit http://ria.sprint.com/ria/pages/index.jsp?ms=SprintID#/detail?egoID=PCS678790
If your a parent you know how great of a tool this is whether you are traveling across the country or just going to work the Disney Junior Sprint ID pack will keep your kids entertained. You can get the Disney Junior ID pack for free on eligible Sprint plans and devices.
Now that Google has full control over their recently acquired Motorola Mobility they are laying off 20% or around 4000 of their staff to refocus and head in a winning direction. Almost one third of those laid off will be US based employees. This is not a new idea within Motorola as they not too long ago laid off 40% of their higher paid presidents and other Executives. This was a decision to effect overall cost of operation to allow Google to get Motorola back on top.
Google has now decided that Motorola should focus less on releasing so many devices and more on high end quality devices. This means that the low budget Motorola devices are a thing of the past and we will likely see only a few here and there ever be released. Now with the release of the Motorola Photon 4G LTE, which is the first Motorola phone with an unlocked bootloader, Motorola will likely see more support in the Android community.
Not only have the reduction in low end devices been mentioned but also the fact that they will be pulling out of their less profitable markets and cleaning up markets like Asia and India. Google has stated while they are removing many of the staff from Motorola’s US staff they will be increasing staffing in the R&D locations in Chicago. We haven’t heard much from Motorola since Google’s acquisition but can see now that Google does have big plans.
With the recent release of ASUS’s Google Nexus 7 many people are asking why Nexus devices don’t have expandable storage. Many people have theories about the lack of an SD card slot on the popular devices which was really never a huge issue until the Nexus 7. Many people think that its Google’s way of forcing its cloud services like Google Music and Google Drive on people although we can tell you thats not the case.
Many devices are starting to avoid SD card slots on their devices like the more recent HTC One X for example. This lack of expandable storage is not a new concept and started with the original Galaxy Nexus.
We got tired of seeing OEMs include many GB of internal storage for music, while users were still running out of space for apps and data. This approach lets us merge everything on one volume, which is way better. — Dan Morrill, Android engineer at Google
Now for the Reasons Google has removed SD card Slots on Devices:
While Google still supports removable storage with the Android OS they are not using it for a few reasons. One major reason is that the file system on the devices use EXT instead of a combo of FAT and EXT. The reason for this is that with a combination of FAT and EXT you sacrifice speed and safety causing more errors and permission problems.
The second benefit of using a pure EXT file system is that when connecting your machine to your computer you can’t mess up the file system since you will not have block level access. Instead you will now have a FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) system is used to mount a virtual SD Card that you can write to. This way you don’t get the common errors of unmounting incorrectly. With this you still have access to the entire file system.
With all of the cloud services that are available for free there really is no need to have any storage on mobile devices greater than 16GB in todays world. You always have alternatives like Google Drive, Dropbox and Box.net to store anything large that you would like accessible on your device.
Homerun Battle 2 is the second version of the Homerun Battle line of games following Homerun Battle 3D and was developed by Com2us. Homerun Battle 2 is a free install through the Google Play Store that has a paid option that can be acquired through stars within the game itself. The cost for the paid version is 520 stars which equates to $4.99 in real world currency. This being said you can play the free version as long as you want with ad support and it will cost you 5-10 gold balls per game based on multiplayer or single player modes.
There are many ways to acquire gold balls within Homerun Battle 2, one of which is downloading games through tapjoy, another is by playing and doing well enough within the game (each game gives gold balls by hitting special balls out and beating scores), last is the daily spin that Com2us gives to Android players. You can acquire gold stars through the free daily spins and eventually pay for the game that way although it will take a long time to get enough stars to get $4.99.
Homerun Battle 2 Graphics and Visual Elements:
Com2us does a great job with the graphics in the game overall with clean, smooth gameplay on most devices. The graphics can be turned down to either make gameplay smoother on slower devices or save battery life for those that play for long periods of time. There is also a picture in picture setting that allows you to see other players you are competing with as they play in multiplayer mode. The PIP can be shrunk down to take less of the screen or turned off to again save on battery life and increase speed when having slow data connections.
Homerun Battle 2 Game Play Features:
There are a few different ways you can play Homerun Battle 2 with the first being single player arcade mode. In single player mode you basically get 10 outs (this comes from strikes and foul balls), when you get 10 outs your arcade mode is over and stats are saved along with any gold balls acquired added to your account.
The second single player mode is Burning Mode, in burning mode outs don’t matter in the sense that the game does not end when you reach a certain number of outs. When in Homerun Battle 2 burning mode you hit as many balls with a clean connection as possible as a timer runs down. When hitting the ball you will get a score based on Bad, Good, Great and Perfect hits. While the timer runs out if you can get enough points there is a burning mode that you hit and it will reset your timer and give you a level up. This is the best mode for unlocking many of the achievements which we will discuss later.
Third mode of gameplay goes into multiplayer mode and is called Duel Mode which is basically one on one game play with other players throughout the world. When playing duel mode there will be a set amount of points you need to get in order to win and the first one to hit that wins the duel. The winner of a duel will not only get more gold balls than the loser but also win points which is how levels are determined. Levels will also be mentioned a bit later.
Fourth mode is also a multiplayer mode called survival mode. Survival Mode is everything that is in duel mode with a twist in the sense that you have items that you can either hit other players with to make it harder for them to get points (shown with red background) and other items that help you gain more points (shown with blue backgrounds). Survival mode also effects your overall level in the same way that Duel mode does.
Last there is a mission mode that creates a room with up to 4 players total in the room. When in mission mode you and the others in the room will be given a task to complete like hit the most homeruns in time allotted or cycle twice within the time allowed. By completing the task before the others in the room and within the time allotted you will win the mission and get gold balls based on the room you were in and the amount of people in that room.
Overall gameplay is very fun and allows for enough different types of play to keep anyone interested for long periods of time.
Homerun Battle 2 Achievement System:
Homerun Battle 2 does have achievements for players to stiff to complete that allow players to collect large amounts of gold balls to spend on items within the game. Many of the achievements are based on skills alone and some are granted based on how long you play and get certain numbers of homeruns and or patterns of play. There are also achievements that will give equipment and other items to enhance your skills and or players physical appearance. Overall the achievement system is pretty well thought out although in my opinion there should be more achievements available within the game. Currently all of the achievements can be completed within a few months leaving players with nothing to strive for once they are all unlocked besides actual gameplay itself.
Homerun Battle 2 Levels and Ranking:
Homerun Battle 2 does a great job at ranking as far as winpoints which are given or taken when you win or lose in multiplayer arcade or survival modes. When playing you are awarded winpoints for beating opponents and winpoints are taken when you lose to opponents. There is another part of ranking though which is your level itself. The levels in Homerun Battle 2 are where Com2us seems to have dropped the ball as the idea is great the actual implementation is not as well thought out. When you get enough winpoints you will move from Rookie to Slugger and then to Champion. You can easily hit Champion in a day and then have nowhere else to go from there. Each level effects the rooms that you are allowed to play in as there is a Rookie only room for newcomers and then a free for all where all levels can go to play. The other two rooms consist of one for sluggers and above and another for champions and above. While this is nice in itself the fact that a Champion can play with a Rookie in the free for all room seems a bit off.
Homerun Battle 2 Items and their effects:
Homerun Battle 2 has many different types of equipment to enhance your players stats and give permanent buffs to your player as well. Many of the items that are more powerful do cost stars which are very expensive if not saved p from free spins and most do not have an equal that can be obtained with gold balls. This system seems to be flawed a bit since paid players can get an instantly powerful player on their first day of play. There are also player physical items that can be purchased with gold balls and stars that change skin color, give your player some shades or new haircut. Next are the fields, there are 5 different fields within Homerun Battle 2 with the first being unlocked automatically so you have one to play on. You can unlock all but one field with gold balls and the 5th with stars. Overall the items and buff system is great although the number of items and having the ability to get equal items to those that require real money should be added.
In Conclusion:
Homerun Battle 2 is one of the best games i’ve played on Android to date. It does have a few features that could be improved but has enough ways to play to negate whats missing. The one thing that keeps Homerun Battle 2 from being maybe the best game for Android ever is the greed when it comes to having to pay for the game and then to be competitive with paid players having to spend even more money to buy equipment. Let us know what you think about Homerun Battle 2 via comments below.
The MK802 is a fully functional “mini PC” running Android 4.0 and comes in the form of a very small device that can be hidden behind or near your TV. The MK802 mini PC is about the size of a USB flash drive or card reader and can easily be taken with you anywhere you go.
Some of the specs that are worth taking in is the 1.5Ghz processor, 512MB (or 1GB based on model) RAM and 4GB of on board storage. The 4GB of storage that the device has when you get it can be expanded via its microSD card slot. The device is powered via the USB port which is also used to plug into a computer to access the internal storage if needed. You can connect the MK802 to any display that has an HDMI plug.
This device opens up many possibilities like the fact that you can carry a PC around in your pocket anywhere you want. The best aspect is that you can install all of the apps that you currently use on your tablet or phone. Imagine being able to take a device on vacation with you to watch Netflix without worrying about your phone being charged.
TecTiles are small programmable NFC(Near Field Communication) tags that can be read using the NFC technology on your Samsung device through an application that can be found on the Google Play store. The main function of a TecTile is to program it to complete tasks on your device like turning on your Bluetooth, Wifi, or opening certain applications by simply touching your device to the tag.
Some TecTiles can be accessed simply by using the NFC technology on your enabled device although some require that you use the free application on the Android Market. If for any reason you set you phone on a TecTile and it cannot read it and complete the action it will let you know that the application is needed.
How to Program a TecTile?
You will need to download the “Samsung TecTile” app in order to program one. Next you will need to open the TecTile app and press “OK” on the welcome screen. If you don’t have NFC enabled your device will ask you to do so at this point. The NFC feature can be easily found in your phones settings. Next you will be required to select the type of TecTile that you would like to create (you will have the options of Settings & Apps, Phone & Text, Location & Web, or Social). At this point you just need to follow the on screen instructions.
How do you use a Programmed TecTile?
You need to make sure that your NFC is enabled on your phone, this can be done by going to settings -> More Settings -> NFC. Touch the back of your device to the TecTile and you will see a “New Tag Collected” screen. At this point your device will open an applications, change some settings, oir whatever else the TecTile is programmed to do.
Droid NAS can turn your Android device into a wireless storage device assuming you use a MAC or other Android device to access it. Having to find a micro USB cable to plug your Android device into a computer is just a hassle. Even with applications like Dropbox and Box.net, while helping to make things easier still doesn’t make it as easy as it could be. Now Droid NAS makes wireless storage easy and accessible.
The Droid NAS app uses the SMB protocol which Windows currently cannot connect to via a non-standard port which means MAC or other Android devices are all you can connect with currently. Droid NAS is free on the Google Play store so go ahead and give it a shot. It’s not the best solution out there but is easily a great one. Let us know what you think via comments below.
One of the most basic features that most Android users want is the ability to take screenshots although its slightly different on the Samsung Galaxy S III. There are currently two different ways that you can take a screenshot with your Galaxy S III with neither one of them being holding the power button and volume down button at the same time (which is the normal Android way to take a screenshot). Method one for taking a screenshot is close to other Android devices while method two uses Samsung’s features called “motions”.
How to take a screenshot on the Galaxy S III (Method 1):
Go to the screen that you want to capture
Press the power button and home button at the same time
Screenshot will be saved to your Gallery
How to take a screenshot on the Galaxy S III (Method 2):
Go to your Galaxy S III settings
Open the Motion tab by tapping it
Make sure the top Motion checkbox is checked
Make sure “Palm swipe to capture” is checked
Use the side of your palm and slide it on the screen
Presto it takes a screenshot
Either way you choose is fine and both will save the screenshot to your Galaxy S III gallery. Its nice to see that you have two different options for taking screenshots. Anything you have to say or questions can be posted in the comments below.
With the release of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean there are many questions about using the new features in the up and coming Android OS. One of these features is the ability to turn off notifications on an app by app basis. Many apps that you download will not have an in app way of turning off all notifications and can get quite annoying at times. This being said Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has a new feature to allow you to disable an apps notifications anyway.
How to Turn Off Notifications:
The new feature to disable app notifications can be found on the app info screen. You can get to the app info screen by long pressing a notification or going to “settings -> Apps” and then selecting the app you want to change. Tap the checkmark beside show notifications and accept the warning. At this point you have turned off notifications for the app you had selected and will no longer receive them from now on. If later you decide you want the notifications you can re-check the box in the same way.
This is one of the more useful features that have been added to the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS that may be overlooked by the average person. This will help with those apps like music downloaders that hit you with notifications non-stop. If you have anything to add please feel free to leave it in the comments below.
Pinterest has finally released an official Android app. Pinterest is a very popular social network that has grown faster than any social platform in history and has finally joined the world of mobile apps. They have started to show off their mobile platform on Android and IOS. Pinterest relies on its users to pin items for their friends to share likes and dislikes in the form of a picture and small description. The mobile app has been long awaited and many have been impatiently waiting for quit some time.
