rainfreak's App Recommendations [Updated 05/03/10]

[rainfreak]

I decided that since there are so many good apps in the Market, and it is growing in size every day, I am going to start posting apps that I find but have not seen mention of on PPCG. I will try to put up a new one every few days, however let's be realistic and go with at least one new app per week.

As with any thread, feel free to comment on the apps that I post or apps that you really like but don't see getting a lot of discussion here. However, I will also try to keep this thread fairly clean, allowing new Android users to easily find some not so well known apps that are also pretty cool.

The first app will be Color Pop! from developer Tony Kay.



The app is very easy to use with a quite intuitive interface. You can take any picture, including a photo from the camera, and easily turn it grayscale. Then, using the Pop tool, you can add color back in to specific areas of the picture. You can easily zoom in for more precise control, as well as use the slider to control the size of the Pop tool. Saturation levels can also be controlled by a seperate slider.

I downloaded the fully functional (one day) trial from the Market and was impressed at how easy it simple it was for me to make a new lock screen wallpaper. The phote below was taken with the camera on my HTC Hero of my daughter at Chuck E Cheese last week. Within a couple of minutes I used Color Pop! to make the image grayscale and then the Pop tool to make my daughter the only color portion of the image.



Color Pop! is only $1.49 and is a great app for making fun and customized wallpapers of just about anything. I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a good way to easily make cool wallpapers!

Both the trial and full versions can be found in the Market. More information on Color Pop! can be found here. You can also download directly with your Android device by using this barcode:

[rainfreak]

The next app is MMA Underground, developed by getFused.

As an avid mixed martial arts (MMA) fan, I am always looking for the latest news on the fighters and an up to date list of upcoming events for UFC, StrikeForce, WEC, K-1 and other relevant organizations. MMA Underground does not disappoint; instead it gives even the biggest MMA fan all of that and much, much more! The first of four tabs available in the app is for news articles, which are grabbed from many sources, including tapout.com, mmanews.com, mmajunkie.com and tmz.com, just to name a very few. Each news story can be clicked to view a larger version of the picture, read more of the story, and click a link to open a browser for full access to the original article.

Main News Tab:



Individual Story:


The second tab is for searching fighters to review their Bio from mixedmartialarts.com, including a large picture of the fighter, their record (overall and W/L per fight), titles held (if any) and their background in MMA. The information is very accurate (compared to sherdog.com and other reputable MMA sites) however I did find some of the fight information a little out of date (2-3 weeks behind on updates).

The third tab is for events and is shows upcoming events in chronological order. Not only are the UFC, Strikeforce, WEC and K-1 listed, but so are literally hundreds of local and regional competitions, from pure MMA to Brazillian Jujitsu and everything in between. Clicking the title of an event will show you the event's date/time, location and (sometimes) cost. You will also be able to view the entire fight card including pictures of the fighters (if available) and their current record. I did find that a few of the events' information pages failed to load, but all of them were for local or regional events. Also on the main events tab is a recent events button to view past events (14 days) and the outcome of each fight on the particular fight cards.

The fourth and final tab is for access to multiple MMA forums, including "The Underground" at tapout.com, mixedmartialarts.com and about 10-12 more. While you can review the threads for the forums from within the MMA Underground app, you are not currently able to reply to a thread.

Overall, I am very impressed with MMA Underground and will continue to support it as it develops further. Previously I had been using iTrack MMA and, while it is a good app, it does not offer as many of the ammenities that MMA Underground does. As with many of the better apps in the Market, MMA Underground is not free, but I personally think the $1.99 cost is very insignificant in comparison to what it has to offer. Unfortunately there is no trial version of MMA Underground, but if you are a real fan of MMA, you already don't care and plan to buy it anyway.

The full version can be found in the Market. More information on MMA Underground can be found here. You can also download directly with your Android device by using this barcode:

[rainfreak]

reserved

[KBZL]

Rainfreak, that app looks pretty damn cool. Keep em coming!! Thanks.

[elephant007]

no wonder your kids are spoiled, they're in color while everything else around them is in black and white!

This looks like a pretty cool app, I'm gonna give it a go!! Thanks for the info bro!

As far as patch management, we're looking at KACE, ManageEngine and ScriptLogic Desktop Management... thanks for your info on that too!

[rainfreak]

Originally Posted by elephant007

no wonder your kids are spoiled, they're in color while everything else around them is in black and white!

This looks like a pretty cool app, I'm gonna give it a go!! Thanks for the info bro!

You're welcome! You'll enjoy it, it is a fun app to play with!

Originally Posted by elephant007

As far as patch management, we're looking at KACE, ManageEngine and ScriptLogic Desktop Management... thanks for your info on that too!

Looks like some good choices there. I would just recommend that you think about where you want to be 1-2 years from now to make sure that you choose the one that will allow for the most scalability.

[orangekid]

dude that app looks pretty awesome, my girl is going to love that.

[elephant007]

here's a picture I popped, my daughter and my girlfriends son, they were racing each other and looking at one another while going down the street, this is taken with my Samsung Moment too...

[Adrianh85]

this will be my first app i buy!!

[rainfreak]

Originally Posted by elephant007

here's a picture I popped, my daughter and my girlfriends son, they were racing each other and looking at one another while going down the street, this is taken with my Samsung Moment too...

Nice pic!