Amazon's Free App of the Day - Watchdog Task Manager

written by: Nick Kosmides

 Back on June 2nd, we were offered TaskKiller Pro for free on that Amazon Appstore and I went on and on about how we don't need task killers and there are other things you can do to extend your battery life.

Yesterday we were graced with Watchdog Task Manager, and the title nearly explains what this app is all about.  Instead of killing apps which the company explains on their website it bad, Watchdog will alert you to when an app may be using more resources  than it should while running in the background.

The user interface is simple and intuitive.  The app will notify you of any apps running over the expect CPU level or background processes that kick on when they should be on standby.  Give the app a try and decide if its worth the buy.

Watchdog Task Manager - $3.49

Amazon’s Free App of the Day - Yumsters

written by: Nick Kosmides

Yumsters is free today from Amazon.  A game about worm-like creatures stretching across the playing field in an effort to gobble up random pieces of fruit that appear from nowhere. I could only play this for maybe 10 minutes before it became boring.  The gameplay mechanic is a big odd to.  Why these pearl necklace looking worms are eating so much fruit seems to be the afterthought.  What is the purpose other than to consume, or is that what the app is reminding us of.  That we are just sheep lined up to be sheered of our hard earned cash?

The UI reminds me of a cell phone game from the 90's.  Even typing my name in at the start of the app was made difficult due to extremely tiny font on my 4" OLED screen.

Yumsters is fun for a fling, but not much else.

Yumsters - $1. 00 FREE

Amazon's Free App of the Day - Glow Hockey 2 Pro

written by: Nick Kosmides

Glow Hockey 2 Pro is free today from the Amazon Appstore.  The added name "Pro" brings nothing bug ad-free gaming to the table, literally.

The gameplay is solid and arguably top in its class.  This app has been played across nearly every platform including Palm devices, now HP I guess, and iOS.  Though its major fault lies in the noticeable lag when swiping for the puck.  Your paddle will not stay with your finger and this accounts for 99% of goals against yourself.  As you go to defend your goal after missing the shot, you'll knock the puck into your own goal.

During my first play session in Championship mode, I made it to level 9 before I lost.  I was exploiting the cpu by returning their server as a left bank shot and it would either go in on one bounce or the cpu's puck would knock it in.  Worked every time so long as the angle was right.  I just aimed for the center of the side wall on the cpu half of the field.

Fully customizable fields, pucks and paddles may keep you coming, but one shining feature is the 2-players-on-one-screen mode.  Each of you hold either end of the device and play a round to see who can adjust to the lag the quickest.

Ironically, the number of reviews on the Amazon page for this app forms a nice image depicting AT&Ts signal bars, from 1-star to 5-stars.  Download this app today for free and get future updates free too.

Glow Hockey 2 Pro - $1.99 FREE

That's A Good Idea! - Amazon Edition

written by: Nick Kosmides

With Amazon soaring in popularity and people becoming more comfortable with the choices of Android app marketplaces available today, glaring inconsistencies and short comings arise.  Amazon is a great place to get nearly everything under the sun, but because of its nature and the fact that its a retail site for all things thingy, they keep tight records of your transactions.

Whenever you buy something from the site they keep a record of it, for various reason all of which are business related.  When it comes to Android software, this is not entirely a good thing.  People complain frequently about the need to have a credit card stored in your Amazon account to get free apps of the day, but this is true with every app, even lite or demo releases.  One long list is created including every single app you've activated to your account or device.  Every demo, lite version and full or pro version is included.  Lets say you download the lite version of Wordfeud to give it a try.  Wow, this app is incredible and you say, "hey, its cheaper on the Amazon Appstore than on the Android Market.  I'll buy that!"  So you do.  But now it appears in your list twice, one is the lite and the other is the ad-free version.  This sucks!

What can we do about this???  Hmm, they most likely won't allow people to delete the apps in this list because they issue a receipt for everything including the free stuff.  To Amazon, every app is purchased and therefor must be catalogued.  But maybe, just maybe, they could allow you to hide apps of your choosing from your list.  Like layers of an onion, you could not see layers of apps beneath the first unless you so choose to.  At the very least, this would be extremely helpful on Android devices.  My list of apps has surpassed 50 and approaches 60, of which are not installed at this time.  More than 20 are currently installed.  I would like to hide some 30 or more if I had the choice.

What are your thoughts on the matter?  When compared to the Android Market, purchased apps paid for with a credit card where an actual exchange of currency is made are the only apps that remain on your list after uninstalling.  Demos are no longer kept in a list and therefor become a burden no more.  This is obviously something Google felt the need to consider when designing the Android Market and where Amazon deemed unimportant.

You can help by taking the thoughts expressed here and forming your own opinion of the matter.  If enough people were to send Amazon a feature request we may sway them to consider and eventually implement a fix to this potentially crippling oversight.  Find "Contact Us" on Amazon's Appstore for Android and do us all a favor.

Amazon's Free App of the Day - Grow

written by: Nick Kosmides

Grow is today's free app from the Amazon Appstore.

Familiar as it may be to some PlayStation gamers out there, this may be a new type of game to Android users.  Not many games are available with the food chain gameplay mechanic used as the primary motive for the game.  And to those faithful PS gamers a particular game bares the most resemblence in not just gameplay but also the title, Flow.  Like Grow, Flow is a food chain game whereby your aquatic life form begins as a single celled organism and grows only by eating similar or smaller sized organisms.  Although Grow follows nearly the exact gameplay design as Flow, Grow differs by including an upgrade system and loot to boot.  After eating fish they drop coins.  Collect the coins to afford upgrades in swim speed, accelerated growth, and extra item slots.

Grow also borrows its UI straight from another widely popular game, Angry Birds.  Each backdrop has as many as 12 levels where you'll attempt to earn 3 stars based on speed and performance, just like Angry Birds.  The Pause menu and Level Cleared/Failed screens have also have the replay, menu, and next level buttons from Angry Birds.

Touch controls are responsive and come with two optional setups.  By default you'll have the entire screen as a touchable control surface.  With your fish in the middle, touch anywhere around it to go in that direction.  This one was fun for a while, but my finger ended up blocking the action.  So you will most likely do what I did and switch to the static directional touch pad.  There is an option for left hand or right hand controls.

With 64 levels of gameplay, seven colorful backdrops, and two levels of difficulty, Adventure Mode is where you'll begin.  Seven levels in Survival mode come next where global online leaderboards may keep you coming.  Reviews are positive and I'm enjoying the game at least for a little while.

Grow - $1.99 FREE

Amazon's Free App of the Day - Ledgerist

written by: Nick Kosmides

Ledgerist is free today from Amazon's Appstore for Android.

The app description asks if you still use pen and paper.  Well, do you?  We do, and it hasn't failed us yet, other than forgetting to put all purchases and withdrawals in it sometimes.  This app helps eliminate the need to carry the big (big by today's standards) clunky checkbook register in exchange for another dollop of digital data downloaded to your device.  A device that you already use for nearly every facet of life.

Which makes an app like this questionable.  Do you get your spending habits involved into the storage device of a piece of electronics small enough to lose or mishandle?  Backups are easily managed with this app, though the csv files are backed up to your SD card.  You then need to get them off the SD card and onto a laptop or to a cloud storage system somehow, like by email or USB.  If you lose your phone, you also lose the SD card in the slot and all its contents.

Ledgerist features simple and clean interface with not many bells or whistles.  One good feature is the  four digit passcode security simply meant to keep others from looking at your finances.  Not by any means a secure 128bit encryption for wireless data transfer.  More like a privacy lock on a door knob.

I am hoping to see some of the Amazon reviewers suggestions used in future updates because there are some good ones.  But for now, go grab Ledgerist while its still free today.

Ledgerist - $1.99 FREE

Amazon's Free App of the Day - My Paper Plane 2 (3D)

written by: Nick Kosmides

My Paper Plane 2 was free yesterday.  What can I say.  I found life without my phone yesterday in my many outdoor hobbies.

I downloaded this but didn't have time to play it, so a review would have been fabricated.  My Paper Plane 2 may be worth the $1.98 they are asking if you are into flight games with slightly old school 3D graphics. Not the 3D from all these glasses-free devices you may have heard about, just "plane" old 3 dimensional graphics, pun intended.

With four backdrops and 16 levels to fly through, Amazon's Free App of the Day helped to garner over 70 reviews for WaveCades first app in the Amazon Appstore for Android.  So, with a lets congratulate the developer for a fine title and if you managed to miss out on this app entirely, don't worry, there is a Lite version you can download to run a test flight before you take to the skies in the full version.

My Paper Plane 2 (3D) - $1.98

Amazon's Free App of the Day - Random Mahjong Pro (ad free)

written by: Nick Kosmides

Shall I start by saying I love Mahjong Solitaire, and this is by far the BEST Mahjong game I've ever played.  Not only is it amazing, its free today!

The interface is simple.  This is important and so many other games are so busy and over done.  The color palette is classy and sharp, which makes this a very appealing game to play.  The sounds are simple as well, and perfectly balanced with gameplay.  Try to select a piece not on the edge and see and hear what happens.  Perfection.  You may think I'm going a bit over board, though as long as you have no device issues, you will agree this is sheer perfection.

 I played this thing all night, still can't get enough.  Puzzles are randomly generated but sophisticated and extremely challenging.  I chose Easy at first just because I'm not cocky, even though I'm good.  Got five puzzles in and started failing to solve!  I was blown away.  Tried Medium and couldn't solve the first puzzle.  I eventually did, but they do seem to have only one solution in the Medium difficulty. What's Hard like?!!

Please do not hesitate on this one.  The dev deserves the credit for this masterpiece Mahjong solitaire gem and you deserve the free-ness of it all.

Random Mahjong Pro - $1.99 FREE

Amazon's Free App of the Day - Pocket Salsa

written by: Nick Kosmides

Pocket Salsa is free today, fulfilling your video downloading desires.

This is basically a portal to download the videos.  Welcome to Salsa 101, and mobile app 101.  Anyone who thinks downloading the videos through the app is a pain should not own a smartphone.  Apps are in nature meant to be portals to websites and databases.  Most apps are just shells and the internet is the filling, if we're making stuffed shells.

Pocket Salsa brings over 100 instructional dancing videos to your phone in an attempt to make you active.  When it comes to smartphone users, not to many people can be caught dancing while holding their phone in one hand.

I must warn you though as many downloaders are complaining about the permissions.  There is an unexplained number of permissions, not to mention the personal nature of the data these permissions have access to.  Download with caution.  Although we can trust Amazon to a certain extent, these developers may have a completely different agenda.

Pocket Salsa - $1.99 FREE

Amazon's Free App of the Day - Car Maintenance Reminder Pro

written by: Nick Kosmides

Yesterday was the day of car maintenance.  You missed out on nothing, and if you think you did, I feel sorry for you.  Having downloaded Car Maintenance Reminder Pro free yesterday, you will discover that this app loves to run continuously in the background despite turning all alerts and notifications off.

The UI is clunky and leaves something to be desired.  My big problem with the app is the commitment.  You won't realize it when you download it, but this app does nearly nothing for you right away.  Every other app you've downloaded has something for you to use or benefit from almost immediately.  Once you input all the details of your vehicles the next step is nothing.  You wait.  The app simply tells you when things need to be changed on your car.

When I think car maintenance, I'm not only thinking regularly scheduled maintenance.  What if you get a flat and need to find a tire repair place.  It would be convenient of this app included this feature, utilizing Google Maps api to help you find this or a gas station.  How about cheapest gas prices, or oil change specials.  I think the reason for this not being available is because the dev clearly states the app does not use the network in any way when you go Pro.  Maybe to prove there are no ads.

In this case it hinders the true potential for a "pro" car maintenance app.  Though, there is that word "reminder" in the app title.

Car Maintenance Reminder Pro - $1.99