I love Android as much as the next non-Apple owning guy, but there are times when I get bored of using the same old operating system, and seeing the same boring old notifications.
Thankfully, there’s no shortage of different ways to liven things up without having to root your phone, or in some cases, even spend a penny.
Sure, Facebook’s chat-head style notifications set a trend for a bobble-headed approach, but that’s not the only way you can modify how you get informed about new events, and for older handsets that haven’t been gifted with features like lock screen widgets (Android 4.2+) and album art (Android 4.4), these are a handy way to make things a bit more interesting.
FloatificationsThe app formerly known as Floating Notifications (
TAFKAFN, if we’re following Prince’s logic), now going under the moniker
Floatifications, was updated at the start of the year to include a new ticker display option, as well as to reflect its name change.
At its core, what Floatifications does is take Facebook’s chat-head-style interface and apply it to virtually any app you want, although the company notes during the setup process that there may be a few that are incompatible – and to email them to add support.
One of the key advantages of Floatifications over stock Android is that it also works in full-screen mode, allowing for uninterrupted access to notifications. So if you’re watching a YouTube video, for example, and receive an SMS, you don’t actually have to navigate away from whatever you are watching to read the content of the message. Tapping on it, however, will take you to your normal messaging app to reply (and therefore away from whatever you were doing before).
The on-screen notifications are shown by floating dots which can be expanded for closer inspection with one tap, or dismissed with two. It’s nice that a different icon is used for each too, allowing you to easily see exactly whether you’ve received an email or a tweet without having to press a button. If it’s an email, the sender’s name is displayed below the icon. The icons can be easily moved as a group to anywhere on the screen just by dragging them at any time, which I found necessary, as they sometimes got in the way.
In order to support notifications for third-party apps like Facebook, Twitter, Pocket or any others, you’ll first need to enable the app for ‘notification access’, which can be found in Settings>Security>Notification access. Make a mental note of that now if you intend on trying out a few from this list, as they all require this permission.
Floatifications is extensible too – meaning that there are plenty of other features and themes available from Google Play and ready to plug directly into the core offering if you want to change its appearance.
There’s a free 14-day trial for all users, after which point you’ll have to cough up $2 to carry on using it. While this isn’t the same as having a free ad-supported version of the app, a two-week trial should be enough time to work out if you like it enough to pay for it. And who really likes ads that much anyway?
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Floatifications |
Floatifications Unlock ($2.04)
Metro NotificationsIf you like the support afforded by the Android software and hardware ecosystem, but hanker for notifications more in the styling of Windows Phone/Windows 8 style, then the aptly (or perhaps less aptly, given that Microsoft isn’t allowed to use the word Metro to refer to its Windows 8-style apps) named Metro Notifications should be right up your street.
It’s a simple and straightforward affair – just select which apps you want to receive notifications for and leave it to do its thing. As with Floatifications, there’s a paid-for option costing $2.60 which offers more customization options, such as color, size of notification panel, contact picture support and more. The free version does, however, allow you to decide where you’d like to see the notification appear, either right at the top of the screen, just below the status bar, in the center of the display, or right at the bottom. It can also be set to ring or vibrate when you receive one too, but this might override the app’s native notification sounds.
While the free version does as promised and shows your notifications, if you do want this Windows Style effect, you’ll likely end up paying for the full version. Many of the best features, like offering a black list, more display options, gesture support and a user-definable ‘quiet time’ for receiving no notifications at all are all reserved for paying customers.
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Metro Notifications Free |
Metro Notifications ($2.73)
Notif ProSometimes, rather than replacing the stock Android notification system, what you might rather do is have the ability to set rich custom notifications for virtually anything you want – whether that’s a reminder to go to the dentist, go food shopping, take the kids to Taekwondo lessons or anything else. For those times, there’s Notif.
Upon first opening the app, it looks a bit tedious or daunting to use – and if you’re opting for text-only input, it might prove to be. However, thankfully, Notif has recently been updated to include the ability to add custom notifications using only voice commands, and it’s really quite accurate, as long as you’re issuing a single sentence command (like, ‘Remember’ or ‘To do’ as the title for the notification followed by ‘call Mike before 4pm’ or ‘buy milk and bread’). If you start to issue a list of bullet points, it’ll quickly lose track of what you’re saying.
Each of the text, image or list notifications can be set with its own icon (from a choice of 20 in the free version), so that you can quickly see and group notifications, which are all displayed in the traditional drop-down bar along with other stock notifications.
It’s free to download and use, but if you like it, as with Metro Notifications, you’ll end up paying for Notif Pro as the free version is missing some key options, like editing notifications once they have been created – pretty much essential if you’re making an ongoing list.
Paying the current $1 asking price also unlocks other necessary features, like the ability to share any of the notifications with core and third-party apps like Gmail, Pocket, Dropbox, Drive, Facebook and many more, directly from the notification bar. It also unlocks the Android Beam sending option, which allows you to share a notification directly to the notification drawer of another Android device. It’s worth noting that if you do make the upgrade and delete the free app before deleting the notifications, they’ll stay in your notification bar until the next time you switch off the device.
Despite being pretty well-featured, Notif Pro isn’t for everyone, but if you like to plan out your life with meticulous detail, it’s worth considering.
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Notif |
Notif Pro ($0.99)
DynamicNotificationsDynamicNotifications, once called ActiveNotifications, is one of the slicker examples of an Android notifications app, but rather than replacing the core functionality of the notifications launcher, it focuses on making your locked device more productive.
While a lot of the newer Android handsets have manufacturer specific tweaks that let you jump directly into certain apps from the lock screen, not all can – and if you’re running the older versions of Android your choices are pretty limited.
DynamicNotifications can effectively show you notifications from pretty much any app that you have installed directly on your lock screen, once you’ve authorized it to access your notifications during the setup process. You can then jump directly to that app from the lock screen by dragging icons up from the bottom of the screen and then moving the slider to the left. Or, you can unlock as normal by dragging to the right.
That’s about it for the free version, although you can change how the lock screen looks too. In the paid option ($1.99), there are additional options, including Auto Wake (picking the phone up shows the notification screen), Night Mode (for some quiet time), Widget support and the ability to edit swipe actions.
It’s a completely different kettle of fish to something like Notif Pro, but if you’re happy to stick to the free features and want to make your lock screen a little more useful, then it’s worth checking out.
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DynamicNotifications |
DynamicNotifications Unlocker ($1.99)
source:thenextweb
