There’s always something awesome happening on Android. There are killer apps, amazing games, and utilities unlike you’ll find on other platforms. The goal of the Google Play App Roundup is to find the best of the best in all those categories so you don’t have to hunt them down manually. Just click on the app name to head right to the Play Store.

This week we’ve got a new way to get notifications and two different, but very good new puzzle games.

Floating Notifications

Android notifications are already excellent as they currently stand. But they can always get better, right? The developer-friendly approach Google takes to apps makes it possible to graft new functionality onto the system, and Floating Notifications is an example of that. This is basically a take on Facebook’s Chat Heads feature, but it gathers notifications from any app you have installed.

Floating Notifications requires a little setup, but that’s a good thing. You wouldn't want notifications from any app on your phone popping up. After enabling the app as an accessibility service, you may choose which apps produce foreground notifications, and how they appear. You can also tweak almost anything about how the notification pop up looks and behaves.

Floating Notifications gives you very fine-grained control over exactly how intrusive the popups are. Each app has to be enabled, then you can check off the features you want. Long-pressing indicates what each option does. The app can do things like wake the screen up when certain apps produce notifications, show expanded notification text, stack multiple notifications, and even pin the notification icon for an app so it’s always accessible.

When an app receives a notification, the icon will appear on top of whatever you’re doing at the edge of the screen. This icon can be dragged anywhere on the screen or double tapped to dismiss. Tapping once opens the notification within the floating UI so you can see the contents. If there are multiple apps stacked, tapping also fans them out so you can select the one you want to interact with.

This app is not quite the same as Chat Heads, or the more expansive Halo feature from Paranoid Android. Floating Widgets doesn’t run the app in a window and never will. This is just notifications. If you tap on a notification to open it, the full app will open. Because of Android security restrictions, Floating Notifications cannot clear the notifications from the shade. If you only have a few apps piped into Floating Notifications, it shouldn’t be a problem.

This app seem to cause no additional battery drain, and it’s very snappy in practice. I rather like having Hangouts plugged into the floating system, which is surprising. I thought it would be annoying at first.

There is a 30-day free trial version of Floating Notifications in addition to the full app. It’s about $2 to use it beyond that time frame.

I picked up a pair of Google’s Project Glass Explorer Edition augmented reality glasses yesterday. It’s the kind of thing I generally discourage people from doing, but when I had an opportunity to buy a pair early courtesy of the If I Had Glass program, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try them out and talk about them on the site. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.

Once you are selected by Google to buy a pair of Project Glass Explorer Edition glasses (henceforth referred to as Project Glass, Glasses, or Google Glass), you had to A: have $1500 and B: be able to pick the glasses up at one of a handful of Google campuses. I rolled into the Mountain View Google campus at noon on Sunday with my wife and baby, and we walked up to the Glass building, where we were greeted by a friendly Google employee who introduced us to Evelyn. Evelyn’s job was to guide me through the setup process for the Glasses, which was supposed to take about 30 minutes. Google also offered a variety of beverages, including mimosas and fancy fresh juice. Swanky!

We sat down at a table in a converted part of a big workshop, which I later learned was one of the shops where Googlers can work on projects of their own choosing. Each of the Glass setup stations would be familiar to anyone who has ever had glasses fitted at an optician—there were a couple of chairs and a mirror angled up to give you a good look at yourself wearing the Glasses.

Fitting Project Glass is unlike fitting traditional glasses. You’re supposed to wear them higher on your face than I’m accustomed to—the top of the frame is supposed to be near your eyebrows. The frame’s arms are curved—instead of resting on your ears, they wrap around your skull. And the metal parts of the frame are made of thin titanium, which means you can (and will) bend the hell out of them. During the fitting, Evelyn encouraged me to bend all the metallic parts of the frame until the glasses were comfortable. After the frames were lined up properly, I had to adjust the screen slightly—it’s a on a swivel that lets you move it closer and further away from your eye.

Google Play is always changing and growing. New apps show up weekly that could easily improve your device, but how are you supposed to know about them? Well, the Google Play App Roundup is a good start. This is where we bring you the best new and newly updated apps on Android. Just click the app name to head right to the Play Store.

This week typing gets easier, you become a quadropus, and the home screen gets prettier.

Google Keyboard

The vast majority of Android devices in the wild are not running Google’s stock flavor of the platform. Instead, it’s a mix of TouchWiz, Sense, and half a dozen other skins not important enough to have names. One of the common alterations OEMs make to Android is to replace the keyboard. I’ve never understood why, because the stock Google keyboard has gotten much better since ICS. Now you finally get to choose -- Google has made the stock Android keyboard available in Google Play, and that’s kind of a big deal.

Before you get too excited, the keyboard can only be downloaded in English-speaking countries at this time. Google says more languages are coming, but that doesn’t help you much right now. For those of you with access, it’s a simple matter to head over to the Play Store and grab the official Google Keyboard like you would any other alternative keyboard.

Any device with Android 4.0 or higher can run the updated keyboard, but you’ll notice the biggest difference on skinned devices. Even users of stock devices should install it, though. Having the Google Play version of the keyboard connects you to Google’s updates, which are now separate from the OS. It’s the same thing Google has done with Maps, Gmail, and Hangouts.

So what do you get? Well, that depends on the device you’re using. For stock Android folks there is a new animation for swiping from the shift or symbol button to a separate key, and I would say the updated keyboard is a little better at text prediction (but that might just be the placebo effect).

If you have a skinned device, the swiping input will probably be better than what you were using. The design is much more understated than some of the keyboards OEMs package. It won't necessarily match the skin on your device, but I still think the experience is better.

There are no themes or extreme personalization. It’s just a killer little keyboard that will integrate with the system and gets updates directly from Google. Try as I might, I can’t get used to SwiftKey Flow. Some people swear by it, but the stock keyboard has been my preferred option since Jelly Bean, and it’s only gotten better with this update. It helps that this keyboard is free. I can only hope that Google continues to deconstruct Android and put it in the Play Store. This is how it ought to be.

Another month has come and gone, and that means it’s time to wade into the complicated world of Android hardware to see where your phone-buying dollar is best spent. If you thought things were complicated before, you won’t believe the tough spot picky phone shoppers are in this month. Each of the big four US carriers have some good choices, but there are also some unknowns floating out there with alluring software.

Let’s see what phones come out on top so you don’t get locked down for two years with a phone you hate.

Another week, another batch of apps hot off the presses... or the developer console. Whatever. The point is there are new apps in Google Play, and we’re here to show what’s worth looking at in the Google Play App Roundup. Just click the app name to head right over to the Play Store so you can give things a shot.

This week, there is a new camera app, a way to learn a language for free, and a game in book form.

Camera 2

Paper Camera came out a few years back, and it had some of the coolest filters of any camera app. It wasn’t just great because it had better hipster filters than the other guys. Paper Camera rocked because it had really out there stuff -- comic book effects, pencil sketches, and all sorts of other goodies. Now Camera 2 is here from the same developers, and it amps up the effects even more.

There are six different categories of filters in Camera 2. Each set of filters is accessible in a scrollable list on the left side of the camera interface. Along the right are the usual camera buttons for capturing stills, starting a video, switching between front/rear sensors, and toggling the flash. I won’t tell you the layout is great, but it’s amazing for one very important reason: multi-filter live previews.

When you select a family of filters, the viewfinder is filled with windowed previews of all the filters. So if you choose the "old time" group, there are live previews of the styles for the 20s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s all in one screen. Just tap on the one you want, and take your picture. The options button is small and easy to miss down in the lower left corner. Tap it to get sliders to tweak each filter with vignette, film grain, and other filter-specific stuff.

Capturing images is reasonably fast, considering the amount of post processing that goes on. It also captures full-resolution snapshots on my device with an 8MP sensor. One thing that's missing is a way to delete shots from within Camera 2. After you take the picture you get a short preview, then it’s in the Gallery. You can always delete images later, but it’s an extra step.

You can access your gallery app of choice from inside Camera 2 for the purposes of adding filters after the fact. This gives you the advantage of using your device's unique camera software (assuming your phone knows some tricks) and still getting the neat filters.

Summer is finally upon us, and you know what that means. Yes, you need to come up with more excuses to stay out of direct sunlight so as to maintain your pasty, semi-translucent complexion. Why not start by fooling around with some new Android apps? It's a perfect way to spend the day indoors. In the weekly Google Play App Roundup, we bring you the best new and newly updated apps on Android. Just click the app name to head right to the Google Play Store.

This week we've got a new sketching app for tablets, a classic brawling game with modern controls, and a new take on a a well-known puzzler.

ArtFlow

Serious artists spend big bucks on high-end graphics tablets, but maybe you just need something to fool around on and sketch. If that sounds about right, a new tablet-only app called ArtFlow might be just the thing. This app comes with a ton of brushes, effects, and tools to make pretty pictures (assuming you have the skill).

You can think of ArtFlow as an alternative to Photoshop Touch that’s geared toward original content creation. You won’t dump your photos into ArtFlow to spruce them up, but it’s great for sketching something all your own. On most tablets it has rudimentary support for “pressure” detection based on the size of the touch interaction. This works well enough, but if you have a tablet that supports pen input (like the Galaxy Note 10.1 with its S Pen) you can get full pressure-sensitivity.

There are two slide-out panels with all the tools you’ll need. On the left is the layer panel with support for up to 16 layers. You can tweak the order, opacity, and properties from here. And yes, you can preserve the layer structure and export a PSD file to work with in Photoshop later.

This year’s Google I/O came and went without a new version of Android, and there was much griping on the internet. Even though Google isn’t required to announce anything of consumer interest at a developer event, the past few I/O conferences have made it clear this is Google’s big software show. Everyone watches and waits on the big reveal, but this year we got nothing--or did we?

While it may appear at first blush that Google I/O 2013 was a bust, it was actually an incredibly important step for Google. This is the event when Google finally beat fragmentation.

Why Wait?

If you paid close attention to the developer talks and API announcements, there were some enticing tidbits about the future of Android. For example, Google made it clear that Bluetooth Low Energy (AKA Bluetooth SMART) was coming to Android, but not under existing OS versions. No, this Bluetooth 4.0 implementation would be part of the platform in API level 18. Jelly Bean 4.2 is API level 17. There were also various server log and benchmark leaks -- the kind of stuff we always see when a new OS is imminent.

Hints like this indicate there is a newer version of Android that is far enough along that it has a finalized Bluetooth stack and is being tested on internal Google devices. Rumors can’t always be trusted, but the word is that Google was prepared to announce Android 4.3 at Google I/O, but decided to hold back and make a point. What point? Simply, Google doesn’t need a new version of Android to rollout new services to users.

Look at the Android announcements that did happen: Hangouts, Google Play Games, app data sync, Play Music All Access, and synced notifications. Those are neat features, but no one is going to convince Android fans it’s as sexy as a new version of the platform. However, the impact might be even greater than if Google had announced Android 4.3.

Imagine that Google had shown off a new version of Android; let’s even say that it was extremely impressive. After hearing the news, most Android users would look at their Galaxy S3 or Droid RAZR Maxx HD, and feel a mixture of annoyance and apathy. When Google announces a new version of Android, it only has an immediate effect on Nexus owners, which make up a small percentage of total Android users. The new services Google announced affect almost every Android phone in the world.

Phones running Gingerbread or higher got these new features. According to the latest platform numbers that’s nearly 95% of active Android devices. Google is proving that it can improve the Android experience without waiting for every OEM and carrier to get device updates deployed. That's worth a small delay.

That Google I/O hangover can be a real killer, but there are still untold multitudes of apps being added to Google Play all the time. This is no time to take a break! It's time for the Google Play App Roundup where we bring you the best new and newly updated apps on Android. Just click the app name to head right to the Play Store.

This week we look at Google's new chat service, check out a great tower defense game, and experience a classic.

Hangouts

Google Talk has been a part of Android since its inception, but it’s was largely ignored as redesigns have progressed. And all this despite being a really useful service. As Google I/O approached, we all expected the messaging unification known internally as Babel to be announced, but it turns out to unify very little. Hangouts is Google’s new messaging brand, and it replaces Talk. Let’s take a look at how it works.

Hangouts is basically a replacement for Google Talk and G+ Messenger. To be fair, Google never really said Hangouts was supposed to be unifying messaging on Android -- everyone just really hoped it would. There is no SMS functionality like Apple has in its messaging app, and Google Voice SMS is also excluded. This isn’t a dealbreaker, but I sincerely hope this functionality can be added soon.

As it stands, Hangouts pulls in your Google contacts from Talk, as well as all your Google+ circles and friends. By far my biggest issue with Hangouts right now is that the contact list ends up a bit of a jumbled mess. People with multiple addresses tend to show up more than once (despite trying to merge contacts) and the large contact shortcuts at the top of the app are not configurable. This decision baffles me.

Hangouts uses a sliding UI, which Google seems quite fond of lately. It has a very Holo feel, but I was initially confused about how to get back to the contact list from conversations. Sometimes you can slide back over to it, but other times you need to tap the ‘+’ button in the action bar to get there.

Hangouts includes regular 1-to-1 conversations, group messaging, and video hangouts. It’s good that we finally have all these functions in one place. Android has had video calls built in for some time, for instance, but no one used it because the functionality was buried in the Talk app. Now it’s all Hangouts video chat, which is much easier and more consistent with Google’s services.

One thing that Hangouts gets very right is the read-receipt and typing status in text conversations. Small avatars of your friends float down the side of the conversation view to show you how far they’ve read. This is extremely well-done, as is the bouncing dot animation to let you know when someone is typing.

Also along for the ride in Hangouts is emoji and image support. Yes, you can finally send pictures through chat instead of trusting MMS. This might actually be my favorite feature, because I suspect I’ll use it a lot. The emoji not so much, but I’m sure some folks will be very into it.

The Hangouts app will replace Talk, and that comes with a few sacrifices. Status messages are gone, as is the Away/Screen-off state. You’re either online, or not online. Any apps you had that plugged into Talk will more than likely stop working, as well. Overall, Hangouts is a good upgrade once you cozy up to it... I’m slowly coming around. There has been some trouble getting certain devices updated through Google Play, but all should be well now.

The heart of Google’s product line is search, and there can no longer be any doubt that Google Now is the future of the company's efforts. At the first day of Google I/O, the search giant cavorted itself like it was putting on a real developer conference. There were developer console updates, new tools, and APIs. Still, things came back to Google Now, and that’s no surprise.

The Search app on Android received an update, which was demoed on stage. Along with some new info cards, Google Now voice search gained a new capability -- it can schedule location and time-specific push reminders. Google Now understands natural language in ways that would have been impossible just a few years ago. Google’s data driven approach is desperately close to bringing the dream of a Star Trek computer to fruition.

It’s About The Graph

Google and Apple took two divergent approaches to designing a digital assistant. Apple started with a system that understood common phrases and reached out to a limited number of services and databases to complete actions. This meant Siri could do some neat things out of the box, but it relied on third-parties like Wolfram Alpha and Google to do it. It wasn't about search--it was a digital personal assistant first and foremost.

Google came at the problem of voice interaction from the opposite direction. For Google, it was about search from the start. Mountain View has been aggregating massive volumes of data in its Knowledge Graph, now the heart of Google search cards. Google simply knows a lot of things without going outside its own services. This is the foundation of Google Now.

Google started working on its voice input system years ago with Goog411, which was later shuttered after the company had the data it needed. That enabled raw voice input for searches. The next step was to recognize relevant queries in search history and return Knowledge Graph cards in advance. That's the magic of Google Now on the phone -- it anticipates your searches.

I will never forget how well Google Now seemed to know my schedule when I started using it less than a year ago. Because I had Google location reporting turned on, my device knew where I liked to go, what roads I take, and even guessed my home address accurately. The old line about Apple products is that they “just work.” Well, Google Now is the modern embodiment of that slogan.

The voice aspect of Google Now has continued to evolve, culminating with yesterday’s announcement of reminder support, and it’s incredibly robust with all that Google data backing it. Google Now became an assistant app just like Siri, but it took longer to reach that level of usefulness and it’s stronger for having made the journey.

Let’s take a look at these new Google Now additions and see how it works.

The Google Play Store continues to swell in size week after week, and there's always something new and cool popping up. There's entirely too much stuff happening for one lone user to keep track of, so we scour the web for the best leads on apps you need to see. Just click on the app name to head right to the Play Store.

This week your screen gets more sleep-friendly, a casual puzzler will steal your heart, and the vehicular end times begin.

Twilight

If you ever experience sleep disruptions after spending too much time on the computer or with a phone hanging inches from your face, Twilight might be the app for you (this has nothing to do with sparkly vampires). This app modifies the color temperature of your display to reduce the impact of using a phone or tablet before bed. Why? Some research indicates certain wavelengths of light can have a negative impact on your sleep cycle. It’s science!

LCD screen technology outputs a lot of light that can actually trick your brain into thinking the sun hasn’t set yet. Because sleep cycles are partially controlled by the day/night cycle, using these devices before bed can contribute to insomnia. Twilight keeps track of where you are in the world and slowly changes the display temperature to match the sunset. The goal is to move away from the wavelengths of light that fool your brain as bedtime approaches. This is the same functionality available on the desktop with F.lux.

Just like with F.lux, the filter applied to your screen looks odd at first, but you probably won’t notice it after a few minutes. The app settings allow you to change the intensity and tone of the overlay. Basically, you need to add a red or yellow cast with the temperature slider to see any benefit. Just find a level that doesn’t cause too much distraction, and let the app handle the rest.

There is a cool option in Twilight to preview the display color throughout the day. This will give you a good idea how much it changes over time. You can also have the app dim the screen at night.

If at any time you need to do some color-sensitive work, Twilight can be paused by tapping on the notification. Likewise, you can have the app automatically disabled when you open certain apps, like the camera or gallery for example.

All of this is free, but the donation version can unlock a few additional features that might be of use. For about $3 Twilight adds the ability to set custom active times and change how fast the color transition occurs. This is handy if you don’t work a normal schedule.

You should give Twilight a shot and see if it makes a difference in your life. The research on this is compelling, but not definitive as of yet. Other apps do the same sort of thing on Android, but I think Twilight is the easiest to use, and it does a lot for free.

The Play Store is gaining new apps at an astounding rate -- so fast that you could never hope to keep up with all the notable apps. But don't fret. We're skimming the best new and newly updated stuff off the top and dropping it here in the weekly Google Play App Roundup. Just click on the app name to head right to the Play Store.

This week there's a new podcast app worth your time, a game with lots of punching, and an eerie adventure game.

Player FM

It has been a long time since I saw a new podcast app that I liked, but Player FM has some real potential. This app has you sign in to Google+ when you start it up, and then asks you what sort of stuff you’re into. From there, it aggregates a ton of podcasts you might want to listen to, and yes, This is Only a Test is on the suggested list.

The Player FM UI is definitely Android-y, but it’s not just Holo. Player FM is throwing its virtual hat into the ring with the cards UI from Google Now and a few other Google apps. Everyone sees Mountain View going in this direction, so it’s natural for third-party developers to follow suit.

The app is split up into swipable panels, one for each area of interest. You can peruse and listen to any of them you like by streaming, or add your favorites to your main queue. The queue is also a tab in the app, but these podcasts there will be downloaded to your device automatically, rather than streamed from the cloud.

Player FM has a number of settings to control how episodes are displayed and downloaded, but it’s not as comprehensive as something like Doggcatcher. Player FM is best suited to a user that listens to a handful of podcasts regularly, and might poke around in other feeds on occasion. If you religiously listen to 20 podcasts, this might not be the app for you.

When you have an episode playing, there will be a persistent playback area at the bottom of the screen. A notification shade entry also has playback controls in it. My only concern with the interface is the slight lag I see when swiping from one tab to the next. This seems like it would be an easy fix, so hopefully the developer is on it.

Right from the start, I found the experience of using Player FM enjoyable. Searching for new podcasts was a breeze, but many of my prefered listings were presented in the suggestions. I’m actually rather surprised this app is free. I wouldn’t have batted an eye if it had been listed at $1-2. Check this one out if you want a casual podcast app.

The next-generation Android phones are upon us, and anyone that’s been itching for an upgrade should be sitting at attention. It’s going to be a tough decision between top devices from the likes HTC and Samsung, but let’s take a closer look at what makes the most sense on each network. This is your chance to get a phone you’re going to be happy with for the next year or two, so you’ll want to cover all your bases.

Photo credit: Flickr user learnkids2003 via Creative Commons

This month Verizon takes its time, Sprint catches up, and T-Mobile keeps being different.

The Play Store grows by the day, overflowing with apps and games of varying degrees of quality. Once a week here on Tested, we like to dive in and see what's new and cool on Android, hence the Google Play App Roundup. Just click on the app name to head right to the Play Store on your device.

This week we have a classic alternative keyboard that has finally reached the big leagues, a game with neat space ships, and a casual side-scroller with a ton of cute.

Swype

For the last few years, the Swype beta program has been the least exclusive private club in the Android world. You could (usually) sign up on the Swype website to get access to a sideloaded version of this granddaddy of swiping keyboards. Updates were a pain, and Swype seemed less interested in updating the beta than focusing on its main business model -- licensing to OEMs. Last week, all that had changed. Swype is now in Google Play.

There is a trial version, as well as a paid edition. This time installation is much easier -- no logging in, no downloading APKs, just hit up the Play Store. The last time I was heavily into Swype, there were a ton of options. In this new version, some of that customization is gone, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The keyboard seems more autonomous than it once was.

The whole idea behind Swype is that you can just draw the words you with your finger. Other contenders have implemented this feature, not least among them SwiftKey and Google itself in Android 4.2. With some of the improvements Swype has made, I think it might actually be the best at swiping input.

I would say that Swype got words correct more than nine times out of ten. No more do you have to hover over double letters, or land exactly on each key. Swype seems a little better at getting what I'm after than stock Android, and much better than SwiftKey. The tracing seems a bit more responsive in Swype than the other options, and it makes fewer common errors. However, you’ll quickly find some tricky key combinations, like the difference between ‘our and ‘or.’ Tapping input used to be very bad in Swype, but in this version it’s actually quite good.

I like the shortcut gestures Swype implements. For example, swipe from period to space to finish off a sentence, or drag up above the keyboard at any time to capitalize the previous letter. I’m not really crazy about the decision to integrate Nuance’s own Dragon voice input engine in place of Google’s, but I can understand the decision from a branding perspective. Dragon works well, but seems a bit slower than Google voice input.

The new Swype has several themes to choose from, including a very nice Holo look. There will reportedly be more themes later, but the ones we have now look far better than the old default Swype theme.

Swype is only $0.99 right now in celebration of the Google Play launch. This keyboard works on phones and tablets, with the latter allowing various layout options. If you’re in need of a good alternative keyboard for your device, check out Swype.

Android has come a long way in the last two years, traversing the expanse between version 2.3 and now 4.2. Looking at these two landmarks, it’s plain that Google started taking design seriously. Whereas Gingerbread and older versions of the platform were functional, but aesthetically questionable, the 4.x variants are genuinely beautiful. Google has also worked to fill in the feature gaps and build better developer tools in recent years.

Photo credit: Flickr user mor10 via Creative Commons.

With Google I/O just a few weeks away, it’s looking like we will see the next version of Android -- reportedly codenamed Key Lime Pie (KLP). It’s been almost two years since Android has seen a sizeable interface shift, and it could be time for another. Let’s take a look at what might happen in such a revamp.

Android’s UI Future Lies with The Cards

First, a word about version numbers. We simply don’t know what version number Key Lime Pie is going to be. Google might not even know yet. The original rationale for the desert-themed codenames was to delay the selection of a version number until the OS was closer to completion. Some blogs seem dead set on calling KLP “Android 5.0.” It is entirely possible Google will go with version 5, but we have no way of knowing yet. As such, I’m sticking with Key Lime Pie for now.

Without a doubt, one of the things that made Android into a much more attractive OS is the introduction of the Holo design guidelines. Google even created an entire website for designers and developers to use as a reference when making Holo-style apps. It’s been a rousing success -- even apps that use the plain Holo templates look great. However, some aspects of Holo are starting to look a bit old fashioned in the world of interface design.

There's always a new app or game coming out for Android, which is rapidly catching up to that other platform. If you seriously evaluated every app of note, it would be a full time job. Best to just rely on the Google Play App Roundup to filter things for you. This is the place you can find the best new and newly updated apps on Android. Click on the app names below to head right to the Google Play Store.

This week we have a completely redesigned file explorer, a great platformer, and a game with lots of explosions.

ES File Explorer

Android has a full file system and there are times you might want to dig around in it. Plenty of apps exist that fulfill that function, but ES File Explorer was one of the first well-known options. It has been around for years, but changed very little. Now ES File Explorer has been updated to version 3.0, and it’s totally redesigned. Not only that, but it’s still completely free.

The new UI has a more modern feel, but it’s not Holo. That’s fine by me as I feel like some of the straight-up Holo apps are starting to look a little generic. ES File Explorer uses an Android-friendly color scheme and simplifies the menu system quite a bit.

The interface is made up of a number of swipable panels, each for a different kind of storage. There is local storage, root, LAN, and cloud storage (Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, etc.). You can see what panels you have open with the icons at the top of the screen, and any of them can be closed with the X in the corner.

Your folders and files in each panel will be in a vertically scrollable list, and I’m very happy with the icons. ES used to have cartoon-y icons and it just looked unprofessional. The new icon set is mature and understated. There is also support for themes, but the only one right now is the “classic” look. No thanks.

Most of ES File Explorer’s UI is easy to figure out, but the function buttons at the bottom are more than they appear. If you swipe across that bar right to left, you get a thumbnail preview of your open windows along with the ability to manage them. Useful, but not terribly obvious. Long-pressing on a file or folder activates multi-select mode. However, if you just start dragging an item, you get corner shortcuts. By dropping the icon onto one of these, you can delete, move, copy, or share a file. This is very cool, but again, not easily discoverable.

Like some other file managers, ES adds extra tools including an app backup manager, download manager, SD card analyzer, and the ability to create a local network server on your device. It’s impressive to see so much included with a free app.

I would say that Solid Explorer is still my favorite Android file manager, but it’s not free. I know that’s important to some folks. So if you need to access Android’s file system, check out ES. It’s virtually the same as the paid alternatives.

The specs of Android hardware continue to increase at an almost obscene rate. Not two years ago a dual-core phone was a novelty -- the highest of high-end. Now we’re on the cusp of eight-core devices with the Galaxy S 4, and the clock speed of ARM chips is beginning to rival those of recent desktop processors. The numbers are getting incredibly large, but what does any of that mean to you? Can you just run the new 3DMark for Android and call it a day?

Benchmarking devices has been a pastime of modders and enthusiasts for years, but not all benchmarks are created equal on Android. While some have real-world applications, others are merely a distraction. Let’s take a closer look at what benchmarking can tell you.

Another week has started, and that means it's time to check up on the Android app ecosystem. With the huge number of apps arriving on a daily basis, you could install things all day and not find what you really need. We're here to cut through the nonsense and save you time. Simply click on the app name to head right to the Play Store.

This week we've got a cool new SMS app, a surprise from Amazon, and a game with invertebrates.

Ninja SMS

You've probably heard all the fuss over Facebook Home in recent days, and one of the more interesting features of Zuckerberg’s new project is Chat heads. These are floating popups that appear on your screen when you get a Facebook message. But what if you don’t really use Facebook messaging, but like that functionality? Well, Ninja SMS does it for (you guessed it) your text messages.

If you’re using an alternative SMS app like Go or Handcent, you’ll have to disable it to use Ninja SMS. When first run, the app will have you select which contacts get popups. I’m incredibly happy you can choose only select contacts -- I don’t need every random text message interrupting what I’m doing. Ninja SMS automatically selects your most frequent contacts, but you can add or remove people as you see fit.

The settings also contain a few useful options for how the app behaves. There are quite a few themes to choose from, which is nice to have. The default theme is a black/green number that isn’t the most attractive.

The popup will intercept the SMS notification for your chosen contacts each time you get a message, but the text will still go into the stock messaging app if you want to review later. The popup has a small conversation view, input field, send button, and a few controls hanging off the left side. The top button toggles partial window transparency so you can see more of what’s going on behind the popup. Below that is a full-screen toggle for easier viewing. This makes Ninja SMS feel like a full-scale app.

At the bottom is the minimize button. This turns your conversation into a floating “Chat head” that you can place wherever you want for quick access to the conversation. Unlike Facebook Home, this app lets you place the floating disembodied head wherever you want. And yes, you can have multiple floating windows up at once.

I haven’t experienced any slow downs with Ninja SMS on my Nexus 4, but there are still a few bugs. Minimizing to the head-only widget sometimes makes the app go invisible. This has only happened twice in a few days, but I had to force stop the app to rectify the error.

Ninja SMS is $0.99 in Google Play. If you send a lot of SMS and don’t want to bounce back and forth between apps, this is a recommended purchase.

At Facebook’s recent event, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the much-anticipated Facebook phone, but it isn’t what many in the industry predicted. Instead of forking Android like Amazon did for its Kindle Fire tablets, Facebook has built a new home screen interface and partnered with HTC to launch a phone with Facebook’s home alternative pre-installed. The home screen, more than any other part of the phone, has become the heart of the experience.

Facebook is, of course, far from the first to rethink Android’s home screen. All the major OEMs make huge changes to Android’s home screen, but third-party developers have long been in on the game too. Let’s take a look at how the home screen experience has changed on Android, and what each party gets out of the deal.

Another week is upon us, and that means it's time to check out the state of the Google Play Store. Your phone is only a shadow of itself without the best apps, so it's a good thing we're here to save the day. Just click on the app name to pull up the Google Play Store so you can try things out for yourself.

This week you can learn about a way to always know where yo left your car, a game with lots of zombies, and a post-apocalyptic shooter with robots.

Valet

It’s rare to find an app that is both utilitarian and attractive, but Valet seems to fit the bill. This is an app that can quickly place a GPS marker on your car after it’s parked so you can find it later. It’s not the first app to do this, but it has some interesting features (and did I mention it’s gorgeous?).

The app has a stripped down interface that’s very easy to use. Simply open it and tap “park my car” at the bottom. An embedded Google Maps frame at the top of the UI shows your current location with the Valet marker. This window is not static, but lets you zoom and pan around. This is handy to have when you need to get your bearings.

Once your car is parked in the app, a row of buttons pops up at the bottom of the screen. They are Maps, alarm, cancel, and share. The Maps button calls out to your installed mapping apps (like Google Maps) to search for your car’s exact GPS coordinates. This is how you’ll find your way back when the time comes. Using Google Maps, you can jump right into walking navigation to get back to your car. It’s probably smart that Valet doesn’t try to do this itself -- Maps is always going to be better at it.

The alarm button can be used to set reminders for meters and other parking-related cutoffs. The cancel button can be used to remove the Valet marker. The sharing option is useful in a number of ways, but not so much in the context of parking. You can use this to offload your car’s GPS coordinates into other apps. For example, you might want to use this to direct others to your car’s location if you’re giving them a lift.

Valet costs $0.99, which I think is totally reasonable. There is, however, and in-app purchase that can be made if you want a certain advanced feature. The auto-park button in the lower right corner ties Valet into your device’s Bluetooth connection. If your car has Bluetooth, Valet can detect when you disconnect, and automatically “park” the car. Very cool, but the feature costs you $4.99. I feel like that’s a bit steep.

Overall, Valet is a beautiful app that does its job well. The basic app is definitely worth checking out.