After publishing the two previous posts on android app
security with anti-virus apps and app locker apps , this is the third
installment of the series which discusses are android phone tracker apps. These
type of apps are very useful find your phone when they are lost or stolen. You
can even delete your sensitive data from the phone using SMS or intranet when your
phone is lost or stolen. These apps can accurately track the exact location on
Google maps to help you find your phone quickly. What if you don’t have any of
these apps installed when you have lost the phone? You can just install any of
these apps remotely from Google play store and start tracking your phone.
Wheres My Droid is a very useful app when it comes to
finding your lost or stolen phone. If you cannot find your phone, you have to
send a text message, with a particular word from any other phone to your phone. Upon receiving the text your
phone will start ringing and vibrate. If your phone is too far away so that you
cannot hear the identity this comment in
the ring, then you can get the exact GPS location and Google Maps Location
by sending another text message. If someone steals your phone and try to change
the sim, then this app will notify you by sending a text message with the GPS
location of the phone. The stealth mode allows no notification display upon
receiving the text with attention word.
The PRO version(Purchased version) has even more interesting
features. The PRO version takes pictures of the person handling the phone and
send an MMS to you. You can remotely lock the phone, wipe out SD card data or
phone data.
This is a very light weight version of “Wheres My Droid”
with only two limited features like find
your phone by ringing/vibrating via SMS and find GPS location of the phone. This version of the app is very
lightweight, less than 1 MB and good for those who don’t need the extra
functionalities of the original version.
This app is not yet as popular as “Wheres my Droid”, but it
has all the functionalities that you can or cannot imagine from a Phone finder
app. Among the virtually limitless list of functionalities some important ones
are Ring phone Remotely (using SMS), erase SD card data, lock phone, find GPS
location, start Wi-Fi and gps , Take picture of the thief using both rear and
front camera, remote install, send email when sim card is changed and lots
more. This app is also very lightweight, about 500 kb in size. A lot of positive
feedback from users signifies that this app is actually does what it promises.
Only drawback of this app is , it is not very user friendly .
Android security apps are very much essential for keeping
your sensitive data safe from hackers and other malware apps. Today as the
popularity of android phones rises, a lot of users are using the android phone
for banking transaction, shopping carts to buy stuff. Malicious apps and
hackers can track passwords and other sensitive information from your android
phone to recover your banking and financial details. Does it is very essential
to install different security apps available in the play market to keep your
android phone safe from hackers and malwares. These security apps can be
categorized into antivirus, password manager, android phone locator and app
protector.
Antivirus Apps
Lookout Security & Antivirus gives you total security
against any attempts to steal sensitive data by Mariners and viruses and also
fax your phone when it is lost or stolen. The essential features of this
antivirus are
it detects viruses hidden in malicious apps, e-mails or
contacts.
It blocks malicious URLs from stealing your sensitive data
when you click those URLs from your browser.
It blocks malicious contact numbers when you dial those
numbers from your mobile browser
Locate the position of your phone and displayed on Google
maps.
Sounds an alarm so that you can find the exact location of
your mobile phone.
Backup and restore facility for your contacts.
Avast antivirus is another very popular antivirus tool
available in the market. It has the following very useful features like
It scans apps and memory cards for viruses and malwares and
whenever you install new apps from the market.
It gives you remote control access to your phone using SMS
or web to track the phone, wipe out data and alert siren etc.
Scans URLs to check malicious websites when you browse the
web.
Filters out SMS and calls that you do not intend to receive.
Works as an app manager, by listing out the apps and the
amount of memory usage by each of app.
It acts as firewall in rooted phones.
Monitor network Traffic.
And lot more.
This is a very lightweight antivirus security app, about 2
mb in size and has limited bit essential security functionalities. It is very
useful for users with low-end android phones and limited data plan. This
anti-virus works quite well in scanning apps and is the card contents for
viruses and malwares. It gives updates with smaller data file size to save network
traffic for users with limited data plan. It has low battery power requirements
that is does not drain out your battery very quickly. This app does not require
very high CPU usage, to stop degrading the performance of your phone.
This is an antivirus app developed by the desktop and laptop
antivirus company Symantec. It can scan apps and is the card contents for
viruses and finds out the apps that are responsible for is slowing down your
phones performance. It implies a unique feature that, it uses the opinion
submitted by millions of Symantec community users to quickly find out malicious
apps. Apart from virus scanning features, it has anti-theft feature like buzzing
siren to quickly find the missing phone, easing out data remotely in case of
theft, filter out unwanted calls and SMS, sync contacts between different
phones and devices and lot more.
Along with the anti-virus apps you'll also need to install
security apps that protect other apps. These types of apps are called
App-Locker, which password protects other apps, installed in your phone so that
any user or Virus cannot open the apps for malicious intent. App-Locker forces
and is an user to type passwords in order to open other installed apps, thus
even if anyone handles your phone who does not know the password cannot open
the sensitive apps.
Smart App Protector is one of the most popular app-locker
available in the play market. With this app is up to enter a password or swipe
your finger according to a pattern in order to open in an installed app. Thus
any user or friend who wants to open your apps without your permission will be
able to open them. It can also backup and restore other apps. Apart from app
locking, it can lock USB Connection, Outgoing calls, 3g Data and Wi-Fi. Along
with App Password protection it also locks the screen so that the screen does
not go off. It also stops the screen from auto rotating. There are four types
of locks: password (number, character), pattern, gesture. It
supports other features like locking apps remotely using SMS, unlocking apps
using Wi-Fi. It limits the unlocking attempts to a certain number of times, so
that any harmful user cannot go on attempting different passwords to unlock
apps.
This is another app locker which is really loved by the
android users. It can password protect any application along with the SMS, Messenger , Pictures, Camera, Email, USB Connect, Calendar...any apps you
choose. It is a very good feature that it lets you unlock your app by reading
your thumbnail impression. It has widget support. It can lock auto rotation and
the auto brightness for the apps you have selected. It can filter certain home
screens which is to be shown only after unlocking with password. Drawback of
this app is it does not support small screen phones like HTC wildfire.
APP Lock is another very popular app-locker. Apart from
regular services like locking apps with password are patterns, it can lock
incoming calls, display quick lock switch in widgets and home screen, allow
apps to remain unlock for short amount of time once they're unlocked. It is a
very high average rating of 4.6 which signifies most users are very happy with
this app.
Ever wanted to protect your personal gallery images from
praying eyes? Then this app is for you. Gallery Lock can hide individual
pictures and videos within your gallery. This app is compatible to any gallery
apps installed in your phone, so that none of the gallery application can open
the hidden pictures and videos. It provides a stealth mode which even hides the
Gallery Lock app shortcut. Gallery Lock provides both pattern lock and password
lock.
This is another gallery protection app that safeguards the
privacy of your images and videos from the gallery. This app can perform all
essential features like hiding images, videos and it has three types of screen
lock facility: PINs,
Password, and Pattern. It is very lightweight, only about 2 mb in size thus
perfectly suitable for phones with no internal memory.
Google Now is a newly introduced predictive search feature
for JellyBean (4.1) users. It gives you a lot of information base on your daily
activity.
It gives you information like weather, how much traffic can
you expect based on your next appointment, arrival time of your next train,
Your favorite football teams score in card format. All these information will
be very easily accessible with just few swipes of your finger.
Few of the most interesting Google Now cards that are
currently available
Next Appointment – This card tells you information about the
traffic you can expect towards your next destination
Weather – Shows the weather of your locality and also
weather of your destination.
Traffic – traffic condition and alternate routes for your
next destination.
Restaurant Reservation – Shows the time remaining to reach
the restaurant reserved for you.
Events – How much time remaining for the start events tickets that you purchased and
direction to reach the event.
Friend’s Birthday – It reminds you about your friend’s
birthday and let you wish him on G+ and display their contact information.
Hotels – the navigation direction to the hotel that you have
reserved.
Flights – Displays Real-Time flight status.
Sports – Getting updates on sports and live scores of your
favorite team is very easy with Google Now.
Movies - getting information about movie Showtime in which
he is playing in the theatre near you can be done by using the movies card.
Stocks – Stock information can be received through the
stocks card.
Breaking News – Breaking News card keeps you updated about
the latest happening around you.
Research topic – this card gives information about the
exciting and resourceful websites on a particular topic that you want to Research.
Public transit – this card gives information about the buses
or a nearby subway station around you.
Places – this card gives information about bars, restaurants, and places of interest
around your current location.
Nearby events – This card shows the information about
current events.
Currency – quickly check the local currency conversion
rates.
Translation – quickly translate the words that you want to
say to foreign languages.
These are the current features that are currently available
in Google now. Google is constantly releasing updates on the current cards and
also releasing more and more new cards. This app makes your life easier by
providing the right information at the right time whenever you need. You can
control this app using your voice. The only downside of this app is it is
currently available to only Jellybean (4.1)users.
Today's android camera apps are great for taking professional quality images using the smartphone. These apps greatly enhance the photos while capturing the images and enhance the capability of the camera by adding exposure, contrast, focus controls. This apps are also capable of adding multishots, burst mode, Toy camera effect and lots of other effects like Holga, Lomo, Tilt Shift effects etc.
User rating - 48,000
Avg. rating - 4.4
This app is one of the most popular apps available for
android. Features like 6x optical/dizital zoom, 10 shots per second, Hardware
button customization makes it very useful for serious and amateur photographers
both. This is one of the very few apps which can handle Front Facing Camera.
Being able to change autofocus, white balance, night shots, ISO, exposure and
lot more useful features makes it quite popular among photographers.
It also support multiple options for post processing. Lots
of readymade effects like Retro, Toy
Camera, Diana, lomo, vintage, cinematic,
funky, pencil, Holga 35mm etc effects makes your dull images pop up instantly.
There are various another complex post processing options like Mirror effects,
Tilt shift to rather basic but very essential options like cropping ,
resizeing, collage, Rotate.
You can tap on any part of the screen to click the shutter. Select
a particular folder to save images directly.
User rating - 55,000
Avg. rating - 4.1
This is another great Camera app to take pictures with nice
effects to produce Great quality photos using your smartphone. With Pudding
camera you can choose effects to simulate 9 different quality camera and various film like fisheye and toy camera effects. Film effects
are ranging from Retro , Vintage Brown Sensibility Basic
to Vintage Blue, Dazzle, Vignetting, Mono, Noir, Vivid. It also offers Cameras
Effects - Tilt-Shift, Fish-eye (hemispherical), Multi-frame Shots & Fish-eye
, Fantasy (Tilt-Shift), Triplex (3 shots). Other regular features are
face recognition, exposure control, different resolution up to 1280 PX, grid
view. You can instantly upload the images to Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, Flickr
and other social sites. It also support front camera functionality.
Pudding
Camera is really loved by a lot of users but still it lacks some useful
features like zoom
in/out option & burst mode. Also the time it takes to save the
images in place the card is quite very long.
User rating - 50,000
Avg. rating - 4.4
Smart phone cameras are mostly used for taking pictures of
friends and relatives. For this reason Cymera Android Camera App is mostly
concentrate in portrait capturing functionality. According to the developer
this is the best protect portrait capturing android app. It has different face retouching
effects like Big Eyes, Smile, Slim Face, Liquify,
Clear Spots, Brighten which
brings out the mood of the subject and make you and your friends look really
great. With great built in face detection capability this knows exactly where
to add the effect to make beautiful portraits. The other common photo enhabement effects like auto level, rotation, cropping, contrast,
, brightness, saturation, sharpening and more to enhance the quality and
versatility or your photos are also available . It’s simple and easy to use
interface helps to add the effects very quickly. You can share you’re your images
to Facebook, twitter, Mixi and Weibo directly from this app.
Drawback
of this app is it lacks front camera. Thus using the effects for self-portraits
are not possible. It also lacks panorama effect.
User rating - 22,000
Avg. rating - 4.5
This app is for those who has a creative mind and love to
see the world in an artistic vision. This app converts the scene into a beautiful
sketch while taking the photographs. There are lots of other softwares like
photoshop which can convert a normal photo into a sketch, but this app displays
the scene as a sketch while you are clicking the photo. So if you have a
creative mind and want to view the world as a sketchy and fantasy way then this
app is for you.
User rating - 15,000
Avg. rating - 4.7
Snapseed camera app is developed by NIC software, Inc who
are very famous for their photo manipulation apps. This app has the ability to
make single tap auto- corrections to your images and does pretty decent job .
Other manual editing options like selective adjust enhancement, you can select
a part of your image and adjust brightness, contrast etc. of that part only.
Other regular features like Drama, Vintage, Grunge, and
Tilt-Shift are available. And did I mention, this app is completely FREE?
The big disadvantage is it only support ICS or later version
OS. This is why a lot of users can not even install this software in their
phone. But the people who have tried this app are very happy with its
performance.
User rating - 11,000
Avg. rating - 4.4
Vignette is another Android camera App that has all the
regular camera app features like Retro/vintage, LOMO/Diana/Holga toy camera, Polaroid/instant
camera, Cross-process, duotone, charcoal, tilt-shift and much more.
With Vignette camera app you can control the exposure,
zoom, flash on-screen while taking the picture. Rule-of-thirds and
golden ratio composition guides are fantastic for composition aid. In
ICS or later you can launch this app from lock screen to take instant snaps.
The stock Android phone keyboard app that comes preinstalled
in the android phone by the phone manufacturers is often not very sensitive to
finger touch. It is inconvenient for typing and often introduces a lot of typing
errors. To solve this problem many app
developers came forward to develop keyboard apps that are sensitive and
accurate to finger touch, can autocorrect and predict words as you type first
few letters of the word. These 3rd party apps make your typing a lot
faster even in smaller screen sized android phones.
Ratings received
207,705
Avg. Rating - 4.4
This app features keyboard size customization, font size,
key tones, support emojii, supports multiple languages, theme support, multiple
keyboard layout. Have accurate dictionaries, Smart engine for predictions,
Import contacts so that you can insert your friends name quickly and swipe
input where you just glide your finger over the keys of the letters that form
the word. This method makes the typing very fast as you can type without
lifting your finger from the keyboard.
Cons - frequent layout switch to default keyboard, autocorrecting
often ends up adding wrong words.
Ratings Received - 145,000
Avg. Rating - 4.6
Its unique selling point is that, it scans your previous emails,
texts, Facebook updates and recognize the patter of your writing. This method improves
the ability to predict what you're about to type and it works remarkably well.
Switch seamlessly between tapping and swipe typing with our new SwiftKey Flow
feature.
It has a very accurate word prediction. Nice clean
interface.
Cons - Text prediction expires in free version expires after
14 days
Ratings received 39,705
Avg. Rating - 4.5
This keyboard has a very unique feature that if talks the
word that you have typed while you are typing. The keys are very large to make
you type in effortlessly. It supports many themes and has a lot of
customization options. It learns the most used words as you type and makes it
more perfect in prediction. It supports many languages and has customizable
colors, themes, background images, fonts. It has different themes to make the
keyboard look like iPhone or Windows phone.
Cons - Trial version - text prediction will be available for
14 days only
Ratings received 37,766
Avg. Rating - 4.2
It has a very nice
contextual text prediction feature and you can swipe your finger on the
keyboard to type words without lifting a finger. It supports multiple themes
and languages. It updates its dictionary regularly to give you more accurate
text correction. You can also import your contacts to type your friend’s names
effortlessly. It is 100% free software, which means it will never expire but
display ads.
Cons : text prediction is less accurate. Sometimes it
disappears while typing.
Ratings received - 30,353
Avg. Rating - 4.0
This keyboard is mostly famous for swipe typing feature. If
you slide your finger on the keyboard instead of typing and it will guess the
word. It supports multiple themes and languages.
It also has a very nice text to speech engine where you can
just speak the words you want to type and the keyboard will type the words for
you. It can also import your contacts.
Cons - Sometimes it freezes and disappears while typing.
Ratings received
17,004
Avg. Rating - 4.2
This keyboard has multitouch, Multilanguage, multiple skin
and vice input support. After the trial version expires the free version
continues to function but it can occasional nag screen asking you to buy the
full version.
Cons - Does not support emojii plugin feature.
Ratings received
6,411
Avg. Rating - 4.4
This keyboard has a unique "split" layout which is
supposed to make your typing more accurate. It supports multiple keyboard
layouts for bigger and smaller screen devices and separate layouts for portrait
and landscape. It has other usual features like multiple languages, themes,
voice recognition, different colors and size of keys, font.
Cons - Supports less number of languages. Lacks input
accuracy.
Ratings received
3,794
Avg. Rating - 4.3
This keyboard offers a lot of customization options. It has
a unique feature that, it supports different industry specific dictionaries
like Business, IT & Telecom,
Finance, Legal and Medical, Telecom , It
also has themes based on festivals like St. Patrick’s day, Holi etc. Clipboard
with navigation keys and select, cut, copy, and paste functions.
You are in a party or in a restaurant and suddenly you are
very impressed by a song that you have never heard before. There are few
android apps which will identify and find the song. You don’t have to try hard
to memorize the lyrics of the song and search the internet in and out to find
the song, using those lyrics. All you
have to do is to install any of this following app, in your android phone and
the app will identify the song and display all the information you. It may even
start playing the song from YouTube if available.
Ratings Received - 432,626
Rating - 4.5
This app identifies a song when you hold your phone near to
the song. This app has a large database of songs thus can identify songs very
accurately. You have 2 tap the “S” logo of this app in the middle of your
screen and the song will be recorded for 15 seconds or less, then it will
identify the song by comparing the song to its database .If it has found a
match, it will display the title and artist and other related information like
YouTube video URL’s, websites from which you can purchase the song,
recommendation of similar songs, lyrics etc. it even lets you share the song
with your friends via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and SMS. It also records a 30
sec clip of the song for you to listen .You can tag your music on spotify and
listen to it later.
Ratings Received - 194,663
Rating - 4.4
SoundHound is an app similar to Shazam with an extra
facility that, it identifies the song even when you sing the song yourself.
Like Shazam you have to record the song by tapping its logo at the center of
the screen and it will start recording and find out the song. It shows you the
lyrics while playing the song, display title and artist name, display the
real-time Twitter and Facebook updates from your favorite artists, lets you
hear free songs, new artist , and share the song on Facebook and Twitter.
Unfortunately most users find this app less useful than
Shazam as it cannot recognize songs as good as Shazam.
Ratings Received - 33,115
Rating - 4.4
This is another music recognition app from Sony Mobile
Communications. This app may be less popular than Shazam and SoundHound but
does a pretty decent job in successfully recognizing songs. It has a pretty and
intuitive user interface. With this app you can get title and author
information of a song, get music videos on you Tube, share music with your
Facebook friends and of course listen to the song. Users of this app find a
very accurate and fast. Some happy users recommend that it is even better than Shazam.
Ratings Received - 1,878
Rating - 4.5
This is another song recognition app which is developed by
Google itself. This app is quite very good in identifying songs very fast and
accurately. The user interface is very much easy and intuitive. As this is
developed by Google it is expected that it will get updates regularly. But the
biggest drawback of this app is it runs on android 4 .0 and up. You can
purchase the identified songs directly from Google play and add them to play music
library. Android 4.2 users can add this Widget directly to your lockscreen so
that you can start this app even faster. It is so fast that, it can even
identify the songs of the commercials.
Ratings Received - 3,903
Rating - 4.0
This is another similar kind of song Identification app.
Along with song recognition this app is also good for sharing music among
friends and community through Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. SoundTracking has
lock-screen & home-screen widget, Trending nearby- which displays popular
music from your city and neighborhood. You can dedicate and tag songs to your friends
and they will get an instant notification. This app can play YouTube videos
inside this app, so you don’t have to start another app to play YouTube video. SoundTracking
can play songs using Rdio or Spotify .
After the immense popularity of Temple Run I and Temple Run II in android platform, many other developers came forward to develop games which are similar to endless-runner game. Although these games like subway surfer , Agent Dash are based on endless-runner theme, yet they offers a lot of variation in game play and graphics. The Gaming community who liked Temple Run, loved these games too. Here is a list of 10 endless runner game with great graphics and intense action.
Ratings received - 339,000
Avg Rating - 4.5
Ratings received - 580,000
Avg Rating - 4.7

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3. Agent Dash
Ratings received - 121,000
Avg Rating - 4.5
Ratings received - 130,000
Avg Rating - 4.6
Ratings received - 61,000
Avg Rating - 4.5
Ratings received - 23,000
Avg Rating - 4.6
Ratings received - 339,000
Avg Rating - 4.5
This is a true successor
of the original temple run and the graphics really improved a lot. In this game
your character will run through jungles, mountains and Dungeons at a very high
speed and you have set the direction of your character with swipe of your
finger to avoid falling. You have to take power ups while running with very
quick movement of your finger. This is a very simple but greatly addictive game,
millions of gamers found this game very interesting and spend hours playing
this game, even though some people find this game difficult for its very high
speed.
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Ratings received - 580,000
Avg Rating - 4.7
This is another endless
runner game similar to Temple Run but with a lot of new additions. In this game
you have to ride through subway tunnels on a skateboard. While surfing you have
to collect coins, power ups and avoid collision with trains, light posts, wooden
walls etc. With swipe of your finger you can make your character jump, tumble
roll under objects, use hover board to go through any obstacle temporarily. If
you hit any obstacle twice you will be caught by a cop and his dog and sent
back to the starting point. This game is very colorful and has really nice
graphics.

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3. Agent Dash
Ratings received - 121,000
Avg Rating - 4.5
Agent Dash is another
endless run HD game like temple run. In this game your main character is an
undercover agent whose objective is to avoid or demolish obstacles while
running, in order to uncover super villains. Here the movements are sidestep,
leap and slide the obstacles. Collect diamonds to purchase new gadgets and
unlock new characters. The agent can fire pistols to destroy obstacles and use
jetpacks to run through obstacles without receiving any damage. You can even
compare your score with facebook friends.
4. Bad Piggies
Ratings received - 130,000
Avg Rating - 4.6
At the start of this game you have to
construct a vehicle with different pieces of stuff like box, umbrella etc., given
to you at the start of the game. The pigs will ride this vehicle avoiding
various obstacles to clear map to reach towards the finishing line. You will also
have to collect crates and stars along the way. This game is lot more difficult
and thoughtful than angry bird and takes serious planning to clear the map as
the levels increases.
This is yet another endless-run type game which resembles a lot
with Temple Run. In this game , instead of running you will travel in a cart on a rail road .
You will have to swipe and tilt in order to prevent falling and collision with
obstacles. Tilting makes you move sidewise to avoid obstacles and flicking left
and right helps changing tracks. Collecting gold nuggets and gemstones helps you
to upgrade your cart and make it more resistant to damages. Gems and rock eggs
can line the rail. The graphics and characters of this game are really superb.


Ratings received - 123,000
Avg Rating - 4.6
IRunner is another very simple yet interesting Temple run
type game. In this game, you have to run and collect batteries to increase your
energy and powerups. There are two buttons “jump” and “slide”on each side of
your screen, tap jump once to make simple jump and tap that button twice to
make double jump. Tapping “slide” button simply slides the character. The game
does not have great graphics like the other games mentioned above, yet it is
very simple and highly addictive.
Ratings received - 61,000
Avg Rating - 4.5
This is another very cool, funny and addictive game. The main
character is very unique, an old granny, yet she is a master in combat. In this
game you have to help our granny escape from mental asylum. You have to avoid
obstacles like box cartoons and beat up punks in the streets and grab their
coins.
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In this game the free Runner(the main character) try to
break free from a world where system where people have to freedom. The movements
are based on urban ninja sport of Parkour. The movements are really amazing and
the surroundings are really thrilling. You have to jump over the top of tall
builds to escape. There are 100+ movements available according to the game
developer.
In this game our hero Fred runs through a fantasy world to
avoid skeletons and other antic monsters. This game is filled with action and
gore. There are lots of amazing movements to avoid traps and killing of the
fiery monsters. You have to acquire special combat moves and perks while
running. The fantasy world through which
Fred runs is amazing.
10. Run Like Hell
Ratings received - 23,000
Avg Rating - 4.6
Another Temple runner like game with good graphics. You are
a treasure hunter trapped in an island full of cannibals. You will have to slide,
climb, stringjump and crawl to escape from hungry
looking savages chasing you with spears. You have to collect coins to unlock powerups and
additional levels.