Free website Widgets and Apps | Widgia

ShopKick is a special and often valuable Android app which offers location based rewards and deals from nearly a few hundred popular retailers in America. The way Shopkick works is to allow users to earn reward points or kicks as they are called, these points can then be used to get free gift cards for various products. In addition to rewards the app also provides new details in real time from the largest retailers near you. For instance if you were located in New York, you would see walk in kicks and numerous deals for over 24 stores such as Best Buy, Old Navy, Barnes & Noble and Macy’s. You’ll be able to see a list of stores by tapping on the ‘Nearby” tab.

How to earn kicks?

There are a number of ways for people to earn ‘kicks’ which includes simply just visiting a store, scanning a few featured products or they can even purchase specific items. Right next to every store and within the green bubbles on your screen you’ll find kicks which you can earn there. If you are using the walk-in feature it will require that you have the widget open and ready when you walk inside the store. For people who run into trouble which is rare the widget makers recommend that you stand a few minutes near the entrance, in order to check your reception or even restarting the app / your phone if it stops responding.

In order to earn kicks by purchasing items you’ll have to link your credit card over to Visa’s website through the menu settings. The app also gives you the chance to save a deal for later by adding it to the ‘fave’ menu located in the top right corner of the app. You can also mark stores as your favorites if you want to easily access the deals later. ‘

By tapping on the “Rewards” tab you will presented with a number of offers which you can redeem using your collection of “kicks”. These rewards are mostly for retailers who are partnering with the makers of the widget but these rewards are surprisingly useful. For instance think about the fact that 400 kicks will entitle you a $25 gift certificate for Restaurant.com and 1250 kicks gets you a $25 gift card which can be used at Macy’s

Issues found

The app will not always work, during our tests there were times when our phone actually froze. But that was rare and only happened when we wanted to use the in store feature.

Conclusion

The ShopKick widget despite its somewhat buggy nature at times is useful. It’s a big money saver for people who want to shop at either a new location or get the best possible discounts.

A look at Beautiful Widgets for Android

Beautiful Widgets is for anyone who wants to populate their Android mobile or tablet with a bunch of beautiful yet useful widgets. The set of widgets contain a weather widget which incorporates a nice forecast option, weather animation such as for storm or rain etc, and two skinned clocks. Beautiful widgets also sports a number of layouts and over 140 skins which means there is something for everyone.

Feature

While the main selling point of Beautiful Widgets is the fact that they are beautiful there are quite a few features built into this widget. However, one of the things you’ll notice first is the fact that the rather impressive looking UI actually looks quite similar to HTC Sense’s UI which is available on the HTC Hero model. The Widgets include a larger clock measuring around 4×2 and a smaller clock measuring 4×1. The weather widget here comes with the option to set your current location. All you’ve got to do is to tap directly on the weather icon which opens a rather cool looking tray animation of all present and predicted weather conditions. The weather display will give you a four day forecast, the lows and highs of the day in addition to the temperature. You get to chose between the 12 hour and the 24 hour time format and also set the temperature scale as Fahrenheit or Celsius. There are also other quick settings which you can toggle in between for Silent mode, GPS, Bluetooth, Airplane modes, Brightness and Vibrate.

The designers of the widget wanted to make sure that you were never bored with your Android device’s UI so they added hundreds of weather skins which can be downloaded directly and used. You can also chose from hundreds skins for the overall look of Beautiful Widgets which quickly and easily changes the look of your UI. You can choose from styles such as grunge, clean, Éclair etc.

The latest update to Beautiful Widgets also now supports live weather wallpapers. The wallpaper by default resembles the Grass live type wallpaper with its wavy animation of grass, with additional animation for cloudy, rainy, and sunny etc. This helps gauge what the weather will be like at a glance.

Conclusion

If you’re bored with your Android phone and are looking for something fresh then the Beautiful Widgets widget is a great choice. Costing just €1.49, this will really make your phone or hand held device stand out. This is also just a onetime cost so most people will find this pretty handy, plus given the fact that you get off to a great start with tons of customizable styles, colors and options you will not need to pay for any downloadable content any time soon making it a worthwhile investment.

AirDroid helps you control your Android Device from your computer’s web browser

To someone who first hears about AirDroid the concept of connecting and controlling their android device via a web browser can sound rather crazy. However, the fact is that this is a hugely popular widget for all Android devices since it helps you manage everything from your email to your SMS via a computer’s web browser. Most of all the widget is 100% free!

AirDroid is a very easy to use tool for any Android device. The whole setting up process is also easy and quick:

Step no. 1: You start with opening up AirDroid, it will prompt you with a password and IP address.

Step no. 2: You then visit the IP address from your computer’s web browser.

Step no. 3: Enter the password… and you’re in!

Once you have entered into the widget you get lots of control over your phone. You have 10 icons to begin with for Music, Ringtones, Messages, Market, Clipboard, Photos, Contacts, apps, Market and Files. Every one of these icons can be clicked on and will help you search for even edit your files via a small window containing a number of editing tools. On the right side you should find a tab which contains various information such as the file types, storage etc.

For instance the contacts icon when clicked on will open up a list of contacts and give you the ability to edit them from your computer. If you click on the ringtones icon you’ll be presented with a list of ringtones and you can select the ones you want. The music tab helps you browse through your phone’s music library, and even use the built in music player to check out your sound files.

The home screen of the widget looks very similar to your regular computer desktop. Right along the left you’ll find options to create a new SMS and create new contacts both of which can be done right from the app with an intuitive and fluid design. The widget will sit on your phone and allow for on the go file management a lot like similar file management widgets allowing you to move, edit, and view.

Overall Usefulness

This is a really useful app because some things are just much easier to do on your computer or laptop than to do on your device’s touch screen, this is especially the case with items relating to file management. For instance inputting a loan of brand new contacts can take a lot of your time not to mention being frustrating since you’ve got to type them out on a small touch screen. Using the app makes things much easier as everything will feel intuitive. The clipboard is another feature not mentioned above which lets you put more stuff on your device’s clipboard by just pasting them. For someone who needs to add a few contacts a week or update his music files every now and then AirDroid is a must have widget.