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Get Your Phone Bill Under Control with Callistics

If you’re someone who enjoys talking on the phone, even during a time when voice calls have long been usurped as the most used function of a phone, it’s most probable that you’ve received nasty surprises in the past in the form of phone bills. And if you also happen to be someone who’s on a tight budget and have realized that perhaps daily late night phone conversations should be cut down a bit, Callistics might help.

An app developed by XDA Forum Member johnyf, Callistics performs a number of functions aimed at helping you get your phone bill under control. It gathers statistics and information on your phone calls, SMS and your phone contacts and displays them in an intuitive and comprehensive, yet simple manner with graphs and pie charts. In addition to this, Callistics allows you to set limits on the length of calls and the number of outgoing text messages you make, as well as select contacts and numbers which you want to be excluded from the app’s features.

So if you feel like you need to reign in your late night phone calls and SMS conversations, you’ll want to check out Callistics. Head over to the Callistics application thread for more information and download.

The post Get Your Phone Bill Under Control with Callistics appeared first on xda-developers.

Timberman is here to frustrate you, waste your time

Remember that time when all you could think about was get that bird flying (flapping? *wink*) through those darned pipes? We are not heralding the return of the app-which-shall-not-be-named, but as much as mindless casual gaming is concerned, Timberman is probably set to give you sleepless and frustrated nights again.

So what is it about Timberman that has made it an overnight sensation, with over half a million downloads and counting? Well, there’s the 8-bit graphics, the repetitive game play, the frustratingly incremental and unforgiving learning curve, and it is highly addictive – is this starting to sound familiar now?

timberman-screen

So how is the game played? Well, the “timber man” chops down trees. The idea is to chop on one side of the tree or the other, and you tap on one side of the screen or the other to make sure our timber guy is not hit by those pesky branches, as chopping on the endless tree brings them down. I’m sure I’m explaining it wrong, but when you give Timberman a whirl, you’ll get it at once.

The app is free, it’s ad supported, and there are a LOT of ads. You can pay to get rid of the ads. There is one thing we will bet on though – that you will either be cursing us or thanking us for telling you about this game. Here’s to many hours of mindless tree chopping, at least until that bird returns (possibly in August, yikes).

DOWNLOAD TIMBERMAN HERE: Google Play Store

Tasker gets huge update, new features and bug fixes

Tasker is one of those essential apps in the Android ecosystem that once you learn to use, you really can’t do without. Granted that the learning curve for the app is a bit steep, but learning how to use is to create a whole new work and leisure process around your Android devices is surely worth it. And as of today, Tasker is getting a big update that includes a bunch of new features.

For those of you who don’t know what Tasker does, the app allows you to automate tasks that you usually do with your Android device. Think of the way you usually turn on Bluetooth when you enter your car to play some music – you can automate that, allowing Tasker to turn on your Bluetooth when you enter your car, and turn it off when you exit. How about putting your phone on silent mode when you get to the office? Yep, automate that with Tasker. You get the idea, right?

This update brings 33 new features to Tasker, including some small tweaks that just makes the app better and better. Check out the full changelog here. The update also welcomes a lot of bug fixes that have been a source of irritation for users.

As a bonus, AutoVoice – one of the more popular plugins for Tasker – is also getting a big upgrade on the same day. The plug in now allows you to set up commands by piggybacking on Google Now’s voice-activated searches. So if you are ready to download, hit up the update via the Google Play Store at the source link. If you are new to Tasker, it is a paid app and will cost you around USD$4.00.

SOURCE: Google Play Store

‘HP red’ on GFXBench: possible high-performance device

It could be that HP is working on a new Android device with curious high-performance specs. Or it could be nothing. Still, the GFXBench device performance website marked the visit and benchmarking of one such device known only as “HP red”, and listed down the specs for posterity.

If HP would release this monster to retail, it has a curious mix of specs – a 16-inch 2048 x 1536 pixel multitouch display, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 series quad-core processor. The device also had 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, front and rear cameras, and was running on Android 4.4 KitKat.

hp-red

If you think about it, 16 inches is way too much for a tablet-type device. Remember that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab series tops out at 10.1 inches. For comparison, check out your 14-inch laptop’s screen. The ‘HP red’ is two inches larger across the screen. It could be a new model of HP’s all-in-one PC devices – they did have one of those running an Android OS before. But the funny thing about it is that this 16-inch monster has all the makings (and specs) of an outdoor/carry-along type of device – it has Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC and GPS.

So what is it? Well, we can speculate all we want – the bottom-line is that it is a pretty powerful Android device with a ludicrously ginormous 16-inch screen. Then again, it could be a hoax, or someone tweaking the name of their new device to “HP red” to throw off the competition. We will all have to wait and see with this one.

VIA: Liliputing

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

It's the weekend, and you know what that means: Time to download some sweet new apps! Here's the best of what came out this week for your Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone.

HTC One mini gets a Sense 6 makeover in Europe

It seems that manufacturers are just now catching up on their 2013 flagship series. After Samsung updated last year's Galaxy S4 Zoom to Android 4.4, now the HTC One mini is getting a fresh new coat of paint. No, this isn't an Android 4.4 update, which happened in March, but is instead one that brings last year's mini flagship to the current Sense 6.0.

When HTC rolled out Android 4.4 for the One mini a few months ago, it only came with Sense 5.5. So although the mini smartphone did get a serving of chocolate, it didn't get the fancy interface and new features of the latest Sense, including double tap to wake and quick launching the camera. Now the time has come for it to get some Sense, but it isn't the only thing that will be coming in this 500 MB update.

HTC is also pushing a few new features to the One mini, some related to the Sense UI and some more focused on functionality. For the former, there is now a button that clears the Recents App list in a single tap, color-coded themes, and personalized font options. For functionality, the One mini will be receiving an extreme power saving mode, Do Not Disturb schedule support, and updated versions of Music, Gallery, and Blinkfeed apps.

It should be noted that this HTC One mini Sense 6 update is rolling out only in Europe so far but it is expected that global markets will soon follow. Based on HTC's progress report page, however, the AT&T variant of the smartphone is still in the integration stage and it might take some time before it actually goes out to the carrier's customers.

VIA: GSMArena

Reader for Gmail lets you listen to your unread mails

Have you almost gotten caught by the police because you had to read an important email while driving? Or do you have to pull over every once in a while because you’re waiting for a very important email from a client? Or maybe you’re just too busy to sit down and go through unread emails? These are just some scenarios when a voice assistant will really come in handy. Reader for Gmail wants to be that app that will virtually make your email life easier.

Even though there have been a lot of text to speech apps before, they mostly alert you to notifications or read your text messages. There are some that lets you dictate to them and they’ll text it or post it for you. But Reader for Gmail, as the name implies, just simply wants to read out loud your unread Gmail messages for you. Using Android’s Text-to-Speech (TTS) program, you can set it to automatically read incoming messages when you’re too busy to read them yourself. You also don’t need to enter your password every time since it uses Google’s OAuth2 technology.

However, if the email is a mini-novel in itself, Reader for Gmail can’t read it entirely for you. You can set it to read the sender, subject, date sent and the email summary, which is just the first two sentences of the message. This will work well for those who send you brief emails only, but even for the longer ones, at least you know what the gist of the message is (unless they start off with a long-winded intro). You can also schedule the app for when it will read out your messages. It also has a floating control panel so you can play, pause or go to the next or previous email.

Since it’s still a new app, the developer is offering a two-week free trial for the premium version when you download it from the Google Play Store. After the trial expires, the basic features will remain and you can switch to premium through an in-app purchase. The developer also encourages suggestions and feedback to enhance the app, so expect a lot of updates and changes soon.