Blingboard: Social Widget – convenient homescreen widget to check email, calls, text messages & social media
by Paul Wilks
Apr 23, 2012 1:45 PM –
Install
BlingBoard: Social Widget is a cool social widget that lets you quickly and easily check emails, recent calls, SMS, Facebook and Twitter updates. The widget has a slick Ice Cream Sandwich theme which really compliments your homescreen and is simple to use. It’s also very productive too- why open all those apps when you can quickly check from your homescreen?
Price: Free
Tested on: HTC One X
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Covers email, missed calls, Twitter and Facebook!
- Looks great!
- Easy to set up!
- Very responsive and fast with updates!
- Quick links to relevant apps!
- Neat tab to clean away notifications!
Cons
- Can’t make the widget any bigger.
- Can’t browse previous items.
- No Google+ integration yet.
Features:
You’re a busy person. Here, there and everywhere. Stuff to do, people to see, places to be. Keeping up to date with things like email and social networks isn’t always easy. These things build up quickly and you just don’t always have the time to open up each app and see what’s happening. If this is you, then take a look at Blingboard. This neat 4×2 widget sits on your homescreen and aggregates all your unread posts; emails, missed calls, Facebook status updates and Twitter posts. It’s concise, neat and makes it quicker than ever to stay up-to-date on the go.
If you have outstanding notifications (i.e. stuff you haven’t read yet) the icons at the top of the widget are highlighted and contain the number of new things available. You can then tabulate through the different areas and arrow across to read through them. There is a small icon at the bottom for a shortcut to skip you straight to the right app, whether that’s Facebook, Gmail, Messaging, etc., it’s fast, responsive and effective. What I especially like is that you can very quickly scan your social spaces to check if anything that needs your attention has sprung up. If not then at least you haven’t wasted time wading through everything in each app individually.
One niggle is that this widget is only 4×2 and you cannot make this bigger- like at full screen. It would be good to list a few posts or a whole email instead of just the concise previews you get. Also, the app really only lets you know stuff you haven’t yet seen. If you wanted to scroll back to something you earlier dismissed you’ll have to go into the relevant app separately.
I love the way more and more apps are embracing the ICS aesthetic and Blingboard looks and performs very well indeed. Matched with a Twitter client like Boid for example, transition between widget and app is great (considering Boid doesn’t have its own widget, they compliment each other quite well in this way). It’s also quite a new app so I’m guessing it will only improve with future updates.
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Blingboard – Zero updates default clock
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Blingboard – Arrows let you scroll through recent updates
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Blingboard – Facebook updates
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Blingboard – Twitter updates
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Blingboard – Twitter settings
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Blingboard – Welcome
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Blingboard – General
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Blingboard – Settings
Usefulness:
Great for staying on top of a busy online social life, Blingboard is convenient, practical and very handy. This might only be increased with greater interactivity and possibly the ability to increase the widget size.
Ease of Use:
The widget is very easy to use and setting it up is also a breeze. The way you can quickly be linked to full apps is especially intuitive and makes for a smooth and user-friendly experience.
Frequently Used:
If you really are a busy bee, you might need to check it more often than those not as connected. For me personally, its a shame it doesn’t yet include Google+ integration, but it’s good to stay on top of Facebook and Twitter posts every now and again.
Interface:
The interface is really good. Great functionality and slick animations. It champions ICS and works really well within any ICS environment, themed or actual. It requires Android 2.2 and up so it’ll work on all but the most outdated of devices.
Tags:
Android App,
Android Apps,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
Blingboard,
Boid,
Facebook,
Gmail,
Missed Calls,
Social,
Twitter
Categorised in: Social
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