I have a Google Nexus One phone on T-Mobile’s network, so I can use the handy T-Mobile MyAccount app to keep track of how many calls I’ve made during the current billing period. The app also tracks text messages and lets me pay my bill. But that doesn’t mean there’s not room on my phone for an app that provides much more information about what my phone has been up to.

PhoneUsage is a free utility that tracks phone calls, text messages, and data use and plots everything in a series of charts.

On the home screen, you can click the tabs for Today, This Week, last Month, or 2 Months Ago to see your information at a glance. But things get really interesting when you hit the Calls, Texts, or Data tabs. That’s where you can see detailed charts showing your incoming and outgoing calls plotted by day of month, time of day, or day of week. You can also see the top people you’ve communicated with by volume.

You can tap the “Period” button to adjust the time frame for the carts, and PhoneUsage also lets you tap on any chart to see it in full-screen, landscape mode.

My only complaint is that you have to use PhoneUsage for a little while before you’ll get the most out of this app. When I first loaded it, the app managed to track my recent phone calls, but it didn’t notice incoming and outgoing text messages or recent data usage. Once I started using 3G data after installing the app, the data chart started to fill in.

I suspect PhoneUsage also doesn’t know the difference between in-network and out-of-network calls, which means you might not want to use this app as your sole guide of whether you’re about to go over your monthly minutes. But it can definitely give you a pretty good idea of how you’re using your Android smartphone.

PhoneUsage is available as a free download from the Android Market. There’s also a Pro version that runs £1.49 (about $2.29) which will alert you when you’re about to break user-defined usage limits. The Pro version also includes Home Screen widgets.

This post republished from Mobiputing.

While most of the tech world was focused on the Apple event yesterday, Sony announced expansion plans for its streaming media service, Qriosity. Qriosity’s been around in the US for a few months, offering on-demand movie titles to consumers who own Sony connected devices. This week’s announcement adds five European countries to the distribution list, and includes the debut of a new “cloud-based” streaming music service, Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity.

If you’re wondering what the Qriosity expansion means, well, you’re not alone. In theory, Sony is taking on the iTunes ecosystem, but its approach is underwhelming. The company’s on-demand video library consists only of films (no TV), and while Sony has been talking about eking out a space in the home entertainment platform business (beyond hardware) for years, it’s had relatively little traction. On the music side, Sony is up against serious competitors, not only from the likes of networked music providers like Apple and Sonos, but also potentially from those in the Internet radio space, including Slacker, Pandora, and Last.fm. And it’s been a long time since Sony’s Walkman dominance.

The crazy thing about Sony is that it has all the pieces to be a major media service provider. It’s got Sony Pictures and Sony Music on the content side, and CE gear for virtually every facet of your digital media life. But having all the pieces doesn’t mean you can make a coherent whole. And I haven’t seen convincing evidence to date that Sony can put its pieces together.

Plex is a media center application for Mac based on XBMC. The latest version, called Plex/Nine for the Mac was released this week, and in addition to the desktop software there’s also a new iOS app. The mobile app promises to act as a remote control for your desktop as well as a way to watch your videos. Since all the organization is done on the Plex desktop software, the iOS app doesn’t have to do much other than stream content.

First, I ran the Plex/Nine software on a Mac Pro using a library of under 100GB. The Plex Media Manager, when first loaded, goes online to get metadata about your collection so you can find movies or TV shows by director, year, genre, and more. It took about an hour to grab all the data for the library.

While the desktop software for Plex is free, the Plex iPad app costs $4.99. The interface is very basic – there are no left and right panes here. There is just one list that lets you navigate your videos, music, and other plugins. You can connect to multiple Plex libraries – so if you have files on different machines, you can access them all via the Plex app. Read the rest of this entry »

Somewhere along the path of logic and rumor, reality struck. As the new Apple TV isn’t yet the iOS app-ilicious platform many of us (including me) had anticipated. Sure, it’s got apps… but they’re a pre-loaded and limited affair managed by Apple. The notable and possibly contradictory partner service is provided by Netflix. But there’s no CNN, Hulu Plus, SlingPlayer, or countless other video apps (or framework?) as seen on the iPhone.

Given Apple mindshare and retail domination, at $99 and in a much more sophisticated looking package than say the Roku, they’ll surely sell a ton of these devices. Yet I won’t be one of the new Apple TV early adopters — TiVo and Roku handle the vast majority of my VOD (Amazon) and Netflix video streaming needs. And then some.

While I’m disappointed by the absence of an Apple TV App Store, two new Apple features in particular do appeal to me and will be worth keeping an eye on. First off, AirPlay looks promising and appears to put newish, competing technologies like Intel’s Wireless Display (WiDi) to shame given the numerous ways you can beam and control multimedia to or from various devices. In fact, depending upon how it’s implemented in iPhone iOS 4.2, AirPlay may just overcome the absent software marketplace by streaming AV from an iPhone to Apple TV. As the evolution of AirTunes, AirPlay will also enable you to stream audio around the house from iPod or iTunes to upcoming, third-party audio devices. Sonos better watch their back.

Related, it makes perfect sense to use an iPhone or iPod Touch as an enhanced Apple TV remote control. Indeed, the Remote app appears to have an upgrade on tap:

with a flick of your finger, you can rent new movies and TV shows, scroll through the Netflix catalog, and browse your media collection. If you want to find something specific, use your device’s QWERTY keyboard to quickly tap out the title instead of clicking letters on the Apple TV screen.

The new Apple TV ships in a few weeks. Are you in?

Been waiting (im)patiently for the Apple iPad to gain the multitasking capabilities that are already available for the iPhone and iPod touch? It looks like you might have to wait a little longer. Apple says the next update for the iPad will be iOS 4.2, which will also be available for the iPhone and iPod touch later this year.

The new operating system includes all the features in iOS 4.1, such as HDR photos, TV show retnals, and Game Center. But it also has some new features, including:

• Wireless printing
• AirPlay for streaming audio, video, and photos over WiFi to other devices

This will also be the first version of iOS for the iPad that supports multitasking, folders, and other iOS 4.x features.

Apple says OS 4.2 will be available in November for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

This post republished from Mobiputing.

Roku may be responding to competition from Sony and others (rumors of a refreshed Apple TV/iTV with Netflix streaming) with a decent price drop on their popular streamer boxes:

• Roku SD Player is now $59 (was $79)
• Roku HD Player is now $69 (was $99)
• Roku HD-XR Player is now $99 (was $129)

Add to this the fact that the Roku HD-XR is due to receive 1080p USB video playback later this year and you have an interesting story. I expect the competition to get really tough for those focusing on Netflix streaming as this will become a very common thing in hardware that does much more – especially if it does turn out to be a feature in the rumored AppleTV upgrades.

This post republished from GeekTonic.