The plethora of social networks can be great for providing interaction with different audiences and formats, but it can also be a lot of work. Seesmic Ping is designed for users who have multiple accounts and want to post to them all at once. It’s quick, efficient, time-saving, and much more.

Seesmic Ping is the simplified vision of Ping.fm, which sought to do something similar. With the just launched Android app, Seesmic Ping can broadcast to multiple accounts and networks. So a social media manager or chatterbox could post an update on their Twitter and have that same message instantly sent to Facebook, LinkedIn, or Salesforce. The app can even send to multiple accounts and fan pages, so your personal and website accounts could be updated simultaneously.

Aside from being a multi-platform sidekick, Ping can also be an assistant for saving drafts and scheduling. For instance, imagine if you want to make a post at 4:30 PM in four days but don’t want to remember or return to your accounts to do so. Ping can save a draft – including text, photos, and links – and post at the designated time. Users can do this for multiple tweets or status updates, and then cancel or publish immediately by going to the Pending section of the app.

As someone who manages multiple social media accounts on multiple networks, this is something that I can definitely get behind. Heck, this is even useful if you just have one account but want to be able to schedule posts. I love the simplicity of the design and how easy it is to post to all linked accounts or pick and choose based on each post. A free Seesmic.com account will keep track of all those accounts, so download Ping from the Market to start managing them in one place.

Cameras on Android phones have come a long way since the T-Mobile G1, but as we’ve seen with any kind of camera, there’s always room for improvement once an image is captured. Aviary Photo Editor is a new plug-in for Android that does more than just improve an image; it transforms it into something better looking or completely new.

Aviary is known on the desktop for a suite of image editing products, and the mobile version of the app is smooth entrance into a new format. The app works by taking an image that has already been captured with a camera, or imported from a gallery, and sets to changing things with adjustments or filters. The Enhancements section has auto-correction that fixes imbalanced lighting, and Saturation and brightness can be adjusted to increase or decrease color intensity. Changes are applied by swiping a dial to get just the right effect, which can create the perfect image when combined with other fixes.

Aside from merely editing an image with enhancements, crops, orientation changes, or red eye correction, Aviary also includes a set of filters in the Effect section. Popularized by apps like Instagram and Magic Hour, filters apply retro or highly stylized effects to your images. The “Vivid” effect raises contrast and brightness, “Singe” adds a sunset-like glow, and “Soft Focus” brings back that classic mall photo booth appearance.

There are 11 effects included in the app, but users can purchase “Grunge” or “Nostalgia” upgrade packs for $0.99 each. Aviary lacks the filter customization options of some other apps, but the included packs look beautiful if you are into this style of mobile image creation. (Plus, you can use standard adjustments to make further changes.)

After playing with Aviary for a few days and testing several images, I found it to be on par with most of the style camera apps I’ve reviewed. The only problem is that this isn’t an “app” in the traditional sense – it’s a plugin. Aviary can only launch by going to a camera/gallery app and pressing the edit or share/export buttons to begin editing. This can creates headaches if errantly pressing the back button too many times or switching to another app and being unable to return to your in-progress image. Users have to make changes right away because pressing the back button too many times loses all progress and there’s no way to return to it should you go home or get an incoming call.

With that said, this is still something that I’d recommend people try. While some image editors focus on filters, others on color/lighting adjustments, and others on adding fun things like stickers or text, Aviary manages to do all three. And do them very well.

Sports is major part of my social interactions. I’m guaranteed to discuss soccer, basketball, or football whenever I talk to my father or brother, and we’re only a text message or call away from complaining or celebrating.

OnSports is an app focused on that sole purpose of connecting sports fans through the mobile devices they keep close. There’s a tremendous focus of the app centered on user-generated content and discussions, making sports – before, during, and after the game – a more social and informative experience.

Considering that Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest sporting event of the year, and only 2 of the 3 men in the Kameka clan watched the game together, I decided to take OnSports for a spin and see how the app works. Here’s a log of my impressions from using the app yesterday.

9:30 AM: Talk to me

After eating my off-brand corn flakes, I start browsing OnSports. The app is simple and beautiful with a UI focused on a red top banner, gray background, white text, and game photos. I instantly notice that while OnSports has a news section, it’s downplayed for the sake of discussion. The first section seen when launching the app is filled with user polls and discussions organized according to specific sports.

Then I notice that many of the discussions are repetitive or stale. There are multiple posts about who should be the NFL MVP, and a “discussion” of the best NBA player of all-time (obviously Michael Jordan). I counted at least 20 different versions of “Who will win the Super Bowl?” and only one of them has more than two people participating.

10:30 AM: Meeting my goals

OnSports can filter according to sport, and since Manchester United vs. Chelsea is on, I decide to focus on the EPL a little bit. Discussions are rare and sometimes pointless, but there are news articles pulled in from ESPN, The Guardian, Eurosport, fan blogs, and much more. By linking with a Facebook or Twitter account, OnSports creates profiles to become “Fans” of other users and follow the posts they make. This is a great way to follow what others are saying and doing in the app. Users can then select teams as their Favorites and create a view dedicated only to those teams individually or collectively.

1:30 PM: Change the game

Man U vs. Chelsea has finished and I decide to switch to the Miami Heat vs. Raptors game. There’s a lot more activity in the NBA section, so OnSports’ social problem becomes clear – the people. Despite being available for several weeks and having 500,000 downloads, OnSports is only as good as the users contributing, and they aren’t always on their game. The app needs some kind of curation or formula change to push popular posts to the top and get rid of the repetitive topics. For an app with such a focus on social, there needs to be some way to encourage adoption.

10:45 PM: Game Over

Super Bowl preparation and excitement took up most of the afternoon/evening, but I peeked at my phone here and there. The Giants eventually won the Super Bowl, and I’m still in a state of euphoria. But before I go off to fail to get some sleep, I decide to jot down my final impressions of OnSports.

The app is beautifully designed and has a great organization of the content it presents. I’d prefer if the News section had full articles rather than abbreviated feeds, but navigation is a breeze. I’m a fan of the Scores section that provides updates for in-progress games mixed with smack talk from fans. Any app can tell you the score is 80-75, but you get more color from seeing what people are saying about the game. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy live-tweeting sports events.

OnSports is a mixed bag for me because it suffers from the early-adopter phase of most social products. The tools are there, but the amount of people necessary to make it really shine aren’t depending on what sports you follow. With a larger audience, this would be a phenomenal app. For now, it’s just a good-looking option for folks who want to keep up with sports news. Invite your social circle to join and this could be a good tool to have in the run-up to the next big sports event.

Click the image below to download it from the Android Market.

Hot on the heels of its rival adding support for Android tablets, rdio has updated its music streaming app to support not only a new tablet version, but a complete redesign for its user interface.

Rdio has ditched the three-tab legacy design in favor of something flat, quick, and at your fingertips. The app launches with a new homescreen that pushes more options to the front. Members can jump directly to the collection, playlists, queue, heavy rotation, social activity, history, new releases, top charts, or recommended songs. A search bar rests in the top right corner to get to a specific song, artist, or album.

The playback screen remains fairly untouched because that was previously a bright spot. What has changed is that Rdio has added the long-requested feature to control playback from the lockscreen on Android 4.0 devices. The app can now skip, pause, and show album art. And when you want to find new music to control, there are several ways in which to find them. Here’s a list of the new music discovery options rdio sent to us.

• New Releases – Be the first to listen to new albums and singles on the day they are released, and access new albums released up to two weeks prior
• Top Charts – Check out recent chart-topping albums
• Recommendations – Discover more music by exploring fresh album recommendations based on your listening history
• Enhanced Search – In addition to searching for artists, albums, and songs, you can now search for Playlists and People
• Synced collection and playlist views – View only the music you have synced for offline listening, without the need to go into offline mode
• User Profiles – Search, browse, and follow other Rdio users; discover new music by seeing their activity, who they follow, their playlists and more

The new design looks good, but that only means something if there are good songs to go along with that pretty face (unlike what record labels demand of their artists). There are more than 12 million songs in the streaming library, and you can test the waters for yourself with a free 7-day trial available through the rdio Android app. A monthly subscription of $9.99 is required to continue using the app once the trial offer expires.

Everyone can name a decent tower defense game, but how many Android users can rattle off the title of their favorite tower offense game? Anomaly Warzone Earth HD flips the old format on its head and creates a fun strategy-based game in which players plan an attack on a position rather than protect it.

The premise of Anomaly HD, available for $3.99, is that aliens have invaded planet Earth and a commander must lead a group of units through fields of enemies to complete tactical missions. That can range from cutting through alien forces to rescue trapped comrades, re-taking military facilities, or going on recon missions to learn more about the invaders and acquire weaponry that will lead to ultimate victory.

Along the way, players will see the familiar features of a tower game: destroying adversaries earns money to acquire new units and purchase upgrades, tactical rewards can heal fighters or provide an advantage in battle, and waves of attacks will determine your chance for survival. Players can make changes to their attack plan – including route and sell vehicles to get more money for upgrades or changes – in the middle of an attack.

The main problem with Anomaly is actually the installation process. The app requires an additional 180 MB of game data to function and it took me 3 days before I finally managed to get the entire filed downloaded without crashing. Once I did, I found that the graphics weren’t mind-blowing, but the other aspects of the production value were very good. Support staff provides audio updates about missions and alerts users when they need to perform repairs or consider alternate routes. There’s also a good story and three levels of difficulty that can be changed for each mission. At $4.99, this is a game that I can see people enjoying when they pick it up, put it down when they have to, and come right back to find the same level of enjoyment.

Here’s a video showing some action from the game.

Rhapsody streams your favorite music to your Android phone, Google TV, and even your Sonos player. Today, the company added Android tablets to the list thanks to a new tablet view designed specifically with 7 to 10-inch screens in mind.

“We didn’t just resize Rhapsody – we re-imagined the entire experience for the tablet,” said Rhapsody CPO Brendan Benzing.

The new Rhapsody tablet mode is a prime example of the cool things developers can do with a tablet. As expected, users can stream songs and build playlists or queues, but the larger screen allows them to do it without constantly pressing the back button. It’s also much easier to browse through a library because Rhapsody greets users with a screen showcasing featured content in three sections: New Releases; Popular artists, albums, and songs; and Suggestions for artists to listen to based on the music users have already added to their library.

Rhapsody also has an action bar for the Browse, Features, My Music, Radio (stations built around an artist or genre), search, and control sections. A right panel shows the album cover art, playlist, and controls to play or skip back/forward. A homescreen widget is also included, but it could stand to larger than the 4×1 included considering there’s so much more room to utilize.

The design choices are all good, but I especially like the Featured content that Rhapsody delivers for music discovery. The homescreen has a sliding carousel for featured artists and articles built around a subject, but there’s an entire section dedicated to similar lists. Writers have hand-picked recommendations based on the popular songs in your senior year of high-school, themed mixtapes, and “Cheat Sheets” for buzzworthy artists or bands who sound like one of your favorite artists. There are occasional misses like the love-her-or-really-really-really-hate her Lana Del Ray, but the content is otherwise interesting to browse.

Rhapsody is available for download now. The app requires a $9.99 monthly subscription fee to stream music. You can also store music for offline use and cache streaming to improve playback quality. Some devices might want to disable the cache feature because it might prevent playback at all (I had to turn it off for my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to work).

KEY FEATURES

- Artist biographies and album reviews from some of the top music writers in the industry
- Unlimited access to over 14 million songs
- Customized playlists, new music recommendations
- Exclusive content: artist interviews, live performances and pre-release listening

Mint.com ranks as one of the best personal finance management services around. I said as much when I first reviewed the Mint.com Android app back in 2010, and I’m more convinced of it now. Especially since the company announced today that users can add Android tablets to the list of devices on which they can monitor the bills and bank accounts.

An update to the Mint.com app has added support for Android Honeycomb tablets. The new app is optimized for larger screens and adds the convenience of a touch-friendly mobile app rather than asking users to visit the site through their browser. The same features are available, just in a better-looking format.

• Organize accounts – Mint links with your credit cards, checking/savings accounts, and investments to provide a snapshot of your financial picture. The app can only view accounts, not make transfers or payments, so this is strictly a monitoring tool.
• Track spending – Members can create a budget organized by category and spending limits, then import transactions from their accounts to ensure that they are sticking to it. You can also manually enter cash transactions.
• Financial insight - the app shows detailed graphs that show where you spend money, and can be narrowed to a specific period. You can also search for a specific transaction or purchases made within a category, tag, or merchant.
• Alerts and updates - Mint can set-up reminders to pay bills, recent account balances, and notify you when large transactions take place.

Head over to the Android Market and sign-up for a Mint account to start using the service if you haven’t already. Accounts are free.

The Waze Android GPS app has a new look and a new live integration with social apps to better connect with events and happenings in an area.

The just-announced Waze 3.0 update has stripped down to a more minimalist UI that focuses on the road. The previous version of the app had more of a cartoonish look, but the map has been toned down slightly to display in a more traditional map view. (Fret not, it’s not all business.)

The cutesy icons from the top and bottom have been stripped and the core functions are now available through one of two buttons. Slide from left to right to search for an address, place, or person; see your favorites or search history; or do a voice search to trigger navigation. Tapping the left button brings up reports, My Waze section, and sharing to Facebook or email. Users can also slide right to left to send reports of traffic moderate, heavy, or standstill traffic jams. Tapping on the right button brings up the ability to report an accident, police presence, problems with a map or roadway, chat, or check in.

The “check in” is to Foursquare, which allows users to immediately check-in once they have arrived at the location. That is one of the ways in which Waze 3.0 imports social networks. Someone searching for “Chinese food” can see nearby restaurants, but that doesn’t tell users anything about food quality. Sliding the bottom bar on the results page can take a user to see Yelp star ratings for that establishment. It would be better if the app allowed users to actually go to the restaurant’s Yelp page to learn more about specific dishes, price, or atmosphere, but this is still a useful tool to have. Waze also has a Foursquare tab that shows how many people are checked-in to a venue and which locations have Foursquare specials.

Android 2.0 and higher users get more out of Waze 3.0. The app has a My Waze feature that keeps stats of how a user fares in the gamification/contest aspects of Waze, pre-programs Home and Work locations, and provides live feedback on the best routes to take when driving. The iPhone version has had these features for a few months, so here’s a quick video filmed by Robert Scoble showing how it works. You can download the Android version for free from the Android Market.

January’s almost over and this is the first Android Apps Alert of 2012. Madness, I know, but things kept moving even while we were away dealing with CES and other things. App makers must have had their fingers hovering over the publish button because there have been plenty of apps and games released recently, so here’s a tidy little round-up of a few that you may want to grab.

1Weather

Limited to high-end Android devices (support varies)
Radar weather works on in United States

As far as weather apps go, it would be easier for me to list how many options aren’t available than to write down which ones can be on your screen at the moment. If you previously yearned for a minimalist widget that showed the date, weather highs and lows for the day, you’ve got another style to scratch off the list. 1Weather has an understated 2×2 widget that works well because of the simplicity, and the main section of the app is just as easy on the eyes. Users get details reports on humidity, precipitation/chance of rain, wind speed, 7-day forecasts, radar look of the weather, the time of day the sun or moon rises and sets, and information on the lunar phase.

Just for good measure, the app can also send alerts to the notification window when severe weather warnings are issued for your area. To put it simply: this is an awesome app for anyone who lives in an area that doesn’t have the same weather practically every day (I’m looking at you California and Seattle!). Download the ad-supported app from the Android Market and home it works for you.

Steam

Android 2.1+ required
Closed beta

Androinica previously covered an unofficial app that provided limited access to Valve’s Steam, the go-to gaming storefront for digital downloads and connecting with other gamers. But like the song says, ain’t nothing like the real thing. The official Steam Android app is available now, though that matters only to a select few group of people since the app is in closed beta. You cannot use the app unless you are already in the beta, but here’s a quick look at what users can expect once it opens:

- See which friends are online and what game they are currently playing
- Chat with other Steam users on iOS or Android
- Browse the Steam store to see what games are available and what new sales are on.
- It will look spiffy and work with your account.

Circuitry live wallpaper

Android 2.1+ required
$0.99 USD

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of live wallpapers, but my attraction to the format has gotten stale in recent months.  Circuitry Live Wallpaper might taste and look a little fresher on your home screen. The wallpaper shows a slowly moving set of lines that eventually form different circuit design each time the user browsers the home screen. And to break-up the monotony, there are six different color themes – ranging from dark black and grey to Google-tastic red, blue, green, and yellow – that alter the way the circuit looks. At only $0.99, it’s the cheapest circuit art you’ll ever see.

Producteev

Android 2.2+ required

Productivity bigwigs Producteev have an Android app. Correction: productivity bigwigs Producteev have an awesome Android app. Producteev is a task management app that supports Android and a web/desktop app to sync across devices. The app creates workspaces – like Freelance Work, Job Assignments, or Personal Projects – and then creates tasks to track how those things get done. Users can set deadlines or reminders, add labels, and add stars to note which tasks should take priority.

And because Producteev has a collaborative element, you can actually assign tasks to others. So if you’re working on a group project with 4 people, you can create a task and assign it to another person. Collaboration is confusing at the moment, and a few other aspects are a little shaky because Producteev is still a beta app. However, the app is off to a really nice start with smooth, search-friendly and easy-to-manage task system.

BBC News

Android 3.0+ required
UK only, international version coming soon

People often say that there aren’t many apps for Android tablets, but that’s not the case when it comes to news apps. The BBC is one of the latest (and many) news sources to release an app built specifically for Honeycomb and higher, allowing news hounds to see more content on the larger screen. The BBC News app now features a tablet-specific app for readers in the UK, with plans to release an international version shortly. The app shows thumbnail and headline tiles similar to Pulse, scrolls through topics, and then loads the article on the right side of the screen. It’s the same BBC News app users have seen with breaking news, multimedia content, news, and analysis. The only difference is now that screens higher than 7 inches see it in a new format.

ESPN Scorecenter

Android 2.1+ required

ESPN calls itself the worldwide leader in sports, but for a long time, the WWLIS’s Scorecenter app was missing something that practically all of tits “followers” had – notifications. A recent update to ESPN Scorecenter now includes the option to get live game updates pushed to the notification window, allowing sports fans to always know the score of the game without having to launch the app and search for it. The app can be set to update on each play or at the end of a quarter/period/half/game. As an added bonus, Scorecenter recently got treated to:

- Breaking news updates for a user’s favorite teams
- Fixes for widgets and displays on Android 4.0 devices
- Fixes to look better on Android tablets

TurboTax Snap Tax

Android 2.1+ required
Use only for simple tax returns

Just a friendly reminder that tax season is officially under way starting next week. Employers in the U.S. are required to have delivered your W-2 by January 31, so you can start preparing your 2011 filing then. TurboTax has an option for people doing a simple filing to prepare their taxes on a phone. Users simply snap a photo of their W-2 and the app begins the preparation process. Answer a few questions about expenditures and profile data, review the information, and then e-file on your phone. There’s a cost of $19.99, which might be useful if you self-prepare. Keep in mind that this is only for federal and state returns if you:

- Don’t have children or dependents
- Don’t own a home or real estate
- Have income only from a W-2, interest, or unemployment
- Have income of $100,000 or less ($120,000 if married)

App Reviews & News of the Week

• Dolphin, meet Evernote and Skitch for Web Clipping and Image Annotation
• SEGA Sonic 4 Episode 1 available now in Android Market
• Chevy Game Time gives Android users a chance to win a new car during Super Bowl XLVI
• PlayPhone to debut four new Android games in the next month
• WatchESPN adds full-screen streaming on tablets, support for Ice Cream Sandwich
• Shadowgun:Leftover for Android to come this week
• Android Apps for Experimenting with Measurement and Physics
• Seven launches Ping, the ”ultimate” free push-based social messaging app for Android
• Look it up on Official Wikipedia for Android [App Review]
• Need to Focus on Writing on Your Tablet? Try Jotterpad HD Minimalist Word Processor
• Angry Birds Seasons: Year of the Dragon now available for download on Android Market
• Airbnb finds short-term homes & room rentals – all from your Android [App Reviews]

As Wikipedia comes online again after their anti-SOPA blackout day this week, you can now access it directly through Wikimedia’s official new app for Android. While it was functional in the mobile-optimized site in the browser, we now have access to their entire 20 million multilingual crowd-sourced encyclopedic articles in a cleaner interface. While there had already been dozens of third-party apps that were doing it for us, its nice to see them finally bringing their app to life on Android.

The home screen has the search bar at the top middle ready for your query, and the results are already lightning fast on WiFi and 3G. So for the main use of the app, they’ve done a great job. The results are laid out similarly to the mobile browser version with the intro and main subheadings listed and you click to expand the section you’re interested in. I found it scrolled a little smoother than it sometimes did in the browser, and expanded better.

They also make use of the rest of the real estate to add some of the same information you’d see on the language-specific homepage in the desktop browser version. Today’s Featured Article is immediately viewable, letting you learn something new every day. Scroll down further and you see their In The News. They don’t have everything from the browser-based page, but I’d hazard a guess that 99%+ of the time users will be coming here to search, and the Featured Article is just an interesting bonus.

Bring up the menu button and you have a few additional options including:

• Read in... to change to any of their 280 available languages
• Nearby to see any available Wikis on a map view of your local area, like you can on Google Maps.
• History to see your recent searches
• Save Page/Saved Pages to let you keep it local on your device
• Share uses standard Android sharing, but is buried in the More… menu option. There’s no reason this couldn’t be

The app is small, light and free – exactly what you’re looking for in this sort of app.

If they could make this the default handler for Wiki links and make sharing immediately accessible it would get the full 5 stars. Wiki contributors may also be disappointed that you can’t edit from the app, but I’m sure when enough of you start asking they’ll look into adding this functionality.

For all the parents out there, now you never need to answer “I don’t know” to your kids’ questions! I had already been using Wikipedia extensively with my toddler son, but now it makes things that much faster and easier.

Download it now in the Market and get the answers to all the questions in your life!