Facebook for Android 3.4 - app

This official Facebook app for Android allows you to post photos and status updates, and keep up with your friends' activity on the go.

The main page in Facebook for Android gives you the option to view different parts of your network, including News feed, friends, photos, inbox, profile and friend requests.
The bottom section of this page displays latest photos from friends in an attractive sliding viewer. Viewing latest notifications can be done simply by sliding up the bar from the bottom.

The news feed is obviously the main section, and this can be navigated by scrolling up and down. Clicking on a story allows you to like or comment on it.
Your wall works in the same way as it does on the Facebook site. You can also view and write messages within the app.
The Facebook app also allows you to take and upload photos, which is a really well integrated feature - it really couldn't be done any better.
There's even a button to instantly add it to an existing album once you've taken it. Viewing upcoming events is also a pleasant experience. Facebook for Android displays events in a vertical timeline, allowing you to see very clearly exactly what's coming up.

The app offers a pretty stripped down Facebook experience You can't view or upload video using this app, nor use any of your Facebook applications.
It would also be nice to have a feature to sync Facebook events to the Android calendar, like you can do in Facebook for iPhone.
This Facebook application is promising, and so far is slick and fast moving. However, it is missing a few features to make it a full Facebook experience.

Download Facebook for Android 3.4

Opera Browser Beta 15.0.1162.60015 - app

The Opera browser for Android is designed to help you do more online while using less data. Its minimalist user interface is easy to use and the technology behind the Opera browser makes loading pages on your phone much faster.

Opera already has two Android browsers, Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, which are exactly the same - except Mini reroutes traffic through Opera servers to compress data.

This newer Opera browser app is a completely redesigned version. While it retains many of the features of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, the Opera browser looks more modern and adds some new features.

Features of Opera browser

Like Opera Mini, Opera browser offers a Speed Dial feature, which appears when you launch the app. Here you can place shortcuts to your favorite sites for one-click access. Unfortunately, this is the only way to save favorites in Opera browser, and you can't add bookmarks by starring pages like you can with the older Opera browsers.

Slide across to the right from the Speed Dial and you'll access the Discover section. This offers a selection of latest web content from a variety of sources. You can customize this content based on what country you're in and what subjects you're interested in (food, health, sports, technology, etc.)

One of the most important features of the Opera browser is its Off-Road mode. When this is turned on it all of the sites you visit will be compressed to make them faster to load (using the same technology as Opera Mini). This is great if you're using 2G networks or if you want to save on your data plan.

Other features of Opera browser include:

Tabbed browsing

Find in page

Download manager

Page zoom

Ability to save pages for offline viewing

Omnibar which supports search and address entry with auto-complete

What's it like to navigate with?

Using the Speed Dial in Opera browser feels very much like the iOS experience. Shortcuts take the form of icons, which you can pick up and drag around. Like iOS you can create folders out of different web page links by dragging icons on top of each other.

Accessing your browser history with the Opera browser is simpler than it is in most other Android browsers. Slide to the left from the Speed Dial on the front page and you'll see all your recently visited sites listed in a very clear way.

The Android Opera browser allows you to bring up a context menu simply by long-clicking on an item. If it's a link it will give you options for how you want to open it, and if it's an image you'll get the option to save it to your device.

The tabbed browsing experience in the Opera browser is slicker and easier than it is in Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. The panel is larger, meaning you can see more of each page in the preview thumbnail and swiping through the open tabs is smoother. There's a handy drop-down menu next to the tabs for opening a private tab or closing all tabs.

High speed, low cost

Loading pages using the Opera browser can be very quick, especially in Off Road mode. Although you shouldn't be waiting for pages to load for too long, the inclusion of a progress bar would've been nice for cases where lots of data needs to be downloaded first.

Opera browser users the same WebKit rendering engine used by Safari on iOS and by Google Chrome. It supports web standards very well and during our tests we experienced no problems with pages not displaying properly.

It's a shame that Opera browser doesn't support Flash, or at the very least, Flash Video. If you're a big fan of Flash content you'd be better off with a browser such as Skyfire or Puffin Browser. Check out our post about how to play Flash on Android devices for more.

Summary

Opera browser is a smart, user friendly browser that can load web content quickly. It's in beta release and is missing a few features, but we like it.

Download Opera Browser Beta 15.0.1162.60015

Get Pregnant 2.0 - app

Get Pregnant is a basic fertility forecaster that aims to tell you when it's best to try for a baby. By adding your period start date and length of cycle, the app will tell you when you're likely to be fertile - and to what extent -when you can expect to ovulate, and when, if you're successful, implantation should occur. It also offers advice on how to have a boy or a girl, and a link to an early pregnancy test vendor.

Overall, the app feels cheap and flimsy, and an app that tries to predict or influence the sex of your baby should be taken with a pinch of salt!

My Days - Period & Ovulation 0.97 - app

My Days - Period & Ovulation is a complete period and ovulation tracking app that helps predict your period and fertile times of the month.

Track everything you need to know

My Days - Period & Ovulation allows you to track everything related to your reproductive health, from predicting your period to timing (or avoiding!) your fertile times and ovulation.

The app is basically a calendar. Once you set some basic parameters, you enter the 1st day of your last period, and the app color-codes the rest of the month, warning you when you're likely to be fertile, and showing you when your next period is due.

You can also add extra information to the app, which is useful for family planning or just keeping tabs on your wellbeing, Press a day to add information about your basal temperature, whether or not you took the pill or had sex, or even a note with additional information.

A very simple concept

As My Days - Period & Ovulation is just a calendar, it's very easy to use. Press a day to add more information, and the app will figure out the predicting and planning itself.

You can toggle settings under the preferences menu, and it's here that you'll be able to change your cycle length (if necessary), try the Pro version, set a password, change the theme and make other adjustments.

The app lets you set a variety of alarms too, warning you when your period or ovulation is due, or reminding you to take your daily pill. It goes without saying that you can backup your information to the SD card and then save it somewhere else.

My Days - Period & Ovulation also has two widgets available, a small one and a large one.

A solid, well-planned app

This app is nothing if it's not solid. All the buttons work, it's easy to find your way around, and everything is more or less where you would expect it. There are oodles of options, especially in the Pro version, and it's safe to say that this app deals with just about every situation you'll need it to. But, gosh darn, it's ugly!

We try not to be too judgmental on looks - especially if the software does a good job - but My Days - Period & Ovulation really takes the biscuit. It looks like some 80s software parody! We tried out some of the color schemes, but they only made things worse! The widgets, unfortunately, are just as rough-looking.

Works great, looks terrible

My Days - Period & Ovulation is a solid, efficient fertility and ovulation app, and we can't do anything other than score it highly. Just be warned that it looks really, really dated, and that changing the color schemes or even paying for the app won't do anything to help. If you can get over its looks, however, we'd wholeheartedly recommend My Days - Period & Ovulation.

Ovulation Calendar & Fertility 3.1.14 - app

Ovulation Calendar & Fertility is a very simple, free Android app that aims to give you insight into the times of month you are most likely to become pregnant. By entering the 1st day of your last period, and the length of your cycle, the app makes an estimate of the best times to try to have a baby and, were you to get pregnant, when you could expect your due date to be. When Ovulation Calendar & Fertility has the timing figured out, you can add the special days to your calendar.

Download Ovulation Calendar & Fertility 3.1.14

Horoscope 3 - app

Horoscope is a very lightweight utility that was created in order to provide you with a quick means of reading the astral predictions for any horoscope sign. Horoscope provides daily Horoscope, Zodiac, Numerology, Love, Wellness, and Career readings from your Android phone.

Horoscope is simple, clean and lightweight. Horoscope is ad-free and does not have any annoying notifications. Horoscope is fast at processing requests and does not waste any extra resource from your device.

This app is suitable for all maturity levels. Any enthusiast of astrology are welcome to use Horoscope.

Download Horoscope 3

Foursquare 2013.06.25 - app

Foursquare is a location app that allows you to check into locations, compete with friends, and find places to go.

Available for more platforms than competitor Gowalla, and having a larger community, Foursquare should be the best of the location based apps. However, when you first install it, it can be hard to see what to do with it. Once you've found or invited some friends, and checked in at a few locations, Foursquare begins to make sense.

Foursquare allows your to post mini reviews of places you've been to, and collect badges - like achievements in video games. You can see where your friends are too, and as checking in to locations gives you points, you can see who's winning.

Foursquare is a mix between a social game and useful tool. This type of app only works if you can get enough of your friends to use it. You can find places to go and things to do, read user recommendations and sometimes even get free gifts from places you check in.

The interface is simple to navigate, although it's a bit dry in its design. Competing app Gowalla looks much better. Despite this, as long as Foursquare's community is larger there are more places to find, with more user tips and more incentives to become the mayor of your favorite spots. Competing with your friends can be fun, even if it might feel like you're turning your entire life into an RPG.

As it's community grows, Foursquare is becoming a really useful service, great for finding friends and things to do wherever you are.

Download Foursquare 2013.06.25