So you’re in front of your laptop or with your tablet and you open four or five different tabs on your Chrome browser including YNaija, Bella Naija, Naij and maybe 360nobs. You’re switching back and forth between tabs and scrolling endlessly to get your latest gist. This might not seem tedious at first but after a lengthy period of scrolling and clicking and shuffling you might get exhausted.

How about you get all that info aggregated in one place? This is the awesomeness of the Amebo app.

1. It is FREE
What more can you ask for? An app that charges you zero to deliver all of your favorite content in one place is being doled out like jollof rice at an Owambe. All you have to do is find the corresponding app store and download it for free. There’s almost no excuse for not downloading this app if you like your Naija gist delivered to you daily on a platter.

2. Neat and hassle free
The designers at TexSoft who created this app have been able to design a clean and intuitive user interface for an otherwise rowdy, heavy traffic gist lane. It feels very rewarding just scrolling through to catch the headlines or tapping for the full info. The user experience is comparable to many other high profile apps out there.

3. Offline Mode
What if you’ll be away from network signals for a few days or a week or even more? No worries! The application saves all the data you have loaded from the last time you used the app so you can read anywhere. That includes in the jungle or even far out in the ocean.

4. Minimal Data Consumption
This app barely takes a toll on your data subscription for those who are wary about how many kilobytes they consume per second, per app, per day. Even those who don’t care will stay not caring because they will barely notice the data taking a hit.

The official site fo the app is at amebo.ng. The app is available on the Google Play Store, Blackberry Appworld, Nokia Ovi Store and the Windows Phone Store. iOS users will have to wait. I don’t think these guys own a Mac…yet.

Have you been using the app? Do you like it? Would you rather go back to browsing the websites instead? Leave your thoughts down below.

Some might argue BBM is not an app because it comes preinstalled with the OS. That’s like saying ‘Maps’ is not an app on android or iOS (iPhone/iPad) because it is there by default. Please.

The Blackberry messenger, which is the only reason a lot of people are still using RIM’s albeit outdated handsets, is our application of the month on aIRplaY.

BBM – as it is called by many of it’s fans all over the world – is an app that lets you connect to other Blackberry users around the globe (with a data connection of course). It lets you add contacts using a set of alphanumeric characters unique to every device. Its commonly reffered to as the Blackberry Pin or BB Pin for short. – think of it like a MAC address for the Blackberry. Name, email, phone number or even pin barcode could also be used. Once the contact is added, you can begin your endless addiction to the physical qwerty keypad which is RIM’s.

You can put your contacts into different categories for organisation purposes; say you want to separate work contacts from family members. BBM allows you to create groups, join groups etc. It works just like any other messenger would – allowing you to attach files from your device, send pictures, voice notes, and even contact details across to other parties. You can change your profile picture (in this case display picture or DP. Fans), your status, and there’s room for a personal message. It also has an option that allows you to show what you are listening to so people on your contacts list can tell whenever you fire up Maroon 5’s ‘She will be loved’.

In all, BBM is just another messenger app. Some people even prefer Yahoo! Messenger to it. The major reason it is our app of the month is it’s exclusivity. For now, it is available only on Blackberry devices and it has done a pretty good job in keeping people hooked. From CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to teenagers in the middle east, BBM has found a way to keep the Blackberry a relevant player in an ever changing world of technology and innovation.

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The first thing you notice about the application is the trademark grey interface with neatly organized columns, and two buttons on either top corners of the window. One lets you manage settings and the other lets you sign out or read stuff like privacy policy and terms of service…*yawns*. The settings column, once activated, lets you see current trends and also lets you manage accounts and columns.

TweetDeck for Chrome running on Window 7 64-bit

The entry box which is located in-between the buttons at the top of the window is my favorite entry box ever! With the way it handles usernames and hash tags, by rounding them in little grey boxes to make them stand out is a very welcome addition that makes tweeting more organized.

The TweetDeck application for Chrome is really sleek and unobtrusive; afterall it’s just a tab in your browser. It is also pleasing in memory management. I’d rather run an extra tab in my browser than run a full application. The only feature I miss here is the ability to see a conversation history. On other platforms, you see a “in reply to…” link that leads you to the tweet of the person mentioned. This is very useful when tracking interesting tweets that are not retweeted within each other.

All in all, if you’re a TweetDeck user and you haven’t tried the Chrome version, you should give it a try. It just might be your new favorite.

Google sky map is an application that allows you to find exact locations of stars, planets and other celestial objects in the sky. The application uses your phone’s internal compass, GPS and the current date and time on your phone to let you know exactly where you’re pointing at with your phone. I tried it and it was mind blowing. You just move your phone around and you can see what’s in space. You can search for planets, constellations, etc. And when you do so, your compass guides you in navigating to find what you’re looking for.

In all, the app is fun, it’s something to show off to your friends. It works pretty good and for now, it is available only on Android. iPhone and Blackberry owners will have to wait; I don’t know how long for because I’ve not heard any gist about development.


Dear readers,
The reason we have ‘App of the Month’ and not ‘App of the Week’ is because of consistency. We need to see how well we can keep up with a monthly review before we jump into weekly! We don’t want to raise  your hopes and them crush ’em. That’ll be mean. We’re nice people. Thanks for understanding.


The aIRplaY team.

This phone is ‘ginormous’ with a 4.3-inch touch-screen display and weighing in at 155g (5.47 oz). It has dimensions of 2.6 x 5.0 x 0.4 (in.). The Droid X might not be too lenient on you if you have small hands but it packs all the goodies
in the bag to make it worthwhile.It is equipped with an 8.0 megapixel camera with 4X digital zoom that captures 720p HD video at 24fps. It has 3 microphones in which two are for noise cancellation. Besides the 8GB internal memory, it comes shipped with a 16GB microSD which is expandable to up to 32GB giving you a total of 40GB.
Even thought the Android 2.1 is the preinstalled OS on this device, the manufactures announced an update to Android 2.2 (Froyo) for the device. This is not surprising considering the hardware can handle it; the phone’s processor is a 1.0GHz TI OMAP3630 which is comparable to the Snapdragon processor used in some other ‘heavy duty’ smartphones.
The Droid X seems a likely candidate in outselling the iPhone 4 this year but can they handle the challenge? Apple’s iPhone 4 sales have been record breaking since launch and they show no signs of slowing down thanks to their large, devoted fan base. They have sold about 1.7 million units of the iPhone 4 already and their only challenge seems to be the Achilles’ heel in their antenna. The Droid is already sold out in major stores in the US as at the time this was written and new shipments don’t arrive till the 23rd of July.
Before one starts drooling for an unlocked version of the phone, it should be pointed out that it is a CDMA phone. This implies that it will not work on your regular GSM networks. Bummer. This was what killed it for me because the Droid X has everything I have always looked out for in a phone.  The one thing users might not really like about the phone is the Motorola software atop the Android. Unlike the HTC Sense which is arguably a magical experience on the HTC HD2 running Windows Mobile 6.5, the Motorola counterpart looks pretty but doesn’t really deliver (for instance, why would I want to add all my twitter followers to my contacts list?!)
For customers who have already purchased the iPhone and are having problems with reception, Apple is giving away free cases for the phone that is supposed to alleviate the problem. They claim to have gone back to the drawing board to see where the problem is from and that for people who purchase the phone on or before September 30th, they get a free casing.
Bottom-line, the Droid X is a big phone for people who want to consume data and probably do some work on the go. It is fast, has a decent battery life and does really good photos and videos. If I owned an iPhone 4 and was currently pissed and looking for a replacement, I’d let my case rest with Steve Jobs and just reach out for this awesome alternative.