Android Phones and Applications

Android devices can be easily synchronised with Google Calendar, however, its capabilities are inadequate for some users. Maybe I don’t know its true potential, but I often find that Google Calendar is not the most practical tool to use, especially for small tasks. Sometimes you need to make a simple note and set up a reminder for it, and although it can be done in the calendar, it’s probably better to have a separate task manager, which allows tasks to be easily divided into  ”important” / “not important”, display a list of current tasks and provide some additional functions. What I mean is that for some people having a separate program for managing tasks is more beneficial than entering all the small tasks in the mighty Google Calendar. The question here is – which application to choose?

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What is the second most used function of a mobile phone after making calls? For most of us this would be short text messages or SMS. Moreover, some people use this feature more often than voice communication. These magical 160-character messages are simply irreplaceable for most teenagers and students! Android’s standard messaging application certainly provides the basic SMS functionality, but there is no limit to perfection, and Handcent SMS proves it.

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It is hard to believe that all Android users are complete geeks, who spend their days and nights in front of computers. But after I received my Android phone my computer usage increased dramatically, which isn’t really beneficial for my body.

Concerned about this I started looking for training and exercise software. The search process was as follows: open Android Market, enter “training” as a search keyword, find the highest rated program, and install it. If the program was only available in the trial version or wasn’t suitable I uninstalled it and continued my search. The first matching program I tried was Runstar, which, though beautiful, offered very limited functionality (demo only offered Freerun – stopwatch + music player + Google Maps). The second program was the hero of this review – CardioTrainer.

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To adjust the brightness in Android, you need to open Settings > Sounds & Display menu, and there select “Brightness”. To enable a particular interface you need to use the settings or install a separate widget, or even multiple widgets. To adjust the volume of different events (call, alarm clock, and others) you have to use the menu again. Instead of all this, you can simply install the Quick Settings, and enjoy the simplicity of an application that allows you to make all the above changes from a single interface.

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Until recently I didn’t know that Android allowed for any music file to be set as a ringtone. Actually, I thought that it was forbidden. However, it turns that it is very easy to do. If you want to set your favourite song as a ringtone or an alarm, all you need to do is to create some folders on a memory card and copy the file to a corresponding one. You can then select it.

Create the following folders:

Alarm Clock – /sdcard/media/audio/alarms/

Events - /sdcard/media/audio/notifications/

Ringtones - /sdcard/media/audio/ringtones/

Interface Sounds -/sdcard/media/audio/ui/

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The other day I had to sign up for a new podcast. I usually do it through Apple iTunes as I am familiar with the interface and site design (as any other iPod or iPhone user). In order to subscribe, I opened the Store tab and searched for the required podcast. While I was doing all this, I saw a link to the AppStore. And I started to subconsciously compare Apple’s AppStore to the Android Market. I realised how easy-to-use and consistent AppStore is – it doesn’t matter whether you access it from your iPhone or notebook computer – user experience stays the same. Android’s web store, on the other hand, is average at best. Why is that?

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As you may know, Android uses specific desktop background images. Images are made wider than the screen resolution, so that extra parts could be displayed when changing virtual desktops. In order to set your own favourite image as a desktop background, you will need to find out some details: what the width of the image should be and where should it be stored. Clearly, not everybody will want to do the additional research and play with parameters. If you do not want to waste your time looking for these details and adjusting images, you can download Backgrounds, a software available on the Android Market.

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