SPlog

Today there are so many e-book services out there, it’s hard to choose which one to stick with. Do you go with Amazon Kindle books or stay within Barnes and Noble’s nook books? Oh wait there is also books from Google, Apple, and even Kobo. With all these services, all claiming to offer you what you need in books, which do you choose?

Amazon Books offer many books through their online amazon store. Many times their book prices are very competitive for Barnes and Noble, so most of the times it makes no difference between the two. You can read you whole Amazon library on your Amazon Kindle. They also offer free apps for the Blackberry, Windows Phone, Android, and iPhone allowing you to read your book wherever, across whatever device you own. I personally use the Kindle to purchase how to books for technology. They seem to have lower prices on books that teach you how to do things, like build a website, or mobile app.

The Barnes and Noble stores offer their nook books that can be read on your PC, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or Windows phone. You can also purchase their nook reading device to have instant access to your library. They offer a great source for novels. I personally will tend to buy my novels from them, like Sons of Encouragement by Francine Rivers. Barnes and Noble also offer Nook Friends, where you can borrow books from friends. So this makes Nook my preferred source for personal reading.

Google Books has an e-reader device as well. They offer apps for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry. But the best part about Google Books, is that they require no program to read their books. They are all online, so all you need is an internet connection to be able to read your books. So any device that can access the internet can read the Google Books. This means you can access your book from anywhere in the world. If you own a device that has the Google Books app, you can also download the book for access during times that you have no wifi. Google Books tends to focus on material that is in the Public Domain, and books that are older. They have software to scan the pages of  a book and translate it into text. This makes them the number one source for older books.
I took a college class that was focused on the works of Thomas Hardy. I was able to get all of the required Thomas Hardy books for free via Google Books. It was great! Also I use Google Books to purchase any book that I will want instant access 24/7, like any study material, or Biblical helps.

Apple offers books as well, but I have not used them personally. They offer no app for Android devices, RIM devices, or Windows Phones. However if you have an iPhone or iPad, you can get books there for a decent price. Sometimes even better than Kindle or Nook devices. They also offer a great reading experience for iOS users.

The Kobo books are limited at this time but expanding. Although they might seem insignificant, they offer a great reading experience, and can also read your nook, kindle, and Google books all within the same app or device.

I personally stick with the following three: Google Books, for old books and things I need access to at all times; Kindle Books, for the technical books, and how to books; and the nook books for anything I want to personally read.

On a side note. There is big taboo about getting school books in e-book format. Personally, I don’t like that idea because I like to resell the book after I’m done with it. Unless there is some type of buyback option, or selling tool, it is not a viable feature for me.

There are a lot of music player apps on the android market today. Today I will list all of the top ones that I tested, and will give you my favorite features as to each. These are not in any particular order, each one functions just a little bit differently, so they each have their strengthens and weaknesses.

The first is the default Android Music Player. This app is not on my favorite list, and if you own an Android phone, then you know what I mean. The player isn’t the best designed music player, and is not as user friendly as other players. Just about everyone that I talk to that has an Android phone, hate their default music player. It does have tabs to access different categories of music like genres, albums, songs, and playlists. But once you start the song, it really isn’t as easy to access the view of the album and look at other songs. My guess is that the app was quickly built so the functionality isn’t as great.

WinAMP

Next is Winamp. This app is my absolute favorite free music app if I have music files loaded on my phone. The player is very sleek and user friendly. Personally I think it kills the iPod app for the iPhone. It runs smoothly and very efficiently. The ability to make and edit your playlist is the best of all the music apps I’ve tried. It also has lock screen buttons enabled so that you can access the media buttons without unlocking the screen. This allows the user to quickly pause or skip sons without actually unlocking the screen and opening the app. Full equalizer, and so much more! So this app is the absolute best if you have the mp3 files on your phone.

Doubletwist

Next is Doubletwist. This is the Android’s best app that mimics the iPod app. You can choose to download the doubletwist player for you computer (like iTunes) host your songs and make your playlists via the computer program, or it will even scan your iTunes library for songs and playlists. It then syncs to your phone so that you have your songs in sync with your computer, just like how the iPhone can sync to your iTunes. This is the best feature for this app. The player also supports lockscreen buttons that allow you to play, pause, and seek forward and backwards while the screen is still locked. The user interface is nice and smooth, it is even very similar to Winamp, but not as good. Winamp still beat Doubletwist for having a player to play your songs and such. However Doubletwist is best if you want to sync your music with your computer, as winamp can’t really do that very well.

Google Music

My favorite music player is Google Music. They allow me to upload up to 20,000 of my songs to their cloud. I then have access to my music anywhere there is an internet connection. This is really great for songs that I don’t listen to very often, but still want them accessible quickly when needed. They even make it where you can have your favorite music offline. Such a feature allows a person to access the music without a using the data. The user interface is nice, but not as nice as winamp or doubletwist. They don’t even allow for media player buttons on the lock screen. You have to unlock the screen first and then access the song player to pause. That because annoying a lot of times, but despite its many cons it does host all my music for free on the Google cloud. That is the sole feature I absolutely love.

Amazon MP3

Amazon MP3 is more of a mp3 store than it is a player, but they do have a built in player for any music on their cloud. If you purchase any music from Amazon it can be hosted on their cloud for free. They offer paid services to host you own personal music on their cloud as well. But as for their app, the style and design is not as good as Google Music.

REAL Player

Real Player, the only player on the list that does not come from a top developer. The company makes a really great music player for the pc, so I thought I’d give the android app a try. Although the app is still in Beta (and has been since I first got my android phone over a year ago) it  is still really sleek and well designed. The app is more of a media center than just a music player. It will scan you songs, videos, and pictures, and will load them to be played or viewed. The music part is the main reason for downloading so I will keep the review to that. It has a basic feel to it. The songs and albums load in list format just as any other media player would do. The functionality is basic while the design is sleak and nice. It has a nice feel to it, but it still doesn’t compare to Doubletwist and Winamp. However it does provide an upgrade compared to the default android music player, and it does effectively combine all media, pictures and music and video, into one well designed app.

PowerAMP

Equalizer for PowerAMP

Power Amp, the only one on the list that costs. The app is truly amazing. Supports both big screen tablets as well as phones. It comes with a really cool equalizer, and sound settings. It has separate Bass and Treble adjustment. They even have some presets you can browse through, or make your own custom presets. It has a customizable lock screen. The developer really did a great job on this, because it comes with swipe motions to make it more to advance to the next song or rewind. You can also use the onscreen buttons as well. You can longpress on the back or forward buttons to rewind or fast forward through a song respectively. Swipe the screen up and down to choose albums and such.
This app is really cool! I has a lot of advanced features that are awesome. It has the highest level of customization than any other music app I’ve ever seen. It supports lyrics for singing along. The design is sleek and stylish. It comes with 4 configurable widget types. It has headset support that can (it’s optional) auto play/pause when disconnected and reconnected by headset or Bluetooth. They have great support, and even a q/a section in the app description on the Market. If the app didn’t cost, I’d use it for good. You can download a 2 week trial for free, but the full app costs $4.99. This app surpasses all music apps by far, just using it once will convince anyone.

So in conclusion, currently I only use Google Music because it hosts all my music online, and I don’t have to keep any on the drive. If i had the music on my phone, then I would probably be really tempted to buy Power Amp, as it is by far the best music app I’ve ever tried. But knowing that $5 is hard to justify just for a music player, I’d use winamp instead. I may download doubletwist for movies, since it has a great movie player, but I really wouldn’t use it at all for music. Although the Real Player app is a great idea, it really hasn’t been developed well enough to use it seriously. I use Amazon MP3 mainly just for downloading new songs, and rarely ever use the music player that’s built in. And last of all, I will never use the default android music player for any of my songs as I absolutely detest it.