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Twitter launches Vine App for Android: Create and share 6 second videos

After nearly six months, the much widely used and loved short videos making app Vine is now available on Android. With Vine for Android, you can make short videos lasting just for 6 seconds. These short, looping videos are really interesting. Launched in January 2013, Vine now has over 13 million users. That’s just on the iOS platform, huge figure right? Now that it is available on Android too, this figure is sure to multiply to a big one very soon.

This app is simple to use. With a continuous tap on the screen with your finger, you can record the 6 seconds clip with ease, and then share on Twitter. Sharing to Facebook will be brought soon.

This newly released Android looks a lot like its iOS counterpart. The Vine for Android app displays four tabs by default. The Feed section displays the list of short videos made by those whom you follow. The Activity shows notifications. The Explore tab brings you to some of those popular videos on the Vine database. The Profile section lets you to review your previously made short videos.

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There is something that you would like to keep in mind though. The Android and iOS versions of Vine won’t be the same. Twitter claims that both the versions are different from each other and will continue to be so. As of now, Vine for Android has one exclusive feature which is zoom.

The features like shooting with front facing camera, search, mentions and hastags are available only in the iOS version of Vine for now. They’ll be brought to Android soon, says Twitter.

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Link: Vine on Google Play

What Vine Means to Us

For many Vine might sound pretty much like Instagram expect that the former deals with videos. If you remember well, Instagram was first bought by Facebook in April ’12. Later, Twitter brought its own image filters and a took a straight punch at Instagram. Instagram Twitter cards are no longer shown on Twitter official site or TweetDeck.

To make things much more interesting, Twitter decided to bring this new service called Vine. This service aims to take down Instagram by letting people deal with short videos, bringing their life to motion.

Will Vine be Really Successful in the Android Ecosystem?

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While Vine is a hit in the iOS ecosystem, it is a new comer to Android. Will this be successful on the Android world? I personally think that Vine for Android will be really successful in this Android world.

At least the Indian Android users will love this service. Android being the giant in India, most of the Indians will be ready to shoot interesting short videos of their beautiful country. So, as said earlier in the post, the number of Vine users is sure to take a big step from the 13 million users count.

What’s your thought on Vine? Are you one of those who waited too long to get this amazing tool on your Android device? Do share your thoughts with us. Also let your Android friends know about this new Android app.

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Download – New Updated Gmail App APK Available

Google has finally updated their app for Gmail on Google Play Store. The update brings a major redesign of Gmail on browsers and also their apps. Gmail has already started rolling out new design for browser users. The tabbed categories seem to have people excited and they show up on Android.

What is new with Gmail App for Android?

  • First big change is the left side navigation bar. It slides out if on touching the top left hand corner.
  • The Navigation bar shows easy access to the categories your mail is sorted into and also the multiple Gmail accounts you have hooked up to the app.
  • It also supports swipe to refresh on the main screen. This is much better than searching for the refresh symbol that used to exist before. Overall the layout is cleaner and simpler to use.

When is Gmail app out for update?

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The update was pushed through yesterday but it will takes days for everyone to get this update. It might even be months before your turn comes up.

Try looking up if the app is up for an update on the Play store. If you we can also download a APK version manually.

Get Gmail App right now

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The Gmail APK is posted by Android Police and can be downloaded to get the latest layout for Gmail. Before you install the app go to Settings >> Security and select the the option to allow app installation from unknown sources.

Also check out how to enable smart labels and new Inbox on Gmail on your desktop.

Did you try out the new Gmail app on your Android phone? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Gmail App (Play Store) | Gmail APK (Android Police)

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Notifycon: Shows Notification Count in Pinned Tabs with Chrome

Automatic notifiers are always welcome. Though you can pin tabs in Chrome, they don’t show the updates. We just use them for easy access to the sites.  But what if they offer the notifications as well? Wouldn’t that make things better? For just that reason, here is “Notifycon extension”.  It is a easy and simple extension in chrome that displays the notification counts in the pinned tabs of your Chrome.

How it works:

  • Install the Notifycon Chrome Extension from the Chrome Web Store.
  • After installation, You will be able to see a new icon on your browser’s toolbar.

  •  When you click on that, you will see a small pop-up stating that pin-up is necessary for the extension to work.

  • Click on the “pin now” button.
  • Once the site is pinned, you can see it in the left corner of the toolbar with the notification count.

Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and more are supported. Now you will be immediately notified about new messages and notifications on the pinned tabs.

Chrome fans can also check out 6 ways to customize Chrome’s Startup page.

Do try out Notificycon and drop in your comments.

Link: Notifycon

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Opera releases its Chromium based browser for Windows and Mac

A few months ago, Opera has confirmed that it’s moving away from its browser engine Presto, adopting Google’s Chromium. Now that Chromium is based on Blink – which is a fork of Webkit, Opera too relies on it.

Today, they have released the future version (read: beta) of Opera. They call it Opera Next.

Firstly, the browser is already available for Android, and now can be tried on Windows and Mac too. As it is based on Chromium, it apparently shares a lot of similarities with it (take a look at the settings page).

The main focus seems to be on Speed Dial and Discover features. Discover basically allows you to browse through news, you might totally find it irrelevant if you already use something like Flipboard or any RSS reader. The Speed Dial tiles look huge and beautiful, they’re also customisable.

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They have also introduced a new ‘Stash’ feature. It seems like a place for your favourite sites. You get a large preview of them in the Stash tab. But really, I didn’t find a point in it.

Like you’d expect, there’s Opera Turbo, which is the main reason for Opera being popular. It’s called ‘Off-Road mode’ in Opera Next.

The traditional version of Opera used to support share sheets on Mac, I really liked that. Opera Next on the other hand, doesn’t support OS X Mountain Lion’s sharing features.

As you can see, there’s not a whole lot of stuff they’ve released, but as Blink gets better I’m sure you can expect features in Opera (and Chrome).

Hit the link below to download and give Opera Next a try.

Link: Opera Next

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AutomateIt: Set Rules/Triggers for Automating Tasks on Android

You might want your phone to go on vibrate mode or shutdown at a particular time every day. You might want to switch off your WIFI on the phone when you are in office. Such tasks on Android can be automated with app called Automate It.

Features of Automate It

  • The app is loaded with 6 default rules which can be customized.
  • New rules can be either created or searched from “Rules Market”.
  • One feature I liked in this app is the experimental Activity Recognition. If you set the trigger to switch off your WIFI in a car or switch it to silent or vibrate mode when you reach your office or college, it does happen but it definitely needs improvement as this fails to trigger sometimes.
  • Some stuff you can do with this app are set it up to send an automatic SMS on a specific day and time.

This works very well with the usual basic triggers and I have not been having any problems. The last thing to keep in mind is that there are two triggers that could drain your battery if not used properly – location and sensor triggers. Overall, this app is worth the download.

Video Demo of Automate It

Do try out Automate It and drop in your comments.

Link: Automate It

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AppGratis pops up on Android, after getting pulled from App Store

If there is one problem which is common among all major mobile operating systems, that’s app discovery. Apple’s App Store is relatively better than Play Store and even the Windows Marketplace, but they’re almost on the same floor.

AppGratis was one of those companies which tried to solve this problem with their service. For starters, AppGratis shows off a good paid app everyday, which is free for limited time. It was very popular on iOS, but a few months ago, it got pulled off from the App Store as they violated few of its policies. After a lot of drama took place, AppGratis wrote a blog post officially clearing a lot of confusion among users.

They even have started a petition a month back, which got tremendous response from users. Nevertheless, there’s no signs of Apple bringing back AppGratis to the App Store.

Interestingly, they released their app for Android, a few days back – and it’s pretty good.

While there isn’t anything special about the app on Android, it works. They have posted around 15 app deals, i.e. apps which are free for limited time (a single day, or sometimes even more). Just like the iOS app, you can set AppGratis on Android to notify you every day with an app deal.

All AppGratis recommendations are picked by humans – they are essentially tested and hand picked by their team. This is one of the reasons for why AppGratis is so popular. Though, from what I’ve tried, their Android app recommendations aren’t up to the mark. The apps didn’t seem to be of high quality, but I’m sure the recommendations will get better with time.

It’s available on the Play store, so go grab it.

Link: AppGratis

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Download Images in Bulk with a Single Click on Chrome

Ever wanted to download a collection of images from a particular webpage and end up wasting your time downloading each and every image individually? A Chrome extension named “Image Collection Extension” will be helpful.

It is an easy to use extension that quickly scans a particular webpage that you are on and gives you options to download them. There are numerous options to download. You can choose to download those images either to your local hard disk drive directly or choose to upload those images direct to your cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive.

How it works:

  • Install the extension and a new icon gets added to the right side of the address bar on Google Chrome.
  • Lookup any webpage with a few images and then click on that icon, it will display all the images in that particular webpage in a pop-up.
  • You can choose to download them individually or download them in bulk.

  • Some images can also be excluded from the bulk select.
  • The extension can be connected to SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox. The options are on the right hand side.
  • The settings section of this extension gives you various options. You can filter the images based on certain image extensions, filter out images based on certain keywords and do a lot more! 

In case you are exclusively using Google Drive, then I would recommend Google’s Save to Drive Extension for Chrome.

Link: Image Collection

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Flib: A Gorgeous Unit Converter app for Android and iOS

While both Android and iOS ship with Calculator apps by default, there are no stock Converter apps. So, you’ve to rely on third party apps. Flib is one such unit converter app, releasing for both iOS and Android.

Flib really stands from the competition with its user interface. The icons look flat and neat and there are neat flipping (that’s why the name ‘Flib’) transitions here and there. Of course, the main focus is still on converting units.

There are a lot units available – starting from area, length, volume to energy, speed, temperature and to even time. If the list is missing the unit you want, you can always mail the app developers for a feature request. It doesn’t convert currency, for example.

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Flib is pretty smart too, it shows the most used conversions on the first screen, for easy access. Finally, you can customise the interface too! Basically, you can set your desired colour for the interface.

The app is available for free and can be tried on Android right now. It is also tablet ready.

For iPhones, the app will be releasing pretty soon. You can sign up for the mailing list to get notified as it releases.

Link: Flib on Google Play

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Instashare brings super easy file sharing to iPhones and Macs

If you’re an OS X user, you must have tried AirDrop sometime. It’s a feature which lets you share files between Macs, provided they’re on the same Wi-Fi network. Now, though it does work like magic, it’s very limited.

It won’t work with iOS devices at all, for that matter. Instashare tries to fix this.

It brings dead simple file sharing to iOS and Mac devices (Android app soon!). You just open the app on your iOS device, drag the file and boom, it pops up on your Mac (or any other iOS device). It’s that simple. Your devices should be connected either by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

It’s one of those apps which makes you think why this didn’t exist before. You could use iCloud for this, but then you have to wait for it to upload and sync and then download it. Then there is this terrible software called iPhoto which will take forever to actually work.

So, in short, Instashare works like magic and can potentially change your workflow.

Demo

The app can be downloaded for free, though there’s a paid ad-free version. A companion Android app (and may be, even Windows) is hopefully in the works.

Link: Instashare for Mac and iOS

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Google introduces “Save to Drive” Button for Developers

If you are a web developer than Google has created something very useful for you. It is the “Save to Drive” button which can be used on your webpage. This button allows users to save a document or image right into their Google Drive.

How “Save to Drive” button works?

It really requires a developer to only post a small amount of script and HTML code. Basically copy-paste the code below into your webpage. (Reproduced from here)

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<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<div class="g-savetodrive"
 data-filename="My Statement.pdf"
 data-sitename="My Company Name"
 data-src="/path/to/myfile.pdf">
</div>

For more advanced options you can also use Google Drive JavaScript API.

“Save to Drive” from a user perspective

For users this is going to be a great idea. I already use their Chrome extension to save images and webpages on Google Drive whenever I need to save a print-out of a ticket or even keep an image stored.

With Google Drive syncing on phone and other platform it makes sense for webmasters to integrate it onto their site.

I am not a developer but I would love hear if someone is bringing Google Drive’s “Save to Drive” as a WordPress plugin? That would be hugely useful.

What are your views on “Save to Drive” button? Will you have this on your website? Do drop in your comments.