Gmail's Web interface allows you to add a signature that appends to your messages. Fortunately, the mobile application also supports this. What's the importance of adding a signature? For starters you can make those you e-mail a bit more forgiving to your typos, or perils experienced with autocorrect, if you simply add "Sent from my phone" to each message. Alternatively, you can add the same signature that your e-mails sent from the Web interface contain, so those you e-mail will not know where it was sent from.
The Google Docs Android app includes a cool new feature--OCR support. OCR stands for optical character recognition and is a feature that's normally tied to full-sized scanners. You can now take photos of documents with your Android phone and convert them into text than can be searched and edited. Here's how:
Step 1: Launch the Google Docs app and tap on the "Create new" icon.
Step 2: Select "Document from photo" to start up the OCR camera function.
Step 3: Line up the document using the camera on your Android phone and take the … Read more
Google Music Beta launched, allowing you to upload your entire music library to the cloud. For now, the service is free, and songs you upload can be accessed on any computer or Android device (actually, it's iOS-compatible, too).
Invitations will roll out over the next few weeks, but the Android app is available for download immediately. Here's how to use it:
Request a Google Music account. You don't need one to use the Android app, but go to music.google.com/music/ and request an invite so you can upload your music library on to Google's … Read more
One of the advantages of the Android OS is its ability to multitask. We'll share an easy tip with you to quickly switch between your apps.
Step 1: Press and hold the Home key of your Android phone. This will bring up a list of recently used apps. The number of recent apps may differ among phones, but the Motorola Droid X lists the last eight. You can bring up the recently used app list no matter where you are on your phone.
Step 2: Tap on the app you want to launch, and away you go!
Apple recently released iOS update 4.3.3 (4.2.8 for the Verizon iPhone 4) to ease consumers fear that Apple was tracking their every move. Even though Apple has taken steps to encrypt and decrease the size of the location cache, third-party developers still have the potential of accessing your location information. This simple guide will explain how to manage which apps can access your location info on your iPad and iPhone.
Google launched its own cloud music service today, Music Beta, allowing users to access and edit their music collections across multiple Android devices and computers without burdening their storage--everything is stored on Google's servers.
Android users can download and install the Music app on their phones immediately, but won't be able to access all the features, including the Music manager desktop app, until Google grants them an invitation.
Now, what about iOS users?
When Amazon launched Cloud Player, iOS users were also ignored, but the interWebs quickly found workaround. In the same spirit, here's how to use Google Music on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
Get a Google Music account: To request an invitation, go to music.google.com/music/.
Open Safari: Point your browser to music.google.com/music/ and enter your Google account information. Interestingly, this page is mobile-friendly.
Navigate as usual: Now the interface can be used in the same manner as the desktop browser version. Tapping play will play the music within the browser. (On Amazon Cloud Player, songs would open in the QuickTime Player.) To play a song, tap it, and press "Play" in the navigation bar at the bottom, or click the triangle to the right of a song name and select "Play Song."
Scrolling. To scroll through your music list, drag up or down with two fingers. Be patient--there's some lag.
Google announced today that its Android Market will now begin renting movies in the U.S. Although flicks start as low as $1.99, Google said, most of the "thousands" of titles listed rent for about $3.99 each. The news and onstage demo came from Google I/O in San Francisco this morning.
For now, you can watch these movies online and on Motorola Xoom tablets that run the latest Android 3.1 Honeycomb update. Soon, you'll also be able to watch movie rentals on your Android 2.2 Froyo and Android 2.3 Gingerbread phones. … Read more
It's not always clear where e-mail attachments, text message files or files from the Web have been downloaded to on your Android phone. In this how-to, we'll show you where the files are and what app to use to find them.
Step 1: When you download e-mail attachments or Web files, they get placed in the "download" folder. To get to them, launch the Files app.
Step 2: Once the file manager opens, select "Phone files."
Step 3: From the list of file folders, scroll down and select the "download" folder.
Foursquare can be fun--but it can also start to feel like work. If you're the Mayor of your favorite coffee shop, holding onto that title can turn into a chore. The hundredth time you drag out your phone, pop open the Foursquare app, wait for it to figure out where you are, and then finally check in, the novelty may have faded a tiny bit. Fortunately, there's a sweet, free Android app called ToothTag that can automatically check you in at your favorite places, as long as they've got Wi-Fi or Bluetooth signals you can recognize. Here'… Read more
iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users can now access Amazon's new Cloud Player on their mobile gadgets, bypassing the initial lack of support for Apple iDevices. It doesn't work flawlessly, but if you follow the instructions detailed below, you'll be streaming cloud music to your iPhone in no time.
Unveiled late March, Amazon's cloud-based music player lets you play music purchased and downloaded from Amazon or uploaded from your own local music collection, providing a way to retrieve your various music libraries online.
Technically speaking, the Cloud Player is geared toward PC and Mac users as … Read more
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