Category: Software (Android)

Tapatalk, get it free right now

If you’ve visited a forum such as ours then you’ll probably have seen the Tapatalk app pop up. It’s usually a paid-for app but, if you download it via the Amazon store right now then it’s free. The Tapatalk Forum App will make most forums a much easy …

Samsung Push Service gets some interesting reviews on Google Play

I usually skim over the comments / reviews but when checking apps in the Google Play. Usually they’re full of comments like “d0esn’t work”, “uninstalled as this is cr*p” or just one-word responses like “Great” or “Nice”. So it’s interesting to see the comments that have popped up …

Friday Deals – World of Goo is proper cheap

How about 80% off. 80% off! That’s like…err… almost free. Well, almost. “Game of the Year”, World of Goo is now just 65p. You have to drag and drop globs of goo in order to build things. Yes, this is a bit hard to explain, but there’s a …

Friday Deals – SwiftKey half price

Let’s save a bit of money shall we? Deals are great, so today we’re having a hunt for deals. First, if you’re finding that entering texts or writing emails is a bit fiddly on your Android phone, try SwiftKey. It’ll speed up your typing and learns words as …

Google Babel launches as the new Hangouts

  Google finally took the wraps of Babel yesterday with the relaunch of Hangouts, a cross-platform unified messaging service to take on the likes of iMessage, Facebook Chat and WhatsApp. Users no longer have to contend with separate Google Talk, G+ Messenger, G+ Hangouts and Google Voice apps. …

Google Play Books is updated

As part of Google updating everything last night they updated the Play Books app. Not only have Google updated the interface to be in-line with the other Google Play apps they have also added some new features. What’s in this version: Support for reading your own PDF or …

HTC First looks to be last – AT&T to kill handset

Let’s strap Facebook into a phone. That’s a winning idea. People will buy that. Everyone loves Facebook, don’t they? Sadly no, according to BGR the HTC First is actually about to be kicked out. LThe “Facebook Phone” is said to be an official flop in the USA. Prices …

Google Play Games revealed ahead of Google I/O

With Google I/O just around the corner, you’d think the company would want to keep a lid on its forthcoming offerings but Android Police has to grab a copy of Google Play Services 3.1.36 which seems to be trickling out to devices as we speak. You’ve got to …

Android ITV Player app exclusive to Samsung

TV catchup app ITV Player has been released for Android. Yay! But you can only use it on Samsung devices until 31st August. Booo! It’s been a while coming, but the new ITV Player app has finally hit the Google Play store. It seems pretty good too. All …

Google Earth, now with Street View

The best way to see the third planet from the Sun or the best way to zoom in on your ex-girlfriends back garden? You decide. Whatever your reasons, the Google Earth app got updated late last night and now includes Street View too. The newly-updated street-level images reveal …

What on earth are these “My choice of apps” articles about

We all use apps on our phones, some more than others, some install huge games that take several GB of space, some install dozens of Social Network apps, some install bafflingly pointless apps like fart apps or soundboards. It really is a personal thing it’s your phone and …

StealthGenie – Snoop on others easily

Whilst browsing around eBay I found a number of listings for “spy software” designed to snoop on the phone use of friends, relatives, colleagues or people you don’t like very much. After becoming intrigued I stumbled across StealthGenie, which is charged in monthly installments. The spy software is …

Pocket for Android gets an update

Pocket is one of those apps that you either use and love or you don’t use and can’t comprehend. I use it and I don’t think I could survive without it (bit extreme I know). Pocket basically allows you to save a webpage for viewing at a later …

Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 officially unveiled

The Samsung Galaxy Mega has been more or less official for the past week or so, at the end of the London Samsung Galaxy S4 World Tour event on Tuesday night it was announced that there would be Mega handsets available for demonstration, and so I finally got to play …

WordPress for Android gets a whole new look

Here at Coolsmartphone we rather like WordPress, it is the basis of everything we do and without the mobile apps this site would be a totally different place. Last night an update for WordPress for Android appeared. The update amongst other things brought a whole new UI to …

Samsung Galaxy S4 World Tour – London

Like the look of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and want to know more? Me too. Like Jason Bradbury? Yeah, he’s OK. Like Gary Barlow? Me either! Well, if you liked at least one of those then you would have enjoyed the Galaxy S4 World Tour event in London …

The app that asks “Are you my cousin??”

Picture the scene, there is a man talking to a lady in Mojos nightclub in Norwich. They’re getting on famously and are just about to leave together for more fun in a more intimate setting when he pulls out his smartphone. She does the same and they “bump”….. …

Newscron review – Your news on the go

Sorting your daily dose of news into small, bite-sized chunks can be a bit of a pain at times. You either download an app, go through the mobile version of the newspaper website or heck – you could even buy one of those “paper versions” 😉 The people …

Chrome beta for Android gets a rather nice new feature

The Chrome beta has been out for a few months now. In the past it was hard to see what the beta version actually offered over the normal version, but with last night’s update they’ve gone and added fullscreen browsing. Plus some other stuff of course. – Fullscreen …

Google Play gets facelift and a makeover

You may not see it on your device immediately, but you will, and it’ll thank you for it. The Google Play marketplace has gone through another iteration (one of our colleagues called it Google Play 4 due to the APK being 4.0.25). The formerly-named Market more has a …

Times are hard. Get paid for 3 minutes on camera ;)

Watch out, I’m gonna go for a slash. A forward slash that is, because this is Hang w/ – a new app which lets you stream live video and , get this, you get paid for your broadcast. Yeah, I know, mental. They’ve got a nice promotional video …

Make your phone all Facebook-like with “Home”

We’ve seen the HTC First, an Android-powered device which will be available exclusively on Orange in France and EE here in the UK from the Summer. In the USA it’ll be available from April 12th and across the rest of the world soon after. But hey you lovely, …

Android Twitter app receives a big update

A mere 18 months after the release of ICS, Twitter have updated their official app with the main addition being a new Holo themed UI. As well as being much prettier, you can now horizontally swipe between the various tabs. The app also features auto-completion of @usernames and #tags, …

Sound Search for Google Play is now available

Sound Search? At first I wondered what on earth it was, upon reading the Play Store description I realised it was a music identification widget that would link to music on the Play Store. So you can be listening to music on the radio, identify the track you …

Facebook and Android event announced for 4th April, but why?

Like Facebook and Android? You may want to put a note in your diary then, because on 4th April there will be an event to announce… well, something. All we know is that it’s apparently going to be Facebook’s “new home on Android”. As with most marketing these …

Google update their Translate app to include offline translation

It only seemed like a few weeks ago and we were discussing Samsung’s new S Translate app during our podcast. I was hoping it had some sort of offline mode as the Google offering didn’t. Well Google were obviously listening the other week and they’ve gone and updated …

Demolition Master lands on Android

Played the iOS version of this? Demolition Master is now available on Android. There’s 240 levels and more than 4 million other players to challenge. It’s only been available for 5 days in the Google Play store and there’s realistic explosions and the video below should show you …

Why those APK’s should be avoided

OK, so I’m going to tell you the truth. If you’re using Android and don’t want to pay the few pennies for a new app or game then you have some other options. Firstly, you could save up the 65p you need or you could go trawling “those” …

Grindr hits a massive milestone after 4 years in operation

I’m trying to work out how many of you already know about this app. Whether you use it or not, it’s certainly proved popular. It’s four years since the app arrived and there’s now more than six million people using it. Grindr has grabbed 2.5 million extra users …

How long will Google Keep be kept around?

Perhaps for the first time, Google released a new service which I didn’t immediately rush to try out. In the wake of the Reader spring clean, I now have to think about whether or not I can rely on a new Google service being around for the long …

New Google Play version slips onto video

It was called Android Market at one point, then it all changed and became Google Play. Now a new version is about to hit your Android-powered phone and the boys at Droid Life have sneaked a look at the all-new version… The fourth iteration seems to be cleaner …

Google Currents Now Plays Audio

I love Google Currents I don’t know why but I prefer it to Flipboard, now Google Currents got itself an interesting update today with support for editions that contain audio. It looks like you’ll now be able to play audio from within the application itself, complete with a …

Gmail for Android update brings notification actions (updated)

Google have (finally!) updated Gmail for Android to take advantage of the the notification actions that were introduced in Jellybean last summer. Users can now reply, archive or delete directly from the notification curtain if they’re running Android 4.1 or higher. It’s a really useful feature which Google …

What is Samsung Smart Pause and Smart Scroll?

Before the release of the announcement of the Galaxy S4 we heard lots of rumours about ‘Eye scroll’ technology being built into the phone. We didn’t quite get the ‘Eye scroll’ rumoured but what we did see feature on the S4 is Smart Pause and Smart Scroll. Both …

Google Reader to be removed in July

In a move that I can only describe as baffling, Google have announced that their free online news reader app, Google Reader, will be shut down on July 1st. The system alllows you to read and process RSS news feeds (like our very own one here) in a …

Perhaps I’m a little too inquisitive

Trains. I love them. If you want to be nosey and have a look at what people are up to, they’re brilliant. Over the course of the last few weeks I’ve been on quite a few, including a few trips to London and my own local city – …

Chameleon Launcher has been updated for phones

I got an email yesterday that made me a little excited. A while back I and many others backed Chameleon Launcher on Kickstarter. It gave us an early beta to try on our tablets. I was really impressed at the time but I didn’t stay using it for …

New firmware for Note II available on Three

Three have rolled out a firmware update for the Samsung Galaxy Note II, which is said to bring with it a number of bug fixes and enhancements. This went under the radar mostly because it brings device stability to Samsungs other flagship handset rather than a large number …