7 Android Journal Apps

7 Android Journal Apps

This Android journal apps roster features alternatives that could serve as your virtual diary to help keep a log of your daily activities. Whether you want a tool that lets you pour your heart out or a modern version of those traditional dream diaries, Google Play has it all. And for all you microbloggers out there, developers have gone so far as to design a private Twitter-like application, wherein you can pen down your thoughts in not more than a 100 characters. Read on to know more about them.

1 – Private Diary Free

If you are looking for a very personal journal that lets you keep a record of your emotions, interests and all your secrets in general, Private Diary is the application you should install in your phone. And just to ensure that all your information stays safe within the confines of your Android device, the software lets you protect it with a password.

Backups of entries can be created and saved on your SD card so you never have to worry about losing any of it. Complete with emoticons, it comes with multiple themes and allows you to add categories to keep your journal organized. And what’s more, it lets you attach pictures to special events as well.

Price: Free

2 – This Journal:

The next contender to grace our list of journal apps is This Journal, an application that comes across as a good option that could replace your daily diary. Besides pictures, it lets you attach audio and video files to the entries so you can always go back and relive the beautiful moments of your life, whenever you want. The software permits you to create one time or recurring tasks and sends notifications for the same. You can even label your journals or tasks and launch searches in case you want to go back to one of your previous entries. A password protection option has been added too.

Price: $1.49

3 – microJournal:

The makers of microJournal understand that people, who are used to expressing themselves in less than 140 characters, do not have the time or the patience to pen down their thoughts. And that’s basically why they have fashioned a micro version of a journal referred to as the private Twitter that lets you make a note of important things in life within 100 characters. And while many of you may want to keep a diary, you may be clueless about what to put into it. This is exactly where the app scores brownie points as it gives you suggestions when you hit the prompt button.

Price: Free

4 – Journal – Orange Diary Pro:

Our lineup of journal apps gets longer with an alternative that serves the purpose of a diary as well as a notepad application, eliminating the need to download two different ones. Your entries in this particular utility can comprise of tags, icons, reminders, templates and even attachments like photos, audio files, tasks, videos and more.

The customizable tool allows you to send content as emails or texts and even save it in Google Docs. The password protected application also creates backup files in Dropbox and you can schedule backups to scribble down your thoughts without having to worry about losing them.

Price: $1.49

5 – Diaro – diary writing:

Diaro, an advanced application that doubles as a diary app and a note writing software lends an ear to your experiences, thoughts, ideas, activities and whatever else you feel like sharing with it. You can either view the entered items in the form of a timeline, as categories or in the calendar view.

Apart from assigning a security lock and encryption to the app, you can also back up its contents in Dropbox and retrieve them as and when you want. As for thoughts that you don’t consider way too personal, you have the option of sharing them with friends over social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Price: Free

6 – Dream Journal Pro:

A lot of people leave dream diaries by their bedsides to keep tabs on their dreams. And as the phone has replaced a lot of traditional stuff lately, why not get virtual with the dream diary as well? To give you a kick start with the task of squiggling down your dreams, we have included Dream Journal in our array of journal apps. As it could get a little difficult to type in the middle of the night, it features the night mode that dims the screen and also the speech-to-text function to save you from typing in the dark. You can try the demo version before purchasing this app.

Price: $1.99

7 – Memoirs:

Claimed to be the ultimate way of putting down memories while on the move, Memoirs feels rather safe, thanks to the password protection and encryption. Besides writing down notes, you can add images, audio files and even messages or photos from other applications. The customizable app is also complete with emoticons and gives you an option to choose from different views comprising Timeline and Album.

Price: Free

Conclusion:

So if you wish to replace your personal diary with a virtual counterpart, consider downloading one of these Android journal apps. Do let us know if you like the options jotted down or if you happen to try out any of them. And if you know about a suitable application that we haven’t mentioned here, drop in a word or two to tell us about it.

Top 5 budget friendly smartphones for students

Top 5 budget friendly smartphones for students

The college admissions are taking place in full swing and it is going to be a new chapter in the lives of students. At this point of time, most of the students especially in the technical streams plan to buy smartphones to groove their lifestyle. Here is a list of budget friendly phones that are ideal not only for the college students but even for their parents as they spend for it.

Samsung Galaxy Y:

Galaxy Y handset has created a long lasting impact on the budget friendly Android phonesmarket. It has a 3 inch capacitive touchscreen display. The handset is based on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. It is available for a price in India of Rs 7,400 approximately.

HTC Explorer:

This is a feature phone from HTC. The handset offers the Samsung Galaxy Y a very tough competition. It has a 3.2 inch TFT touchscreen display and is powered by the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. It lacks a secondary front facing camera and the headphones that HTC offers with its smartphones. The handset is priced around Rs 9,999.

Micromax Superfone Ninja A52:

The Superninja series handset from Micromax comes with the Aisha voice recognition software. The handset sports a 3.2 inch display and is based on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. It is a dual SIM phone that is priced around Rs 5,999.

Nokia Asha 200:

Nokia has many dual SIM phones in its portfolio. The Asha 200 is a QWERTY phone that is based on the Symbian S40 series platform. The device has a 2.4 inch TFT display and is priced around Rs 4,500.

BlackBerry Curve 8520:

The students who dream to own a BlackBerry device can have one as the Curve 9520 is available for a price of Rs 8,999 approximately. The device runs on the BlackBerry OS 6.0 platform. It has pretty basic specifications and will definitely pale away when compared with the splendid Galaxy series phones.

HTC Evo 3D smartphones

HTC Evo 3D smartphones gets Android ICS update

HTC has been steadily updating its popular handsets with Android ICS for boosting up the device performance. The latest in the list is the HTC Evo 3D which is their most popular handset released last year. This phone is already popular for impressive features and company expects to have more consumers opting for it with the ICS update. As of now the Android ICS update for its consumers in Europe and MEA has been finalized and others can keep their fingers crossed for an update soon.

HTC Evo 3D consumers especially in Europe would have received the updates already via OTA and would be enjoying the ICS experience by now. Those consumers residing in these above markets can go to the settings and look for the updates manually and can reboot the device once or twice to get the ICS updates loaded to their handsets.

HTC Evo 3D which has been running Android Gingerbread is said to get the full fledged list of ICS features on this update along with certain tweaks and notable improvements. They can also experience the Sense UI with an upgrade from 3.0 to 3.6. The ICS update is about 300MB heavy and users must make sure that the device has ample space for the update to get loaded. They should be keen enough to notice the charge status of the phone as it needs to be at least 50% charged for successful update.

As seen in other ICS gadgets, now onwards you can come across new lock screen actions, resizable widgets and also can experience quick response to incoming calls. Powerful voice input engine, improved text input and spell checks, easy swipe for dismissing notifications, browser tabs and task bars are other important highlights of the ICS update. Easy accessibility to applications, networking, communication and file sharing enhances the user experience with this popular gadget.

HTC Evo 3D powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 processor will improve its popularity among the public with this ICS update. This flagship phone from HTC is being offered at a more affordable price tag of around Rs. 25,000/- via online stores as of now. HTC is hoping to improve the sales of their already popular handset Evo 3D with ICS. Official release of ICS update for Indian market is yet to be confirmed.

Polaroid Z2300 Instant camera

Polaroid Z2300 Instant camera for 1 minute colour print outs

Camera marketing is witnessing the launch of many innovative models and there are more segments emerging like instant camera, action camera and social camera. Polaroid Instant camera Z2300 is the latest entry to the instant camera segment. 

This new camera has an integrated ZINK technology printer which is inkless and allows photographers to take the print of the taken snaps instantly. This Polaroid camera is the perfect choice for instant photography enthusiasts with an image sensor of 10-megapixel and capability in producing 2 x 3-inch full colour prints within one minute time. 

In addition to its ease of use and standard features, the new Polaroid camera has digital sharing facility inspired by applications like Instagram. The company plans to attract social media addicts with this instant capture and sharing feature. 

Easy reviewing, editing and image framing facilities are supported by a LCD of 3 inches. This will help to review and ensure a perfect picture before taking the instant print. Polaroid Z2300 Instant camera also supports video recording capability supported with integrated speakers and also enables instant playback. 

The most interesting thing about the integrated printer that comes along with this camera is that it is inkless and makes use of yellow, cyan, and magenta dye crystals which are embedded in the paper. It gets activated by heat, and the crystals are colorized to deliver clear and vibrant prints instantly. You can change the configuration to set whether you wish to print every photo automatically or only take prints of specified photos only. There are options to add frames to the pictures or else can take prints with classic Polaroid border. It comes with a sticky-back Zink paper, as well. 

Polaroid Z2300 Instant camera can be purchased at an affordable price tag of around Rs. 12,000/-. It will reach the camera market in a shiny black and white outfits adding to its elegant appearance. It is expected to hit the shelves of UK by the end of August. There are options for pre ordering this camera product from the company website until the end of July. 

Polaroid claims that they are the first to invent instant photography and maintains instant gratification, fun, and ease-of-use for the last 75 years. The uniqueness in this model is the perfect marriage of their instant camera technology with social media sharing capabilities, that will attract consumers especially youngsters.

Google's new Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS detailed

Google's new Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS detailed

Promotion: Hot deals

Google introduced the latest version of the Android operating system at its I/O developer event last night, called Jelly Bean, which will be available for platform lead devices by mid-July, along with the source code. Of course, we’ll have to wait a while for manufacturer-customized devices to get their own updates.

The search giant also introduced two new devices at I/O – the Nexus 7 and Nexus Q, which we’ve detailed here.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is an incremental update to ICS (not Android 5.0 as had been expected), which is aimed to make Ice Cream Sandwich “smoother, faster and more fluid”. It mostly brings UI changes ranging from improved notifications and onscreen keyboard, to widget control, voice typing and the native camera app. Most importantly however, are the host of developer changes (full list available on the Android Developers site) it brings, which promise to give app creators greater flexibility and control.

Project Butter

First up, in the list of changes to Jelly Bean, is Project Butter – which uses vsync timing and triple buffering to make the touch responsiveness of Jelly Bean devices as smooth as butter. All animation, display refreshes will be locked to a 16 millisecond vsync heartbeat. Google says touch responsiveness has been further improved by predicting where the next touch will be, and in case of a time-out, will use a CPU input boost to ensure minimal latency.

Widget Control

Google has improved the widget-adding experience with Jelly Bean. App widgets can now be automatically resized, depending on where the user drops them on the homescreen, the size to which the user expands them, and the space currently available on the homescreen. Developers will now also have control to reorient the interface of the widget, depending on the size.

Notifications

One of the biggest changes to Ice Cream Sandwich is the new Notifications menu in Jelly Bean. Essentially, notifications will be more than just pieces of information, but now, will be interactive, and can be expanded or collapsed to show more information, access features, etc, without opening the relevant app. Notifications will now support image content, feature up to three preset actions (such as sharing, or +1-ing), and, display priority is now user-configurable.

Voice Typing and Search

Google has introduced Offline Voice Typing to Jelly Bean, placing the previously-cloud-accessed Google Speech Recognizer on the device itself. For now, it only supports U.S. English, but more languages are due to be added later. Google has also improved voice search, with faster response times, increased accuracy, and a more natural sounding voice. Relevantly, Google also announced it would be supporting more languages soon, with 18 new languages, including Persian, due soon.

Camera and Gallery

Google has made improvements to the native Ice Cream Sandwich camera and gallery apps as well, with the new Jelly Bean version supporting such features as an undo button, simple deletion UI, and a film strip mode.

Google Now

Lastly, Google has finally introduced a Siri-competitor, called Google Now, which will use the Card UI and voice to provide search information, before you search it – something Google has been advocating for years now. It will automatically check things like traffic and public transport information, and update the user. It can also remind users about the events, etc. We’ll have to wait and see just how it works to get a better idea, though you could check out the video below for a glimpse.