Like me, have you got taxi war stories to tell?

Cutting traffic, stopping in the middle of peak hour traffic, drivers constantly on the phone the whole ride talking loudly to their mates in a (foreign) language (or any language at that!), being lectured to on anything from politics to social issues, drivers who have no idea how to get to your destination or maybe not even understanding you (or you them)?

As a “smart” Android user, don’t you think you deserve better? :)

Well you may have that choice!

A taxi app called Uber is making its way to Australia (Sydney and Melbourne at this stage) and via your Android phone (as well as some other smart platforms) promises …

Are you a user of AirDroid?

If you are, you might be interested to know that AirDroid v2 beta has just become available for public download.

If you aren’t, you might be interested to know what AirDroid does.  To put it in the Developer’s own words:

AirDroid is a fast, free app that lets you wirelessly manage your Android from your favorite browser

What that means is that AirDroid is capable of performing through your computer’s browser functions like transferring files between your computer and Android device over wifi, manage your smses, or even preview and manage photos and music off on your Android device.

Version 2 takes functionality further with the inclusion of additional features such as remotely …

Ho Ho Ho! As we draw nearer to the holiday season and that time of year many call Christmas, lots of children around the world will be looking to the night sky to see if they can catch a glimpse of the infamous (and notorious) Santa Claus.  Who wouldn’t want to spot that miracle worker Santa Claus as he single-handedly delivers toys to all the good girls and boys on Christmas eve? Well this Christmas, good-child Google is helping all the boys and girls track Santa Claus on his journey across the world via the Google Santa Tracker which is available on Android (as well as Chrome, Google Earth for 3D maps and PC).  Though the Android App is currently …

Today, Google announced version 4.2.1 of its Gmail app for Android via its Gmail profile on Google+ giving us some pretty nifty new features.

Amongst the new features:

• You can choose to have emails automatically resized to fit your screen with the ability to use pinch to zoom for closer looks.  No more annoying cutting off of emails and scrolling left and right.  I’ve given this a try and it makes my emails look tidier, but in some cases I’ve needed to pinch to zoom.  You can turn this on via Settings > General Settings
• You can choose to swipe to archive or delete from your inbox, making it quicker and easier to manage your inbox on the go.  If

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Have you been waiting to bring out the inner hoon in Need for Speed Most Wanted?  Or are you the quiet productive type who values an office suite to keep up with some serious portable word processing, spreadsheets and presentations?  Perhaps you value a launcher that has big simple buttons to keep you from squinting at the screen or staring at it 5cm from your face?

Well, if you’re like me and like saving a quick buck, head over to Google Play today for a sale on a huge list of apps!

If you’re wondering why all the sales happiness, it’s because overnight the USA went into crazy Black Friday mode – a day when huge retailers put on …

Editor’s Note: This post was written by an Android Australia reader, Vasyl Boroviak, as a guest post. Enjoy!

Have you ever noticed that a photo of a person you just shot needs some minor changes? This usually requires heavy Photoshop skills, a PC and the Photoshop itself. Well, you are not alone. Some Android developers out there faced these problems and developed face enhancement apps to throw ‘em in your face.

Let’s get down to business and enhance this 2MB photo only using free Google Play apps.

We would need to:

1. Crop it to square
2. Fix horizon
3. Remove dark spots on cheek and neck
4. Smoothen the skin
5. Whiten the teeth
6. Lighten the face
7. (optional) Apply a cool effect

A quick …

With summer around the corner, I’m sure many of you are planning some trips away. Whether you are road-tripping or jet-setting, you are likely to be spending money, and perhaps splitting a few bills along the way. Settle Up claims to be the solution to the dreaded “I think it’s your turn to pay”, and is most definitely ‘the best way to organise group expenses’.

In all, this app is pretty simple. First, you create a group; add all the people who will be involved, and ensure you have their email addresses to allow the app to sync with the other users’ phones.

Second, you add each new payment as it occurs – I found it useful …

The Australian Olympic Team has taken to mobile applications to share their status over in London with us. The app appears to have quite a few features that are relevant for the Aussie fan. If you’ve heard enough, then head over to the Google Play store to get your hands on the app – otherwise, read on!

Exclusive Australian Team content, and unparalleled detail on Australian Olympians competing in the London 2012 Games. A uniquely Australian perspective on everything from news, scheduling, results, exclusive athlete data and medal alerts.

But, what does that actually include? Thanks for asking:

• News
• Olympic news highlights
• ‘Gorgeous galleries’
• Schedule results
• Medal tally
• Medal push
• Australian athletes
• Profile cards

All of this is tailored for …

As many of you may know, Adobe have decided to stop developing Flash Player and not make it avaliable on devices running Jelly Bean (4.1) and later.

If you are one of the lucky people either running Jelly Bean officially (or through a custom rom) then you may have noticed that Flash Player has been pulled from the Google Play store.

Thanks to the good people at XDA-Developers.com, we now have a stable version of Flash Player for our Jelly Bean devices. The best part is, you don’t need root on your device.
It is a simple APK file that you just install directly onto your phone/tablet.

HOW TO INSTALL:

To install it, go to the XDA developer forum …

Usually, anything extra in my notification bar is simply frustrating – but developer Tomas Hubalek has got it right. Simple, fashionable and sleek; this battery widget truly compliments the look of your phone or tablet.

‘Battery Widget? Reborn!’ is a fantastic little addition to your phone or tablet, that you will be thankful for once downloading.

Simply, it will keep notice of your remaining battery life by percentage in your notification bar, and upon dragging this bar down, it will show you how much time you have left until your phone is dead, and what the current internal temperature of your phone is.

I know right, we all want Jelly Bean. And unfortunately unless we were at Google I/O, we probably don’t have it just yet.

Well, XDA Developer “mobint” has made it almost possible, with the release of the Jelly Bean-esque Holo Locker and Holo Launcher.

The lock-screen replacement app requires no root, is available on the Play Store and is a nice, easy way to bring a touch of JB to your GB or ICS Droid until the real thing appears.

Holo Launcher, on the other hand, was originally designed as a true ICS Launcher for Gingerbread devices, and has now been in for some Jelly Bean redesign work.

It brings the following features and is also free:

1. Full JB

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Get the popcorn ready Droiders, as one of the world’s leading open-source media players, XBMC, is about to hit Android! XBMC for Android has been in development for some time after recently launching on iPad and Apple TV (jailbreaking was required). Don’t get too excited though, for now only some source code is available. However, the devs behind the project have advised that some beta APKs will be available in the coming weeks.

Below we can see XBMC for Android running quite stable on a Pivos XIOS DS set-top box. How the various hardware pieces (i.e. phones and tablets) handle the decoding is yet to be seen. If anyone can conquer with a one-solution-for-all in the media/DLNA market, it’s the …