Aviary offers a popular free, web-based photo editor, as well as apps for editing your photos on Facebook or on an iOS device. Now the company has also launched a free Android app.

The Aviary Android app behaves in an unusual way — it doesn’t show up on your list of apps. Instead, you open it by firing up the Gallery app (or any other photo app), finding a picture you want to edit, an then “sharing” it with Aviary Editor.

Once you do that you can apply a number of digital effects, crop, resize, or adjust colors, or make other changes. Out of the box, Aviary includes a decent number of basic tools — but you can also buy additional effects through in-app purchases.

Aviary is available for Android 2.2 and up.

via Android Police

Google has updated the Music Manager for its cloud-based music service. While you could previously use the manager to upload as many as 20,000 songs to Google Music or to download tracks you’d purchased from the service — now you can use it to download the songs you’ve uploaded.

In other words, you can use Google Music to backup your music library, stream it to any computer with a web browser or to your Android phone or tablet, and download your music to a PC.

So you can create a backup of your music collection using Google Music and re-download it if your hard drive crashes, you laptop is stolen, or you buy a new PC.

Unfortunately there’s no easy way to download just a few songs at a time using the music manager. What happens when you click the “Download my library” button is that Google asks you what folder you’d like to store your music in, and then is starts to download all of your songs.

But you can download individual tracks or albums from the Google Music website.

Apple and Google may have kicked the official Grooveshark apps out of their respective app stores, but Grooveshark has found another way onto your mobile device. The company has launched an HTML5 app which runs in a web browser but which feels a lot like a native app.

All you have to do is visit html5.grooveshark.com in nearly any web browser (desktop or mobile) to access a new version of the web-based streaming music service optimized for mobile devices.

Grooveshark’s HTML5 app is free to use while in beta, but it doesn’t have all the features you might expect. There’s no opportunity to login with your username and password to access playlists or favorite tracks, for instance

The reason Apple and Google booted the Grooveshark is because it’s not at all clear that the service acquires its music in a legal fashion. Grooveshark has a sort of post music first, acquire the streaming rights later approach and the company has been sued by pretty much every major music label.

While Grooveshark’s future remains unclear, the present is also a little funky. Because the company’s music catalog comes from user subscriptions, Grooveshark often has multiple listings for the same song while many songs that you might expect to find are simply not available. For instance, it’s no uncommon to find just 3 or 4 tracks from an album that has 10 or 12 songs.

Grooveshark’s desktop browser-based service is typically free, but the company charges to use its mobile apps. For the complete experience you can still download the mobile apps — but iOS users will need to have jailbroken devices and Android users will need to be able to install apps from unkown sources, since the app isn’t available from the Android Market

Developer Android Neal has been working on a new default music player for CyanogenMod 9. While CM9 isn’t ready for public consumption yet, the music player is ready to go and you can download and install it on any device running Android 4.0 or up. That includes devices running alpha or beta versions of CM9.

CyanogenMod is a custom version of Android based on the the open source code available for Google’s operating system.

The new music player adds a number of options that you won’t get from the music player Google ships with Android, including:

• Support for themes
• Gesture support
• Motion-based controls
• Search the Android Market for a currently playing song
• Share track info with social networks
• Set songs as ring tones
• Control music playback from the lock screen

While the app currently requires Android 4.0 and up to run, Neal plans to develop a version that will run on earlier versions of Android as well, although it may lose some of the features such as lock screen controls and notification controls.

TiVo has finally released an official Android app which you can use as a remote control for your TiVo digital video recorder. In fact, the remote control function actually looks like a TiVo remote. But that’s just one of the things you can do with the free app.

You can also browse a 14-day program guide, schedule and manage recordings, view cast and crew information, and comment about shows on Facebook or Twitter.

The app also lets you search for on-demand content from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video or Blockbuster.

While the TiVo app is optimized for smartphones and tablets with 7 inch displays, it should run on any device with Android 2.1 or newer.

The new app looks an awful lot like the TiVo app for iOS which was released in July, 2012.

via Zatz Not Funny

The Amazon Kindle Fire is the first Android device to ship with the new Amazon Instant Video app. If you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber, you can use it to watch thousands of TV shows and movies for $79 per year. You can also pay to rent or purchase movies on a case-by-case basis.

But it turns out the app is just a regular Android app… which means it can run on other Android devices. There are a few caveats.

First, it only seems to be optimized for 1024 x 600 pixel displays a the moment, which means that most Android phones and tablets could have some problems displaying content.

Second, you can install the app on any tablet, but it won’t stream video over 3G or if you’re using a rooted device.

Third, in order to login to your account you’ll need to either have an Amazon prime subscription or be willing to spend a few bucks to rent or purchase a video.

That’s because when you use the Instant Video app on the Kindle Fire you’re already logged into your account. But when you try to use the app on a different device the only way to login is to purchase a video — at which point the app will notice that you’re not logged in and ask you to enter your Amazon username and password. If you’re a Prime subscriber you can do that for no additional fee by clicking on an Amazon Prime video selection.

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Google is expanding the Android Market to include music. You can now purchase songs and albums in 320kbps MP3 format from the Android Market on the web. An updated Android Market app for Android 2.2 and up is also starting to roll out.

This means you can now purchase music, movies, books, and apps from the Android Market. But while Google says there are 8 million songs available today and another 5 million on the way, the company still hasn’t signed a deal with Warner Music Group, which means that only 3 out of the 4 major US labels are on board. That means you might not find all the music you want from Google.

The good news is that Google will be offering a free song every day, curated music picks, and exclusive content through partnerships with artists including ColdPlay and The Rolling Stones.

Users will also be able to share songs with their friends on Google+. Your friends won’t just get a link to purchase the song or a 90 second snippet. Instead they can listen to the full track one time.

Google has been beta testing Google Music for the past few months, allowing users to upload as many as 20,000 songs for free. Today the company announced that Google Music is open to everyone in the US and no longer requires an invite. The online storage locker is still free for anyone to use, whether you buy music from Google or not.

Amazon also offers an online music service that lets you store your music in the cloud, purchase tracks, and access them across multiple devices. And Amazon’s service offers music from all four major labels in the US.

But Google is banking on Android Market integration, a curated experience with top music picks, and social sharing to stand out from the competition.

Google is holding an event on November 16th where the company is expected to launch a music store. But TecnoDroidVe has already managed to get a sneak peek at the Android version of the upcoming music store.

It looks like the music store will be built into the next version of the Google Android Market. In other words, Android phone and tablet users will have a one-stop-shop for downloading music, movies, books, and apps.

While the Android Market is choc full of free apps, you’ll probably have to pay for most of the music offered by Google. But it looks like google will have a “Free Song of the Day” feature where you can grab featured tracks for free.

That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone that’s been using the Google Music beta service. Google provides users with enough online storage space for up to 20,000 songs — but Google also regularly offers small collections of music which users can add to their account for free.

There have been rumors floating around for a few days suggesting that while Google has signed deals with some of the major music labels in the US, the company may not have locked up all the majors yet. A music store is only as good as its selection — and Google will be competing with Amazon MP3, 7digital, and a handful of other companies that already offer digital music stores for Android.

But there’s something appealing about having just one store to visit for music, movies, books and apps — especially if there are freebies available in each category from time to time.

We should know more about the new Google Music store later this week.

via Android Police