Smartlife

This is the app that I’m currently using on my own Android smartphone and I find that it has been incredibly useful. The idea here is that Smart RAM Booster will selectively kill “less important” apps that are running in the background, freeing up those resources for the more active or more important apps you have running. There are four levels of auto-boost, ranging from gentle to aggressive. The overlay widget is particularly useful, as it can be visible on your screen at all times, giving you one-touch access to some much needed extra memory. The home screen widget goes further by displaying your current RAM usage too.

Super Booster – RAM Optimizer

Simulated Reboots with Super Booster App

While the end goal of freeing up some memory is the same, this app goes about doing it in an entirely different way. Rather than selectively killing less important background apps, Super Booster simulates a reboot on the Android device. In effect, it closes and restarts all the core and user tasks, so all of the initially available RAM becomes available again. There may be certain processes you’d rather the app not touch, so you an go into the tool to uncheck the ones you don’t want to close and restart.

Memory Booster – RAM Optimizer

Defragment Your Smartphone Memory

The names of some of these RAM booster apps aren’t particularly creative, but they sure do a good job of describing what they do. However, just as Super Booster performs differently than Smart RAM Booster, Memory Booster is also a different kind of tool with the same kind of end objective. In this case, what it does is reclaim lost memory by “defragmenting your smartphone’s memory and recovering memroy leaks from poorly behaved applications.”

RAM Booster 2013

The Simplest Ram Booster App for Android

Some people want to have as much data and information thrown at them as possible about the performance of their devices. Those people may want to turn to other RAM booster apps, because this one is as simple as can be. There is a big red button on the middle of the screen that says “boost” and it does exactly what you’d expect it to do. The “extra” memory is recovered and the overall performance of your Android smartphone or tablet should then improve. In addition to curing sluggishness, this can also improve battery life by up to 15%.

Android Booster Free

Multiple Functionality from Android Booster Free

Last but not least, we have this RAM booster utility from NQ Mobile Security. The easiest way to use it is to utilize the Auto Optimization feature. This works behind the scenes, including behind the lock screen, to kill tasks that are slowing down the Android smartphone or tablet. The active apps are then able to run at a more optimal speed. There is also an app manager, a network manager, a file manager, a battery manager, a privacy protector, and a virus scanner.

Image credit: roens / Flickr

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iPhone Dating Apps For People On The Go

Michael Kwan — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:00:32 +0000

Call me a socially-awkward nerd if you want, but I asked out my now-wife for our first date via email. And this was over a decade ago! The fact of the matter is that the dating is totally different than what it was before the advent of the Internet and it’s even more different now that everyone carries around the Internet in their pockets. It only makes sense that there are a number of iPhone dating apps that help guys and gals find their perfect match.

Your iPhone is a communication tool. You make calls on it. You send instant messages. And, yes, you can flirt with it and pick up your dates with it too. You just have to find the right apps that tap into the right networks for the job. Who knows? The love of your life just might be waiting for you on the other side of that touchscreen display.

OkCupid

OkCupid iPhone Dating App

Tapping into the existing OkCupid dating site, the accompanying app effectively gives you mobile acess to “all the great features of OkCupid.com on your hand computer.” You can browse through your matches and peruse through their profiles, checking out age, location, self-summaries, and more. The profiles can be rated and you can spark up those flirty conversations on the go.

Tinder

Nearby Hot or Not with Tinder

What if you want an iPhone dating app that doesn’t necessarily tap into the more traditional dating site on the Internet? It’s always a bit of a bummer when you find your match actually lives thousands of miles away from you. With Tinder, you are able to search for people nearby that the app thinks you should know. Then, you anonymous like or pass on the suggestion. If you two “like” one another, then Tinder makes the introduction and you two can start chatting.

PlentyOfFish

Review Your POF Matches on the Go

More than 200 million messages are exchanged each week on Plenty of Fish, but not all of this has to be done from a traditional desktop or laptop computer. If you get the accompanying app on your iPhone, you can send and receive your messages on the go for free. Just like regular social networking apps, you can also upload images and edit your profile, but in line with dating, the app can also be used to review your matches.

Let’s Date

The Gamification of Dating, Complete with Badges

Like other iPhone dating apps, this one is also free. You first create your Dater Card by logging in via Facebook. Then, you can browse through the other Dater Cards until you find someone who piques your interest. If you click on the “Let’s Date” button and they reciprocate, the chat opens up and you two can work out the details for your first date. Taking a page out of Foursquare and other gamification paradigms, you can even earn badges in Let’s Date based on your activity.

Match.com

Official Match.com iPhone App

If you want to hook up with your potential soulmate for free, you’ll have to turn to some of the other iPhone dating apps on this list. However, if you’re already paying for a subscription with Match.com, the smart thing to do would be to take advantage of the free app available for the iPhone. As expected, the app can be used to review daily matches, send and receive messages, view member profiles and “show interest by sending a wink.”

eHarmony

Guiding Communications with eHarmony on iPhone

eHarmony prides itself in matching couples based on a whole slew of different dimensions. The free mobile app lets you sign up, fill out your questionnaire, upload photos, receive your daily matches, and send icebreakers, but you will need to subscribe to a paid eHarmony membership if you want to see the photos of your matches, send and receive “guided communication,” see who’s viewed your profile and so on. Subscriptions start at $19.99 per month.

Image credit: LyndaSanchez / Flickr

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Free NFC Android Apps

Michael Kwan — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:17:28 +0000

Your smartphone is packed with all sorts of wireless technology. You might have your regular GSM radio for voice calls and text messages. You might have 3G or even 4G LTE to handle your high-speed wireless data. And then there’s Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, and maybe an FM radio. A growing number of Android smartphones, like the Google Nexus 4, also come equipped with something called NFC.

Standing for Near Field Communication, NFC is a technology that lets you transmit data by simply tapping the back of your phone onto a compatible NFC tag or tag reader. It’s not quite mainstream just yet, but NFC is quickly growing and there are a number of free NFC Android apps that take advantage of this wireless tech. And the kinds of functions they can perform is incredibly varied, demonstrating just how versatile NFC already is and how much more versatile it may become in the very near future.

WifiTap WiFi NFC

Instant Wireless Access with WifiTap NFC

You’ve likely had the all too familiar experience of going to a friend’s house, an office or a coffee shop, only to be faced with typing in an incredibly long password to gain access to the Wi-Fi network. You also have do the usual hunt through the Wi-Fi settings page to find the right SSID in the first place. This app completely simplifies the process, because an NFC tag can be placed at the location. When you tap your phone on the tag, it will automatically add the Wi-Fi network to your known list and then your phone will connect automatically. The location will need to have an NFC tag written with the network credentials, but the hope is as the tech becomes more popular, more people will use it and offer it.

Blue NFC

Bluetooth Made Easy with NFC

Did you take an awesome picture with your phone and now you want to share it with your friends? While you could use Internet-based services like Dropbox or even e-mail to send those photos, that may not necessarily be the best solution. Sending the file locally over Bluetooth can be more convenient, except the whole pairing process can be tedious. Like other NFC Android apps, Blue NFC also aims to simplify that process. The NFC tap is used as a “handshake” to pair the two devices and then the Bluetooth protocol is used to actually transfer the file. The app does everything automatically, including enabling Bluetooth, establishing the connection, and disabling Bluetooth upon completion.

NFC Tag Writer & Reader

Connecthings NFC Tag Writer App

Of course, none of this NFC stuff would work if we didn’t have the tags around to use them. This app from Connecthings solves that problem in two ways: it’s both an NFC tag writer and an NFC tag reader. This way, you can create your own NFC tags for storing URLs, SMS, phone numbers, or whatever else. Naturally, the NFC tags can also be rewritten with new data as you see fit. There’s a pre-defined catalog of possible NFC contents that’s easily navigated through the intuitive user interface.

NFC Task Launcher

Launch Any Task with NFC Tags

Many NFC tags effectively work the same way as QR codes, but you’ll want to use NFC Android apps like NFC Task Launcher from Tagstand if you want to do more than that. As its name clearly implies, NFC Task Launcher lets you use NFC tags to launch different tasks on your Android smartphone. A common use, for example, is to place an NFC tag outside of the company conference room. Everyone taps the tag on their way in and this might turn the phone to silent, disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and send all calls to voicemail. Businesses can even set the NFC tag to automatically check people in via Foursquare to their venue!

NFC by MOO

Customizing NFC-Enhanced MOO Business Cards

In an increasingly digital age, business cards may feel like a relic from the past. Moo cards is looking to revitalize the format by releasing a series of business cards with built-in NFC tags. Then, by using this app, the tags can be written with custom information like a URL, phone number, Google Maps location, social network info, contact card, or whatever else. In this way, the NFC tag becomes the “third side” of the business card.

Image credit: LGEPR / Flickr

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Free Baby Learning Apps For Android Devices

Michael Kwan — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:00:28 +0000

For better or for worse, the current generation of children are going to grow up with technology as an integral part of their lives. They’re going to expect to use touchscreens and those multi-touch gestures are going to become second nature. Why, then, would you want to use the old-school approach when you can partake in the variety of baby learning apps that are available for Android smartphones and tablets?

You’re likely already using your Android device to get things done and to stay in shape, so why not spend some quality time with little Lenny or baby Becky by way of some educational apps? It just might be a good idea to have the screen protector and drool guard in place ahead of time. You know, just in case.

Baby Flash Cards Lite

Baby Cortex Baby Flash Cards App

Let’s start with the basics. You might remember seeing those decks of flash cards when you were the young one, helping you expand your vocabulary and gain a better understanding of the world around you. The smarter way to do this for today’s generation is to use digital flash cards instead. As far as baby learning apps go, this is about as simple as it gets. There are a series of images and they’re captioned with what is being depicted. There are over 250 colorful cards and upgrading to the paid version will give you the audio pronunciation of each card. Of course, you could just read the cards to your child yourself.

Baby Learns ABC

Babybus Baby Learns ABC

Before going as far as whole words, perhaps you’d like to start by teaching the alphabet. Admittedly, the Babybus series of baby learning apps isn’t exactly exciting for adults, but it does provide some entertainment value to the kids. The idea is that the little car, apparently driven by a cute panda, drives along the road and collects the letters of the alphabet. Each letter is read as it’s collected. There’s also a part where the panda sings the ABC song while strumming a guitar.

0-10 Numbers Baby Flash Cards

Learning Numbers with Flash Cards

Moving beyond letters, it’s also very important that the baby learns his or her numbers too. This basic flash card series from Teachers Paradise is aimed to do exactly that. The 22 virtual flash cards are meant to be both fun and educational, but recognize that it’s going to be quite basic too. Thankfully, there are also quiz and practice modes to aid in your educational efforts.

Baby Sign and Learn Lite

Baby American Sign Language Android App

You’d be amazed how smart the little ones can be. It has been demonstrated that some children pick up on sign language faster than they pick up verbal speech, so you might want to try your hand (no pun intended) at one of these baby learning apps for sign language. This particular version uses American Sign Language and contains 15 signs that you can teach your baby. You’ll need to upgrade to the full version, which sells for about $3, to unlock the complete set of 300 signs. The interactive quiz helps to solidify your baby’s learnings.

iStoryBooks

Free Children's Story Books for Android

Android devices can be so versatile. You might already be reading e-books on it, but that material might not exactly be appropriate for baby Bobby. Instead, the free story books in this app can be a lot more fun, especially since it even comes with audio. New books are published every two weeks, but you will need to subscribe to the monthly plan if you want access to more premium content books. Some notable titles include Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Three Little Pigs.

Image credit: oxtopus / Flickr

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Free Foreign Language Phrasebook And Translation Apps For Android

Michael Kwan — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:00:45 +0000

Parlez-vous francais? Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Habla español?

There are many things that you’ll want to consider when traveling to a foreign country, like how you can minimize your expenses by booking ahead, but what about actually communicating with the locals? Believe it or not, most people don’t speak English, so you will need to know at least a few phrases in the local tongue. Thankfully, you don’t need to pack along a physical dictionary anymore, because there are tons of translation apps available for Android smartphones and tablets.

Depending on where you go, there’s a good chance that you will not be flooded with omnipresent Internet access, so it’s important to have a foreign language phrasebook app on your phone that can work offline too, just like several of the best Android travel apps that are out there. The phrasebook and dictionary apps listed below are for English to French (and vice versa), but all of the developers also have accompanying apps for a myriad of other languages too. Just have a look at the “More from developer” list in the left sidebar of Google Play when you hit the links provided below.

Movin’App English French Dictionary Free

French English Dictionary by Movin'App

This is a very simple dictionary app that’s supposed to work very simply. You start typing a word in English and it’ll start bringing up the possible French translations. To switch, you tap the directional arrow next to the search field. There are over 60,000 words listed in here and it’s possible to bookmark your favorite words for faster reference. There’s also a text-to-speech feature, so you’ll now how to pronounce the foreign word correctly. The movin’App people also have translation apps for Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Hindi, Norwegian, and more.

DIC-o French – English Offline Dictionary

DIC-o Offline Foreign Language Dictionary

Offering a very similar solution as the one from movin’App, the offline dictionary from DIC-o also lists thousands of different words that can be found via English or French for their corresponding translation. Because it works offline, you can quickly and easily look up words even when you don’t have an Internet connection. And, yes, it does come complete with a pronunciation guide. Other offline dictionaries from DIC-o include ones for Polish, Slovak, Italian, and more.

Codegent Learn French Phrasebook

Offline French Phrasebook for Android by Codegent

While the previous two apps are basically English-French dictionaries, the family of apps from Codegent are a little different; they’re phrasebooks that are organized by category rather than being listed in a pure alphabetical fashion. You can look up basic greetings, numbers, transportation-related phrases, and so on. There are hundreds of common words and phrases in here with a high quality audio recording. The LITE version gets about 200 phrases, while the pro version has over 800 phrases. Codeagent has similar phrasebooks for other languages like Japanese, Korean, German, and Thai.

Learn French with babbel.com

Learn a New Language with Babbel

The translation apps for Android come in a variety of forms. You have your dictionaries and your phrasebooks, but if you really want to gain a fundamental understanding of a foreign language, you have to take the time to learn it. The series of apps from babbel.com may not be quite as robust as something like Rosetta Stone, but they’re a great start. You get thousands of vocabulary words with images, pronunciation, and sentence examples as well as integrated speech recognition for different exercises. The free version gives you the first lesson for each category, but you’ll have to pay beyond that. Other language learning apps from babbel.com include those for Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Indonesian, among others.

Ascendo French English Dictionary

Ascendo Translation Apps

Dubbed the “leading free French English dictionary for Android,” this version from Ascendo boasts over 34,000 translations and examples. Unlike other dictionaries that just list the words, this app comes with the incredibly important verb conjugation utility as well as a phrasebook, full-length text translator, and a vocabulary quiz tool. You will need an Internet connection for the translator, but the other main features work offline. Upgrade ot the paid version to get over 278,000 translations. Ascendo has similar apps for Spanish, German, and Italian.

Image credit: atoach / Flickr

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Everything You Need To Know About Google Keep

Chris Cairns — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:47:35 +0000

We’ve come to rely on Google for a lot of our favorite services. We use Gmail for our email, Google Contacts for our address books, and Google Calendar for our appointments. And now, Google wants to help manage all of your digital sticky notes too in the form of a new product called Google Keep. What is it exactly and how will it improve your productivity?

At its core, Google Keep is a quick note-taking app for Android smartphones and tablets, giving you a quick and easy way to jot down reminders and lists. And everything that you add to your Google Keep is then synchronized across your different devices, because it all gets uploaded automatically to the cloud. If this sounds familiar, it should. Google Keep is fundamentally a competitor to other popular apps like ColorNote and Evernote, except it all ties back in to your existing Google account.

Four Types of Notes

As with Evernote and some other productivity apps for Android, Google Keep gives you a few options for the different kinds of notes that you can take:

Regular notes let you enter whatever text you want, as if you opened up a tiny digital notepad.
Checklists have each individual line of text as an item that can then be checked off upon completion.
Voice notes, depending on your version of Android, will automatically go through the speech-to-text system on the smartphone or tablet, transcribing your dictated note into plain text. The audio file also become available.
Photo notes are simply any picture that you want to take with your phone and the photo can then be annotated with some text.

Curiously, there are some shortcomings. You cannot combine a regular text note with a checklist into a single item, for instance, but the photos can be added to nearly any kind of note. However, photo notes (at this time) require you to take a new picture, rather than giving you the option of getting something from your existing gallery. This might change in a future update, but that’s how it stands right now.

Google Keep Android App with Homescreen Widget

You can choose between several different colors to help color-code your notes and, within the Android app itself, you can choose between single-column or multi-column view. While it is possible to use the search (magnifying glass icon in the top-right) to look for specific text strings within the various entries, there’s no categorization or tag system. Again, this might change in the future. When you’re done with a note, you can “archive” it rather than completely “delete” it, giving you access to old notes if needed.

Homescreen Widget

In addition to the main Android app, there’s also a homescreen widget for Google Keep. The widget can be resized, but it takes up a minimum of a 2×2 spot on your home screen. At the top of the widget are four quick-access shortcuts to the four different types of notes and below that is a full list of the different Google Keep entries. Like the widget you may already use for Gmail or Google Calendar, the list here is also scrollable and it maintains the color-coding from the main app. Longer notes are truncated, but tapping on any given note will load that note within the main Google Keep app for updates and revisions.

If you are running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean or above, the Google Keep widget can also be placed on the lock screen.

Integration with Google Drive

Web-Based Interface for Google Keep

The entire Google Keep system is integrated with the Google Drive cloud storage system. Every note taken on any of your Android devices, as mentioned above, will be synchronized to your Google Drive. This includes a web-based interface at http://drive.google.com/keep. Just like the mobile app, the desktop version can also be used in either single-column or multi-column view. The color-coding isn’t as pronounced, using just a strip rather than the whole note, but it is there.

The audio notes are available through the web-based Google Drive interface for Google Keep, but the audio file is not playable from directly within the browser. Instead, the 3GPP file must be downloaded locally.

Keeping Organized on the Go

Google Keep is still in its relative infancy, but it is already showing a lot of promise. The ability to take multiple types of notes and have them all backed up via Google Drive is appealing. The hope is that even heavier Google integration is on the way, just like how Tasks found its way into Calendar and Gmail.

RSS Alternatives To Getting Your Daily News

Michael Kwan — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 12:00:25 +0000

Let’s go back to the earlier days of the Internet. Back then, you may have bookmarked a handful of your favorite sites and you’d go about visiting them individually over the course of your day to see what’s new. Then, a miraculous new technology hit the scene called RSS. Standing for Really Simple Syndication, it gave you a much simpler way to amalgamate all the content across all these sites, getting an automatic notification when there was anything new to be read.

I still RSS quite heavily to this day, but you may have heard that Google Reader is going to be shut down this summer. Many of us have come to rely on Google Reader, and while we could move on to other RSS feed readers, perhaps it’s time we reconsider how we get our daily news. Going beyond the “traditional” feed, perhaps it’s time we start looking at some RSS alternatives to getting our daily dose of news and other web content.

Twitter Clients

You could refer to social media in general, turning to your friends to see what they’re posting on Google+ or Facebook, but I feel that Twitter is still one of the best sources of up-to-the-minute news. You get the random shares from the people you follow, but you could use one of the many Twitter clients (HootSuite is a personal favorite of mine) to track certain keywords and hashtags too. You can even filter your stream to look for links posted by the people you follow. This is hardly a perfect solution, particularly if you follow thousands of Twitter feeds, but it’s good way to keep your finger on the pulse of the Internet.

Paper.li

Automatic Paper.li Newspapers Generated Daily

What if you don’t want to actively monitor what’s happening with your Twitter buddies? Paper.li effectively lets you set up a custom newspaper on the topics of your choosing. It connects to your different social networks and scours the web for content that may interest you, processing millions of posts and articles. You can choose the sources, including RSS feeds, and then Paper.li will generate a daily digest for you. It won’t capture everything, of course, but the automated curation should provide you with a good variety of content to enjoy. Better still, you can automatically share your Paper.li newspaper with your friends and followers too.

IFTTT + Pocket

There’s a huge community of IFTTT (If This Then That) users that are constantly baking up new recipes. The idea is that you can “create powerful connections with one simple statement.” You set up certain channels as your triggers and then you associate those triggers with actions. There’s no real limit to how you can use this. Perhaps you want to follow every story on the Vancouver Canucks. You can use ESPN as the source, getting triggered when they reference the Canucks. The action can then be to save the article to Pocket, the service you may have previously known as Read It Later. You can achieve the same thing with Instapaper or any number of other possibilities.

You may encounter quite the danger of falling down the bottomless rabbit hole when you dive into Reddit, but it’s a fantastic way of keeping up with the most popular stories on the Internet. You can look into any number of “subreddits” like gaming, technology or science, reading the most up-voted stories related to that topic. There are a lot of random memes and not so useful content on Reddit, but this is a great way to stay in the know when it comes to what people are talking about on the web.

Pulse News

Pulse News Web Interface

Along with Flipboard, Feedly, and other magazine style RSS reader apps, Pulse News isn’t really a complete departure from the traditional RSS format. The difference is you get a different layout, typically with a more visual focus. You can still subscribe to your favorite feeds, but one of the newer features is called Pulse Highlights. By connecting to your Facebook account, you can then see what posts have been “highlighted” by your friends and you can do the same in return. This way, you get both your personalized news by way of RSS subscriptions, but also social news by way of your online friends.

Image credit: NS Newsflash / Flickr

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Free Business Card Scanner Apps For iPhone

Chris Cairns — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:39:55 +0000

We’ve come to rely heavily on digital communication. I don’t remember too many phone numbers anymore, because I just assume that they’re saved in my Google Contacts for retrieval on an as-needed basis. But what about when you meet someone in person and exchange business cards? It used to be that you would then have to go back to your computer and manually enter all that contact information. There has to be an easier way. And there is. In fact, there are several free business card scanner apps for the iPhone that completely streamline this process, automatically entering phone numbers, companies, job titles, email addresses, and more with just a simple snap of the iPhone camera.

From there, you can easily use a range of instant messenger clients on your iPhone to keep in touch. You don’t have to worry about losing that stack of printed business cards when you’re traveling either, because you can use any number of methods to back up your iPhone contact list.

CardMunch Business Card Reader

CardMunch with LinkedIn Integration

On the one hand, you get a fully functional business card scanner here with the CardMunch app. You simply align the paper business card within the on-screen box and then take a picture of the business card from within the app. It will then convert that contact information into an address book contact. Where this goes further is that you can then add these contacts as connectsion on LinkedIn, pulling in the relevant profile information, common connections, and work history.

CamCard Free

CamCard App for iPhone

With CamCard, you can read a business card and then save the resulting information instantly to your iPhone contacts lists. It will then synchronize the card data across smartphones, tablets, computers, and the web app. The free version is ad-supported and, as long as you register your account, you can have up to 100 free cards to start and an additional three more cards each week. If you need to store more contacts than that, the $2.99 paid version might be a better option. You also get the AR card feature.

WorldCard Mobile Lite

Multiple Language Support with WorldCard Mobile

There are several different apps out there that utilize optical character recognition (OCR) technology, automatically recognizing the printed text and importing that information in your phone’s contact list. Unlike other free business card scanner apps, though, WorldCard Mobile supports recognition in 16 different languages, including French, Italian, Greek, Russian, and Slovak. The free version is very limited, though, leaving you with just five scans in the first week and one more each subsequent week. The paid version is $6.99.

ScanBizCards Lite

ScanBizCards Scans Business Cards

As with other similar apps, this one will let you utilize the OCR technology to recognize the contact information on the paper business card, but there’s also the option to submit the data for 100% accurate human transcription. The app also boasts cloud backup, support for 21 languages, support for double-sided cards, image cropping, contact merging, group assignments, and the ability to automatically send an email with your vCard attached. Further functionality can be unlocked with the $6.99 paid app.

Evernote Hello

Evernote Hello Business Card Scanner

One of the most popular productivity apps on the iPhone has to be Evernote, so it really shouldn’t be all that surprising that if you want a free business card scanner app on your iPhone, the people at Evernote should have a solution for you too. It’s called Evernote Hello and it ties right into your existing Evernote account. In addition to scanning business cards, this app also lets you create quick profiles from LinkedIn, Facebook, calendar appointments, or your address book.

Yolu Card Reader

Yolu Card Reader Supports Chinese, Japanese, and Korean