magic

Gif Magic capitalizes on the surge of interest in GIF animations in recent months, allowing you to make the short animations on your phone in just a few seconds. While the app has certain limitations, the resulting GIFs are spot on, providing the kind of short bursts of animation that go over great on social networks.

The core function of Gif Magic is to convert still photos or video into animated GIFs. You can either record a new video, which will then be converted instantly to a GIF, or you can choose a video or still images in your photo … Read more

This app inches so close to being the all-in-one photo app you need on Android. Sadly, it has some weird quirks and one glaring omission that make it just miss the mark. Magic Effects Studio Camera is still a solid editing app for your smartphone or tablet. If you like to shoot with your gadget, give it a shot.

One of the first things you might notice about this app is its layout. It's easier on the eyes than a lot of other Android apps, even though the ads it has often make some of the buttons disappear on … Read more

The genius of the Index Card Magic app from Evergreen Ruby LLC is that it is open ended. The format and layout of this app is perfect for creating to-do lists, flash cards, or project boards on which you can visualize data fairly easily.

The basic interface for Index Card Magic is fairly rudimentary and will take some time for students to get used to. You must create categories and then projects to fit into those categories before creating index cards to populate the project. The process takes some time to get used to, but once done, you can create … Read more

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We've been testing lots of photo editing tools that focus on creating collages. Frame Magic Lite is another contender in a saturated market that is full of duds. But after putting it to the test, we have to say that it is actually one of the better collage makers out there.

Frame Magic Lite opens with your collage template. In each box are directions for how to navigate the app. For example, tapping a specific cell or box lets you add or change a photo. A long press lets you drag and drop photos to swap them out. And … Read more

Even though your smartphone can turn just about any song into a ringtone, downloadable ringtones aren't going away. This batch, collectively called The Magic Piano, is a group of piano-based ringtones you'll probably enjoy. The ringtones are all of decent quality, but the add-ons that come with the package ruin the appeal.

The app forces you to accept its terms and conditions before you can use any of the ringtones. This includes throwing ads at your phone and changing your default browser's settings to support more ads. If you accept those, the app's browsing menu proves … Read more

Andy Rubin is gone from the Android team, but not forgotten at Google. According to a blog post today from Google CEO Larry Page, Rubin will "start a new chapter" at the company. "Andy, more moonshots, please!" Page exhorted.

Rubin is no stranger to moonshots. He has a record over the past two decades of taking on ambitious, complex projects focused on changing how consumers use technology. Born in 1963, Rubin began his career as a robotics engineer at optics maker Carl Zeiss AG. He then landed at Apple, working on research projects that led him … Read more

There is a strong market for expanded wallpaper on the iPad and iPhone. The devices come with no built-in options for wallpaper except to add them from your list of photos. While most people are content adding photos of their dogs or children, many want a more robust selection of impersonal images. That's where Magic Wallpapers stakes its claim -- as a provider of free wallpaper that can be saved, shared, or placed on your background or lock screen. The app is attractive enough at first glance. It has a collection of Metro-style tiles, and you can add new … Read more

DoubleTwist, maker of the popular eponymous music player software, has teamed up with chip maker Qualcomm in an attempt to make wireless streaming easier for Android users. The fruit of their collaboration is dubbed MagicPlay, a new open-source wireless streaming platform that the two companies hope OEMs will integrate into present and future devices.

Built atop Qualcomm's already existing AllJoyn platform, DoubleTwist's MagicPlay can stream to wireless speakers, headphones, televisions, and other devices. Since MagicPlay is open-source, any number of devices or apps could potentially integrate its code and stream to hardware that has a Qualcomm chip and … Read more