Ten Best Apps For Android : App 10 - Solitaire

In last post I had presented a very handy and useful app, Barcode Scanner. You must have downloaded it and tried it out to quickly find the right required information using barcodes. I hope you may be using it now in malls to checkout the best price of the products in online stores and may be saving money.  That was ninth of the best apps for Android from series of ten that I am presenting here. Today I am presenting the tenth and last of the best apps for Android.

In case you are visiting this post directly and have missed earlier nine best apps for Android then you can read those at following links :

• App 1 - Google Maps
• App 2 - Angry Birds
• App 3 - GMail App for Android
• App 4 - Facebook for Android
• App 5 - Talking Tom Cat Free
• App 6 - Google Sky Map
• App 7 - Android Task Killer
• App 8 - Androidify
• App 9 - Barcode Scanner

Today's app is the one which people would like to have it on their phone in order to kill the free time whenever they are waiting for someone or at someplace. If you have this app on your phone then waiting for someone or in queue for your turn to come, would not be such a problem any more. Just pull out your Android phone and launch the Solitaire app and time would fly.

Solitaire : This one is a very simple and useful app for Android users of all age. Though the name is Solitaire, apart from regular Solitaire game that we see on windows PC there are other games, Spider, Freecell and Forty Thieves. Yes, it gives multiple games in one single app. Best part is, it is free.

If you have played Solitaire already on Windows PC then you would feel at home because the user interface of this game is same as Windows game. You would start enjoying it with no time. Even if you have not played Solitaire before you could learn it quickly and start enjoying it.

When you launch the game by tapping its app icon, the first screen would be displayed. If you are old fan of Solitaire then you would start playing it straight away.

Solitaire Game on Android Phone

Above screenshot displays the first screen of the Solitaire game. You can see how similar it is to Windows PC game. You can drag and drop the cards using your fingers. To deal the new cards tap the deck at the top right hand corner of the phone. It is very easy and entertaining. There are quite a few options to tweak the behavior of this app.

Solitaire App Options

Above screenshot displays the various options available for you to tweak the app behavior. These options are explained below:

• Display Time : This option either displays or hides the time duration from when you are playing the game
• Deal 3 Cards / Deal 1 Card : This option allows you to choose how many cards to deal when you tap the deck. 
• Normal Style / Vegas Style : This option allows you to choose from Normal vs Vegas style.
• Normal Card Art / Large Card Art : This option allows you to choose if you would like to see the normal card art like the one on Windows game or would like to see large card art. Large card art would be specifically useful for people who like to enjoy the game without straining their eyes.

Solitaire Game with Large Card Art

Above screenshot displays the Solitaire game with Large Card Art selected in games options settings. You can see how it would help to enjoy the game without straining your eyes. Other options available are "Spider Options" and "Auto Move". Spider option allows you to choose from One, Two or Four Suits.  Auto move option allows you to make some of the moves auto. You could easily understand it once you use it. I personally like "Never" option for Auto Move.

You may would like to see the Solitaire Android app in action in video given below and you could see what all is there to enjoy.

So that was tenth and last of the best apps for Android from this series of ten best apps. You can download Solitaire from Android Market for free and start having fun wherever you are. This brings me to end of this ten best app series. I am sure you must have enjoyed it as much as I did.

As mentioned earlier, if you are visiting this post directly and have missed earlier nine best apps for Android then you can read those at following links :

• App 1 - Google Maps
• App 2 - Angry Birds
• App 3 - GMail App for Android
• App 4 - Facebook for Android
• App 5 - Talking Tom Cat Free
• App 6 - Google Sky Map
• App 7 - Android Task Killer
• App 8 - Androidify
• App 9 - Barcode Scanner

I would keep writing about more exciting and wonderful best apps for Android phone. Keep coming back and check frequently for reading about more exciting and wonderful apps.

Ten Best Apps For Android : App 9 - Barcode Scanner

In last post I talked about a wonderful app called Androidify. I hope you had downloaded it and enjoyed by creating Android look-alike avatars. That was eighth of the best apps for Android from series of ten that I am presenting here. Today I am presenting the ninth of the best apps for Android. In case you are visiting this post directly and have missed earlier eight best apps for Android then you may like to read those from blog archive.

Today's app is one of the best apps written to capitalize the power of mobiles. It utilizes to it's best the capabilities of mobiles and in return make it even more powerful and useful. These types of apps are taking mobile applications to a different league.  This is the kind of app that Android users would be using very frequently in near future and it is called Barcode Scanner.

Barcode Scanner : As name suggest it is the app which you can use to scan the barcodes from products, newspapers, magazines, web pages and wherever you see the barcode. This is handy app to scan the barcode and read the information in it. It utilizes the camera of your phone to scan the barcode. It is specially useful when you want to do any of the following:

• Read the url of the website given in print material or desktop web page. It becomes very easy to scan it by barcode scanner instead of typing a lengthy url using mobile keyboard
• Scan a barcode of a product which you want to search on internet for more information e.g. the best price around
• Scan contact or other information encoded in barcode format

As soon as you start the app it displays red lines like laser lines with nice animations which gives very good laser effect.

Barcode Scanner in Action

On starting application it also starts displaying the camera input of your phone. You can now point your phone  at barcode and can see it in viewfinder of your Barcode Scanner app. With barcode in your view and nice animation of red laser lines gives you a nice feel of barcode scanner. Just adjust your phone towards barcode you are scanning and ensure that camera is able to get the good view of it. Keep your hand steady for app to identify it and it will read it.

Barcode scanned by Barcode Scanner

The screenshot above shows the barcode scanned by the Barcode Scanner app. Once scanned, app allows you to use that information in various ways. You can do the product search, Web search or launch Google Shopper. App can also scan the QR codes which are used quite frequently for sharing the information nowadays.

QR Code scanned by Barcode Scanner

Above screenshot shows a QR code scanned using Barcode Scanner app. Depending on the kind of information available in code, Barcode Scanner provides different relevant action buttons. In above scenario it is url of the web site and possible actions provided are "Open browser", "Share via email" and "Share via SMS". Tap the required button to take appropriate action.

Barcode scanner providea a share menu which allows you to share information about Application, Bookmark, Contact and from Clipboard. In case of application it is information about that application. In case of Bookmark you can share any of your bookmark from your phone.In case of Contact you can select the contact from your phonebook. In case of Clipboard it the information which is currently there on your clipboard, that is the last copied text. Once selected it is converted into a QR Code and you can share it with other phone by scanning it using the Barcode Scanner on that another phone.

You may would like to checkout the following video of Barcode Scanner app to see and understand its functionality better

So that was ninth of the best apps for Android from this series of ten best apps. You can download Barcode Scanner from Android Market for free and start using it to quickly scan barcodes, search and share information. Next time I would bring to you tenth of the best apps for Android, so keep tuned in and keep reading. Till then good bye and take care.

Ten Best Apps For Android : App 8 - Androidify

In last post I talked about Advanced Task Killer, a performance optimizer for your Android phone. That was seventh of the best apps for Android from series of ten. Today I am presenting the eighth of the best apps for Android. You must have read and tried last seven apps that I covered so far in this series. In case you are visiting this post directly and have missed earlier seven best apps for Android then you may like to read those from blog archive. Today I am presenting a very different and entertaining app. You can use this to create a digital avatar of you and your friends. The digital avatar created using this app looks like Android and hence this app is correctly called "Androidify". This could be the app that you would like to demo in your next party or your gathering with friends and catch the attention of everybody.

Androidify : This wonderful app is from Google Inc. It is a fun when you start using it and it could be even more fun if you are using it along with friends or your loved ones. In no time you would be able to create a Android avatar of you or the person you know. Allow your creative juices to flow free and enjoy.
When you start this app you will see the standard Android image as shown in following screenshot. You can drag with your finger to make it fat, thin, tall or short.

Androidify - First screen

Once you are satisfied with the height and other dimensions of the Android image on first screen, you can tap the 'Hanger' icon at bottom left hand corner of the screen. This displays the toolbar at left side of the screen as shown in screenshot below.

Choose Hairstyle

This toolbar allows you to select the right hairstyle for your Android avatar. You can select from no hair to plenty of hairs and from different styles. If you notice, there is one more toolbar appeared at the bottom of the screen. This tool stripe allows you to display next toolbars to decide other features of your avatar. Select next tool from bottom tool stripe and it will take you to next step for creating avatar.

Choose Hair Color

The screenshot above shows the next set of tools. Here you can select the color of the hair to match perfectly with that of the person for whom you are creating avatar. Select the most close hair color and move on next by tapping on the next tool from bottom tool stripe.

Choose shirt or top

This toolbar allows you to select the appropriate shirt or top from various choices. There are lot many choices than one can imagine. Select the top you like and you can move next by tapping next icon on bottom tool stripe to select next set of tools.

Choose trouser

The next screen as shown above allows you to select from many different types of trousers. Again there are plenty of choices. After selecting one move to next step by tapping on next icon from the bottom tool stripe.

Choose shoe

As displayed in screenshot above this toolbar allows you to select right shoes required for your avatar. Select the ones you like and you can go to next toolbar by tapping next icon on bottom tool stripe.

Choose mustache

Next toolbar as shown in screenshot above allows to select right mustache for the avatar. There are many options to choose from. Select the one most closely matching with your requirement and move on to next toolbar by tapping icon on bottom tool stripe.

Choose accessories

This last toolbar as shown in above screenshot allows to select the appropriate accessories for your avatar. Choose as many as you want from different choices available. Once you are satisfied, you can tap anywhere on empty space on the screen and toolbars will go away and your avatar will be enlarged to fill the available space on screen. In this mode also you can change the various things of your avatar. Tap any of the clothings and it will randomly change to something new. This could be great fun when you are doing it as a group exercise in party.

You may like to see the video of the Androidify to learn more about it and see how it could be a fun to play with.

Once you are ready with your avatar you can share it with different options available from this app. You can put it as your avatar on facebook or twitter. It is up to you where and how you want to use your Androidified avatar.

So that was eighth of the best apps for Android from this series of ten best apps. You can download Androidify from Android Market for free and start having fun with your friends. Next time I would bring to you ninth of the best apps for Android, so keep tuned in and keep reading. Till then bye, have fun with Androidify.

Android Task Killer - Best, Free, Automatic and Advanced App Killer

Android task killer is must to have app for your Android phone. It is good battery booster and improves performance of your phone by many folds. It automatically kills the tasks and apps when those are not running. This cleans up your phone memory and makes more room for active app. It works as an Android task manager for you which is constantly checking for unnecessary usage of your phone's valuable resources and release them. One of the best automatic task killer which is some times called as app killer is explained in this post.

This is seventh of the best apps for Android from the series of ten that I am covering here. You must have read and tried previous six apps that I described in the series. In case you are visiting this post directly and have not read about earlier six apps then too there is no need to worry, you can read about last six best apps for Android from blog archive. Today I am going to talk about one of the wonderful apps that will improve your Android phones battery life and will improve the performance of your phone. Today's best app for Android is Advanced Task Killer.

Advanced Task Killer : You must have seen that most of the application that you launch on Android phone remain alive even if you move out of them. There is no exit menu or button for most of the apps. These apps staying in memory of the phone keep occupying the precious memory of your phone thereby slowing down the performance of your phone. Some of these apps try to use network connectivity, GPS and other hardware functions of your phone and that can drain the battery of your phone fast. One of the best solutions to all these problems is Advanced Task Killer (ATK).

Using this app is very easy. You have to just download it from Android Market, run it once, do the settings that you want and forget it. It keeps checking unwanted apps in memory and keeps killing it to free the memory and other precious resources of your phone. You can notice the significant improvement in performance of your phone and battery charge life. First time when you run this app you may see many other apps running in "Kill Selected Apps" list as shown in screenshot below.

Advanced Task Killer in Action

As you can see there can be many apps staying in your phones memory and unnecessarily eating up the valuable resources of your phone, slowing down it drastically. You can kill manually some or all of these apps by selecting each one with the checkbox at right of each app name and then tapping "KILL selected apps" button at top of the screen. But this is not required because Advanced Task Killer app does this good job on its own. Even with its default setting if you come out of this app by pressing back button of your phone, it would conscientiously keep killing unwanted apps from your phone at predefined default time frequency.

Now move ahead to see what are the settings available to fine tune the behavior of this app. While you are still looking at list of apps to kill on the first screen of ATK, press the menu button of your Android phone and press settings menu. This would display settings screen.

ATK Settings

Above screenshot shows some of the options available on this screen and there are few more which can be seen by scrolling the screen up, which you can see in next screenshot. Each of these options are described below:

Auto Start : This would launch the ATK automatically when you restart your Android phone. It is advisable to check this ON.

Show Notification : This would display the ATK icon in Notification Bar of your phone. This can help you confirm that ATK is running and taking care of your phone resources. It can also be used to quickly launch the first screen of ATK.

Set Item Height : This allows you to set the height of items displayed in the apps list.

Ignore List : This is very useful feature. If you want some of your applications to stay alive, for example 'Alarm Clock' then add those to ignore list using this setting.

Default Click Action : This setting allows you to set the behavior of ATK when you tap the items in apps to kill list.

We need to scroll down to see the remaining settings of ATK and are displayed in screenshot below.

More ATK Settings

Default Long Press Action : Like 'Default Click Action' setting, this setting allows you to set the behavior of ATK when you long press the items in apps to kill list.

Auto Kill Level : Using this setting you can disable auto kill or choose from various auto kill levels.

Auto Kill Frequency : This setting allows you to set the time frequency or 'When Screen Off' to indicate when ATK should kill the unwanted apps. If you choose 'When Screen Off' option then you need to restart ATK to make those settings effective. To restart ATK goto its first screen and kill itself by selecting Checkbox at right of ATK item and tapping "KILL selected apps" button. Then run it again.

Security Level : Setting this level low puts more apps to KILL list and keeping it high puts less apps to KILL list but avoids accidentally killing some required apps.

You may like to watch the video given below to understand more about how to use Advanced Task Killer to improve the performance of your phone.

Given said all this, there is debate whether Android phone users should use applications like ATK to boost their phone performance. Some experts believe that using this kind of app can do more harm than help because Android system itself is very smart to know which app should be killed. Android does not kill apps because by keeping them dormant apps takes less or no resources and when launched they start faster. I personally have seen it improved performance of my phone and I am using it. I leave it up to readers if they find this app useful and want to use it and if it is giving them performance benefits at all.

So that was seventh of best apps for Android from this series of ten best apps. You can download ATK from Android Market for free and start boosting performance of your Android phone with minimum effort. Next time I would bring to you eighth of the best apps for Android, so keep tuned in and keep reading. Till then bye, take care and enjoy.

Ten Best Apps For Android : App 6 - Google Sky Map

This is my sixth post in this series. You must have enjoyed my previous five posts and tried out the apps I described in those posts. In case you are visiting this page directly and have not read my earlier posts then too there is no need to worry, you can still read last five posts from archive. Today I am going to talk about one of the fascinating best apps for Android and it is Google Sky Map. 

Google Sky Map : This may be an awesome app for astronomers and hobbyist who love to gaze midnight sky and stars. Many times serious hobbies get started with just little bit of curiosity and even if you are not astronomer or  a person who loves to gaze in night sky, this can be a good opportunity to initiate something new. 

Almost all of us love to watch moon and stars in the bright night sky. Walking in full moon night, looking at the sky, with our loved ones around is just a pleasure. For the city-dwellers this could be a rare possibility, but when we go out of our city over the weekend then we can experience the luminous beauty of the night sky. On full moon night sky is filled with so many twinkling stars and with a little guide book star gazing can be an overwhelming experience. Google Sky Map is such a guide book placed in your palm in the form of an Android app. Lets get started and take a look at Sky Map in action.

Google Sky Map

Above screenshot of the Google Sky Map would give you an idea about what we can see when we launch this awesome app on Android. It shows names of the stars and planets and we can navigate through map with ease.

Sky Map Menu

Second screenshot given above depicts the menu options available in Google Sky Map. I am describing briefly these menus below so that you can understand the power of this small app.

More: 
This menu displays two additional menus that is "Help" and "Terms of Service".

Time travel:
This feature is exactly what it claims. It allows you to see the sky at specific time in the past or future. This menu allows you to select specific time and makes a nice sound to give you feel of actual time travel. Once time is set you can see the position of stars, planets and other heavenly bodies on that specified time in past or future. What a mind boggling feature!

Gallery:
This displays Sky Map Hubble Gallery. You can see the beautiful pictures of Nebula, Galaxies and Planets in this gallery. You can select the pictures from this gallery to search that celestial body in Google Sky Map.

Settings:
Apart from other settings this allows you to select which of the celestial bodies you want to see on map and which you want to hide.

Toggle night mode:
This allows you to toggle the night mode ON and OFF.

Search:
As it suggest this allows you to search a celestial body with it's name.

Jupiter searched by Sky Map

Above screenshot shows the Jupiter searched using 'Search' feature of the Sky Map. You can come out of search mode by clicking the cross mark displayed at one of the corner of the screen. I hope this app would help you to learn about stars, planets and their location in the sky. But if you want to pursue star gazing as a hobby then there are many good books available on this subject on Amazon. One of such book is giving below if you would like to consider buying it.

That brings us to end of sixth best app for Android from this series. You can download Sky Map from Android Market and start getting familiar with our neighboring stars and planets. Next time I would bring to you seventh of the best apps for Android, so keep tuned in and keep reading. Till then bye, have fun.

Ten Best Apps For Android : App 5 - Talking Tom Cat Free

This is the fifth post of this series. In last four posts I have covered the four of the best apps for Android that every Android phone user would like to use. If you have not read the earlier posts then please read the last four posts to learn about those apps. In this post I am covering a very entertaining app called Talking Tom Cat Free.

Talking Tom Cat Free : This is a very entertaining app for Android and is published by Outfit7 Ltd. You need to download it on your Android phone and run it once to understand how funny it is. Tom is a pet cat that talks in all languages. He responds to your touch and repeats everything you say with a very funny voice. You can pet him, poke him and can even grab his tail.

Talking Tom in Action

Talk to Tom and he will repeat everything you say with a funny voice. Pet his body or head to make him purr. Poke his head, belly, feet or grab his tail to see how he reacts. Pour a glass of milk for him and he will drink.

Tom drinking milk

Talking Tom Cat is just hours of fun and laughter for kids as well as adults. He brings out quickly a hidden kid     out of any grown up adult. Try it once to understand what I mean. 

So that was the fifth of the best apps for Android from the series if ten I am covering here. You can download Talking Tom Cat Free from Android Market and start laughing. Next time I am coming with fifth of such best apps for Android, so keep tuned in and keep reading. Till then bye, take care.

Ten Best Apps For Android : App 4 - Facebook for Android

In last three posts I have covered three of the best apps for Android from series of tens and those were Google Maps for Android , Angry Birds for Android.and GMail for Android If you have not read those post and would like to read it now then you can read those from quick links provided in last line. In this post I am going to cover the forth of the best apps for Android and it is Facebook for Android as mentioned in title. 

Facebook for Android : This is official Facebook app for Android. Facebook for Android makes it easy to stay connected with friends and share day to day information with them, no mater where we are and what we are doing.

Facebook Login Screen

It starts with end user license agreement and once agreed you reach to login screen. Enter your email and password if you already have a Facebook account or you can Sign up for a account tapping green Sign up button shown in screen shot above.

Once you logged into your Facebook for Android then all you Facebook activities are at your finger tips. Share status updates from your home screen, chat with your friends, check out your News Feed, review your upcoming Events, look at your friends’ walls and user info, check in to Places to get Deals, upload Photos, share links, check your Messages, and watch videos.

So that was the fourth of best apps for Android I was talking in this series of ten. Like any other app you can download Facebook app also from Android Market and start using it. Next time I am coming with fifth of the  ten best apps for Android, so keep tuned in and take care.

Ten Best Apps For Android : App 3 - GMail App for Android

In last two posts I talked about Google Maps for Android and Angry Birds for Android. If you have not read it yet and want to read it now then please go and read it from quick links provided in last line. In this post I am going to talk about third of the best apps for Android and that is Gmail app for Android. 

Gmail : This is official Gmail app for Android from Google Inc. This is must to have if you want to check your Gmails on the go. It supports multiple Gmail accounts and we can check and reply for different Gmail ids from the same app.

Gmail Inbox

Like web based Gmail it's Android version also comes feature packed with features like push, sync, conversations, integration, search, and more. You can perform following tasks with ease.

• Check latest emails. Emails pushed automatically to your phone
• Search all your messages
• Access synched messages when off line
• View messages by conversation
• Check Multiple Gmail accounts from the same Gmail application without need to exit from app
• Stars, labels, and many other features 

Email in GMail App

Even though it is small mobile real estate, all the email information can be accessed with ease.

This was the third of the best apps for Android I am covering in this series. You can download GMail for Android from Android Market. Next time I am going to cover forth of the best apps for Android, so keep tuned in and have fun.

Ten Best Apps For Android : App 2 - Angry Birds

Last time I talked about first of the ten best apps for Android, Google Maps. If you have missed it and would like to read it then you can read it here. The second best apps for Android from series is Angry Birds.

Angry Birds : Angry Birds is published by Rovio Mobile Ltd. This is one of the most downloaded and enjoyed game of the year by Android lovers all over the world. Angry Birds features challenging physics-based gameplay and hours of replay value. Each of the 225 levels requires logic, skill, and force to solve. 

Splash Screen of Angry Birds

You can see above that graphics of the game is very catchy and impressive. After splash screen there are two more screens and you reach to select the level.

Screen showing level selection of the Angry Birds

After you select the level from the above screen then the game begins.  

We have to use the unique powers of each Angry Birds to destroy the greedy pigs’ fortresses. The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake. Aim is to dish out revenge on the greedy pigs who stole their eggs. 

So that was the second best app for Android from the series of ten that I am going to talk about. You can download Angry Birds game from Android Market and have fun. Next time I am coming with third of such best apps for Android, so keep tuned in. 

Ten Best Apps For Android : App 1 - Google Maps

There are many free and paid best apps for Android published by various organizations and individuals in Android Market. Here I am going to talk about ten of those best apps for Android. These are not necessarily the top ten and their order given in this article does not have any meaning from that angle. These apps are selected based on their popularity, number of downloads, rating and usefulness from Android phone user's point of view. Lets dive and see those in action:

Google Maps : 

This is one of the best apps for android and is developed by Google Inc. Once you download and start using Google Maps on your Android phone then you would never find difficult to locate the places and businesses around. With Google Map in our hand we would never carry a paper map again. Application is very intuitive, fast and it is free.

Google Maps search result

Latest release of the Google Map is supporting increasing number of features and some of those are:

• Places with Hotpot and Latitude
• Free, voice-guided GPS navigation system
• Find, rate, and get recommendations for places
• See friends on the map and check in at places

Pizza joints near by New York

These good new features are on top of good old features, searching for places, businesses, getting driving directions.

So that was the first best app for Android from the series that I am going to talk about. You can download Google Maps from Android Market and enjoy. Next time I am coming with second of such best apps for Android, so keep tuned in.