SynapseIndia 20 best Android Mobile Apps and games this week

APPS

HERE for Android Beta (Free)
Nokia – the bit that wasn’t bought by Microsoft, obviously – has opened up its HERE maps and navigation to all Android users running a recent version of Google’s software, rather than just Samsung owners. It’s a polished mapping app with offline navigation, public transport info and live traffic – the latter in more than 40 countries so far. The beta is available from Nokia’s site.

Inbox by Gmail (Free)
This is Google’s new email app, sitting alongside Gmail rather than replacing it. For now, it’s invitation-only – but you can request one – with features aiming to declutter your inbox by grouping similar messages together, from travel details to receipts and promotions. Worth trying, when you get the opportunity.

Autodesk SketchBook (Free + IAP)
Apple’s iPad has tended to hog the limelight when it comes to artists and illustrators working on tablets, but Android is building up its own library of drawing and painting apps too. Autodesk SketchBook is one of the best yet, with plenty of depth yet an accessible interface for scribblers like me.

Skype Qik (Free)
In the early days of the app store era, Qik was a video livestreaming app that got plenty of hype. Skype bought it in 2011, then shut it down earlier this year, ahead of a relaunch this month. The app is different now though: more about creating groups then pinging video messages between one another, with the clips automatically deleted after two weeks. It’s fun, but faces a big challenge taking on Snapchat.

Lumific – Photo Gallery (Free)
Want more features than Android’s default photos app offers? Lumific is one of the apps jostling for attention on the platform and promising to provide them. It’s not for control freaks, since it automatically “beautifies” your photos, including automatically straightening and cropping them. But it could be a time-saver for keen mobile photographers.

Snowball Beta (Free)
Another beta which – disclosure – I haven’t been able to try yet, either because it’s country-locked or my devices aren’t compatible. But it looks potentially useful: an app that aggregates various social networks and messaging apps into one place: Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Line, Twitter and Hangouts among others now, with Skype and Viber to follow. Worth watching.

Clue – Period Tracker (Free)
There are quite a few menstrual cycle-tracking apps available now, but Clue looks like one of the easiest to use, with effective design and plenty of features. Its also suitable for various uses: general period tracking, as well as keeping tabs on sex and cervical fluid if you’re trying to get pregnant.

Anki Drive (Free)
Anki Drive’s big unveiling during Apple’s WWDC keynote in 2013 was a trifle strange, but the product itself is very fun: an app-controlled, thoroughly modern take on Scalextric. It’s now available for Android too, with the same choice of battle and race modes to compete against people on the physical track.

Shutter by StreamNation (Free)
Finally, more photography, with the schtick here being that all your photos are stored on StreamNation’s servers rather than on your device – although they can be downloaded again to view offline. It supports videos too, with social networks plumbed in for online sharing.

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Skylanders Trap Team for Android.

GAMES

Skylanders Trap Team (Free + IAP)
You need a recent Android device – a list is provided on the Google Play store – and 2.5GB of free space to install the new Skylanders team, but it’s worth the hassle. This is a proper, full Skylanders game, complete with its own joypad and tablet stand to use with the Skylanders figures. New to the game? It’s a monster-battling fest aimed at children, with new features including the ability to trap beasts then play as them.

République (£1.86 + IAP)
République is another example of the kind of game proving that tablets can provide deep, satisfying console-style gaming as well as casual fun. Billed as a stealth-action game, it sees you exploring a beautifully-realised world dodging enemies and solving puzzles, working your way through three carefully-plotted episodes – the second and third are the in-app purchases. Brilliant.

New Words With Friends (Free + IAP)
Scrabble-like digital board game Words With Friends is five years old, making it one of the grizzled veterans of the Google Play store. But this is a brand new, separate version from its publisher Zynga, with better features for finding opponents, more stats on how you’ve played and a dictionary to help find top-scoring words.

Lord of the Rings: Legends (Free + IAP)
Publisher Kabam’s game based on The Hobbit has been a big hit on smartphones and tablets, so now it’s turning its attention to Lord of the Rings. Based on the films and books, it sees you exploring Tolkien’s universe fighting, questing and falling in with a host of familiar characters. As with past Kabam titles, though, the key will be updates over the coming months (and even years) to add more content.

Botanicula (£3.90)
One of the most creative, well-crafted games you’ll play on Android this year, Botanicula has charming visuals and sound, wrapped around a plot involving tree-creatures, seeds and parasites. It’s the opposite of twitch gaming: something to relax with on the sofa. And marvellous for it.

Galaxy on Fire – Alliances (Free + IAP)
The first Galaxy on Fire game was an engrossing space adventure full of flying, fighting and trading. This newer game – just launched globally after being tested in a few countries – is set in the same universe. But it’s more of a massively multiplayer game, as you explore and conquer your way through the galaxy, battling other players.

Pixel People (Free + IAP)
At first, this seems a bit simple: like a cut-down SimCity where you build a town and add residents, before “splicing” them together to create new professions. But once it sinks its tentacles into you, this is one of the more addictive mobile strategy games in recent memory, with the professions aspect bringing a collect-‘em’all dynamic that you’ll find hard to break.

Sentinel 4: Dark Star (£1.99 + IAP)
No Android roundup would be complete without at least one tower defence game, and Sentinel 4 is a very good one indeed. Set on an alien planet – no earthbound orcs and wizards here – it sees you defending your base in 26 carefully-constructed maps, with a lot of flexibility for customising your arsenal in response to each level’s intricacies.

SynapseIndia Top 10 steps towards making your mobile apps more accessible

Here are 10 starting points.

1 Read up on the subject
You’re not starting with a blank page: there is some good material online offering advice – some general and some more technical – on making accessible apps. Apple and Research in Motion both have accessibility guides for iOS and BlackBerry developers respectively, while two sites called Designing for Accessibility and Android Accessibility offer specific advice for Android developers.

A blog post by developer Matt Gemmell, called Accessibility for iPhone and iPad Apps, is also an excellent read as a primer on the subject – with general principles that hold true beyond Apple devices.

2 Talk to people with accessibility needs
Reading about accessibility is one thing, but talking to people who have access needs is also an invaluable way to open your eyes to some of the common mistakes made by apps currently. This doesn’t need to be a succession of focus groups if you’re a small company: sitting down with friends or friends-of-friends with access needs and asking them about the frustrations they encounter using their phones is a good start.

Talk to some of the charities and campaigning groups in these areas too: they are likely to have materials and examples of best practices, and perhaps relevant events.

3 Use some of the key accessibility technologies yourself
First-hand experience can also be hugely useful for an app developer looking to make their products more accessible. For example, if you’re working on iOS apps, spend a bit of time using Apple’s accessibility features, particularly the VoiceOver screen reader that’s built in to iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.
Use it with your own apps and those of other developers, and understand how features like its “Rotor” virtual control work. When testing your apps during their development, make sure you test with this too. And the same goes for other screen readers and similar features on Android, BlackBerry and other platforms.

4 Don’t just focus on screen readers
Yes, getting hands-on with VoiceOver and other screen reading technologies is important, but don’t make the mistake of thinking accessibility is just about making apps usable for people who are blind or partially sighted. The range of impairments, such as deafness and colour blindness, require a range of solutions; if you start thinking of accessibility in terms of people with cognitive disabilities, people whose literacy skills are lacking and older mobile users – to name but three groups – you’ll realise that making an app that interacts well with screen readers is just one step towards accessibility rather than the whole journey.

5 Talk human, not programmer
This is a great example of how addressing accessibility can actually benefit all users, not just those with specific disabilities. So many apps continue to use unnatural language when communicating with their users: menu options, feedback and/or error messages that make perfect sense to a developer, but may baffle less technical users and people with cognitive disabilities.

Sorting this problem out should be something that happens during the testing process for an app, whether that’s full-scale user tests or simply letting your friends and family have a go and asking what they think. Natural, human language feedback is the goal.

6 Think about user expectations
It’s understandable when developers and designers want to create brand-new, whizzy user interfaces for their apps rather than copy what’s gone before. Sometimes, that can be an accessibility barrier. Users will come to apps with expectations based on factors including the platform they’re on (how other iPhone/Android/BlackBerry apps work) and the app category (how other news/social/games apps work).

Which isn’t to say developers should be slavishly copying their rivals or not trying to innovate. It’s more about considering whether people will intuitively swipe and tap in the way you want them to – and if not, what you need to do to help them learn your interface and not be frustrated.

7 Simplify wherever possible
Another accessibility principle with benefits beyond any particular group of users is simplicity. Cramming features, menus and on-screen prompts into an application is an easy road to go down, especially when you’re the developer, and so know your way around them.

Less options, clearer prompts and a well-defined pathway around the application are improvements that will pay off across the board, but they’ll be particularly appreciated by people using screen-reading technology, or just people who are fairly new to smartphones and apps.

8 Consider your colours
Two facts. One: the most common form of colour blindness is the red/green variant, where people have trouble distinguishing between those two colours. Two: a lot of mobile games still rely on players being able to differentiate between red and green enemies or objects in order to succeed. The issue here is obvious.

Puzzle games are a particular bugbear for people with colour-blindness, as they so often rely on colours to differentiate same-shaped objects, whether jewels, bricks or balls. But it’s not just games that can pose problems for this group of users: other apps’ use of colour for buttons, menus and text can also cause needless frustration.

9 Testing, testing
Talked to people with accessibility needs for point two? Test with them before (and after) your app is released. On iOS, developers are using services like TestFlight to put beta versions of their apps into the hands of testers before submitting them to Apple for approval – a golden opportunity to find out early if your app is falling short.

Meanwhile, once an app is released, it’s important to keep testing it, especially when there’s an update for the operating systems that it’s available for. Accessibility technology, and features in iOS, Android and the rest, are evolving steadily, so even if your app was accessible when it was released, don’t assume it can’t be improved after that point.

10 Remember your lessons
Assuming you’re planning to build more than one app in the coming months and years, it makes sense to set down some internal accessibility guidelines for future use. There’s a very good blog post by freelance user access consultant Henny Swan with some advice on this score.

She says she prefers to break down general mobile accessibility guidelines into five roles: design, develop, content, interaction and devices. “There is of course a crossover between roles, but the ultimate responsibility has to stop somewhere. Go on, be brave,” she writes. Swan also suggests that guidelines can apply across mobile and web development, where a company is working on both.

SynapseIndia No, Apple hasn’t said it will share a ‘fingerprint database’ with the NSA Apps

The most recent “gracious, this must be genuine on the grounds that we read it some place” is that “Apple is going to impart its unique mark database gathered by the iphone 5s with the National Security Agency”. Rude awakening: the article asserting this originates from a conservative” “parody” site. Why are individuals confounded? Since the parody’s gravely executed.

Many individuals read it yet didn’t understand that the parody site was a parody site. (I’ve had no less than one email directing excitedly toward it, and not humorously.) This isn’t shocking, on the grounds that the thing about parody is that you either need to lay it on with a trowel, or get so near to the core (eg The Thick Of It) that its indistinct from agonizing reality. It’s not difficult to do severely. Furthermore the site being referred to, National Report, does it truly gravely. It’s similar to Fox News, yet with the jokes and actualities taken out.

Indeed along these lines, you’d trust individuals who read such “stories” may think a bit. Alternately that they may even take a gander at different features on the site, and miracle if a site which has a story featured “Apple iphone 5s Fingerprint Data To Be Shared With NSA” additionally has one featured “Packers Embarrassing Loss to Bengals Linked To Green Bay Bridge Collapse” and “Taurus Firearms Company Introduces The New Trayvon PK-10 or ‘Perp-Killer'” is totally genuine. (It isn’t really amusing, particularly the last feature; in case you’re effectively outraged, don’t read the story that runs with it. Be that as it may that is an alternate matter.)

How about we recap what we do think about the iphone 5s’ finger impression framework.

• First: Apple says the iphone 5s doesn’t store an “unique finger impression database”. Its “Touch ID” stores a cryptographically hashed numerical representation of the example of each one finger that you decide to enlist on it. You don’t enroll any fingerprints at all in the event that you would prefer not to.

Switching the cryptographic hash to deliver a copy of the first unique finger impression may be unthinkable, contingent upon how great the encryption is. Regardless of the fact that the NSA has some way or another gotten in and debilitated the encryption utilized (something it has done somewhere else), that doesn’t make turning around the hash insignificant – simply less abate.

• Second, Apple says that the information is put away in a “protected enclave” inside the A7 chip on the telephone. There doesn’t appear to be any approach to get that hash out; on the off chance that you include a hashed print into the “enclave”, you can get out a yes/no response for whether it matches any put away hashes. Be that as it may it is extremely unlikely yet known to turn around from the hashed representation to anything like your unique finger impression. (The Chaos Computer Club, furthermore Lookout Security, have figured out how to farce the Touch ID framework by lifting an unique finger impression from a glass surface, making a high-determination duplicate and afterward sticking that on their finger. That implies they’ve broken into the framework, yet not that they’ve got the information out.)

• Third, the NSA will as of now have admittance to your fingerprints in case you’re an American native of driving age with an auto (you give fingerprints to a driving permit) or in case you’re a remote resident who has gone by the US. The FBI additionally keeps up a database of fingerprints in the US. Not one or the other needs to turn around them out of telephones.

• Fourth, if the NSA or FBI or other law implementation organization needed to know the responsibility for telephone, it could do it significantly more effectively than by turning around a cryptographically hashed representation of the holder’s unique mark (actually accepting that its conceivable) just by subpoenaing administrator records for the SIM and IMEI (remarkable gadget number) connected with the telephone. Those would let it know where the manager had been, and when and where they had made telephones calls. (Keep in mind the Verizon metadata, which kicked this off? It’s that.) Remember The Wire? No unique finger impression hashes included. Bunches of telephones and pagers, however.

• Fifth, while Apple hasn’t said that the unique finger impression framework is completely secure (it puts the shot of an arbitrary unregistered finger impression opening the gadget at 1 in 50,000, which is five times better than a four-digit PIN), it has underscored that the information doesn’t go off the gadget, isn’t went down, isn’t synchronized to icloud.

It hasn’t said that it won’t offer it to the NSA. Be that as it may then, none of the enormous engineering organizations (Microsoft, Google, Apple, and so on) needs to say the NSA-word in discussing new gadgets or administrations, in light of the fact that that draws in the inquiry of “so what amount did you impart before?”, which rapidly transforms into a “Have you quit beating your wife and imparting the feature to the NSA?” sort of examination.

Saying “it stays on the gadget” is their best choice here. That is not an ensure that if the US powers seize a gadget, and for reasons unknown need to have the capacity to figure out the fingerprints, that Apple won’t be obliged to work with them. Anyhow turning around cryptographic hashes is hard; US police have officially whined about the trouble of doing it on prior Apple gadgets, and there’s no motivation to think the “enclave” will be any less secure.

Presently, to subtle elements. The article at National Review cases to quote somebody called “Tim Richardson” who it says is “Locale Manager of Apple’s North America Marketing Department” as saying

“Totally the databases will be fused. This entire ‘finger impression filter’ thought began from somebody in our Government. They simply didn’t hope to be outed by Snowden.”

Truth: there’s no such individual working for Apple in any part. What’s more it doesn’t have a “North America Marketing Department”.

Hold up, there’s additional:

“He went onto [sic] clarify that the NSA and FBI have been gathering an extraordinary database for over a year now to use with the new Apple innovation. Fingerprints from everywhere throughout the country. Frosty cases. Outlaws of the law. Missing persons.”

As pointed out over, the FBI has an exquisite huge unique finger impression database, and the NSA can without much of a stretch figure out where individuals have been whether it needs to.

Obviously the piece of information that its parody – or “parody” – comes in the HILARIOUS quote toward the end, citing “an Apple client we talked with”: “I like the though

 

SynapseIndia Mobile 30 Best Android apps this week

Xbox SmartGlass (Free)

Launched by Microsoft, this is an official companion app for its Xbox 360 console, enabling you to control the device from your Android smartphone – alas, not tablets for now. The app can control TV shows and films, music, web browsing and other features of the console, and in time will also be usable as a second screen for games.

Britannica Kids apps (£1.24 each)

There are actually nine brand-new Britannica Kids apps available for Android. I’m including them as one entry. The nine apps cover the solar system, Aztec empire, dinosaurs, knights and castles, ancient Rome, snakes, rainforests, volcanoes and ancient Egypt. Their content is a mixture of text, images and interactivity, all aimed at children.

Amazon Cloud Drive Photos (Free)

Amazon has extended its Cloud Drive storage service out with a new app focusing on photos. It offers 5GB of storage (for free) to store images in, and access them from Android devices as well as computers. It supports both phones and tablets, and can share to Facebook and email.

18 Months (Free)

This is the official app for Calvin Harris’ new album 18 Months, complete with a nifty feature to play every track in full. It requires some work though: dancing. Well, moving your Android smartphone, anyway: the idea is that by dancing (or waggling the handset) you keep the song playing. Fun and innovative.

Snapchat (Free)

Snapchat bills itself as “the first real-time picture chatting app”, and has been doing rather well on iOS, where its users have shared more than 1bn photos. The idea: send photos to friends with a built-in time limit up to 10 seconds. The photo then wipes itself off the recipient’s handset. Ideal for sexting people you don’t quite trust, but there must be a few other uses too.

The xx (Free)

The xx have released a stylish app that lives up to their latest album Coexist, offering “HD Visualiser videos” for every track on the album for fans who own it digitally, as well as interactive artwork, news and notifications from the band, official music videos, lyrics and ticketing info.

Bamboo Paper (Free)

This app is the work of Wacom, and is designed to work with its Bamboo Stylus accessory. Promising “note taking on your smartphone made easy”, it involves scribbling sketches or writing notes which can then be flipped through. Made for Android smartphones, it (kind of) brings them the functionality seen in Samsung’s Galaxy Note devices. The stylus costs around £25.

Rockford’s Musical Audiobooks (Free / £2.99)

And more numerical cheating here, since there are four Rockford’s Musical Audiobook apps: chapters one to four of children’s story Rockford’s Rock Opera, with the first available for free, and the other three chapters costing £2.99 each. It’s an audiobook with an hour of narrated story, as well as music and pictures. Read more on the aims behind it here.

Belkin MediaPlay (Free)

Belkin’s new Android app builds on the myTwonky technology, with the aim of helping you pipe films and music from your Android device to a connected TV (via its browser), or play content from your home library on your smartphone or tablet.

Game Reward Mobile App (Free)

British games retailer Game has had some rough times in 2012, but apps are forming part of its comeback strategy. This ties into Game’s loyalty programme, helping you earn points on purchases from the stores, while also offering recommendations. If you add your console gamertags, there may be other “cool stuff” in the future too.

Photo Warp+ (Free)

More than 14m people have downloaded developer Tonuzaba Entertainment’s first Photo Warp app, so this sequel should find a healthy audience. It’s all about, yes, warping photos, with a range of effects to play merry havoc with images.

Find a Tradesman (Free)

This is definitely one of the most useful apps in this week’s lineup: released by the Rated People website, it helps you dig into its directory of tradesmen for home improvement jobs, posting what you need done and getting responses from companies or people who can help.

BB – Give Thanks (£2.47)

The Berenstain Bears books have a firm following among several generations of Christian parents, and they’re being digitised as apps by Oceanhouse Media book-by-book. This one focuses on Thanksgiving, with voice narration, audio and words highlighted as they’re read out, to help early readers.

HotUKDeals – Official (Free)

So called because there seem to be plenty of unofficial Android apps pulling down listings from the UK’s deals’n’vouchers website. This is its official app, offering vouchers from the likes of Asda, Tesco, Domino’s Pizza and Sainsbury’s, filtered by location. You can also comment on the offers and tip those you find in the real world.

Insync for Android (£1.49)

Insync’s new app ties in to the Google Drive service, to access documents and other files stored in Google’s cloud service, upload new ones, and share with friends and colleagues. All of which you can do in the official Google Drive service. Insync claims a host of additional features though, from exporting files to the SD card in your device, to saving folders for offline use, and streaming music or video files.

Antengo Classifieds – Tablet (Free)

The native Android tablet apps are coming, as Google encourages developers to think harder about their larger-screened software. Antengo claims to be “reinventing classified listings” in the US, with more than 2m items in its classifieds directory, and an app designed for tablets.

Flip Launcher (Free)

This is a smartphone app for power Android users who want to save a few precious seconds when navigating to and opening specific apps and shortcuts. The idea here: you flip to them, having set up to 24 as your designated flips.

The Montblanc Worldsecond (Free)

Luxury watchmaker Montblanc is working on an interesting digital marketing campaign that aims to get people around the world taking photos at the same instant, then making them available to browse. This app helps you do that, with four Instagram-ish filters to apply, uploading pics to the Montblanc Worldsecond site, as well as (if you choose) to Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Goalmaster | Goal Tracker (Free)

This is a simple but potentially-useful app focused on tracking goals – of the personal motivation kind, rather than the football kind. You can create entries for your ambitions, then analyse your progress, and share your success (hopefully) on Facebook.

SynapseIndia 20 best iPhone and iPad apps and games this week

APPS

Crumb: Ruby Tandoh Bakes (£2.49)
Does Britain’s obsession with baking have to end with the climax of Great British Bake Off? Of course it doesn’t. This app from Random House features previous GBBO finalist Ruby Tandoh, with 45 baking recipes taking in loaves, muffins and cream buns. It’s very well presented too: with step-by-step instructions and photography to (hopefully) make sure your bakes are suitably great.
iPhone / iPad

Flickr for iPad (Free)
It took a while, but photo-sharing service Flickr finally has a dedicated iPad app – released as a universal update to its existing iPhone version. It’s the Flickr users know (and often love) from its last desktop revamp, complete with full-screen images and a good large-touchscreen interface.
iPad (already on iPhone)

Inbox by Gmail (Free)
This is Google’s new email app, sitting alongside Gmail rather than replacing it. For now, it’s invitation-only – but you can request one – with features aiming to declutter your inbox by grouping similar messages together, from travel details to receipts and promotions. Worth trying, when you get the opportunity.
iPhone

Toca Boo (£1.99)
Kid-apps developer Toca Boca is on a fine run of creative, playful children’s apps, and Toca Boo is one of its best yet. It’s a Halloween-themed app that sees you chasing a family around their house dressed as a ghost, hiding behind furniture, then jumping out and giving them frights. Marvellously-spooky fun for children of all ages.
iPhone / iPad

Fort McMoney (Free)
This is a fascinating interactive TV project from Canada, exploring issues around energy and conservation through the lens of a town in Alberta. Your job is to play mayor, talking to citizens and taking decisions that will affect its future. Described as a “documentary game”, it’s technically innovative and thought-provoking.
iPad

Rooms (Free)
For now, Rooms is a ‘try this and see what you think’ recommendation, not a ‘this is really good’ recommendation – it’s too early to tell. The idea is a new, mobile-only way to create chat-rooms for posting text, photos and videos with friends, privately. Well, friends with iPhones, anyway, until an Android version comes out.
iPhone

Timeline Nelson (£6.99)
This is the latest history app from publisher Ballista Digital, co-founded by historian and TV presenter Dan Snow. It focuses on Lord Nelson and the British Navy, with plenty of source material thanks to a partnership with London’s National Maritime Museum. There’s lots to explore, from audio clips, videos and images to an interactive map of sea battles.
iPad

Pixelmator (£2.99)
If you want more from a photo-editing app than simple filters and cropping, Pixelmator may be just the thing. It’s a powerful yet easy-to-use image-editing app with more retouching tools than you can shake a (paintbrush) stick at, tapping Apple’s iCloud service to run across devices.
iPad

Google News & Weather (Free)
Google’s other new app this month came out without the same kind of fuss as for Inbox, but it could find an even bigger audience. It aggregates news and weather unfussily, helping you swipe between categories then tap on headlines to read them. Good for quick browsing when out and about.
iPhone / iPad

TeleStory (£1.99)
Worried about your children spending too much time on the sofa watching TV? This app gets them up and about filming their own shows: an exercise in creative storytelling with plenty of themes and animations to get them started. Clever technology, but worthy aims too. And its own “global storytelling network” helps them get inspiration from other children too.
iPhone / iPad

Angry Birds Transformers ditches bird-flinging for stomping and shooting.

GAMES

Angry Birds Transformers (Free + IAP)
The latest branded Angry Birds game is actually one of the most innovative in terms of its gameplay: bird-slinging is out, and stompy robots shooting and transforming into cars is very much in. It’s freemium, so expect timers and energy bars, but the game itself is fun. Read our full review for more details on that.
iPhone / iPad

Best Fiends (Free + IAP)
There’s an Angry Birds connection to puzzle-battler game Best Fiends: some of its developer Seriously’s staff used to work at Rovio. This is very good, though: a game where you take little beasties to battle noxious slugs through match-three action, with your characters levelling up as they go. It’s Pokemon meets Puzzle & Dragons, with impressive production values.
iPhone / iPad

Skylanders Trap Team (Free + IAP)
This is a proper, full Skylanders game, complete with its own joypad and tablet stand to use with the Skylanders figures. New to the game? It’s a monster-battling fest aimed at children, with new features including the ability to trap beasts then play as them. You’ll need to buy the tablet starter pack to play the full game, so it’s an intriguing test of whether mobile gamers will pay console prices.
iPad

Crimsonland HD (Free + IAP)
Can dual-stick shooters work well on touchscreen devices without sticks? Actually yes. Several games have proved it in the past, and Crimsonland HD is the latest. It’s an addictive monster-fest with a comfortingly-retro feel, complete with an interesting pay-what-you-like model to unlock the full game (assuming that you like paying either £2.99, £5.99 or £10.49).
iPhone / iPad

New Words With Friends (Free + IAP)
Scrabble-like digital board game Words With Friends is five years old, making it one of the grizzled veterans of the App Store. But this is a brand new, separate version from its publisher Zynga, with better features for finding opponents, more stats on how you’ve played and a dictionary to help find top-scoring words.
iPhone / iPad

Skullduggery! (£2.99)
This game has already won a set of indie awards, and rightly so: it’s a quirky action game with a sense of fun: but also masses of playability. You play a tax-collecting skull – just go with it, okay? – flicking yourself around the screen to collect in the afterlife. It’s a stylish title that stands out from the App Store crowd.
iPhone / iPad

The Lord of the Rings: Legends of Middle-earth (Free + IAP)
Publisher Kabam’s game based on The Hobbit has been a big hit on smartphones and tablets, so now it’s turning its attention to Lord of the Rings. Based on the films and books, it sees you exploring Tolkien’s universe fighting, questing and falling in with a host of familiar characters. As with past Kabam titles, though, the key will be updates over the coming months (and even years) to add more content.
iPhone / iPad

Sentinels of the Multiverse (£6.99)
I was new to Sentinels of the Multiverse when this game appeared: the original is a card game that has found a healthy audience for its heroes’n’villains gameplay. Now it’s also available as a tablet game. Existing fans will appreciate it, but it could also be a way in for newcomers to what looks an absorbing game.
iPad

Retry (Free + IAP)
If Flappy Bird was in a plane, he might be Retry. Although that’s selling the new game from Angry Birds publisher Rovio short: it has a number of original touches rather than just cloning this year’s big viral hit. You control a loop-the-looping biplane, making your way through levels – or simply crashing into things. Mostly the latter, in my case.
iPhone / iPad

Zombie Highway 2 (Free + IAP)
Finally, and with perfect timing for Halloween, comes this excellent racing game that’s far more than a spooky novelty. “Cars, Guns, and Zombies. What more could you want?” asks its App Store listing, but it looks and plays brilliantly too, with its application of in-app purchases not getting in the way of the fun.
iPhone / iPad

SynapseIndia Social Android Apps

BBM

2013 was the year when BlackBerry’s messaging app BBM launched on other devices, including Android. It initially focused on text chatting and sharing photos, files and voice notes, with the group chat and broadcast messages that made it popular on its home platform. Expect more features in 2014.

Lift

Promising “daily motivation”, Lift aimed to help you “take regular steps toward healthy life change”, whether that’s giving up bad habits, getting fitter or developing new career skills. The idea being that you set your priorities and use the app to keep track of your progress.

MixBit

MixBit was a video-sharing app from a couple of YouTube’s original co-founders. The videos you share are split into up-to-16-second clips, which can be strung together into sequences of up to an hour. Simple, slick editing tools come with an emphasis on sharing and remixing videos with other users

Rando

Rando put a fun skew on photo-sharing: an app that got you to snap a pic (using a circular frame) and then send it to … Well, you don’t know who it’s going to: Rando handles the job of pinging it “anonymously to somebody completely random” – somebody else using the Rando app, obviously.

Silent Text

Technology company Silent Circle was in the news this year after shutting its encrypted email service “to prevent spying” in the wake of the Guardian’s NSA revelations. Silent Text was another part of its business: encrypted text messaging with file-transfers of up to 100MB too.

Tinder

Tinder was a bona-fide craze this year: a dating app showing you people nearby who might be a match, with a hot-or-not style swiping interface to indicate interest, and the ability to text-chat to matches before deciding whether to meet. Also one of the most popular pub spectator-sports of 2013.

Twitter

Twitter on Android isn’t new, but this year saw Twitter’s first native tablet app for Android, redesigned for their bigger screens. An initially-limited release for a few models led the way for more devices to come, providing an even better way to tweet (or just read) on the sofa.

Vyclone

Video-sharing app Vyclone’s tagline is “Film together”. That means you shoot video of whatever you like, then Vyclone figures out who else is filming at the same time in the same place, and stitches all your clips together into a multi-angle video.

SynapseIndia Mobile Apps-

The best apps for your new iPhone

In A Christmas Story, young Ralphie begs his parents for a Red Ryder BB gun. Alas, how times have changed. Today, you’re more likely begging for a red iPhone — but just as the Red Ryder is useless without BBs, the iPhone is useless without apps. Apps for shooting photos, keeping track of your schedule, and for logging your every thought and bike ride. An app to tell you when it’s snowing, and an app to keep track of your favorite blogs. We’ll break down the best apps no iPhone should be without, so when you’re cozied up by the fire, you’ll have something to do — and an IFTTT app to auto-send holiday greetings on Christmas morning.
This year we’ve picked out some of the very best apps, games, books, and downloads for your new devices. Dig into our top selections for Android apps, Android games, iPhone apps, iPad apps, iOS games, Windows Phone apps, Kindle books, console games, and for your Mac and PC.

VSCO CAM

VSCO Cam is the best photo-editing app for iPhone. Its expansive set of tools and filters were created by photographers and make Instagram’s editing features feel stale and limited. VSCO recently added gridded user profiles — a handsome way to share photos on mobile and the web.

WUNDERLIST

If you’re serious about getting things done, don’t rely on the standard Notes app. Try Wunderlist, our pick for best to-do list app for most people. It’s fast, elegant, and free.

SNAPCHAT

Snapchat has a reputation as a “sexting app,” because the messages it sends are automatically erased after they’e seen, but we think it’s simply a fantastically fun way to send a quick photo or video to a bunch of friends. The ability to add captions, filters, or draw on your photos before sending them adds charm.

 

SynapseIndia Mobile Apps-Custom Calender View in iPhone

In general, in iPhone applications whenever we want to select the date from calendar, we populate the UIDatePicker to show the dates. This is a native iOS feature. But if you want the customized version of the calendar, we don’t have any library or framework provided by iOS. In these situations we use third party library stuff. In this tutorial we use a power full third party library for customized calendar. Open Xcode, select “Create a new Xcode project,” and click Next. Choose the Single View Application template as shown in the following figure.

Click Next, then you navigate to the next screen. Fill all the fields like product name (CalenderView), organization name and etc. In the bottom of the screen just uncheck “Use Storyboards”(As I have use the nib files in this application) and “Include Unit Tests” as shown in the following figure.

Then click Next button.
Open the ViewController.xib file and add the required outlets as shown below.

Now it is time to integrate the KAL library to the project. Kal is compiled as a static library, and the recommended way to add it to your project is to use Xcode’s “dependent project” facilities by following these step-by-step instructions: (Source: git://github.com/klazuka/Kal.git.)

1. Clone the Kal git repository: git clone git://github.com/klazuka/Kal.git. Make sure you store the repository in a permanent place because Xcode will need to reference the files every time you compile your project.

2. Locate the “Kal.xcodeproj” file under “Kal/src/”. Drag Kal.xcodeproj and drop it onto the root of your Xcode project’s “Groups and Files” sidebar. A dialog will appear — make sure “Copy items” is unchecked and “Reference Type” is “Relative to Project” before clicking “Add”.

3. Now you need to link the Kal static library to your project. Select the Kal.xcodeproj file that you just added to the sidebar. Under the “Details” table, you will see libKal.a. Check the checkbox on the far right for this file. This will tell Xcode to link against Kal when building your app.

4. Now you need to add Kal as a dependency of your project so that Xcode will compile it whenever you compile your project. Expand the “Targets” section of the sidebar and double-click your application’s target. Under the “General” tab you will see a “Direct Dependencies” section. Click the “+” button, select “Kal” and click “Add Target”.

5. Now you need to add the bundle of image resources internally used by Kal’s UI. Locate “Kal.bundle” under “Kal/src” and drag and drop it into your project. A dialog will appear — make sure “Create Folder References” is selected, “Copy items” is unchecked, and “Reference Type” is “Relative to Project” before clicking “Add”.

6. Finally, we need to tell your project where to find the Kal headers. Open your “Project Settings” and go to the “Build” tab. Look for “Header Search Paths” and double-click it. Add the relative path from your project’s directory to the “Kal/src” directory.

7. While you are in Project Settings, go to “Other Linker Flags” under the “Linker” section, and add “-all_load” to the list of flags.

8. You’re ready to go. Just #import “Kal.h” anywhere you want to use KalViewController in your project.

Now open the ViewController.h file and modify it as follows

@protocol calnderDelegate <NSObject>@optional
– (void)dateSelectedAs:(KalDate *)date;
@end@class KalViewController;

@interface ViewController : UIViewController<calnderDelegate>

@property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutlet UILabel *staticLabel;
@property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutlet UILabel *dateLabel;
@property (nonatomic, strong) KalViewController *calenderController;

– (IBAction)date:(id)sender;

@end

Connect the outlets in .xib file with associated objects. Now open ViewController.m file, add the following code in viewDidLoad method.

self.staticLabel.hidden = YES;
self.dateLabel.hidden = YES;

Now whenever we tap on the date button, we want to load the calendar view. So for that add the following action method at the end of ViewController.m file.

– (IBAction)date:(id)sender
{
calenderController = [[KalViewController alloc]initWithSelectedDate:[NSDate date]];
calenderController.title = @“Calender”;
calenderController.dateDelegate = self;
[self.navigationController pushViewController:calenderController animated:YES];
}

Now compile and run the code, after tapping on date button we will get the following screen.

If you select any date then that particular date grid will highlighted. But we need to navigate to the ViewController class after tapping on any date. And also we need the effect of selected date in ViewController class. To achieve this we will use the calenderDelegate method. So for that, implement the following delegate method at the end of ViewController.m file.

– (void)dateSelectedAs:(KalDate *)date
{
NSLog(@“date ++++%@”,date);
NSString *str = [NSString stringWithFormat:@“%@”,date];
dateLabel.text = str;
dateLabel.hidden = NO;
staticLabel.hidden = NO;
[self.navigationController popToRootViewControllerAnimated:YES];
}

Open KalViewController.h file, import the ViewController class and add the following property at the end.

@property (nonatomic ,assign) id<calnderDelegate> dateDelegate;

In KalViewController.m file synthesize the delegate object. Modify the didSelectDate: method as follows.

– (void)didSelectDate:(KalDate *)date
{
if(dateDelegate && [dateDelegate respondsToSelector:@selector(dateSelectedAs:)])
{
[dateDelegate dateSelectedAs:date];
}
}

Now build and run the code, after selecting any date you will observe that the controller will navigate from calendar controller to root view controller and the selected date will appear as follows.

SynapseIndia Android Full App, Part 2: Using the HTTP API

This is the second part of the “Android Full Application Tutorial” series. The complete application aims to provide an easy way of performing movies/actors searching over the internet. In the first part of the series (“Main Activity UI”), we created the Eclipse project and set up a basic interface for the main activity of the application. In this part we are going to see how to consume an external HTTP API and how to integrate the API’s searching capabilities into our application.

For the movies and actor look-ups we will be using the TMDb API. From the official site:
“The TMDb API is a powerful resource for any developers that want to integrate movie & cast data along with posters or movie fanart. All of the API methods are available in XML, YAML and JSON.”

As with most available APIs, you are going to need a valid key in order to be able to use the API. The first step for that is to create a free account at TMDb’s Sign-Up page. After signing up, log into your account and find the link for generating an API key.

The list of the available API methods can be found at the TMDb API documentation page and the most important ones are the following:

• Movie.search: Provides the easiest and quickest way to search for a movie.
• Person.search: Is used to search for an actor, actress or production member.

For movies search, the example URL is the following:

http://api.themoviedb.org/2.1/Movie.search/en/xml/APIKEY/Transformers

For people search, the example URL is the following:

http://api.themoviedb.org/2.1/Person.search/en/xml/APIKEY/Brad+Pitt

(where APIKEY has to be replaced with a valid API key)

As you can see, the API is pretty easy and straightforward to use. It only involves performing HTTP GET requests at a specific URL and then retrieving the responses into a predefined format.

Next, we are going to see how to leverage Android’s networking capabilities in order to consume the API and provide a presentation of the provided data. Note that we will use the XML format for the responses, but this will be showcased in a next tutorial.

For manipulating HTTP requests/responses in an Android environment, the standard classes from the java.net package can be used. Thus, classes such as URL, URLConnection, HttpURLConnection etc., can all be used in the known way. However, you can avoid dealing with the low level details by using the Apache HTTP Client libraries. This library is based in the well known Apache Commons HTTP Client framework.

Let’s get started with the code. We will create a class named “HttpRetriever” which will be responsible for performing all the HTTP requests and will return the responses both in text format and as a stream (for image manipulation). The code for this class is the following:

01	package com.javacodegeeks.android.apps.moviesearchapp.services;

02

03	import java.io.IOException;

04	import java.io.InputStream;

05

06	import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;

07	import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;

08	import org.apache.http.HttpStatus;

09	import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;

10	import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;

11	import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;

12

13	import android.graphics.Bitmap;

14	import android.graphics.BitmapFactory;

15	import android.util.Log;

16

17	import com.javacodegeeks.android.apps.moviesearchapp.io.FlushedInputStream;

18	import com.javacodegeeks.android.apps.moviesearchapp.util.Utils;

19

20	public class HttpRetriever {

21

22	private DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();

23

24	public String retrieve(String url) {

25

26	HttpGet getRequest = new HttpGet(url);

27

28

try {

29

30	HttpResponse getResponse = client.execute(getRequest);

31	final int statusCode = getResponse.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();

32

33	if (statusCode != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {

34	Log.w(getClass().getSimpleName(), "Error " + statusCode + " for URL " + url);

35	return null;

36

}

37

38	HttpEntity getResponseEntity = getResponse.getEntity();

39

40	if (getResponseEntity != null) {

41	return EntityUtils.toString(getResponseEntity);

42

}

43

44

}

45	catch (IOException e) {

46	getRequest.abort();

47	Log.w(getClass().getSimpleName(), "Error for URL " + url, e);

48

}

49

50	return null;

51

52

}

53

54	public InputStream retrieveStream(String url) {

55

56	HttpGet getRequest = new HttpGet(url);

57

58

try {

59

60	HttpResponse getResponse = client.execute(getRequest);

61	final int statusCode = getResponse.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();

62

63	if (statusCode != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {

64	Log.w(getClass().getSimpleName(), "Error " + statusCode + " for URL " + url);

65	return null;

66

}

67

68	HttpEntity getResponseEntity = getResponse.getEntity();

69	return getResponseEntity.getContent();

70

71

}

72	catch (IOException e) {

73	getRequest.abort();

74	Log.w(getClass().getSimpleName(), "Error for URL " + url, e);

75

}

76

77	return null;

78

79

}

80

81	public Bitmap retrieveBitmap(String url) throws Exception {

82

83	InputStream inputStream = null;

84

try {

85	inputStream = this.retrieveStream(url);

86	final Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FlushedInputStream(inputStream));

87	return bitmap;

88

}

89

finally {

90	Utils.closeStreamQuietly(inputStream);

91

}

92

93

}

94

95

}

For the actual execution of the HTTP requests, we are using an instance of the DefaultHttpClient class, which, as its name implies, is the default implementation of an HTTP client, i.e. the default implementation of the HttpClient interface. We also use the HttpGet class (in order to represent a GET request) and provide the target URL for its constructor argument. The HTTP client executes the request and provides an HttpResponse object which contains the actual server response along with any other information. For example, we can retrieve the response status code and compare it against the code for successful HTTP requests (HttpStatus.SC_OK). For successful requests, we take reference of the enclosed HttpEntity object and from that we have access to the actual response data. For textual responses we convert the entity to a String using the static toString method of the EntityUtils class. If we wish to retrieve the data as a byte stream (for example in order to handle binary downloads), we use the getContent method of the HttpEntity class, which creates a new InputStream object of the entity.

Note that there is also a third method for directly returning Bitmap objects. This will be helpful at the later parts of the tutorial series, where we will be downloading images from the internet. In that method, we execute the GET request and retrieve an InputStream as usual. Then, we use the decodeStream method of the BitmapFactory class to create a new Bitmap object. Note that we do not directly provide the downloaded InputStream, but we first wrap it with a FlushedInputStream class. As mentioned at the official Android developers blog post, there is a bug in the previous versions of the decodeStream method that may cause problems when downloading an image over a slow connection. The custom class FlushedInputStream, which extends FilterInputStream, is used instead in order to fix the problem. The code for that class is the following:

01	package com.javacodegeeks.android.apps.moviesearchapp.io;

02

03	import java.io.FilterInputStream;

04	import java.io.IOException;

05	import java.io.InputStream;

06

07	public class FlushedInputStream extends FilterInputStream {

08

09	public FlushedInputStream(InputStream inputStream) {

10	super(inputStream);

11

}

12

13

@Override

14	public long skip(long n) throws IOException {

15	long totalBytesSkipped = 0L;

16	while (totalBytesSkipped < n) {

17	long bytesSkipped = in.skip(n - totalBytesSkipped);

18	if (bytesSkipped == 0L) {

19	int b = read();

20	if (b < 0) {

21	break;  // we reached EOF

22

} else {

23	bytesSkipped = 1; // we read one byte

24

}

25

}

26	totalBytesSkipped += bytesSkipped;

27

}

28	return totalBytesSkipped;

29

}

30

31

}

This ensures that skip() actually skips the provided number of bytes, unless we reach the end of file. Finally, we use the closeStreamQuietly method of a custom Utils class in order to handle exceptions which might occur when closing an InputStream. The code is as follows:

01	package com.javacodegeeks.android.apps.moviesearchapp.util;

02

03	import java.io.IOException;

04	import java.io.InputStream;

05

06	public class Utils {

07

08	public static void closeStreamQuietly(InputStream inputStream) {

09

try {

10	if (inputStream != null) {

11	inputStream.close();

12

}

13	} catch (IOException e) {

14	// ignore exception

15

}

16

}

17

18

}

Finally, in order to be able to perform HTTP requests the corresponding permission has to be granted. Thus, add theandroid.permission.INTERNET to the project’s AndroidManifest.xml file which now is as follows:

01	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

02	<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

03	package="com.javacodegeeks.android.apps.moviesearchapp"

04	android:versionCode="1"

05	android:versionName="1.0">

06	<application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">

07	<activity android:name=".MovieSearchAppActivity"

08	android:label="@string/app_name">

09	<intent-filter>

10	<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

11	<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

12	</intent-filter>

13	</activity>

14

15	</application>

16	<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="3" />

17	<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"></uses-permission>

18	</manifest>

So, we have prepared the infrastructure for executing HTTP GET requests. At the following tutorials, we will use that in order to retrieve XML data and images for our application’s needs. You can download here the Eclipse project created so far.

SynapseIndia Mobile Apps – Touch Function in iPhone

In this application we will see how to multiple images moved using touch function. So let see how it will worked.

Step 1: Open the Xcode, Create a new project using View Base application. Give the application “TouchFunction”.

Step 2: Xcode automatically creates the directory structure and adds essential frameworks to it. You can explore
the directory structure to check out the content of the directory.

Step 3: Expand classes and notice Interface Builder created the ViewController class for you. Expand Resources
and notice the template generated a separate nib, TouchFunctionViewController.xib for the TouchFunction
application.

Step 4: we need to add resources in the application.

Step 5: Open the TouchFunctionViewController.h file and make the following changes:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
@interface TouchFunctionViewController : UIViewController {
IBOutlet UIImageView *image;
IBOutlet UIImageView *image1;
IBOutlet UIImageView *image2;
IBOutlet UIImageView *image3;
IBOutlet UIImageView *image4;
}
@end

Step 6: Double click the TouchFunctionViewController.xib file and open it to the interface builder. First select the
view and bring up Attribute Inspector and change the background color. First drag the five ImageView from the
library and place it to the view window. Select the Image Views from the view and bring up Attribute Inspector and
select the litchi.png, raspberries.png, starfruits.png, apple.png,orange.png images. Connect File’s Owner icon to the
image views and select image, image1,image2, image3, image4. Now save the .xib file, save it and go back to the
Xcode.

Step 7: Open the TouchFunctionViewController.m file and make the following changes:

#import “TouchFunctionViewController.h”
@implementation TouchFunctionViewController
– (void)touchesMoved:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
// get touch event
UITouch *touch = [[event allTouches] anyObject];
CGPoint touchLocation = [touch locationInView:self.view];
if ([touch view] == image) {
image.center = touchLocation;
}
else if ([touch view] == image1) {
image1.center = touchLocation;
}
else if ([touch view] == image2) {
image2.center = touchLocation;
}
else if ([touch view] == image3) {
image3.center = touchLocation;
}
else if ([touch view] == image4) {
image4.center = touchLocation;
}
}
– (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning
{
[super didReceiveMemoryWarning];
}
#pragma mark – View lifecycle
– (void)viewDidUnload
{
[super viewDidUnload];
}
– (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation
{
// Return YES for supported orientations
return (interfaceOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait);
}
@end

Step 8: Now Compile and run the application on the Simulator.

You can Download SourceCode from here