Autodesk Sketchbook
If you like to sketch, draw, or carry the title of Graphic Designer, Autodesk recently launched an app that might be of particular interest. Autodesk Sketchbook is a powerful painting and drawing application that carries the same painting engine as the Desktop version of the program. The app makes the entire screen your canvas, and has customizable brushes, control to the finest detail with 2500% zoom, Synthetic pressure sensitivity, more than 10 preset brushes and much more. The app itself is free but does require a membership to use. You can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
Brainwave
Listening to music is great. There are all kinds of apps that one can use from their Android devices to get access to their favorite tunes, the only problem some times is that you just don’t want to fiddle with touching the display and changing tracks or pausing a song for a few minutes. A new app called Brainwave which released earlier this month lets you skip having to physically touch your display to manipulate your music, and lets you control everything with hand gestures. You can swipe to the left to skip back a track, swipe to the right to skip forward, or hold your right hand over the screen for a few seconds to pause or play the tracks that you currently have playing. it’s a rather cool and unique little way to control your music. it is optimized for 1-3 feet of distance, and it works when the display is asleep and locked too. It also supports a wide variety of streaming music apps and players. Brainwave is free, and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
Wear Battery Monitor Alpha
Smartwatch batteries aren’t as good as they could be, but that is probably largely due to them being in a somewhat infancy. Nonetheless they’re better than they have been in past months thanks to some updates, more specifically we’re talking about Android Wear. If you ever wanted to keep track of your Android Wear smartwatches battery life and look back at the stats later, Wear Battery Monitor Alpha can help you do that. You can easily look at the battery percentage on your wrist, but Wear Battery Monitor Alpha tracks your battery usage and can feed it back to you in an easy to view graph to analyze at any point in time. It can be a handy tool to help you understand your battery usage habits with your Android Wear smartwatch. The app is free, and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
Skype Qik: Group Video Chat
Skype has a brand new app on the Play Store for video chat, but not just any video chat, group video chat. It’s called Skype Qik, and it’s actually pretty cool. Unlike the original Skype app which also has video chat capabilities but only allows one on one video calls, Skype Qik will allow you to grab a bunch of friends from your contact book and start a private group video chat for all of you. After you’re done having a group chat, you can erase the messages had during the session and they disappear forever, and if you feel like on hanging on them for just a little bit you can do that too, as they’ll automatically delete themselves after a two week period, allowing you some extra time. Skype Qik is free, and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
Potential Beta
If there has ever been a need to sync the data about your Bluetooth, Battery and WiFi stats across every Android device you own, Potential beta fulfills that need. The most notable feature here is that Potential beta can be set up to notify you whenever the battery on one of your devices is running low, which can happen more often than we think. You can also use the app to remotely disable WiFi and Bluetooth, so if you typically have WiFi and Bluetooth enabled on your tablet but forgot to turn them off before you left the house, you can use the app to disable them so they don’t waste battery, even if it is a minimal amount. There’s also Android Wear support, a Chrome extension, and a widget so you can always have quick and easy access to the features no matter what device you’re interacting with and no matter where you are. Potential Beta is free, and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
djay 2
djay 2 is a renowned best selling DJ app now available on Android. It features spotify integration, music library integration, auto mix, and audio fx like Flanger, Phaser, Echo, Gate, and Bit Crusher. You can set up live recordings of local music, and the app supports looping and cue points. It supports all major audio formats, and it supports most Bluetooth devices too. It also features automatic beat and tempo detection. djay 2 will cost you $2.99, and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
Filtxr
Screen brightness is one of those things that can be a blessing or a curse. Sometimes having the brightness as high as it can go is a huge benefit if you’re outside or in a location where your screen can reflect a lot of glare. Other times the brightness can be distracting and this where an app like Filtxr comes in useful. It’s a simple little app that can allow you to manage the screen brightness/dimness on your phone. It’a main goal is to help you manage the dimness in low light conditions, thus relieving the strain on your eyes. There are multiple modes to choose from and a time setting to have the filter changed automatically. Filtxr is free is free and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
PS4 Remote Play
If you own a PS4 and you have one of the new Xperia Z3 devices from Sony, this app should be invaluable to you. You may or may not own a PS Vita or PS TV, and that’s OK. If you don’t though you;re missing out on one of the coolest features from either device, which is Remote Play. That is, until now. The PS4 Remote Play app allows you to take the game from your console to your phone or tablet and continue playing even if someone else wants time on the TV your console is connected to. Just slap the device in the PS4 Controller mount, link up, and continue. Enough said. Keep in mind though, this app(in the Play Store download format at least)is compatible with the Xperia Z3 family of devices only. The PS4 Remote Play app is free, and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
Pic Stitch
Creating collages and stitched together images isn’t necessarily a difficult task, but there hasn’t been a truly easy way to deal with this sort of thing directly from your Android device, until now. Pic Stitch lets you select multiple images from your gallery and stitch them together to make a collage. There are up to 232 different layouts to use and choose from, and you can even apply photo fx filters. There’s 15 different photo aspect ratios to work with so you can find just the right one. Share to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pat, and more social networks so everyone can see your creations. If you want to save your works for later, you can export finished works to Evernote, Dropbox, Drive and other apps. Pic Stitch is free and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.
Inbox by Gmail
Inbox by Gmail just might be the best thing to happen to email clients in a while, and the only real downside at this point is that you need an invite to use the application. It takes email to a more task driven focus and provides the user with things like more organized email categories through things called bundles, and even lets you add “reminders” into your email feed. Better yet, you can snooze emails to re-notify you at a later date, which you have full cutsomtization over, you can even set snoozed emails to notify you based off of location. How cool is that? If you haven’t checked out Inbox yet, request an invite or speak to someone you know that may already use the app and see if they have one to share, you won’t regret it. Inbox is free, and you can grab the download from the Play Store link here.