Omio News Blog

Google App Inventor For Android

Ever wanted to make your own application, but been afraid to because you don’t speaker computer? Then this latest project from Google could make you very happy. App Inventor for Android allows you to build just about any app you can imagine and not just games: quiz apps for friends, study apps for students, you can even use Android’s text-to-speech capabilities to get the phone to ask you questions aloud.

App Inventor requires zero programming knowledge and rather than requiring written code, instead allows you to design applications using a lego-like visual system. The App Inventor authors have created blocks for just about everything you can do with an Android phone, as well as blocks for doing “programming like” stuff, for instance, block that store information, blocks for repeating actions, and blocks to perform actions under certain conditions.

App Inventor for Android was made possible by significant prior research in educational computing and work done by Google on online environments for development. The educational thrust of this research, and the App Inventor project holds that programming can be vehicle for engaging powerful ideas through active learning.

iPhone Spotify App Now Allows Background Listening!

This is the update you’ve been waiting for: Spotify’s app now gives you the ability to listen to music while surfing the web, using Facebook and all the rest. Up until now this was not (legally) possible, although jailbroken devices could get around that. However, with the announcement of iOS4, you’re now able to multitask with apps.

In addition to this much requested functionality, Spotify have included a few more additions. The full release contains the following:

- iOS4 Multitasking. Play Spotify tracks while doing other things with your phone.

- Use the headset remote and lockscreen buttons to control Spotify playback

- A “What’s New” tab has been added showing you recently released music, the top 100   tracks in your country and a social feed.

- Sharing tracks and albums to your Spotify friend has been made easier.

- Battery Consumption is improved when the app is in the foreground or paused.

Never Get Caught Short Again With Toilet Finder App

A toilet finding app looks to make being caught short a thing of the past, no matter where you are in the world.

“Toilet Finder” lists more than 76,000 public toilets worldwide mostly in England, France, Germany the US and Canada and with more than 6 billion toilet users the world over, this application has a huge potential reach. With versions for both iPhone and Android, the handy app has gained more than 400,000 users already.

Feel like you gotta go? Using your phone’s GPS cababilities, Toilet Finder lists all the nearest facilities with all the distances involved and a map pinpointing the exact addresses of each.

Toilet Finder’s database is the largest user-generated toilet database in the world and users are encourages to help the next person out by listing any missing toilets they come across. With more than 400 toilets being added a week, its an extremely active community. In fact the app also allows users to rate the toilets and even share photos of the most unusual (see below), original or surprising toilets. Not sure if a toilet is where I’d like to be surprised, or find people taking photos but whatever floats your boat!

For those of us planning to scoot off to foreign climes this summer, toilet enthusiasts or otherise, this app is sure to come in handy at some point on your trip.

Toilet Finder is free to download.

Twitter For iPhone Upgraded To Support iOS4 Multitasking

Twitter for iPhone has a new version out, one that now supports iOS4′s multitasking capabilities as well as iPhone 4′s new Retina Display.

You’d expect most apps to get an update to stay in line with the new iPhone features, but due to the nature of Twitter, it’s doubly important for users to have the app running in the background while you perform other tasks.

In addition to these new features, the new version of Twitter for iPhone also packs a fix for the “stuck top tweet” bug and promises more secure tweeting for photo/video posts, making this a sure fire hit for any Apple Twit.

Source: Mashable

Orange Debut GlastoNav App At Glastonbury 2010

Orange, sponsors of Glastonbury for the last decade, have announced a new application which hopes to make getting around the site much less of a nightmare.

In addition to an interactive map direct to your phone, Glastonav will give users the latest line up news and festival alerts so that you can lightfoot it around the festival like a pro!

There are two versions of Glastonav – one for iPhone and another for all other handsets.

The standard version includes interactive map with zoom function, full stage listings brought to you by the gUardian Guide, a complete bar guide, an easy way to pinpoint your tent, so you never get lost, Q’s favourite artist recommendations.

The iPhone version includes all the great features of the standard app, but with an interactive 2D and augmented reality map.

Anything that makes Glastonbury go hitch free is a bonus in our book, fingers crossed the on-site reception is up to the task though!

Glastonav is available to all mobile networks and although compatibility may vary, Orange Glastonav is free (depending on your tariff, the download might cost 50p in data charges though).

Register your interest now to be among the first to get Glastonav, when it becomes available to download: Glastonav

Vodafone To Bring ’360′ Service To Android Devices

Vodafone are poised to launch a shop for Android with the aim of bringing their 360 shop services to “popular, market leading handsets”.

The Vodafone 360 Android shop will launch initially on the HTC Wildfire and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro this summer and will be marketed as a one-stop shop for digital content such as music, videos and ringtones as well as applications.

Vodafone hope that their 360 shop will make it easy for Android customers to discover applications they need or are interested in. The network currently claims their store holds over 8,500 apps and the service is available to 8 different European markets and over 100 handset models.

“Initial data is showing that up to a third of the catalogue gets exposed in a single day,” said Lee Epting, Vodafone’s group director of content services.

Microsoft Offers iPhone Devs Cash To Port Games To WinMo7

According to PocketGamer.biz Microsoft is now offering successful iPhone developers upfront cash sums in the hope that they port their games to Windows Phone 7.

The news comes from an anonymous source who maintains that while the cash incentives are “substantial”, they are not enough in comparison to the cots of rewiring games from iPhone developer laguage C++ to Windows Phone 7′s XNA or Silverlight platforms.

It certainly looks like Microsoft are dedicated in their new approach to mobile in the run up to WinMo7, but whether or not iPhone developers take them up on their offer remains to be seen.

Via PocketGamer

Skype Now Available For Sony Ericsson Symbian Smartphones

Skype announced today that they will offer their services on three new Sony Ericsson phones, all based on the Symbian platform. The models that will be supported are the Sony Ericsson Satio, Vivaz and Vivaz Pro and each will be able to use the video messaging service either over WiFi or mobile data connection (3G, GPRS, EDGE).

Symbian remains the world’s most popular smartphone platform and Skype for Symbian allows users to make free Skype-Skype calls to other users anywhere in the world, save money on calls and texts to phones abroads, send and receive instant messages to individuals or groups, share pictures, videos and other files; see when other Skype contacts are online and available for chat/IM; easily import names & numbers from the phone’s address book.

Skype for Symbian will run on any Sony Ericsson smartphone using Symbian ^1, which is the latest version of the platform at present.

While this news is great, the shine has been taken off somewhat by Vodafone and more recently O2 announcing that they were curtailing unlimited data plans in future. The Skype app uses your data allowance, and now that the networks will be charging according to use, the benefit of Skype isn’t quite what it was a few months ago. Nevertheless, Sony Ericsson owners will be glad to see the popular app becoming available on their platform of choice.

Via BusinessWire

Trucker’s Delight Episode One – Rudest Game To Hit iPhone?

We first caught sight of the video for Flairs – Trucker’s Delight at Adam Buxton’s music video showcase “Bug” back in January. Not many things shock us, but even our jaws dropped when we saw just how profane this was. The 8-bit profanity masterclass packed in enough cartoon nudity and un-work safe antics to last you a weekend. View on a work computer at your own risk!

Great news though – Mobigame have made an arcade style racer  for iPhone, Trucker’s Delight: Episode 1, which is based on the music video and is in the mould of the classic Sega arcade game OutRun.

You play as the truck driver chasing the girl down the highway, ramming her car wherever possible to score points, passing checkpoints and running other competitors off the road on your way, all the while with the clock ticking.

Mobigame have done a great job in translating both the humour of the video and the gameplay of a scorching arcade racer, with the iPhone’s accelerometer allowing you to tilt for steering and of course, an excellent soundtrack.

It does leave us wondering how the notoriously prudish App Store passed over so much nudity, but whateve… we’re not complaining. Great video – Great game!

App Store Link: Trucker’s Delight: Episode 1

Shazam Tops 75 Million User Milestone

Shazam, the leading mobile music discovery service, has revealed that it has hit another milestone and has grown from 50 million to 75 million users in the last 6 months, identifying more than one BILLION songs.

Wondering what the billioneth track identified by Shazam was?

Gettin’ Over by David Guetta featuring Chris Willis.

Hmm. Don’t shoot the messenger!

Shazam has become synonymous with tune identification but to stay ahead of the game, they’re extended the service to deliver not only the identity of the track, but 30 second preview clips, option to buy, find local and international tour dates and even purchase tickets to the gigs.

If that wasn’t enough, users can find out what’s popular through Shazam’s Tag-Charts, get recommendations and share tracks by sending Tags as a Tweet, Facebook update or by email.

What’s important though, is that Shazam works – even for a music snob like me, and it’s found me some fairly obscure tracks in the past.

All of this cements Shazams the services reputation as one of the world’s foremost music brands. Shazam’s footprint stretches across 200 countries over 6 continents and a survey from market research company ComScore recently named it the “most popular music application in Europe”.

To download the Shazam app on iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android, Windows or Nokia visit the Shazam download page.