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Today’s Apps
- Holo Launcher [Homescreen and app tray replacement app that mimics stock Ice Cream Sandwich homescreen and launcher]
- Galaxy SIII Wallpapers [Five high-quality wallpapers pulled from Samsung Galaxy S III handset]
- BloodLand [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 our Android section to never miss an article: RSS Feed | E-mail]
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Apps for June 5, 2012
Holo Launcher
Android 4.x (dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich) introduced a newly designed, completely different homescreen and app tray to Android. If you are one of those many people who don’t have stock Ice Cream Sandwich, Holo Launcher is a homescreen and app tray replacement app that allows you to experience stock ICS homescreen and app tray without actually having Ice Cream Sandwich.
Holo Launcher is designed to mimic stock ICS homescreen and app tray in look and feel; and it does an excellent job at it. When comparing Holo Launcher with stock ICS, I find the similarity between the two to be astonishing and – frankly speaking – if I didn’t have stock ICS to compare Holo Launcher to, I wouldn’t suspect Holo Launcher to be a fake. Now that doesn’t mean Holo Launcher is an exact replica of stock ICS. There are differences such as the Google search bar widget on Holo Launcher is removable and is only on the main homescreen page (not on all pages like in ICS); placing widgets on Holo Launcher is Gingerbread style (long pressing on homescreen) and not ICS style; the app tray has two extra “Recent” and “Favorite” tabs; and of course Holo Launcher has launcher settings which can be customized such as continuous panning between homescreens, swipe gestures, changing grid size, etc. However, by and large, Holo Launcher uses the same style, icons, tabs, design, etc. as stock ICS; heck Holo Launcher even mimics the new method of creating folders in ICS (stacking icons on top of each other).
Now things aren’t all perfect for Holo Launcher. Based off the comments posted on Holo Launcher’s Play Store page, some people experience some lag while using Holo Launcher; so if you experience lag after installing and using Holo Launcher, realize that it isn’t just you. For what it is worth, however, I didn’t experience any lag in my short time with Holo Launcher.
Price: Free
Version discovered: v1.0.1
Requires: Android 2.2 and up
Download size: 769 KB
Galaxy SIII Wallpapers
Samsung Galaxy S III is Samsung’s latest flagship Android handset. Once of the most attractive features of SGS3 is its large, beautiful HD Super AMOLED screen. To help enhance the beauty of the screen, Samsung ships five high-quality wallpapers with each SGS3 device — wallpapers users can use if they don’t want to find their own. If you don’t own an SGS3 but you still want those high-quality wallpapers found on SGS3 devices, you can get the wallpapers by downloading the Galaxy SIII Wallpapers app.
Galaxy SIII Wallpapers is a simple app that allows you to view the five wallpapers and set them as your wallpaper or save the images to gallery. It is as simple as that.
Price: Free
Version discovered: v1.0
Requires: Android 1.6 and up
Download size: 2.5 MB
Galaxy SIII Wallpapers on Play Store
BloodLand
BloodLand is a graphically intensive, arcade third-party shooter in which you must kill… zombies. You use on-screen joysticks to move around, aim, and shoot (with the option for melee attacks); you have 100 life and each time a zombie hits you, you lose some life — if your life hits zero you die. Other features of the game include items that drop from zombie corpses (the irony…) which you can pick up to help you, such as life packs, bombs, and weapon upgrades. If you play ‘Quests’ mode there are currently a total of twenty levels for you to play. There are also ‘Rush’ and ‘Survive’ modes in which the goals are to kill as many zombies as possible and survive as long as possible, respectively.
BloodLand is a free game with optional in-app purchases. The free version of BloodLand only has ‘Quests’ modes and is ad-supported. You can remove ads for $1.25; if you want to remove ads and unlock the other two game modes, you need to shell out $1.99.
Price: Free, $1.25, $1.99
Version discovered: v1.0
Requires: Android 2.2 and up
Download size: 48 MB
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.
