The popular iOS app Songify has finally made its way to the Android platform. Songify is an app that allows you to turn speech into a song – all you have to do is talk into your phone, wait a few seconds and it will turn it into music!
The app starts at the screen below – just tap the centre, say the words you want turned into music, and away you go…
The app is free to use, although you can make in-app purchases in order to get extra songs. Download it from the Google Play store today!
Flipboard, the popular iOS social news magazine app, has been touted for Android devices for a while, and was intended to be exclusive to the soon-to-be-released Samsung Galaxy S3 for a while, but a post on the xda-developers forum has leaked the app which can be installed on any Android device (assuming that side-loading has been enabled).
Flipboard allows you to choose a range of topics to receive news for, and also view your social network feeds in a magazine format where you flip pages. If you want to check out the app, head to xda-developers, sign up and download the APK.
Citroon is a newly released free Android app that is available from the Google Play Store. Installing the app and registering will allow you to send and receive all SMS messages from your web browser! Messages are sent using your phone’s SMS allowance. After registering on your phone, all you need to do is go to the Citroon website and log in, and then you can send SMS messages from your browser and new messages will give you a notification as well.
In the image above, I was able to send an SMS from one phone to another, and when I replied the message was also received in the web browser along with a notification. For users who send a lot of text messages and would prefer to do it from their computer on a proper keyboard, Citroon could be a godsend. Free users are limited to sending/receiving 100 messages a month – premium packages are available from 99 cents a month (in euros) which offer unlimited sending and receiving.
The main website is in French and the ‘English’ link doesn’t seem to work, but I’m sure this will be updated in time. However once you log in (click Connexion after entering your details) some parts are in English. I know enough French for this not to be a problem but others might struggle a bit. The website uses HTTPS so your messages will be secure.
If this sounds like a useful app for you then I’d recommend installing it, it’s free anyway so you can’t lose out by giving it a go!
It has been a long time coming. Rumours of a Google online storage service have been a long-standing joke in the IT community, with Gdrive being a touted name for it. However, Google have officially confirmed the release of Google Drive on their official blog. The service is being rolled out worldwide in stages.
The Google Drive website features the video below, giving more information about the service.
Early users suggest that the service is basically a clone of Dropbox, albeit one that offers 5GB of free storage compared to the 2GB offered by Dropbox. Google Drive is replacing Google Documents, so all documents stored in there will be moved to Google Drive when the update occurs.
I have to admit, despite being an Android user (phone and tablet) and using a lot of Google services, I’m entirely happy with Dropbox’s free service, so at the moment there is no incentive for me to change to Google Drive, unless I need that extra space in the future.
The Chrome browser, currently in beta for Android devices, recently received an update. It offers the following new features:
This last feature is the best one for me – I hate having a tablet yet still getting served up a page designed for a small smartphone. Here is a screenshot showing the BBC site in Chrome, and the option in the menu to ‘Request desktop site’:
Here is the browser after the ‘Request desktop site’ option has been ticked. Much better!
The only thing stopping me from switching to Chrome full time is the lack of Flash – I use Flash on various sites such as CBeebies to allow my son to play the games. It appears that Flash will never be supported on Chrome for Android, which is a shame as so many sites continue to use it. I will be happy to see the back of Flash once something standard appears to replace it.
I’ve just taken delivery of a brand new Motorola Xoom, and have been excitedly trying to get it setup. However, I almost immediately hit a problem as it wouldn’t let me log in using my normal Google username and password. Despite checking it several times and entering the proper password, it just wouldn’t work!
Once I discovered the solution, it became obvious. The error was down to my having enabled 2-step verification for my Google account, and it was necessary to generate a one-time password to log in with. The Google help pages have a useful page about this here.
Following the advice on the help page, I went to the Authorizing applications & sites page and generated a new password for my Xoom (I had already done this for my phone so should have remembered!) Once done, I entered the temporary password on my Xoom and voila! It worked. Hopefully if you are having this problem, this article will have solved it for you.
Last year’s must-have iOS app, Instagram, has finally made its way to Android devices. Instagram was added to the Google Play Shop yesterday and has already been installed over 1 million times!
For those new to Instagram, it allows you add effects and filters to your photographs, allowing you to enhance your photos and make them more vibrant. There are a multitude of sharing options too, with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare all supported. The app is free so it’s definitely worth checking out.
Thumbpark, a social gaming platform which has been in development for a while, has now been officially released on the Google Play store. Thumbpark features a variety of casual games to play, with the added feature of being able to compete against others, bet points and win real money.
You can create your own avatar, chat to friends and compete to get your name to the top of the ranking leaderboards! There is also a gift shop where you can spend points to buy gifts for your friends.
There are a variety of games on offer, including the classic draughts/checkers. Here’s me easily winning a practice game 
There’s also a game called Tower Blocks where the aim, unsurprisingly, is to build a tall tower out of blocks. I need a bit of practice at this one!
If you’re a competitive person who likes playing games on their phone, or just wants to make new friends, then you definitely can’t go far wrong with Thumbpark. It’s free to download so get it today!
New Humble Bundles seem to be coming thick and fast – it’s only been a month since the end of the last deal, and here comes another! It’s another Android-centric deal, offering buyers the opportunity to play the games on their Android devices as well as on Windows, Mac and Linux.
As with previous Humble Bundles, you can pay what you want for the games – although beating the current average (which currently stands at $6.25) will get you an extra game. The games are:
As per usual, you can also include donations to Childs Play and the EFF with your purchase. The RRP of these games is $57 so it’s well worth taking advantage of this deal by going to the Humble Bundle website now!
A new version of Guitar Pro Tab Player has been released, which includes various new features and new optimisations for tablets.
The main improvements are as follows:
The app is compatible with Android 2.2 onwards, and is available in English and in French.