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Today’s Apps
- Hipstacast: a Holo-themed podcast app
- OverDrive Media Console: get library ebooks on your phone’tablet!
- MX Player: the world’s premier video/movie player
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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 7, 2012
Hipstacast
There’s something about podcast apps that, for some reason, makes them ugly. Hipstacast is here to buck that trend: it’s a new, open-source podcast app that looks great.
It’s already quite well-rounded. It’s got a nice Holo-themed podcast selector and listening interface, and allows you to add podcasts with a single tap. It also lets you download podcasts, allowing you to listen to them offline. It’s really a great podcasts managing and listening app.
Of course, it’s not even at a 1.0 release. There are some important features missing yet, mainly the ability to look at old items in your feed, but since it’s constantly being updated, you’ll probably find these features landing in it some time soon. Overall, Hipstacast is a great Holo-themed podcast reader, and if you’re running Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean you owe it to yourself to try this app out.
Price: Free!
Version discovered: v0.8.2
Requires: Android 4.0+
Download size: 250KB
OverDrive Media Console
There’s an odd trend in technology that’s been going on forever: making new things act like the old things they’re replacing. Music companies are slowly shifting away from selling online albums, and there are new library technologies being made that allow you to loan books. OverDrive Media Console is the free app you’ll need to get your local library’s online book collection on your phone.
To use OverDrive, your local library will have to support it. You can search for supported libraries using OverDrive’s online library search tool. You can just visit your local library’s online book site from your device and download them from your browser. When you open them, you’ll be taken to OverDrive, which will automatically contact the proper DRM servers and validate your rental period. This allows companies to only loan out limited copies of ebooks at a time.
In short, OverDrive is like a digital take at the analog book past. They’re using the old book loaning paradigm to give libraries access to ebooks. If you’re willing to go through the pain of using your library’s desktop ebook site on your phone, you’ll find a somewhat nice collection of books waiting at your fingertips.
Price: Free!
Version discovered: v2.4.2.2
Requires: Android 1.5+
Download size: 2.0MB
OverDrive Media Console on Play Store
MX Player
There are a thousand movie- and video-watching apps available on Google Play, but they all cower under the might that is MX Player. This free-with-ads video player is the most powerful video player available today. It uses a slew of modern processing techniques to make the experience as good as possible.
MX Player uses techniques developed in the present for the present, rather than shoehorning old video processing techniques to new devices. It can use all of your device’s cores to decode video up to 70% faster, and is specifically optimized for certain CPU architectures. But tech specs aren’t all of its game.
MX Player also supports pinch to zoom while watching videos, and scrollable subtitles. The scrolling subtitles allows you to adjust the video’s time based on dialogue occuring. It supports many different formats of subtitles and virtually all video formats out there.
All in all, MX Player is an extremely powerful video player, and it does a great job supporting modern technologies. If you’re looking for a video player, you should strongly consider MX Player.
Price: Free with $5.60 ad-free version
Version discovered: v1.6j
Requires: Android 2.1+
Download size: 5.7MB
[via Droid Nerds]
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.
