AniBoot: Provides Custom Boot Animations To Your Rooted Android Device

AniBoot features dozens of downloadable boot animations which can be applied to any rooted Android device in no more than a couple of taps. The app supports boot animation in three different screen resolutions – 800×480, 1024×768 & 1280×720 – each comprising at least a dozen various boot animations. Each boot animation can be previewed individually, and if it catches your eye, you can download and apply it to your device in a matter of just a few seconds. Details to follow.

Once the app is granted root access, it automatically creates a backup of your current boot animation, and prompts you to select the desired screen resolution for your custom boot animation. Both these options can be availed from within the app’s main preferences screen anytime you wish to make changes accordingly.

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6GB Of Free Cloud Storage To PC, Android & iOS Brought by Maxthon Skyfile

Skyfile brings an initial offer of 6GB of free cloud storage space to anyone who registers for a new account. The desktop client lets you keep selective Skyfile folders in sync with your PC at all times while the Android & iOS clients allow remote access to all your Skyfile cloud content. However, more than any other aspect, it’s the advanced and secure file sharing features of Skyfile that deserve to be commended. More after the break.

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Define A Unique Unlock Pattern/Tap Sequence Over An Image Of Your Choice With Photo Lock Screen App[Android]

Photo Lock Screen is a lockscreen replacement Android app that brings an added layer of security to your beloved device, as it lets you set a custom unlock pattern traced over an image of your choice. You have the choice of defining as simple or complex an unlock pattern as you like, as there are no hard and fast rules in this regard.

The best part about Photo Lock Screen is that it can perfectly work in combination with your favorite home screen replacement app, and can be used as a standalone security mechanism on your Android. A rather vital aspect to consider while using Photo Lock Screen as your default lockscreen is that you must set the app as your device’s default action upon pressing the home button, or else, the lockscreen won’t be effective.

Once the app is installed, you’ll notice a couple of app icons added to your device’s app drawer. ThePhoto Lock icon lets you instantly lock the device whereas the Photo Lock Settings icon is to launch the app’s main settings screen from where you can permanently enable the app’s lockscreen, set your preferred home screen replacement app, Select Lock Photo (custom lockscreen background), andConfigure Lock Screen.

While selecting a custom background, make sure to pick an image with a maximum size of 320 x 480 pixels, since images with larger screen resolutions are inaccurately scaled down, thereby making the entire customization process a tad undesirable. While configuring the unlock pattern, the app prompts you to repeat the exact pattern at least twice in order to confirm it. Once succeeded, the app displays the confirmation message of your custom pattern being set as your device’s default unlock mechanism.

Please note that when it comes to unlocking your device via Photo Lock Screen, precision is the key. Try to use a background that can present you with some clear indication/hint regarding the pattern, just in case you somehow forget it. The best practice in this regard can be to use an image that itself contains several patterns embedded within the design, or else, you might be having tough time remembering/tracing the exact patterns on a rather plain image. Also, remember very carefully whatever custom pattern you’ve defined, and draw it absolutely accurately when required on the lockscreen.

Even the slightest of the deviations from the original pattern will result in failure of the unlock process. In case you fail to provide the accurate pattern in five consecutive attempts, the lockscreen becomes ineffective for the next 20 seconds, after which, you’re automatically logged out of your Google account, and prompted to sign back in to get things going.

Photo Lock Screen is available in the Google Play Store for free, and can be downloaded via the link or QR code provided below.

Download Photo Lock Screen

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The Google Drive App For Android [Hands-On]

Overview

First and foremost, Google Drive for Android is not a new app. It’s the good old Google Docs app, rebranded. In fact if you have Docs installed and search for Drive in Play Store, you will see it installed and available as an update. In the app itself, not much has changed. It’s the same interface that we are all familiar with, with a few Drive-specific features added.

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A Social Network For Parents & Scrapbook For Baby Photos : Kidfolio [iPhone]

KidFolio is a newly released iOS app that acts both as a scrapbook for baby photos, and a social network where you can share said scrapbook with anyone you want. The app also provides its users with useful parenting tips, and a place where you can meet other parents to discuss your problems. An impressive Aviary-powered photo editor within the app provides all the essential editing and styling features that one may require.

Although it is possible to browse through some areas of Kidfolio without creating an app account, but that takes away the whole purpose of the app. So, it is better if you sign up for an account before doing anything. To do so, users can link their Facebook account with Kidfolio, or create an account from scratch using their email ID. Once the sign up procedure is complete, you will be taken to the main feed of Kidfolio, which can be sorted based on recent or popular posts. You can also choose to view photos of babies belonging to a certain age group. Only public photos are displayed in this feed, so you need not worry about privacy issues. Your friends can comment on your photos even if they are not on Kidfolio, as long as you have linked your Facebook account with the app.

The big camera button on the bar at the bottom can be used to snap or edit photos in impressive detail. Kidfolio comes with an Aviary-powered photo editor, which provides a respectable number of photo effects, and options to alter the brightness, hue, saturation, colors and dimensions of photos. The option to add text to your photos is provided by Kidfolio itself within the bar at the bottom of the main interface.

The Parenting section lists articles that can help new parents through every stage their child goes through. If you find an article really useful, you can share it over Facebook or Twitter as well. For help regarding specific topics, you can head over to the Kidfolio forums located in the Groups section of the app.

Much like the new timeline feature in Facebook, Kidfolio has a good system of highlighting the important moments in a newborn’s life. This is done through badges that can be attached to photos of said moments. In short, if you own an iOS device, and are a parent, Kidfolio is a must-have.

The app is available for free in the App Store, and can be downloaded from the link provided below.

Download Kidfolio

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A Unique Dual-Pane Home Screen Replacement App For Android With Mobo Launcher

Mobo Launcher focuses mainly on presenting users with quick navigation to their favorite apps and widgets through a unique split-screen interface that is as simple to use as it is to customize.

By default, the launcher’s interface is divided into a scrollable section for widgets, an side-scrolling app drawer that itself is presented under various app groups/categories and a scrollable dock for shortcuts to the most frequently used actions or apps. Swiping upward on the app drawer reveals it in its entirety, while swiping downwards returns it to its original half of the screen. The personalization options presented by Mobo Launcher range from specifying the number of dock screens to downloading and applying gorgeous themes, Mobo Widgets, Wallpapers, Skins and more from the launchers online repository. More to follow.

While using the default/split-screen mode of the launcher, you can view all your installed apps under various groups (Favorite, Apps, Games, System and Newest). Not only can you move an app from one category to other via simple drag-and-drop, but also define and customize your very own app categories. Long pressing an app category lets you add various apps to it, and/or reorder the group itself on the bar. Another handy feature of Mobo Launcher is that it makes it extremely easy to locate a newly installed app by displaying a tiny indicator on top of its group’s icon.

Various Mobo Launcher Widgets that can be availed include a one-tap memory optimizer, voice search, Mobo Weather, Creative Clock and native Mobo File Manager. Each widget itself is further supplemented by a variety of themes and designs to provide you a multitude of different flavors and options. The launcher has its very own file manager, app manager, and plenty of other nifty tools that can be downloaded from its online repository. The default layout of the launcher’s dock provides you with shortcuts to various system toggles and contacts, messaging app, calling app, web browser, and Mobo Launcher’s native personalization app.

Using the app’s main preferences screen (Menu > Preferences), not only can you opt to show/hide the status bar, but the entire content on the homescreen itself too, so that you can enjoy your favorite Mobo Launcher Wallpaper in full screen. Further customization options presented within the app’s main settings screen comprise specifying the number of dock screens, each complete with the content/shortcut of your choice. Moreover, the settings screen lets you modify various display settings, homescreen navigation effects, default group settings, widget settings, and the option to backup/restore launcher settings.

Another notable aspect of the launcher is the Gravity Sensor feature that, if turned on, utilizes your device’s accelerometer to sway the app icons on the homescreen as per the device movement. To enable this feature, simple enable the Gravity Sensor option within the Display settings on the app’s main settings screen.

That’s not all; Mobo Launcher allows you to fully tweak app icons. Not only can you change the app’s icons (load custom icons from the gallery), you can use a specific icon mask to define the boundaries of each app’s icon.

All in all; Mobo Launcher is worth giving a try for its buttery smooth animations and transitions, easy navigation, additional goodies, flexibility, and most importantly, for the sake of change that is considered to be an obligation in the Android ecosystem.

Mobo Launcher is available for free in the Google Play Store, and can be downloaded via the link or QR code provided below.

Download Mobo Launcher

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Save iPhone SMS & iMessage Threads To PC With Decipher TextMessage

 Decipher TextMessage is one such cross-platform paid application that will allow you to view and export all your iPhone’s messaging threads (SMS, MMS and iMessage) as text or HTML files and save locally, along with a few other, highly useful options, such as recovering deleted messages.

Note: Decipher TextMessage is a paid app that will make your wallet lighter by $14.99. AddictiveTips is giving away 5 licenses for the Windows version of this app, details for which can be found at the end of this article.

The application is available for both Mac OS X and Windows, and works by extracting the messages from your iPhone’s iTunes backup. In essence, it employs the same sqlite manipulation that can be achieved through manual means, but not only is the process simplified thanks to the application’s GUI, but also much more refined. As Decipher works with the iTunes backup of your iPhone, it’s imperative that you have backed up the device at least once with your PC/Mac for the tool to work correctly.

When you launch the application, it will first look into the default iTunes device backup folder for all available backups, and extract the messaging information.

The main interface is a three-paned window with the left one listing all available device backups, the middle one populating the message threads by contact for the selected backup, while the right one displays any selected thread in its entirety. A row of buttons is available on the top, containing Export, Sort, Search, Recover, Hide, Print, Copy, Help and Check for Updates.

Usage is extremely simple. Viewing a message thread can be done within the app’s own interface, which includes a timestamp with each message, along with an indicator for whether it was incoming or outgoing. Sent and Received messages are also color-coded for visual differentiation. The end of each thread displays the total number of messages contained within.

Decipher TextMessage neither contains any menus for settings, and is controlled entirely through the buttons at the top of the interface. Export allows you either capture the selected conversation, all conversations on the device, or all checked threads. Messages can be exported as either text or HTML, where the latter will not only preserve the visual differentiation of the app’s own message viewer, but also include any multimedia content in messages (pictures, videos etc).

The next button, Sort, will change the order in which messages will be shown. Choices affect both the whole contact-based conversation list, as well as the threads themselves, and can be configured to show oldest first, newest first, or, for conversation list, in alphabetic order (which is the default selection). Further on, Search will allow you to look up any word within a thread.

Recover is a rather interesting feature of Decipher TextMessage. Suppose you delete a message thread from your iPhone. As with all operating systems, the space used by that particular thread is marked available, and not immediately overwritten. When iTunes backs up your device’s contents to your PC, it stores the complete sqlite database. The tool will, in this case, look for all messages within the backup that have been deleted but not yet overwritten, and will make it possible to recover those to your PC should you wish to do so. Highly useful for all those cases where you accidentally delete something and later find yourself needing it desperately.

Just launch the recovery console, select from the available options those that you wish to keep, and hit the Save button.

Decipher TextMessage is a wonderful tool for completely or selectively backing up/exporting your iPhone’s message threads to your PC or Mac, including all the multimedia content that might be there. It’s lightweight and fast, and has a pretty decent set of options, especially when compared to other offerings on the internet. Add to the mix the fact that it’s available for both Mac and PC, and you get a pretty good deal. The only thing I found missing was the support for exporting messages as PDFs, which would have doubly enhanced the app’s usefulness. Regardless, if you are an avid text message user on iPhone and want to keep your messages safe and viewable at any time, these would be 15 bucks you won’t regret spending.

Download Decipher TextMessage

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