By now, we’re all quite familiar with Tasker, the personal automation app that seems to be able to do anything that you’d ever want your smartphone or tablet to ever do. XDA-Developer TV even has a thorough video series of this monumental app. Then not long after, XDA-Developer TV took a look at Llama, a free alternative to Tasker, with a pretty much similar variety of functions as Tasker. Well today, we’ll have a look at Profile Flow by XDA Forum Member amithgc.

As a free alternative to Tasker, Profile Flow enables you to control almost all aspects of your Android device based on either a set date, time period, or day.  Presented with a clinical Holo user interface, the app is easy to navigate with its simplicity and sliding tabs that display a quick overview of possible tasks, current profiles, statistics, and a history of profile changes. As a free version, possible tasks are surprisingly quite non-restrictive  allowing for the major aspects of your device such as WiFi, Bluetooth, Autosync, and Ringtone among many others, to be automated with the app. Profiles can be arranged according to priority, and can also be duplicated and edited once created. Amithgc has also implemented a ‘Lite profile’ feature, which execute set tasks without switching and disturbing the currently active profile. New users would also appreciate a handy little guide that describes the app and provides an overview of its functions.

Amithgc developed a well polished app that may prove to be quite a good and free alternative for Tasker. It presents itself in a non-complicated way that many users of Tasker or Llama may appreciate, especially with their daunting user interfaces for new users. Profile Flow is compatible with Android versions 2.2 and newer, and is free from the Play store. So if this has gotten you interested, make sure to check out the application thread for more information.

Nowadays, it’s become increasingly common for individuals to use their mobile phones as personal communication devices and mobile computers, rather than for placing phone calls. However, for the few holdouts out there, there are a few ways left to make the experience a little more enjoyable.

In order to give the old fashioned calling experience a few new tricks, XDA Recognized Developer lowveld created Ultimate Call Screen HD. As its name implies, this app is a new take on the call screen for Android devices. Its most noticeable feature is the replacement incoming call screen. Rather than showing a small contact picture, Ultimate Call Screen HD presents a full-screen image that you can set through the gallery or using the Android Share intent.

Lowveld’s app also offers quite a bit of additional functionality. It can receive and display incoming text messages, even turning on the display when the device is asleep.  Furthermore, there are options for call filtering with whitelists and blacklists to help protect your privacy and block out unwanted callers. Finally, you can even setup gestures to handle incoming calls discreetly.

In the words of the developer:

Ultimate Call Screen HD is much more than a Fullscreen Caller ID replacement. It combines:

- Fullscreen caller ID replacement
- Fullscreen SMS receiver
- Complete theme support for both call and SMS screens, personalizable per contact
- Contact Picture manager with builtin image editor
- Facebook Linking of friends to contacts
- Picture syncing of HD pictures to phone internal contacts (say goodbye to low-res contact pictures)
- Call blocker (whitelist, blacklist, block all calls, block unknown numbers, block selected contacts)
- Sensor-base actions (turn phone to mute ringer, hangup call or to put on speaker)
- Swipe gestures (reject and answer calls, reject with sms, reply to sms, …)
- Integration with android “share” function of pictures: Just choose “Add to UCS” and pick a contact

Those interested should head over to the application thread to get started.

One of the single most important aspects of mobile devices is that they are always connected in some form or fashion. It gives us the ability to sync our content across a wide variety of platforms and devices without needing to have the physical devices in hand. You also get chances to control other peripherals with the help of certain apps, such as being able to mirror your screen onto a TV. Interestingly enough, communications from one of these devices involves not just your ability to do things with it that may affect other devices, but the inverse also can be applied. In other words, you can control your device as well from remote locations/other devices. While we know that there are various apps that will enable some functionality, XDA Forum Member RavinduSha came up with a rather interesting tool that can indeed be a bit of a life saver on certain situations.

Remote Terminal is an app that allows you to access your shell AND execute commands by simply typing an SMS and sending it to the target device. This is like having the terminal emulator open in front of you, but without actually having it. The app listens to any SMS coming into the device and will analyze the content. If the contents are commands for shell, the app will run them (as long as the password is present in the SMS). All commands can be used, from pulling a logcat to creating a directory and even deleting stuff in your device. This, of course, is an app that will carry root level permissions and as such, you will have full control over the device with it. Because of this, it will be on your best interest to ensure that you use a good enough password to prevent other people from “guessing” to try and gain control of your device.

If you decide that this is indeed a tool you need to have, make sure that you run it at least once as you will need to grant it Super User permissions. Please take it for a spin and see if you would like to have improvements done on it or if you come across any bugs. If you try it and get nothing else out of this piece, at the very least remember these 4 simple words: “use a strong password.”

Have fun!

This app will read receiving sms and executes shell commands in them.

You can find more information in the original thread.

Want something published in the Portal? Contact any News Writer.

[Thanks RavinduSha for the tip!]

As I am personally not an app developer, I can’t make a judgement as to how useful a Play store sales manager would be. However, I would infer an app of this kind to be quite a handy and useful tool, especially when you are just starting out with an app freshly released straight onto the market. And if you charge for your app, it may be of greater use and practicality. If you are on the lookout for one, you may appreciate an app called Developer Checkout Manager by XDA Senior Member MOST2K2.

What the app essentially does is track every sale you make via Google Checkout, and thus the Play store reference, and give you a nice overview of these sales. Sales are initially sorted by individual apps, but can further be filtered by country of the customer and according to the time of sales. One can also select a period between specific dates. With each individual sale, you can see when exactly the sale was made, the price, customer name, and customer’s country. Long pressing on a sale brings you to your Google Checkout page.

Giving you an overview of the first 500 sales you make, Developer Checkout Manager will most certainly be quite a useful and convenient app to have, especially for developers just starting out and making those slow yet growing sales. MOST2K2 also has a ‘dummy’ version of Developer Checkout Manager that loads sample sales to give you a preview if you’re unsure. The app supports Android versions 2.2 and newer, and is free from the Play store. So if you are looking for an alternative to similar apps such as Appmonger and Google Merchant, you may want to check out the application thread for more details.

It’s with no doubt that Google has done a remarkable job with its design of Google Now. The gorgeous aesthetic philosophy they’ve incorporated has been replicated in numerous apps, themes, and mods that can be found throughout the XDA forums, and remains a testament of Google’s and XDA members’ eyes for beauty. So it is with no wonder that a live wallpaper will manifest from this, to continually please our eyes wherever and whenever.

Developed by XDA Forum Member Svarion, GoogleNowWallpaper presents a collection of 11 live wallpapers comprised of images extracted straight from Google Now. Featuring cities such as London, San Francisco, and New York, the live wallpapers much like Google Now mirror what is outside your window by cycling through dawn, day, dusk, and night. They also offer customizable settings in regards to the times of these phases.

The other excellent aspect with this concept is that despite being a live wallpaper, the wallpaper won’t drain as much battery as other conventional live wallpapers. This is because these images are static, and are triggered to changed only at the pre-determined times. Thus, they are not ‘active’, so to speak, during every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

Two versions of GoogleNowWallpaper are available: a 960 x 800 version and a version supporting up to 1440 x 1280. Svarion has made both of these versions free and compatible with Android versions 2.2 and up, so make sure to head over to the original thread for more details and downloads.

Aesthetic uniformity, for many Android users, is a must. And in this day and age, it’s all about Holo UI. So with this increasing streamlining of application designs, you may be looking for a Holo alternative to your stock messaging app, something like ICmess.

“Delivering a more ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ messaging experience” was  the philosophy XDA Forum Member Percussio had in mind when developing ICmess, and Percussio may as well have achieved such an aim. A quick flick through the app will most definitely stand as a testament of this, especially with its horizontally sliding interface and the light or dark Holo theme. ICmess consists of 3 sliding screens for the current and existing conversations and a settings menu, which surprisingly packs quite a variety of customization options. From here, options regarding the interface, notifications, messages and multimedia messages can be found, with other nifty features such as ‘slide down to search’ and ‘SMS popup’ tucked into the app along with its main function of messaging.

For an app that is still in its beta stage, ICmess is noteworthy for its presentation of text messaging. It’s simple and uncluttered, and most importantly, not buried under a copiousness of peripheral features that many messaging apps on the market tend to have nowadays. Percussio does accepts bug reports and feature requests during this app’s beta phase, and is actively working towards polishing ICmess further.

ICmess is compatible with any device running Android 4.0 or newer, and is free and ad-free from the Play store. If this has gotten your attention, be sure to check out the original thread for more information.

How many times has your mum, dad or roommate come home with the groceries, only to forget the chocolates you asked them to buy just before they left? Or maybe they’re already out when you suddenly had the urge to munch on some whole grain chips? Well you can save the frustration because now you can just share all that onto the Shared Shopping List and they’ll know exactly what to get.

XDA Forum Member GammaL has come up with a practical solution for those instinctive purchases in the form of an app called Shared Shopping List. Taking on a somewhat familiar user interface as many other conventional shopping list apps out there on the market, you can create a new shopping list of which within a list, you can add different items as well as how many of each one. Tapping on an item will simply cross it off as ‘purchased.’ And once all is done, you can clear the list with a ‘trash’ button on the top right corner.

However, the most notable feature of Shared Shopping List is (as its title implies) its sharing capabilities, allowing you to share lists with others who have the app installed. After creating a new username or account through the app, you can then tap on a list and selecting the ‘share’ option. Both you and your friend must have individual accounts, and must be logged in on the app before you can add each other as ‘friends’ and sharing lists. A handy notification will pop up when a list has been shared, and any changes to lists will then trigger new notifications on the other device. As you would expect, both devices must be connected to the internet either via WiFi or mobile broadband in order for ‘shares’ to operate normally.

Shared Shopping List is compatible with any device running Android version 1.6 or newer, is ad-free and free from the Play store. If you like what you’ve read so far, most definitely check out the application thread for more details.