Instinction

Social networking has grown tremendously over the past several years, from a simple way to keep in touch with friends, to a multi-billion dollar industry which helps businesses stay connected with their clients as much as it helps you see what your cousin James is doing this weekend. Seeing as there are so many social networking options to choose from now, having a single tool to manage your major accounts is extremely handy.

Many of you may already be familiar with TweetDeck, a multi-client social media application which has grown to become the largest Twitter client with 19% of the market, only behind posting via the Web at Twitter.com. One of its biggest draws, aside from the multi-client functionality, is the ability to create personalized columns of information. On the desktop version this can consist of keyword searches on Twitter, feeds of all your various social networking accounts, or even specifics like photo or wall feeds on Facebook.

It has been a long time coming, but TweetDeck for Android is finally upon us, albeit in beta form. The company affirms they have built the application from the ground up, allowing them to retain the use of columns, but changing the way they function in order to optimize their use on the mobile platform. So, does TweetDeck for Android live up to its expectations? Is it simply too early to tell with the beta release? Continue reading after the break to find out during our full review of the TweetDeck for Android beta.

First and foremost, if you would like to participate in the beta, you have to be a registered TweetDeck user in order to receive the download link via email. Visit the TweetDeck for Android beta page to register, or to sign-in with your account in order to receive the link. Now, onto business.
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Description

SwiftKey brings the future of text entry to smartphones. It uses TouchType’s breakthrough Fluency™ technology to predict the next word you want to type, before you even press a key. Your next word is predicted with such incredible accuracy that a third of suggestions are right first time and usually you won’t need to press more than two letters.

Accurate

SwiftKey uses advanced error correction, meaning grammar and spelling errors are a thing of the past. Typing with SwiftKey produces text you can rely on, in a fraction of the time it takes on a regular QWERTY keyboard. It doesn’t just predict regular words – it learns as you type and remembers how you write. As words and sentences are chosen over time, its Fluency™ engine creates a dynamic understanding of your writing style to boost the accuracy, fluency and speed of prediction.

Download Swiftkey Android App

PSD Templates for the Android Icon Set

1. Action Complete
2. Amazon MP3
3. Barcode Reader
4. Bluetooth
5. Buzz
6. Calculator
7. Car Home
8. Evernote
9. Facebook
10. Flickr
11. Goggles
12. Layar
13. mPhotoshop (2)
14. News
15. News & Weather
16. Opera Mini (2)
17. QR Code
18. Recorder (2)
19. RSS
20. Settings
21. Shazam
22. Skype
23. Tag Reader
24. Twitter (2)
25. Voice Dailer
26. Voice Search
27. Weather
28. Wi-Fi
29. Wikitude
30. Youtube

The PNGs are 600×600 px.

Download This Android Icon Set

Microsoft is deeply rethinking its Marketplace strategy for Windows Phone 7 right down to the name. It’s now officially “Windows Phone Marketplace,” a minor tweak from the Windows Marketplace for Mobile moniker they’d used before. The revised Marketplace will be much more than an app store. Instead, it’ll be billed as a one-stop shop for a variety of content from apps and Xbox games to music, and carriers will also have the ability to customize it by adding their own highlighted content.

It’s different. The face of Windows Phone 7 is not a rectangular grid of thumbnail-sized glossy-looking icons, arranged in a pattern of 4×4 or so, like basically every other phone. No, instead, an oversized set of bright, superflat squares fill the screen. The pop of the primary colors and exaggerated flatness produces a kind of cutting-edge crispness that feels both incredibly modern and playful. Text is big, and beautiful. The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone’s interface feel staid.

If you want to know what it feels like, the Zune HD provides a taste: Interface elements that run off the screen; beautiful, oversized text and graphics; flipping, panning, scrolling, zooming from screen to screen; broken hearts. Some people might think it’s gratuitous, but I think it feels natural and just…fun. There’s an incredible sense of joie de vivre that’s just not in any other phone. It makes you wish that this was aesthetic direction all of Microsoft was going in.

Windows Phone 7 is connected in the same sense as Palm’s webOS and Android, with live, real-time data seamlessly integrated, though it’s even smoother and more natural. Live tiles on the Start screen, which you can totally customize, are updated dynamically with fresh content, like weather, or if you’ve pinned a person to your Start screen, their latest status updates and photos.

The meat of the phone is organized around a set of hubs: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office. They’re kind of like uber-applications, in a sense. Massive panoramas with multiple screens that are each kind of like individual apps. People, for instance, isn’t just your contacts, but it’s also where social networking happens, with a real-time stream of updates pulled in from like Facebook and Windows Live. (No Twitter support announced yet, it appears—a kind of serious deficiency, but one we’re sure will be remedied by ship date.)

As another example, Music + Video is essentially the entirety of Zune HD’s software, tucked inside of Windows Phone 7.

A piece of interface that’s shockingly not there: A desktop syncing app. If anyone would be expected to tie their phone to a desktop, you’d think it’d be Microsoft, but they’re actually moving forward here. All of your contacts and info sync over the air. The only thing you’ll be syncing through your computer is music and videos, which is mercifully done via the Zune desktop client.