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April 29, 2013 By: Samantha
It’s rare to see an old school point-and-click adventure on the relatively modern tablet and smartphone, which is surprising, as the touch screen is probably the perfect medium for such a genre. Hoping to change that, we introduce The Great Fusion: developed by XDA Recognized Developer hazex. It’s a classic point-and-click adventure game driven by a not-so-futuristic plot that’s eerily within the realm of possibility of our world’s future.
You take on the role of Max in the year 2022, a once aspiring hardware and biotechnology engineer who had his future and aspirations stripped from him due to the prevailing social, economic, and political corruption in wake of the drastically degenerating global economy. It’s a world that you don’t want to be part of, but are forced to dwell in as you try to scrape a living. The Great Fusion isn’t a game of action or simple-minded fun. It’s a journey that explores the underlying social, economic, and political criticisms of our modern world through an enjoyable medium. As you point and click your way through a journey represented through beautifully hand-drawn graphics and atmospheric backtrack music, The Great Fusion cleverly alludes to the many affronting aspects of the society we live in and further draws you into the a well crafted plot.
The Great Fusion isn’t for everybody. The Great Fusion is compatible with Android versions 2.2 and above, and can be downloaded for free from the Play store. So if you’re a fan of the point-and-click genre, or a patient person who can appreciate the thought, design and cleverness that The Great Fusion has to offer, check out the original thread for more details.
April 28, 2013 By: Samantha
Sure you do. I mean, why not? Help is always welcome and encouraged, so go ahead and help yourself to an extensive compilation of resources that may help you design your Android app, courtesy of XDA Senior Member and PimpMyRom developer Androguide.fr.
Posted in the recently introduced App Development Forums, the compilation includes a variety of different resources that may be useful in helping you design your application. Categories include:
These resources allow you to perform various actions, as well as to simplify the processes involved in designing an app. Androguide.fr also conveniently explains each resource and what exactly each tool does, what each site and blog specialize in, and what videos and shows instruct in. Android Asset Studio, for example, allows you to generate and download pixel-perfect drawables (such as launcher and notification icons) for any screen resolutions. Androguide.fr links sites that contain archives of noteworthy open-source libraries, sites and blogs that specialize in Android design, engineering, resources and the likes by professional Android and app engineers, and videos and shows produced by professionals of the Android industry.
These resources have made the development of Androiguide.fr’s very own PimpMyRom easier, and are sure to benefit any Android app developer and designer out there. These resources can be found in the original thread, so if you’re ever in need of help in app design, go check it out.
April 28, 2013 By: Samantha
Have you seen those videos on YouTube? By that, I mean the surreal videos that show the transformation of one’s looks over years. You might have even attempted to recreate them, but either forgot 5 days in, or just simply lost the motivation to do so. Now there’s an app that can help you create your own photo chronology called PhotoChron.
Developed by XDA Forum Member Twodads, PhotoChron is a simple app that aims to help you create your own photo chronology. The user interface is straight forward and intuitive, allowing the creation and concurrent tracking of multiple projects. Photos are taken through PhotoChron’s own camera app, which has its own helpful little perks. The camera app allows the option to toggle an overlay of a guiding facial visual, or have the previous photo overlaid on top of the photo you’re currently taking. A project screen displays all the photos in the chronology, and has 4 actions on the bottom:
And just in case you’re one of those who likes to forget things, Twodads included the options to turn on daily, weekly, or monthly notifications to remind you of the daily, weekly, or monthly ‘selfie’ you’ve committed to taking for the next couple of years.
PhotoChron is compatible with Android versions 2.3 and newer, and can be downloaded for free from the Play store. If this has you curious, visit the application thread for more details.
April 27, 2013 By: Samantha
If you have been to the new App Development forums, you may have come across a project called ‘Playview for CardsUI’. Started by XDA Recognized Developer GadgetCheck, it’s an open source project that aims to replicate the aesthetic philosophy and design of the new Google Play store, and in particular, the card-like lists.
“How do you think we can achieve a list view like the new Play store…Can anyone help me out?” GadgetCheck, 10th April, 2013
Within days, GadgetCheck, XDA Senior Member Androguide.fr, and other XDA community members managed to achieve strides of progress in this proposal. Presented with a simple question and an initial prototype the XDA community, with a bit of coding and open-source libraries, further refined the product into what is known today as PlayView for CardsUI. Every aspect of PlayView’s development is documented in the forum thread, with points of major progress uploaded to Github for the community to check out and contribute to. The libraries are open-sourced, allowing anyone to incorporate the UI into their works.
What’s so great about this project is that it epitomizes what XDA-Developers is about: social contribution from the community towards development, helping one another out, and sharing and enjoying the end result. It’s something we all can see in CyanogenMod, FreeXperia, AOKP, and the many other teams and developers who dedicate their time and effort to get Android development to where it is in the present day.
PlayView for CardsUI is still a work in progress, so if you would like to check it or or chip in, make sure to head over to the development thread for more details.
April 26, 2013 By: Samantha
It’s well established by now that decent battery life is hard to come by in this day and age, which is why it’s so important to balance satisfactory device usability with sound battery conservation. It wouldn’t make sense to sacrifice device usability for longer battery life, nor having an absolute power horse of a device that can’t last for more than an hour.
Battery Doctor may be the solution to finding the correct balance. Developed by XDA Senior Member ksmobile, who also created Clean Master, Battery Doctor delivers many useful functions and features with a logical and navigable interface. Clean Master grades your battery life and usage and optimizes the battery life accordingly through various settings modifications. Different modes can be toggled that aim to extend battery life to varying degrees, and customized modes can also be created with personalized settings. In addition to multiple profiles, schedules can also be set, toggling different modes at different times of the day, thus fully automating the process. Charging and battery consumption statistics are also presented, with the charging records even informing of days when charges are normal or excessive.
The most notable feature however, is its Screenlock Power Saving function. This function underclocks the CPU frequency to the very lowest when the screen is off, thus preventing unnecessary battery loss during periods when the phone is not in use. Naturally, only root-enabled users can activate Screenlock Power Saving. Other miscellaneous yet handy options include activating flying mode when the phone signal is less than 10%, and disabling WiFi and auto-syncing when Screenlock Power Saving is activated.
Battery Doctor is an excellent remedy for devices suffering from less than desirable battery life, packing various useful and practical features into a relatively light app. It is compatible with Android version 2.2 and above, and can be downloaded for free. If you would like to know more, check out the original thread for additional details.
April 26, 2013 By: egzthunder1
As of late, we have been covering apps that have surfaced on XDA that perform functions that we are used to seeing on most mobiles. However, the gist of these new/old apps is that they all add a bit of a twist to the already working models, thus breaking the status quo of all the other apps in its category. In the particular case of RSS feeds or other types of news feeds, most apps will deliver vast contents to your screen, from any source capable of relaying information to your particular app. However, the limitation for most if not all apps of this kind is that they will display only a couple of sentences, maybe even a small synopsis of the entire piece, and will link you to the source’s website to read the article. XDA Recognized Developer h4oxer has come up with a rather elegant solution to avoid having to go to yet another site to finish reading interesting stories.
The News: UK Edition is, as stated before, a news feed. It is capable of retrieving information from pretty much any news source in the UK (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland), so you can stay up-to-date on anything from local news, traffic, to even some of that juicy gossip that revolves famous people. The difference between this app and others is that the app can retrieve the entire article and put it in your screen thanks to what the dev has called EasyRead technology. Because of EasyRead, there is no the need to link to an external website anymore, thus forcing you to read the article in a web browser. The articles are formatted newspaper-style, so they are quite easy to read. You do have the option to go to the website as well in case you are more comfortable reading the pieces that way.
The app’s interface can be fully customized by letting you change the order of all pieces, sources, and news type. On top of that, the app offers integration of some of the most commonly known media tools. This way you can share your favorite stories with the rest of the world via Facebook, G+, e-mail, and much more. The dev is looking for good feedback, whether it is bugs or suggestions. So, please leave your thoughts in the thread.
The News: UK Newspaper Edition (Free) is the ultimate App for getting the latest UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales) news from all the UK’s top newspapers, from broadsheets to tabloids. With our EasyRead technology you can decide to view the full articles in perfect newspaper format right from the App!
You can find more information in the original thread.
Want something published in the Portal? Contact any News Writer.
[Thanks to XDA Recognized Developer h4oxer for the tip!]
April 25, 2013 By: egzthunder1
The ever-popular games that can get us through times of boredom are some of the best ways to enjoy oneself with friends in a pseudo-competitive environment while having some fun. In the case of TicTacToe, which for all practical purposes, is the first multi-player head-to-head strategy game, all you need is a piece of paper, a pen, a friend, and you are good to go. However, being that XDA is all about taking an existing concept and expanding it into oblivion, some of our members have taken this seemingly complete concept and mixed it with yet another dash of mind bending lunacy. What if I told you that there is a version of TicTacToe in beta that allows you to play with a bunch of people, at the same time? Interested? If you are then you should definitely check out the new beta version of Tic Tac Cubed by XDA Forum Member pizzaforbreakfast.
Tic Tac Cubed is like a regular TicTacToe game with the added difference that instead of playing it on a 2-dimensional grid, you play it on a cube that somewhat resembles a Rubix cube. A cube has 6 faces, and because of that, you will be playing 6 games of TicTacToe at the same time. Of course, as if that weren’t mind bending enough, the developers decided to add a few extra twists to the already twisted equation with power ups that you can use to annoy the lights out of people competing against you. The game features an online system that will allow you to play against friends (which you can have in your contact’s list) or completely random strangers.
As previously stated, the game is in beta right now, and as such, many things are disabled. The devs are interested in ironing out any and all bugs before final release and will progressively release updates with more features enabled to test. Please take the game for a spin and provide any feedback that you deem necessary such as features requests or bugs. Have fun!
The beta build will be stripped of some things. We will only have 1 or 2 power ups available when we first send it out.
You can find more information in the original thread.
Want something published in the Portal? Contact any News Writer.
April 24, 2013 By: Conan Troutman
There are countless options available for music lovers regarding which application they use for listening to their favourite tracks. If you’re anything like I am, you probably have an app for locally stored files, one for your Google Music collection, another for DLNA/UPNP, and we haven’t even got to the numerous online streaming or radio apps yet. This of course leads to a plethora of widgets cluttering up one or two different home screens (depending on how attached to cover art you are) and several different notifications, each with their own level of functionality, information, and player controls.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could do away with all of those and just use one single… You see where I’m going with this, right? In that case, cue Media Utilities by XDA Forum Member batesapps. This handy little app/widget will allow those running Android 4.0 or above to bring all those different music and streaming apps under one umbrella and do away with that sea of widgets. There are several different styles of widget to suit all tastes, from those who prefer a small and subtle option to those who absolutely want to make sure that everyone within a ten foot radius can see exactly what they are listening to. While Media Utilites is by no means the first application to attempt the unification of all media players on a device, it does intend to be the one that provides you with the most consistent level of meta data and cover art across all apps and services.
This is a public beta, so expect a few bugs for now. However, if this is something that is relevant to your interests, please do test it out with your selection of favourite apps and let the developer know in the application thread.
April 24, 2013 By: Samantha
It’s not quite Halloween yet, but that’s no reason to not get into the spirit of things 10 months early. XDA Forum Member HellGames has developed a niche little app called Rotten Friends for all those who may be fans of the horror genre.
Rotten Friends is an app that allows you to transform, or zombify if you will, pictures of friends, animals, and the sorts without having to rely on software such as Photoshop. After loading your canvas with a picture, the UI gives multiple elements and images you can overlay onto the original. With a couple of drags and drops, I transformed the default image of a kitten into a horrifying creature straight out of Walking Dead.
The interface consists three main options on the top: the main menu, the graphic elements, and paint and erase. A bar at the bottom correlates with the main option chosen, and in turn, display further actions. You can save, share, and upload images through the main menu. The graphic element contains six main categories of overlays including masks, weapons and surgical tools splashed with blood, and macabre facial elements. Please do bear in mind that the free version only allows for 2 free ‘saves’ of images through the app, which we do hope will be increased in the future.
Compatible with Android versions 2.1 and newer, Rotten Friends has a limited trial version in the Play store. If you would like to check Rotten Friends out, make sure to head over to the original thread for more details.
April 23, 2013 By: Jimmy McGee
For the last two weeks, we’ve talked about exploring your files. We reviewed the newest version of ES File Explorer. Just last week, we compared it to Solid Explorer. But what if you want to share files with someone else quickly? NFC can be clunky, but WiFi Direct (for phones that support it) is a good option.
XDA Senior Member majedev has an application to help you share files and makes the setup easy and painless. In this video, XDA Developer TV Producer TK reviews SuperBeam. TK shows off the application and gives his thoughts, so check out this app review.
April 22, 2013 By: Samantha
We all love addicting games. Games such as Doodle Jump and Fruit Ninja were, and still are, true time wasters. They’re simple and uncomplicated, with a straightforward objective. They are literally child’s play, yet even as adults we still love them. If you’re looking to get hooked on another addictive game for your Android device, maybe you should check out Bad Roads by XDA Forum Member laubak75.
Bad Roads’ objective is simple. Drive Ted’s truck loaded with cages of ducks without losing them over less than desirable terrain for as long as you can. A 2D side scrolling game, it may not look very impressive with its black and yellow graphics accompanied with ‘corny’ music that’ll hardly chart the top 40s. But as we all should know, looks can be extremely deceiving. In fact, it’s the overly plain objective, the minimal yet atmospheric graphics and bucolic music that actually make Bad Roads an enjoyable, casual, and addicting game. The interface is pleasantly plain and simple too, consisting of right and left arrows that respectively accelerate and reverse Ted’s truck, a pause and reset button, and the current and highest score, represented in meters, in the top left corner.
Laubak75 has done as great job at packing simplicity, casualness, and fun into a game that’s highly addictive for all the good reasons. Bad Roads is optimized for both tablets and phones, and with support all the way back to Froyo, it’s even better that laubak75 has made the game free and ad-free. If you would like to play this game, check out the original thread.
April 21, 2013 By: Samantha
Call recorders are often sought out for a myriad of reasons. However, the phone call recording apps out there are always a hit and miss for certain users, with some reporting desired functionality while others only get a buggy memory placeholder. If you find yourself needing to record a call for whatever reason, maybe give Incall Recorder a go.
Developed by XDA Senior Member zakiancel, Incall Recorder’s primary function is to, as inferred from its name, record calls on your Android smartphone as well as doubling up as a voice recorder. The app presents itself with an intuitive user interface that’s logical and straightforward. On it’s initial start up, Incall Recorder introduces the main features and aspects of the app so to get you familiar with functions and interface. There are a couple of ways to record calls: through a hovering recording button that appears when a call is active, automatically recording all calls, and recording by tapping the notification in the drop-down notification area. Zakiancel claims an hour of recording is encoded to just a 7 MB MP3 file. Playing, searching, renaming, sharing, and deleting recordings is also extremely simple, as Incall Recorder has its handy own record manager.
Again, if you have had a lackluster experience with other call recorders out in the market, the 1.6 MB Incall Recorder is definitely worth a try. If Incall Recorder sounds like an app you would like to try out, check out the original thread for more details. Just be sure to keep in mind that in certain areas, call recording may be illegal. Furthermore, even where it is allowed, you should always inform the other party that they are being recorded out of common courtesy.
April 21, 2013 By: Samantha
As Holo UI-themed applications are gradually streamlining the Android app market with pleasing aesthetics, it’s with no surprise that more app developers are naturally conforming to these standards. XDA Forum Member Jack Underwood has developed Now Playing Beta, a music app with the design philosophy of Google Now in mind.
Now Playing, for an app still in it’s beta, is a well designed and polished music player for Android that bundles an intuitive and minimal interface with the clinical yet fresh and elegant appearance of Google Now. Users navigate through different categories of the music library with horizontally sliding screens displaying albums, artists, and songs, as well as other classifications. The ‘now playing’ screen again, consist of 3 sliding screens: album art, currently playing playlist, lyrics. Each screen is accompanied by a bar at the bottom with the standard play/pause, previous and next, shuffle and repeat buttons.
However, it’s also the little, subtle touches that gives the app that extra finish. Next to each album and artist, there is the associated album art and artist picture that Now Playing draws from the web. Now Playing also has widgets and equalizer support if your device supports it.
If this sounds like something you would like to try out, head over to the original thread for more details and a free download.
Update: The beta has expired, and as such, the links have been removed.
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