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Today’s Apps
- PVSTAR+: the YouTube music player
- Power Controls: an advanced power control widget
- Bend the Laser: a simple puzzle game
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About Android Apps of the Day
Android has over 450,000 apps. With so many apps out there, app discovery (aka finding new and useful apps) is extremely difficult. With our Android Apps of the Day initiative, dotTech aims to change that. Everyday we post three apps, allowing our readers to discover new apps, daily. Enjoy! [Subscribe to dotTech to never miss an article: RSS Feed | E-mail]
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Apps for August 3, 2012
PVSTAR+
Let’s face it. If you’re trying to listen to music, the default YouTube app sucks. It’s purposefully missing several important music-listening features, such as the ability to play with the screen off, background playback, and repetition. PVSTAR+ is different. It’s a free, music-oriented video player that can search YouTube, DailyMotion, and NicoVideo.
PVSTAR+ has lots of features that you might not even realize you want in a YouTube music app. There’s the obvious ones, such as background and repeat playback, but it includes custom lists with up to 100 items, and you can back up this list if needed. It also lets you turn off playback after a certain amount of time, which is perfect for playing before you fall asleep.
It also includes video caching for even better playback, and lets you optionally play in low quality if your connection is slow. It’s a great tiny YouTube app that anyone who loves music should definitely consider getting.
Price: Free!
Version discovered: v1.5.3
Requires: Android 2.2+
Download size: 615KB
Power Controls
Do you like to micromanage have full control over your device? With Power Controls, you’re in charge of what hardware devices are turned on. It’s like the widget your device came with, but souped up.
Power Controls lets you add tons of toggles to your device. You can toggle WiFi, 2G/3G/4G, WiMax, Bluetooth and Bluetooth discovery, Data Sync, Airplane Mode, screen rotation, WiFi Hotspot, Volume, GPS, brightness, flashlight, USB tether, screen timeout, multimedia, and you can even add custom system shortcuts and applications.
Of course, that’s a ton of toggles. You can’t possibly fit them all on one bar, so Power Controls lets you fit anywhere between 2 and 8 on each. It’s a great little power management widget, and if you’re currently using one with fewer toggles, it’s definitely worth a look.
Price: Free!
Version discovered: v3.7.2
Requires: Android 2.3+
Download size: 144KB
Bend the Laser
Looking for a simple puzzle game to play in your spare time? Bend the Laser is one that simultaneously teaches physics and bends lasers.
OK, perhaps Bend the Laser doesn’t teach you physics. It’s a fun little game that makes you bend and split a laser light source to attempt to get it to all of its checkpoints. You can’t have any stray laser beams, though, so be sure to pay attention!
Bend the Laser isn’t necessarily easy as pie. It features theoretically infinite puzzles, as they’re all procedurally generated, and they come in ranges of very easy to absolutely insane. It’s a very fun game, and is free with ads.
Price: Free!
Version discovered: v1.0
Requires: Android 2.1+
Download size: 488KB
dotTechies: We have tested all the apps listed above. However, Android Apps of the Day articles are not intended as “reviews” but rather as “heads-up” to help you discover new apps. Always use your best judgement when downloading apps, such as trying trial/free versions before purchasing paid apps, if applicable.
