OneNote for Android lets you create notes that include text or pictures, and you can either add photos from your gallery or snap new photos using your camera.

The app also includes support for to-do lists with checkboxes and text formatting. You can also add hyperlinks to web pages.

You can synchronize your notes with Windows Live SkyDrive, but notes saved on your device are also accessible when you’re offline.

OneNote Mobile for Android lets you create or access up to 500 notes for free. If you hit that limit you can make an in-app purchase for $4.99 which will remove the limit.

OneNote runs on Android 2.3 and up.

Microsoft finally brings OneNote to Google Android is a post from: mobiputing

But today Google has launched the first version of Chrome for Android. It looks like the desktop version of Chrome and features the same omnibox that lets you enter a URL or a search query — with suggestions popping up as you type.

When you sign in with your Google account you’ll automatically be able to access your bookmarks, search history, and other data from the desktop version of Chrome.

There’s also an option to view browser tabs that are open on other devices. If you’re signed into Chrome on your desktop, you can fire up Chrome on your mobile device and quickly open the pages you were just reading on your PC.

Google Chrome requires Android 4.0 or higher to run. I took it for a spin on my HP TouchPad today, and it feels ridiculously fast — especially when visiting pages that it can preload in the background.

Chrome also makes it easy to open an incognito window when you don’t want sites you visit to be saved to you history.

Google Chrome browser now available for Android 4.0 and up is a post from: mobiputing

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

Aviary photo editor comes to Android phones, tablets is a post from: mobiputing

The company has offered a mobile app for Android for a while, but up until now it’s been optimized for phones. Now Mint has released a new version which looks great on tablets running Android 3.0 and up. It’s available as a free download from the Android Market.

While the tablet-friendly app is new to Android, it actually looks a lot like the iPad app Mint released late last year.

The new app makes better use of the screen real estate on tablets, offering some of the attractive graphics that you can find on the website but which aren’t available in Mint’s smartphone app. There’s also a whole lot more information viewable on a single screen — but in a way that doesn’t look cluttered.

I’ve been a Mint user for over a year, and the smartphone app is great for adding transactions on the go. But the tablet app is a whole lot prettier.

Personal finance app Mint comes to (some) Android tablets is a post from: mobiputing

There are hundreds of thousands of free and paid apps available in the Google Android Market. It’s easy to download and install any of them with just a few clicks — but Google doesn’t provide an easy way to bookmark apps that you might want to install later.

That’s where a free app called MarketMarks comes in. It can act as a sort of shopping list for Android apps.

Once MarketMarks is installed, just browse the Android Market and click the share icon anytime you find an app you might want to download in the future. Then choose MarketMarks from the share menu.

MarketMarks will create a list of apps you’ve saved. You can then tap any app in that list to bring up the Android Market page.

You can also organize multiple lists by placing them in folders, delete apps from your list from a long-press context menu, or move apps between lists.

MarketMarks can come in handy if you’re not sure whether you want to spend money on an app but you don’t want to forget about it. You can also use the app to bookmark apps that you don’t want to download over 3G so you can easily find them again when you get back to your WiFi network, or if you want to wait until you’ve cleared up some space on your device before downloading a new app.

via reddit

MarketMarks is like a wish list for the Android Market is a post from: mobiputing

Update: Touch Recovery is now available for a number of additional phones.

The custom recovery app allows you to backup or restore your device, wipe data, or flash (install) custom software. Eventually it will likely be available for additional phones and tablets.

In order to ClockworkMod Touch Recovery you’ll need to use fastboot and adb to push the app from your computer to your phone. You may want to install the Android SDK in order to use these tools, although strictly speaking you don’t necessarily need the entire Android SDK if all you want to do is access fastboot and adb.

If you know your way around adb already, you can find some basic instructions for installing the new custom recovery at Droid-Life.

ClockworkMod Touch Recovery beta released for Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus is a post from: mobiputing

ClockworkMod Recovery is a utility that can be used on Android devices to backup, restore, or wipe data on your phone or tablet, and to flash new software. For instance you need a custom recovery tool like ClockworkMod to install CyanogenMod or MIUI versions of Android.

Up until now ClockworkMod has relied on the volume, power, and home buttons on most devices for navigation, since it doesn’t include touchscreen support. That’s made the popular utility difficult to use on devices that don’t have all of those buttons, including the Amazon Kindle Fire. That’s one of the reasons the touch-based TWRP 2.0 recovery software has proven popular with Kindle Fire users.

But ClockworkMod developer Koushik Dutta is showing off a new version of his utility that will work with touchscreens. This will allow ClockworkMod Recovery to work on the Kindle Fire, and it will also allow users to navigate through various menus more quickly even on devices that do have volume, home, and power buttons.

The touch-friendly version of ClockworkMod isn’t ready for the public yet. Dutta plans to improve the graphics and other functions before releasing it, but the video gives us an indication of what to expect when one of the most widely used custom recovery apps adds touch support.

via reddit

Touch-friendly version of ClockworkMod Recovery on the way is a post from: mobiputing

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.

Google Music now lets you download your music collection is a post from: mobiputing

Just three days after the jailbreak utilities were first released, the iPhone Dev Team reports that nearly half a million iPhone 4S devices have been jailbroken. The iPad 2 numbers are a little funkier, with about 300,000 new iPad 2 jailbreaks and around 150,000 people who had jailbroken their iPads while running iOS 4.x now upgrading to iOS 5.0.1 and jailbreaking again.

The stats are compiled from the number of new devices pinging the server for the Cydia store for jailbroken devices. Cydia is installed when you jailbreak your iDevice.

In addition to enabling support for apps that aren’t available from the App Store, jailbreaking allows you to access hidden files and settings on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and make changes to the look and feel of the operating system.

Up until recently it was easy to jailbreak an iPad 1, iPhone 4, or earlier devices including all iPod touch models. But the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 both have new hardware that had proven more difficult to crack… until now.

Nearly a million iPad 2, iPhone 4S devices jailbroken this weekend is a post from: mobiputing

The new tool is called GreenPois0n Absinthe and you can download it from the GreenPois0n website. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

The iPhone Dev Team also has also released a command line-based jailbreaking tool soon which walks you through the process one step at a time. It works on Mac or Windows.

This should help identify any remaining problem spots. Eventually the latest jailbreak tools will be incorporated in the next version of the popular redsn0w utility for jailbreaking iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad models.

Jailbreaking an iOS device allows users to install apps that aren’t available in the App Store including software which can change the boot logo, notification system, multitasking tray, or make other system-level changes to the operating system. It will also probably void your warranty.

Absinthe performs an “untethered” jailbreak, which means you can reboot your phone or tablet without having to connect it to a computer via a USB cable.

Jailbreak the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S with Absinthe is a post from: mobiputing

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

Grooveshark HTML5 app beta streams music to iOS, Android, pretty much anything is a post from: mobiputing

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.

CyanogenMod 9 music player available for Android 4.0 is a post from: mobiputing

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

TiVo app for Android lets you control your DVR from your phone is a post from: mobiputing

The developers behind the popular CyanogenMod version of Google Android have been including a custom version of the ADW Launcher app with their software for the past few years. But CyanogenMod 9 will be the first version of the team’s software to include a new launcher called Trebuchet.

An early version is now available for download. You can install it on any phone or tablet running Android 4.0.3 and up, but you’ll need to have root access since the app needs to be installed in the /system partition of your device.

An Android launcher is the software that powers the home screen and list of applications. Trebuchet is based on the default launcher included with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but the CyanogenMod team is tweaking the launcher to offer a number of optimizations, including:

• You can set a custom number of home screens.
• Users can enable or disable the search bar at the top of the home screen.
• Automatic screen rotation can be enabled or disabled.
• You can sort apps in the app drawer by name or install date.
• Any widget can be resized.

Upcoming features will include a dock, transition effects, and the ability to backup and restore your settings.

While the app launcher will be included in future versions of CyanogenMod, anyone with a rooted Android 4.0.3 device can install it now using the download links from the xda-developers forum.

CyanogenMod 9 launcher now available for Android 4.0.3 and up (Trebuchet) is a post from: mobiputing

Hackers have been jailbreaking iOS 5 devices since Apple’s latest mobile operating system was still in beta. But up until now the only way to jailbreak an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 5.0 and up was to perform a tethered jailbreak. That means that you needed to connect your mobile device to a computer and run the jailbreak software again any time you reboot.

Jailbreaking allows iOS users to access files and settings that would not otherwise be available, install apps that aren’t available in the App Store, unlock iPhones for use on alternate cellular networks, and make other changes.

Now a hacker named pod2g has released the tools to perform an untethered jailbreak, and the folks at the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team have packed them up into some easy-to-use utilities.

This means that it’s easy for almost anyone to perform an untethered jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1 so that you can reboot your mobile device without losing any functionality.

There are a few caveats. First, this only works on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1, and 3rd and 4th generation iPods touch. Newer devices with Apple A5 processors such as the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S aren’t supported. Pod2g is hoping to hack those devices next though.

Second, if you jailbreak a device running iOS 5.0 or later you’ll lose one of the cooler new features: the ability to perform over-the-air operating system updates without connecting your device to a computer and running iTunes. If you’re a long-time jailbreaker that might not be a problem, since you probably don’t want to upgrade to iOS 5.0.2 or iOS 5.1 or whatever comes next until you know it’s safe to jailbreak.

Third, if you’re using an unlocked iPhone with ultrasn0w or gevey, you’ll need to jump through some extra hoops and make sure you’re using a custom IPSW with iOS 5.0.1.

Finally, there’s no guarantee that everything will work perfectly — and Apple probably won’t be too sympathetic if you show up at a store complaining that you broke your iPhone when trying to jailbreak it.

That said, it’s pretty easy to jailbreak an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad using the new tools.

How to upgrade from a tethered jailbreak to an untethered jailbreak

If you’ve already got a device running a tethered jailbreak, all you have to do to switch to the untethered jailbreak is fire up the Cydia store on your device, search for an app from the Chronic Dev Team called Corona, install it and run it.

You can also use the iPhone Dev Team’s redsn0w utility to perform an untethered jailbreak on top of a tethered jailbreak. But assuming you’re starting from a device that isn’t jailbroken, here’s how to proceed. These steps were tested with a Windows PC and a 4th generation iPod touch. The steps should be very similar for supported iPhone and iPad models.

How to perform a fresh, untethered jailbreak

1. Make sure you’re running iOS 5.0.1 on a supported device. You’ll also need a computer with iTunes installed.

2. Download redsn0w 0.9.10b1 or later for Windows or OS X.

3. Unzip the file to a directory on your computer and open that directory.

4. Right-click on redsn0w.exe and select “run as administrator.” Make sure to click yes on any alerts that pop up.

5. Click the button that says jailbreak.

6. Follow the instructions and make sure your device is turned off and plugged into your computer. (Turning an iOS device off isn’t quite as simple as tapping the power button. Make sure to press-and-hold the power button, then slide the red button that pops up to completely shut down your device).

7. Click Next in the redsn0w utility to continue.

8. Enter DFU mode with the following steps:

• Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
• Without lifting your finger from the power button, press and hold the home button for 10 seconds.
• Keep holding the home button for another 15 seconds, but lift your finger from the power button.

9. Redsn0w will identify your device and start sending data to it. This will take a few minutes.

10. Next, select the option to install Cydia, plus any other options you’d like and click Next.

11. Your phone will reboot and more data will be sent to your device — then redsn0w will let you know that you’re done.

Now you should see lines of text fly on your mobile device, followed by a walking pineapple and a progress meter.

When your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad reboots you should be finished. You’ll know your device is jailbroken if you see the icon for the Cydia Store on you home screen.

How to jailbreak an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with iOS 5.0.1 (untethered) is a post from: mobiputing

LogeMeIn‘s mobile apps for iOS and Android let you login to a remote computer to run applications, access files, and perform other functions that can make your smartphone or tablet feel like a full-fledged computer. But at $30, LogMeIn is kind of expensive for a mobile app.

Now the company has released a free version of its iOS app that offers basic remote desktop functionality.

You can use the free app to login to a Mac or PC using the free app to run programs. For instance you can view documents stored on your PC or surf the web in a full version of Firefox or Internet Explorer from your mobile device.

What you can’t do is stream video, transfer photos or other files from your remote PC to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, or use the remote printing function.

For those features you can pay for an in-app subscription update to LogMeIn Pro which costs $40 per year. Or you can make a one-time payment of $100 for the LogMeIn Ignition app.

This new freemium model is similar to the way LogMeIn’s web-based service works. You can install the LogMeIn client on any desktop computer you want to remote control for free and login from any supported web browser for free. But if you want advanced capabilities you need to pay.

via Lifehacker

LogMeIn for iOS now lets you remote control a PC for free is a post from: mobiputing

WordPress has rolled out a major update for its mobile blog editor for Android. WordPress 2.0 for Andorid adds a new Dashboard which makes it easy to create a new post or page, view existing posts or pages, view or moderate comments, add photos or videos, or view your stats from the home screen.

You can also tap an icon in the Quick Action Bar to access the same functions from any view in the app.

But the thing that’s most impressive about WordPress 2.0 is full support for rich text formatting and for Android tablets. Up until recently you could only create and edit blog posts in HTML view using the WordPress app for Android. Now you can change font characteristics, add links, quotation marks, or page breaks easily just by tapping a button.

You can also preview blog posts to see how they’ll look when they go live.

I did run into one problem while testing the app though. Every time I tried to add a link to a test post, the app force closed and I lost that post. It’s probably a good idea to save your work regularly when blogging from an Android device, at least until the kinks are worked out.

WordPress 2.0 for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market. The app supports Android 2.1 and up and works with blogs hosted at WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress blogs.

WordPress 2.0 for Android becomes useful: adds dashboard, rich text editing is a post from: mobiputing

Adobe may be ending development of Flash Player for mobile devices, but the company had at least one more update planned… and today it’s available. Adobe Flash Player 11 for Android has been updated to support Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

You can grab the latest version from the Android Market.

Up until this week Flash Player only officially supported Android 3.2 and earlier. But with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone now available, Adobe updated its software so that you can view Flash-based video, games, and other content on the latest Nexus phone and other upcoming Android 4.0 phones and tablets.

Adobe may still offer the occasional security update here and there, but this is probably the last time we’ll see a major update to Flash Player Mobile for Android.

via Droid Life

Adobe Flash Player 11 now supports Android 4.0 is a post from: mobiputing

Skype for Android lets you make voice or video calls or send instant messages. Now you can also use it to send files including photos or pre-recorded videos over the internet.

To get the new file-sending feature, you just need to grab the free Skype 2.6 app from the Android Market.

File-sending is available over WiFi or 3G connections and the service is free — but you’ll have to pay for any used data minutes on your own.

Skype 2.6 also offers better battery life and video quality improvements on phones and tablets with NVIDIA Tegra 2 processors. The company has also added new graphics and improved the voicemail and sign-in functions.

Skype 2.6 for Android lets you send photos, videos is a post from: mobiputing

Microsoft has released a new app that lets you access your Xbox Live account on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. The free app is called My Xbox Live, and it offers many of the features that you can find in the company’s Windows Phone 7 app.

You can view your achievements, send messages to your friends, read news about apps and games, and change your Xbox Live avatar.

Windows Phone 7 users can also control media playback on an Xbox from a phone. That feature is sadly missing from the iOS app. But pretty much everything else is there — including Windows Phone 7 Metro-style buttons at the bottom of the iPhone version of the app.

via TechCrunch

Microsoft launches Xbox Live app for iPhone, iPad is a post from: mobiputing

Apple has released a major update for its iBooks app for iOS. There’s a new full-screen mode that lets you read without viewing your status bar, a new night theme with a dark background and light text for reading at night, and new font selections.

There are also new covers for public domain books, support for pop-up footnotes, and performance improvements in iBooks 1.5.

Honestly, most of these features are already available in third party eBook apps such as Amazon’s Kindle or Stanza apps for iOS. But it’s nice to see Apple playing catch up.

Thanks to changes Apple made to its rules for third party apps this year, iBooks is also the only digital book app for the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad that includes an integrated bookstore. You need to use a web-based bookstore to purchase titles for the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble NOOK, or Kobo apps.

You can download iBooks 1.5 for free from the App Store.

Apple iBooks gets night theme, full-screen mode is a post from: mobiputing

Mozilla has been offering mobile versions of the Firefox web browser for Android since earlier this year, but up until recently the browser was built using Mozilla’s own tools rather than native Android UI widgets. This week the developers released the first nightly builds of Firefox which use native Android tools to reduce memory usage and improve speed.

You can download the latest builds from the Firefox Nightly site. Keep in mind, these are pre-release versions of the browser, and may be rather buggy compared with the latest stable release available from the Android Market. But the latest nightlies will give you an idea of where Mozilla is going with Firefox.

The new browser does away with the menus to the left and right side of the screen. Instead you can pull up preferences, the add-ons manager, or bookmarks by tapping your Android menu button. You can open new tabs and access a list of open browser tabs by tapping the plus button next to the URL bar.

The new version is designed to support existing plugins for Firefox mobile and supports Android 2.2 and up.  Soon Mozilla will add an improved start page as well as the ability to synchronize your data between browsers. A tablet-friendly version is also in the works.

Firefox gets a native makeover for Android is a post from: mobiputing

Google has released an updated version of the native Gmail app for iOS. It’s now available as a free download from the App Store.

The Gmail app initially launched about two weeks ago, but Google pulled it almost immediately after users reported that push notifications weren’t working and an error message popped up whenever they first launched the app. I’ve been using the app on my iPod touch for the last few weeks despite these limitations, and I’ve found it to be generally faster and easier to use than the Gmail web app, if not quite as slick as the Gmail app for Android.

Gmail 1.0.2 for iOS supports touch-based gestures that let you refresh your inbox by swiping down, or view your labels by swiping from left to right. You can also send email messages with file attachments.

Google says future updates will improve the way images look, support for multiple accounts, and better notifications.

Gmail returns to the App Store, brings along push notifications is a post from: mobiputing

If you want to adjust the screen brightness, disable WiFi, or access most other settings on an iOS device you usually have to open the settings app and then navigate through a series of menus to find the feature you’re looking for.

Folks that have jailbroken devices have long been able to use apps like SBSettings to toggle various settings with a single-click from the home screen or app tray. But now there’s a way to do that without jailbreaking your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

IconSettings uses the Safari web browser to create shortcuts to a number of frequently used iOS settings. All you have to do is add browser shortcuts to your home screen for the features you want.

For instance, here’s how to add a shortcut to your screen brightness settings:

1. Open the Safari web browser on your mobile device.
2. Navigate to the IconSettings page at iPhoneZA
3. Scroll down until you see the list of Settings shortcuts and click the “Brightness” link.
4. It will open in a new window and a box will pop up asking if you want to “Open this page in ‘Settings’?”
5. Tap the Cancel button.
6. Tap the sharing button in your web browser (it’s a box with an arrow pointing outward).
7. Select the Add to Home Screen option.
8. From the following screen either tap the “Add” button, or rename the icon first if you like.

That’s it. An icon with a pretty graphic should show up on your home screen. You can drag several of these icons together to create a Settings folder if you like.

Now whenever you click on one of those icons, the web browser will load and then quickly redirect you to the appropriate page in your iOS settings.

The process isn’t quite as elegant as SBSettings or other jailbreak apps — but it won’t void your warranty. Unfortunately IconSettings shortcuts only work with iOS 5.0 and up.

via Engadget

How to add settings icons to your iOS 5 homescreen without jailbreaking is a post from: mobiputing

Amazon is offering QuickOffice Pro and QuickOffice Pro HD as today’s free app of the day in the Amazon Appstore for Android. Normally the smartphone version runs $15, while the tablet version of QuickOffice Pro costs $20.

The popular office suite lets you view, edit, or create office documents on a smartphone or tablet. It’s compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, and supports integration with Google Docs and online storage services including Dropbox, Box, and SugarSync.

You can also use the app as a file manager, ZIP file viewer, and PDF viewer. While a number of Android devices ship with a stripped down version of QuickOffice for viewing documents, the Pro app is much more powerful, which is why it’s typically one of the pricier Android apps on the market.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Amazon offer this kind of app for free. Last month OfficeSuite Pro had its day in the spotlight as Amazon’s free app of the day. That app also normally costs about $15.

You can “purchase” Quickoffice Pro and Quickoffice Pro HD from the Amazon Appstore. If you click those links using a desktop web browser, you can add each item to your account, which means that even if you don’t have an Android tablet today, you’ll be able to download the app for free if and when you get one in the future.

QuickOffice Pro for Android is free today only (11-14-11) is a post from: mobiputing

It looks like the reports of Stanza’s death have been somewhat exaggerated. Today Amazon and Lexcycle released the first update to the popular iOS eBook app since February.

The update doesn’t add any new features, but it does fix one glaring problem: the previous version of Stanza didn’t work with iOS 5. The new version does.

Stanza has long been one of the most versatile eBook apps available for the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

The free app makes it easy to download free eBooks from popular digital book marketplaces including Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks, and SmashWords. You can also add custom catalogs, or import books from a computer using iTunes or simply by emailing EPUB files to yourself and opening them in Stanza on your mobile device.

Stanza’s reading view provides more customization options than nearly any other eBook app I’ve used. You can choose from a variety of themes, have day and night themes, or create custom color schemes. The app lets you adjust sizes and fonts, and set up custom line and paragraph spacing, margins, or tweak the page turn effects and settings.

While Bluefire Reader offers a few features that you don’t get from Stanza, including support for Adobe DRM, Bluefire isn’t nearly as customizeable – and since upgrading from iOS 4.3 to iOS 5 I’ve noticed that Bluefire is also less responsive than it used to be.

Stanza is available as a free download from the App Store.

Update: OK, the reports of Stanza’s death were premature… but not completely wrong. Amazon tells MacWorld that today’s update will be Stanza’s last. That’s a shame, because it really does providing a better reading experience than any other eBook app I’ve used.

Stanza returns from the dead (best eBook app for iOS 5) is a post from: mobiputing

Mozilla has released Firefox 8 for Windows, Mac and Linux… and today the company also released an updated version of its mobile browser for Google Android. You can grab Firefox 8 for free from the Android Market.

While the latest version of Firefox mobile has the same version number as its desktop cousin and uses the same rendering engine, the desktop and mobile versions of Firefox received some different features in this update.

The desktop browser, for instance, added support Twitter search integration, while that feature is only available for Firefox Mobile if you install the Twitter Address Bar Search add-on.

The Android version gets a few distinctive new features. For instance, there’s now support for a master password which you can use to encrypt all your saved usernames and passwords.

Users can also now save bookmarks as icons on their home screen, allowing you to quickly open any website or web app in Firefox with a single click.

You can read more about Firefox 8 for Android in the release notes.

Firefox 8 now available for Android is a post from: mobiputing

PayPal has launched a major update to its Android app for sending, receiving, and managing money.

You can still use PayPal 3.0 to send money, check your balance, or even deposit money in your account by snapping a photo with your camera. But the new version offers better support for tablets, a tweaked user interface, and support for Near Field Communication (NFC) chips.

That means that if you have an NFC capable phone, you can transfer money with another user as long as they also have NFC.

All you have to do is add a widget to your home screen, and tap the “request money” button, enter the amount, and tap your phone against the phone you want to request money from. The PayPal app will open on their device allowing them to confirm the transaction.

PayPal first demonstrated the technique this summer, but the updated app just launched this week.

There aren’t many phones with NFC chips in the US yet, but Google is pushing the platform with its new Google Wallet digital payment service and the Samsung Nexus S smartphone features NFC.

PayPal for Android gets NFC support is a post from: mobiputing

Yahoo has launched a new weather app for Android which provides forecasts-at-a-glance, current weather conditions, and weather-related photos from Flickr.

The photos are a nice touch which gives the app an attractive, ever-changing look that sets it apart from other weather apps. The home screen shows current conditions and a brief forecast in portrait mode — and when you tilt your phone to landscape you get more details such as the sunrise, sunset, barometric pressure, humidity level and wind speed.

You can also add additional locations and switch between locations by swiping left or right. There’s also a new widget that lets you place a weather photo on your home screen and view the current weather conditions.

But there are a few quirks that make the Yahoo Weather app rather odd.

The home screen shows you cute little icons that lets you know whether it’ll be partly sunny or mostly cloudy, I suppose, but there’s nothing that tells how likely it is to rain on a given day.

If you want to view an extended forecast, the app dumps you out to the Yahoo Weather page in a web browser. There’s also no way to see any forecast details at all from the home screen widget.

Considering the fact that Yahoo powers the weather widget that comes with iOS, you’d think that the company would have figured out by now what it takes to make a good mobile weather app. Unfortunately the Yahoo Weather app for Android falls far short.

It’s available as a free download from the Android Market if you want to try it for yourself.

Yahoo Weather updated for Android, adds widgets, pretty pictures is a post from: mobiputing

It’s been about four years since the iPhone hit the market, and more than three years since the App Store opened for business. So it’s about time Google finally got around to releasing a native Gmail app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad… which is exactly what the company did today.

Update: The app has been pulled from the App Store temporarily while Google fixes a bug. 

Update 11/16/11: And now it’s back and everything seems to be working properly. 

While Google’s mobile web app for Gmail is pretty good, the new app is faster, offers a cleaner look, and adds a number of features that you don’t get with the web app.

You can download Gmail for iOS for free from the App Store.

The Gmail app supports push notifications and audio alerts — or at least it’s supposed to. Push notifications don’t appear to work yet. Second, it allows you to autocomplete addresses by grabbing contacts from your local address book as well as your Gmail account.

The Gmail app includes touch-based gestures including the ability to refresh your inbox by pulling down on the screen. You can swipe from left-to-right on the screen to navigate through your folders and Priority Inbox settings. You can also now attach images to an email message.

When you use the Gmail app on an iPad, there’s a split-pane view that lets you see a list of messages on the left while viewing a thread on the right.

Google’s Gmail app for iOS is long overdue… but after playing around with it for a few minutes, I’m tempted to say it was almost worth the wait. If you were expecting an iOS port of the Gmail app for Android, that’s not what you’ll find here. Instead you get a high quality email app which looks and feels like it was designed for the iPhone, and which offers a much better experience than you’ll get when using the Safari web browser to check your email from your phone.

Google launches Gmail app for iOS is a post from: mobiputing

Opera launched new versions of its mobile web browsers for pretty much every mobile operating system imaginable today… except Android. And that’s only because the Android apps received the same update a few weeks ago.

But if you’re using iOS, BlackBerry, S60, or J2ME you can grab Opera Mini 6.5 for your device. Opera Mobile 11.5 is also available for S60. And MeeGo users can check out a new Opera Mobile Labs 11.5 release for tablets and netbooks.

The key difference between Opera Mobile and Mini is that Opera Mini relies on remote servers to compress data before sending web pages and other content to your device, while Opera Mobile uses your device’s hardware to render web content (although you can turn on Opera Turbo mode to enable the same sort of compression).

The biggest change in the new versions is a tool that helps you visualize how much data you’ve used — and how much data you’ve saved by using Opera’s compression technology. Opera has also made it easier to bookmark a website quickly by tapping a star in the URL bar. Sure, that feature is pretty common in desktop web browsers, but you don’t see it on many mobile browsers yet.

Opera web browsers updated for iOS, BlackBerry, S60, and even MeeGo is a post from: mobiputing

Gmail mobile web app

There’s a rumor going around that Google has finally developed an official Gmail app for iOS and submitted it to Apple for approval. It will allow users to send and receive email without firing up a web browser — and it will support push email, which is something the web app simply can’t do.

Don’t get me wrong, Google’s mobile web apps for Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, and other services are excellent demonstrations of just what you can do with a modern mobile web browser.

But a web app doesn’t collect messages for reading offline when the browser is closed. It doesn’t send you notifications when new messages appear. And even if you link the native iOS Mail app to your Gmail account you don’t get Push notifications — or the ability to use Gmail features such as Priority Inbox, starred messages, or labels.

MG Siegler reports that those are likely just some of the features that will be included in the native Gmail app once it’s approved… if it’s approved.

When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, Steve Jobs was almost giddy with excitement over the prospect of the web browser as the most important app. If developers wanted to write apps for the iPhone, all they had to do was create web sites that could be accessed in Mobile Safari.

It didn’t take long for developers to insist that the browser wasn’t good enough, and that they wanted a native software developer kit, and the following year Apple caved, launched the App Store, and the rest is history.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s taken Google four years to jump on board with a native Gmail app. Google shares Jobs’ early vision of web apps replacing native apps, even though the company has been building native apps for Android for the last few years. But the truth is that there are still some things that work best in a native app which is more tightly integrated with the operating system than a browser-based app.

Update: The Gmail app for iOS is now available for download.

Native Gmail app coming to iPhone (because web apps still aren’t enough) is a post from: mobiputing

Personal finance app Mint offers an amazing (and free) web service that lets you track your finances automatically by linking all of your bank, credit card, and other financial accounts, creating budgets, or setting goals.

The company also offers free apps for iPhone and Android phones which lets you see your balances and enter transactions on the go — but the mobile apps lack the charts and other visualizations that you get with the web interface.

Now Mint has launched an iPad app which combines some of the best features of its smartphone and web apps. You can use Mint for the iPad to view your data on the go or enter new transactions. But the app takes advantage of the iPad’s large screen to show you items that were previously only available on the web, including:

• Spending by category
• Spending over time
• Income over time
• Budget details
• A feed with reminders and alerts

You can also use pinch-to-zoom to resize charts on the iPad.

Mint 2.0 for iOS is a universal app, so you can also use it on an iPhone or iPod touch — but you only get the pretty new graphs on an iPad.

Mint personal finance app for iPad combines best of the iPhone, web app features is a post from: mobiputing

TouchPal Keyboard is a replacement for the default keyboard on Android devices which lets you enter text quickly with two fingers or one. You can tap away with your fingers or thumbs just like you would with the normal Android keyboard, but TouchPal will try to help you along by offering recommendations as you type.

But the fastest way to type with TouchPal is to slide your finger from letter to letter to enter text quickly — much as you would do with the popular Swype keyboard. But Swype is only available if you buy a phone that comes preloaded with it, or if you sign up as a beta tester. TouchPal is available for anyone to install from the Android Market.

The developers have been offering TouchPal as a free download for the past few months, and promises to keep the promotion going for a little longer. Meanwhile, the company rolled out a pretty significant update today.

TouchPal 4.8.1 still uses powerful text prediction technology to make text input easier — but now the keyboard has been redesigned to make it easier to enter numbers or other characters.

Previously you had to tap a number icon every time you wanted to switch between numbers and letters. Now you can simply slide your finger up on any of the keys in the top row to enter the associated number instead of the letter on the key. For instance, tap on “u” to enter the letter “u,” but slide your finger from the bottom of the “u” key to the top and you’ll input a “7″ instead.

The update also lets you turn of the “Curve” feature which lets you enter text by sliding from key to key. Just tap the Swipe icon in the toolbar and disable Curve, and you can use TouchPal like a standard keyboard.

If you do want to switch keyboard views so that you can see numbers and symbols the icon for doing that has been moved from the right side of the screen to the left — which means you’ll probably click it by accident a lot less often than you did before when trying to tap the period key.

I’ve been using TouchPal as my primary keyboard for the last few months and I’m pretty impressed with the update.

TouchPal is currently available as a free download from the Android Market, but the company will start charging for it eventually.

TouchPal update brings better keyboard to Android is a post from: mobiputing

Web pages would load a lot faster if you didn’t have to deal with the pictures and other graphics, or Javascript and other technologies. That might not be a big problem when you’re surfing the web on a desktop computer with a fast internet connection. But on a mobile device with a slow connection (or a monthly cap on how much data you can use), sometimes it might be nice if you could just view the text on a website.

That’s exactly what TextOnly does. It’s a free web browser for Android that only shows you the viewable text on a website. This helps web pages to load very, very quickly.

Once upon a time before the whole graphical web browser thing caught on, you could surf the web using a text-based browser called Lynx. In fact, it’s still available if you want to give it a try, but most websites don’t look very good when you use it.

But TextOnly is optimized for use on a mobile device, and it does a better job of presenting modern websites in an easy to read way.

Just enter a URL on the start screen and TextOnly will bring up a black page with a list of white hyperlinks. For many websites, this list will basically be a list of articles on the homepage. Click on any of those links and you get a new page that just has text for the headline and articles — plus any hyperlinks included in the body of an article.

You won’t see any logos, sidebars, navigation menus, or other content. That includes advertisements.

If you decided you do want to see a full web page, you can tap a link that says “view the original” to load the original website. For some reason clicking on any link in an article will also take you to a full website instead of a stripped-down, text-only version.

TextOnly isn’t a full-featured web browser. There’s no password manager, and the browser is pretty much useless for conducting web searches — Google.com won’t even load. But there is a bookmark manager so you can save links to your favorite sites for text-only reading.

There’s also a TextOnly website where you can try out the service in a desktop web browser.

via eBook Newser

TextOnly browser for Android saves bandwidth by skipping the pictures is a post from: mobiputing

There’s a new beta version of the official Twitter app for BlackBerry, and it adds support for multiple Twitter accounts. Now if you have a personal account and one for work, you can login to both from your BlackBerry smartphone using Twitter 2.1 beta.

The app is available as a free download from the BlackBerry Beta Zone.

Twitter 2.1 beta supports up to 4 Twitter accounts at once. The name of your current profile will show up in the header so you won’t forget which account you’re using. You can also cross-post Tweets between accounts.

In addition to multi-account support, the new Twitter app also makes it easier to edit your Profile data thanks to an edit link on the Profile page.

Twitter’s mobile apps for Android and iOS already support multiple accounts.

Twitter for BlackBerry adds multiple account support is a post from: mobiputing

Nimbuzz offers mobile apps that let you chat with or make free calls to other Nimbuzz users, or cheap calls to phone numbers. The iPhone app supports video calls, while you can also make voice-only calls from the Nimbuzz Android and Symbian apps.

Now the company has also  launched a PC app for Mac or Windows which means you can place a call from a desktop or laptop computer to your Nimbuzz contacts.

Sure, Nimbuzz is hardly the first company to offer this feature. Skype has had a cross-platform video app for ages — and Skype Linux as well as Windows and OS X.

But if your contacts are using Nimbuzz rather than Skype for one reason or another, it’s nice to know you can now call them from your desk without pulling out a phone first.

The new Nimbuzz PC app is available as a free download. You can also use it as a cross-platform instant messenger app. It supports Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Windows Live, Yahoo, and AOL messenger services, among others.

Nimbuzz will be rolling out video calling support for Android and Symbian soon as well.

via IntoMobile

Nimbuzz launches PC app — lets you make free voice, video calls to phones is a post from: mobiputing

Remember The Milk is one of the best cloud-based task manager and reminder apps. The company also offers tools that let you see your To Do lists in your Google Calendar sidebar, or on an iPhone, iPad, or Android device — but up until recently you needed a Pro account to use the Android apps.

Now Android users can download and run the mobile version of Remember the Milk just like their iOS friends — without paying $25 per year for a Pro account. Pro users will still get some extra features though.

Remember The Milk 2.0 for Android has a new, simpler user interface. You can synchronize the app with your online account with the press of a button at the top of the screen. You can also add a task or search from the toolbar no matter what screen you’re on.

The home screen has been redesigned to show you day, week, list, tag, or location views. And you can now edit multiple tasks at the same time.

Remember The Milk also now shows up in the Android “share” menu, which lets you link a webpage or other item to a task.

Users with Pro accounts will also be able to use the Remember The Milk home screen widgets. The new app also includes several new widget options including the ability to add items to a List Widget by tapping the plus icon on the widget, or view new Badge Widgets which show the number of incomplete tasks from different lists or categories. There’s also a new Smart Bar Widget that you can use search tasks or add tasks.

Remember the Milk for Android is now available for free is a post from: mobiputing

For a few year ab app called Stanza was the undisputed champ of eBook readers for iOS. Stanza allowed iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad readers to download and read eBooks from a number of digital book marketplaces or copy books from a computer. The app did a great job of organizing books, and offered a number of options for viewing your books by changing font sizes, background colors, and other features.

All that changes if you upgrade to iOS 5. While the Stanza app is still available as a free download from the App Store, the app hasn’t been updated to support Apple’s latest operating system.

The first time I tried to open Stanza after upgrading to iOS 5 I experienced a series of crashes. A few days later I gave it another try, and while the app loads the last book I was reading, I can’t flip pages — and it crashes if I try to return to the library view.

Stanza simply doesn’t work with iOS 5.

The app probably won’t be updated anytime soon either. The company that produces Stanza was acquired by Amazon a few years ago, and Amazon kind of has its own eBook apps to focus on. Stanza hasn’t been updated since February.

Unfortunately the official Amazon Kindle apps don’t support EPUB books. You can convert any DRM-free EPUB books to MOBI files supported by Kindle software, but it’s kind of a pain.

There are a number of other eBook apps ready to take Stanza’s place. Bluefire is probably one of the best. It supports EPUB files including books that use Adobe DRM and even digital books from public libraries that use the OverDrive system.

But I’m still kind of sad to see Stanza go. We’ve been good friends for the last year or two as I fell in love with reading eBooks on my iPod touch.

Update 11/10/2011: Apparently Stanza’s not dead yet… it’s just almost dead. A new version has been released, complete with support for iOS 5.0. Unfortunately, this will be the last time Stanza is updated.

Stanza eBook app doesn’t work with iOS 5 is a post from: mobiputing

So you thought Apple was being generous when the company allotted 5GB of free online storage space for every new iCloud user? Cloud storage service Box.net has been in the business a little longer than Apple, and today the company has announced that it’s offering 10 times more storage for iOS users.

If you download the free Box.net app for the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you now get 50GB of storage space for free. The company is also increasing file size limits from 25MB to 100MB for iOS users.

Box lets you store photos, music, videos, documents, or any other type of file online. You can use the Box apps for iOS to view your files on a mobile device, or login using a web browser to access your files from any computer.

This isn’t the first time Box has given away a huge amount of storage for free. The company also offered the same deal to HP TouchPad customers… although that’s a pretty limited market since HP canceled the TouchPad just 45 days after launching the tablet. There are millions of iOS users though, so either Box has got some crazy infrastructure, or nobody really expects all iOS users to sign up for new Box accounts.

In order to get your 50GB of free storage, you’ll need to sign up within the next 50 days.

Box.net gives iOS users 50GB of free cloud storage is a post from: mobiputing