AddictiveTips

[Giveaway] CollageIt: Create Gorgeous Photo Collages Within A Few Clicks

Waqas — Mon, 21 May 2012 08:58:41 PDT

In the past, we have covered numerous photo collage creators for different platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, Android, iOS etc. Today, we will take a look into another collage making tool for Windows and Mac OS X known as CollageIt, that with its easy to use interface design, lets you generate unique photo collages within a few clicks. You can choose among several different templates, which are further customizable with the number of editing options. The intuitive UI presents both the eye-candy and simplicity of use, to its users. The beautiful looking photo collage can be easily exported into PNG, PDF, JPG, PSD, GIF, TIFF, BMP and format or you may instantly upload it on your Flickr or Facebook to share it with your friends and family from within the application.

When you launch the application, it asks you to select a template that you want to work with , and as I started earlier, there are numerous templates available to choose from. Simply select your desired template and click Choose.

CollageIt is a paid application worth $19.90 for a Professional Windows & Mac license. AddictiveTips is giving away 5 Professional licenses for Windows and 5 for Mac OS X to 10 lucky readers, details for which can be found at the end of the article.

Now, you will be take to the application’s main screen. To start off, click the Add button at the bottom left of the window to add your images. All the selected images get enlisted under the Photo List section to the left, and you can Remove or Clear the selection using the corresponding buttons. You can specify a couple of different parameters to set it how you want your collage to look like. For instance, from Layout tab, you can set the Photo Count, specify the Margin and Space between photos, Rotate the images or use the Auto Sparse feature. The Photo tab on the other hand enables you to alter the frame size and color, and lets you enable/disable Photo Shadow option. Finally, you can click Choose Template button to the bottom left to change your selected template.

Along with tweaking your photos, you may choose a different background as well. Click Background button on the main screen to open the Background window. It lets you choose either two solid colors or use an image file as a background. You may also change an image’s opacity level from the Opacity section.

If you click File > Page Setup on the menu bar, it will open up Collage Panel Setting console from where you can alter the page size and change its orientation to Landscape or Portrait.

It also has an included Crop option, which simply lets you crop a photo to required size.

Once you’re done tweaking the collage, click the Export button to open the export window. Here, you can save the image to your hard disk in aforementioned formats, send it as an email or share it on your Flickr or Facebook page.

CollageIt for Mac is somewhat different from its Windows counterpart in terms of layout design. However both variants are similar in case of the number of features and options, they offer.

CollageIt is available as a Paid as well as Free version, where the latter comes with a few limitations like inability to crop collage, watermark, and limited photo size. CollageIt is available for Windows and Mac OSX. The Windows variant works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Download CollageIt

Giveaway: We’re giving away five Mac and five Windows licenses for this app. The giveaway will last for 48 hours. Participation is simple. Follow @addtips on Twitter, tweet/retweet the giveaway and in the comments below, provide a link to your tweet. Alternatively, you may comment on our Facebook or Google+ page, where the comment should preferably be under the shared post and not on the page itself. Either way, you must mention your operating system (Windows or Mac). Our editors will pick the ten winners randomly. Good luck!

Keyboard Shortcuts For Gmail, Twitter, Dropbox, Facebook & YouTube [Web]

Fatima — Mon, 21 May 2012 08:56:51 PDT

Who doesn’t love a nice, convenient hotkey? I personally think the only thing that can replace keyboard shortcuts (on PCs and Macs), could be the ability to transmit commands via brain signals, and that doesn’t appear to be happening any time soon. Keyboard shortcuts have transcended beyond desktop, and work on many websites and web apps, making it easier to navigate them. Almost all popular sites support keyboard shortcuts, and the following is a simple compilation of keyboard shortcuts for Gmail, Twitter, Dropbox, Facebook, and YouTube, some of the most visited and used portals across the world wide web. Since they are shortcuts, there isn’t much of an opinion to have about them, but for what it’s worth, this list is arranged with respect to which site has the best to worst keyboard shortcuts.

Gmail

Gmail is quite possibly one of the richest sites there are when it comes to supporting keyboard shortcuts. The list is virtually endless, and that’s why only the most frequently used ones are being listed here. The slightly tricky thing about these shortcuts is that they have to be enabled. Go to Gmail settings (the cog wheel to the top right), and turn keyboard shortcuts on in the General tab to get started.

c – Opens a new email for composing

n/p – Lets you move to the next or previous message within a conversation thread. This works only if you have an email thread open. It does not let you move to the next conversation thread

y and o – This shortcut works in a combination and allows you to archive the current email you are viewing and move to the next one

z – Lets you undo an action (provided undo is supported for it)

g and a – This is another combination shortcut and it allows you to quickly visit the All Mail tab

g and i – Takes you to your inbox

The list is fairly exhaustive, and these are some shortcuts that you would perhaps need more than the others. The complete list can be viewed here.

Twitter

Twitter definitely comes out on top as far as keyboard shortcuts on social media sites are concerned. If you took to using Twitter from its web interface after the recent redesign, you might just love the shortcuts even more. You can view a complete list of the shortcuts by hitting ? on the service’s interface, but here are the key commands for some of the most frequently used actions.

j/k – let you move between tweets

. – Lets you refresh the page and move to the top of your timeline

n – Compose a new tweet

r – reply to a tweet

t – retweet

f – Favorite a tweet

Dropbox

The recent redesign and right-click functinoality support isn’t all that makes the service easy to use. Dropbox has very intelligently integrated keyboard shortcuts to make navigating files and folder super easy, or, as similar to viewing files on your desktop as possible.

The Up/Down arrow keys let you select the next or previous file. You can hold down the Shift key and continue on with either of these arrow keys to select multiple files in range

Control + a lets you select all files. If you’re using a Mac, you will use Command+a.

Escape – The escape key lets you unselect all selected files

Control + c/v – Dropbox supports the traditional copy/paste function for files and lets you easily move them between folders.

The left arrow key lets you go back a folder level and the Delete key lets you take a file out to dinner. Kidding, it deletes the file.

You can view the complete list anytime by hitting ?

Facebook

Not many people know about Facebook’s keyboard shortcuts, and those that do know, probably try their best to forget them, since they are far from impressive. Of the five popular sites in this post, Facebook is the only one that relies on additional function keys, i.e., the Alt key for its shortcuts. Why is it so bad? Because Facebook and its shortcuts are used on the web interface, which is viewed in a web browser. Web browsers make extensive use of the Alt key, and that means you have different shortcuts for Chrome and Firefox.

Alt + ? – Focus the search bar

Alt + 1 – Go to your home page

Alt + 2 – Go to your profile page

Alt + 3 – Go to your friends’ page

Alt + 4 – Go to messages

Alt + 5 – Go to your Notifications page

The list goes on with Alt being used in combination with all 10 numbers; 6 for Account Settings, 7 for Privacy settings, 8 for the Facebook page, 9 for Facebook statements and the rights page (Facebook obviously thinks people will/should visit this page frequently enough to need a keyboard shortcut for it), and 0 for Facebook help center. Memorize them if you can. The only good shortcut it has is the L key that lets you like a photo when viewed in theater mode. Surprisingly, there is nothing that lets you quickly activate the status update field.

If you use the shortcuts in Firefox, you will need to use the Alt+Shift combination; for Mac, the Alt key will be replaced with the Ctrl key.

YouTube

As bad as Facebook’s shortcuts are, they nevertheless rely entirely on the keyboard. YouTube does things differently. The shortcuts that it supports are only for the player. For all other items, you have to tab through them one by one (as if it were the year 2000), and hit Enter to be able to engage them

The media player shortcuts are only half useful, since you have to make sure the seek bar is selected, and for that you need your mouse. You can then use the Tab key to move between the controls. The right/left arrows allow you to move a video 5 seconds forward or backwards. The up/down keys let you increase or decrease the volume. The Home/End keys let you move to the start or end of the video, while the spacebar lets you pause/play the video. There’s a whole host of missing shortcuts, including something that would let you quickly visit one of the suggested videos.

For those that are just discovering these shortcuts, enjoy the convenience they lend. Meanwhile, let’s all hope both YouTube and Facebook overhaul the options they have on offer.

Keep Apps Running When You Lock Or Put Your Mac To Sleep [Tip]

Fatima — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:34:26 PDT

When a Mac goes to sleep of its own accord, or when you put it to sleep manually, although the apps continue to run, the screen doesn’t lock. There are several apps that let you lock your screen using simple shortcuts and/or icons in the Menu Bar, but the problem with most of these apps is that when you lock the screen, apps are suspended, too. This means if you have iTunes running, it will pause when the screen goes blank. To keep apps like this running but still be able to lock your screen, you need to turn to Mac’s screensaver and the built-in Hot Corner functionality.

This tip tells you how to lock your system, i.e., lock it behind your system password and still keep all your apps running. Bear in mind that this doesn’t include just iTunes, but other apps as well, which may have otherwise been suspended when OS X detected you away from your machine for a while. You can also lock your system using Keychain access – the functionality does exist – but few people use it, since it is a two-click process that cannot be triggered with a hot key.

As opposed to locking your system with an app, Keychain Access keeps other apps running. The only trouble lies with invoking it. You can get around this with the system’s screensaver and sleep functionality. Go to Security & Privacy in System Preferences and set the system to ask for your password to access the system when it goes to sleep or the screensaver starts. Next, visit Desktop & Screensaver and assign the screensaver to any of the hot corners from the Screensaver tab. Follow suit for putting it to sleep.

Whenever you want to lock your system, simply move the mouse to the hot corner, and the screensaver will start but apps will continue to run. Whether the screensaver begins on your prompting it, or because the system has been inactive too long, it will always ask for a password while apps continue to run, giving better security.

How To Close Running Metro Apps & Clear App History In Windows 8 [Tip]

Fawad — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:30:17 PDT

Apart from Metro UI and Immersive platform, Windows 8 includes a new way to handle applications running in the background. The Windows 8 applications, or Metro style apps keep running in the background until you manually close them. This feature, the Switch List, is included in Windows 8, so that users can quickly open metro apps and switch between them. Although this feature allows users to save time by instantly opening apps whenever required, on the other hand each app that is running in the background adds up to the memory consumption. To properly close a Metro application, Windows 8 provides two methods, and an option to remove the Metro app history from the Windows 8. Previously, Usman explained how to automatically delete all the shortcuts to recently used documents and Jump List items when a user logs off. In what follows, we will explain how you can properly close Metro applications and remove Metro app history from the Switch List in Windows 8.

To close a single app, Windows 8 provides you with 2 methods. Either, you can close a running app by grabbing it from the top edge of the screen and dragging it all the way to the bottom of the screen, or if its not in focus and is only running in the background, you can right-click its thumbnail in the Switch List and select Close from the context menu.

To remove the history of all the apps currently running as well as declutter the Switch List, press Win + I on the keyboard and select More PC Settings.

In the left pane, select General tab to open settings in the right pane.

Under App switching, click Delete History button to delete app history and clear the Switch List.

Once the Done! message appears alongside the Delete history button, all the app history will be deleted. You can verify the app history removal process by opening the Switch List or compact view of Windows 8 Task Manager.

Smart RAM Booster Allows One-Tap Android Optimization In Multiple Ways

A. Rehman — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:26:59 PDT

No matter how much we emphasize on optimizing a mobile or desktop operating system to get the optimum performance out of the host device, the fact of the matter is that in order to achieve said purpose effectively, you need to have a robust, trusted and well-crafted application at your disposal. This is perhaps the exact reason why we see so many different system optimizer tools emerging on to the scene day in day out. Even for the Android platform, we have already reviewed a wide array of different system optimization apps, including Booster (read review), Bitdefender Power Tune-Up (read review), Cosmos by Support.com (read review) et al. From the team behind the hugely successful Android app, Root Uninstaller (read review), comes yet another very handy Android optimization app, called Smart RAM Booster.

Forget one or two convenient methods of freeing up your Android’s precious (and rather limited) virtual memory, Smart RAM Booster brings four different modes of performing a quick memory optimization/speed boost on your device with a mere tap.

Sporting minimalistic looks, Smart RAM Booster is an intelligently-built Android optimizer that frees up your device’s memory by killing those background apps that are leeching the most amount of resources. To achieve said purpose, the app brings forth four different Boost Levels that you can select from, depending upon the extent of memory optimization that you wish to achieve. Four supported boost levels include Aggressive, Strong, Medium and Gentle.

As implied by each level’s name, you can utilize a preferred boost to kill the required number of currently running apps. For instance, the Aggressive level can be used to forcefully kill most of the apps running in the background; handy in cases where your device is misbehaving due to app overload. The Strong level helps you get rid of all those low-priority apps which are consuming slightly below-average memory resources. The Medium level can be used to kill all such apps that are consuming above-average memory resources whereas the Gentle boost can be performed on all such culprit (individual) apps that alone are hogging the most system resources in the background.

Now here’s a very handy feature of Smart RAM Booster; the app supports a Whitelist feature, which means that you can specify a list of apps that you wish to exclude from the app’s scrutiny/optimization list regardless of the level of boost that you intend to employ.

Now to the app’s various 1-tap system optimization modes. The first one, the most obvious one, is the option to manually perform a one-tap optimization from within the app’s main interface itself. When launched, the app presents you with a pie chart representation of your Android device’s total, consumed and free memory resources. The Boost Now button at the bottom is the one that helps you free up your Android device’s memory substantially.

Head over to the app’s main settings screen by tapping the Settings button, and you’ll find a couple of other handy optimization techniques that are supported by the app. Once you’ve specified the required Boost Level and sorted the Whitlelist out, it’s time to avail other options available on this screen. For instance, the app’s Auto Booster feature, if enabled, automatically performs the optimization task after user-specified time intervals. For this, the app lets you specify the exact RAM threshold (in MB) – a user-specified figure referring to the RAM usage which, if exceeded, triggers the app’s system optimization automatically. What better and simpler way to avoid preventing all the various ‘hidden’ apps from pushing your device’s already-limited memory resources to the max.

The third type of optimization is through the customizable overlay widget of the app that sits persistently on any Android screen that you navigate to, and lets you perform a quick system optimization with a mere tap. From the app’s settings screen, you can enable/disable this widget, set its auto-refresh time, change its vertical and horizontal on-screen position, and pick from a desired widget size (Super small, Small, Medium, Large, Super large).

Want some quick optimization feature integrated into your Android device’s notification panel? The next option on the app’s main settings screen lets you do just that. There is the option to enable the RAM Booster Notification on this screen. Doing so installs the app’s widget within your Android device’s notification panel. With this widget enabled, all you need to do in order to free up necessary system memory is drag the notification bar, tap the widget, and Voila!

The final two options on the app’s main settings screen are of equal importance, too, as they let you set the default report style upon completing each optimization task, and specify the aforementioned pie chart’s refresh interval, respectively. The last mode of availing the app’s 1-tap memory optimization feature is by installing its widget on your device’s homescreen.

So, not only the app lets you optimize your Android device’s performance in multiple ways, but also lets you monitor the after effects of each optimization instance via a dialog box, or toast notifications (long or short). Personally speaking, Smart RAM Booster has replaced MP Task Manager on my HTC Desire Z as the default system optimization app. That said, I would still love the app to adequately improve on aesthetics, and offer the option to ‘blacklist’ all the culprit apps from running silently in the background.

Smart RAM Booster is free in the Google Play Store, and can be downloaded via the link or QR code provided below.

Download Smart RAM Booster

Super Video Is A Free, Resizable Floating Video Player For Android

A. Rehman — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:00:13 PDT

The concept of ‘floating apps’ is fast transforming into a pretty handy way of helping Android users extract the maximum performance out of their immensely powerful devices, while at the same time, letting them enjoy the true essence of multitasking on a mobile device. Previously reviewed calculator app, AirCalc, is a very fine example of a neatly-designed and simple floating app, which remains persistently visible on any Android screen that you navigate to. Over a period of time, the concept of floating apps has been employed on far more diverse app categories, and Android users these days find themselves surrounded by a healthy number of floating video players in the Google Play Store. However, the catch with most of these ‘floating players’ is that they come tied with a hefty price tag, which is not the case with Super Video, Floating & Popup – a comprehensive video streaming and playing Android app that lets you simultaneously play multiple local and YouTube videos through various resizable and movable floating windows.

Sporting polished looks, visually-rich 3D media gallery, and a user-friendly interface, the app lets you play almost any video file stored locally on your device, or via YouTube. List of features supported by the app is quite long.

As the app’s official Google Play Store page reveals, Super Video, Floating & Popup does not support a built-in media/video decoder, which ultimately means that it will play only those video formats as supported by your Android device itself. Hence, the app itself can be trusted to play almost any renowned video format – 3GP, RMVB, MKV, AVI, VOB, WMV, MP4 et al – only if the format is supported by your device. In addition, the app comes with support for auto-detecting and syncing subtitles with videos in multiple global languages. Currently supported subtitle formats include SRT and ASS.

Each individual ‘floating’ video player window is completely resizable, and sports all the required media playback controls, including play/pause, next, previous, auto-repeat (loop), video time scale, subtitles toggle (where applicable) and video aspect ratio toggle. As with the couple of other comprehensive Android video players – MX Video Player (read review) and Wondershare Player (read review) – Super Video, Floating & Popup also lets you adjust the video brightness and volume levels by swiping vertically on the left and right edges of the video window, respectively.

All aforementioned controls are accessible in both the normal video player interface, as well as in case of the floating video window. Then there is the option to ‘minimize’ the video player window; handy in situations where you wish to head back to another screen, or close the currently opened app, without wanting to lose video progress or shutting down the player altogether. On this note, it is worth mentioning that the app has the capacity to remember last played position of each individual video file on your playlist. The app’s ‘floating window’ feature is as smooth as it gets, and we observed absolutely zero-level lag while playing around with multiple video player windows running atop the browser screen (and other app screens) of Galaxy Nexus.

Looking at the app’s main interface, we find a total of five main tabs. The Gallery tab houses all the video files that are lying on your device’s local storage. The Directory tab, as suggested by its title, lists all the various video-based directories/folders on your Android. The Favorite tab is all about your quickly accessing your bookmarked videos, whereas the Played tab lists all the recently played ones. The URL tab keeps detailed log of all the YouTube videos that you’ve streamed via the app. Barring the URL and Directory tabs, all other aforementioned tabs can be set to display the underlying videos in list, grid or a scrollable 3D gallery view. Moreover, you have the option to manually search for favorite videos from within various directories. You can also sort video content by alphabets, ascending/descending time, duration or video quality (displays HD videos on top).

To play a video, just hit its thumbnail from the list. By default, each video is played in landscape orientation; however, once you tap the maximize button in the top-right side of the video player screen, you’re presented with a compact floating video player window. To reposition the popup video, hold down anywhere in the middle of the window, and drag on the screen accordingly. To resize the length and width of the selected video window, tap anywhere in the middle of the player interface (to hide the media toolbar), press the bottom-left edge of the window, and drag it on the screen as you like. The best part about the app is that it doesn’t affect video playback (position or quality) whilst you’re resizing or repositioning the player window, or attempting to adjust the video brightness or volume levels.

In order to stream YouTube videos, all you need to do is hit the menu button in the top-right of the app’s main interface, go to Open URL and feed in the link of the required video. A better practice in this regard would be to first fetch the required video’s YouTube URL from your browser. To bookmark the URL, hit Save, whereas to stream it directly, hit OK. Each streamed (or even bookmarked) video URL gets listed in the app’s URL history list, and can be revisited as many times as you like with a mere tap.

Looking at the app’s main Settings screen (Menu > Settings), we find several handy options, such enabling the option to cache video thumbnails (with liberty to use HQ thumbnails where available), clearing the app’s cache, enabling and customizing subtitle settings, disabling the floating player option (for relatively low-end devices), specifying the video playback quality of videos streamed from YouTube, setting the default screen orientation for video playback, and finally, determining the default toolbar timeout of the video player interface of the app.

Super Video, Floating & Popup is available in the Google Play Store as a free app that comes with certain restrictions. For instance, it doesn’t let you simultaneously open more than two floating/popup video windows, doesn’t allow marking more than two videos as favorites, and does not allow replaying bookmarked YouTube videos. In order to lift all said restrictions, you need to upgrade to the Pro version of Super Video, Floating & Popup for $2.99 through in-app purchasing.

Below is the demo video of the app followed by its Google Play Store link and the QR code.

Download Super Video, Floating & Popup

FreezePaint For iPhone: A Unique Way To Merge Parts Of A Photo With Another

Haroon Q. Raja — Mon, 21 May 2012 05:15:24 PDT

Photo apps for the iPhone are a dime a dozen but every now and then, you come across a unique one that stands out. For instance, one that lets you take a photo, freeze any part of it on screen by freely swiping your finger on it and then take another picture with your selected frozen parts overlaid on it. You can even remove the dark circles around your eyes with it, with ease, though in a rather unorthodox manner. It’s a concept rather hard to describe in words, but we’ve got you covered with our detailed review, hands-on screenshots and even a story! Read on for our detailed review.

The past week has been rather tough on our friend Pandy the Panda, who has been overworked, putting in long nights at work and getting little rest, if any. As a result, he has ended up with dark circles around his eyes, but he has to send his picture to his long-distance Aussie girlfriend Katie the Koala, and doesn’t wanna look awful. Harry the Hedgehog comes to the rescue with FreezePaint.

Harry brings along his friend Fatty the Frog, who is a happy-go-lucky fellow and has big, bright, shiny eyes all the time! Harry takes out his iPhone and launches FreezePaint. He simply selects a brush size from its options, points it at Fatty, selects his eyes by swiping his fingers over them on the screen, and voila – the eyes are now in frozen mode on the screen, while everything else shows the current camera view in the background.

Next, he points the camera at Pandy, adjusts the view till Fatty’s eyes (that are hovering over the camera view now) cover Pandy’s, and taps the button on the left of the settings gear and finally taps the ‘freeze all’ button in the options that pop up. Pandy’s picture now has Fatty’s big, bright, shiny eyes, and he can happily share it directly with Katie using various methods, by tapping the share button!

FreezePaint is available at iTunes App Store for $0.99. Grab it and make your own story, while Pandy and Katie chat and get to be all lovey dovey on iMessage, and Harry and Fatty go along seeking more adventures. Made your story already? Don’t forget to share it with us in the comments!

Download FreezePaint for iPhone & iPod touch

Simultaneously Convert Multiple Videos To Different Formats On Mac

Fatima — Mon, 21 May 2012 05:14:12 PDT

Video converters are some of the most useful (and ridiculously common) type of apps you can find. Surprisingly, they don’t stop coming, and Video Converter Master is yet another video converter for Mac that is free, supports conversion to multiple formats and can convert files in batches. The app lets you choose a format for each file you add before beginning conversion. By default, Video Converter Master opens the output file after the process is complete, but the app has the additional ability to put your system to sleep or shut it down once conversion is done. Since converting large videos can take a significant amount of time, it might be a task that you leave for the end of the day, and that’s where it might be extremely convenient to have the app turn your system off when finished. Video Converter Master also comes with a player that will play any and all supported formats, but is ad supported. It also allows you to take snapshots of a video when it is playing. More after the break.

Video Converter Master’s interface supports drag & drop, and you may add files to the left panel by dropping them there. The app will detect which format the video is in, and an icon will appear next to it, showing which device it is compatible for. Select a file and click the play button in the viewer on the right to initiate playback. In the same file player, there is a small camera button that takes snapshots of the video when you click it.

To chose a conversion format, click the device icon next to a video, and from the dialog box that opens, select which format you want to convert the video to. Add as many videos as you like and select a different format for each one. Click the Start button just below the volume control on the player, and conversion will begin.

To trigger a system shutdown once the app has finished working, click the After Conversion dropdown that appears when you start converting a video, and select the Shut Down My Computer option. Alternatively, you can manage this option from the app’s preferences. To change the output location for Video Converter Master, visit the Preferences and select a different folder under Output folder. To change the location for saving snapshots of the video, select another directory under Snapshot Folder.

Other than the ads (which are pretty unobtrusive), the app is pretty good, and supports a significant number of platforms and devices. In our testing, conversion speed was pretty decent, but that might vary with file size, bit rate and resolution.

Get Video Converter Master From Mac App Store

ViPad: Tabbed Aero UI Launcher For Program Shortcuts And Bookmarks

Waqas — Mon, 21 May 2012 05:00:53 PDT

With every new version of Windows, Microsoft tries to give it a new faceplate (Windows 8 anyone?), usually with more customization options, eye-candy and enhanced ergonomics to easily access your applications. Some people however, go one step beyond to what the default settings offer, towards the third-party utilities to quickly access their frequently used applications, URLs, and file shortuts. Well, today’s recipe is certainly for those folks who want a gorgeous looking application launcher, with aero glass effect. ViPad is a free application that provides a glass-like window, which houses different tabs to place all your program shortcuts and web bookmarks.

You can easily categorize your tabs into numerous groups and quickly access your tabs via hotkey combinations. Additionally, it allows you to rename the shortcuts, change their icons and resize them. According to the developers, the program also fully supports touchscreen displays, which provides an easy way to drag & drop the icons to create shortcuts as well as use swipe gestures to move between shortcut categories. Curious about how it works?

For the first time usage, the application allows you to add your existing desktop shortcuts to it. You can however, also do it later on, by manually dragging your shortcuts over the application window. The glass themed UI is inspired from Windows Aero Glass effect, and it perfectly blends in with the desktop. You can add as many shortcuts as you want and make different tabs to categorize your shortcuts. To create a new tab, simply click the cross-imaged button at the top right side, and a new tab will be instantly created. Likewise, you can create bookmarks of your favorite web pages, simply copy the URL of the webpage that you want to bookmark, open ViPad, and it will ask you that if you’d like to create a bookmark, Click yes to save it.

To scroll between different tabs, you can either select the tabs or use the keyboard Numpad to switch between tabs, as each tab is assigned with a number. Right-clicking a tab opens a context menu, which gives you options like Rename, Delete, New Tab and Reset.

As mentioned earlier, the application supports touch displays to scroll between shortcut pages, however you may use your mouse to click and hold on a page and move the curser left or right to swipe across different pages.

You can also right-click any shortcut to open a context menu, from where you can move or copy it to a different tab, remove it from ViPad or click Change to open its properties console. Here, you can assign a few different shortcut parameters such as rename, change icon, alter the target location etc.

Double-clicking the application window will bring up the the settings panel. The settings panel allows you to change Icon Dimensions and enable/disable some misc. settings such as Start With Windows, Stick to Desktop, Always on top, Minimze After Launch, Hide Desktop and Show Control Box.

During testing, we marked the Hide Desktop and Stick to Desktop options in the settings and maximized the application to full screen mode, and simply put it looked awesome.

The video below demonstrates some of the most salient features it has to offer.

ViPad works on 32-bit OS and 64-bit OS editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

[VIA TWEAKING WITH VISHAL]

Pair For iPhone & Android: Chat & Share Privately With Your Loved One

Zeeshan — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:30:44 PDT

A private line to your loved one is what everyone wants. Pair for iPhone and Android takes that wish and turns it into reality by establishing a private connection between two people that can be used to send messages, pictures, videos, your current location and even a gesture of affection. Furthermore, no accounts other than the “paired” ones can be used to access the data shared between you two, so you can be as affectionate as you want without being embarrassed. You can even work on an image together to compose handwritten messages and pictures that can be modified and added to by your partner. No more cold factory-font text messaging. Feel the warmth of your loved one’s writing, and you can also have fun playing tic-tac-toe with them using the same feature.

After installation, you can open the app and sign up for a new account for free, or log in if you already have one.

Once the signup or login is done, simply enter your partner’s email address to invite them. You can even choose to send an introductory video if you want when you tap Send invite.

Tapping the ‘+’ button in the bottom-left corner will open the options bar (the button will transform into an ‘x’ and a bar will appear above the textbox). Here you can choose to send a photo, a video, paint a pic (also for handwritten messages), send an emoticon, send a thumbkiss, send your location and finally, draw with your partner on a shared canvas (you can also play tic-tac-toe in real-time with this).

Note: When you receive an image or video, open it by double-tapping and close the opened file by triple-tapping it. The Thumbkiss is a gesture of love exclusive to Pair users. Love and feel loved by using it without others noticing. For all these options, see left to right across the two pictures above, you’ll have to slide the bar to see the second portion.

Tap the more/menu icon at the top-left of the screen to open the settings menu. Here you can set important dates (like anniversaries, birthdays, etc), schedule shared tasks and even go over all the previous files shared in Moments. You can also change your settings, get help for the app, suggest the app to other couples and finally, logout.

In the iOS version, if your email address is the same as the one you use for FaceTime, then you can tap the circle at the top-right to place a video call. Unfortunately, If you register with an address different from your FaceTime one, then this feature will not work.

In the settings tab, you can change your profile, security and notification settings. Finally, you can choose to unpair your devices in case of a breakup, in order to make sure your ex doesn’t keep bothering you.

Pair is available for free on both the Google Play Store and iOS App Store. Grab it from the links provided below.

Download Pair for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch

Download Pair for Android

Talpic: Embed Audio Recordings Within Shared Images [Android, iOS]

A. Rehman — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:30:29 PDT

If you feel that you can’t get enough dose of multimedia content from the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google + and other social networks, then you should take Talpic out for a spin. Based on the concept of crowd-sourced content-sharing, Talpic is a relatively fresh media-sharing social service available to Android and iOS users. Apart from sharing your own content, you can also explore an endless stream of photo and sound-oriented posts shared publicly by other app users. What makes Talpic unique is its feature to supplement all the shared photos with relevant audio recordings. For instance, if you’re attending a debate competition, not only can you capture and share photos of all the participants, but also a portions of their speeches.

Similarly, you can send a greeting card to your close ones, with your personal audio message embedded with the snap. These are just a couple of scenarios where Talpic can work its trick; the network boasts several hundreds of publicly shared photo, sound and audiovisual files that you can discover and share further. Various built-in categories alleviate the issue of discovering and navigating to the content of choice within the app’s entire interface. Apart from featuring several customary social media sharing tools, the app also lets you share you personal content publicly or privately, and over Facebook, SinaWeibo or Email. Details to follow.

Unlike mobile clients of most social networks, Talpic does not require you to log in to the app in order to explore all the content from under the various supported categories. However, in order to get into the sharing side of things, you must be logged in to the app using a valid Talpic ID. Signing up for a new account is free, and you can get a new account for yourself from within the app. Once logged in, not only can you share your own personal content on the network, but also keep a close tab on whatever you share, the people whom you follow, and other users who’re following you on the network. The app even lets you introduce yourself to the world via a brief audio message that can be played from your Talpic profile page.

The app’s homescreen is designed in a way to let you easily explore and share the best content with just a few taps. For instance, The Listen and View tabs on the app’s homescreen let you explore all the publicly shared audio and photo content, respectively. Each shared post is presented on a separate tile along with an indicator regarding whether it’s an image file, audio file, or contains both audio as well as photo content. You also have the option to use the app’s built-in search feature to look for the required audio/photo content or other app users (by their username).

The Share Sound and Share Pix tabs on the app’s main interface are there to cater for your own audio and image sharing needs, respectively. While the app lets you record and share plain audio content, it allows you to add custom audio recording along with any image that you wish to share. Apparently, there is no restriction on the length of the audio message that can be recorded. Once you capture/import the required material that you want to share, all you need to do is specify the title of the file, select one of the relevant content categories, opt to keep the file public or private, and decide whether you want to share it on other supported social networks or not.

While exploring posts, you can switch between audio and photo content from the same screen. To help you easily explore the content of choice, the app presents all the data under various tabs at the top. For instance, you have the option to sift through the latest, trending and most popular posts. In addition, you can also filter the content added to your favorites list, or all the posts share by other app users that you’re following. Each post can be liked, commented on, and added to favorites. Each image can be viewed and rotated in full-screen. If it contains some audio content, you can tap the play button to download the audio content you your device, and then play it back as many times as you like. You can also start following any user that you want to, and keep a close eye on their activities on the network.

For the photos, the app supports the following categories:

Funny
Wow!
Mesmerizing
Heart Warming
Cute
Others

Likewise, all the audio content is presented under the following categories:

Funny
Inspire
Stories
Music
Cool
Others

As mentioned earlier, with each shared post, you can easily tell whether it comprises just the audio, photo or (both) audiovisual content via relevant indicators. For instance, image-based posts are indicated by photo thumbnails, audio-oriented posts are represented by a microphone icon whereas a post containing both is indicated by a thumbnail as well as a microphone icon.

So, there it is; a simple and uncluttered multimedia-sharing social platform for Android and iOS users, especially those who want to ‘hear the most memorable moments of their lives via pictures’. Talpic is free in both the Google Play Store and iOS App Store. Download links to both the variants of the app are provided below.

Download Talpic for Android

Download Talpic for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch

PDF Presenter Lets You Annotate PDFs & Present Them As Slideshows

Waqas — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:01:04 PDT

Looking for a free application that can let you present your PDF documents in an MS PowerPoint-like presentation? Well then, you should give PDF Presenter a shot. It is an open-source, java-based utility, designed to let you display PDF documents the same way you’d present PPT (or PPTX) slideshows. Not only that, but you can also annotate your documents with an integrated Pen, Marker and Text Box tool. In addition, it provides you with an option to view your PDF documents (or a Whiteboard) in full screen mode. This feature can be used in countless situations, for instance, whether you’re demonstrating a class lecture or compelling your boss to accept a lucrative business deal. The tool is quite easy to use and contains an elegant user-interface design, with support for both mouse and pen input. Keep reading for more details.

The utility allows you to open multiple PDF documents at the same time. You can navigate between the opened files from the navigation bar present at the right side of the window. The page previews are also available on the right side for instant selection. The navigation buttons are placed on the toolbar, which includes System Menu, Start Presentation, Previous Page, Next Page, Pen, Marker, Text, Eraser, Undo, Redo, Zoom, Show Grid etc.

As stated earlier, you can also add a Whiteboard to the presentation by selecting System Menu > New Whiteboard. This option is placed to help you use a simple board to display some important points related to the presentation. You can write almost anything you want, using a few different colors and sizes. You can also use the Eraser tool to remove the annotations or click Remove all annotations to reset the whiteboard to its default state.

Clicking Start Presentation on the toolbar runs the slide show, and as I started earlier, you can also annotate your documents (or whiteboard for instance) while navigating through presentation slides.

The Preferences window contains settings for changing Grid style, size and visibility – configuring Annotation Margin – and making selection of input method such as Pen or Mouse/Trackball.

It works on Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX and Linux operating systems, provided you have latest JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed. Testing was carried out on Windows 7, 64-bit OS.

Download PDF Presenter

Accent: Quickly Insert Accented Characters, Copy URL Escape Codes On Mac

Fatima — Mon, 21 May 2012 03:29:14 PDT

Inserting accented characters in Mac isn’t really difficult, as we explained in a tip just last week; all you need to do is hold down a particular character key, and the letter will appear. The one caveat of this tip is that you must have disabled repeating a letter, and that can lead to some inconvenience when typing. There is still the option to use the Option key, but that is obviously the long way that most might want to avoid. For just these unique situations, there is Accent, a Mac app worth $0.99 in the Mac App Store that lets you view all accented characters and some basic symbols that are normally difficult to insert. The app lists them in a large, tiled layout, and you can copy a character for pasting anywhere by just clicking it. Additionally, the app lets you copy URL escape codes for any of the characters.

Accent’s interface is very straight forward, with the characters being listed as large tiles in the app’s window. There are three buttons at the top right that let you change the case of the letter, or switch to the symbol set window.

To use an accented letter or symbol, hover your mouse over a character and click it. The character’s tile changes to give you the option to simply copy it, or copy its escape code. The code is copied to your clipboard and can be pasted anywhere using the traditional Command+V shortcut

The app needs little explaining as far as working is concerned, and the interface is simple. It might be of more use to you if you aren’t going to type in English. In addition to helping you quickly insert characters, it also gives you a quick overview of all accented characters.

Get Accent From Mac App Store

Desk & Archive: Windows File Manager With Smart Sort & Advance Filters

Fawad — Mon, 21 May 2012 03:00:03 PDT

Most power users need more than just Windows native File Explorer to manage data saved on the hard disk. Although Windows Explorer provides you with a lot of useful options to view, search and access stored content, sometimes we need some additional features to efficiently organize the files in a folder. Along with the native features of Windows, we always keep covering third-party software that can increase your usability and reduce the amount of time you spend while performing simple tasks. We stumbled across one such application today, a file explorer named Desk & Archive, which lets you manage your stored files and helps you create, copy, and move files and folders to specified locations. It comes packed with some additional file management features including Smart Sort that lets you quickly change the file and folder sorting criteria, Ad hoc Item Lists to open files from multiple folders in a single pane, and Filters to group similar files together for easy access. Keep reading to find out more about Desk & Archive.

The application offers you a simple file explorer with a clean interface. You can easily navigate through the files and folders using smart folder and file management of Desk & Archive. At the top, there are navigation buttons to move forward and backward while browsing through your hard drive, along with a Searh Bar to quickly locate a required file or folders, and Items and App drop down menus. The Left side lets you quickly access special Windows folders such as Documents, Music, Videos, Recyle Bin etc., while the right side displays the contents of the selected folder. By default, the files and folders are grouped together according to their Date Modified, which can be changed using the Items drop down menu.

The new menu at the top left allows you to create new folders and documents in a user-specified directory.

The Filter button at the right side lets you select a general item type for the filter. For instance, if you want to view images, or only files with a specific extension, you can select it from the Filters menu.

The Options menu lets you configure the general application behavior, including Ask before deleting a file, Allow bookmarking on removable drives, Show desktop background on Desk etc.

The application works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Download Desk & Archive

If you liked this application, you might also want to look through our showcase of file managers.

Get A Better App Switcher For Windows With Large Thumbnail Previews

Fawad — Mon, 21 May 2012 02:36:57 PDT

By default, people use the Alt + Tab feature of Windows for navigating between open windows, applications and files. However, it can get a bit confusing if there are a lot of applications open on your desktop. For example, if you have 4 or 5 instances of Windows Explorer running at the same time, it might be hard for you to locate the one you want using the tiny thumbnails provided in the Alt + Tab menu. Managing all the open applications and being able to navigate through them is very important for efficiently using your time and energy. In the Developer Preview of Windows 8, Microsoft has changed the way we switch between running applications by replacing the Alt + Tab window of Windows 7 with the Switch List. Previously, we have covered some very useful desktop management tools, such as an application called Plumb (reviewed here) that arranges the desktop windows automatically as you open them based on a user-specified criteria. Today, we have a simple, portable application for you, called App Switcher for Windows 7 Aero. It lets you easily switch between running applications and open windows by providing you with Aero-based full screen thumbnails. More on App Switcher for Windows 7 Aero after the jump.

App Switcher for Windows 7 Aero is a very basic tool and does not confuse you with a lot of options. That can come off as a very good feature, especially when you are working, as in such a case, you just want to get done with the project at hand instead of wasting time in configuring applications that are supposed to help you in saving time.

When you run the application for the first time, a full screen preview of all the open applications and windows overtakes your desktop. The applications are displayed side by side, and the ones that are not visible in the desktop can be accessed by moving the mouse cursor to the left or right of your computer screen. When you click a window, it will be maximized, and the focus will be switched to the selected window. To access the App Switcher for Windows 7 Aero again, move the mouse cursor to the top of your screen twice in quick succession (like a double-click but without actually clicking the mouse – just moving it). The application also supports moving of files and folders from one location to another through drag and drop.

App Switcher for Windows 7 Aero works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Testing was performed on Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit version.

Download App Switcher for Windows 7 Aero

Glue: Personal Clipboard For Online Content With Tag Support [Chrome]

Zainab — Mon, 21 May 2012 01:43:15 PDT

Glue, a Chrome extension, is your personal clipboard that lets you copy-paste text, images and links in a fast and elegant way. Copy-pasting items or bookmarking websites for later use can not only take time, but can also result in a lot of clutter. This nifty little tool may come useful in situations where you have to copy text and take a lot of screenshots. The Glue web application comes with a basic-looking interface, which is very easy to navigate around. With it, you can copy items from the right-click context menu, add tags and save them quickly to your personal Glueboard. A “Glued” item can be edited or deleted later with ease. Not only does the extension let you save bits and pieces of information, but also lets you instantly share them with your friends on Twitter. Moreover, Glued items are saved and displayed with auto-generated titles and source links, which you can either view or copy afterwards.

To glue an item, browse to a website of your choice and select the Glue it! option from the right-click context menu.

The text, link or image will be displayed in a pop-up window with Glue it!, keep adding and open Glueboard options. Once you’ve added tags, simply hit the Glue it! button to add it to your Glueboard.

Once text, images or links have been glued, you will be able to access them from the Glueboard, which organizes and displays items with tags in a clutter-free interface. Each individual item can then be opened, deleted, or shared.

Glue lets you organize content by tags and alleviates the problem of bookmarking less important, yet noteworthy, items. Additionally, it allows you to view your favorite images, links or information in a unique and interesting way, without cluttering your bookmarks bar or folders.

Install Glue For Google Chrome

If you liked this extension, you might also want to take a look at the other Chrome extensions we’ve reviewed so far.

Capture Video To Create Free Pencil Sketch Animation On iPhone/iPad

Aatif Khan — Mon, 21 May 2012 01:19:49 PDT

The iTunes App Store is brimming with photo & video apps, and every now and then, we see a new entrant that brings something new to the table. Consequently, this is the genre of apps that we cover perhaps more than others, owing to the fact that either we find something new that’s catchy and flashy, or something popular goes on a limited-time sale, deserving the attention of our readers. Go2Share’s Pencil Sketch Video may not be revolutionary or unique, but it gets the job done well, and went free for a limited time. Essentially, this neat little app will let you shoot videos on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, in a pencil sketch layout, parting an artistic look to your otherwise-ordinary creations. What’s even better, is that the app is dead-easy to use. We’ll explore that further just past the break.

There are countless apps for iOS out there that will “sketch” your photos, whether snapped fresh from the camera or imported from Camera Roll, but the same doesn’t hold true for video. This gives Pencil Sketch Video somewhat of an edge over the competition, and perhaps the reason for its 4.5 star average rating in the App Store. The first launch of the app on your device splashes a half-sketched image of Angelina Jolie across your screen, giving an overview of what the app is capable of. Past the splash screen, you reach the viewfinder, which, by default, is in video mode.

The interface is plain and clean, with a big start button at the bottom center (to initiate recording, duh!), a photo/video toggle in bottom right, an options button in top left corner, followed by a toggle for back and front camera. The More Effects button at top right will take you to the company’s App Store page for another product, so you may want to steer clear of that for now. As evident from the toggles, Pencil Sketch Video supports both photo and video modes, and can utilize both the front and rear cameras (should your device have them).

Using the app is simple. Point to the desired object, and hit the green Start button. If you’re in video mode, recording will begin; for photos, a single image will be snapped. In recording mode, the Start button is replaced with a Finish one, which can (obviously) be used to indicate the end of your record session. There is no limit to the length of footage you can record. The viewfinder already shows the sketched version of the scene in front of you, so you’ll know exactly what output you’re getting. It’s noteworthy that the app does not support importing images from Photos, and you can only utilize it for fresh captures.

Tapping the Options button brings up the app’s 6-slider panel, which comprises Contrast, Exposure, Saturation, Red, Green and Blue values. In all fairness, the former three can be used to tweak the composition of your video/image, but the latter three, namely RGB, are pretty useless, since they rendered no effect on the output. It actually makes sense, too, since the sketches are black & white, and tweaking their RGB values should NOT have any impact, either.

Coming to the quality of the output, it’s pretty decent, although it would vary significantly with the device you’re using. For instance, on iPhone 4 or iPod touch 4G, you get 640×480 (VGA) videos and images, captured at 10fps. On iPhone 4S and iPad 2, the resolution remains the same, but frame rate jumps to 30fps. On the new iPad, resolution gets a boost as well, hitting HD video at 1280×720, 30fps. Of course, these results are with the rear camera. Below is a sample still that we took on an iPhone 4S.

Pencil Sketch Video isn’t the best of its kind when it comes to still photos, but the ability to capture artistically sketched videos with live previews, and that, too, with decent resolution and frame rate, makes it worthy of checking out. The app just went free from $0.99, so if you hurry, you may grab it without spending anything. It’s a universal app, optimized for both iPhone and iPad, and will require iOS 5.0 or later to work.

Download Pencil Sketch Video

GBResequence: Sort Images & Manage Their Sequence For Time-Lapse Videos

Fawad — Mon, 21 May 2012 01:00:55 PDT

Creating a time-lapse video can become a tedious task, especially when you’re dealing with hundreds of images that you want to add to an application that creates time-lapse video of specified images. If you’re a photography enthusiast, then you may know that time-lapse video cannot be created unless you sort image files in a correct order. Since Windows doesn’t natively offer an easy way to quickly sort images in a folder, you can use an application like GBResequence to manage image sequences used in time-lapse videos. In addition, it has the ability to copy and rename selected images in a folder without having to manually configure the file renaming settings. The application also provides a preview of files including JPG, BMP, GIF, EXIF, PNG, TIFF and Canon Raw formats CR2 and CRW.In short, it lets you select the images in a folder in order to copy them to specified folder with a new numbered sequence, so that you can easily use them in any time-lapse video creator. Furthermore, it allows you to copy only those images from source folder that you want to use for creating time-lapse video. For instance, you can choose to move every fourth image from the source to destination folder. You can even choose to copy images from multiple folders into a single folder and then perform time-lapse specific file renaming operations. Keep reading to find out more about GBResequence.

The application enables you to view the sequence of selected images in the form of a low resolution movie from within the interface. The main screen is divided into two panes. The left pane has Input related options, while the right pane holds Output options. In the left pane, click browse and choose the folder that you want to import the images from. You can choose all the images or just some of them depending on your requirement. The right pane lets you select an Output folder and rename the files in a sequence. Click Play/ Pause button at the bottom to view the selected images in the form of a low resolution movie. To rename the images, click the Resequence button available in the top right side.

You can watch the video below that shows demonstration of the features it’s to offer.

The application works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and WIndows 8.

Download GBResequence

Mail Control: Check, Read & Compose Gmail Messages When Offline [Chrome]

Zainab — Mon, 21 May 2012 00:56:35 PDT

Are you looking for an easy way to read and compose emails even when you’re not connected to the internet? Mail Control adds a highly useful functionality to your browser – reading and composing Gmail emails offline. This handy Chrome extension pops up a toolbar with Offline Mail, Desktop Gmail, Compose Mail (desktop and offline), Show Last notification and Google Calendar options. After installation, the extension will require you to allow offline emailing in Gmail; once done, you will be able to compose messages offline, which will be sent to the recipient next time you connect to the internet. Moreover, you will be able to access all your folders, including Inbox, Sent, Starred and Important Mail. The button in the toolbar displays a count for unread messages and lets you switch between three different pop-up layouts. Additionally, you will be able to switch between Desktop and Offline Gmail options; however, please note that you will have to install the Offline Google Mail Chrome app in order for Mail Control to completely work. Mail Control is really handy for those who are not connected to internet all the time, but need to access their inbox for various purposes.

After you’ve installed the extension, simply click the button in the toolbar to access Desktop or Offline Gmail. The Notification pop-up style allows you to mark items as read or spam and delete messages. With it, you can also Show Gmail labels and open different folders. Mail Control displays desktop notifications and an unread e-mail count on the button in the toolbar, so you can always keep track of new emails. Offline Google Mail downloads up to a week’s email by default, but you can increase that up to a month from the Offline Google Mail Settings.

The Mail Control Options allow you to Enable messages check, change the Polling interval and the Notification time from drop-down menus. Additionally, you will find three pop-up menu styles, viz Icon Menu, Notification menu and No pop-up menu.

Overall, Mail control is a user-friendly extension that allows you to read/compose emails and make changes to your Gmail inbox when offline, which will then be synced whenever you go online the next time. With it, you will never miss an important email due to lack of internet access, so visit the link below and give it a try!

Install Mail Control For Google Chrome

If you liked this extension, you might also want to take a look at the other Chrome extensions we’ve reviewed so far.

The Best Free Android Launchers For Home Screen Replacement

Haroon Q. Raja — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:30:00 PDT

What makes Android different from many of its competitors is the degree of customization it offers its users, which goes to the extent of even letting users choose what is essentially the primary user interface of any operating system – the home screen Launcher! With Android, you can choose from a plethora of available launchers offering a diverse user experience range, and it’s just as simple as installing the launcher like any other app. In what follows, we will take you on a feature tour of some of the best Android launchers available, to help you choose the one that’s right for you.

This guide is a part of our series on customizing the looks of your Android device. Other guides in this series include:

Introduction to Android customization
Make & Flash your own Android Splash Screen with Splash Screen Creator
How to Change, Customize & Create Android Boot Animation
How To Replace and Customize Android Lock Screen
The Ultimate Guide to Android Wallpapers
Replace and Personalize your Home Screen with the Best Android Launchers (Currently Viewing)
Themes
Widgets
Fonts
Icons
Status / Notification Bar
Combining it all in your own custom ROM

Note that there may be changes in this layout as we proceed, and we will be updating the links as we keep publishing the parts.

An Introduction to Android Launchers

A launcher is essentially the home screen interface that you see upon unlocking your device or pressing the home button. It houses your widgets and lets you interact with them, gives you access to your apps and lets you launch them, and provides you with an interface to pretty much everything else that resides on your device.

While most operating systems have their home screen interface setup as an integral part of the operating system that is usually very difficult and often near-impossible to replace, Android has a totally different and rather unorthodox take on this concept. With Android, launchers are treated just like any other apps, with only one difference – the ability to run automatically upon device reboot and on the press of the home button. In every other manner, they are treated by the Android system as regular apps, which means you can install them like regular apps from the Market, uninstall the ones you dislike and even keep multiple ones installed, switching between them at your pleasure! Though before we move on to those, let’s ask ourselves an important question.

Why Use A Different Launcher?

Before we proceed any further, let’s consider why should one go for a custom launcher in the first place. The reasons could be numerous:

Your device shipped with the stock Android launcher and you don’t find it customizable enough for your needs;
Your device shipped with a manufacturer-built custom interface (HTC Sense, Samsung TouchWiz, MOTOBLUR etc.) and you want the barebones stock experience or a more full-featured launcher;
You want your phone’s user interface to mimic that of another operating system such as the iPhone’s iOS or Microsoft Windows Phone 7;
You want something altogether different – a unique interface that isn’t like that of any major mobile operating system or even like Android’s conventional user interface.

Whatever be your reason, there are countless launchers available in the Market – some heavy duty, some lightweight; some with a focus on eye candy, some built for speed and performance; some conventional, some rather unique and unorthodox; some original, some replicas of other operating systems. In short, there are enough launchers to suit the taste of every Android user, and their grandmother! Though with all these available options, making your choice can be hard. That’s why we have gone through the trouble of trying out nearly all the launchers we could find, to bring you only the best. So without any further ado, let’s take a look at the best replacement launchers for Android, beginning with the basics.

Stock Android 2.3 Gingerbread Launcher

The stock Android 2.3 Gingerbread launcher shouldn’t exactly be considered an aftermarket launcher but we are including it here for good reason. Many device manufacturers ship their devices with their own custom launchers instead of the stock launcher. Most notable among these are devices by HTC, Samsung and Motorola that ship with HTC Sense, Samsung TouchWiz and MOTOBLUR respectively, instead of the stock launcher. Considering the market share of these three manufacturers, a vast majority of users don’t get the stock launcher with their devices. If your device shipped with one of these and you want the stock Android experience on it, you can get it by just installing the stock Gingerbread launcher.

At A Glance

Type: Minimal | Conventional
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: Limited to 3 icons | Not customizable
Home Screens: 5 maximum
Widgets: Not scrollable | Not resizable
Live Wallpapers: Yes
Themes: No theming support
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Extremely basic
Animations: Standard and not customizable
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: Fixed at 4 by 4 for each screen
App Drawer: Extremely basic
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: None

Basically, with the stock Gingerbread launcher, you get what you get, and that’s about it. Though one thing that sets it apart from any other launcher is the blazing speed. Powered by full hardware graphics acceleration, the stock Gingerbread launcher is the snappiest one amongst all available Android launchers, period.

Pros

Extremely fast, even on very low-end devices
Very stable
Gets the job done for those who don’t need any customization options

Cons

Too basic
No customization options
No custom gestures
No folders
No scrollable/resizable widgets
Rather dull in the looks department

Our Verdict

If you are on Froyo or Gingerbread and don’t care about fancy looks, iOS-like folders, customized home screen layouts, themes or pretty much any level of customization, you simply can’t go wrong with the stock launcher.

Download Android 2.3 Gingerbread Launcher (By MoDaCo) | Direct APK Download (stock)

Stock Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) Launcher

One of the most significantly improved parts of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is the stock ICS launcher. Despite still not giving us any customization options, Google finally decided to ship the new launcher with support for scrollable and resizable widgets, up to five dock icons (four of which are customizable) and much better folders. While not exactly being the power user’s dream-come-true, these features have finally made it a worthwhile option for most users to stick with the stock launcher.

At a Glance

Type: Featured | Conventional
Tablet-optimized: Yes
Dock Bar: Up to 5 icons | 4 icons customizable
Home Screens: 5
Widgets: Scrollable | Resizable (some)
Live Wallpapers: Yes
Themes: No theming support
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Drag-and-drop folder support
Animations: Standard and not customizable
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: Fixed at 4 x 4 per screen (phones), 6 x 5 on ~7” tablets and 8 x 7 on ~10” tablets
App Drawer: Basic, with section for widgets
Landscape mode: Tablets only
Limitations: ICS-only

A major difference between launchers for earlier versions of Android and ICS launcher is a persistent search bar that stays on all your home screens. Previous versions used a search widget that could be added to or removed from home screens just like any standard widget.

Folder support is pretty good too – you can drag and drop app icons on each other to create folders, which appear as circles with icons of 3 of the contained apps in a cool-looking stack. Widgets are finally scrollable and resizable, though resizing can only be applied to widgets that have been programmed to support it. All in all, several key shortcomings of post-ICS launchers have been addressed, making the user experience pretty good for most users.

Needless to say, as Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is built for both phones and tablets, the stock ICS launcher is also optimized for both these types of devices. It detects the device resolution and screen size, and automatically displays according, showing up more icons and widgets on ~7” tablets than phones and similarly, more on 10” tablets than ~7” ones.

Pros

Extremely fast
Very stable
Just the right feature set for most users

Cons

No customization options
No custom gestures
Persistent search bar can’t be hidden
Not all widgets are resizable
No options to choose app or folder icons

Our Verdict

If you aren’t a customization freak and don’t mind the persistent search bar, this is definitely the launcher for you for its beautiful stock ICS looks, great speed and stability. If you are interested in learning more about the stock ICS launcher, see our review of the latest features in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Note: If you install this launcher as a normal app, you will be able to add widgets only using the old fashioned way (long-pressing on the home screen) and not directly from the widgets section of the App Drawer, due to permission restrictions in ICS. If you want that functionality, install it as a system app by following our guide.

Download Latest Stock Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Launcher | Multiupload Mirror

Apex Launcher [Our Choice for Ice Cream Sandwich]

While the stock ICS launcher should be good enough for most casual users, it doesn’t quite offer any customization options to the tweakers amongst us. If you want to have way more control over your ICS device home screen while at the same time sticking with the exact same excellent look and feel of stock ICS, you have a few options available and Apex Launcher isn’t simply one of them – it’s the very best of the lot.

In terms of looks, you probably won’t feel any difference from the stock ICS launcher. However, above, you can see some of the features of Apex launcher in action. including landscape mode support for phones, custom icon grids (4 x 6 in this case), custom folder icons (square in this case), context menus for apps and widgets and their options, and resize any widget option demonstrated by the clock widget in resize mode (which isn’t resizable under the stock ICS launcher).

Note: The above image is a mashup of three images to show two context menus and a widget being resized, all in one image. It is not possible to actually do this on your phone, as bringing up another menu will obviously hide the one previously showing.

At a Glance

Type: Full-featured | Conventional
Tablet-optimized: Yes
Dock Bar: Up to 35 icons | Scrollable | All customizable
Home Screens: Up to 9
Widgets: Scrollable | Resizable (all)
Live Wallpapers: Yes
Themes: No theming support
Shortcuts: Customizable
Folders: Drag-and-drop folders with custom icons support
Animations: Customizable with many options available
Custom Gesture Actions: Yes
Screen Grid: Customizable up to 7 x 7 on phones; up to 10 x 10 on tablets
App Drawer: Robust, with many customization options like transparency, vertical mode & more
Landscape mode: Both phones and tablets
Limitations: ICS-only | Free version is full-functional | More enhanced paid version is available

If we get into detailing every single option Apex offers, this post will probably end up being all about Apex. This nifty launcher has almost everything one can want from a conventional-style Android launcher. Up to 9 home screens with customizable grid sizes, customizable folders, eye-catching transition effects, fully customizable app drawer with a separate tab for your downloaded apps, custom gestures for double-tapping, swiping upwards or downwards, double-tapping, tapping and holding or even tapping the home button…and the list just goes on and on. The dock is scrollable, with support for up to 7 icons per dock page and a maximum of 5 dock pages, giving you a maximum of 35 icons in the dock alone. And you get to have control over the display of all the cosmetic effects like the horizontal line above the dock icons, the home screen and dock scrolling indicators etc..

A great benefit of tapping gestures on devices lacking hardware buttons (like Galaxy Nexus) is being able to double-tap in the empty area on any home screen to get the conventional launcher menu for instant access to settings and other useful shortcuts. And yes, even that menu is fully customizable.

And surprisingly, despite all these options, configuring it is a breeze, unlike some other launchers like ADW.Launcher that intimidate many users with the plethora of options they provide.

Once you are done customizing it, you can save your settings as well as home screen layouts to SD card so that if you end up messing around with more options than you wanted to, getting back to your perfect layout and settings would always be just a few taps away.

White it doesn’t have any shortcomings we would consider too serious, Apex could get even better if a few features that have been overlooked could be added. Folder support for the app drawer (similar to GO Launcher EX’s) would be really awesome; we haven’t yet seen it in any ICS-based launcher. Also, while it does support pinch-to-preview home screen gesture, one can’t really change the order of the home screens or add/remove them from there. So if you decide that your second home screen should now be the third one, you’ll have to manually transfer all its contents to the third one.

Furthermore, there is an option to show or hide the status bar using a swipe gesture, but no such option is available to show or hide the dock bar using a similar gesture. Considering the dock bar can still be hidden from the settings, adding gesture support shouldn’t be difficult. Lastly, a theming engine like Go Launcher’s can turn this launcher from great to the ultimate. While we are perfectly happy with stock ICS looks, we can’t neglect that Android is all about customization and themes are amongst the most sought-after features by a majority of users.

These don’t seem to be much of shortcomings when you consider how the other few ICS-based alternative launchers don’t offer most of these features either (except for Nova – also reviewed below – that has support for rearranging, adding and deleting home screens in preview mode). Considering how Apex still offers considerably more customization options than such competitors, it remains our ICS launcher of choice, and that’s not even considering everything the recently released pro version offers in addition to the aforementioned features.

Pros

Very fast and stable
Frequently updated
Immensely customizable

Cons

No theming engine
No folders in app drawer
No option to add / remove / reorganize home screens from preview mode
Lack of a few minor options in gesture actions

Our Verdict

If you are using Ice Cream Sandwich, want total control over your launcher, don’t care for themes and can live without some gesture actions offered by a few paid alternatives, you’d be insane to not switch to Apex Launcher right away.

Download Apex Launcher (Play Store) | Direct APK Download | Direct Latest Beta APK Download

Nova Launcher

Another ICS based Launcher, Nova is the main competitor to Apex in this class, offering plenty of customization options while staying true to the look and feel of stock ICS launcher. There is a free version as well as a paid one, and as always, we will be featuring only the free version here. Like other ICS-based launchers, in terms of looks, Nova also looks pretty much like the stock ICS launcher with enhancements added on top. It’s the settings that really matter.

At a Glance

Type: Full-featured | Conventional
Tablet-optimized: Yes
Dock Bar: Up to 21 icons | Scrollable | All customizable
Home Screens: Up to 7
Widgets: Scrollable | Resizable (all)
Live Wallpapers: Yes
Themes: No theming support
Shortcuts: Customizable
Folders: Drag-and-drop folders with custom icons support
Animations: Customizable with a few decent options available
Custom Gesture Actions: Not available in free version
Screen Grid: Customizable up to 7 x 7 on phones; up to 10 x 10 on tablets
App Drawer: Very basic in free version
Landscape mode: Both phones and tablets
Limitations: ICS-only | Free version is usable with some key features limited

While Apex definitely has more customization options available in total compared to those offered by Nova’s free version, there are a few pretty handy features offered by Nova that Apex lacks, like the ability to choose the margin spaces around the home screen grid and bottom dock, a preview screen that lets you add, remove and reorganize home screens, and a pretty cool platform background for folders.

Nova isn’t slow but it simply doesn’t feel quite as fast as Apex on older hardware. Also, gesture actions aren’t available in the free version. The context menus for home screen app shortcuts and widgets also don’t have all the options found in Apex. Another major limitation is complete lack of gestures, to the extent that you can’t even pinch to get the home screen preview mode in the free version. In fact if it weren’t for these limitations, Nova would have been our ICS launcher of choice rather than Apex. Still, it remains a close runner-up.

Pros

Fast on most mid-to-high-end devices; stable
Frequently updated
Several great customization options including custom grid margins for better screen space utilization

Cons

No gesture support in free version
A bit laggy on some older devices
Context menus could use more options
Extremely basic app drawer in free version

Our Verdict

If you want more control over your screen space than possible with the stock ICS launcher or Apex, or if you absolutely must have the ability to add, remove or organize home screens from the preview mode and don’t need the additional options offered by Apex, Nova would be a great choice. We’ll personally be sticking with Apex for now.

Note: Due to permission restrictions in ICS, to be able to add widgets to your home screens directly from the widgets section of the App Drawer, your phone must be rooted and you must enable the Root Helper function in Nova Settings > Behavior. If you don’t do this, you will still be able to add widgets to your home screens the old way i.e. by tapping-and-holding on the home screens. If your phone isn’t rooted or you simply don’t want to do this, you will still be able to add widgets to your home screen using the usual method (long-press on the home screen).

Download Nova Launcher

Trebuchet Launcher (aka CyanogenMod 9 / CM9 Launcher)

Everyone’s favorite custom Android ROM CyanogenMod is getting a launcher of its own called Trebuchet in its upcoming CM9 release, and a beta/preview version of the launcher has been available for a while now. It is based on the stock ICS launcher and thus, has the same look-and-feel as the launchers covered above. At the moment, the customization menus haven’t been fully populated and many entries act as mere empty space holders, showing us signs of things to come. Trebuchet is under active development and once the final version is out, we will be updating this section with further information.

We have already taken the preview version of Trebuchet for a ride and written about it, so don’t forget to check out our coverage here.

Download Trebuchet Launcher

GO Launcher EX [Our Choice for Gingerbread]

If you are looking for an Android launcher based on the conventional concept of side-scrolling screens and widgets but with tons of customization options added, you simply can’t go wrong with GO Launcher EX. Despite being a relatively newer entrant in the launcher scene compared to ADW.Launcher and LauncherPro, GO Launcher EX has evolved over time to emerge on top of all the competitors in its category, and for good reason. It is completely free and boasts a feature set that rivals the paid versions of LauncherPro and ADW.Launcher.

At A Glance

Type: Full-Featured | Conventional
Tablet-optimized: No (Separate GO Launcher HD version available exclusively for tablets)
Dock Bar: 5, 10 or 15 icons | Scrollable | Customizable
Home Screens: Unlimited
Widgets: Unlimited | Scrollable | Resizable | Additional GO Widgets
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: Very powerful theming engine | Hundreds of themes available
Shortcuts: Customizable
Folders: Drag-and-drop folder support for home screens and app drawer
Animations: Dozens of eye-catching transitions and animations
Custom Gesture Actions: Yes
Screen Grid: Up to 10 by 10 for home screens and app drawer
App Drawer: Highly robust with built-in recent apps list and task manager
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: None

Before GO Launcher EX was released, the Android launcher scene was dominated by ADW.Launcher and LauncherPro, each of which had their paid versions that added additional features to the free ones. While they did have several common features, there were still many features unique to each that set them apart from each other. GO Launcher EX appears to have been built with one purpose – bringing the best features of the full, paid versions of both of these launchers under one app, enhancing them even further, adding a lot of polish to it, and giving it to us for free!

With GO Launcher EX, you can customize your dock with up to 15 apps, five of which are shown at a time and more can be revealed by swiping left or right on the dock. The theming engine is the most complete that we have seen in any Android launcher, essentially theming the entire look and feel of the home screen and the app drawer, rather than merely the dock and icons on it. Dozens of theme packs – complete with wallpapers, icons, dock background and even screen indicators – are available in the Market but to ease things even further for you, there is a built-in GO Store that categorizes everything published by the developers, so you don’t even have to search through other Market apps to find them.

Custom home screen gestures and home key actions, killer landscape support, great app and widget management, and theme-supporting GO Widgets for a range of apps and services are just a few of GO Launcher EX features that make it our Android launcher of choice for Gingerbread devices. In fact it can be used without any issue at all on ICS devices as well.

Trying to cover all the features of GO Launcher EX in detail in this article will leave little room in it for many of the other Launchers that we have queued up for you, so just install it, dive into its settings and customize your home screens like there’s no tomorrow.

Pros

Quite fast even on most mid-end devices
Great looks
Very stable
Extensive customization options
Great landscape mode support even on Gingerbread phones
Animations and effects can be disabled for low-end devices
Very frequently updated
Great themes, widgets and companion apps available for free.

Cons

May become slow on low-end devices with the animation effects enabled
Some may find the extensive customization options a little overwhelming

Our Verdict

GO Launcher EX is as good as any conventional style Android launcher can get, and should be the launcher of choice for most users running Gingerbread or earlier. Unless you’ve got a terribly low-end device or you want a user experience altogether different from the conventional Android style launchers (like Windows Phone 7 or iOS lookalike home screens, or something unique and unlike other mobile operating systems), GO Launcher EX should offer you all you’d ever want from your Android launcher.

Download GO Launcher EX

You might also want to check out our compilation of 10 awesome GO Launcher EX themes.

GO Launcher HD [Our Choice for Tablets]

GO Launcher HD is to tablets as GO Launcher EX is to phones. Brought to you by the same developers (as obvious from the name), the tablet version of GO Launcher aims to be what GO Launcher EX has become for phones, and judging from the initial releases, that stage might not be too far.

At A Glance

Type: Full-Featured
Tablet-optimized: Yes (tablet-exclusive)
Dock Bar: Up to 10 icons | Customizable
Home Screens: Up to 9
Widgets: Unlimited | Scrollable | Resizable | Additional GO Widgets
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: Coming soon
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Drag-and-drop folder support for home screens and app drawer
Animations: Basic; more coming soon
Custom Gesture Actions: Yes
Screen Grid: Up to 7 by 10 for home screens and app drawer
App Drawer: Highly robust with built-in recent apps list and task manager
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: Tablets-only

Rather than writing a long story about its features, we’ll just show you a screenshot of the interface for adding apps, widgets, shortcuts, folders or wallpapers to the home screen:

If that doesn’t speak volumes, here’s the app drawer, with icons on top-right for menu, adding folders, and managing hidden apps.

That said, it isn’t a fully finished project yet. Several key features of GO Launcher EX are currently under development for GO Launcher HD, including theming support, shortcut context menus and some more advanced customization options. Judging from the development pace of the GO Dev Team, these features shouldn’t take long.

Pros

Fast and stable
Killer looks
Frequently updated
Great widgets and companion apps available for free

Cons

No themes yet
Not a lot of customization options yet

Our Verdict

A very promising tablet launcher that’s bound to become a hit as the developers keep on adding new features. If you have an Android tablet, this is the launcher for you, period!

Download GO Launcher HD

FTL Launcher Lite

Apart from the stock Gingerbread launcher, all the launchers we have just seen above have one drawback – on older and low-end devices, none of them exactly runs buttery smooth. When it comes to the stock Gingerbread launcher itself, while it runs smooth as silk on even older and low-end hardware, it has absolutely zero customization options. FTL Launcher Lite fills the middle ground.

At A Glance

Type: Minimal | conventional
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: 3 or 5 icons; dark, light or transparent background
Home Screens: Up to 9; endless looping supported
Widgets: Yes; scrollable; not resizable in free version
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: No theming support in free version
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Extremely basic
Animations: Basic; customizable speed; bounce effect toggle
Custom Gesture Actions: Only swipe-up in free version
Screen Grid: 4, 5 or 6 rows; columns fixed at 4 in free version
App Drawer: Gingerbread’s 3D waterfall or 2D app drawer
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: Theming, resizable widgets and some other features not available in lite version

Based on the source code of the Android 2.3 Gingerbread launcher, FTL Launcher lite adds several customization options to the hardware-accelerated, super-fast and super-smooth Gingerbread launcher. As you can see above, it has just the right set of features that are available in many full-featured launchers, without getting everything but the kitchen sink crammed into it. This results in a more-or-less full-featured launcher with virtually no lag, even on low-end devices.

Pros

Super fast, even on low-end devices
Ultra smooth with GPU acceleration
Several customization options not found in other lightweight launchers

Cons

Somehow lacking in looks, theming options not being available in free version
Lack of folder support

Our Verdict

If you are on Gingerbread, want the main selling features of most heavyweight conventional-style launchers and don’t wanna give up on the speed and performance of the stock Gingerbread launcher, FTL should be the launcher for you.

Download FTL Launcher Lite

Zeam Launcher

Another contestant for the lightweight category, Zeam launcher also offers a few customization options in a tiny package for the minimalists amongst us, while being super-fast and super-smooth even on the low-end devices.

At A Glance

Type: Minimal | conventional
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: Unlimited icons | Scrollable | Customizable
Home Screens: Up to 7
Widgets: Not scrollable | Not resizable
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: No theming support
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Extremely basic
Animations: Basic
Custom Gesture Actions: Yes
Screen Grid: Home screen up to 8 by 8; App drawer up to 6 x 6 portrait, 8 x 5 landscape
App Drawer: Customizable
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: None

Pros

Super fast even on most low-end devices
Very stable
Great blend of minimalism with some customizations
Tiny in size (388 KB) and thus, extremely light on resources

Cons

Not many customization options
Rather lacking in the looks department, with no theme support

Our Verdict

If you are running a low-end device that tries to rival Lazy Smurf on the full-featured launchers but don’t want to stick with the stock Gingerbread launcher, Zeam Launcher will provide you with just enough customization options to keep you going till your next device upgrade. Before FTL Launcher came out, Zeam was our launcher of choice for the lightweight category but it has now been dethroned by the former, and for good reason.

Download Zeam Launcher

Hi Launcher & Mobo Launcher

You must be wondering why we are reviewing two launchers together as one. The reason is that these two are essentially the same, developed by the same team but released under different names and for different markets in the Play Store. They take the conventional concept of side-scrolling home screens with apps and widgets and add a twist, by splitting the interface into two panes stacked one above the other. The upper pane holds your widgets, while the lower one provides you access to all your apps in a tabbed view for easy organization.

At A Glance

Type: Similar to conventional but with a unique split pane view
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: Up to 15 icons | Up to 10 Customizable
Home Screens: Up to 9
Widgets: Unlimited | Resizable | Not scrollable | Special Hi/Mobo Launcher widgets
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: Very powerful theming engine | Tons of themes available
Shortcuts: Customizable
Folders: Extremely basic
Animations: Several eye-catching animations and transition effects
Custom Gesture Actions: Only shake-it-up gesture for switching themes
Screen Grid: 4 x 4
App Drawer: Very robust categorized app interface integrated into home screens
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: None

If you have widgets that require more than half the screen, worry not, as the layout will expand when you add a large widget, and you scan scroll to another screen to view the apps pane. The theming support is one of the best features, and there is an option to shake your phone to randomly select a new look.

We recently wrote about Mobo Launcher in detail, and that review should apply to both these launchers. Before you decide to install them though, there are a few things you should know. Hi Launcher is directly maintained by the developer and updated more often, while Mobo Launcher seems to be contracted work, though we have learned from the Mobo team that it’s going to see an update soon with some unique features. Currently though, Hi Launcher should be the one to go for.

Pros

The most awesome categorized app drawer implementation integrated into home screen we’ve seen
Great theming engine and themes collection
Killer animations and transition effects
Built-in useful quick shortcuts for dock bar (like torch, show/hide app drawer/status bar, lock etc.)

Cons

No drag-and-drop folder support
Widgets not scrollable

Our Verdict

These two are definitely amongst the best of the entire lot, especially with that app drawer we can’t praise enough. One of the must-try launchers for everyone before you decide which one to stick to.

Download Hi Launcher | Download Mobo Launcher

[SSKIN] Butterfly+ launcher

If looks could kill, Butterfly+ would be a most-wanted assassin. This launcher has been designed with attention to detail, despite there being little-to-no attention to customization options. From the bold and brilliant color scheme to the design of the bundled widgets to the default squared icons to the theming engine, it’s all about making an impression with the looks.

At A Glance

Type: Featured | Conventional
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: 10 icons | Scrollable | 9 icons customizable
Home Screens: Up to 9
Widgets: Unlimited | Not scrollable | Not resizable
Live Wallpaper: No
Themes: Very powerful theming engine | Several gorgeous designer themes available
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Extremely basic
Animations: Several killer animations built into the themes
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 4 x 4
App Drawer: Contains running apps list, search support and awesome pinch-to-preview function
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: None

What sets Butterfly+ apart from other launchers in the same category is its powerful theming framework and awesome list of designer themes available for it in its own SSKIN Theme Shop. While most of the available themes are paid, there are a few excellent free ones around too. Many themes come with live backgrounds that are a bit like Live wallpapers, with their own cool animation effects. Some themes also have moving wallpapers that change when you switch from one screen to the next, like a golfer’s position and golf shirt changing as you scroll along your home screens.

Apart from the themes, there are barely any customization options offered by [SSKIN] Butterfly+, but the themes alone make it worth checking out for any Android launcher enthusiast.

Pros

Fast, smooth and stable
Pinch-to-preview in app drawer can come extremely handy for those with a lot of apps installed
Awesome SSKIN themes

Cons

Widgets neither scrollable nor resizable
Negligible customization options
No option to choose custom app or folder icons

Our Verdict

If sheer designer looks are your thing and you don’t care much about customization options, you’re gonna love Butterfly+. Even if you use another launcher for regular use, having it installed for the times you want a designer home screen isn’t gonna hurt.

Download [SSKIN] Butterfly+ Launcher

Nemus Launcher

While being your regular side-scrolling conventional launcher in most aspects, Nemus has unique feature that sets it apart from the rest of the bunch: resizable folder widgets for the home screen that can be displayed as 1 x 1 folders or up to 4 x 1 or 1 x 4 vertical or horizontal frames. If you have used Fences on Windows to organize your icons, you’ll feel at home with these. In addition, it is one of the only two launchers (along with Butterfly+) in this list that has a pinch-to-preview feature for the app drawer.

At A Glance

Type: Featured | Conventional
Tablet-optimized: Sort of, when using a large screen grid layout
Dock Bar: Up to 13 icons | Scrollable | 12 icons customizable
Home Screens: Up to 9
Widgets: Unlimited | Scrollable | Resizable
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: Support for SSKIN themes available on Play Store via SSKIN Shop app
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Drag-and-drop folder support with resizable folder frames on home screens
Animations: Basic transition effects in the interface, with killer animations in themes
Custom Gesture Actions: For hiding status bar only
Screen Grid: up to 8 x 8
App Drawer: Contains running apps list, search support and awesome pinch-to-preview function
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: None

A great feature of Nemus Launcher is support for the uber-cool SSKIN themes of the [SSKIN] Butterfly+ Launcher featured above. Just install the SSKIN Shop app from Play Store. Once it’s installed, any themes that you install through it will be available to Nemus Launcher just the way they work with [SSKIN] Butterfly+ Launcher. The themes can be found and applied from the Themes section of Nemus settings.

Like several other launchers in this list, we have reviewed Nemus in the past too. Don’t forget to check it out for more info.

Pros

Quite fast, smooth and stable
Great folder implementation
Pinch-to-preview in app drawer can come extremely handy for those with a lot of apps installed
Awesome SSKIN themes support
Scrollable and resizable widgets

Cons

Only one custom gesture supported
No option to choose custom app or folder icons

Our Verdict

If you like Fences on Windows and want the same functionality on your home screen along with SSKIN’s theming support and/or a pinch-to-zoom enabled app drawer for a quick glance at all your apps, Nemus just might be the Android launcher for you!

Download Nemus Launcher

Regina 3D Launcher

A product from the developers of Nemus launcher, Regina 3D Launcher takes the classic Android launcher concept and adds cool 3D home screen switching, a bunch of awesome widgets and a secret workspace and the ability to scroll the home screens or app drawer by dragging the dock to the right or left. The end result is a launcher that sticks to the basics while adding a lot in the eye-candy department.

At A Glance

Type: 3D | Conventional with a twist
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: 3 icons | Not customizable | Usable as scrollbar for home screen & app drawer
Home Screens: 5
Widgets: Unlimited | Scrollable | Not resizable
Live Wallpaper: No
Themes: No
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Extremely basic, with folders-within-folders support added
Animations: Several killer 3D animation and transition effects for most actions
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 4 x 4
App Drawer: 3D with awesome scrolling animation effects
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: Maximum 5 folders allowed in free version

Regina comes loaded with several distinctive features that require a post of its own to be explored in-depth, and we have already done that for you. Head on to our coverage where you can learn all about its settings, widgets, advanced features and a unique secret workspace that can come really handy!

Pros

Quite snappy on even mid-end devices, despite the 3D effects
Great transitions and animations
Very handy and totally unique secret workspace

Cons

Few customization options
No custom gestures
No live wallpaper support
No option to choose custom app or folder icons

Our Verdict

For cool 3D effects, Regina is definitely a great choice. Also, if you care about having a secretly accessible workspace nobody else could get to (for whatever ‘special’ stuff you want on it), Regina is probably your only option. Apart from these two features though, it doesn’t have much to offer.

Download Regina 3D Launcher

Full Screen Launcher

Full Screen Launcher is a rather unique launcher that’s a bit hard to describe in words. It basically gives you infinitely scrollable 3D home screens and app drawer with some nifty transition effects upon scrolling, and the ability to zoom into or out of the home screen layout while still keeping it functional (unlike the preview mode in other launchers).

At A Glance

Type: Unique | 3D
Tablet-optimized: Yes
Dock Bar: Up to 7
Home Screens: Infinite
Widgets: Unlimited | Not scrollable | Not resizable
Live Wallpaper: No
Themes: No
Shortcuts: Unlimited | Not customizable
Folders: Very robust folder support with awesome rotating 3D cube effect
Animations: Great 3D animations rendered using OpenGL
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: Up to 10 x 15
App Drawer: Continuous 3D app drawer with great animation effects
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: Some features (like icon customization options) limited in free version

For a complete coverage, check out our detailed review of Full Screen Launcher.

Pros

A very unique and fluid, infinite user interface
Great support for all types of shortcuts
Excellent folder implementation, where folders can contain anything, including other folders

Cons

Quite confusing upon first use
Steep learning curve
Shortcut customization restricted in free version
Rather dull when it comes to the looks of the default dock icons
No live wallpapers
A translucent layer over much of the wallpaper gives a dull look

Our Verdict

First of all, this launcher isn’t for everyone. It has a steep learning curve and can get to be quite confusing for many to figure out at first. That said, if you get used to its unique look and features, it can be hard to switch back to another one. Give it a try and see for yourself if you can acquire a taste for it.

Download Full Screen Launcher

MXHome Launcher

MXHome can be categorized as a hybrid between a conventional style 2D launcher and an unorthodox 3D launcher. It basically has a special themed home screen with cool 3D effects and pre-configured launch actions, in addition to a standard side-scrollable multiple home screen view for all your shortcuts and widgets. Let’s take a look:

At A Glance

Type: Unconventional + conventional hybrid | 3D
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: 5, 10, 15 or 20 icons | Scrollable | Up to 17 icons customizable
Home Screens: 6 (1 special + 5 conventional)
Widgets: Yes | Not scrollable | Resizable
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: Very powerful theming system with radically different styles of 3D interfaces
Shortcuts: Customizable
Folders: Extremely basic
Animations: Several eye-catching transitions and animations
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 4 x 4
App Drawer: Highly robust | Extensively customizable | Several display and sorting options
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: None

What truly stands out in MXHome is its 3D style home screen. It can’t really be described as anything in particular since every theme has its own unique one. The default one featured above is a coffee-themed 3D clock that features realistic animations, 3D UI effects based on the accelerometer and four customizable shortcuts on the clock. If you tap-and-hold on a shortcut, you see a cool animation of the clock opening up to give you options to switch to another app for that shortcut. Apart from the default theme, several other free and paid themes are available too, some of which you can see in the screenshots below. You have to try them all out to see their UI effects.

Another main selling point of MXHome is its extremely robust app drawer. You can organize apps by categories, view them in a standard tiled view or a WP7-like list view, manage and edit categories, sort them alphabetically or by install date, and even change the transparency and background settings.

There are some other decent features in MXHome too, like a built-in task manager and a recent apps list. We have covered MXHome in the past too, so head over to our review if you want to learn more.

Pros

Radically different styles of themed home screens
Killer 3D effects and looks
Supercharged app drawer

Cons

Lack of some basic features like scrollable widgets, drag-and-drop folders and landscape mode
Rather heavy and a bit slow on older devices

Our Verdict

If 3D eye candy is your thing, you’ll have your device really standing out in the looks department with MXHome. If you don’t care for fancy 3D effects though, there are better options out there.

Download MXHome Launcher

ssLauncher

ssLauncher is a Magazine style interface for your Android device that takes inspiration from Windows Phone’s Metro UI, while not entirely replicating it. Let’s take a look…

At A Glance

Type: Unique
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: N/A
Home Screens: Virtually unlimited
Widgets: No
Live Wallpaper: No
Themes: Very powerful theming system
Shortcuts: Customizable magazine-style shortcuts for the main home screen
Folders: N/A
Animations: Plenty of eye-catchy animations that vary by theme
Custom Gesture Actions: Yes
Screen Grid: N/A
App Drawer: Basic
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: None

It’s quite simple and elegant, really. The list of hot application is basically like your home screen shortcuts that you add for quick access, while the Applications list is your app drawer. Swiping further to the right shows us similar panes for our contacts and browser bookmarks. The shortcuts on the home page can be customized from the options brought up by pressing menu while on the home screen. That’s where you can also add or remove screens, choose themes and change other interface options. Speaking of themes, there are several themes available, some of which are strikingly unique. Here’s one…k

Pretty much every theme has a unique twist – some emulate pages that you can turn, other take form of old blocks of wood, and then there’s a Metro-like tiled theme, a neon theme, a plasma theme, and the list continues. There is also landscape support and the customization options are quite extensive.

To learn more about it, check out our prior coverage of ssLauncher.

Pros

Pretty awesome in the looks department
Plenty of themes with their own animations and effects
Quite intuitive to use

Cons

Rather heavy on slow hardware
Not meant for everyone
Some themes can seem a bit childish (though that isn’t always a bad thing)

Our Verdict

Whether it can or can’t be used as a daily driver would depend entirely upon the user but for a change, ssLauncher definitely brings something different to the table. Give it a shot…who knows, you might end up keeping it.

Download ssLauncher

DXHome

At first glance, DXHome might look like just another conventional style home screen launcher with a fancy theme, but it packs quite a punch when it comes to certain small refinements. Boasting its own theme store, clock & weather widget, 3D screen switching and a pretty decent home screen editor, it carries the right combination of looks and functionality to make it to this list.

At A Glance

Type: Full-featured | Conventional | 3D
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: 5 icons | 4 customizable
Home Screens: Up to 9
Widgets: Unlimited | Scrollable | Resizable | Zoomable | Several special themed DX Widgets
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: Very powerful theming engine | Plenty of great-looking themes available
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: iOS-like drag-and-drop folder support for home screens | Folders in app drawer
Animations: Several eye-catching transitions and animations
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 4 x 4
App Drawer: Robust, with easy organization features and recently installed apps list
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: None

A really nifty feature is the really smooth 3D home screen switcher interface that appears when you tap-and-hold on the middle (app drawer) icon in the dock. Another great feature is the built-in theme store.

The overall look and feel may seem similar to MIUI for those of you who have used it. Though the app drawer and some other cool effects that we have mentioned add even more value to it. We have already taken it for a spin earlier on, so you can head over to our review for more details. Note that there may be some new features added since our last review, so make sure to explore it yourself to see all it’s got.

Pros

Very fast and smooth
Stands tall in the looks department
Adequately customizable
Great theming support
Killer themed widgets included
Great lock-screen management feature built-in

Cons

Lack of custom gestures (having those would have made it rival GO Launcher EX)
No option to choose custom app or folder icons

Our Verdict

It’s hard to find flaws in this launcher, really. If only it weren’t for the lack of custom gesture actions, it would have been a great rival to GO Launcher EX for the top spot. Definitely worth a shot before deciding whether to stick with it or not.

Download DXHome

MIUI 4 Launcher

The MIUI ROM is one of the most famous Android custom ROMs in the world and here at AddictiveTips, it is amongst our most favorite, along with CyanogenMod and AOKP. If you want to have the look of the MIUI 4 home screen without having to install the MIUI ROM, there is a fully functional MIUI 4 Launcher port available for the very purpose.

As you can see above, you get the authentic MIUI experience, including the cool MIUI lock screen that comes with the launcher. In addition, there is an MIUISettings app that allows you to configure some options. Not all the options shown in that app are actually implemented at the time of writing but the most important one i.e. the ability to add an app drawer is working nevertheless. We have already reviewed MIUI 4 Launcher, so to learn more, check out our complete coverage.

At A Glance

Type: Conventional | MIUI 4 clone
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: Up to 6 icons | Customizable
Home Screens: Unlimited
Widgets: Unlimited | Scrollable | Resizable (some)
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: Very powerful theming engine | Countless themes available
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: iOS-like drag-and-drop folder support
Animations: Several eye-catching transitions and animations
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 4 x 4
App Drawer: Optional using MIUIsettings app
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: ICS-only (Gingerbread version featured below)

Pros

Quite fast and stable
Killer looks
Awesome animation effects
Great collection of themes available

Cons

App drawer requires MIUIsettings app and can be confusing to bring up (didn’t work for us)
No custom gestures
Not enough customization options
Not all widgets are resizable
No options to choose app or folder icons

Our Verdict

If you are a fan of MIUI 4’s killer looks and awesome themes, give MIUI 4 Launcher a shot and you might not want to look any further. If endless customization is your thing though, it probably won’t be your thing.

Download MIUI 4 Launcher and MIUISettings from XDA-Developers Thread

MIUI Launcher (Gingerbread)

The MIUI 4 launcher featured above is Android 4 ICS based, and will not work on Gingerbread. Fret not though; if you’re still running Gingerbread on your phone and want MIUI’s looks, you can have ‘em with the Gingerbread-based MIUI launcher.

We have already taken MIUI Launcher for a spin so head on to our review where you can learn all the details about it.

At A Glance

Type: Conventional | MIUI 2.* clone
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: Up to 6 icons | Customizable
Home Screens: Unlimited
Widgets: Unlimited | Not Scrollable | Not Resizable
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: Very powerful theming engine | Several themes available
Shortcuts: Not Customizable
Folders: iOS-like drag-and-drop folder support
Animations: Several eye-catching transitions and animations
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 4 x 4
App Drawer: No
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: None

Pros

Quite fast and stable
Great looks
Gorgeous animation effects
Detailed themes

Cons

No dedicated app drawer
No custom gestures
Not enough customization options
Widgets aren’t scrollable or resizable
No options to choose app or folder icons

Our Verdict

If you are on Gingerbread and want MIUI’s look-and-feel without switching to the MIUI ROM itself, There isn’t a reason why you shouldn’t go for MIUI Launcher. The customization freaks amongst us might want to keep another one installed too for those times when we must have just the exact look that we want.

Download MIUI Launcher from XDA-Developers Thread

Espier Launcher

Want the exact iOS look on your Android phone? No problem, just install Espier Launcher and watch your Android phone’s home screen turn into iPhone’s Springboard.

At A Glance

Type: iOS-replica
Tablet-optimized: Yes (portrait-only)
Dock Bar: 4 icons in normal mode; up to 6 in pad mode | iOS-like recent apps & media controls
Home Screens: Unlimited
Widgets: Yes (On a dedicated widgets screen) | Not scrollable | Not resizable
Live Wallpaper: Yes
Themes: No
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: iOS-like drag-and-drop folder support
Animations: Yes (iOS-like)
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 4 x 4 in normal mode; 5 x 4 in pad mode
App Drawer: None (All app icons appear on home screens like on iOS)
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: None

We have already covered Espier Launcher previously, so check out our prior coverage to learn more about this iOS-replica home screen replacement for Android.

Pros

As close to an iPhone-replica interface as you can possibly get on Android
Quite user friendly
Fast and snappy on most devices
Pad mode toggle gives you an iPad-like interface even on phones

Cons

No dedicated app drawer
Apps and widgets can’t be together on the same screen
Only one screen for widgets (which is scrollable though, so you can still add many widgets)
No landscape mode

Our Verdict

If (for whatever inexplicable reason) you want your Android phone to look like an iPhone, Espier Launcher is what you are looking for. It’s also fun to just keep it installed on your phone and pop it up to show your iPhone-wielding friends how Android can do anything.

Download Espier Launcher

Espier Launcher HD

Want your Android tablet to have iPad looks? While Espier Launcher has a Pad mode that attempts to emulate the iPad look, it lacks in certain features such as landscape mode that can be especially handy on tablets. Espier Launcher HD is built by the same team specifically for Android tablets in an effort to bring the iPad look to them.

Like Espier Launcher, we have already reviewed Espier Launcher HD as well, so feel free to check out our coverage to learn more about this iPad-lookalike home screen replacement for Android tablets.

At A Glance

Type: iOS-replica
Tablet-optimized: Yes
Dock Bar: Up to 6 icons | iOS-like recent apps & media controls
Home Screens: Unlimited
Widgets: Yes (On a dedicated widgets screen) | Not scrollable | Not resizable
Live Wallpaper: No
Themes: No
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: iOS-like drag-and-drop folder support
Animations: Yes (iOS-like)
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 5 x 4 in portrait mode; 4 x 5 in landscape mode
App Drawer: None (All app icons appear on home screens like on iOS)
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: None

Pros

As close to an iPad-replica interface as you can possibly get on Android
Quite user friendly
Fast and snappy on most devices

Cons

No dedicated app drawer
Apps and widgets can’t be together on the same screen
Only one screen for widgets (which is scrollable though, so you can still add many widgets)
No landscape mode
Too many restrictions in Play Store, making it unavailable for many devices it can run on. We are providing an alternative direct APK download link for this very reason.

Our Verdict

Just like its phone counterpart, if you want your Android tablet to look like an iPad, Espier Launcher will do that for you in a snap. Even if you don’t plan on using it, just keep it installed so that you could give your iPad-owner friends the ‘in-your-face’ look.

Download Espier Launcher HD (Play Store) | Direct APK Download

Launcher 7

Don’t care for iOS much and want the look of the awesome Metro UI from Windows Phone on your Android phone? Launcher 7 does just that for you.

At A Glance

Type: Windows Phone replica
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: No
Home Screens: One (vertically scrollable)
Widgets: Yes (in form of special widget tiles)
Live Wallpaper: No
Themes: Accent color choice for tiles
Shortcuts: Customizable tiles
Folders: No
Animations: Windows Phone-like
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: Infinite rows and one large or two small tiles per row
App Drawer: Windows Phone-like vertically scrollable, sorted alphabetically with search support
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: Free version shows ads in app drawer

Pros

A close replica of Windows Phone user interface
Custom tiles including widget tiles
Fast and smooth

Cons

Takes away several core features of most Android launchers
Ads look hideous in the app drawer

Our Verdict

If you want to have the look-and-feel of Windows Phone while retaining all the functionality of Android, and don’t really mind ads appearing at the bottom of the app drawer, go for it! In addition to that, it doesn’t offer much.

Download Launcher 7

Pure Breeze Launcher Lite

Did you think Samsung made only the TouchWiz launcher that ships with all their Android phones? Think again! Pure Breeze Launcher is Sammy’s rather unorthodox take on Android launchers. First, the intro:

At A Glance

Type: Unique, with conventional elements
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: Up to 5 icons in free version
Home Screens: Up to 5 (including an app drawer) in free version, plus the kite screen
Widgets: Only on the kite screen | Not scrollable | Not resizable
Live Wallpaper: No
Themes: No
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: Yes (as groups)
Animations: Yes
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: 4 by 4 for home screens; vertically scrollable by 4 in kite screen
App Drawer: Very basic, present as central home screen
Landscape mode: Yes
Limitations: Many features restricted in free version

The concept is like this: You get multiple home screens, the central one of which is the app drawer called ‘All Apps’. You can have up to four more, which are also presented as groups of apps, with no widget support. Where do you place the widgets then, and what’s all that unique about it, you ask?

The answer: a kite mode! You know, breeze and kite. When you press the home button while already on one of the home screens, you get a cool animation of a screen flying on to the display, and that’s the kite screen. You can place your favorite widgets and app shortcuts on it to be accessible quickly, plus access the phone dialer. And this window is vertically scrollable, so you can keep adding widgets and shortcuts to it and access them all by scrolling vertically. Overall, it’s a novel concept. It’s got to be an acquired taste but hey, they did design a pretty cool settings window. Think Windows Phone Metro UI Magazine-style ICS design elements.

Pros

Despite the unorthodox approach, the concept is quite usable
Handy grouping of apps on the home screens
Convenient vertically scrollable kite screen for widgets and shortcuts

Cons

Too unorthodox to suit the taste of most
Limited to 5 screens in free version
Each screen takes up a dock icon, so no traditional dock for app shortcuts
Rather limited customization options

Our Verdict

If you want to try something considerably different yet retaining the concept of side-scrolling screens with app icons, give Pure Breeze a shot and see if you can acquire the taste.

Download Pure Breeze Launcher Lite

netFront Life Screen

There is no limit to creativity when developing launchers for Android, and NetFront Life Screen is ample proof of that. It looks and feels nothing like your typical Android launcher. You don’t get countless home screens, you don’t get a lot of space for widgets. What you do get are two screens with all the functionality you need on your home screens right at your fingertips, and that includes the app drawer.

At A Glance

Type: Unique
Tablet-optimized: No
Dock Bar: Circular, with one icon customizable | Elaborate menus for all default shortcuts
Home Screens: 2
Widgets: Limited to 2 x 4 space
Live Wallpaper: No
Themes: No
Shortcuts: Not customizable
Folders: No
Animations: Yes
Custom Gesture Actions: No
Screen Grid: N/A
App Drawer: Basic | Built into left screen in an eye-catching 3D cube
Landscape mode: No
Limitations: None

As you can see below, the app drawer is integrated into the left screen in form of a 3D cube that animates on swipe. Probably the best part of NetFront Life Screen is its circular dock. Not only can you rotate it, but tap on any of the default apps on it and instead of seeing the app get launched, you’ll be presented with a very elaborate menu with one-tap access to the key features of the app. You can see the example below in case of Settings. With the Messaging app, you get a similar list of messages, as well as a compose button.

Not only that, but connect your social media accounts through the launcher’s settings and you can have similar lists of your social network status updates. Even RSS feeds can be viewed like this. When it comes to widgets though, you are limited to a space of 2 rows by 4 columns on the main screen (see the first screenshots), so you must utilize it wisely.

Pros

Extremely intuitive to use
Great animations and eye-candy
Simple yet functional
Jump lists for dock apps make quick access to your important stuff a breeze

Cons

No customization options
Not enough widget space

Our Verdict

If you don’t use many widgets and like to try something very different for a change, you will quite likely fall in love with NetFront Life Screen for its simple, intuitive and unorthodox take on Android Launchers.

Download NetFront Life Screen

ADW.Launcher

Included in this list as an honorable mention. Once one of the best launchers available for Android, known for extensive customization options; now apparently ancient. ADW.Launcher is famous for having been CyanogenMod’s default launcher till version 9. Unfortunately, there has been no update to the free version in a year and a half as of the time of writing this post.

Download ADW.Launcher

If you use or plan on using ADW.Launcher, don’t forget to check out our collection of 22 awesome ADW.Launcher themes.

LauncherPro

Included in this list as an honorable mention. Like ADW.Launcher, one of the pioneers of feature-rich Android launchers but now faded into history. The free version hasn’t been updated in almost a year at the time of writing this article.

Download LauncherPro

The Caddie + For Nokia Lumia: View Stats Of Fellow Golfers In Augmented Reality!

Hamza — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:30:18 PDT

Golf might appear to be a rather simple game if you are watching it on TV, but if you’ve ever been to the greens yourself, you probably know that it isn’t as simple as hitting the ball with the club. Plus, you have to find some golfing buddies, someone has to keep the scores, and, if the course is unfamiliar to you, finding your way across all 18 holes can be a real headache. This is the reason there are many apps in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace that can help you with all this, and leave you free to concentrate on your game. The best among such WP7 apps is The Caddie +, and although the app has been around for quite a while for Mango phones, a Lumia version of the app has recently been released. The Nokia app is pretty similar to the original one, but it has some really fantastic augmented reality features that make it a cut above the rest. With the app’s Golfscope feature, you just have to point your device at anyone playing against you, and the app with display their stats and score right on your screen! Intrigued? Read of past the jump for more.

If you are new to The Caddie +, create a new account from the app’s welcome page; otherwise, a simple login would suffice. On your profile page of the app, The Caddie + displays all your past stats and scores. This record is updated and maintained automatically, and you just have to check-in to a particular round to make the app start tracking. If you want to change your Avatar, or tinker with some other aspect of your profile, go to the Golfers section. From this menu, it is also possible to build your golfing network and invite friends to join The Caddie +. If any of your friends are already using the service, their complete stats and past record will automatically be imported. The app can prove to be a good tool for finding nearby golfers and golf courses, and you might be surprised at the depth of The Caddie’s database. Not only that, the app will keep you up to date with the latest happenings in the world of golf, and you can read the news in the Golf News section.

Whenever you are at a golf course and about to start a round, just go hit the Tee-It-Up button, let the app determine the course you are at, name all the buddies who are playing with you and you are good to go. Although the database of courses isn’t absolutely perfect, most of the venues have got detailed internal maps associated with them (you can request the app’s team to update their database if a course doesn’t have a hole-by-hole map). This means that it is easy to go from one hole to the next, as the app will provide you with detailed directions. For maintaining the round’s scores, enter the my stats section. During a game, if you are wondering what’s the score of any given player, just launch Golfscope, and point the camera at them. The scores will be calculated based on the scanned player’s position, and you can view the stats both on a map or in 3D.

The Caddie + is available as a free download, but you can only use it if you own a Nokia WP7 device (just search the Marketplace on your phone). For non-Lumia users, there is The Caddie, a variant of The Caddie + that recently went free from $29.99, but doesn’t have Golfscope.

Download The Caddie

DeEgger Embedder: Hide Private Files Within Images, Videos Or Audio (Media Steganography)

Waqas — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:15:30 PDT

If you are oblivious of the term Steganography, you might be missing on one of the most widely used methods of securing important data. It is a technique that allows you to embed one file into another. The purpose is to hide the original file, make it devious to an unintended recipient by concealing it within a fake one. Back in 2010, Aatif reviewed SilentEye, which uses the steganography technique to hide confidential data. Deegger embeddeR offers the same facility, but with support for additional media formats. The free steganography software is designed to merge two or more files together, supports a wide range of file extensions you can hide and lets you create the bogus file in AVI, JPEG, MP3, MP4, PDF, PNG and other formats.

The entire process of combining and extracting a file is quite simple. All you need is to select your host file and embed file via simple drag & drop. You may also use the browse button on the right side of the window to select your files. As stated earlier, you can embed as many files into a single file as you want. Once, you have added your source and embed files, simply click Combine button at the bottom to save your bogus file, making the woven file completely hidden to any third person.

Did I mention you can use the same tool to decrypt your file? All you have to do is click the Extract button to choose the steganographic file you just created and click Open, in the following window. It will then ask you to select the target folder for file extraction, simply choose your output directory and click Save to extract your original file.

You may click the Settings button at the bottom right of the window to open up a configuration console, where you can switch between singe, multi-host and parallel modes, enable/disable read-only and modify timestamp embedding options, and change view settings.

The utility works on both 32-bit and 64-bit OS editions of Windows and supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Download DeEgger Embedder

Twitter Pulse: View & Filter Most Tweeted Content For Any Website [Chrome]

Zainab — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:15:48 PDT

Only a few days ago, we covered Plus Comments, a Chrome extension that let you view what others are saying about a particular website on Google+. Twitter Pulse is a similar tool that displays up to 10 URLs that have been tweeted the most for the domain you are currently viewing. Moreover, these tweets and articles can then be filtered by different time intervals, such as Now, 24Hours, 7Days, Month and All. Twitter Pulse lets you find popular social content and gives you the ability to see the latest Twitter buzz for your favorite websites. The extension adds a button in the URL bar, which you can click to view articles that have been retweeted the most for the currently-viewed page. Twitter Pulse collects and organizes tweets for popular articles and arranges them in a pop-up, with multiple options.

After you’ve installed the extension, click the button in the toolbar to view the most tweeted posts for a website. Each item comes with a tweet count, link and title of the post. When you click an item, you will instantly be redirected to the original article, which you can then read, comment on or tweet.

Twitter Pulse is a handy utility that allows you to find popular content for any website. The extension will let you discover the latest Twitter trends and find the best videos, articles or images for any website.

Install Twitter Pulse For Google Chrome

If you liked this extension, you might also want to take a look at the other Chrome extensions we’ve reviewed so far.

SonicShare: Wireless Data Sharing Among Multiple Nearby Android Devices

A. Rehman — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:21:10 PDT

Looking back at some of the previously reviewed Android apps that let users wirelessly and simultaneously share files in bulk with multiple Android devices, we find that SPRiiD (read review) and X-Link (read review) are perhaps the only noteworthy options, which not only require the least amount of user intervention, but also support sharing almost any file format at blazing speed. While both said apps were pretty impressive with their functionality, they sported abysmal looks, to be honest. Same could be said of SonicShare – the latest arrival in the Google Play Store that lets you share virtually anything existing on Android device with as many other app users as you like. Sporting a cartoon UI, SonicShare allows you to simultaneously share business cards, contacts, installed apps, webpages from your web history, received text messages, SD card content (files only), system files (without requiring root access), downloaded content, photos, music files, videos, clipboard content, bookmarks, audio recordings, custom text messages and sketches with multiple app users over the internet. Each file that you wish to share first gets uploaded to the SonicShare servers, from where it is downloaded directly to the all the selected recipients’ devices. Details to follow.

Getting a grip on the app’s usage can prove to be a bit daunting, since it requires certain conditions to be fulfilled in order to successfully share files across various devices. To begin with, you need to understand that despite supporting content sharing over the internet, the app requires both the sender as well as the recipient(s) to be present at the same location; not apart from each other by more than, say, 2 meters. Then, the app must be running in the foreground on every device, with Wi-Fi internet connection enabled. If everything is in place accordingly, all you need to do is navigate to one of the app’s supported categories, from where you wish to share the required data, select your file(s), and tap the Sonic option from the toolbar at the bottom. Alternatively, you may also long press a selected file, and then choose Send from the context menu.

Prior to sharing, the app prompts you to enable the option of confirming the desired recipients/devices with whom the selected file(s) should be shared. If this option is left unchecked, the selected file(s) will automatically be shared across all the nearby devices that have SonicShare running actively. However, there is always the safe option to cancel all such accidental shares, if required.

Once you make your choice and hit the Send button, the app then tries to detect all the nearby devices (by their user-specified nickname) running SonicShare. Quite obviously, each recipient is also notified accordingly on their respective devices regarding the new file that is being shared with them. Once the recipients hit the Accept button to confirm file reception, the app starts uploading selected files to its servers, and then pushes them to the target devices. Apparently, each uploaded file remains stored on the servers for a maximum of 15 minutes, after which it automatically gets deleted. If you’re a bit too privacy-conscious, it is recommended that you avoid using the app for sharing sensitive data.

Looking at the app’s main interface, all the various aforementioned categories on the homescreen can be viewed as list or grid. The two buttons present in the top-right side of the screen lets you switch between the category and downloaded items list view. The app also keeps you apprised of each successfully received file via status bar notifications, and shows the count of all the newly received files on its main interface. Whenever someone shares a file with you, the app plays a soft beep to let you know that there’s a new SonicShare file waiting for your approval.

The app also sports an uncluttered native file explorer interface to let you easily select all the files that you wish to share with others. In addition, it supports advanced data sorting menu on various screens to help you easily find content of choice. Any received file can be further shared with other users from within the received items screen. Alongside each shared file, the app also depicts its content category via a relevant icon. Oddly enough, it won’t let you transfer files if your headphones are plugged in.

SonicShare is an ad-supported free app that allows sharing only one file at a time, with the maximum supported file size being just 1MB. User interested in availing expanded sharing features have the option to pick from a couple of paid variants from the Google Play Store. SonicSuper costs $2 to remove ads, and increases the total file size limit to 10MB for a maximum of 5 files per batch. Then there is SonicUltra that, too, is ad-free, and lets you share a maximum of 100 files whose total file size shouldn’t exceed 50MB. Links to the Google Play Store of all three variants of the app are provided below along with their respective QR codes.

This demo video provided below shows the app simultaneously sharing content across as many as four different Android devices in literally no time at all.

Download SonicShare (Free)

Download SonicSuper (Paid)

Download SonicUltra (Paid)

Free

Paid (Ultra)

Paid (Super)

The Grim Tab Reaper Automatically Bookmarks & Closes Inactive Tabs In Firefox

Zainab — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:01:55 PDT

One problem with working with a large number of tabs, is the fact that we often forget to close the inactive ones, despite having exhausted their need a long while back. Sifting through numerous tabs cannot only be a difficult task, but they also increase the memory usage (especially on Firefox). The Grim Tab Reaper is a clever Firefox add-on that will automatically bookmark inactive tabs and close them after a certain time interval has elapsed. By default, the time to automatically close inactive tabs is set to 48 hours, but users can increase/decrease the time from the add-on’s options. Note that this tool will never close web app tabs, or the active ones. Tabs that are reaped get a tabreaper tag associated with them, so you can easily find them by clicking the Recent Tags option in the Bookmarks menu.

After installing The Grim Tab Reaper, you can change the time of inactivity (in hours) from the options. Once the add-on has bookmarked and closed an individual or group of tabs after your set amount of time, you will be able to access them from the Recent Tags option found under the Bookmarks menu.

The Grim Tab Reaper bookmarks and closes inactive tabs, so your browser consumes minimal memory until you need to access a tab. If you find yourself working with loads of Firefox tabs and forget to close inactive ones, then you should definitely install this neat tool from the link below.

Install The Grim Tab Reaper Add-On For Firefox

If you liked this add-on, you might also want to check out our collection of reviewed Firefox add-ons.

Photo Sharing Network SmugMug Releases Official App For Windows Phone 7

Hamza — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:00:05 PDT

SmugMug might not be as popular as Instagram, but it is a service that is used by professional photographers and is not limited to just mobile platforms. The photos available on SmugMug are generally high in quality, because the user base of the service consists of people who don’t share photos just for fun. Rather than predefined, one-touch filters and photo effects, SmugMug allows its users to make adjustments they want to their photos. If you are a Windows Phone 7 user, and admire SmugMug, you’ll be delighted to know that the official mobile client of the service has just hit the Marketplace. The app lets you control every aspect of your SmugMug account, and even if you don’t have one, you can browse through public galleries and share photos from the app.

If you’re already a member of SmugMug, go to the bottom menu of the main page and tap the sign in option. For those who want to sign up, the option to do so is available on the login page. The accounts created via the app are valid for a limited trial period only, as signing up for a full account requires payment, which can only be done from the web interface. However, an account is not necessary to use the mobile client. You will still be able to browse through the beautiful SmugMug galleries, search for any photo, share images over your social networks and use the app as a photo editor. The only limitation is that you won’t be able to post photos to SmugMug without an account.

The app features the most popular images of the day on its main page. Within the Popular menu, you can view featured images from the past and the different categories that they’re sorted under. For SmugMug account holders, it is possible to create new galleries on their page and define new categories for the photos they share.

If you want to use the SmugMug app as a photo editor, just hit the camera button, snap a picture and tap the edit button in the bottom bar. The app has a neatly designed editing interface, including the following options:

Black & White
Brightness & Contrast
Color
Crop
Rotate
Sharpness

The options included in each of these menus are adjustable via sliders, and can be used to get pretty decent results. It is also possible to compare the result of each change with the original image using the before button next to the apply one.

Even if you don’t plan on spending all that money on a SmugMug account, the mobile client is a must-have if you’re a photography enthusiast. The app itself is available for free in the Marketplace.

Download SmugMug for Windows Phone 7

Batch-Convert PDF Files To PowerPoint Presentations via Hot Folders

Waqas — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:00:27 PDT

A while back, we reviewed 3DPageFlip PDF to Flash, a handy tool to easily convert your PDF files to SWF format, so you may embed your PDF documents (as flash) into HTML pages. Today, we came across a similar tool from the same developer that helps you convert most PDF files to PPT (MS PowerPoint) format. PageFlip Free PDF to PowerPoint is quite useful in situations where you want to present your important PDF files as a PowerPoint presentation, whether for a class project or to give a demonstration during a meeting with your boss. Like PDF to SWF tool, this utility also provides three different ways to convert your documents, i.e. Batch, Hot Directories and Command Line. Read past the jump for more details.

The main screen of the application houses all three aforementioned conversion options. The Batch Convert Mode is used for typical PDF to PPT conversion process, while Hot Directories Mode lets you choose specific directory from your system where the tool generates all the converted files. The Command Line on the other hand performs the conversion process using simple CMD commands, and all the commands can be viewed by clicking Using PDF to PPT in command line under Command Line Mode section.

To perform a simple PDF to PPT conversion, select Batch Convert Mode from the main screen and click next. In the next step, all you need is to drag your PDF files over the application to add them to conversion list. The tool is designed to convert multiple files in one go. You may also click Add Folder button on the toolbar, which in turn adds all the PDF files in the selected directory to the application. After you have finished adding you documents, click Convert button to begin the process.

Now let’s see how the Hot Directories Mode works. First off, you can select this mode either from the main screen or directly from Batch Convert Mode. Under this mode you need to choose your Input Directory (source folder) and Out Directory (target location), so that any file placed in the source directory is automatically converted and moved to the target directory. Furthermore you can mark Include Sub-Directory to include all the files from the input directory tree. Finally, select output directory for Log File Path and click the blue button to start the monitoring process. You may however, halt the it anytime by clicking the Stop button.

Let us know in the comments whether it worked for you or not. You can grab it absolutely for free and it works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Download PageFlip Free PDF to PowerPoint

Converber: Convert Between 2000+ Units From 53 Different Categories

Fawad — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:30:17 PDT

Unit conversion can get a bit confusing, especially with the Standard System being used in the US and Metric System being used elsewhere. Whether the US should adopt the Metric System has been the topic of debate since a long time, but as long as the our friends there continue to use the Standard System, all the rest of the world will have to bear with it. Due to these different systems for unit conversion being used in the world, having a good unit converter is necessary at times. The default calculator included with Windows allows you to convert between some basic units, but if you want a tool to help you in converting a wide range of complex units, try Converber. It is an application for Windows that allows you to convert between 2072 units, divided into 53 different categories. More on Converber after the jump.

Due to the massive number of units available, you can find just about any unit in the database of the application. It allows you to convert between Length, Force, Flow, Temperature, Energy, Power, Distance, Speed Temperature, Volume and more. The application offers a minimalistic interface. The left pane contains the Unit list; when you select a unit in the left pane, the right pane displays the detailed list of related units. The text fields at the top of left and right unit lists allow you to enter the values for conversion. Whenever you enter a number in any one of the text fields, the result will be immediately displayed in the other one.

There is a wide range of unit types supported by the application including units for Temperature, Distance, Mass, Area, Bass, Currency, density, Volume, Pressure, Velocity, Acceleration, Force, Energy, Power, Fuel Consumption, Flow, Torque, Angles, Luminous Intensity, Illumination, Time, Quantity & Radioactivity. Using the Category menu at the top, you can view all the unit categories. You can also view the relevant units of each category separately by selecting it from the category list.

The Options window (accessible from the Tools menu) lets you configure Appearance, Numbers and Toolbars related settings and modify default application behavior.

The application works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Download Converber

Zootool: Create Visual Bookmarks With Actual Content Snippets [Chrome]

Zainab — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:20:59 PDT

Zootool is a web application that lets you collect, organize and share your favorite images, videos, documents and links from all over the web. It offers visual bookmarking that can specially come in handy when you’ve got loads of bookmarks and can’t remember a particular website. Zootool uses images to bookmark content, so you can access it in an easier way. Signing up for the service requires only a few simple steps, after which you can bookmark images, videos, documents or pages from any website. The Chrome extension for the service speeds up the whole process by letting you bookmark content from any website directly from the toolbar. Zootool allows you to save not only URLs, but actual content snippets, so you can quickly locate or find them at a later time.

When you click the button in the toolbar, Zootool instantly retrieves all images and feeds from the web service and displays them in a neat grid. From there, you can bookmark any image on the page, tag it, and save it to your Zootool account.

Zootool also divides content into different categories, such as Images, Pages, Documents and Videos. Each item can be edited, shared, deleted or visited at a later time.

The service also allows you to email or share content on various popular social networking websites, such as Facebook, Delicious, Friendfeed and Tumblr.

If your bookmarks bar is cluttered with folders full of links and you find it difficult to lookup websites, then you should definitely give Zootool a shot.

Install Zootool For Google Chrome

If you liked this app, you might also want to look through the other web applications that we’ve covered so far.

Masatu For Android & iOS: Create Photo Time Capsules At A Location & View In Augmented Reality

A. Rehman — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:00:34 PDT

Fresh to the Google Play Store and iOS App Store, Masatu is an innovative and fun-filled social photo-sharing app based on the concept of sharing location-based time capsules. A time capsule created via Masatu can be filled with photos as well as personal messages, and shared publicly, privately or just with selected friends. You can create multiple time capsules, and the content modification privileges of each individual one can be altered to allow or disallow anyone to add their own personal messages or photos to it. In either case, all the content within a capsule can be opened by the selected audience only at the time specified by the creator. Once a time capsule is unlocked, users can view the hidden content in a simple list, or enjoy shared moments through an interactive augmented reality view, provided they are present at the location of sharing at that very instance.

Time Capsule is just one of the core features of Masatu. It can serve as a handy real-time or scheduled event/photo-sharing app, too. The app supports batch selection of images, geo-tagging, map view, detailed log of past, current and upcoming events, and several customary social networking tools that one might need to share the best moments of their lives with their friends and family.

You can start enjoying the unique photo-sharing experience of Masatu by logging in to the app using your Facebook account. Once logged in, you’re presented with five main tabs on the app’s homescreen. As implied by its name, the Feed tab is where all your and your friends’ activities on the network are aggregated in a chronological order. By tapping the bubble button in the top-right side, you can view your Masatu notifications. It is also worth mentioning here that the app supports push notifications for all the Masatu activities that involve you and/or your friends.

The Discovery tab provides you with a chance to explore all the fun shared by your Masatu friends or other nearby app users who’ve shared their images publicly. Content under this tab can be explored by timeframe, location, map view or augmented reality view.

The Me tab on the app’s homescreen lists your personal Current and Past activities. It is also from the same screen that you can switch to the augmented reality view to explore all your personally shared content, be it the normal photo-sharing activities or the time capsules. Any editing/updating that you need to do to your existing moments (event) is also possible from the same screen. The app’s main Settings screen is all about checking your current sharing stats on Masatu, enabling/disabling the service’s push notifications, and logging out of the app.

Now to the most important tab of them all: Create. As mentioned earlier, each timeframe-based moment that you wish to share, you have the choice of tagging a desired nearby location along with it. The moment itself can be set to be shared publicly, privately or just with select friends. The app lets you share a fresh snap or import images present in your device’s galley. Along with each moment, you can insert a brief text description. Should you opt to share the moment via a time capsule, you’re prompted to specify its editing privileges. Once all aforementioned requirements are taken care of, all you need to do is hit the Save button to share the moment with the desired users.

In case of a time capsule, the users are presented with just the countdown after which the capsule can be unlocked. All images contained within a shared moment can be viewed in full-screen. Alongside each shared moment, you can view the number of participants, photos and comments. In addition, you can also view all the moments shared by your friends. That’s not all; each single moment can also be shared with active participants, with specific Facebook friends, or on your Facebook Timeline. Moreover, the app also lets you create a calendar event from a Masatu moment.

Since Masatu is currently in beta, so it comes as no surprise that it is available for download in both supported mobile app stores for free. Below are the download links to the app’s Android and iOS variants.

Download Masatu for Android

Download Masatu for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch

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FTL Launcher Lite