app

DIY TESD App

I have been getting a lot of emails asking about what happened to the #TESDArmy Player podcast app (or as it was previously known as PlayEmSteveDave). It was taken down at the request of SModCo. But, don’t fret, there are other ways to get the podcast on Android, aside from the (what I think is crummy) Stitcher app.

Below is a picture tutorial on how to add the TESD podcast to the BeyondPod app. Either search the Play Store for beyondpod, or click here to download the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.beyondpod&hl=en

Let me know via the comments, if you have any questions!

Root Only App Store for Android?

An idea was thrown out the the world on Google+ (Koushik Dutta) for a root only android app store. A place for apps related to rooting your phone, or other mods, along with all the stuff that Google and Amazon have banned from their app stores.

I think it is a great idea. I would love to see this happen and would love to contribute however I can. Check out the post (at the below links) and give your own feedback.

Sources AndroidAndMe.com, Google+

PS: Don’t forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

Make Your Phone Look Like an iPhone or Windows Phone 7

Love the ability to change up the look of your phone? Have a friend with an Apple iPhone or Microsoft Windows Phone 7 device that likes to brag about how incredible the interface is? Well that’s one of the great things about Android. You have the ability to change up your home menu to make it look like another type of phones.

Today I am going to show you a couple of great home replacement apps that will make your phone look like an iPhone or a Windows Phone 7 phone.

Starting off with the iPhone we have an app called EspierLauncher. It provides a nearly identical home screen to the iPhone. If you are familiar with the MUIU custom rom, it gives you the same sort of interface without having to reflash your whole phone. It gives you a bunch of iPhone features:

1. The ability to have the universal search as a screen to the left of the home screen.

2. Pressing and holding an app allows you to either put it into a folder, move them around, or uninstall them.

3. No app tray.

4. It auto loads all of your icons into the home screen pages.

5. Plus a bunch more iPhone looking coolness.

Next up is the Windows Phone 7 interface, which I will affectionately refer to as WP7. For that we will turn our attention over to an app appropriately called Launcher7. Launcher7 gives you the start screen look of WP7 along with the ability to customize your tiles, and pin an app to the start screen. it also allows you to swipe to the right screen and get a full list of all your apps. The colors are customizable and you can even create custom tiles using your own images.

So that is a couple of examples of ways you can change up your Android phone to make it look more like and iPhone or a Windows Phone 7 phone.

PS: Don’t forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

Phone Troubleshooting

Quick Download: Phone Tester – SD Tools – SMS Backup & Restore

If you are having a problem with your phone there are a few apps that can help you get to the bottom of it yourself, without having to take it in for repair (or to at least help the tech at the repair place).

From touchscreen issues to the memory card not working, try these apps to help figure out what went wrong. Plus, as an added bonus, I have included an app to backup your text messages, since Google doesn’t save those for you automatically…

For starters download Phone Tester. Phone Tester is an app that tests all of the major components of your phone. The first app I download if I think there is a problem with the phone. It tests:
*Device’s sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, compass…
*Wifi: internal & external IP, gateway, DHCP server…
*GPS: latitude, longitude, speed…
*Battery: health, level of charge…
*Multitouch screen: how many fingers recognize your device?(not available in Android 1.6)
Also displays system information about hardware and software like RAM, kernel version, screen, …

Next up is an app that is designed just to test your SD card. Most Android devices have a memory card slot and sometimes there can be issues with reading or writing to the card. With SD Tools you can scan your card to see all of the manufacturer info about the card (like making sure the great deal you bought on ebay or amazon wasn’t a counterfeit) plus the main feature of the app is that it tests the read and write speeds of your card.

If you do detect a problem and decide to do a hard reset on your phone, or take it it for repair, you may want to do a backup of your text messages. If so you will want to download SMS Backup & Restore. It will save your text messages to the memory card and then allow you to restore them back to the phone once the phone is reset.

So hopefully these apps will help you out if you are having issues with your phone. Keep an eye out for additions as I find more great troubleshooting apps.

PS: Don’t forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

Beautiful Widgets (For Free)

I just noticed that on the GetJar.com site they are offering one of the best selling Android apps of all time for FREE. Beautiful Widgets is a widget collection that provides a fully customizable clock with weather along with a large list of toggle widgets that you can use to turn on and off things like wifi, 4g, brightness adjustments, etc.

From the Developer:
– Super Clock widget with weather, battery or just the clock 4×3 4×2 4×1 2×1
– Weather only widget 4×1 1×1
– Battery widget 1×1
– Date widget 2×1 1×1
– Text Clock simple widget 2×1
– Toggles widgets 1×1
– Home widgets with clock and weather and 300 skins 4×1 2×1

To download to your phone:

1) go to m.getjar.com on your phone
2) Select Quick Download at the bottom of the page
3) Enter 231883

PS: Don’t forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

WidgetLocker Lockscreen – Paid app of the week

(As a new feature of the site we will be discussing the paid app of the week. Here you will find a hand-tested personally recommended paid app every app.)

This weeks paid app is WidgetLocker. WidgetLocker is a cool app that allows you to change up your lock screen and add a ton of functionality to your phone. The main feature is that it gives you the ability to add home screen widgets and shortcuts to your lock screen, therefore you aren’t wasting all that phone screen.

WidgetLocker (on left), Waaaaay cooler.

It also gives you the option to change the look of the lockscreen so that it can look like stock, HTC Sense, Samsung Touchwiz, or even the iPhone…

From the Developer:

Customize your lock screen!
WidgetLocker is a lock screen replacement that puts you in control of the look, feel and layout of your lock screen.
– Drag and Drop placement of Sliders, Android Widgets and App Shortcuts
– Sliders look selectable from built-in styles (Android, Sense, Motorola 2.2, iPhone, and Android 2.0 Rotary) or from user-themes.
– Slider Actions can be customized, for example Slide-to-launch-Camera or Slide-to-call-your-Girlfriend.
– Resizable widgets and custom grid size
– Notification badges on apps/sliders via ADWNotifier ( http://t.co/LDKMQii )
– Customize which widgets/buttons are allowed or blocked at the lock screen
– Optional Easy Wake Mode, allows all hardware buttons to wake, rather than just the power button (Does not work on all phones)
Portions of WidgetLocker are based on the excellent ADW.Launcher ( http://t.co/YvVMkGc ) by Ander Webb and friends.
Official Gingerbread 2.3.3+ breaks trackball wake: http://goo.gl/NaSwN
CM7 widget disappearing fix has been accepted by the CM team, expect it in a nightly soon: http://goo.gl/9xkex

It is available from multiple app stores:
Android Market: $1.99
App Brain: $1.99
Amazon: $1.99

PS: Don’t forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

Old School Role Playing Games (RPGs)

If you are a fan of some of the old school RPGs out there, and you may have seen the recent article by DroidGamers that states they will be releasing a few Super Nintendo (SNES) era RPGs for Android.

When I read this the first thing that came to mind is SNESoid. It is a Super Nintendo emulator that plays pretty much any ROM file out there for the SNES.
Since it’s move from the Google Market to the Slideme Appstore it is free, so download it, and some SNES rom files of all the games you used to love and play them now instead of waiting.

PS: Don’t forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

Featured on SlideMe.org

A couple of points of interest…

1. Our good friend CharlieD had his “Maggie’s Cakery” app featured on the Slideme.org homepage, along with their Facebook and Twitter, for the last couple of days, so check it out.

2. The Old Android app is also featured, if you switch the tab from new to updated. Make sure you update your app to keep in touch with the new site URL: oldandroid.com

FINALLY A .COM!

Just a quick not to say that Old Android officially has it’s own .com, and not the free .co.cc address that it used to have. This means that it’s easier to type and easier to remember (plus it will play a lot nicer with Google).

Watch for updates to the Old Android App as the address where it gets it’s information from will be different. And it needs some work on it’s icons too…

PS: Don’t forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

Old Android App Updates

Just finished some updates and improvements to the Old Android App, and it should be live on the SlideMe app and site soon.

You may also see the Monticello app there too, which is part of a newer project that I am working on to put together community information apps for local towns and cities. If your town or city could use something like that leave a comment or contact me directly at oldandroidsite@gmail.com.

I also wanted to say thanks for all of the downloads too. At the time of writing this there are 681 downloads. I find this number to be amazing after the site only being up for such a short amount of time.

PS: Don’t forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!