Locky's English Playground: Technology & News: Free Apps To Recommend Part 1

Is our English Playground turning into a mobile technology blog? Nope, but really, mobile technology has become my recent favourite topic of research. Anyway, the election just finished in Hong Kong yesterday was boring, stock market has been quiet, Toy Story Playland hasn't officially opened, so, might as well return to the funniest topic!

So continuing this morning's 2am entry Living & Technology: Lithium Battery Care, Your Phones and Cameras, I mentioned that I'm recommending some apps for you guys, including some games and the ones which will help to lengthen your battery lifespan, and here they are!!!!!

Android Only

Angry Birds (Original, Rio, Seasons)

Image from digitaltrends

Image from software2tech

Image from http://www.symbiantweet

First of all, yes, Angry Birds games by Rovio, but wouldn't it be a bit out to recommend them now? Nope, because there are a lot of iPhone users out there not knowing that these games are free on Android phones. Those free versions on iPhone are the trial versions, but these on Android are FREE FULL versions! Download here: Original, Rio, Seasons.

TouchTalk

TouchTalk is a real-time translator. You can choose which language as input and which language as output, and then it will translate that for you right away. I haven't checked with all the languages, but English <--> Mandarin and English <--> Japanese are quite accurate! Fun to play with!

JuiceDefender

JuiceDefender is a software which helps you save battery power, which is an important app addressing to the battery drain issue. It has pay and free versions. The free version offers limited functionality but are good enough for most standard users of smartphones. It also simplifies the process quite a bit by offering less. If you want to get full control of the power-saving policy, then you will need to buy the Ultimate version.

Image from Android Market

Battery Monitor 3 (free)

Battery Monitor 3 provides great control for those who actually knows the lithium batteries. You can set an alarm to remind you when the upper limit and the lower limit have been reached when recharging and discharging respectively. The upper limit and lower limit are adjustable at your own will. I set the upper limit at 93%, so I will not forget to remove the charger.

iPhone Only

Find My iPhone

Find My iPhone is a must have for those of you who have iPhone. There has been cases which the owners of the stolen iPhones have been successfully recovered because of this app. It is a free app which requires GPS for accurate positioning.

Audiobooks

Audiobooks offers almost 3000 free audiobooks for listening. English Playground readers, this is a must-have for your listening practice.

Available on Android & iPhone

LINE (Android, iPhone)

Whatsapps' strongest competitor, LINE took the world by surprise by bringing down Whatsapp from the top position of the most popular app chart on App Store. No wonder there are rumours that LINE is charging its users secretly, except that it DOESN'T!!! App Store didn't want to take any chance and so LINE was removed from it while Android Market remains unmoved by the rumour. Now LINE is back on App Store, proving that the rumours are untrue and it was only a false alarm, or that some other companies were freaking out and had to come up with something to bring LINE down. Anyway, LINE is kind of like Viber-and-Whatsapp-in-1, combining free messaging and free calls, and it is more fun than Whatsapp to use! Emoji and Stickers adds fun to messaging and Shake it! searching users nearby (making connection will still need approval by the other end-users, so it is pretty safe). Then just like Whatsapp, Group chats, individual chats are available, but unlike Whatsapp, you can add your own profile photo to show your friends. And the most competitive point about LINE? It is FREE!!!!! Battery drains faster because of using LINE? I don't think so! I use it to make free calls to my mum in Ireland and it was roughly the same as making normal calls in terms of battery usage.

Vlingo (Android, iPhone)

If you don't want to wait for an iPhone 4S upgrade or Siri to start including Hong Kong's data in its server, then Vlingo is your answer. Other than the fact that Vlingo doesn't really talk back to you and it has to follow certain pattern in your sentence structure when giving commands, Vlingo can almost do whatever Siri can. Vlingo on iPhone has 3 functions missing on iOS compared to Android, 1) to "Open" apps through voice command, 2) integration to the Voice Input for the Android phone into all typing apps, including Whatsapp, LINE, Facebook, etc. 3) Driving Mode (with simulated voice similar to that of Siri), allowing Vlingo to talk to you, read you incoming notification messages and take your voice commands.

Dropbox (Android, iPhone)

Monday, 7 November 2011

Technology & News: Free Apps To Recommend Part 1

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