Apps
A black and white photo can often prove more dramatic than
shooting the same subject in colour.However, there’s more to good
monochrome photography than simply stripping out the colour data;
itrequiresintelligentuseofcontrastandothersettingstoobtainthebest
results. The BlackCam app let you shoot
using numerous black and white live
filters, some unlocked by upgrading to
the ad-free Pro version (£0.93./$1.49).
There’s a good range of filters, including
coloured lenses that highlight a particular
shade, while sliders are used to fine-tune
brightness, contrast and exposure. Other
settings include vignette, aspect ratio
and film grain. You can also apply filters
and adjustments to existing photos.
While other similar B&W camera apps are
available, this is one is very easy to use
and produces some excellent results.»PriceFree +IAP
»Designed forPhone
»Requires Android2.3PHOTO ART – COLOR EFFECTS » Paint colours and effects onto
black and white photos to create artistic images»like this?
try this!BlackCam
Shoot some dramatic monochrome photos
This nifty widget lets you view and interact with all your notifi cations
on your homescreen, lockscreen or DayDream screensaver. Settings
include enabling expanded notifi cations, excluding certain apps,
showing a clock and choosing a background colour (if any). Upon placing the
resizable widget, the notifi cations appear
as normal, including actions such as
share and reply, plus music playback
controls and more. To dismiss a
notifi cation, just tap its app icon; or tap
its body to open the relevant app. It’s
particularly useful if you use fullscreen
mode a lot, negating the need to
double-swipe to pull down the
notifi cations panel. It works similarly on
the lockscreen and you can set different
options for the latter. It’s a neat idea,
although we did fi nd the widget didn’t
work on all of our Android devices.» Price £0.95/$1.95
» Designed for Phone and tablet
» Requires Android 4.3NotiWidget
View notifi cations on any screen
NOTIFY! » A customisable widget to display notifi cations from
selected apps on the home/lockscreen»like this?
try this!Djay 2
Become a DJ with
millions of records
Finally, after lots of success on iOS, Algoriddim brings its popular DJing
app to Android. It looks near identical and comes with the same killer
feature: Spotify integration. As well as loading locally stored music onto
its twin turntables, you can mix any tracks you like from the millions on Spotify –
while a Premium subscription is required, a 30-day free trial is also available. It’ll
even suggest suitable matches for the currently playing song. The DJ tools are
impressive, including various audio effects, samples, loops and cue points, plus
a waveform view to aid beat matching. As well as manual speed adjustment, you
can hit the Sync button for automatic tempo syncing (or Automix to use the app
as an automated party DJ). A key-lock/time-stretch facility is currently only
available on quad-core Nexus devices. We also experienced some glitching when
switching to portrait mode and back. Overall, though, it’s an excellent DJing app
with the bonus of MIDI control using a Reloop Beatpad.“As well as locally stored
music, you can mix any
tracks you like from the
millions on Spotify”
Turntable
control
You can spin and scratch
both turntables manually
with your fi nger to achieve
classic DJing effects. Tap
the red beam to cut the
power for a slowdownA well-designed DJing app
with Spotify integration,
plenty of features and
easy-to-use controlsPerformance
Design
Value
» specification
Designed for Phone and tablet
Requires Android4.1Price £1.99/$2.99
» verdict
»^ like this? try this!
Cross DJ Pro This fine DJing app
boasts an impressive feature set,
including key detection and custom sample banksSpectral timeline
The coloured sections represent the
song structure (verse, chorus etc). Just
tap the timeline to move instantly to that
part of the trackEDITOR’S
CHOICE