Simply Droid

A few days ago Tether launched their Android Beta program. If you are now familiar with Tether, it was the program formerly called TetherBerry and it allowed Blackberry users to “tether” there Blackberry to their computers. This gave the users the ability to get an internet connection on the computer through the data on their phone.

If you would like to sign up for the Beta and try the program out you can find the sign up here. If you try it out let us know what your results are.

Don’t forget to sign up on the forums for your chance at a $15 Amazon Gift Card!

The new week of the Forum Contest Giveaway starts today and up for grabs this time is a $15 Amazon.com gift card! Just like last week’s contest you just need to have at least 1 legitimate post on the Simply Droid Forum in order to be eligible. If you’re not already a forum member just register and start posting, it’s completely free. The winner will be announced next Sunday, March 21st.

You can see the contest details here. Good Luck!

Snaptic is a great Android application and if you need more proof, how about the fact that they just reached 2 million ACTIVE users? This is a great sign of things to come in the Android community. The Android platform as a whole continues to grow and this is even more evidence. A large part of Snaptic’s success is due to Android’s Intent functionality which gives developers the ability to combine functionality of other apps.

In case you are not aware, Snaptic is a note taking app and it’s integration with various recipe, dictionary, horoscope and other apps makes it extremely useful. Snaptic allows text and media to be snipped  from these various apps and saved in a database which is synced online and accessible from a website. Snaptic has said that they have added new developer functionality in their latest SXSW Notes API.

Snaptic Press Release:

Snaptic Nears 2 Million Installs on Android

Quietly establishes lead in note-taking applications on Android, new developer integrations announced at SXSW

San Francisco, Calif. — Snaptic , a developer of smartphone and web applications that capture, organize, and share information has quietly become the leader in note-taking applications on Google’s Android™ with nearly 2,000,000 active installs. With a vision of easy information capture for all, Snaptic has introduced a simple way for Android developers to integrate note-taking capabilities into their own applications.

Many of the most popular applications in the Android Market, collectively representing millions of users, have integrated with Snaptic to make it easy for their users to save content to their notebooks. Some of the applications include:

1. Free Dictionary.org – Provides definitions, synonyms, pronunciation, spelling, and word quizzes.
2. BBC News – Delivers the latest news and headlines from the BBC.
3. DailyHoroscope – Conjures fresh horoscopes daily.
4. Favorite Recipes – Serves up thousands of recipes by ingredients, keywords or categories.
5. 10,001 Cocktails – Mixes preloaded recipes with drink search across a broad range of drink categories.
6. Tip Calculator – Simple to use calculator that makes it easy to split up a bill without having to do the math.

Snaptic is leading the charge in offering note-taking integration options for developers using the Android Platform’s “Intent” feature. Android Intent offers a simple way for developers to collaborate and leverage each other’s strengths and core competencies to deliver new, feature rich experiences for theirapplication end-users. Snaptic has defined its own note-taking Intent API and published examples for developers to reference.

“Snaptic is focused on making it easy for people to capture information into a personal data cloud that’s accessible 24/7,” said Steve Brown, CEO of Snaptic. “Now Android developers can easily add note-taking to their apps and their users can save what they want from their favorite apps into their mobile notes.”

Information that is captured from integrated applications is automatically tagged to make it simple to navigate and retrieve saved content. End-users get additional benefit by being able to sync with the web at http://snaptic.com so that no matter where content is captured it’s consistent and available at all times.

Snaptic will be presenting at the SXSW 2010 conference in Austin Texas on Saturday, March 13, at the Hilton at 12:50PM to showcase how Android developers are working together to enhance end-user experiences. More information can be found at http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/748

About Snaptic
Snaptic is a leading developer of smartphone and web applications that capture, organize, and share information. As the leader in note-taking and geo-tagging applications in the Google Android Market, Snaptic provides the easiest way for developers to integrate note-taking capabilities into their applications. For more information, please visit http://snaptic.com.

Snaptic™, 3banana®, and AK Notepad™, Compass™, are trademarks of Snaptic, Inc.

Don’t forget to sign up and post on the Simply Droid Forums for a chance at a full copy of My Backup Pro. This is the perfect app to keep all of your data and apps safe. You never know when you will lose your phone or if it might stop working.

Even if you already own this app remember that we will giving away other free stuff every month. We have gift cards, other great apps and other great prizes so sign up now to stay ahead of the game.

Opera Mini 5 is one of the best mobile browsers out there and it has finally been made available for Android phones. Version 5 has lots of great updates over version 4 which has been available on Android phones for some time now.

One of the great things about the new version is that it now finally has tabbed browsing. The tabs show in a bar at the bottom and when you click on it, it gives you a mini view of the tab. This browser might rival the Dolphin Browser depending on it’s speed. Dolphin is tough to give up thanks to the multi-touch.

Opera Mini 5 Features:

• Tabbed Browsing
• Speed Dial: Gives you one-touch access to 9 of your favorite sites.
• Password Manager
• Opera Link: Syncs your bookmarks (and Speed Dial) between your handset and you desktop (if you are running Opera on your desktop)

Download Opera Mini 5:

Opera Mini 5 Video:

Make sure all of your phone data is securely backed up!  Enter the Forum Contest Giveaway for your chance at the full copy of MyBackup Pro. Only 4 days left for your chance in the first week’s drawing!

Anyone who has been waiting for the Google Nexus One to come to Verizon Wireless might not have to wait much longer. There are rumors that Verizon will become the second carrier to offer Google’s phone on March 23rd. Coincidentally (or not) March 23rd is also the first day of the CTIA tradeshow in Las Vegas. The announcement is anticipated on that day so whether it will be available in Verizon stores then is yet to be seen.

Google Nexus One Features:

• Sleek tablet shape with a 3.7 inch, WGVA display
• 1 GHz snapdragon processor combined with the Android Operating System
• 512 MB RAM with a 4 GB Micro SD card (can be upgraded to 32 GB)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Digital Compass
• Suite of Google related applications

Make sure all of your phone data is securely backed up!  Enter the Forum Contest Giveaway for your chance at the full copy of MyBackup Pro

Have you ever noticed that by default the birthdays and anniversaries of your contacts do not show up on your Android phone’s calendar? There’s a very easy way to sync that information from your contacts to the calendar. Just follow these couple steps:

Sync Contacts’s Birthdays with your Android phone’s calendar

1. Go to www.google.com/calendar
2. Log on with the same Google account that you use for you Android phone
3. Under the Other calendars click Add then select Browse Interesting Calendars
4. At the Interesting Calendars section click the More tab
5. You will see “Contacts’ birthdays and events” click subscribe and there you go! As simple as that!

It seems like such an easy addition and normal thing to have on the calendar, I wonder why the phones don’t come with this enabled by default?

Anyone else have any other cool tricks that maybe people don’t know about?

Make sure all of your phone data is securely backed up!  Enter the Forum Contest Giveaway for your chance at the full copy of MyBackup Pro

If you enjoy Beta testing or are looking for a new way to input information your Android phone head over to the Swype Beta Page right away. They are only allowing so many participants so if you are even remotely interested in checking it out I wouldn’t waste much time registering. Swype is a pretty cool and intuitive way to type with your phone. You essentially drag your finger to each key on the Swype keyboard to type. You can see a video of the program in action at the end of the post.

Swype Beta for Android Details:

• Initially we will have a limited number of participants – we’ll expand it soon
• In English and Spanish – more languages to come
• Limited Features – some key features of Swype require OEM integration
• HVGA and WVGA Resolutions – don’t worry we’ll detect this automatically
• Limited End User Support – mostly via our forum

Swype Demo Video

Well technically it starts Monday but we’ll include any new posts starting today into the contest. What we have up for grabs is 4 copies of the paid version of MyBackup Pro. We just recently reviewed this app and you can see the review along with all of its features here: MyBackup Pro.

In order to be eligible for a free copy of the app you will need to sign up and post at least 1 legitimate post on the Simply Droid Forum. At the end of each week we will select one user at random. We will announce each week’s winner and email them their registration code at the end of the week. At the beginning of each week we wipe the slate clean, so if you did not win just stay active on the forum for you chance to win.

You can see all of the contest rules here: Simply Droid Forum Contest Giveaway.

Be sure to stay up to date on the Contests section of the forum as we will be having many more giveaways with lots of great prizes.

Good luck to everyone!