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We're always a little skeptical of media players that promise to deliver free, high-quality content. They often end up being too good to be true, annoying us with poor performance, obscure content, or restrictions on the good stuff. We were pleasantly surprised by CherryPlayer. This easy-to-use program gives users access to a huge selection of streaming music, and it has a built-in YouTube downloader as well. CherryPlayer is a great choice for listening to today's popular songs, exploring new music, and revisiting old favorites.

CherryPlayer's interface is straightforward and doesn't require much in the way of … Read more

Google Now shocked a lot of people when it was released. The super cool personal assistant ran circles around Apple's Siri and had all sorts of amazing features. The only catch was that it was only available with Jelly Bean, which is on a small number of gadgets. GNow Handlebars can help you get it on an Ice Cream Sandwich phone, which opens up more options. However, you'll have to know a bit about third-party apps to make it work.

Since you can't get this app through Google Play, you'll have to install the .apk file … Read more

Having a mind of their own, the apps on your Android may drain your battery and choke your phone's RAM. If a wonky app is draining your power or memory, ES Task Manager can shut it down for a big performance boost. This task manager app has detailed statistics for power users, but it's easy enough to figure out for the everyday Android owner.

ES Task Manager features four different menus you can swipe through, but only one actually boosts memory. The task killer menu lets you kill all of the tasks that are running at once or … Read more

Most Facebook users feature a ton of photos on their profile. Downloading them one by one to your gadget is time-consuming and difficult. Facebook Album Downloader will do it for you, but it takes almost as long to make it work.

Obviously, the app requires you to log in through Facebook to work properly. However, Facebook Album Downloader crashes and freezes almost every time you try to log in. Once you finally get it working, you can download all of your albums and tagged photos with the touch of a button. You can even download all of a friend's … Read more

As smartphones replace portable media players, it only makes sense that their sound quality improves. Since phone manufacturers haven't stepped up to put awesome audio quality in every phone, Bass Booster - Beta app will be able to help. It gives your phone a powerful blast of bass and great equalizers, but it's best used by serious audiophiles. It's so strong that it could do serious damage to a rookie user's phone.

Finding the happy medium with this software isn't easy. Audiophiles who know what they're doing will be able to perfect their sound … Read more

Google's Picasa makes it easy to store, share, and edit your photos and other images. While it's great to be able to access your Picasa images on the go, you probably don't want to store all your albums on your smartphone. Picasa Downloader by Andrei Markovits is a free app that makes it quick and easy to download your Picasa albums so that you can access them offline or when you need them. Even large albums download quickly -- depending on your connection speed, that is! With a 4G or Wi-Fi signal, your Picasa albums download so … Read more

If you like to take pictures but really love to tell a story, you'll appreciate the easy to use InstaFonts, which lets you add customizable text to your images. You can insert a caption, create a short description, or just let others know who's in the picture.

With its clean, intuitive interface (and limited options), there shouldn't be much of a learning curve with this app, even for those who've never done any image editing. InstaFont's main window displays the image you want to add the text to over a short menu that lets you … Read more

With Windows 8 mobile gadgets lagging far behind Android and Apple, it's tough to imagine why anyone would want to look at Windows 8's layout. However, if you've bought a Windows 8 computer or tablet and fallen in love with the tile interface, try Windows 8 for Android. It brings that interface to your Android gadget, but is missing many of the features that make people love custom launchers.

One of the reasons Windows 8's user interface is turning heads is "Live Tiles." The always-updating blocks aren't here, which is a glaring error … Read more

If you snap tons of photos on your smartphone, you need a full-strength photo editor. With a price tag of $1.79, you would think Photoshop Effects-Photo Editor would do all the editing you need and more. Instead, this app offers some of the most common filters and limited cropping features instead of real Photoshop effects.

By cashing in on the name of the popular desktop photo editor, Photoshop Effects-Photo Editor makes you think you're paying for quality. Instead, you're getting a simple filtering app that adds effects that would have been cool 15 years ago. Now, they … Read more