Category: Software (Android)
When I applied for my first few jobs I had to sit in a stuffy office while some HR person clicked through my CV. I had a folder with all my qualifications in there too, but fast-forward to today and I’m instead getting job agencies using my LinkedIn …
Way back in the day we used to upload voices to our hacked versions of TomTom to Pocket PC devices. Remember someone having Yoda speaking out the directions? Now we’ve got Waze which, if you didn’t know already, is a rather clever community-driven traffic and navigation app. If …
Microsoft has revealed that a beta version of Cortana, their digital assistant (none of which I can get to work right), will be available for Android users sometime in July – as a Beta. This means that the Cortana version for Android won’t have all of the features of …
Getting streaming TV on your phone or tablet is great. You get to watch TV anywhere. However, if you’re out of the house and you don’t have a clever DVR or set-top box that’ll squirt the TV picture from your aerial to your device over your WiFi, you’re …
Did you, my friend, know that Sainsburys do eBooks? No. No. Neither did I. I just go in there for some apples and my special cream. Now there’s a whole new website on www.sainsburysebooks.co.uk filled with the things, and you can either take a preview or go to …
I spoke to a friend recently who is already selling products from home. They make a little bit of additional cash but, with a smartphone doing nothing now than advertising their business to friends on Facebook, they wanted to know if there was any additional way of getting …
Surprisingly, Google doesn’t quite know everything about you. Not yet anyway. Sure, your phone will be telling Google where you work, where you live, what you look like and perhaps those several cheeky trips to McDonald’s, but there’s probably a bit more detail they can get if, let’s …
Got TuneIn? Like using Google Now? Combine the two my good friend, because now you can simply speak to your phone and tell it what station you’d like to listen to. It’ll fire up the TuneIn app and start streaming the station in question. So, if you’re in …
Playboy, that great and venerable publishing powerhouse, have collected some interesting statistics about its readers. Apparently there are 19 million visitors to its website per month – that’s only marginally more than Coolsmartphone gets. Of those, 80% (15,200,000) use a mobile device or tablet. Playboy has clearly realised …
My main concerns, when snapping photos on my phone, is whether the photo is going to be backed up and just where it’ll be backed up to. Usually I store everything on an ever-filling storage card as I snap pictures randomly through the day. Those pictures, for the …
When you get “into” running a website and it gets a bit of traffic, you start hitting a problem. Paying for some web space isn’t enough. You need a virtual server, perhaps two or three, then when things get busier you’ll be looking at a full dedicated server …
Our daily dose of Kickstarter pleas usually go into a box marked “meh”. Some are pretty dull, and they almost make us want to add our Kickstarter Campaign for the “Coolsmartphone Readers Beer Bus”. This one, though, jumped out of our crowded mailbox and has caught the imagination …
You’ve probably seen sped up videos online, where the original video is played back at 10X the speed. So the video of a man skiing down a mountain look really smooth and arty. But when you’ve tried to do it yourself they just look rubbish. Well amazingly Microsoft …
I don’t often plug apps that much because, for reasons best known to developers, we get about 10 “auto submitted” emails every day in an incomprehensible format which tells us nothing about the app or what makes it great. Gianluca, on the other hand, emailed me directly with …
Remember this interesting Google Maps “addition” ? What initially appeared to be a dig at Apple actually turned out to be a prank by someone using the Map Maker system. It allows users to add extra detail to Google Maps, such as rivers or parks etc. Trouble is, …
I did something I’ve done before last night. It didn’t take long and, after I’d done it, I felt better. I reset my Android phone. Why? Well, I’m sure we’ve all been there. Many call me an Android fanboy but I’m fully prepared to point out the faults …
The OnePlus One is a good phone. Heck, it’s a great phone for the price. In fact, it’s kind of like the Nexus line when you think about it. Don’t get me wrong, there are some things that were missing that could have made it an even better …
Here we go again. Another battle between Sky and Microsoft and, after a lengthy case, the court has agreed with Sky. What’s the problem? Well, somehow, it would seem that Skype .. … could be mistaken for Sky.. This isn’t the first time that Sky have thrown their …
My wife loves reading books. She’s probably read more books in the last month than I have … err.. ever. Now, if you’ve got Android then you may have your favourite e-reader app already, but have you considered the others that are out there? There’s stacks of apps …
You knew that Sainsbury’s offered TV and Movie content over your smartphone, didn’t you? No, I’ll admit, neither did I, but I do now. If you use Sainsbury’s Entertainment and have their app, you can now output your favourite content to your TV via Chromecast. It’ll also let …
Just a few hours ago Google were proudly showing this rather interesting shot of an Android robot relieving himself all over the Apple logo… Now it’s all cleaned up and the location is free of the image now, although some devices are still showing it. The “new park” …
I’ve been emailed just now about some sort of “Easter Egg” in Google Maps. The mail came with this preview image, which I assumed had been Photoshopped, because as a global company you surely couldn’t get away with adding that into your product…could you? Thing is, it’s not …
It’s been a problem for some time now, and to some extent it still continues. I’ve been banging on about the fact that the “family computer” is now a distant memory. You can’t really keep an eye on your kids when they’ve got small connected gadgets which …
In my head it’s already the weekend, so I’m spending this afternoon looking for deals. Amazon are having another one of their giveaways via their Amazon freebies. You need to go and get the Amazon app store for your Android phone first, then – until Saturday at noon …
For many of us using Android, our apps will magically update themselves whenever the developer adds new features or fixes bugs. However, the official Twitter app, which has always been a little buggy on every phone I’ve tried (try sharing an image directly from the gallery for example), …
Honestly it seems like we’re getting some sort of taxi app every week here at Coolsmartphone HQ. Today it’s the turn of SPLYT, who’ve raised our eyebrows by offering shared taxi fares to reduce the cost of getting around and 99p rides for a week, beginning next Monday …
Well, that certainly didn’t take long. No sooner has the Apple Watch been announced and we’re already getting emails telling us about apps that’ll run on the thing. That’s expected I guess, but when betting apps also set to arrive on the thing, you know it’ll probably be …
Getting Office documents working on your mobile device can be a hit and miss affair. Sometimes you’ll find an app that opens certain documents but won’t let you edit them. Sometimes you can edit some document types but not others, and you can find that the document will …
The people at OpenHours have sent me a missive about their new Android and iOS apps for checking the opening times of stores, banks, restaurants and more. You can give their website a spin now and put in something like “TSB Birmingham“. It’ll then tell you how long …
Don’t get me started about politics. One group tell you that things are great. The other guys say that things are still rubbish. Me? I’m voting Monster Raving Looney. I think they’re marginally better and my local MP is dressed as a chicken. Brilliant. If you’re not feeling …
Right, April Fools is now over… unless you’re in America, then it’s probably definitely still on. Either way, I’d like to state up-front that this is definitely an April Fools joke. This is the First Direct Swear Jar app. An app that runs in the background and detects …
If you use WhatsApp then I really don’t need to sell this thing to you. It’s a cross-platform messaging app that cuts out the need to use text messages. Instead you send everything over your data connection and you can also keep in touch with people in other …
The big selling point of Windows Phone, at least in the TV ads, has been the fact that Cortana is supposedly better than Siri. Get yourself a Windows Phone and you’ll have a proper digital assistant, they say. So, the very last thing you’re going to want to …
In London our underground system works very well considering the age and complexity of it. People commute in and out of the city and leave their cars in expensive car-parks or, if you run a business servicing the city, you have to try and get your big diesel …
After reading Leighs problems with his TV (it had an unfortunate collision with a Nintendo Wii controller), I noticed that it would ruin his yearly get-together watching the Cheltenham Festival. Hopefully he’ll have a new TV sorted by then, but if you’re into your horse racing you’ll no …
The new YouTube Kids app we mentioned yesterday is now here and, in a pleasant surprise, it’s available for both Android and iOS. Whether kids or parents will actively download this instead of using the current YouTube app (complete with rather dodgy content that may or may not …
Sitting a kid in front of YouTube is a recipe for disaster. I’ve already mentioned this and the safety concerns surrounding it. The trouble with YouTube is that it’s “reactively moderated” and, even if a video contains scenes that disturb kids, a lot of people either don’t bother …
For years, gamers have been imploring Nintendo to release its older games on smartphone platforms and operating systems. These pleas have fallen on deaf ears, however, current president Satoru Iwata is instead taking an entirely different approach. More specifically, he plans to remake popular smartphone games for the …
1995 was an interesting year. The music charts featured the “Outhere Brothers” with “Boom Boom Boom” and there was those unforgettable lyrics… “Boom boom boom now let me hear you say wayoh, wayhoh!” Back then I was too busy partying and wasn’t really concerned with working in IT. …
Pebble have been playing catchup to Android Wear this year, with the latter offering more features. Festive such as actionable notifications, whereby you get an email and you can delete it from your watch. It was the one feature that kept me using Android Wear. During the night …
