Warning: May Cause Inspiration
For the final (for now) portion of the “Why Root” series I will discuss some other apps that are only available on a device that is rooted. Well they may be listed on here as “only available”, keep in mind that they may be install-able on a non-rooted phone but they probably won’t work, or do anything at all.
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Name: SwiftKey X |
| Description: SwiftKey X is a next-generation AI keyboard, now with unrivaled prediction and personalization. SwiftKey X for smartphones builds on TouchType’s SwiftKey keyboard to offer cloud personalization, a new prediction engine, and a host of new UI improvements. Using artificial intelligence breakthroughs, the SwiftKey X keyboard accurately predicts your most likely next word based on what you’ve already written. It can also scan your sent messages, and learn as you use it to make predictions even more accurately over time. The more you get to know your SwiftKey keyboard, the more it will get to know you. |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/VwvNj (Amazon) |
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Name: Keyboard from Android 2.3 |
| Description: If your phone isn’t updated to gingerbread yet you can get the keyboard from 2.3 and load it right on your phone. Features: 1. Multitouch keyboard 2. User dictionary, built-in dictionary 3. Auto correction 4. Redesigned and optimized keyboard layout and style 5. Speech to text 6. Split main keyboard app and dictionaries. |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/ms99g |
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Name: Better keyboard 8 |
| Description: Better keyboard is the best and the most popular keyboard on the android market Supports many languages: Arabic, Czech, Danish, Deutsch, English, Espanol, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Hebrew, Italiano, Korean, Netherlands, Norwegian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/gbEBT |
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Name: Perfect keyboard |
| Description: Take command of your Android device’s touchpad keypad with a Perfect and smart Keyboard for android. You can customize the look of the keyboard with eight different themes and add additional functionality to your device. Perfect Keyboard lets you use custom dictionaries, control background and text colors, and adjust the keyboard’s vibration density. In short, Perfect Keyboard allows you to setup your Android phone or tablet’s touchpad keyboard so that it works best for you. Note: Perfect Keyboard works only on Android 2.2 and up |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/W9BSX |
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Name: Swype Beta |
| Description: -Swype v3 introduces two major new features: Tap Correction and Horizontal Word Choice List -Our Tap Correction engine utilizes many of the concepts that make swyping so accurate. Seamlessly go from typing to swyping and back without missing a beat! -The Horizontal Word Choice List replaces our popup word choice window, giving users an experience more in-line with evolving Android standards. It also makes dictionary control and word selection faster and easier. -Swype v3 is available for devices with HVGA, WVGA, FWVGA, QVGA, WQVGA, WSVGA, qHD screen sizes -Introducing a special Honeycomb-only WXGA version for Android tablets, with features like “moveable keyboard” that you won’t find anywhere else! -To see which languages are supported on your device, check the language and resolution table -Improved licensing: Swype will no longer be disabled after a reboot on some devices; added support for devices that don’t have a cellular radio (wifi-only tablets); no more license failures for CDMA devices in airplane mode. -Simplified registration by allowing users to authenticate their email address directly through the installer -Too many other improvements to list! Download Swype v3 NOW to explore everything the next generation of Swype has to offer! -Limited End User Support – mostly via our forum -If your phone came pre-installed with Swype -DO NOT download this beta (it won’t work) |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/1yfdg |
Ringtones. You would imagine the your options for ringtones would be so much better than on a normal non-smart phone, and you would be correct in that assumption. There are multiple ways to get ringtones and even multiple ways to make your own ringtones onto your phone.
For starters, the way that android organizes his ringtone management is (in my opinion) very well laid out. On your memory card there are a bunch of folders. If you look very carefully you will see a folder called “media”. If you don’t have one, create it. then inside of that folder you should have an “audio” and a “video” folder. Then inside of the “audio” folder you should see the below group of folders “alarms” “music” “notifications” and “ringtones”. This is the place on the SD card where the Android OS looks for sounds.
So if you want to make a tone that is for a phone call put it in the “ringtones” folder. For an alarm put it in the “alarms folder, etc. Modern android phones (version 2 and up) will support multiple file formats. The main ones are .ogg and mp3. So you can manually cut down a music file with a desktop application and copy it to your phone’s memory card in this folder and you are good to go. But wouldn’t you like something easier?
The easiest method of making a ringtone is to do it right through the "Music” icon that is preloaded on your phone. Let’s say you are listening to your MP3 collection and you hear a song that you want to make your ringtone. No worries, just press the menu button at the bottom of your phone (while the song is playing) andyou will see an icon called “Set as Ringtone” (see image below). That’s it. It will do the dirty work for you – create the tone and set it as your default. Can’t ask for an easier option. Although there is a pretty big downfall to this. It creates the tone just for the first 30 or 40 seconds of the song.
When your phone rings you don’t always want the intro of the song (although the beginning of the pictured Radiohead song is pretty badass). Let’s say you want the tone to start at around 2:42 when the hard part kicks in. So you need a solution that will let you pick that certain chunk of the song and make that your tone. That’s where RingDroid comes in.
RingDroid is an app that lets you create a start and stop point of an MP3 file and turn it into a ringtone/alarm/notification. All right on the device, Plus it gives you an option to set it as your default tone. The best part of the app is that it is a FREE app available from the Android Market, or through the Google Code site. See the image below:
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Name: RingDroid |
| Description: Create ringtones from your own music library, or record new ones on the fly! The original open-source ringtone editor for Android, first published in 2008 and downloaded by millions of users worldwide. Create your own ringtone, alarm, or notification sound from an existing audio file, or record a new one directly on the device. This application is compatible with most Android devices running system versions 1.6 (‘donut’) through 2.3.x (‘gingerbread’). |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/x08x0 |
I am a little bit embarrassed to say that I have been displaying all these fancy barcodes all over the site to be able to have a quick way for you do download these great apps, but I haven’t done any explaining on how they work or what programs to use to scan them. Well the way it works is simple. You just have to load the app (3 great examples below) and choose the option to scan a barcode. It will load your camera app up with a cool target or line on it to help you line up the barcode and once it focuses and recognizes the barcode it will load the appropriate page (or a confirmation screen letting you know where it is taking you to). So without further delay, here are my favorite 3 barcode scanners (in no particular order).
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Name: ZXing Barcode Scanner |
| Description: Scan barcodes on products then look up prices and reviews. You can also scan Data Matrix and QR Codes containing URLs, contact info, etc. Also share your contacts, apps, and bookmarks via QR Code. This is why contacts permissions are needed. |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/f97fs |
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Name: QR Droid |
| Description: Scan any QR code from your camera, read from QRs shown in Android browser, saved in your SD card or any QR image given its Internet URL. The only QR code app rated “5.0 out of 5 stars” by PCWorld. Get the best! |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/m2tjE |
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Name: QuickMark Barcode Scanner |
| Description: Barcode scanner for QR Codes and much more! QuickMark is a mobile barcode scanner app that allows auto-scanning of multiple barcode formats from your phone. (Quick Code, QR Code, Data Matrix, EAN 8/13, Code39, Code128) Use mobile barcodes to access web links, add contacts, navigate maps, and much more! Works with QuickMark’s Chrome browser extension! |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/eq9Em |
Did you see how I did that? I just linked to a barcode scanner app with a barcode… Yeah, that’s how I roll. I guess it is there incase you want to test it out, or you already have on of the apps and want to try another one. Regardless of the reasoning enjoy!
I stumbled across a way to update your Android Market to the new version. (See awesome screenshot below)
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Name: Updated Android Market
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Description:
To get the update all you have to do is download the correct .APK file. I have linked to it below,or through the QR code to the left. The file is hosted through Mediafire. I have heard reports of it working with both rooted and nonrooted phones. Simply download and install the APK file and when you open the Android market it will look like the new menu.
You will now see that it is broken down a little more and has the “Books” and “Movies” categories. This has been a common complaint as I have searched by keyword and had all of the ebooks lumped in with all the games, so hopefully this will correct things. So load it up and see what you think if you don’t want to wait for the update to come into your phone on it’s own…
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Download Link: http://goo.gl/wctRe
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As promised, here are the Top 5 of the Top 10 Android Home Replacements/Launchers that we will be reviewing. As with any sort of "Top" list, don’t take it as the definitive list because new apps come out all the time, and I am probably missing some great launchers – I am an old robot after all… So here is my list of the top 5:
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Name: 5. Zeam |
| Description: Zeam is a minimalistic launcher alternative for phones running Android 2.2 and above. It has a lot of the cool functions available to the larger launchers, but it will run great on just about any hardware. | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/IayVN |
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Name: 4. ADW Launcher |
| Description: ADW.Launcher, beyond tweaking your android desktop Opensource home replacement app -Customizable application drawer (old one or iphone/galaxy one) -Customizable drag&drop action buttons -Unveil the Dockbar flicking-up the app-drawer button and drop UNLIMITED shortcuts/folders! -Themes |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/V3Pnb |
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Name: 3. Launcher Pro |
| Description: – Super-smooth scrolling – Animated screen previews (like Exposé or HTC Sense) – Up to 7 home screens – App drawer (2D and 3D!) with a fly-in effect and smooth scrolling – Scrollable shortcut dock |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/QmCit |
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Name: 2. Home++ |
| Description: New home, new lifestyle Branching from the stock home app, Home++ offers more * 3rd party animated widgets & scrollable widgets support * Drag&drop uninstall * Bookmarks * Workspace looping * 3~7 screens and a screen switcher * lazy load app drawer by default |
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| Download Link: http://goo.gl/xH9KC |
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Name: 1. Go Launcher EX |
| Description: vLauncher has a clean look to it that reminds a lot of people of the iPhone interface. One of the main pros to this launcher is that all of your icons are on your home screen, you don’t have to open a tray to see them, plus without all the widgets and extras it runs very fast, even on an older device, like me… | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/LBpRp |
So if you like these and want to try them, follow the links and download them to you phone. After they are installed the next time you press the home key it will ask you if you want to load the current launcher or the new one. You can also set one as a default by checking the check box.
So you are sick of the main menu of your phone, you want to change it up a little but fear the idea of rooting your phone. There is a great option for Android phones that will allow you to change the menu system that loads when you press your home screen. There are a countless Home Replacement options, so I will just give you a Top 10 list here – in the form of a countdown to make it dramatic.
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Name: 10. Claystone Launcher |
| Description: What sets Claystone apart from the others is that it has a really cool icon stacking capability that has a neat 3D look. Aside from this the features look pretty standard, but I recomend it if you are looking for something a little different. Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/embed/fNMW18_aPmE | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/OsIeU |
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Name: 9. Slidescreen |
| Description: Slidescreen is a completely different home screen. It presents you with your information first. You will see your Facebook information, RSS feeds, Twitter, Etc on the home page. You have the ability to slide the center clock bar up and down to see more of one or the other. To access your apps you simply have to press the menu button. It also has a cool option for your top 8 apps at the top of the app list. | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/IdF0q |
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Name: 8. Launcher 7 |
| Description: Launcher 7 is an Android launcher that gives your Google powered phone the look and feel of a Microsoft Windows Phone 7 phone. It has the ability to scroll up and down through the main menu, and access your app list by swiping to the right. It’s very true to the original and even comparing the 2 side by side shows very few differences. The developer is really good about keeping it updated too. | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/D7LHE |
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Name: 7. Regina 3D Launcher |
| Description: Regina 3D is a launcher that at a glance looks a lot like all the other launchers, until you go to switch between the different screens and you will find that it has a 3D cube effect, much like a desktop computer can have. Looks really cool to show off to your friends, but it does get a little old after a while. | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/egA0Y |
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Name: 6. vLauncher |
| Description: vLauncher has a clean look to it that reminds a lot of people of the iPhone interface. One of the main pros to this launcher is that all of your icons are on your home screen, you don’t have to open a tray to see them, plus without all the widgets and extras it runs very fast, even on an older device, like me… | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/yqMKO |
So if you like these and want to try them, follow the links and download them to you phone. After they are installed the next time you press the home key it will ask you if you want to load the current launcher or the new one. You can also set one as a default by checking the check box. So check them out and stay tuned for the top 5…
