Smart Emoji Keyboard: Even free is sometimes too much (Review)

With the recent acquisition of SwiftKey by Microsoft, interest in alternative keyboards has sparked. There’s a wealth of alternatives in the Play Store, including household names like Swype, TouchPal, Fleksy and Google Keyboard. In a category where companies rely on licensing or micro-transactions to sustain themselves, Smart Emoji Keyboard (by the appropriately-called Keyboard Apps Developer) offers a completely free alternative, albeit with very heavy advertising, along with features that users have come to expect from a keyboard.

Highlights:

• Unbelievably high number of ads throughout the app
• Support for four languages in different variants
• No micro-transactions: all themes are free
• Normal options (auto-complete, auto-capitalization, suggestions, etc.) are included
• New emojis are nowhere to be found

Setup

Clearly, the design is Holo-inspired.

For those with limited internal storage, you’ll be happy to know that Smart Emoji Keyboard weighs only 8.99 MB. With competitors such as SwiftKey and Google Keyboard clocking at 20+ MB, it’s a big advantage for users that make each MB count.

If you’ve installed a third-party keyboard before, you know what to expect from a keyboard setup. In case you haven’t, the 2-step process involves enabling Smart Emoji Keyboard from a list of installed keyboards, and then setting it as the default one. Unfortunately, upon opening the app for the first time, you’ll begin the ad-riddled journey that this app offers with a full screen ad. After ignoring it, you’ll finally be presented with the app’s setup screen.

Features

The app’s main interface focuses on customizing the keyboard through themes. This is a necessity, given that the default, Holo-inspired theme makes your keyboard look like it was shipped four years ago. There are some bundled themes, with more options available through the Play Store, completely free of charge. There’s a Material Design theme (curiously called Android L) among the downloadable offerings to bring it to our times.

Main screen, showing the available themes.

Unfortunately, testing new appearances is a chore because every time you change a theme, a full screen ad shows up. I’m aware that the keyboard and its themes are provided for free, but seeing so many full screen ads in such a short span of time left a bad taste in my mouth. If it wasn’t enough, there’s a screen dedicated to promoting other keyboards, and each time you swipe to it, another full screen ad shows its ugly face.

Using the keyboard itself, I found an acceptable performance throughout different apps. It’s not as snappy as Google Keyboard, and it definitely doesn’t have beautiful animations like Fleksy, but it gets the job done. However, the key press pop-up tends to lag and display erratic behavior, especially when pressing the space bar. To change between languages, you can swipe the space bar.

It’s worth noting that auto-correct tends to be more effective in English than in Spanish, and that there’s no next word suggestion whatsoever. There’s English-only voice input, though, which uses Google’s voice recognition.

Emojis are undoubtedly one of the main features of the app (it’s even named after them). Even though it certainly has emojis (which are easily accessible through a button at the left of the space bar), the keyboard doesn’t feature the newest ones introduced by Google and Apple at the end of 2015.

The options screen.

The keyboard options can be accessed by pressing the gear icon at the bottom of the app, or by long-pressing the emoji key. After enduring the now-predictable full screen ad, you are shown settings such as auto-capitalization, suggestions, auto-complete and input languages.

Dictionaries are available for different variants of English, Spanish, French and Portuguese only. There’s also options to add a number row, a hugely requested, but rarely acknowledged feature. However, contact suggestions, dictionary improvements through social media analysis or different layouts are nowhere to be found.

Conclusion

If Smart Emoji Keyboard sounds like a run-of-the-mill keyboard, it’s because it is. There’s no feature that makes it stand out, and you know things aren’t good when one of the biggest talking points about it is the unrestrained amount of ads.

In a hypothetical world where Google Keyboard, Fleksy and Swiftkey are sold for a hefty fee, customers may put up with pesky monetization methods in exchange for a free experience. However, that’s not our world, so Smart Emoji Keyboard must find an alternative way of making money and a killer feature in order to stay relevant.

Download (or not) from the Play Store.

The post Smart Emoji Keyboard: Even free is sometimes too much (Review) appeared first on AndroidGuys.

[TA Deals] Score a Codeanywhere 3-year subscription for $59

Developing across different platforms with other people is pretty tricky, but Codeanywhere takes everything to the cloud to enable simultaneous editing and collaboration for web development. On Talk Android Deals, you can pick up a 3-year subscription to Codeanywhere’s Freelancer plan for a steep discount. It allows you to connect to multiple servers and utilize clients like FTP, Dropbox, and GitHub to get work done.

• Code anywhere, anytime: from a browser, any iOS or Android phone or tablet, etc.
• Collaborate on your code in real time: pair program, get help from a friend, etc.
• Connect to your code via FTP, SFTP, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
• Run any command on your container or remote servers (using SSH)
• View different versions of your code to pinpoint disparities between each of your saves
• Choose from a large number of predefined dev stacks
• Easily connect to your existing Git repositories

Although the value of this 3-year subscription is $259, you’re going to be paying much less after enjoying a 76% discount. We’re offering the Codeanywhere Freelancer plan, which is yours for three years, for just $59.

[Talk Android Deals]

Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] Score a Codeanywhere 3-year subscription for $59

Shortcut Launcher review

Customization is a big part of Android, and much of that customization comes from a variety of different launchers. It’s not often that we see a whole lot of good launchers come to the Play Store, as things like Nova Launcher and Action Launcher 3 has established themselves as pillars within the community. However, a new launcher called Shortcut might just be able to become one of those top dogs.

Setup

Getting Shortcut setup is just as simple as any other launcher. All you have to do is download it and set it as your default launcher when prompted. It’s a very easy and quick process.

Shortcut specializes in Information

Shortcut is a lightweight launcher with “lightning fast search” in tow. The design is hardly that of stock Android, and it seems to do a lot of things similarly to the Microsoft Arrow launcher.

You can swipe right to access your app tray, which is alphabetized for quick access. This is also where you can access all of your widgets as well as the Settings menu.

One of the unique things about Shortcut is that it keeps things simple and elegant, but makes Search a big priority. In our age of wanting information on-demand, having a powerful search tool is a must. That’s where things like Google Now have come from. Shortcut does things similarly, but in a way, it makes things more convenient and functional than Google Now.

You can search anything in Shortcut; it’s your access to contacts, information on restaurants, movies, TV shows, and much more. Search results will give you Action Cards, which are basically quick ways to perform actions, such as booking an Uber ride, reserving a spot at a restaurant, and getting quick access to movie information, and other relevant actions.

It’s all very snappy, quick, and efficient. My only other complaint is that there’s not many features available inside the application. Nova Launcher and Action Launcher 3 are packed full of different features, but it seems the Search is Shortcut’s only strength. But then again, that might not be a bad thing.

Closing

I’ll be using Shortcut for the foreseeable future, and I’d highly recommend you give it a try as well. Nova Launcher and Action Launcher 3 have a lot of great features, but if you’re looking for convenience and a powerful search tool, Shortcut is the tool for the job.

If you’re interested in taking it for a spin, be sure to hit the download link below.

Play Store Download Link

Come comment on this article: Shortcut Launcher review

uTorrent offers ad-free option for $5 a year

uTorrent recently opted to monetize with ads, but it turns out that pirates hate those as much as paying for content. Now, parent BitTorrent is trying something else — offering a subscription to eliminate ads for $5 per year. That may not seem like much, but uTorrent has over 150 million users, so even if a small chunk of them opted to pay, it could generate millions in cash. (To be fair, torrents can be used for legal purposes, like streaming US election coverage.)

There are now three tiers: a free app with ads, the new $5 ad-free version and uTorrent Pro, which also gives you virus protection, support and instant streaming for $20 per year. It’s normally possible to disable ads in the free version, though we’re not sure if uTorrent has closed that loophole with the new paid version. Last year, uTorrent tried to milk its huge user base by forcing them to mine bitcoins, but it quickly discontinued the practice and apologized to users.

Via: Venture Beat

Source: uTorrent

RIP: Adblock Plus

I got a little too excited when the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) chief called Adblock Plus (ABP) “an unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes.” I immediately wanted to know when the next coven meeting was and how many stars to sew onto my witch cape.

The chief’s accusations of heresy came after ABP was disinvited from the bureau’s Leadership Summit. IAB’s chief further twisted the ceremonial dagger by saying they weren’t invited “in the first place.”

After that splendid outburst of public bitchiness, finding and joining the ad-blocking coven was my destiny. But little did I know that any ad-free witchery Adblock Plus might’ve been storing up for future spell-casting was getting less ad-free by the minute.

Disappointingly, Adblock Plus didn’t respond to IAB’s dramatic snub by holding a recruitment open house for its mendacious coven.

Instead Adblock Plus held a summit earlier this week in London to hash out a new treaty with ad publishers, so even more of them can be white-listed to bypass the popular tool’s advertising filters.

The superstar ad-blocking tool has already taken a lot of heat for having that white list in the first place — called an “acceptable ads” policy — as well as the way it’s executed.

Not all of its 144 million or so users know this, but Adblock Plus comes preloaded with a filter that allows some ads to be shown. That white list is turned on by default when someone installs Adblock Plus, so users must manually opt out if they don’t want to see any ads. Those ads that don’t get blocked come from companies and organizations that Adblock Plus calls “strategic partners.” They are all manually approved by ABP and must meet ABP’s acceptable ads criteria.

Large companies pay Adblock Plus’ parent company, Eyeo, for this white-listing, though it’s offered free for small and medium-size websites. Even after it started rolling out in 2011, Eyeo would not name its white-listed “strategic partners.” But when information was leaked, the ad blocker confirmed to Financial Times that it was giving a pass to more than 300 businesses. It was reported that “one digital media company (which asked not to be named) was told that it would cost 30 percent of its advertising revenue to be whitelisted by Eyeo and Adblock Plus.”

Its pay-for-play deals with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and multi-billion dollar “native content” ad company Taboola were also confirmed.

Do you recognize that last one? If not, you surely know Taboola’s trademark “Around The Web” paid-content links — as in, those clickbait redirect articles sometimes called “You May Also Like,” confusingly displayed alongside actual articles on news sites. Right now on The Atlantic you can see Taboola’s “25 Stars Who Are Literally Unrecognizable Without Makeup,” and on Daily Mail, “Get Paid $150 For Using This Credit Card.”

This is the same Taboola that was smacked down by the Better Business Bureau not too long ago for blurring the line between so-called “native advertising” and real editorial content. Taboola’s unsuccessful argument against the agency’s charges was that it isn’t an advertiser and therefore isn’t subject to the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division rules.

Maybe a scornful rival coven cursed Adblock Plus to have bad taste in strategic partners. But bad taste can’t hurt you, right? In our brave new world of skyrocketing malvertising infections, it can.

While Adblock Plus appears to be careful about documenting the screening of its white list, the security of ads served through ABP’s white list is the elephant in the room. That’s because ads that get a pass on ABP’s white list are only going to be as secure as the sources serving them to viewers. For an example, look no further than the June 2014 Syrian Electronic Army hack on Reuters — which was done through compromising Taboola’s ad slots.

Adblock Plus says its white list program is designed to make the internet better through encouraging unintrusive ads … though I think it’s important to note that the “Acceptable Ads” anchor tag (its midpage URL) is #monetization. The program is framed as a practical compromise between the conflicts of ads and ad blocking. On top of all of this philosophy, ABP claims its white list is something its users want (citing this survey, which doesn’t actually say that).

Some advertisers resent the program almost as much as they hate the fact that ad blockers even exist. In recent lawsuits against the company, some ad publishers have called ABP’s white list program “extortion,” “racketeering” and a “shakedown.”

I’m guessing those advertisers are the ones who’ve been left off the white list — for now, anyway.