The Android NZ Apps of the Week 08/02/2012 [AOTW]

It's that time again, join us after the break to find out which apps we're touting this week!


Murray Winiata - Widgetsoid ($1.60NZD)

TouchWiz doesn't get much love, does it? Everywhere you look people are always bagging it. But you what? There is one feature that I really miss whenever I stray from Samsung's TouchWiz'd offerings. You see, in TouchWiz they have this cool feature - connectivity toggles in the notification drawer. If you read that and thought "uh, so what?", you've probably never used a Galaxy phone and experienced the convenience that provides. That means being able to turn WiFi or bluetooth or GPS or Sound or Auto-rotation on and off without leaving the app you're in. No more exiting to the homescreen, hitting a toggle widget, then returning to your app - just pull the drawer down, hit your toggle and flick the drawer back up. Brilliant.

When I got my Galaxy Nexus that was one of the first aspects of the user experience I just couldn't get on with, sure you can pull down the drawer, press a button to open settings, go to the appropriate part of settings and toggle whatever, but the immediacy was gone. The number of actions needed to get stuff done just ballooned inconveniently.

Being Android though I just figured there had to be a way around that, so I started looking. I found Widgetsoid. Widgetsoid, at a first glance, isn't so different to other toggle-widgets you may have come across. If you delve a little deeper though you'll find lot's of extra depth - a veritable plethora of options in fact. Somewhat unfortunately Widgetsoid's UI isn't the most intuitive, so it takes a little while to work out exactly how to leverage it's power. If you bear with it a little though you'll be rewarded.

You can of course add a toggle widget bar to the notifications tray ala TouchWiz, but you have as many options as you deem practical for the width of your screen, including the option to have shortcuts to apps or contacts if you desire, or even multiple widget rows in the notifications drawer. Even better you can choose the colour of the widget elements, handy if you're a bit precious about everything being 'just so' with your theme and homescreen setups. While you can typically get similar functionality on custom ROMs, the beauty of this is that none are required. Heck, you don't even need Root.

Apart from Widgetsoid's (initially) cumbersome UI, I haven't come across many other issues. One notable one is the inability to toggle GPS from the widget from Gingerbread upwards. This isn't Widgetsoid's fault, it's because Google set it up so only system apps can turn GPS on and off in that fashion (if you're a Tasker user you'll have already struck that rather annoying limitation if you've moved up to an OS version above Froyo). If you're a Rooted user you can presumably make Widgetsoid a system app to workaround that issue, as you can in Tasker, although I haven't actually tried that myself.

Anyways, even despite these few strikes against Widgetsoid I'd recommend it highly to those looking for this sort of functionality - particularly users without Root who'd like to unleash a bit more of the power and flexibility their Android has to offer.

Nik Turner - Ice Breaker! (Free)

Addictive!

The aptly-titled Ice Breaker! is a remarkably addictive game, in which the player slingshots a strategically limited number of explosives Angry Birds style at an ice sculpture in an attempt to destroy as much of it as possible. It has a steep learning curve which swiftly sucked me in, despite the offensive number of ads and pop-ups in the game – it even commits the ultimate faux pas of begging for five-star ratings in the market, which I deny it on principle (In fact, I recommend you restrict its access to the internet using a firewall or permission-screener, since I disapprove so heartily of this practice). If you can get past the ad-fest, it’s an excellent time-waster.

The explosives come in a number of different varieties, all of which need to be mastered. From a single shot to time-bombs to spheres that drop multiple explosives which need triggering with the next salvo, there is plenty to keep you engaged. The mechanic is simple, and thanks to the targets’ icy nature and pleasant cracking sound effects, very satisfying. It’s a simple game mechanic that kept me coming back for more until the game was finished - it’s currently rather short, clocking in at 45 levels. There’s replay value in returning to perfect those three-star ratings, however, and its smaller, more manageable nature makes it a more appealing prospect to this gamer than the sprawling nigh-infinite sameness that Angry Birds itself has now become.

Brief, charming games like this are exactly what I feel casual mobile games should be. Single-handed operation, that pick-up and put-down factor that lets you play it any time you have a spare minute, and a satisfying challenge combine handily here. It’s free (What with all the ads, that’s to be expected), so I do recommend giving it a shot. Those charming ice sculpture graphics, ranging from dragonflies to chess pieces to celery, will be dust in no time.

Strangely, the app seems to be missing from the market at present, so in the meantime, here’s the apk to sideload.

Andy Carruthers - ScummVM (Free)

Manic Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, on the Transformer Prime

ScummVM is a virtualisation app for Android that allows you to play your old PC (or Mac) games from the "golden era" of role playing adventures. Wonderfully quirky titles like the Roger Wilco / Space Quest series from Sierra, those risqué episodes of Sierra's Leisure Suit Larry where he strives to avail himself of some intimate feminine company, LucasArts' seemingly unending adventure titles like Indiana Jones, the inimitable Monkey Island, utterly manic Maniac Mansion, those garrolous gumshoes Sam and Max, and many, many, many more.

ScummVM is a basically a virtual machine designed originally to allow these DOS based titles to run on PCs running Windows 95 and up, but since ported to other platforms like Linux, the Mac, iOS and now Android. And the coders have done a sterling job in keeping the look and feel totally authentic, right down to the cheesy MIDI music, blocky animated sprites and most important, the genuine period interface. You'll think you're still in 1993, assuming you were born by then.

Besides the main ScummVM app, you'll need to also install an appropriate free plugin game engine to match the maker's own, although in the case of the LucasArts games, for example, the plugin supports all of their many series and the individual game titles within each.

So if like me you have a media tablet (however temporary), lots of 1990s vintage RPA games scattered hither and yon, then dig 'em out, dust 'em down and indulge in a retro gamer puzzle fest. There's many a good laugh and awful pun to be had and who needs sleep anyway?

Brilliant!

Anita Paling - WeatherBug (free version or $2.61NZD Elite version)

Weather in your notification tray, lovely.

This is such a nifty weather app.  I really like it.

Fellow AndroidNZ editor Nik dropped into work and showed me his Motorola Razr phone and the first thing I noticed was the temperature in the status bar.  It was that I was most impressed with, not his fancy much geeked up Android phone.

I'd have been as happy as a pig in mud if all I got was the ability to display the temperature in the status bar, but oh no, there was so much more that I could tap into.


As you'd expect there's preferences you can configure, including changing from Fahrenheit/Celsius.  You can have a widget if that's your thing and you can add other locations as well.  You're not limited to just your country.  I've got Chester, UK and Auckland NZ, both places where we have family.

The middle image shows the screen as My Location, if I swipe to the left I get to view the other locations I've saved.  There's a number of different options accessible at the bottom of the screen.  You can access pictures of your location, view weather warnings, a map of your location, more in-depth analysis of the weather conditions (Temperature, Precipitation, Wind, Sun, Humidity, Pressure), Pollen (only available in the US), a National Outlook (which loads a video – and there's nothing "national" there, it's a video from the US).
As a cyclist the wind is something I keep a keen eye on.  I find it helpful to mentally prepare for what is typically a headwind cycling home.

Apparently NZers have a weird fascination for the weather.  I'm not sure if we do or not. But as you can see, at the height of Summer, February being the warmest "Summer" month for Christchurch, we're sweltering in the staggering high teens (in case it wasn't clear, I was being sarcastic).  Maybe that's why we fuss over the weather, always dismayed at what is meant to pass as summer.

There's a paid version of the app too.  Just a mere NZ$2.61.  As is typical of a paid version, it's ad free, as well as providing some enhancements to existing functionality available in the free version and a few new things.  You'll notice the words:  Enhanced, Detailed, Unlimited, Additional – it's what you get with the paid version.

You can pick up this cool (free) app from the Android Market here.  Meanwhile I'm off to grab my bikini and make the most of the last moments of the glorious weather we're enjoying (sarcasm again).

...and that's it for this week. Just like you guys we're always up for a good app recommendation, so if there is some to-die-for app that we have yet to cover please drop us a line in the comments!