Android has come a long way since its birth. We now have Android L, which is its latest
iteration. The Google Play Store is now larger than the Apple App Store with a
repository of more than 1,000,000 applications. And yes, many are
free albeit ads-sponsored.
Let me enumerate my favorite FREE Android Launchers of 2014:
1. Aviate
- Aviate automatically categorizes all of your apps, and intelligently rearranges your homescreen throughout the day to dynamically give you the apps and information you need most, at precisely the moment you need it.
Aviate is an intelligent homescreen that simplifies your phone and surfaces information at the moment it's useful. Aviate is still in invite-only beta to ensure a quality experience for its current users.
2. Themer - Through Themer, you can flip through an extensive library of free, premium themes, each complete with icons, wallpapers, widgets, and more. Your phone will instantly look amazing and feel brand new with minimal effort. There are themes that are minimal, colorful, exotic, and beautiful.
Themer also makes your phone smarter with Smart Categories that auto-categorize your apps, making them easier to find and launch. Other features include a completely customizable app drawer and full integration of Zooper Widget Pro allowing for the utmost in customizability.
3. Buzz Launcher -
Buzz Launcher is a highly customizable launcher that enables you to apply shared Homescreens to your own smartphone. Buzz Launcher is ad-free and has more than 400,000+ free themes (the largest number of free themes among launchers). It is available from Android 4.0.3 and above.
4. Wiser - It is a friendly way for people who wish to enjoy a smartphone without the hassle of finding their way in the complex smartphone environment. Wiser could fit the use of non-tech-savvy people, seniors and more. Wiser
is a redesign of the smartphone applications allowing you to better
communicate, friendlier picture experience and access to your favorite
content.
5. Cover - Cover is not actually a launcher but an Android lock screen. With Cover, you can get fast access to the right apps at the right time. Cover learns which
apps you use in different contexts and puts them right on your
lock screen for easy access. Automatically see different apps at home, in
the car, at work, and when you’re out.
So there you have it! These are my 5 Top Android Launchers that
can be downloaded from Google Play for FREE. I hope you like them and find them useful as well.
It's been 5 months now since the notoriously addictive Flappy Bird game was taken down by its owner from the Apple App Store and Google Play. The reason given by him is that it was causing mobile gamers stress and trouble, which was not his original intention. Meanwhile, it didn't take long for copycats to flood app stores as gamers mourn for the loss of Flappy Bird. While there is news that Flappy Bird will soon be back in the app stores, here are 5 of the best Flappy Bird alternatives available for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
1. Flappy Wings - Available on both iOS and Android, the graphics are almost identical to the original Flappy Bird. Its developers claim that they have
improved on the original formula, by which it means it’s easier and the
bird keeps pooing everywhere. And while its free, it's absolutely riddled with advertisements.
2. Ironpants - Free on both iOS and Android, Ironpants replaces the bird with a caped
superhero. The controls are even twitchier than Flappy Bird, if such a
thing is possible, but the relatively slick presentation ensures it's
likely to do well. It does have a habit of bombarding your screen with ads
that you have to click to remove. It is currently the biggest winner in Flappy Bird’s absence.
3. Flappy Bee - Also available in both iOS and Android, Flappy Bee gives you the chance to play the exact same game but with a bee. Also, the artwork in Flappy Bee is much nicer than many of the other
Flappy Bird clones.
4. Birdy Flap - Those who use Windows Phone are not out of luck as Birdy Flap is here to aid their Flappy Bird addiction (or the lack thereof). It’s just another straight copy of Flappy Bird although with an alternative Rage Quit mode for the truly perverse. The game is also available on Android.
5. Clumsy Bird - It's one of the most unapologetic clones out there as it manages to rip off both Flappy Bird and Angry Birds. Compared to other Flappy Bird alternatives, this one has a more polished aesthetic and even has short cutscenes similar to Angry Birds. This game is available only on Android.
So there you have it! These are my Top 5 Best Flappy Bird alternatives that
can be downloaded for FREE. I hope you like them and find them enjoyable as well.
Your smartphone could become your
window to what's happening in your community and around the world. There
are thousands of apps to help you there, delivering the news and
breaking stories right to your pocket. The best thing about those apps is that they are tailored to you. You
can tune up the news feed precisely to deliver news about topics you're
interested in. Here are my 5 Best FREE Android News Feed Apps:
1. Flipboard - Flipboard is one of the most visually appealing apps out there. Flipboard brings together world news and social news in a beautiful
magazine designed for your Android phone and tablet. Once you pick a few
topics, your Flipboard is built and you can instantly start flipping
through the pages of news you care about and stories and photos friends
are sharing. And with Flipboard 2.0, when you find things that you want
to save for later or collect into your own ‘magazine’ on Flipboard, just
tap the “plus” + button on any item.
2. Google Currents - Currents is Google's take at magazine-style news feeds for mobile. With a user interface reminiscent of Google Now, Currents relies on
swiping left or right with sliding panes revealing more content from
different sources right on your screen. You have a set of predefined
categories such as Technology, Sport, Entertainment, etc.
3. Pulse - Pulse News brings all your favorite blogs, magazines, social networks
and newspapers in one place for free. Exciting to use, quick to read,
ready to share. Tap on an article to see a clean and elegant view of
the news story. Save stories for reading later across all platforms or
sync them with Instapaper, Read it Later and Evernote. Sharing a story
via Facebook, Twitter, Google + and email is as easy as one tap.
4. Feedly - Feedly is a new way to browse the content of your favorite sites, rss
feeds, tumblr blogs and youtube channels. Instead of having to hunt down
for information, feedly uses RSS to aggregate the contents of the news
sites and blogs you like and deliver them as a fast mobile-optimized
experience. Feedly is an RSS news reader re-imagined for Android
phones and tablets. It makes browsing faster: the content of your RSS
feeds and blogs are transformed into pocket-sized cards which load very
fast and are easy to browse.
5. NewsLoop - NewsLoop is a personal news reader app that brings together the
best of local and international news and lifestyle content from over 400
publishers in 30 categories. NewsLoop presents news articles in a
clean and easy-to-read magazine style format. Select to add feeds from
your social networks like Facebook and Twitter, so you can discover and
share content easier than before. DOWNLOAD HERE
So there you have it! These are my Top 5 Android News Feed Apps that
can be downloaded from the Google Play Store for FREE. I hope you like them and find them useful as well.
Smartphones and tablets may not be the best of devices for enjoying eBooks
on the go, but if you insist on doing your reading this way, at least
you can count on some pretty decent apps from the Google Play Store. Here are my 5 Best FREE Android eBook Reading Apps:
1. Fabrik
- Fabrik Reader is the most beautiful, elegant cloud ebook reader that works seamlessly with your Dropbox and Google Drive. What's
so different about Fabrik Reader is that it just works beautifully
out of the box. What Fabrik Reader gives you is a really premium yet
really simple and comfortable ebook reading experience. Plus, it always
keeps everything synchronized in the cloud, and that means you can keep
reading on all your devices, seamlessly. DOWNLOAD HERE
2. Kindle - If you're an Amazon customer and have already purchased some eBooks from
there, then the Kindle app for Android is a must. With a built-in
dictionary allowing for quick word look-up, the Kindle app also allows
you to sample the books before purchasing them. The Kindle app puts over a million books at your fingertips. It’s the
app for every reader, whether you’re a book reader, magazine reader, or
newspaper reader—and you don’t need to own a Kindle to use it. DOWNLOAD HERE
3. Moon+ Reader - Moon+ Reader is yet another very popular eBook reading app with great
format support including epub, pdf, mobi, chm, cbr, cbz, umd, fb2, txt,
html, rar, zip and OPDS. You can navigate pages using the volume rocker,
the screen or you can configure any hardware key you'd want to do the
job. A really neat feature is the auto-scroll mode, allowing you to just kick
back, relax and enjoy the book you're reading. In addition, the page
turning effect is user configurable; you can set the speed, color and
transparency of the effect. There are also five page flipping animations
to choose from. DOWNLOAD HERE
4. Google Play Books - The e-book reading app features a clean and minimal design. All your books are arranged in a 3D carousel and look really fancy. Reading itself is pleasant, too. The transition effect for page
scrolling is smooth and eye-pleasing and you can easily fast-forward
through pages via a simple scroll at the bottom of the screen. Choose from millions of titles on Google Play including new releases,
New York Times best sellers, up-and-coming authors, and free books.
Easily personalize your reading experience, pick up where you left off
on your phone, tablet, or computer. DOWNLOAD HERE
5. Aldiko Book Reader - It is one of the best Android eBook Readers available. It also comes preinstalled in 20+ different smartphones and tablets. With 13+ million users from over 200 countries, Aldiko Book Reader is vastly popular. It has support for EPUB, PDF formats as well as Adobe DRM encrypted eBooks. It also support eBooks from public libraries. It is fully-customizable: adjust font size, font type,
font and background colors, margin, alignment, line spacing as well as
brightness to best suit your preference. The Aldiko Book Reader also
supports night-time reading. Aldiko Book Reader works on Android phones and tablets with Android version 2.2 or above. DOWNLOAD HERE
So there you have it! These are my 5 Best FREE Android eBook Reading Apps that
can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. I hope you like them and find them useful as well.
The stock Android music player and video player already do the job. In fact, both apps support dozens of music and video formats. But there are still others who look for more stylish and functional media players. Here are my 5 Best FREE Alternative Android Music/Video Players:
1. Winamp
- Users familiar with the desktop version of Winamp should feel right at
home with its Android counterpart. Not only does its user interface
resemble the desktop version of the app, but it's also wirelessly
syncable. The app offers you a wider range of podcasts to subscribe to in addition
to supporting song imports from iTunes. Winamp for Android is available
for devices running Android 2.1 and up. DOWNLOAD HERE
2. Earbits - Earbits makes it dead simple for artists and music lovers to find
each other, and create meaningful connections. Our team of experts
brings you the best independent music from around the world,
hand-curated and served up hot. Earbits for
Android also analyzes the music from your phone and recommends channels
you’ll like from over 350 genre-based selections, then we intelligently
blend your own music into those channels. The result is awesome music
discovery with your favorite tracks mixed in. On Earbits, you won't find commercials. You won't find unrelated ads. And you won't find subscription fees. DOWNLOAD HERE
3. MX Player - The MX Player has been unanimously rated as one the best video players
on Android for quite a while now and there are good reasons for this.
One of them is the built-in hardware acceleration which is very
efficient due to a new hardware decoder. The MX Player also supports
multi-core decoding, making it up to 70% more power-efficient on
dual-core devices than on single-core chipsets. Additionally, there are features such as pinch-to-zoom, allowing you
to zoom in on the video during playback. A wide range of subtitle file
formats are supported; there's a subtitle scroll feature as well.
Finally, there's a kids lock option for locking the controls so that
kids can't make calls or fiddle with the phone. Best of all, MX Player is free at the Android market with plenty of
codecs available for those pesky files that wouldn't play at first. DOWNLOAD HERE
4. Album Art Grabber - This one isn't actually a music player, but it's quite nice to have
anyway. After you upload all your favorite songs to your Android phone
just to find out that half of them don't have their album art displaying
correctly? We've all been there and then Album Art Grabber came along
to solve the problem once and for all. The app does exactly what its title says - it grabs album art covers
for your songs that are missing it. Simply launch the app, press the
auto button and enjoy the magic of album art grabbing. DOWNLOAD HERE
5. Archos Video Player - The Archos video player is among the premium offerings in the media
category. The app has a very stylish user interface that puts the videos
from your device and network on the main stage with their respective
cover art. Naturally, for the relatively high price for an app of this sort,
Archos provides a slew of handful features. It can automatically
retrieve movie as well as TV show posters and information, and also
download subtitles off the web. The player is compatible with keyboards
as well as remote controls when hooked up to a TV set. DOWNLOAD HERE
So there you have it! These are my 5 Best FREE Alternative Android Music/Video Players that
can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. I hope you like them and find them useful as well.
The default Android browser is actually very good. It's fast
and simple to use. But if you're still not happy with it, there are plenty of alternatives out there for you to
check out. Here are my 5 Best FREE Android Web Browsers:
1. Chrome - It is the default web browser of the last three Nexus devices and
the more recent Motorola smartphones. Chrome is a great option if you do lots of Google searches and/or use
its desktop counterpart. With a minimalist user interface, Chrome for Android is powered by
the WebKit rendering engine and Google's V8 JavaScript engine which,
means speed is there. Web pages load impressively fast and the overall
experience is pretty great. More importantly, you can sync bookmarks, passwords and even open tabs
between the Chrome mobile app and your desktop Chrome browser. Chrome is free on the Play Store and runs on
any Android device running Ice Cream Sandwich and later.
2. Firefox - Unlike Chrome or the stock browser, Firefox utilizes the Gecko web
engine, which isn't as fast as the more widely-spread WebKit. The user interface is friendly enough, using simple and
straightforward tab management and a readily-accessible options menu.
Firefox for Android also supports browser sync:
your tabs, bookmarks and personal information will be synced with your
mobile device. You can also make Firefox play Flash content including videos. And speaking of plugins, Firefox has a decent library of browser add-ons.
They're what made the desktop version of the browser so popular to
begin with.
3. Opera Mini - It is another widely used mobile web browser. Its key feature is
its capability to compress data, not only saving you precious kilobytes
and, in turn, money, but also improving loading speed on slower
networks. It's highly recommended to those of you who browse on
GPRS/EDGE or have a limiting data plan. Opera Mini is said to be the world's fastest Android browser.
You can also try Opera browser beta, which is the best way to discover personalized news – download movies and music – search better. It’s Opera's best all-in-one app for Android, which is still in beta version. Download it here.
4. Dolphin Browser - Dolphin makes mobile browsing easy, adapting to the way you want to
browse with a personalized home screen, voice and gesture control,
customizable settings and sharing features. Alongside standard browser features like tabbed browsing, Dolphin also supports Flash content. It also comes with a few unique features like Dolphin Sonar, Gesture Browsing and Webzine.
5. Naked Browser - Unlike other browsers opting for animated tabs and other layout tweaks,
the Naked browser is deliberately un-designed, aiming for the most
efficient resource management instead. This rather unusual browser looks
a bit weird but loads pages extremely quickly. It very much cares about
privacy as well, with its developer clearly explaining the ins and outs
of the permissions required and how the browser works. The user interface takes some time to get used to though, as it
doesn't look anything like your run-of-the-mill web browser. Among the cool features of the Naked Browser are crash restore, one
finger zoom, infinite tabs, and support for Flash. The result is
properly rendered web pages that load very quickly. The paid version of the app gives you multiple methods for closing
tabs, taking screenshots of web pages, the option to load images only on
Wi-Fi, whitelist rules per website for images, JavaScript, user agent
and cookies, and much more. DOWNLOAD HERE
So there you have it! These are my Top 5 alternative web browsers for Android that
can be downloaded from the Google Play Store for FREE. I hope you like them and find them useful as well.
Custom launchers change the behavior and looks of an Android smartphone (and even tablets). Some custom launchers even affect the app drawer, the lock screen, and the multi-tasking interface. That's why launchers are the easiest way to give an Android device a totally different
look and feel. The good news is that there are thousands of custom launchers available on the Google Play Store and elsewhere. Some are free while others are for a fee. A few others also offer a free trial. You can download as many launchers as you want and change the look of your Android phone every so often.
Here are the 5 best FREE Android smartphone launchers available on the Google Play Store, in my opinion of course.
1. Go Launcher EX - It is voted as the best Android launcher by voters with more than 90,000,000 people downloading the said launcher from the Play Store. It was developed by the highly acclaimed Go Launcher EX team, which has a team of developers that has done a lot of custom widgets to go with
the launcher (they are downloaded separately though). There's also a very solid community behind the project as well. You can
download 10,000+ themes and icon sets from around the web to make your
smartphone look exactly the way you want it and experience super speedy
and smooth operation provided by a powerful 3D core.
2. Nova Launcher - The Nova Launcher is another favorite homescreen replacement for many
Android users out there. The only downside is that the Nova Launcher only supports
Android 4.0 and up. However, that also means that it's built with one thing in
mind - speed. Everything from the homescreen scrolling, to the app drawer opening
and the overall feel of the app is blazing fast. That's not to say,
however, that it is not feature-rich. It knows most of the tricks of the other launchers, but puts its own spin on them. It's highly customizable, performance driven, and a perfect home screen replacement for Android 4.0 and above. DOWNLOAD HERE
3. ADW Launcher - This launcher is one of the most popular custom launchers out
there. So popular in fact, that it was the default launcher in the
popular Cyanogen ROM prior to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It has since received
plenty of improvements and new features. Not to mention that it's
probably the most compatible of all available launchers, featuring support for Android
1.6 through 4.1. It is available in both free and paid versions as well. The ADW Launcher is the
go-to place for tweaking every little aspect of your Android desktop.
The settings for the homescreen animations alone are enough to make your
head spin. The launcher offers you to set up different themes, which
are also available in the Google Play Store.
4. Smart Launcher - The Smart
Launcher is one of the highest-rated homescreen stand-ins to have come
out for Android. The Smart Launcher is an innovative launcher, which has a minimalist design, low
resource and user-friendly interface that allows you to launch any
application in a few keys. It's currently the only launcher of Play
Store, which has a function of automatic sorting and cataloging of
installed applications. Overall, Smart
Launcher transforms the seemingly complex Android UI into a more mature -
and user-friendly experience. It is also available in both paid (provides a secondary screen where you
can place widgets and get more transitions and colors for more customization) and free versions in the Google Play
Store.
5. Launcher 7/Launcher 8 - Android is so customizable that you could easily transform it into
something completely different - like a
Windows Phone 7/8 device in a heartbeat. The Launcher 7/8 is lightweight and performs
reasonably well considering the massive task of completely transforming
the Android desktop experience. In true Windows Phone 7/8 fashion, you can set up the tiles the way you
want them; they are live, too, to perfectly mimic the Windows Phone experience. On top of that, the launcher also reworks the app drawer so if you
like the minimalist look and feel of Microsoft's mobile OS, the Launcher
7/8 app is the way to go.
While they may eat your battery quicker, live wallpapers will no
doubt make your Android home screen more interesting. The are a lot of
live wallpapers available on the Google Play
Store and range from simple to flashy
animations and even mini-games that may or may not require your
participation. Here are my 5 Best FREE Android Live Wallpapers (Part 2):
1. Blue Skies Free
- Soar through the clouds with this beautiful 3D live wallpaper. It makes full use of OpenGL with proper support for landscape
viewing and home screen switching! It also works as Daydream on Android 4.2+ devices. DOWNLOAD HERE
2. Crazy Colors - Touch and move your finger on the screen to play with Crazy Colors. It also has full colour customization. DOWNLOAD HERE
3. Magic Fluids Free - Fluid animation in your pocket! Touch the screen and create beautiful motion of colorful smoke and water. DOWNLOAD HERE
4. Xperia Z - Xperia Z Live Wallpaper was inspired by the Sony Xperia Z device background with floating particles. DOWNLOAD HERE
5. iOS 7 - The iOS 7 Live Wallpaper was inspired by Apple's new iOS 7 background with
floating particles. DOWNLOAD HERE
So there you have it! These are my 5 Best FREE Android Live Wallpapers (Part 2) that
can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. I hope you like them and find them useful as well.
