Portfolioso.com Blog

Twidroid Acquired by Tweeup, Changes name to Twidroyd

This is my favorite Android Twitter App. I like it better that Seesmic and the official Twitter client. Today, it was sold to TweetUp and development will be continued under the name Twidroyd. Why the name change?

You can blame Mr. George Lucas, who has the rights to the name droid from Star Wars. It’s absolutely ridiculous that the name had to change to avoid legal trouble. Jeez.

Anyway, grab a copy if you have an Android grab a copy of Twidroyd here. Also, it will be bundled on many phones as a result of this new deal. Enjoy.

Android App of the Week: Mangler

It’s Thursday, which means I forgot to write Wednesday’s Android App of the week post. Well, here it is. This week’s featured App: Mangler.

Mangler is an open source Ventrilo Client. If you don’t know what Ventrilo is, then it’s pretty useless to you, but Ventrilo is a push to talk voice server usually used by gamers. You usually push a hotkey to transmit and talk to people you’re playing games with. And now I can pop in to see if anyone is connected on the go!

Ventrilo is tricky, because it is closed source and development is very secretive. Someone was making a client for Linux and then this dude decided to port the code to Android. Amazing!

Mangler is in alpha right now and much more features are going to be added later. The fact that it connects, transmits and receives audio – all on 3G or wi-fi just amazes me. Sweet!

What’s missing: Key transmit binding (assign a button on your phone to transmit) and an icon in the notification pane (letting you know that you’re connected to a server). Very minor. The fact that it works is killer.

One catch – it’s not registered in the Android market, so if you want to install it, you’ll have to go to settings–>Applications and check “Unknown sources” to allow the install of non-Market applications. To download it, head over here or scan the following barcode:

Scan this to Download Mangler 1.0-alpha3. You'll have to install it manually

Edit: It’s available on the market now. Search Mangler

Android App of the Week: GPS Status

This is part one of Wednesday’s weekly segment highlighting amazing Android Apps. This week: GPS Status.

This little app is amazing. It connects to your GPS and gives you your live coordinates, a compass, acceleration, altitude, pitch/tilt of the phone and speed. Those little green dots are the actual locations of GPS satellites in the sky.

You can share your location in GMail, twitter or Google Maps. You can also lock in your location and it will help you navigate back to it.

Very simple app, but it’s great for getting your speed and direction in a car or something. It’s also great to see how many satellites are visible / fixed to troubleshoot GPS issues (if it doesn’t connect).

To download, scan the following QR code, or search “GPS status” in the Android Market.