skinomi.com Blog

The top Media Players for Android Users

This one is for the music lovers. You love to listen to music whether you are at home or on the go. Google has made it possible for you to enjoy your favorite music in the form of video or sound on high resolution screens supported by powerful Android media apps.

Here is your guide to the top media player apps that you should check out and add to your Android phone. These apps are free and give you great video watching and music listening experience.

MortPlayer is a special edition for audio books. There is save plus restore position for each and every track. In addition it offers bookmarks and separate folders.

Another Android music player is Cubed which is a beta version with options like switching between artist sorting and album sorting. The default sorting in this player is by artist name. Another media player is TunWiki, which is more of your social media player. It displays the subtitled lyrics while you are listening to music, watching videos or streaming songs from the SHOUTcast feature. You can get the lyrics for more than 2.5 millions songs with translations available in over 40 languages.

The next Android media player you will come across is the MixZing. It is one of the most advanced media players with features like lock screen and home screen widgets, MP3 tag editor, album art, recommending new music, automatic downloading of missing album art and much more. If you are looking for a simple but efficient media player application then you haveMeridian. You can use features like searching lyrics, rating, subtitle ID3 edit, additional information and flac/ape among others.

DoubleTwist Player is among the top media player apps in the Android market. It is a full-featured music play video app that easily blends with the doubleTwist client for desktops. You can do a lot with the media player – import your playlists, playcounts, ratings and enjoy audio and video podcasts and do much more.

The Astro Player is available in its beta version. However, it has all the main features of a full-media player, supporting both podcasts and audiobooks, auto-playlists, bookmarks, skins, equalizer, fetching album art, scrobbling, lyrics, auto-resume, podcasts and much more.

When you want to organize and play all your favorite music and video on the go, it doesn’t get better than the RealPlayer multimedia application. You can download it for free from the Android Market. It makes it easier to enjoy music and video. And, you can also enjoy any slideshow containing images.

Last but not the least Android media player is the Video Player. If you are concerned about playing videos stored on your SD card, then you need not look beyond Video Player. (Generic name, but hey it works!) This player supports sorting, themes, displays name and video length and share music and video. You can play all the 3GP and H264 videos on this player that records the exit point for your each and every video.

With a world of media players available for running your favorite music or video, it depends upon your choice and needs to find the best Android media player.

You may call Sony a late entrant into the market of Android tablets, but like the classy girl late to the party, Sony may have the best looks of the lot. (Check out our Carbon Fiber Skins for this) Sony it brings a couple of differently featured tablets. Even though Tablet S seems to be more traditional, it is to be found whether Sony can make a place in this market.

The two tablets are different mostly in terms of design. It has been said that Tablet S is similar to a folded newspaper and it feels precisely like that in your hand. When other tablets feel a little tricky to hold in a single hand, the Tablet S is easy to grip in portrait. You would also find the design to be easy to grip in the landscape. Compared to most of the similar-spec tablets, the Tablet S is much lighter and easier to hold.

At a weight of just 598g, the Tablet S is quite lighter as compared to the likes of Motorola Xoom. The tab has a 9.4 inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels that gives that characteristic sharp and colorful visuals that is the trademark of Sony. The unique design of the screen ensures that even when kept flat it is at an angle, which is ideal for typing, reading or browsing.

The 160ppi pixel density is among the highest you can find in the tablets, giving you finer detail – the texts are crispier and you can view more on the website without zooming much. The Tablet S runs on Android 3.2. A Honeycomb tablet, it has all the controls on the screen except for the volume and power/standby controls.

It has microSD and USB card slots hidden under the flap and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It is interesting to note the SD card feature, as it is included to facilitate those who want to insert the card from their digital camera instead of those seeking to enhance the storage.

The Tablet S has wireless connections in the form of Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi b/g/n and the top model has 3G connectivity. It has a 5 megapixel main camera on the back and a 0.3 megapixel camera on the front. The hardware consists of Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset with a speed of 1GHz and 1GB RAM.

In addition, Sony has packed several applications that display different aspects of the existing machine from Sony. This includes Video Unlimited, Music Unlimited and Reader to handle e-Books. There is a Social Feeds Reader that gives you access to Facebook and Twitter, and SelectApp gives you suggestions about more apps.

There are some amazing IR remote features in the phone. It has hundreds of remote configurations of several manufacturers, allowing you to run several televisions and media accessories. The unique thing about this feature is that you can control your television through your tablet without using its remote.

There is lot to this tablet from Sony, and there is no doubt that it is appealing for you if you don’t want to go around searching for the ideal apps. However, there isn’t much that can’t be done using another Android tablet.

Last time, we presented some information on some of the newest iOS apps and games. Lets go to the other side of the aisle and into the world of Android applications. Though (as of this writing at least) not yet on equal numbers or arguably quality of iOS Apps, Android has been quickly catching up in terms of quality and quantity. Here is a list of some of the latest and most fascinating Android apps that you may not have tested yet.

Radio.com is an app that gives you everything that you seek from radio. It lets you listen to WFAN, KROQ, 1010WINS, CBS Radio stations, AOL Radio and Yahoo Music. There are more than 600 stations and 19 genres to be enjoyed in this app.

Another highly sought-after Android app is Joystiq. It is a great source of information and news on video game. you get updated daily coverage, screenshots, reviews and even videos of the new games. This app also gives you access to the Joystiq Podcast episodes and much more.

If you are searching for a wallpaper app for your phone, then you should explore Fireflies Live Wallpaper. This wallpaper gives great looks to your phone screen and at the same time ensures minimum usage of the CPU. The free version has a frames per second rate of just 20, while the commercial edition has an fps of 10. This is the ideal wallpaper to make an impression on your friends and colleagues here fireflies will dance around hanging light bulbs with a dark background.

Sanity is an app you should certainly get onto your phone. This app makes phone calls healthier and convenient. This innovative app reduces the amount of electromagnetic waves emitted by your phone when making or receiving calls. This app turns the Bluetooth, wifi and even mobile data whenever you are speaking over the phone. In addition, it has sensors that shut down or switch on the antenna when the phone is too close to the ear.

Another innovative app for your Android phone is in the form of Smarter Alarm. If you are annoyed with the beeping alarm, then this alarm soothes your eardrums with the sound of a British-accented woman who is even going to read out customized information to you. In addition, this app can also read out many feeds such as forecast and current weather, daily news headlines, major stock indexes and prices, NBA team scores, names of Facebook friends with birthdays and today’s Facebook events. The news feeds can be customized for your category of interest such as business, entertainment, technology or others.

Vevo is another app for music lovers. You can search, enjoy and share your faovite music videos at any time and at any place. You can use voice enabled search to find your favorite song or artist, view live concerts and video premieres. The Vevo music video catalog consists of over 25,000 videos from over 7,500 artists. You can easily share any video through email or Twitter and buy your favorite music on Amazon.

A very useful app is in the form of System Status Live Wallpaper that displays useful information on your phone including battery status and time, available memory and performance graph for both RAM and CPU. There are so many Android apps to be explored it would be worth your time to learn more about them.

Let us know what you think and if you guys have any apps you would like to recommend. Its always great  discovering about new apps and gadgets if you’re an Android or iOS fan!

Everyday new iOS apps are making the rounds, and remaining updated about them is essential if you want to get the best out of your smartphone. Here are the latest updates on new gaming, messaging, image and other apps added to the list. WhatsApp Messenger is an app that keeps you in touch with your buddies through messaging. In addition to iPhone, this app can work on different platforms including Android and BlackBerry. It offers facilities including group chatting, push notifications, integrating address book, sending 3 kinds of media and doing much more. This app is rated 4 star and is presently available for free.

This iOS app is for the gaming enthusiasts. Q Pang is arched shooter game where you would be fending off the invading aliens. There are various types of weapons at your disposal. You have the lasers and machine guns to bring them down and the cakes to distract them. There are 2 modes, more than half a dozen types of weapons, upgrades and much more. The game can be downloaded free and has a star rating of 4.5.

PlainDiary is your plain and simple dairy app for recording entries. The entries can be recorded in both landscape and portrait orientation. You can backup the entries using iTunes File Sharing, add photos email entries, sort entries and select different fonts. This iOS app is also presently available for free and has a rating of 4.5.

Another app for gamers on iOS is Dodo Fly. This is a wind-up toy game where you can take toy through 8 interesting environments. The journey involves jumping over the enemies in order to collect as many stars as possible. There are lots of power-ups, elegant graphics, special skills and lots of scores to be made. This game is also free and has a rating of 4.5.

Land-a Panda is another highly popular iOS app game where you would be helping Yang Guang, a lonely panda reach his dream partner. This is a puzzle game where Yang can be made to jump from one place to other using different cannons. There are 3 coins to be collected in each level so as to impress the partner. This 80-level game has several types of obstacles to be overcome. This is a free game for the time being and has a rating of 4.5.

Poly HD is another game app for iOS users. In this brick breaking type of game, you would be dragging a sea creature called Poly so as to keep a magical ball bouncing around. You can move Poly easily around the screen and break the bricks with utmost ease. All that you have to look out is the garbage falling from the top. There are 45 levels in the game along with lots of power ups, star ratings andGameCenterintegration.

Similarly, there are several other games and other apps being updated daily for iOS users. Keep checking for all the latest fascinating applications. You may never know what new innovative features are created next.

If you’re looking for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S Skins and and Protectors look no further than us here at Skinomi. We have a great selection of screen protectors and skin Protectors that can not only protect your iPhone 4 but enhance your phone’s look as well. If you guys have ever wondered if there are any differences between our screens for each of the iPhones on different carriers, there are some very slight differences between them. For example, there is a gap for the SIM card slot on the AT&T version that isn’t needed for the Verizon skin. The Sprint version is identical to the Verizon version as well. We made some slight adjustments for the iPhone 4s but size and design wise, they are very similar. All of our iPhone 4/4s screens should fit perfectly across all the iPhone 4 variants.

Alright, that’s all for now. See you guys next time!

Latest Cell Phone Offerings from U.S. Cellular

I’m not quite sure what a little kid in the box is eyeing. Maybe it’s a new BlackBerry from U.S. Cellular. Recently U.S. Cellular announced the launching of new cell phone from BlackBerry, the Curve 9350. The new phone is believed to contain everything for which BlackBerry is loved by its many, still loyal, customers.

Even though other BlackBerry NFC phones are shipped without switching on the NFC, the Sprint Curve 9350 has its NFC functioning. As per the latest news, it is not yet known about the types of supported NFC forum tag and the software that can read/write these tags. The point that NFC is active in the Curve 9350, it is still far ahead of the Bold 9930 when it is about its abilities.

The Curve measures just 0.43 inch of thickness, which in other terms is equal to just 1mm. It has a 800 MHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor that is supported with 512MB RAM. You will find the most up-to-date BlackBerry 7 OS running on this phone that gives you the fastest and most convenient BlackBerry experience.

However, you would not find any touch screen feature in this phone. It has a 2.44 inch display featuring HVGA+ screen having 480×360 pixel resolution. The rear side of the phone has a 5 mega pixel EDoF camera along with an LED flash. It is ok for recording VGA videos.

The connectivity in Curve 9350 is enabled with the regular options including Wi-Fi b/g/n along with UMA, Bluetooth and aGPS/GPS. The Curve has a 512 MB storage that can be extended to 32GB using a microSD card. It has a 1000 mAh battery that can keep the 9350 running for a long time. However, the figures for standby and talk time hours are not yet released.

The Curve 9350 has a full QWERTY keyboard along with an optical trackpad. The phone has some new features such as BBM6, which is the BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry Music Store, latest Social Apps such as Twitter and Facebook and Social Feeds app. You can also customize your Curve 9350 by searching from thousands of apps found on BlackBerry App World.

U.S. Cellular has also launched another phone along with the BlackBerry Curve 9350 in the form of HTC Hero S. It features a f 4 inch qHD Super LCD display with a resolution of 960×540 pixels. It has a faster processor in the form of Qualcomm MSM8655 1.2 GHz. There is a 5 mega pixel camera on the back side, and a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front. The 5 mp camera is made to capture HD video. In addition, the Hero has a 1520mAh battery and it is powered by HTC’s Sense 3.0 on Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

While the Curve 9350 is a decent entry-level smartphone offering for you if you want to own a BlackBerry, and the Hero S is a reputed Android phone with a decently sized screen. However, if you are waiting for the launch of HTC Wildfire S, then you will have to wait a few more days as there is no news yet from U.S. Cellular.

Is Motorola Xoom still a Top Tablet?

When the Motorola Xoom was launched, it was termed as an iPad killer. And, it was especially priced expensively compared to the iPad. The fact is that there is very little that makers of tablets can do in order to differentiate their creations from others in the market. However, Motorola seems to have done enough to stand out from the rest with some tweaks in design.

Featuring an all-black tablet, the Xoom has round edges with a rubberized and textured rear that breaks a quarter way from the top. You will find the top part more velvety and smoother than the bottom part. Similar to other tablets in the market, the ports can be found at the edges. It features mini-HDMI and mini-USB ports at the bottom along with the charger port and docking input, and it has a 3.5mm headphone jack along with a SIM card and microSD slot.

Compared to other Android tablets, the Xoom doesn’t feature any buttons on the front. You will just find a front camera along with the 10.1 inch screen. You may feel that the lack of buttons may reduce its ranking but surprisingly, the Xoom achieves the opposite. It helps give a modern and more sophisticated look to the Xoom compared to other tablets.

Compared to the Galaxy Tab with a 7 inch screen, the Xoom is more a double handed device. It’s larger and heavier to be used for long on a single hand. However, you would feel it to be sturdier compared to most of the other tablets.

Its features include Android 3.0 OS, a 10.1 inch diagonal capacitive touch screen, 1GB LP DDR2 RAM, Dual Core NVIDIA T20 processor, and expandable microSD memory slot with maximum capacity of 32 G. For those who are more eager to know the camera configurations, the rear camera is a 5.0 megapixel feature with flash and the front camera is a 2.0 megapixel feature.

The connectivity features on Xoom include wifi b/g/n, 3G, upgradeable 4G and Bluetooth 2.1. The tablet has an overall weight of 1.61 pounds.

Compared to the 0.75 inch bezel found in the iPad, the Xoom is slimmer with a 0.5 inch bezel round the screen. It may be a tiny difference, but it is still a major variation in many ways. When you are holding the tablet in portrait, it is easier to get the thumbs across the screen. This makes easier to thumb type on the screen as compared to the iPad.

The Xoom really makes a lot of score when it comes to the keyboard. It offers you sufficient space between the virtual keys, making typing easier in both portrait and landscape orientations. The Xoom keyboard also offers multi-touch support for fast typing along with emoticon keys, dedicated tab and a dedicated button that helps you instantly jump to the keyboard settings. You will find the Xoom keys a little more rectangular and smaller compared to the iPad keys. However, you will find the performance to be faster and more precise.

Back in the spring of 2011, the Xoom became one of the hottest selling Skinomi Screen protectors of all time. Even months after it was released our protectors for the Xoom are still selling well which usually means the device itself hasn’t been forgotten, even with all of the new Android Tablet choices like selection of Asus Transformer, Screen and Skin Protectors. If you own a Xoom or are looking into owning one. Check out some of our Carbon Fiber Xoom Skins, or Skinomi Lightwood Xoom Skins or Skinomi Darkwood Xoom protectors. Skinomi Skin protectors arn’t just for show, they can really go a long way in protecting your devices from scratches, dents, and wear. If you haven’t had a chance yet try a Skinomi Protector for your Motorola Xoom.

Amaze 4G is the Latest Sensation in the World of Cell phones

In its continuous contribution to add a set of killer devices, HTC has released its amazing handset Amaze 4G. There are two things special and direct about the Amaze 4G – it is among the fastest T-Mobile phones and it has among the best cameras you can find anywhere on a phone.

The HTC Amaze 4G is a step ahead of the Sensation 4G – it has a better display, a more proficient camera and faster data speeds. Even though the design has stuck to the earth-colored hues, there are slight changes with techie black and silver taking the place of deep brown. It has a 4.3 inch screen with qHD resolution of 960 x 540 pixels. This high resolution makes graphics, icons and text look smooth and clean.

When it comes to signal, the Amaze 4G performs great on the signal tests. It was found to be always connected during tests and never dropped down to touch the edge, and the speed was also regularly fast. The Amaze 4G has a larger display, a dual core 1.5 GHz processor and a fast 4G access. All this means it needs to have a good battery. If you are going to use it regularly, then it needs to be charged at night.

The Amaze has the latest Sense 3.0 software along with Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread. The home panels on the Sense are almost the same as found in the earlier versions. There is the regular weather widget along with new watch and music widgets.

There are many ways you can listen music on the Amaze. You have the FM radio, Slacker and the HTC music player. Even though the music application is not entirely Android, it has a new skin to blend with the Sense 3.0, but the features are unchanged. When using Google Music, you will have to download the latest Android music player for access.

When you want to enjoy video, the HTC Amaze 4G has several options available. You have the Mobile TV app from T-mobile, the YouTube app and one latest service known as Watch. This is a movie rental or download service from HTC. It has a home screen widget where you can scroll through the library of videos you have purchased and you can play them directly on the home screen.

The HTC Amaze 4G has an 8 mega pixel camera having special buttons, image stabilization, constant focus, face and blink detection and lots more. You don’t have to unlock the phone in order to use the camera. You will find some easy controls on the screen’s side for adjusting the modes and flash without accessing the menu. You can also use these controls to jump between the video camera and the camera facing the user. Other controls can be found only in the menu button. There is the unique feature of touch-to-focus, where if you want the camera to focus on a spot, you can touch press it. The Android browser in Amaze has new looks from HTC. It is fast no doubt, but it has slicker looks compared to earlier version.

Skinomi’s Amaze 4G Skins are currently available right now. Our Full Body designs completely cover the device and are very easy to install. As of this writing our Carbon Fiber Skins for the Amaze have become especially popular enhancing the black vs white build of the device. But our Natural Wood series skins are also receiving praise for durability as well as adding some color to the “Storm Trooper” look of the phone as one customer pointed out. Our screen protectors are also on sale on AMAZON.com Check them out, Skinomi TechSkin protectors add protection without adding any weight and are no doubt “Amazing” in their own way.

The Amazon Kindle Fire is expected to be one of the hottest selling devices over the holiday season. (It might literally be a… fire sale.) We here at Skinomi are eagerly awaiting November 14th as if it were a combination of an early Thanksgiving, Christmas, and just perhaps the Great Day of Reckoning. The Kindle Fire, is the first truly capable, “my mom will eventually just return this to K-Mart” Android Tablet for 199$, the Kindle Fire Features a vibrant 7in IPS screen similar to the iPad, a swift Dual Core Processor, the revolutionary Amazon Silk Web Browser, and instant access to the massive breadth of Amazon Apps, Books, Videos, and Games. Probably the most important aspect of the new Kindle Fire is its incredible price point that break a family’s budget or bring geeks everywhere further into recession.

Most Android tablets are placed close to the the price point of the iPad or iPad 2. Unfortunately perhaps because of a combination of ridiculously high prices (remember the 650$ Xoom?) and lack of options in apps and games Android tablets in general are not doing as well compared to the iPad and iPad 2. As of this writing despite  the resources of several companies from multiple continents: Motorola (Xoom), Samsung (Galaxy Tabs),  HTC (Flyer) and several smaller companies like Archos and Vizio there may only be about 3.4 million Android Tablets sold compared to the vast numbers of Apple iPads. This can be compared to if the population of Los Angeles  went vs the population of China in a game of Laser Tag. However this may all change with the Kindle Fire.

The Kindle Fire, though lacking the larger screens, newer processors, and fancy 3D cameras of its other Android Kin has the complete backing of Amazon. The focus of the Kindle Fire is going to be very similar to the Kindle E Readers, which will be to sell great Amazon Products: Amazon Music (is already one of the great contenders to iTunes with its DRM free easy downloads), Amazon’s Books (which will soon outnumber those found in every library in the world),  and Movies (which will be great for Amazon Prime members). Going forward, as Android apps continue to improve in quality and numbers the Kindle Fire is sure to become a great entertainment source.

Despite its great price and decent build quality (imagine a modest version of the Playbook which is still retailing for 200-400$), the Kindle Fire is still going to need the best kind of protection out there. Like each product we create, our designers make sure that each Skinomi Techskin  is custom made of each device with an easy, perfect fit, with every installation. I can promise you that the same high attention to detail and quality is going to go into the designs and protectors for the Kindle Fire. Imagine a new Carbon Fiber Skin or classy Natural Wood Series Techskin on this great device. We may even have a few new options by then in terms of colors and screen options. Stay tuned for more news and updates coming soon! In the mean time happy iPhone 4S weekend!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!