Immersive, easy-to-play and above all fun, Zombie Flick is a great addition to the series and demonstrates that the Play Store’s zombie fetish is far from over. Lock all your doors, board up your windows and read on for more…

Introduction

One the best-loved scenes from the popular British zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead was where protagonists Shaun and Ed throw kitchen items and then vinyl records at the heads of oncoming zombies. You can see the clip below (does contain the odd swear word):

This kind of action has been wonderfully crafted into game form with Zombie Flick. Using the trusted flicking methodology you might have picked up from playing any of Full Fat’s ‘flick’ series, throw household objects at the heads of zombie hordes and take them down! You are surrounded, so it’s all about how long you can last.

Alone and standing on a pile of throwable junk, you await the onslaught

Controls

To throw items you need to flick your finger over the heads of the zombies as they stagger towards you. Done correctly the item will fly true and take their heads off swiftly. You can also achieve multiple hits by dragging your finger in a line across the heads of other zombies; the resulting toss can result in a multiple take down! If you miss their heads they don’t automatically die, just fall to the floor and crawl towards you.

Slo-mo mode lets you fling multiple objects in quick succession

Zombies come at your from all sides (you begin at a kind of crossroads on a pile of throwable stuff), so to turn you need to tap the side of the screen to face a new direction. This movement is remarkably smooth and makes the game quite realistic.

With enough hits you build up a fantastic slo-mo bonus which slows time right down for a short period and lets you throw multiple items in quick succession. Another element you have control over is the barriers that surround and protect you. After a heavy zombie attack, these depreciate and need to be repaired. You do this by tapping repeatedly to fix them.

Repair barriers by tapping

Graphics

Graphics are deliciously 3D and pretty much console quality throughout. The zombies are well lit, very detailed and animated perfectly in the stooping, lurching, staggering style of popular films. There are plenty of different zombie types, however: some are harder to kill while others will run at you. This is all rendered brilliantly and looks superb.

Thrown correctly, even a banana will take the head off a zombie

The throwing motion is gore-tastic with slick detail and the slow-motion modes are also incredibly visualised. There are seemingly hundreds of items to throw and each of these look great (especially as they fly through the neck of a zombie!).

Sound

Sound is extremely rich and diverse. The music is cinematic and perfectly done and the sound effects are numerous. I particularly liked the item-specific sounds you get in the game. For example, if you pick up a Speak n Spell machine (remember them?!) it will momentarily talk, spelling out the words ‘Full Fat’, pretty cool. There are radios that make suitable noises as well. It’s quite simple really, but adds to the realism and immersive nature of the game.

Typical game view. The one in the middle is tough and throws dumbells at you

You then, of course, get the unsubtle noises of gore as items take off the heads of your enemies. This perhaps isn’t a game for the faint hearted or very young – the rating is Medium maturity and I think for good reason!

Downloading

The game costs £0.69 ($0.99) and with that you get all the modes to unlock and a starting pack of items to throw. These are all pretty effective and work well. However you can also, for an extra cost, download additional item packs which certainly look more deadly than rolls of toilet paper and frisbees.

In-app purchasing will let you buy extra item packs

I’m not the biggest fan of this model – when you pay for a game I think that should be it and you shouldn’t be made to feel like your’re missing out if you don’t get extra resources. Full Fat might be forgiven as the game is exceptionally fun and thoroughly enjoyable, but I really don’t like this mode of monetization and I hope it’s just a phase developers grow out of.

Addictiveness

Zombie Flick is pretty addictive too. You have to score a certain amount to unlock later modes and it’s clearly a game Full Fat are continuing to develop more for. There are also loads of stats to build up: total time played, zombies killed, headshots, longest streak, objects thrown, accuracy, slo-mo time and more. If you have a competitive spirit, this alone will keep you coming back. Additionally there are a few different scoreboards in the game, so if you want to see your name up there you’ll have to keep trying.

Various scoreboards

The only thing that put me off a little was how difficult it was. Hitting zombies is fine, but there are so many of them you can decapitate before your flicking finger becomes tired! However I think once you get into it and your accuracy improves it gets a bit better. The game is certainly enjoyable and there’s clearly more to come – new modes and new achievements which haven’t been added to the game yet – so it’s a title that will evolve a little in the coming weeks and months.

Zombie Games

To suggest the Play Store isn’t swarming with Zombie titles would be incredibly naive and the words of someone who really has been bolted up in a secure place for some time. Not so long ago we even compiled a round up of apps to help you survive a zombie apocalypse, but specifically zombie themed titles continue to come thick and fast, much like the undead masses they market. Gaming behemoths Zynga have recently got in on the zombie action with the release of ZombieSmash and it would seem many game series have a zombie spin-off.

The last thing you see

The undead continue to intrigue popular culture in a variety of ways, from the ongoing Resident Evil series of films (themselves of course based on video games) to truly ingenious events such as 5K Zombie Infested Obstacle Races at runforyourlives.com. With this kind of popularity I’m sure new zombie games will continue to be developed and loved.

Conclusion

Zombie Flick is a through-and-through beautiful app that engages players from the moment you open it. With clever wordplay the ‘Flick’ means the controls, but also the ‘movie’ feel of the menus and non-game screens. Really clever and incredibly potent for gamers who love zombie films. I think Zombie Flick ticks lots of gaming boxes. If you like zombies, action games or any of Full Fat’s ‘flick’ series of games, you will undoubtedly enjoy Zombie Flick.

It will happen eventually

As games go it has everything you might look for: it’s got great graphics and brilliant sound, it’s easy to play, and it features enjoyable gameplay. I think it could be argued that it becomes a little repetitive, but with new modes to be released and unlocked it will improve with future updates regardless. Definitely give it a try.

Fluffy Delusions, the developer behind Extensive Notes, recently released a new app called App Garden, which takes all those extra tools and wraps them together into a single multi-purpose package. The point of the app is to provide dozens of tiny but useful tools to help you with day-to-day tasks without having to install separate apps for each one.

In this post, I’ll try to make sense of what the app has to offer, where it shines and where it needs more work. It is a tough ask, mind you, since there are so many tangentially different things you can do with this thing. Let’s start with a quick overview of what it has on offer.

Swiss Army Knife… and Then Some!

Calling App Garden a Swiss Army Knife for Android might well be an understatement. It come with not 10, not 20, but a whopping 45 apps at last count – some of them even with more apps within them. I’ll not bother covering everything here for the sake of brevity, but here’s a quick sample:

• Health related tools like BMI calculator, calorie intake, body fat, heart rate, and metabolic rate calculators
• Language tools like dictionary, thesaurus, spelling suggestions, phrase lookup, word suggestions, and pronunciation guides.
• Music and movie related tools including album art search, artist information, and film reviews and info.
• Finance related tools like mortgage calculator, tip calculator, stock quotes, and tax calculators.
• Knowledge and general information tools like Wikipedia search, weather, urban dictionary, and area code lookup.
• Miscellaneous utilities like reminders, stopwatch, timer, unit and currency conversion, notes, audio recorder, and system stats.

A very small subset of the tools in App Garden

And trust me, I’ve not even listed half of what’s available. As you can tell from the list, the developer went all out in trying to cram anything and everything that one might want on their phone into one tiny package (and I do mean tiny – it’s under 1 MB).

On deeper inspection it is evident how they have managed to do that, but I’ll come to that later. For now, I’ll focus on that fact that all of this does prove useful when you get down to using it. Most smartphone users tend to download and install tens, if not hundreds of apps on their phones, only to use them just once in a while, so having all these small tools waiting for you to feel the need for one, without hogging all the memory and screen space on your phone, can be quite empowering.

Of course, you can expect to be sliding through a long list of nearly 50 apps to find what you need, so there’s the “Favorites” list so you can pin the ones that you think you will be using most and have really quick access to just those at a glance. As far as app-wide features go, this is pretty much as fart as App Garden goes. You can set your preferred location, currency and units from the app’s Settings menu, so the tools will start up the way you need them.

The Favorites list and Settings

It is hard to choose favorites when there are so many things one can do with the app, but if I were to highlight some of my most used tools from App Garden, it would have to be the timer, financial calculators and unit conversion. Although the unit conversion toolset contains currency as well, that one’s pretty much unusable because the list of currencies is not sorted in any decipherable way. Given how many options there are, it is close to impossible to find what you are looking for without literally going through all hundred-odd entries one by one!

Calculators and the rather intimidating list of currencies

Minimalism Above All Else

So here’s the downside of trying to cram all of that power into a tiny little package: all you get are the bare basics. Sure, the app feels extremely minimalistic and turns out to be pretty snappy in the process, but there are times when it leaves much to be desired.

Take the timer, for example: you can set a time and the app will count down just fine, but there is no audio or vibration notification at the end. You need to be looking at your phone to be able to tell when it reaches zero. The Start and Stop buttons are always there and active, so I can tap the Start button while the timer is on, although nothing happens. This is a common pattern across most of the tools.

Also, tools often have the exact same look, with absolutely no way to tell what they are supposed to do. Look at the example below. The two screens belong to the Timer and the Audio Recording tool. Can you tell which is which?

Timer and Audio Recorder - your guess is as good as mine

To top it off, a big chunk of the functionality is dependent on an active data connection. That would be generally fine, as long as the app made it clear that it couldn’t do something because you don’t have a data connection. Instead, App Garden just throws a “An error has occurred” message at you. The least one would expect is a message explaining what the error was.

Another example of simple oversight is the list of currencies, which (as I mentioned before) is not sorted in any decipherable way. It is minor niggles like this that take away from an otherwise excellent and well rounded toolset.

Conclusion

At its core, App Garden gets the idea right – it’s a set of disparate tools all packaged together for you to use the way you need to. It is a no-frills yet comprehensive app that set out to do some simple things and do them well. There are niggles and surprising omissions that keep the app from being really great, but don’t really take away too much from the feat it achieves in the end.

QuickPic

A great, very lightweight picture viewer, which loads pictures faster than the standard Gallery app. The only downside is that, to do this, it has to build a thumbnail cache and a preview cache, which slows things down a bit initially.

Quick Pick. A great Gallery Alternative.

Instagram

I’ve been waiting for Android to get Instagram since I first saw iOS users posting snaps on Twitter and Facebook. I really like how it integrates with the social networks and also has a network of its own.

Captain Jack Sparrow and Master Yoda chilling on my laptop.

The filters are amazing and the newly added Tilt-Shift effect is well designed and very cool. The application is also stable; it doesn’t crash or freeze. In fact, it moves quite fast on a nearly-one-year-old LG Optimus One P500.

Battle.net Authenticator

If you have an online Battle.net Account and want that extra safety, this application is very useful. Once you’ve linked it to your account, every time you log in through the website you’ll be asked for an authentication code. Just fire up the application and type in the code that it provides.

A very simple and clean user interface.

It only uses data when you link to your account and for those of you who are worried, no I doesn’t use your whole data plan; just a few megabytes.

Be sure to write down some of the information that is provided after you link it. You’ll need it to restore your Authenticator if you reinstall the application.

Google Play Music

The Music Player that comes with Android feels very outdated, and frankly I think it should be replaced with the new and more modern looking Google Play. This music player has a more refined look to it, both on smartphones and tablets – and being able to store 20,000 music tracks on Google’s servers is a great plus. It means that you have your music anywhere with an internet connection.

The Great UI for Google Play

Lets not forget about the Instant Mix feature, which creates a playlist based on a single track. Sure, it’s not the most polished feature of Google Play, but it’s pretty good.

Kingsoft Office

As a student I have most of my lectures in an electronic format, and this application can read pretty much every format I need: from PDF files, to Word Docs, to even Excel spreadsheets.

A Microsoft Word Document opened up in Kingsoft Office.

It also has some nifty options like text reflow after pinch to zoom. The only problem is that this feature is dependable on the format of the document. I’ve noticed that documents that don’t have standard formatting (and by that I mean equal indents for each paragraph) it just zooms and does not reflow the text. This might be annoying for people with small screened devices, but it’s not a deal-breaker.

ES File Explorer

Like I said, I am a student. I keep most of my notes on my phone, using it like a small notebook. Every time I need to look up something I just pull out my phone, load ES File Explorer, and immediately find a document.

Explore your files with ES File Explorer

As you can guess from the name, ES File Explorer is designed to explore files on your phone’s storage – so you’ll need to keep your folders organized to make the most of it. It also features a FTP browser for those who want to pull down files off their own servers.

Calendar

Yes, I’m talking about the built-in Calendar application. It doesn’t have all the fancy features of premium calendar apps, but it does have what I need: Google Calendar synchronization and notification reminders. Frankly, you don’t need anything else.

Different Views of Calendar

I’ve scheduled all my exams and tasks, and I’ve never missed a test or deadline (well, almost). If you’re on ICS you also get the great Holo Theme which in my book is the best thing since Android.

Gmail

Last but not least, another great application that I use is Gmail. I get around 30 e-mails per day (from work, college, Facebook and various newsletters) and without Gmail I would be lost.

Gmails Great Holo Theme

Google has done a great job with the service in general, and the app is no exception – especially the Holo Themed version for Ice Cream Sandwich. Every time I open it up all of my labels show up in the e-mail header and because they’re color coded I can easily find what e-mails I’m interested in.

All and all these might seem like your typical run-of-the-mill applications, but they do their job very well, even if there’s nothing too fancy about them. I use them on a daily basis and I’ve never encountered any problems. I’ll happily recommend them to anyone.

Fortunately, there are many Android apps built for just this type of help – let’s take a look!

Recipe Search

Though design isn’t my top concern when looking for a worthwhile food app, Recipe Search impressed me with its intuitive interface. All the recipes are well categorized and easy to navigate through, and there are neat extras like ‘Top recipes of the day’ and cook-off competitions between users. But the thing that really sets it apart from the rest is its very active forum accessible right from within the app.

The only downside is that you need to be connected to the Internet to browse through or find recipes – though at least this is better than having to download every single recipe at once, as some apps insist on doing.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.5 or above
Market Link: Recipe Search
Developer: allthecooks.com

Timer

Now you’ve got your recipes, it’s time to get cooking! However, with you being busy handling the rest of the house, it becomes easy to forget your cake in the oven – at least until you start smelling it burning. This app will help you remember to check how your baking’s going.

Start a new timer by tapping in a name, turning the knob and hitting the start button; you can also run multiple timers at the same time. That’s pretty much it for functionality, but then what else would you want it to do?

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Market Link: Timer
Developer: Intuitit

Chore Master

In contrast to Recipe Search, this is not the most beautiful app to work with. Nevertheless, it definitely earned its place here, with its great task management features. It’s especially good at tracking time spent on different chores or errands.

To get started, create a profile, at the ‘Newbie’ Level, and start recording the time you spend on chores. For every chore you complete, you earn a point. Get the necessary number of points, and you’ll level up! Chore Master can chart the number of minutes you’ve spent on housework over the week, and display pie-charts showing how you’ve split your time.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.5 or above
Market Link: Chore Master
Developer: mindbeach

DressCARE

DressCARE makes it easy and straightforward to decipher those strange symbols on your clothing tags. You scroll dials to match the symbols on the screen to the ones on your tag, and the app tells you what they mean: “Do not tumble dry” or “Machine wash normal”, for instance.

You can filter your search according to criteria like the type of laundry (washing, bleaching, ironing, and so on) and feature (like temperature to wash at, and things not to do). I didn’t even know so many laundry symbols even existed, but now dealing with them has become a breeze.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Market Link: DressCARE
Developer: Lyubozar Dimitrov

Baby Monitor & Alarm

The first thing you’ll notice when you load Baby Monitor and Alarm is the design. It’s definitely designed for babies although I don’t know why, because it’s not like they will be using it.

The app listens for sound activity, with the sensitivity being adjustable. If it hears any sound, like that of a baby crying, it has three different options on what to do. The first is to call a predefined ‘Alert Phone Number’, which of course is of the baby’s caretaker. The second option plays the mother’s prerecorded voice in an attempt to calm the crying baby. The third option allows you to play any sound, which could be a lullaby or Coldplay’s Paradise.

Price: $2.99
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Market Link: Baby Monitor & Alarm
Developer: TappyTaps

MORF

I’ve saved the best for last. MORF is my favorite of these apps, and one of my favorite apps ever. Its tagline is “extraordinary uses for everyday things”, which sums it up nicely. The app offers all sorts of awesome MacGuyver-style tips and tricks for many, many objects, arranged into five sections:

• What can I do with… – Objects listed along with their uses
• How can I… – Possible problems listed with their solution
• Search – Search the use of an object, or for a How To
• Make a MORF – Add a MORF to the database
• MORF of the day – The most voted MORF of the day

MORF also has social features that allow you to Like a MORF on Facebook, tweet it, or just vote it up for MORF of the day.
Price: $1.08
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Market Link: MORF
Developer: Inochi Ventures

Got any other apps or tips for how you can get more out of your handset around the home? I’d love to hear them!

The Basics

PlayUp allows you to share and IM, almost exactly like Facebook or Twitter, but focusing on a a little more than just general socializing. You choose which sport you want to keep updated on, and have the option of selecting either a live game or a past game; PlayUp then displays the game’s stats along with the posts of other users that are keeping themselves updated on the same game.

PlayUp Menu

PlayUp also allows any user to create different rooms and private chats during a current game, which makes socializing even more simple. The basic interface of the app is very clean and easy to use, even for people new to Android. There are many other sports apps for score updates, like ScoreMobile and ESPN ScoreCenter, but they lack the social features of PlayUp.

Social Features

While posting about your games you may share your favorite posts with Facebook and also Twitter. PlayUp is focused on the game scores and keeping you updated, offering notifications for scores, friend alerts, team scores, private messages, posts, hangouts, and more. As well as all this, the app also makes it easy invite other friends from Facebook and Twitter.

PlayUp Game Stats

The social features do require Facebook and Twitter to use them fully, unfortunately; I hope they will add an email login for the users who do not want to link their other social accounts.

Messaging and Posts

The app allows you to post both public and private messages to your friends and other sports fans. The messaging adds a great feature that other game score apps do not have available; it is very easy and clean and makes watching sports just that bit more entertaining.

However, the first time I checked out the posts on a game’s page, they were quite full of spam. PlayUp may currently be working on the issue of spam, but currently this does cause a very big issue with socializing and the complete experience of the app itself.

Graphical Interface

The application itself is easy to use and is looks great. PlayUp has sliders and clear buttons for ease of use, and overall feels very sleek and well made.

When viewing posts and replying to them, sharing them is just one button away. The sharing buttons for posts and feeds are right above they keyboard which I love – much better than having a drop-down menu or having the options off to the side somewhere. Details like this really add up.

Score Feed

PlayUp offers an enormous amount of sports to choose from, with live scores and stats for over 28,000 games. It also offers boards of currently live games to choose from across the world.

After choosing which game category you would like to view, you may choose whether you want a live game, a past game or an upcoming game. It shows the current scores between teams, and you may easily change the week and day to filter games.

PlayUp Live and Past Games

At the end of the game you have chosen, the app displays a pop-up box of the last play with the player name and other information. It also displays the top performances of the total players and their info.

Available Languages

At the moment PlayUp only supports English, Italian, and Korean. The last two languages are recent additions, so I think it’s likely that more languages will be added as the app grows.

App Permissions

The app itself has access to quite a few permissions – phone calls, storage, system tools, hardware and vibration controls, and all network communication tools – but does not overload with unneeded app persmissions so seems safe to use.

Comparison

PlayUp is missing some great features that other apps have – for instance, other apps have a wide range of subjects of videos, such as footage of the games, special plays, and interviews with the players. There’s also no sports news feed covering general information about matches, announcements, and so on.

That’s not necessarily a problem; just bear in mind that this is primarily a social app, not a sports news and info app.

Final Thoughts

PlayUp gives you way more than just a way to catch up on scores, it gives you a whole new way to interact and share with other sports fans. Compared to the other sports apps available on Android, PlayUp is missing some great features as listed above, but does have some unique features that may make up for that, depending on what you’re looking for.

When I used it I had a great experience with the app itself. I did have minor issues with loading some elements but the issues stopped after some time, so I’m not sure whether it was an issue with my phone or on PlayUp’s end. I would highly reccomend PlayUp to any hardcore sports fans.

The Nexus One, Nexus S, and Galaxy Nexus are all flagship Google phones, each being the first to use the then-latest version of Android (2.2, 2.3, and 4.0, respectively), each being free of any third-party UIs like TouchWiz or Sense, and each being the only flagship phone at any one time.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google might change how it handles that last point. Apparently, rather than partnering with one handset manufacturer at a time to create a single, de facto flagship device, Google might work with up to five manufacturers at once, to create a whole stable of Nexus devices – including tablets.

For more details, read the original article. Do you think it’s a good idea?

If you like dairy, and also like your games Mario-esque and dripping in cheese, this is the game you’ve been waiting for. Grab a cracker or some nachos and read on for more…

Intro and Controls

You control Manu – who sits inside a cogwheel – using the two arrows on the left-hand side of the screen to roll left or right. When you need to, there is a jump button on the right-hand side. Typically, the in-game physics work as you would expect; you need to avoid falling into the molten lake of fondue that poses a real hazard throughout the early levels. Some blocks can be broken by charging into them, which requires a double tap in the direction you want to smash. Pretty cool, and it obviously adds to gameplay and level design.

Levels are well created and full of detail

The joy of Manu’s cogwheel vehicle is that it can climb walls; all you need to do is walk into one and Manu will begin to ascend. This certainly adds to the dynamics of the intelligently designed levels as you get to climb quite a lot and it allows you access to plenty of otherwise inexplorable areas. It’s often in these hidden areas you find the recipes you need to collect. There are three in each level and they’re not always easy to spot, so it’s certainly worth spending some time and exploring every nook and cranny to find them all.

Levels are bright, colourful and rich with places to explore

Other tasks to perform include collecting little Mousy coins. There are plenty of these dotted about, but can you find them all? Levels differ and feature all kinds of environments but each tend to be that little bit trickier than the one before it. You will encounter all kinds of obstacles and apparatus to help or hinder you but at the end of each level is a little flag you must raise.

The Super Mario Factor

You may have noticed the significant nod this level end marker gives to the world of Super Mario – and it’s not the only reference. You take out baddies by jumping on them and they move very similarly to the way the creatures move in the popular Nintendo games. Additionally there are various areas that are accessible by smashing brickwork. You do this in exactly the same way you would have done with Mario: standing underneath it and jumping. To be honest, I thought this homage to the Mario games was sincere and quite cute – it certainly makes some of the gameplay features automatically familiar.

Some levels appear heavily inspired by Super Mario

Graphics and Sound

The world within Cheezia: Gears of Fur is a bright one, full of colour, animation and movement. The graphics are remarkably slick and controls are responsive. It’s an immersive and engaging cartoon world of gloopy cheese, spinning wheels, platforms, baddies, recipes and coins. Everything looks incredibly smooth and natural, making the game a joy to play but also great to look at. There are plenty of small animations and effect too which bring the world to life. For example, when you smash bricks Mario-style there are little clouds of dust, and when you jump on a baddie he kind of bounces off the screen.

Smash brick-work like Mario

Everything is strictly 2D but this shouldn’t put off gamers who like their graphics as realistic as possible. Simply put, if you enjoy platform games, this is a visual treat and well worth checking out.

Sound too is very polished and well thought out. I’ve played some great games in the past that have been tragically let down by terrible music and sound effects, however Cheezia: Gears of Fur is very different. The soundtrack is catchy and gentle, while the sound effects; jumping, collecting coins and recipes are refreshingly subtle, meaning you won’t be reaching for volume settings too quickly to turn it all off.

Addictive

Because the game is so very easy to pick up and play, and offers rich environments, things to collect, places to explore and a cute narrative, the game is typically very addictive. Although the blurb doesn’t explain it very well this game offers the first world absolutely free. Here there are six levels which is more than enough to get a feel for the game. You can unlock 16 more levels if you buy the full game which, at £1.19 ($1.89), isn’t very expensive.

Bounce on the heads of baddies to kill them

I did feel that the first six levels were quite easy and quick to complete, so I think this level count might be a little on the small size. I guess, however, that, as the game gets more popular, some more might be added as we so often see with games like this. These free levels do give you plenty to go on, though, so by the end you’ll know for certain whether you want to continue the adventure and purchase the full game.

Avoid the molten cheese

Similar Games

You can’t get too far into the game without noticing the Mario themes, and there’s certainly some Sonic the Hedgehog-style rolling influence too. While we haven’t seen the small Italian Plumber splash onto Android in any official manner, Sonic already has had a couple of adventures (Sonic 4 Episode 1 and Sonic CD) ported to the Android environment, so there is some familiarity there.

Climb walls with your handy cogwheel

There is an original Cheezia game which is a kind of cute cheese packing puzzle title. While the gameplay is completely different, if you really like the Cheezia universe, this might also be worth checking out.

There are, of course, plenty of 2D platform games on Android. Perhaps some of the best known include Cordy, Muffin Knight and Roboto. Each has proven to be very popular and worth exploring if you haven’t already. Cheezia: Gears of Fur is a superb game that adds itself well to the very best of this genre. It offers a different kind of gameplay in a familiar setting which, while it doesn’t break boundaries, is fun, engaging and perfect for both children and adults.

Thankfully there are checkpoints to save your progress

In Conclusion

Cheezia: Gears of Fur is a brilliant example of great platform gaming on the Android platform. Graphics, sound and gameplay are all superb and there are some cool physics-based control features which make the title stand out. It’s addictive, fun to play and enjoyable for adults and children alike.

I think perhaps the full version of the game requires a few more levels to make purchase more appealing, but if you’re a big fan of the platforming genre it will make sense to upgrade and get the extra levels. There’s very little not to love about this gorgeous little mouse-based homage to Super Mario, and I would certainly recommend to anyone to give it a spin.

Organization requires three separate tools: a calendar, a to-do list, and a shopping list. They are all needed in our every day life and it’d be nice if they all worked together in tandem, and worked for the whole team (or family). Cozi is all of these tools in one convenient app, and they’ve included a journal to boot…

Getting Started With Cozi

Getting started with Cozi is as simple as heading to Cozi.com and signing up for an account for your family. It’s easy to invite the rest of the members and they all log in with the family password. The Android app is available in the Google Play Store for free (and also as an ad-free paid version).

The Tools

You’ll be impressed by the tools you’ll have at your fingertips:

A Calendar

Many people stick with the same ol’ Google Calendar to keep life on schedule, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Using the Cozi Calendar just adds that little bit of synergy working together with the rest of the app and staying accessible to the whole family. Each family member can have their own calendar events and can even view them together on one easy to follow family calendar.

Cozi Calendar Interface

Adding and viewing appointment dates is as simple as in any other calendar app, and you can even have a weekly summary of the family calendar – an appointment guide of sorts – emailed to each family member each week so you can all stay on the same page.

A to-Do List

The to-do list part of the Cozi app has everything you’d want in a to-do list app. You can easily add and delete tasks, cross them off as you go, and even switch up the order as importance changes.

Cozi To-Do Interface

As Cozi does well, each member of the family can have their own to-do lists. This means that the husband’s to-do list widget on his Android can turn into his honey-do list for the wife at home adding tasks for him on her laptop (using Cozi’s web interface, of course).

Then there is room for a general to-do list for the whole team to work on and cross off as the tasks are accomplished.

A Shopping List

Shopping lists are a dime a dozen in the Store but it’s hard to find a good one. I haven’t personally found a better shopping list app than Cozi. It works very similarly to the to-do list but is more catered to reminding you what you need to get at the store. You can have several categories of shopping lists going at once, letting you keep your head on straight while out and about.

Cozi Shopping List Interface

Just like the to-do list, the shopping list is made super easy to update on the go. One family member can be at the local market tearing through their list of grocery items, and someone else can remember something they forgot to add to the list and go ahead and edit it and have it sync on the fly. You may want to shoot the person a message just to make sure they notice the new item though.

A Family Journal

Cozi’s Journal makes it very easy to keep the rest of the family aware of what’s going on. This tool can be used in several ways, such as letting others know how specific events went or just taking a quick photo of something interesting you come across that the rest of the family might find cool.

Cozi Journal Interface

The app has a simple interface which allows the user to quickly add text or a photo for sharing. It’s kind of like a mini blog for the eyes of your family only. Just one more way to bring the family closer when everyone has their own busy schedules.

Widgets Are Wonderful

One of the reasons Android rocks is because of widgets. You can use one of your home screens to keep an eye on just about anything you can imagine. Cozi has several size options for each of the first three tools: the calendar, to-do list and shopping list. In fact, you can have several widgets housing several different lists. For example, you can have both your own to-do list and the shared to-do list as widgets on the same home screen.

Cozi Widgets

Editing a list or calendar is as easy as tapping the widget. You also have simple access to the settings by tapping the gear icon in the lower corner.

Conclusion

Cozi really is several apps brought together into one synergistic app syncing the whole family’s lives into one convenient place. But as far as whether or not Cozi is for you… that depends. How many lives are you trying to bring together in an organized way? This could mean your family, or a group of work colleagues. If you’ve got a group of people you need on the same page, Cozi can work for you.

One downside of Cozi is that the Android app is currently only available in North America. They plan on opening it to the rest of the world eventually, but it’s not clear when. Meanwhile, the website is open and so is the mobile version of the website, albeit with limited functionality.

If you are lucky enough to be able to get the Cozi Android app, you will see how simple it can become getting your family organized, on the same page, and closer together through the Internet and Android phones.

Things have been changing pretty rapidly though, and since our first roundup of beautiful Android apps, a huge number of new contenders have arrived. Here, then, is a look and some more Android apps that are gorgeous to look at and – in most cases, if not all – also do a stellar job of functioning as well as they look.

1Weather

Widgets have been Android’s trump card over iOS since the beginning and apps like 1Weather are the reason widgets make so much sense. An absolutely gorgeous interface, crisp visuals and hig quality implementation make it one of the best ways to check weather, period.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: 1Weather
Developer: OneLouder Apps

Action Method

Coming from the guys at Behance – one of the most respected design portfolio services out there – you’d expect Action Method to shine in the looks department. And it does not disappoint. The subtle use of color, gradients and drop shadows make it as elegant a productivity solution as any. Why wouldn’t you get things done?

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Action Method
Developer: Behance LLC

AirDroid

Right, so AirDroid is not primarily a phone app. But the interface, colors and overall look of this desktop app for managing your phone is so good, I wish they’d expand more on their phone interface – which is not bad itself – and bring some more of that bling right into my hands!

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: AirDroid
Developer: SAND STUDIO

Alarm Clock by doubleTwist

doubleTwist has been a name to respect in the Android media player space, so when they came out of the blue with a fairly unrelated alarm clock app, I was a bit apprehensive. Fortunately, the app brings the same quality and sleekness that made their media player so popular to a much more rudimentary app and quickly rendered most other alarm clocks old and clunky.

Price: $1.99
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Alarm Clock by doubleTwist
Developer: doubleTwist ™

Alfred

Often referred to as the “Pandora for the real world”, Alfred is an app that recommends new places based on what you already like. The fresh and lively interface make browsing through your recommendations easy, and make you want to keep coming back for more. A beautiful combination of light and dark grays, and primary color accents give the app a unique look that is hard to miss.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Alfred
Developer: CleverSense

Any.DO To Do List | Task List

Todo list apps are a dime a dozen on Android, but I can safely say that none come close to Any.DO in the look and feel department. Silky smooth looks – accentuated by an absolutely gorgeous font – and buttery animations that just work on pretty much any Android device make Any.DO the best way to make lists on Android. And the shake-to-remove-completed-tasks is just the cherry on the sundae.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Any.DO To Do List | Task List
Developer: Any.DO

Audiotool Sketch

This one is not for everyone, but it you are into making music, there is no better way to do that on an Android tablet (or the Galaxy Nexus, apparently) than Audiotool Sketch. A clean realistic interface complete with responsive controls and multi-touch functionality make it the perfect companion to any musician’s toolset.

Price: $3.99
Requires: Android 3.0 or above
Google Play Link: Audiotool Sketch
Developer: Des Pudels Kern GmbH

avast! Mobile Security

Like Windows, Android has proven to be a hot bed for malware over the last year or so and there has been a flood of security software. If you like your security app to look as good as it works, avast! is an option. With a virus scanner, firewall, phone tracker and a whole lot more packaged in a nice dark and orange package, this one is a nice deviation from the boring old antivirus apps of the past.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: avast! Mobile Security
Developer: AVAST Software

BabyBump Pregnancy Pro

BabyBump is a pregnancy app that meant for soon-to-be parents to track and share their progress. With a pretty pink interface, detailed illustrations, comprehensive descriptions and pretty graphs for data visualization, it makes the whole process pretty simple and sleek.

Price: $2.99
Requires: Android 1.5 or above
Google Play Link: BabyBump Pregnancy Pro
Developer: Alt12 Apps, LLC

BaconReader for Reddit

Reddit is by far one of the most popular sites on the web and those who use it regularly swear by its power. There are a number of Reddit clients for Android, but BaconReader stands out with its extensive feature set and a beautiful interface. For those who find Reddit’s web interface too simple and barebones, this app can be a nice change of pace and I actually recommend it over the official website – something one can’t say too often.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.0 or above
Google Play Link: BaconReader for Reddit
Developer: OneLouder Apps

Barclays Pingit

Barclays Pingit is an Android app that lets you transfer money to anyone in the UK directly from your phone – whether you have an account with Barclays Bank or any other bank in the country. As has been a trend with financial apps lately, the app makes excellent use of the parent company’s branding with a nice clean white and blue interface and some nice fine details thrown in to create a pretty streamlined mobile user experience.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Barclays Pingit
Developer: Barclays Bank PLC

Bump

Bump has been around for a while now – letting users bump their phones together to instantly exchange files, contacts and other information wirelessly. They recently launched an entirely redesigned interface with some social features, media management and a more reliable core functionality. It also works across Android and iOS platforms.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Bump
Developer: Bump Technologies, Inc

Bzzy

Let people know you’re busy in style with Bzzy. The app’s premise is as simple as it gets – it is a text-message auto-responder that sends out messages on your behalf when you’re busy – like driving or watching a movie. The interface, likewise, is minimalist but drop dead gorgeous. (And, dare I say, unlike anything else I’ve seen in a mobile app to date.) If you are a stickler for brilliant visuals, this is one app to check out for sure.

Price: $0.99
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Bzzy
Developer: PixelMEDIA, Inc.

Conmigo

There are tons of finance and money management apps out there, but what do you do when you want to track all the money people owe you or that you owe others? You use Conmigo. The app lets you easily manage expenses you share with friends and family, letting you always stay on top of who owes whom how much. The interface is non-traditional and overly orange, but it does a good job of keeping all the information you need always at your fingertips.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Conmigo
Developer: Conmigo Team

CoTweet Enterprise for Android

CoTweet is a social media engagement platform that helps organizations of all sizes engage and track conversations about their brands on the real-time web. If you are an enterprise customer, the Android app is the perfect companion that keep you posted on all the updates and lets you manage your workgroups right from the phone.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: CoTweet Enterprise for Android
Developer: CoTweet

Cyworld (싸이월드)

Okay, this one is strictly for the Korean speaking folks, but I couldn’t resist keeping it out of this list for its beautiful interface and vibrant graphics. Cyworld is a South Korean messaging application that lets users exchange messages and media with their friends, comment on photos, and so on.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.0.1 or above
Google Play Link: Cyworld (싸이월드)
Developer: SK Communications

Do it (Tomorrow)

We’ve already discussed how awesome Any.DO is for a full-featured todo app, but if you prefer to keep things nice and simple, you might want to give Do it (Tomorrow) a try. All you get are two lists – today and tomorrow – represented by the left and right pages of a diary respectively. Add items by typing them in, strike them off when you complete them or move them over to tomorrow. Simple, clean and beautiful.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Do it (Tomorrow)
Developer: Adylitica, Inc.

Doit.im

And nope, we’re not done with todo apps yet. Doit.im is different from the ones we’ve covered before in that it is a client for a web app of the same name. Like its web version, the app is extremely polished and comes with pretty much every feature you could ask for to help you get things done. Of course, everything is synced online with the web app so you have access to all your data from anywhere you want.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: Doit.im
Developer: SnowOrange.com

easyJet

easyJet is the Android client for the UK-based budget airline company, which lets you manage your flights with easyJet from the phone. Search for and book flights, manage bookings, get schedule updates and track flight status all from a brilliant orange and white interface that stands out from the crowd.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: easyJet
Developer: easyJet Airline Company Limited

Feedly

Feedly has been my choice of feed readers on the desktop as well as my phone for quite some time now, and for good reason. Although a lot of news reading apps synchronize with Google Reader, I’ve found none that do it as seamlessly or beautifully as Feedly does. Feedly does a brilliant job of laying out updates to your subscribed websites in a minimalistic interface, letting you easily scan through and manage them while on the move, or even share or save them for later.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Feedly
Developer: Feedly Team

Fitbit

The Fitbit Wireless Tracker is a neat little piece of gadget that you clip on to yourself while exercising, and it keeps track of what you’re doing – like the number of steps you take, calories burned, sleep hours, etc. The Android client lets you keep view, manage and analyze all this information and also add more data manually, things like what you eat, drink etc. The interface makes it super-easy to see how things are going and where you need to pay attention moving forward.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Fitbit
Developer: Fitbit, Inc.

Foursquare

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about FourSquare and are possibly even using it right now. The Android client for the app has been a benchmark in mobile UI design for some time and only continues to get better. With the trademark blue color, unique icons and an overall consistent feel the FourSquare Android app is one of the best I’ve seen.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: Foursquare
Developer: foursquare

Friendcaster for Facebook

What Baconreader is to Reddit, Friendcaster is to Facebook. Developed by the same team at OneLouder Apps, Friendcaster is by far the best third-party Facebook clients out there. With a smooth, ICS-inspired look, a snappy interface and more features than you can shake a stick at, there is hardly a need for me to bother with the official Facebook app on my phone anymore.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: Friendcaster for Facebook
Developer: OneLouder Apps

GO Weather Widget

The GO Dev Team is very familiar to Android fans. They have been credited for some of the best apps on the platform to date and the GO Weather Widget only carries that legacy forward. The widget is pretty customizable with multiple layouts available and with a whole host of themes you can make it look exactly the way you want. Note that you need to have GO Launcher Ex running to get the widget.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: GO Weather Widget
Developer: GO Launcher EX

Grocery Smart – Shopping List

Grocery Smart is a nice little shopping list app to make your grocery shopping experience a breeze. The beautifully designed app lets you categorize your shopping list so you know you will not be scooting all over the food store trying to pick up things at random. It also has a section of saving your discount card details, and you can sync between multiple devices so everyone in the family is always on the same page.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: Grocery Smart – Shopping List
Developer: Handmark

Hipster

The perennial wait for Instagram to hit Android meant there was a huge void to fill in the Android universe for a photo sharing application. There have been a lot of contenders, but hardly any that can beat Hipster in the looks department. The app lets you take photos of wherever you are and then share the location and the images with friends and family, like picture postcards. Yes, there are filters. And they’re pretty nice.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Hipster
Developer: Hipster

Historious Athens

Ever wondered about the history behind a country or city you were visiting? Enter Historious Places, a travel guide (currently only for Athens) that focuses on the history of the place. If you are visiting Athens, take this app along and it will point you to historical places near you, provide directions and give you all the information you need to make the most of your visit.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 – 2.3.7
Google Play Link: Historious Athens
Developer: iMellon

Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer

Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer is just what it sounds like – a timer and stopwatch app – but with an incredibly detailed UI the likes of which are rare to find on a mobile platform. The app simply does what it says, so there’s not much to talk about regarding features. In the looks department, though, this one is a piece of art.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer
Developer: Javier Salmona

Instant Heart Rate

The first time I heard about Instant Heart Rate, I honestly thought it was a joke. How could a mobile app tell what your heart rate is? But it does. Place your finger on the phone’s camera and the app will identify the heart rate by looking for tiny variations in the blood flow of your finger. The concept is brilliant, the functionality just right and the interface gorgeous.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Instant Heart Rate
Developer: Azumio Inc.

Instinctiv Music Player

Music players on the Android platform abound, many of them way better that the stock music player in most aspects. Instinctive Music Player is one of them that does an incredible job in the looks department. Every function, every control and icon is thoughtfully crafted, making for a much improved and satisfying music management experience.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Instinctiv Music Player
Developer: Team Instinctiv

Intimity-Tracking my own cycle

This one’s strictly for the women. Intimity is an app that lets women track their cycle and predicts the fertile and ovulation phase. You simply log in your vitals and the app will get to work with reports and visual indications of your status through a neat and pretty interface.

Price: $1.59
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: Intimity-Tracking my own cycle
Developer: Twinbo

Labelbox

There are tons of photo editing and filter apps on Android, but what if all you want to do is add some pretty labels to an image before sharing it with the world? Labelbox makes the process easy with a pretty good collection of label designs and fonts. Don’t like what you create? Just shake the phone to start over!

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Labelbox
Developer: Stepcase

Mario Batali Cooks!

The developers of Mario Batali Cooks! call it the most advanced and comprehensive cooking app yet. Even if you’re not a big fan of cooking yourself, there’s merit in checking out this app for its unique take on the UI for a mobile application. Easy navigation, clean visuals and beautiful photographs make the app one of the best food-related apps on Android.

Price: $4.99
Requires: Android 1.5 or above
Google Play Link: Mario Batali Cooks!
Developer: High Five Labs Inc.

Money Tab

Mint.com’s mobile app is the king of the hill when it comes to finance apps on Android, but there are always new contenders trying their hand at the market. Money Tab is the latest entrant in the arena and it makes a great first impression. A clean, ICS inspired user interface, beautiful typography, visual cues for each category… what’s not to like?

Price: $0.99
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Money Tab
Developer: Talionis Software

MyHeritage

A few years ago, genealogy apps were all the craze. They don’t crop up as frequently any more, but every once in a while you come across one that seems just perfect. MyHeritage guns for the top spot in genealogy apps with a very strong feature set, letting you build a family tree and sync it with their web app so you can connect with your family’s accounts and share the same data across family members and devices.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: MyHeritage
Developer: MyHeritage.com

Onavo Extend

The Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android now comes with a built-in data usage monitor, albeit a very basic one. If you need more control over your mobile data plan, Onavo Extend can help you squeeze the maximum juice out of it by compressing all incoming and outgoing traffic. You can also continuously review and analyze your usage with detailed reports and beautiful graphs.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 4.0 or above
Google Play Link: Onavo Extend
Developer: Onavo

Pageonce – Money & Bills

Another finance app that has been making the headlines for some time now is Pageonce – Money & Bills. Unlike Money Tab, Pageonce comes with a fresh, colorful UI that makes money management on your phone as pretty as it gets. The app also connects with all your financial accounts and automatically tracks your income, expenses, bills and credit cards, all from one consolidated interface.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.0 or above
Google Play Link: Pageonce – Money & Bills
Developer: Pageonce

Path

Path made a lot of big splash with their gorgeous new interface in version 2 when they launched simultaneously on iOS and Android late last year. Loved by many as the closed social network that allows only a limited number of friends, the app has made quite a mark for itself. The unique flyout menu for post types is a very nice touch to a beautiful app that works equally well on both platforms.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Path
Developer: Path, Inc.

PlayerPro Music Player

PlayerPro Music Player is another contender in the music players space for Android, which takes the visual approach a few notchees higher with multiple skins – something you don’t see too often in mobile apps. Of course, the does not fall short on the features front either with pretty much everything you would expect from an established – and expensive, if I may say so – Android app.

Price: $4.99
Requires: Android 2.0 or above
Google Play Link: PlayerPro Music Player
Developer: BlastOn LLC

Power Tune-Up

With the infinite control that Android puts in your hands over the mobile operating system, there’s no end to how much you can tweak it to your advantage. Power Tune-Up from Bitdefender lets you optimize your Android device for maximum performance, battery life and data usage. Choose an option and toggle settings on and off to your heart’s content using this sleek little app and take control of your device.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Power Tune-Up
Developer: Bitdefender

Project Noah

Project Noah is an app aimed at nature lovers, letting them discover local wildlife and allowing citizens to participate in related research projects. Through it’s unique user interface, you can share photos of plants, birds, and so on with fellow enthusiasts, access location based field guides, and join field missions that interest you.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Project Noah
Developer: Networked Organisms

SanDisk Memory Zone

No matter how much space you have on your phone or how big an SD card you get, there is always going to be a time when you run out of space for that new kick-ass game you want to play. Enter SanDisk Memory Zone, an app that lets you control, manage and organize your files from the phone as well as the cloud. The app gives you a clear perspective on what’s hogging your phone’s memory and connects with a whole host of cloud services to help you back up files and clean things out to make room for more.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: SanDisk Memory Zone
Developer: SanDisk Corp.

Sincerely Ink Cards

Remember the days when greeting cards were made of paper and we used snail mail to send them to our friends and family? Smartphones and the internet have changed all that, but if you still crave good old-fashioned dead-tree wishes, Sincerely Ink Cards has you covered. Use photos from your phone to create a beautiful card with whatever message you want to add, choose from a whole host of layouts and actually get a printed version of it sent to whomever you want.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: Sincerely Ink Cards
Developer: Sincerely Inc

Snaptastic (Photo Editor)

There are tons and tons of photo editing apps on Android and new ones keep getting added every week. The one photo editing app I’ve actually stuck with for more than a few months is Snaptastic, for its easy, intuitive interface and just the right mix of features that I need to quickly tweak my photos and share them on a whole slew of online services directly.

Price: $4.18
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Snaptastic (Photo Editor)
Developer: MCurrent

SPB Shell 3D

When SPB Shell was released, the welcome from the Android community was overwhelming – in spite of the insane price tag of nearly $15. A lot of users felt the price was justified given how beautiful the custom launcher made their Android home screen experience. With some incredibly detailed 3D animations and effects, nifty launcher features and overall eye candy, this is arguably the best looking launcher on Android.

Price: $14.95
Requires: Android 2.1 or above
Google Play Link: SPB Shell 3D
Developer: SPB Software

Speedtest.net

Speedtest.net has long been the best way to check your internet bandwidth on the desktop, so when they released their Android app, everyone sat up and took notice. The app bring the same glossy blue and grey interface the website is known for. The speedometer UI and animation are super-smooth and you can also save your results and analyze them with a nice chronological chart of test results over time.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: Speedtest.net
Developer: Ookla

Jamie's 20 Minute Meals

Another cooking app that nails the visual part perfectly well is Jamie’s 20 Minute Meals. After its huge success on the iOS platform, the app is finally available for Android and it doesn’t disappoint. If you are a fan of quick fix meals that don’t take too long to make but taste amazing, this one should be right up your alley. That everything is stored locally and you don’t need a data connection to access recipes is definitely a plus.

Price: $7.99
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: Jamie's 20 Minute Meals
Developer: Zolmo

Wallbase HD Wallpapers

Wallbase has emerged lately as one of the most popular wallpaper sites on the web. Their Android app lives up to the hype with a beautiful interface and a ginormous collection of wallpapers that should meet pretty much anyone’s needs. Just a word of caution though: the collection has its fair share of NSFW images, so make sure you keep your finger over the “sketchy” toggle button to keep them out of your stream.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 2.2 or above
Google Play Link: Wallbase HD Wallpapers
Developer: Tim Clark

WHERE

Looking for a place to hang out? Try the WHERE app to find nearby restaurants, bars, stores and more. WHERE is a social network for places. Find, rate and suggest places that you like and get recommendations on what else you might like, wherever you are. And while you are at it, get special offers and deals for your favorite hangouts.

Price: Free
Requires: Android 1.6 or above
Google Play Link: WHERE
Developer: WHERE Inc.

Wunderlist Task Manager

And last but not the least, arguably the prettiest cross-platform todo list app ever created: Wunderlist. Since the app debuted on the web and iOS last year, it has steadily gained its fair share of fans. If you are looking for a todo list manager that works on pretty much any desktop or mobile platform out there, syncs seamlessly between all of them and looks gorgeous while doing all that, Wunderlist is by far the best choice out there.

Price: Free
Requires: Android Varies with device
Google Play Link: Wunderlist Task Manager
Developer: 6 Wunderkinder GmbH

Now I’m not even going to try considering this an exhaustive list by any means. With the feverish pace of development on Android, there is no way one can scour through everything and keep up with all the new apps releasing every day to find the best looking ones. So if you find any that aren’t up here but do take the aesthetics quotient on Android a few notches up, lets hear about them in the comments.

Logo Quiz

First there was Temple Run, then Draw Something, and now Logo Quiz, the latest mobile game frenzy. As you may have guessed from the name, the main aim of the game is to guess the logos of brands familiar to those all over the world.

As I said above, these types of apps are the latest craze in the Android world and so the usual rush of apps mimicking identical functionality are to be expected, but the aptly named Logo Quiz still reigns supreme. It contains logos ranging from Shell Oil to Starbucks Coffee. I’ve been playing it a lot and so far have noticed little to no overlap of questions, so you can expect it to keep you entertained for hours on end!

Logo Quiz

500px

Hailed by many as Flickr’s first true competitor, 500px’s Android offering is a sight to behold. Apart from offering a beautiful and easy to use interface, it also sports some amazing pictures taken by truly talented photographers. Thankfully, the developers decided to make the app free, without ads that would detract seriously from the viewing of the pictures.

Whilst some will agree that this app benefits from larger screen estate (such as offered by the Galaxy Note or other Android tablets) it’s also a pleasure to use on a smaller scale and is definitely a leap forward for Android photo browsing apps!

500PX

The Avengers Live Wallpaper

It’s hard to go on to any movie news site without seeing The Avengers mentioned. Adored by critics and fans alike, this film made (and still is making!) a huge splash in cinemas everywhere. Having grossed millions before even being released in the USA, it’s certainly popular. If you’re a fan then this live wallpaper is perfect for you.

Although there is a free download, this only comes with the basic wallpaper; but for an extra $0.99 you can upgrade to the full wallpaper, sporting the full Avengers cast including Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Hawkeye, Iron Man and Hulk. Performance wise this wallpaper isn’t too shabby either. It ran very smoothly on my device, and I can only imagine how well it could run on devices such as the Galaxy S II or the Nexus.

The Avengers Live Wallpaper

ViBe

A while back here on Android.Appstorm we published a post of the best ringtone apps. In that roundup several apps that added custom vibrations to specific contacts made an appearance, and if we were to re-write that roundup, we would definitely include ViBe. Apart from making setting custom vibrations easier and faster, it also has several discerning features that set it apart from the standard flurry of vibration apps.

Apart from the usual features, this app also integrates tightly into some major apps that deliver notifications. It currently does so with Handcent and Go SMS Pro and the developers are looking to expand this further by integrating into other massively popular apps such as Instagram, Twitter and Gmail.

ViBe

Gifboom

Instagram is so last week. Now it’s all about Gifboom. This app is taking the GIF community by storm, allowing users not only to easily create animated GIFs but also to view and share them with the Gifboom community. Although some users have reported that the app’s functionality can be quite sporadic, thankfully I have yet to experience a hitch.

For those of you who love GIFs (who doesn’t?!) you’ll begin to wonder how you ever woke up in the morning without being able to tap an icon and see a collection of user generated GIFs waiting to be enjoyed. Apart from offering its own network (á la Instagram), GifBoom also allows sharing to many of the most popular social networking websites around today, such as Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. Overall this app will definitely reserve a special place in GIF lovers’ hearts (and homescreens).

GifBoom

Pocket Academy

Kairosoft’s latest venture in the Android market is very different than its other offerings. Rather than letting you control a glamorous space station, a game development startup, or even your own spa, this game lets you manage somewhere that everyone has been: a school. Although it’s hard to argue that managing a school in real life is actually fun, Kairosoft manages to make it so.

You can build dorms, classroom, locker rooms – basically most of the things that probably existed in your high school! This game is definitely one of Kairosoft’s better offerings (and you can definitely expect a full review here on Android.Appstorm sometime soon).

Pocket Academy

PicFrame

The quality of phone cameras improves by the day, and the craze of photo editing apps seems to keep pace. PicFrame basically allows you to put several of your images all into one via the use of frames. Not only does this make photography more fun, it also makes for a neat way to present your pictures to your friends and family.

PicFrame

So far I’ve used this app to showcase a few pictures from a recent trip (and even a few screenshots) and it has yet to let me down. If you use Instagram or are constantly using your phone as your camera and are looking for a way to present your images in both a functional and beautiful way than this app is definitely one you’ll appreciate.