All Posts in Android

|In: AppReview|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Photos have become an integral part of our lives since there are so many memories attached to photos. Though cameras in today’s smartphones come loaded with different camera sensors,  multiple camera setup so that you can beautifully capture the moment, and different filters to edit the photos; there will always be a requirement for third-party photo editors to edit photos. There are a number of photo editors available for Android and the only factor that can keep the user hooked to one particular Photo Editor application is ‘Features Offered’.

Image Source

You can obviously edit photos captured using your smartphone by downloading on your machine and editing those photos using photo editing software like GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, etc. but that requires patience & expertise. If you are looking for photo editors on Android that use Artificial Intelligence [AI] and go an extra mile beyond editing photos, you should definitely have a look at Cut Cut – Cutout & Photo Background Editor by Barrier Reef Team. Cut Cut aims to Make Every Moment Count.

Cut Cut Features Set

As the name suggests, Cut Cut photo editing app makes editing photos simple, fun, and memorable. Below are some of the salient features of the Cut Cut app

  • You can edit existing photos which are in your gallery or you can edit while capturing the photo by hitting the Capture button in the app.
  • Cut Cut makes photo editing fun and interesting by providing users flexibility to cut photos and embed them in a different photo or background.
  • Cut Cut has a wide range of ‘background templates’ that are neatly separated in different categories like Travel, Festivals, Luxury, Nature, Romantic, Trends, etc. The free version has a good number of backgrounds that can keep you hooked on to the app.

  • Cut Cut has a number of filters & photo editing tools that can make your smartphone camera smarter.
  • Cut Cut has a number of camera modes like Qunicy, Original, Hefe, Xpro, Romance, B/W, Inkwell, Pixar, etc. Using Face Swap feature you can digitally swap the faces with the subject and create a humorous effect.
  • Cut Cut follows the freemium model, there are a good number of features in the free version of the app. It is ad-supported hence, you can expect advertisements being displayed at strategic locations in the app.

Cut Cut detailed app review

In order to get started, you should download the Cut Cut app from the PlayStore from here. Once installed, the app runs in the background and the editing window would pop-up as soon as you capture photos using your native camera on your smartphone. We observed that there was not much increase in the overall CPU consumption even when it was executing in the background.

Once you open the Cut Cut app, along with the three major options – Edit, Cut Cut, Camera; there is a list of the popular designs so that you need not spend much time in exploring the designs. There is a larger placeholder that contains the link to the Cut Cut Tutorial and explains the app usage in a crisp manner

  • Step 1 – Choose your favourite background.
  • Step 2 – Use the Lasso Tool
  • Step 3 – Create Mirror Effects
  • Step 4 – Add Filter Effects

It would have been better if there was an option to mark ‘Tutorial section as Read‘ since it may not be useful for Cut Cut superstar users since they are already well-versed with the app. A better approach would have been to have another Card that showcases the latest features in the Cut Cut app since that would be helpful to all categories of users [pros, newbies, etc.].

The home screen is simple since three major options [already described above] are displayed upfront. Using the Edit option, you can Edit the existing photos and apply different filters, backgrounds on the photo. The Cut Cut option contains three major sub-options – Photos, Portrait, and Albums. The camera option lets you capture photos and edit them right in the Cut Cut app itself. Hence, you no longer need to leave the Cut Cut app to edit the photos.

There are different options for editing namely Adjust, Rotate, Text addition, Filter addition, Blur effect, etc. Using the Sticker feature, you can create funny stickers from your photos. You can directly upload the captured photographs to your social media and social messaging platforms.

Cut Cut Review – Pros & Improvements

Below are some of the positive points of Cut Cut photo editing app when compared to similar apps available in the market.

  • Cut Cut app is an easy to use photo editing tool. The app makes extensive use of AI to suggest backgrounds that can enhance the beauty of the selected photographs and portion of the photo that you should edit so that the elegance of the photograph is still retained.
  • If you are a good photographer, you can even submit your work (Background) to Cut Cut team and if shortlisted, your photos are added to the Backgrounds Gallery of the app. This is an excellent manner to build a quality database of backgrounds by involving the community.
  • You can add Watermark to your photos and using the Screenshot Window setting in the app, you can edit screenshots with a single click.
  • By default the Cut Cut app runs in the background [with minimal impact on the battery], Quick Edit opens up each time you click a photograph. This reduces the overall time spent in editing the photos.

Below are some of the improvements as far as the Cut Cut app is concerned

  • Needless to mention that the free version of the app uses advertisements [ads] for monetization. However, there are scenarios where a full-screen ad pops up after photo editing is done. We found a few cases where it prompted us to install other apps e.g. Memory cleaner app and such ads ruin the entire user experience. The Cut Cut app is developed by China-based Apus Group which has developed apps like Apus Browser, Apus Launcher, etc. Instead of ads on the home screen of the app, a better approach would be to feature other apps developed by the Apus Group in a card format. Though it is important that the app generates revenue, it should not come at the cost of usability.
In-App ads in Cut Cut app
  • The Premium version of Cut Cut app which is ad-free is not very costly – Rs. 70.70 for 6 months, Rs. 42 for 3 months, and Rs. 20.70 for 1 month. Users of the premium version can cancel the subscription anytime. Though there is a recurring billing option, it would have been better if they also added a one-time subscription model for regular user-base of the app.
  • Though you can connect the app to Instagram, there should have been a feature where users can upload the photos edited/clicked via Cut Cut app to the cloud. It could be Google Cloud for non-Chinese users and Apus Cloud for global users [including users in China] of the app.
  • The size of the app is around 180 MB which might be a bit heavy for smartphone users with limited internal memory. A Cut Cut lite app would have been an ideal app for users that have smartphones with powerful cameras but limited capacity.

Conclusion

Cut Cut is a good app for editing photos. Since the app is simple to use, it requires a minimal learning curve. In order to penetrate the mass market, app usability is of primary importance and annoying ads at random places in the app ruins the entire experience. The product & engineering teams at Barrier Reef Team need to put user experience first (especially in some sections of the app) and limit the number of ads to enhance the overall experience. The app does have stickiness and since the premium version is not so costly, regular Cut Cut app users would definitely migrate to the premium version sooner or later. You can download Cut Cut Photo Editor for Android from here.

If you have used the Cut Cut app on Android, do leave your experience or suggestions in the comments section…

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Xploree AI Keyboard [earlier review here], a smart mobile app powered by KeyPoint Technologies, announced that users can now follow the T20 2018 on the Xploree AI Keyboard app. A first of its kind initiative taken by the mobile keyboard, users can now watch T20 matches seamlessly while multitasking. This new initiative will take the users’ experience of watching cricket matches on a mobile device to a new level altogether.

Xploree AI keyboard has a unique cross app feature that enables users to do different kinds of things simultaneously, without having to leave the current activity on mobile. This comes as a boon to all, who keep using several features on their mobile phones at the same moment. They can now chat, browse and follow T20 matches seamlessly, in real time. Users can access multiple apps and still stay connected to T20 without any interruption.

Speaking on this development, Nutan Chokkareddy, CEO, KeyPoint Technologies said

We are delighted to announce that customers can now follow T20 matches through Xploree. The keyboard’s ability to understand and communicate in 28 Indic languages will enable users to type in their native language and stay updated with T20 scores in real time. Our aim is to proactively provide the latest updates to users, without having to download or tap multiple applications.

Keeping the T20 fervour in mind, Xploree has also launched T20 themes on the keyboard. Users can now reflect their mood, show support for their favourite teams on the keyboard. Xploree has added 8 new themes, dedicating each of them to every team.

Deepti M Saxena, VP Product, Sales & Marketing, KeyPoint Technologies, said

Themes are an exciting way to engage users on the keyboard app. Approximately 1.5 lac users change their keyboard themes on the Xploree app, in a short span of one month. This encouraged us to build topical keyboard themes, this time, based on the T20 series. We are sure users will love this new addition.

Xploree is the world’s first mobile keyboard application that understands user’s intent and gives real time recommendations. Currently, on 20 million devices, Xploree allows users to receive relevant recommendations and content while they chat, search, browse apps, etc. The keyboard understands and identifies user intent, preferences, interests and maps them to real time discoveries. The app’s brand partnerships and the ability to bring value to users with 150 global and Indic languages, is being leveraged by brands across all verticals, to establish direct engagement with consumers, including those associated with this T20 season.

About Xploree AI Keyboard

Xploree is world’s first AI powered mobile keyboard application that understands user intent & suggests recommendations in real time. KeyPoint Technologies is the leader in AI, NLP, input & language technology space. We are trusted partners to OEMs, Operators, and App Developers for developing intelligent interfaces, engines & input experiences. Xploree AI Keyboard app for Android can be downloaded from here.

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Dailyhunt, India’s #1, News and local language content application, today announced the launch of Newzly, a news-in-brief app for Android users. The app offers a summary of trending news articles across multiple genres such as regional, international, entertainment, business, sports and technology. The content is available in nine languages –  English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati.

Newzly presents a summary of stories in a simple minimalistic design, in the form of cards that can be swiped horizontally to seamlessly sift through subsequent news. The app allows users to read the full article by simply swiping vertically. With Newzly, consumers can also customize their feed basis topics of interest. Users can bookmark cards and share stories on social media including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Key highlights of Newzly app are as follows –

  • The app offers a summary of trending news articles across multiple genres such as regional, international, entertainment, business, sports and technology.
  • The content is available in nine languages –  English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati.
  • Newzly presents a summary of stories in a simple minimalistic design, in the form of cards that can be swiped horizontally to seamlessly sift through subsequent news.
  • The app allows users to read the full article by simply swiping vertically. With Newzly, consumers can also customize their feed basis topics of interest. Users can bookmark cards and share stories on social media including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Commenting on the launch of Newzly, Virendra Gupta, Founder & CEO, Dailyhunt, said

India has a large local language population with diverse needs and the launch of Newzly is part of our expansion of the product portfolio to serve those needs. Newzly app is designed to serve the needs of users who have less time on hand and wants to stay updated with the summary of major breaking & trending news. This app is currently available in 9 languages and we are likely to expand it into more languages in the coming months.

Newzly is a significant addition to Dailyhunt’s product portfolio, which also launched Dailyhunt Lite, its PWA in November last year and partnered with Vuclip and YuppTV to offer original videos and Live TV on its platform.

About Dailyhunt

Dailyhunt is India’s #1, News and local language content application with over 155 Million app installs offering 100,000 news articles in 14 languages licensed from over 800 publication partners every day. The Dailyhunt group has 50+ Million users spending over 6 Billion minutes on the service every month. It’s unique machine learning and deep learning technology enables smart curation of content and tracks user preferences to deliver real-time, personalized content and notifications.  Visit DailyHunt for more information.

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

The premium ad tech network, Apps Discover Technologies Pvt. Ltd, now becomes India’s one of the biggest player in APK [Android Package Kit] campaigns marketing. Apps Discover was founded in the year 2013 and since then the company has worked on over 300 APK campaigns. The campaigns reflect company’s sturdy and efficacious bond with its clients like Alibaba, Amazon, Paytm, Baidu, Flipkart, etc.

These APK campaigns have been a major player in company’s phenomenal growth rate and have created a benchmark in Indian Digital Ad Network Industry. The Company’s APK marketing campaigns are running in India and international geographies like China, Thailand, Russia, UK, and Australia.

Commenting on company’s achievement, Ashish Bahukhandi, Founder & CEO said

At Apps Discover, we embrace every aspect of technology to make digital evolution more augmented for our clients and this accomplishment is a resounding validation of our work by our fellow associates and clients.

After it’s strong base in South Asian Countries the company is now seeking for funding to foster its growth in other continents.

About Apps Discover Technologies Pvt. Ltd

Apps Discover Technologies Pvt. Ltd is a premium Digital Ad Network Marketing Company offering the most preferred online affiliate programs & affiliate marketing products which help advertisers across multiple industrial backgrounds to advertise their brands [products/services] and track mobile ad campaigns in the easiest way possible. Started with an office in Gurgaon, Haryana the company’s operations have now extended far and wide in the South-East Asia market with a strong base in Singapore and Indonesia. For more information, please visit Apps Discover

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Technology is changing at a very rapid pace and one invention that has played the role of catalyst is ‘The Mobile Phone’. Back in the 90’s [the Nokia 1100 era], mobiles used to be a device that only the rich & affluent could afford since consumers had to even pay for the incoming calls on their mobile 🙁 Fast forward now, the bulky, then unintelligent mobile phone has now become much more affordable, intelligent, smarter, and an inseparable part of  our lives. Apart from the on-going innovations in the mobile market, one aspect that has made a tremendous impact on the consumers and businesses alike is the ‘Introduction of applications/apps’.

Image Source – Mobile Phone

Era of Hyper-personalization

Whatever be the task, consumers now have an app that can get the work done for them. There are apps catering to every segment – travel, shopping, medical, banking, personal finance, etc. due to which consumers have access to a variety of services at their fingertips. As mentioned earlier, mobile technology has not only had a tremendous impact on the lives of consumers but has also resulted in a rapid shift in the manner in which products/services are marketed online. Gone are the days where marketers could apply a ‘one size fits all’ strategy for customer acquisition and customer retention since this is an era of Hyper-personalization.

With customers having so many options at their disposal, it becomes imperative for companies to offer consumers hyper-personalized experience, an experience tailor-made for them. Apart from the plethora of consumer-generated data, namely social media information, browsing history, purchasing history, user preferences, etc. that companies can utilize to provide a near-about ‘unique and personalized’ experience, ‘Location Services’ is what would make that experience ‘truly unique’!

Location – Personalization at your service

Majority of the smartphones [high-end, mid-range] as well as tablets now come equipped with Assisted GPS [AGPS] that consume significantly lesser power as compared to GPS, due to which geo-location [process of finding exact location of a mobile/tablet/etc.] has become more important for brands as well as developers. Food-tech companies [like Swiggy, Foodpanda, etc.], on-demand transport apps [like Uber, Ola, etc.], hyper-local startups, etc. use location for customer relationship management, targeted marketing, pushing relevant offers to customers but there are apps in other sectors apart from the ones mentioned above can take advantage of location.

There is no doubt that location-based services have gained much more prominence since people are mostly hooked on to their mobile phones during the day, due to which brands can reach them with relevant and timely information. Location-based services market is expected to reach $3.8 billion by 2018 [Source] and mobile marketers are leaving no stone unturned to make use of these services in order to provide a much better customer engagement and experience. Beacons and Geo-fencing are the two major options available for them, with each having its unique advantages and disadvantages.

Beacons or Geo-Fencing for location-based services

Beacons are small devices that detect when your mobile phone is in close proximity to it. Beacon than sends a signal to the server which in-turn sends a ‘relevant’ push notification to your device. The primary advantage of beacons is that they are highly accurate and can be used indoors. The downside is that they are hard to deploy since beacon is a separate hardware and they need to be placed at strategic locations inside a store in order to get the best output. Geo-fencing is a virtual fence drawn on a map. The size of the fence can vary from small [e.g. a small retail outlet] to huge [e.g. city]. Hence, geo-fencing is ideally suited for outdoor use-cases like measuring the throughput of a billboard advertisement/sending push notifications to customers at an airport lounge/etc. Also, geo-fencing does not require any additional hardware since it uses user’s phone GPS location. In a nutshell, mobile marketers have to make a conscious decision to select the right approach based on the budget, brand requirements, target audience, etc.

Radar – Location platform for mobile apps

Location is definitely the future of mobile and as mentioned earlier, a majority of the apps on Android as well as iOS platforms are not location-aware. Though there are many companies in the location space like FourSquare, Factual, etc., app developers required location platform for mobile apps. The main advantage of such a platform is that developers can build great location-aware product experiences, and collect and store location data in a privacy-sensitive way without spending too much time on this development. Radar, a US-based startup is solving this problem for developers by providing tools that help app developers add location tracking and context to their apps. Radar helps companies build better products and make better decisions with location data. For example, a travel app may change the in-app experience when someone is traveling and at an airport or a delivery app can help track all the delivery drivers. App developers can use Radar’s iOS and Android SDK to add these capabilities to their apps in just a few lines of code. Building these capabilities from scratch can take weeks or months, but integrating Radar takes only a few hours.

Radar currently caters to use-cases in the following segments

  • Shopping
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Entertainment
  • Social
  • On-demand

Radar has three products as mentioned below:

  • Geo-fencing: With Geo-fencing, Radar will tell you when a user enters custom regions that you draw on a map. Geo-fences can be circles or polygons, and they might represent stores, neighborhoods, or other regions depending on your use case.
  • Insights: With Insights, Radar will learn where a user lives and works, and tell you when a user is at home, at work, or traveling.
  • Places: With Places, Radar will tell you when a user is at a place, a chain [e.g., Starbucks], or a category [e.g., airport], even if you have not set up a geo-fence for that place.

Location technology by Radar is used in many apps, including Warby Parker, Via, SeatGeek, Chick-fil-A, Raise, etc.

Further details can be found in the Radar Documentation If you are an app developer looking to integrate location intelligence into your app, do give Radar a spin! We would love to hear from you as to how location services will enable future apps and how these services can be used for the greater good of people and humanity, leave your response in the comments section…

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

XPRESSO App  from Mobigraph has won the Best Enhanced Communications App – Best of 2017 in the 16th annual Mobile Star Awards™ program, hosted by the mobile events and news site MobileVillage.

Image Source – Expresso App

According to Uday Kadirvel, CEO, Mobigraph Inc.

We are a digital avatar tech company; we at Mobigraph think users deserve better digital communication tools and all our innovations including XPRESSO app are geared towards meeting this need. Our technology can be seamlessly integrated with keypad, messaging, camera, Augmented Reality [AR] apps and handset OEMs. The Best Enhanced Communications App award for XPRESSO is recognition of our contribution to the mobile communications space.

Gary Thayer, Editor  of MobileVillage, said,

In our nearly 25 years of promoting the best in mobile, we still take pride in leveling the playing field for mobile tech innovators – whether they be creative new app startups or big-name companies. Because many of our readers and social followers have years of experience with mobile products, we trust them to have the strongest voice in picking the year’s best mobile apps and companies.

Jon Covington, Founder and CEO, MobileVillage, said,

A ‘Best of 2017’ Mobile Star Award is an accomplishment that’s recognized by the entire mobile industry, customers and buyers. Mobile Star Awards winners and nominees truly stand out and shine among millions of other mobile products as the greatest innovators and stars.

Since 2001, the Mobile Star Awards program has showcased the best products in categories covering consumer mobile apps, mobile devices, enterprise mobile services, technology visionaries, and success stories. Nominees and winners are chosen by the mobile-savvy followers of MobileVillage.com. All categories and winners are listed on MobileVillage.com here

About Mobigraph

Mobigraph’s vision is to make conversations Personal, Expressive and Playful for Users and Brands. Experts in mobile graphics software, cloud computing and creative arts, the team is onto change the way people express and emote in digital communication. XPRESSO App was launched in March 2017 and it is organically growing fast with over 12 million GIFs generated in a month. For more information, please visit Mobigraph

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

If you use any type of app or online service that requires a password, you may be familiar with waiting for the code to be sent via SMS. This code is known as a OTP for short, and can only be used once to login. As we sit and wait for the OTP to appear in our inbox, the bigger hassle is when trying to copy the code. Well, Truecaller has solved that for Android users!

Simple Copy OTP

Most messages containing an OTP are filled with other text, however, all we are searching for is that number. At Truecaller, we have created a clean and clear copy button on the notification containing the OTP. This means Truecaller recognizes and highlights the number you need and provides a one-tap way to copy.

How to Enable OTP Messages

To get this feature, you will need to enable Truecaller SMS in your app. You can make Truecaller your default SMS app, and gain additional features of spam protection.Make Short Calls with an Improved Flash!

With flash messaging, you can avoid calling or writing a full text message! It’s a great tool when you need to ask a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, and avoid the small talk. In fact, most SMS responses take around 15 minutes. But with Flash, replies are received in around 30 seconds!

In the newest Android update [v. 8.69], TrueCaller has improved the functionality their users have asked for!

  • Call log history of ongoing Flash messages
  • Polished design for better usage

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

JetSynthesys’ Sachin Saga Cricket Champions announced a successful milestone of achieving 2 Million downloads within less than a month of its launch. The mobile game has now become one of the top-most downloaded cricket games on Google Play in the month following its launch and the fastest cricket game to reach this download milestone.

Launched last month by the Master Blaster himself, the game gives fans an opportunity to relive the legend’s career by stepping into his shoes. Sachin Saga is the only game to receive almost 1 million pre-registrations on Google Play and was also featured as #1 by Google on pre-registration amongst top global titles.

Going beyond the digital realm, JetSynthesys is all set to celebrate this milestone with the introduction of mobile eSports to cricket fans in India and the qualifier rounds began on 5th January, 2018. For the first time ever, the gaming company will host the mobile e-Sport finals at the India Gaming Show from 19th~21st January 2018 in the city of Bengaluru.

A one of a kind mobile game entertainment event, the platform will witness lakhs of mobile game players of Sachin Saga, competing virtually to qualify for the final rounds and participate in the real-life tournament to win prizes of INR 1 lakh and more at the finale!

Sachin Tendulkar tweeted this download milestone and flagged off the tournament qualifiers on his twitter handle

Talking about this remarkable milestone, Rajan Navani, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, JetSynthesys said

The game has grown from strength to strength since its launch and we are absolutely thrilled that it has become so popular among cricket fans and mobile game lovers. Celebrating 2 Million downloads, we’re bringing mobile eSports to the country for the first time in cricket and aim to blur the line between physical and digital, and simultaneously engage gaming enthusiasts in a unique experience of sporting events.

Additional details are available here