One Year with Google Play Music

I'm approaching one year with Google Play Music All Access (it's also approaching its one year anniversary). I switched the week it was launched from an Rdio service that I loved for one that I quickly felt offered a similar experience at a better value. I think I'm probably a power user. I've listened to 115 songs 20 times or more (196 hours), another 286 songs 10-20 times (241 hours) and 1446 songs less than 10 times. Those only count the songs that "made the cut" to be added to my library. For someone who doesn't even have streaming access during my 9-5 I think that qualifies me as something of a power user.

Before I run through my wish list, I'd like to say that I love the service. I seldom have issues with playback. I feel the quality is good. I think the layout both on the web and on my Android app are great. I'm a big proponent of subscription music services (see playback hours above) and think that Google has built a great overall product with Play Music. 

That said, here are a few things I would like to see from the service as it heads into its second year:

Link Devices Better

Nearly every morning I use Play Music on my Chromebook while I have my morning coffee, peruse the news, and get ready for work. When I leave the house I often fire up Play Music in my car, but there is no way to just pick up where I left off. This was something that Rdio did well. Another impact of the failed linking is that my "Listen Now" tab is completely independent between my phone and computer - recent plays are remembered by device rather than by account. 

Better Music Discovery

Google Now tells me daily travel times to things through an incredibly intuitive process, but Play Music regularly misses when artists I listen to release new stuff. I often hear about new releases on blogs or even from the Rdio "New Music From Artists You Listen To" email before Google recommends it. The "I'm Lucky Radio" is often a good place for discovery, but direct recommendations are lacking. 

Better Recognition of Subscribers

I'm a paying monthly subscriber of All Access. So is my fiance. But when I share music with her, Google only manages to share a preview and link to buy the song/album. A better sharing experience would encourage more people to get on board with subscriptions. Sharing is social, and if sharing was better for subscribers it would make the All Access more social and generate more music sharing and discovery. The lacking feature makes it pretty clear that Google makes more money via selling music than subscriptions. I get that, but an increase in the volume of subscribers has some value too.

Dream Idea

Dear Google - You make a lot of money via advertising and local search and events get more and more prominence via Search and Now. Instead of recommending 4 "radio stations" to me (I've never once clicked on one) please recommend bands that are coming to my area and then, when I play them, make sure they show up in Now. You will help me discover more music and I'll probably buy the occasional ticket. For example - Jack White is coming to Milwaukee in July, I listen to a bunch of Jack White, bands he's been a part of, and numerous, similar artists. If you are going to recommend anything to me it aught to be Jack White a little more often for the next couple months and then make sure I know I can click your link to buy tickets.

Some people might say they don't want Google to "doctor" the results that much - that they want recommendations to be purely driven by some algorithm that has identified the perfect music for their tastes. I think this is the type of example that blows that out of the water. I already listen to plenty of Jack White and similar music and it would improve my experience to get recommendations for more of him (both his new album and some old things I may not be familiar with) as the concert nears and to complete that experience with a live concert by a band that I enjoy. If Google just partnered highly powered marketed bands and recommended Miley Cyrus to me before she came to town that would be bad as I have never played her or a similar artist via Play Music.

Further, since Google shows that selling music is more profitable than subscriptions, this would be a way to improve profitability from the subscription service and ensure the long-term offering of the product.

Just my two cents, but as a daily user of the service these would definitely be welcome additions.

App Review: Any.Do

Any.Do is one of the top task management apps available on Android. If you haven't followed the new app buzz over the past 6 or so months, you might have missed Any.Do. It's relatively new to the scene, and if you've been using an older task app, this review is for you.

Grade: A

Quick Pitch: Any.Do does just what you'd expect any task management app to do - it allows you to enter tasks and reminders, then check them off when you've completed them. It's the way Any.Do does it that makes it one of the best apps for the job. It runs on a simplistic, clean UI that is so eye-appealing you'll spend time on the app just to look at it. It comes complete with 4 different widgets so you can keep you to-do list in front of you with ease. And it syncs with your Google Tasks so that you can manage and view your tasks online. When it comes to sharing and organization Any.Do makes collaborating on tasks easy. Whether a contact uses Any.Do or not, you can share any task with them directly from the app. Perhaps the best part of this app is the task entry. When typing a task into the app it predicts common tasks with the accuracy of the best text-prediction keyboards - "Pick up..." becomes a list of Pick up drycleaning - prescription - milk - check - etc. If you are entering contact information such as "call Mark" the app automatically queues up a list of Marks from your address book, lets you pick one, and places a phone shortcut in the task so you can simply call from the app when you're ready to complete that task. Finally, one of the newest features to this app launches a pop-up box after each missed call and allows you to add that call to your tasks for later.

Full Story: If you've read my previous reviews, you can probably tell I'm smitten with this app - I use probably 95% of its capabilities on a regular basis. I feel that using a task management app like this is a great compliment to using one of the great note-taking apps I previously reviewed because it keeps your tasks closer to your fingertips. Any.Do is still a relatively new app, it's not without its bugs, but the team behind the app is great with updates and more functionality is always coming. Before using Any.Do, I wasn't a regular user of any task management app, but tested out such apps as Taskos and Astrid before deciding that Any.Do was the one to go with. For me, it was about the simple UI.

Pros:

• Simple UI, easy to use - I'll admit it, I'm a guy, I don't like needing a task list to remind me to do anything (as much as I need it). So being able to get in and out of the list in a hurry is essential.
• Task Prediction - Any.Do can let you enter your tasks in half the time, simply because it knows all about common tasks.
• Missed Call Reminders - Add missed calls to your list and never forget to call someone back again.
• Widgets - If you're as bad as I can be at keeping your list in front of you, a widget will take care of that.

Cons:

• Syncing - While the app syncs with Google Tasks, I've had issues with that working from my tablet. The Any.Do team collected a bunch of feedback so I'm confident they'll find a fix, but in the meantime, my tablet only keeps tasks that I enter from my tablet.
• Organization - It's getting better, but for the most part you enter a task, then go back and choose a priority (today, tomorrow, this week, or later), whether to put it into a folder (personal, work, etc), whom to share it with, when to remind you, etc. A recent app update allows you to jump directly to share or remind - which are by far the best two options - but I still wonder how it might look if you could fully customize your task before submitting it.

Overall, this is a fantastic app and worth your time to give it a try. You can download it from the market here.

App Review: totenotes

Here's a very new app that many people probably haven't heard about yet. I have only been using it this week, but it's already shown me that it will get more than just a quick trial for review.

Grade A

Quick Pitch: totenotes is an app that launches after each call you complete and offers a chance for you to make voice notes regarding the call. It transcribes your note, attaches the mp3, and sends the whole shebang over to your preferred email (which you've smartly filtered for the expected message). totenotes goes a step further than some other "after-call" apps and allows you to set both All hours and Business (8-6) hours for the app to activate AND to set a timeframe for the pop up to disappear without you having to press anything.

Full Story: I expected to rate this app about a B-. I don't like apps that ask me to take an extra step after every call. It's just another obtrusive step with which I'd rather not deal. When I do need to make a note following a business call, I'm OK with heading over to my preferred note-taking app and doing it myself. totenotes however, is as automated and as unobtrusive as I've seen for this type of app. The additional benefit of being able to set business hours (even though I only get to choose totenotes' 8-6) is another great feature. If you use your phone for business use this is a fantastic app to try. If you are like me and taking notes is something you need to do more of, this is perfect.

Bonus idea -- If you want all of your notes in one place you could use your note-app's email account rather than your regular email.

Pros:

• Automated and Unobtrusive - this app does what you need it to, then gets the heck out of the way.
• Customization - there are a number of preference settings to help this app work for you.

Cons:

• Contact Recognition - I organize my Google contacts into groups like a boss, and I'd be totally OK giving totenotes permissions to see which contacts I'd leave notes for and which I won't.
• Notification Bar - I know this is really Android's problem, but I do have a threshold for the number of apps that I allow to occupy my notification bar all the time.

I only tested the free version of this app, but if you're looking for power-user options you can upgrade for $3.99 to be able to leave longer notes and add a CC email address. 

You can download the free version of the app here.

App Review: CallTrack

Today I take a look at one of my favorite productivity apps, CallTrack.

Grade: A-

Quick Pitch: CallTrack is a simple application that does exactly what you may have already guessed. It tracks all of the phone calls that you make. The real beauty of this app is that it doesn't require you to go to the app after initial setup. Instead, it posts all of your phone calls to a Google calendar. The app is incredibly simple, giving you options for which calendar you want to share it to and which combination of incoming, outgoing, and missed calls you would like to track. Oh, and it's free!

Full Story: For anyone who uses their phone for business this is a fantastic app. The ability to go back to your calendar to check out your phone activity is priceless. I created a separate Google calendar for my calls (this way I can toggle it off when looking for personal events) and I frequently go back it to check volume, verify when I last called a client, or to make notes. The only thing this app is missing is a way to specify contact groups or some other method to sort out personal and business phone activity.

Pros:

• Simple - Once you complete initial setup, all you have left to do is review your history. There's no on-going maintenance.
• Dependable - I've used many simple, unheralded Android apps and have survived my share of bugs. CallTrack always works.

Cons:

• Organization - Keeping personal and business calls separate would make for a better experience

You can download the app from the market here.

App Showdown: Evernote-Catch-Springpad

There are a number of note taking apps available for Android. Over the past few weeks I have reviewed three of the most common ones and today I'm bringing it all together for a head to head comparison.

This is my first attempt at an infographic (as it were). So bear with me a little bit, but I think it turned out well.

As you can see, these apps match up pretty well against one another with the only major notes going to Evernote's lack of QR scanning for notes and the absence of rich text formatting via the Catch and Springpad apps. Depending on how you plan to take notes, either of those items could become important to you, but for the majority of users, these apps are all even.

Highlights:

Evernote: For me, Evernote paced this group with the quality feel of the app. The crisp and flexible UI, and sharp colors (mostly green) were appealing every time I opened the app. 

Catch: The app and sync settings were king of the hill for Catch. That might not seem like a lot, since it's about app taking, but behind-the-scenes features often make the best experiences.

Springpad: The customizable widget offered by Springpad is sweet. You can set up the widget to make the app perfectly functional for you. 

So how do you choose?

The feel of each app is quite different, and I didn't share that in the graphic as it really isn't a tangible thing. The best advice I can give you is to download all three. Take some notes, organize them, refer back to them, repeat that for a week or so and go with the one that is most intuitive to you.

I had been using Evernote for more than a year prior to starting these reviews. So while I tried to be unbiased in my reviews, I also didn't find any compelling reasons to switch. I will say that if I was starting from scratch, Springpad is hard to ignore, I use my widget all the time with Evernote and Springpad's is great.

Download the apps from the Market links below and try them out for yourself:

Evernote

Catch

Springpad

Let me know if these reviews help you to choose an app or ways that I could make them more useful. I'll probably be staying away from apps that I'm not already using for a while. I worked hard to use Catch and Springpad enough to write a solid review, but feel that I can be much more thorough if I take my time. 

App Review: Springpad

This week I am reviewing my third note taking application, Springpad.

Grade: A

Quick Pitch: Like other note taking applications, Springpad is a full-service application that makes taking diverse types of notes a breeze. It comes complete with ways to add text, pics, audio, and even locations to notes. Springpad also has a built in advertising feature that pushes discounts to your app based on content - an example they give is you adding a recipe for a calzone and receiving a discount offer for $1 off a Pillsbury product. It also has all the usual organizational features with multiple notebooks, a variety of theme options, and a customizable widget.

Full Story: Springpad is compelling application for anyone looking to organize different thoughts and notes into a cloud-based application for access across all devices (read everyone). The app is both simplistic and powerful. The delivery of the options will help novice note-takers find ways to instantly integrate the app into their daily lives. I haven't had the opportunity to experience the content-driven ads as of yet. I'm not sure if this would be an annoyance or convenient, but given the fact that none of my business-minded notes have incurred an ad yet, it doesn't seem to be a major component either way. I can tell after a short time with Springpad that there is a lot to this app I wouldn't be able to review without a much longer test period. That's not to say that it's confusing, just that it's very feature rich and allows you deeper and deeper organization tools as you add content.

Pros:

• Customizable Widget - The widget is packed with a "wow" factor. There are 5 buttons on the widget, the first is to open the app, but the other five can be customized to the app features that you use most. This is a delivery that more developers should take note of.
• Note Organization - Springpad takes organization to another level. There are built in features for everything from recipes, to wines, to TV shows, and products. There are built in search features to match your notes with items from the web. 
• Clean interface - This is always important to me with apps because you want something that you can get in and get out with relative ease.

Cons:

• Rich Text - Springpad lacks rich text features that might otherwise allow convenient things like bold or italics. It also lacks numbering and bullets.

You can download the app from the market here.

Note 1 - This is a review that I wrote after giving Springpad some extensive use for a short period of time, unlike my Evernote review I haven't tested the app outside of the Android application as I tested it for purposes of review.

Note 2 - I intentionally didn't compare the app to previous Catch or Evernote reviews in this post. I'll be putting together a comparison of the three apps for next week.

App Review: Catch

This week I am sticking with note taking and organizing apps and reviewing Catch.

Grade A

Quick Pitch: Catch is a note taking application that allows you to create notes based on text, photo, and audio. It also has features that allow you create a reminder note for task or calendar use. Catch allows you 70 MB of storage for free, sharing options, and up to three "streams" to organize different categories of notes into.

Full Story: Catch is a great application. It offers extreme control over things like syncing, privacy, views, and tags - the options and ease-of-use of the settings are seldom matched in Android apps. Sometimes options like these can feel overwhelming, but Catch has the Settings Menu laid out in a way that even novice smartphone users will find logical.

Like it's competitors, Catch is built to cater to many parts of our diverse lives. As a professional note taking app, it's solidly built. Via the widget or the app itself, users can quickly jump to note creation options like text, photo, and voice. There is even a QR scanner built in to quickly add URLs to notes. One missing link was the options for text formatting with no bullets, numbered lists, or bold/italics/underlining here.

Pros:

• Settings - As mentioned, these are slick, you have great control over how the app acts.
• Widget - A solid 4x1 widget for your home screen that allows you to quickly start notes, great for getting an idea down and not taking up a chunk of time.
• Simplicity - The entire app is well designed to make sense the first time you use it, you won't find yourself hunting for a feature or menu you saw earlier, or a way to access a note.
• Free - The 70 MB of free storage is great for notetakers. Like it's competitors, this number sounds "light", but in reality isn't much of a restriction for most users.

Cons:

• Text editing - This won't bother you for jotting down quick ideas, but if you're into writing more detailed notes with formatted text you'll find this app lacking.
• Limited Streams - Catch limits free users to three streams to organize their notes into. If your brain typically organizes notes into more categories than that you'll find yourself having to convert over to tags - which Catch does well enough to make up the difference.
• Aesthetics - While the simplicity is to be praised, the app might be a bit too clean. The basic graphics and simple colors leave you with an impression that the app is cheap. While the features prove that impression wrong, it's still a hit.

You can download the app from the market here. 

Note 1 - This is a review that I wrote after giving Catch some extensive use for a short period of time, unlike my Evernote review I haven't tested the app outside of the Android application as I tested it for purposes of review.

Note 2 - I intentionally didn't compare the app to last week's Evernote in this post. I'll be covering another note-taking app next week and then putting together a comparison of the three after that.

App Review: Evernote

I'll start with a softball. I hope everyone knows about Evernote.

Grade: A

Quick Pitch: Evernote is a note taking application that allows you to take notes in the form of text, photo, or audio (or all three) and organize those notes into Notebooks. It comes with 60 MB of free storage space and is possibly the most consistent experience across devices available. Notes can be shared for collaboration.


Full Story: I certainly don't use Evernote for everything it can do, which is more a testament to it's full power than anything else. If you wanted to go all in with Evernote you really could manage most parts of your life with it. From a business sense, the best part about Evernote for me is being able to take quick notes on the go. Most of the time that means snapping a quick picture of a document or leaving an audio note to myself, but I frequently make text notes as well. I have set up several folders for different business needs and when making a note it's easy to choose which notebook I want to place it in, or just drop into my default folder for later.

Pros:

• Widget - I use the 4x1 widget on my phone which allows me to jump straight to text, camera, or microphone to start a note. It also opens the app or a search. The larger widget will show snippets of recent notes, I use this on my tablet.
• Multi-device - I take most of my notes during the work day on my phone, but I often access them at night via my tablet or desktop. The syncing is seamless and unlike other apps I've tried I never worry about any workarounds to make accessing my data the same.
• Free - Hard to beat that right? You can upgrade to premium storage, and eventually I will probably have to do that. However, if you're mostly using it for business purposes, many of your notes have a short shelf-life so you shouldn't have to worry about that 60 MB limit for a while.
• Frequent updates - Evernote is still innovating and making this product even better.

Cons:

• Google Docs integration - admittedly they overlap a little so I understand the separation, but I'll also admit that Google Docs is better for professional documents. It would be nice to integrate my notes into my favorite cloud document platform.
• Space limit - I can understand why they have one, but 60 MB seems quite small for a society where gigabytes are the norm. While I haven't hit the threshold yet two things are true, I'm stingy about the photo/audio notes I leave there, and I won't like the day I suddenly hit my cap and have to decide to either clear stuff out or pay up. I'm happy to pay for premium features, but size is always an awkward one.

You can download it from the market here.

Expanding Like-em

It's only week three and we're already expanding. Well, I'm expanding... the number of posts I write... and the topics I'm covering.

I'm having fun spending more time writing already this year (I've done more than you've seen), and I'm going to expand into another area of interest for me. I haven't picked a regular day yet... might be Fridays... but I will be writing reviews of Android apps for business use. I've spent a lot of time over the last twelve months searching for a good source of reviews for these apps and having found none, I decided to do it myself.

I'll be posting my first review right behind this, but here's a little bit about just how geeky I am.

I switched from Blackberry to Android almost a year ago. My main reasons for switching was a desire for an OS that provided me with better integration with the plethora of Google services I use, integration across the apps themselves, and a larger app market. I found all of those with Android. I know the highly customizeable style and unpolished apps aren't for everyone, but I'm someone who gets excited by trying things early, even if that means I have to have a little patience for any bugs.

Today, I have 135 apps on my phone. I wish I had kept track of all the apps I decided not to keep, but I'll wager that I've downloaded more than 200. I use my phone for many parts of my life from social media, fitness, and gaming, to organizing, music, and business. That's not to say that you'll never see my without my phone against my palm though, part of the grade that I give an app is for it's ability to help automate my busy life.

What I'm looking for is to build the perfect set of apps for business - the set that automates schedules, tasks, contacts, calls, notes, and everything else. I hope that we can start conversations here about these apps and find that perfect mix. It may not be the same for everyone, but the core likely can be.