From whisky-drinking to Family Guy fun-and-games, we covered a lot of ground with new Android apps in April. Here’s our pick of the bunch for the month.
Frontback
More than eight months after it first launched on iOS, Frontback finally brought its quirky photo-sharing app to Android.
The core raison d’être of Frontback is simple – it lets you snap a picture with both the front- and rear-facing cameras, and then stick them together in a single image. You can also add short messages, mention friends you’re with and include hashtags, then share across all the usual social outlets.
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Carousel [From Dropbox]
Dropbox launched a new photo- and video-sharing gallery app called Carousel last month, combining content from your Dropbox account with that on your mobile devices. You can read our full hands-on review here.
Carousel lets you hold private conversations around your photos with friends, and add their photos to your own special events too.
➤ Carousel
Mailbox [Also from Dropbox…]
Dropbox finally launched an Android incarnation of Mailbox, the popular email client it acquired last May. And it’s a delight to use. You swipe right to archive, long-swipe right to delete, swipe left to snooze, or long-swipe left to add to a to-do list.
The most interesting part of the app is the ability to snooze your email for later, via generic ‘This Weekend’ or ‘Next Week’ options. Check out our full hands-on review here.
➤ Mailbox
Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff
Family Guy’s first mobile game captures the show’s irreverent hilarity as you strive to rebuild Quahog.
At its core, The Quest for Stuff resembles The Simpsons: Tapped Out, another free-to-play city-builder game from Fox. Both titles have you rebuilding their respective towns after the main character accidentally destroys it. In Family Guy’s case, a drawn-out brawl between Peter and Ernie the Giant Chicken levels the city of Quahog, giving Peter the task of recruiting his friends to clean up.
➤ Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff
Distiller
Back in February, we brought you news on Distiller for iPhone, which we said was striving to be the ultimate whisky-drinker’s companion. And in April, it was made available on Android too.
Distiller analyzes tens-of-thousands of data points across flavors, price, reputation, and even how well suited each whisky is to ‘gifting’. It then delivers personalized whisky (or ‘whiskey‘, if you must) recommendations from around the world, though it also lets you search manually.
TransferWise
TransferWise, the London-based startup that wants to make transferring money between currencies effortless and inexpensive, finally launched a native Android app last month.
TransferWise is a peer-to-peer service that sidesteps bank fees and lets you switch money directly to users in other countries. Though it has previously had an app available on Google Play, it was actually just a shortcut to its website and lacked any real native functionality.
Notegraphy
Notegraphy is an editing app that lets you create notes with beautiful typography.
You can browse and apply a variety of different templates, referred to as Styles, which are all radically different and offer three color variations for you to deliberate over. Similar to Instagram, the app shows them in a horizontal carousel and lets you preview the design before finalizing your eye-catching note.
When you’re finished, the note is published to Notegraphy’s community, while it can also be shared to other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Versus
Versus is a ‘comparison engine’ we previously covered when it launched on the Web as Versus IO back in 2012. Last month, it also arrived as a native Android app, letting you compare any two gadgets (such as specs) instantly.
This covers phones, cameras, tablets, headphones, watches, monitors, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
➤ Versus
SlideShare
The LinkedIn-owned file and presentation-hosting platform SlideShare finally delivered a native mobile app last month, kicking off with Android.
However, the app doesn’t let you create or upload files. This is all about following topics, viewing presentations, saving for offline access and sharing your favorites. It’s actually very nicely designed, and lets you swipe sideways through a deck without leaving the main presentations feed – to view it full-screen, you just have to tap.
IFTTT
IFTTT (If This, Then That) is a tool that enables you to use your favorite Internet-based services in conjunction with one another, by defining custom rules and effects. And it arrived for Android users last month.
It’s well-designed and stocked with useful features – for example, you can review your existing ‘recipes’ and see when they were last activated, as well as search for new ones and set them up from inside the app. IFTTT hooks into a bevy of popular services including Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, Pocket, Tumblr, Evernote and Twitter. For its debut on Android, the company also introduced six new channels that relate to Google’s mobile OS.
➤ IFTTT
Chrome Remote Desktop (Google)
Google launched a Chrome Remote Desktop app for Android last month, letting you remotely control your computer using your smartphone or tablet.
On each of your Windows or Mac computers, you can set up remote access using the Chrome Remote Desktop app from the Chrome Web Store. Then, on your Android device, open the app and tap any of your connected computers to link them up.
Lingua.ly
Lingua.ly threw its hat into the language-learning sphere with a new mobile app that promises to help you learn languages simply by browsing the Web. In its current guise, Lingua.ly takes the form of a Chrome extension (which has been out for a while already) and the newly-launched Android app.
Your first step when setting up Lingua.ly is to indicate the language that you’re learning, though the personalized content from the ‘Read’ section is currently only tailored for English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew. The app itself is available to download fully localized for English, Chinese, Hebrew, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Russian.
Once you’ve indicated your language, you can manually type or paste words into the dictionary, and it will give you the translation in your mother tongue. If you’re looking to use the browser extension too, you can highlight foreign-language words from the Web and add them to your cloud-based account, and they are then accessible through the mobile app as well. Alternatively, you can work entirely within the mobile app and not concern yourself with the Chrome extension.
If you’re on the hunt for more Android apps, check out some of the best ones from March, or put your feet up and peruse through the pick of the bunch from the whole of 2013. Alternatively, check out some of the best iOS apps from April too.
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