Hello and welcome to a new feature here at Android Headlines where every Tuesday we’ll be focusing solely on the Tablets of the Android Atmos, bringing you the best of what you can do with your new – or old – tablet. Keep on coming back for more tips, tricks and general Tablet Tidbits!
For many of us, a Tablet became our e-mail and quick browsing machine. That still rings true for me, as I spend 70% or so of my time on my tablet on the web, then again I probably spend the same again on my desktop. However, tablets can be used for a more efficient use as well, the ability to find out something quick whenever we want. For example, how many of use use our phones to tell the time – I know I do and, whilst I’m there I get the weather as well.
Tablets can offer a bit more sophistication to this typical use however, and offer us a platform to comfortably absorb more information than we would on our phones. Not a lot of us, I’m guessing, would be comfortable reading a lengthy news article on our phones, right? There a handful of really good news apps out there that focus on news for tablets, however, in my experience these two are the best and I’ll go into why I think that as well.
News360
I absolutely love this app, It’s like a butler for the News essentially, it’s got a good accessible tablet UI and puts categories and easy to find on the right. The app is fantastic if – like me – you want to read about the latest news from around the world but you have a specific site/publication you hold preference for – the app pulls these outlets that cover these things together and gives you the option to choose from the Guardian here in the UK or Fox News in the states. It’s important to me to choose where I read my news – where possible – I thoroughly enjoy reading about something somewhere I’m comfortable reading it. The app also plugs into Twitter and has a handy “reader” in the app that presents you with just the text front and center. This is great for tablets as you’re more likely to read bulk amounts of text on a tablet than you are your phone. The app’s widgets heavily feature photos on the latest stories – allowing a certain sense of familiarity with stories. It’s a must have app for tablet users wishing to stay informed. I used to use Pulse a lot before I found News360 but I found this to be a lot better in practice, Pulse’s interface for me seems to suit phones a lot better than it does tablets. I’ve never really gotten into the whole RSS feed thing, I tried years ago and I never really kept with it, I like to get my content when I want to, News360 allows me to choose from the news that I want to read whenever I feel like it – no pesky notifications to worry about. You want to read some news, go for it.
Google Currents
I’ve been using this for quite some time and the app has only gotten better – the update from earlier in the year made it so much quicker and even more of a joy to use. Currents is a great way to read material from your favourite websites – without all of the hassle of browsers. You subscribe to a number of your favourite publications and then it just syncs, simple as that. It’s a great app to get content without having to jump through hoops and seeing as it’s provided by Google it ties well into Android offering seamless sycning at periods throughout the day – meaning you can just pick it up and begin to read away. For a number of years my routine has gone something like – get up, have coffee, go to website A, then B, then C and so forth. With Currents this routine is simplified and laid out to suit my tablet far nicer. It’s made reading content from some of my favourite sites so much nicer, there may well be more powerful apps out there, but Currents is a fantastic fit for Android, right now. Of course, we’ll have to see whether flipboard will offer us tablet users anything better. Speaking of websites on Google currents – our very own Rany Arrowood has prepared a Currents edition of Android Headlines for the site which is fantastic and, of course, the first thing I read every-morning!
WeatherBug
WeatherBug is fantastic for checking the weather on tablets, it’s fairly accurate has a tablet UI that remains to be clean and easy to use. The feature of local cameras is also pretty nice of course, here in blighty the nearest to me was quite far, but the weather was the same so I guess it’s not that bad. These cameras are of course useless at night, but nice to have all the same. For a lot of us, what we do in the week, or what plans we make for the weekend are based on the weather and it’s a lot easier for this information to be processed on something like a tablet, I know I’ll be keeping an eye on the weather here to see if I can successfully hold a BBQ come the weekend. The crowning feature of weatherbug however, has to be it’s sleek integration into your notifications, we look through notifications all day and as such we should never be caught short by a rain shower again, right? Weatherbug’s widgets aren’t the best but, are fantastic for those that travel. I guess the fantastic notification plug-in is a lot better than some fancy widget – at least, it is in my eyes.