Monday, January 28, 2013

Swiftkey - how did I ever live without it

Many of us have typical phrases that we always use and whether we admit it or not, we are pretty predictable when it comes to our emails and test messages. One of the most amazing apps to recognise this is Swiftkey which many people have mentioned before but I only recently started using it. The app has the ability to scan your email account and your text messages to understand what phrases you like to use and then use that information to tailor its word predictions as you type on your phone. 

As a result of using Swiftkey, I've managed to take notes almost as fast as people are talking. It used to be that it was faster for me to take notes with a pen but now it seems that the fastest way to get things down is actually not even a keyboard on the computer but using swiftkey on my phone. Boy, is technology changing us or what? You can download a trial of the Swiftkey app on Google Play and see what you think of it. I held out for quite a while and eventually when I bought it, it was the most well spent $2.99 in a long time. 

Telstra Pre-Paid for 50% off Google Play apps

Telstra has recently set up an arrangement for Telstra customers to charge back all purchases from Google Play back to their Telstra account. This may not seem like much of an advantage but the benefit comes from the fact that you can use Telstra prepaid credit to buy apps from the Google Play or Apple stores. Still not getting it? Every week, either Coles, Dick Smith, Australia Post, Big W or Woolworths will offer Telstra $30 prepaid sims for $10 each. The only limitation is that you can only use $20 at a time. This means that you can get apps / movies / music from Apple or Google stores for 50% off whatever their price is in the store.

1. Buy a $30 sim card for $10 that will fit in your phone.
2. Call up Telstra to activate it or activate it online. If you want to use some of the credit for data use, the best way is to call up to activate the sim card for an IPad data plan which gives you 3GB which expires in 30 days.
3. Insert the sim card to your phone and go to the Google Play store.
4. Buy an app and when it comes to the payment screen, there should be a feature for you to buy the app using your Telstra credit. If you are using the prepaid credit, make sure you do charge it back to the prepaid sim and not your home phone bill for example.
5. If you have remaining credit, you will still be able to use the remainder of the balance for data etc.

Vodafone Australia is rolling out 4.1.2

Good news! Just two hours ago, one of the community managers on Vodafone's forums announced that the Galaxy Nexus firmware update has just been finalised by google after what seems to be an eternity. The rollout should start appearing on your phones later this week if this update is to be believed.