8 Free Apps To Monitor Your Kids’ Smartphones Activities On Android

These, days, there is no stopping a child from growing up without the influence of tech gadgets, online content, and the Internet in general. Being a parent is already a tough enough task, but shying away from the topic or completely shutting out technology from your children’s lives isn’t going to help.

What you can do however, is to have more control over what they are exposed to while on their gadgets, and this post will try to help you with that, particularly on Android.

Google Play Store may not have tougher restrictions than those found on Apple’s AppStore so if your kids own an Android device (or have access to your device at their liberty), you might want to set up some of these parental apps to help you monitor your kid’s online activities on the device. Some allow restrictions of online sites they can visit, the monitoring of their text or call usage, app downloads, location and how long they can spend on their devices.

Recommended Reading: Top 5 Mobile Apps To Help Keep Your Kids Physically Safe

If you are on iOS, check out this post on 5 ways to make your iOS devices more kid-friendly and child-safe, and if you are on Mac, we also have a list of 10 Parental Control Apps you can try out.

1. Kids Place – Parental Control

Kids Place is a comprehensive parental control app. Some of its handy attributes include a customized home screen showcasing approved apps only, the ability to prevent your child from downloading or buying new apps as well as a time feature to specify a schedule for using the smartphone.

On top of that, it’s also capable of blocking incoming calls and disabling all wireless signals. When you install and use the app for the first time, you have to first set a PIN for security purposes. [Get it here]

2. KuuKla Parental Control

KuuKla Parental Control App helps you tailor your Android device into one which is suitable for your child. It gives you the opportunity to select the applications that you want to appear for use on the home screen while disabling access to all other applications. It also allows you to define a schedule for using apps and the Internet on the smartphone.

Once you’ve download the app and registered your email address, a PIN code will be sent to the email address provided which can only be used by you to control the device. [Get it here]

3. Abeona – Parental Control & Device Monitor

The Abeona app actually comes with a complementary app called Device Monitor. Abeona – Parental Control allows parents to monitor the mobile apps usage of their child, view call logs and check whether the device of child is online or offline among other things.

The Device Monitor app must be installed on the child’s device in order for the parent to receive reports of device usage and location. The app is great for use on multiple devices, for instance if you need to get reports from multiple Android smartphones or tablets, all at once. [Get them here and here]

4. SecureTeen Parental Control

Worried about your teen being exposed to mature or adult content online? Try SecureTeen Parental Control which can filter out most if not all adult content. SecureTeen allows you to monitor your children’s online activities, applications they download and their location.

If you don’t like an app that’s installed on your child’s phone then SecureTeen allows you to shut it down, even if it’s still installed. SecureTeen can be managed remotely online by logging into the website. [Get it here]

5. Screen Time Parental Control

As the name indicates, Screen Time is a helpful app which lets you manage how much ‘screen time’ your kids get. The key features of Screen Time includes blocking different apps according to the time.

For example, you can block only games at bed time but still allow readings apps then choose to block all apps when it’s time for lights out. Screen Time also allows you to set a daily time limit on the apps you want to restrict access to. [Get it here]

6. Kids Zone Parental Controls

Kids Zone is another handy parental control app. The chore mode gives you the capability toset a time limit that determines when your child can use the smartphone.

Other notable features include relocking the device after rebooting, blocking phone calls as well as text messages and Internet access, blocking apps installation and in-app purchasing, and various other features. [Get it here]

7. Parental Control Board

The Parental Control Board app helps monitor, manage and track a child’s activities on a mobile phone. It can monitor a list of all installed apps on the phone and you can even restrict some of them such as YouTube or Google Play, if you need to. Get the precise location of your child at any time and control and see all call logs and SMS that goes through their phone.

One of the useful things that this app has is the ability for parents to setup black lists and white lists of phone numbers for incoming/outgoing calls and messages. [Get it here]

8. Norton Family Parental Control

This Norton Family Parental Control app allows you to see which websites are visited by your child. You can also restrict access to pornographic and inappropriate websites and can setup email alerts that notify you whenever your child attempts to do something that he/she shouldn’t.

If you don’t mind spending a bit of money, you can get the premium version which lets youview logs of text messages, monitor the apps downloaded by your child and even block some of those apps amongst various other features. [Get it here]

10 Essential Windows Phone Apps For Avid Travelers

Traveling around the world sounds (and actually it is) a lot of fun. We are going to discover new attractions, foods, people, and more importantly tasting places. But before we are going on your new adventure, we will have to get a lot of stuff prepared to accommodate the journey until we are back at home, including installing mobile apps.

These mobile apps will help in many ways such as planning on route, finding deals of hotels and flights rate, car rentals or taxi, and places and foods. If you are an avid travelers and a Windows Phone users, following are several essential apps to install before you go.

Hotel Tonight

The first thing you would probably need to do once you arrived at the city or country you are visiting is finding a hotel to stay the nights. Hotels Tonight is an app that will help you find the best hotel rates and makes booking a room easy. This app hand-picked and the list to include only the best hotel to stay. Even more, you can find others customers review and ratings to help on your selection.

Note: Hotel Tonight currently works in this cities: . But the list is growing.

Kayak

One of the most popular sites for travel, Kayak, has finally come to Windows Phone with official solution. It brings all the features of the website on your hand. Through the app you can plan your destination, find the best flight rate, as well as book the hotel room of the destination.

Uber

Uber brings new experience in car rental. Uber allows you to request a ride or get picked-up. You can select various of vehicles from an SUV to an exclusive Mercedes Benz. Tap, get picked up in minutes, and pay the rate through your mobile phone. No whistling, no waving, no cash needed.

Note: Uber currently works in selected countries. So, check whether you travel destination has been covered.

Easy Taxi

In case Uber does not cover the city of your destination, you can get picked-up with Taxi instead. You can use this app, Easy Taxi, to easily find and reserve taxi near you location and get picked-up in minutes. EasyTaxi works in a number of countries in South East Asia.

Bing Translator

One of the common problems when you are traveling in a foreign country is the language you don’t speak. So, have Bing Translator installed in your Windows Phone. In the case like, you should install Microsoft very own app, Bing Translator. Bing Translator is able to translate both text and voice. It is also equipped with a special lens which you can use to translate directly through camera (see the screenshot below).

Zomato

Let’s not forget about the best part of traveling. Whenever possible, I recommend to always try new taste and authentic food of new places you are visiting. Zomato is the app you should install on that regard. Zomato will give you recommendation of the restaurant as well as menu in the city.

Note: Zomato currently only works in the selected countries.

Here Explore

Here Explore helps you discover new places to stay, eat, and hangout. Launch the app, and the app will show a number of places around your current location in a floating sign as you are walking around. You can save the places you like within your Favourite box or else share them with friends through social sites.

Note: the app currently only works in US, UK, Canada, Germany, Austria, and France.

Moovit

Moovit is an app that will help you for traveling with bus or train. The app supports hundreds of metro and stations in many cities worldwide. Through the app, you can check the route map, arrival schedule, and discover the fastest route to take.

I’m Here

This is app can be very helpful in many situations. Just tap and the app will show your location which then you can share to your friends or families that you have arrived safely to your destination. Or else, in case you are traveling with friends and accidentally seperated, use this app to tell them your location.

XE Currency

Traveling abroad means that you will likely have to exchange your money to local currency. Use this app to check the current exchange of any currency worldwide.

Bonus

Compass

Before the GPS, people use stars and compass as their guide on traveling. If you are an adventurer who like to explore forest, jungle, mountains, or places beyond the reach of the Internet, you can install this app to add compass ability to your Windows Phone.

World Prayer Time

Prayer time for Muslim would be different from each countries, particularly of which far above or below the equator line. The prayer time for Muslim is calculated against the Sun position. Use this app to easily figure out the prayer time when you are traveling far to different countries.

You Might Like:

1. 20+ Must-Have Apps For Your New Windows Phone
2. Top 10 Video Apps for Windows Phone
3. Top Photography Apps for Windows Phone 8.1
4. 8 Free Apps To Monitor Your Kids’ Smartphones Activities On Android

5 Best Podcast Apps For Android

Podcast is a digital audio file which is mostly available in the form of episodic series. The podcast resides on the server of the distributor as a web feed, and listeners like you and me must install an application, commonly called as a podcatcher to access this web feed

The podcatcher also checks for updates in the audio series and downloads any new files are uploaded in the series. We’ve previously written about setting up your own podcasts but for this post, we’re looking at the best podcast apps to get, for Android devices.

Recommended Reading: 10 Podcasts Channels To Subscribe To For Web Dev/Design

Note: Unless a price is listed, the app is free to use.

1. DoggCatcher Podcast

Key features of DoggCatcher Podcast include support for ChromeCast, easy subscription to new podcasts/feeds, automatic downloading and cleanup of media files, playback of audio and video files while offline, customization of audio playlists and a highly configurable interface. DoggCatcher Podcast Lite is a battery and data plan friendly application.

[Get the app – $2.99] For further details visit the official website of DoggCatcher Podcast.

2. PodCast Republic

PodCast Republic lets you search for podcasts in iTunes directly from an Android device. Some of its notable features are ability to search almost any podcast available, ability to add a podcast manually, support for multiple languages, podcast feed, ChromeCast support, built-in media player, download management, multiple playlist support, easy customization and much more.

[Get the app]

3. BeyondPod Podcast Manager

With BeyondPod Podcast Manager, you can save your feeds and check them out when you’re offline, download content automatically, play podcasts with the integrated player, generate smart playlists based on your listen preferences, have one button-access to your podcasts with a widget, discover and search new podcast/RSS feeds, use the sleep feature etc.

[Get the app] The app is a free version but to unlock pro features, you need to install the keyto unlock it ($6.99). For more info, visit the official website.

4. Podcast Addict

Podcast Addict is an app which allows you to manage all your audio and video podcasts, iTune podcasts, YouTube channels and news feeds. Some of the features of Podcast Addict include support for ChromeCast, automatic update and downloading, advanced deletion features, variable playback speed, search engine for searching podcasts, sleep timer, various themes, full app backup etc. [Get the app]

5. PodKicker Podcast Player

PodKicker Podcast Player is a free to use podcatcher with an easy to use, intuitive and clean user interface. It lets you stream and download podcasts and has support for both audio and video files. You can also import and export OPML files, search for podcasts with it, and it will serve recommendations of podcasts based on your current subscriptions. Browsing can also be done according to region.

[Get the app] This app is the free version. For more advanced options, you can get the Proversion for $1.99.

Bonus: More Podcast Apps

Watch your podcasts with Player FM – Podcast & Sync even while you are not connected to the Internet. Important features include cloud synchronization on multiple platforms, hundreds of topics, quick synchronization, full catalogue, episode management, and an active and attractive interface etc. For further details, kindly visit the official website here. [Get the app]

RatPoison Podcast Player is a podcast as well as YouTube RSS player. There are more than 30,000 podcasts and a few radio channels that are registered under the umbrella of RatPoison Podcast Player. You can also subscribe to or add YouTube channels as well via this app. [Get the app]

DoublePod PodCasts for Android lets you enjoy more than 250,000 free podcasts in a fast and convenient way. It allows you to search, download and delete the podcasts easily too. Country settings allow you to filter out the podcasts from a specific country. [Get the app]

Notable features of Podcast 02 are cloud backup (with Google+ account), variable playback speed, automatic downloading, sleep timer, auto cleanup, iTunes based search, support for streaming and importing media files as virtual podcasts. [Get the app]

Smart Podcast is an integrated audio and video player for playing podcasts but you can use any good external media player as well for this purpose. Where it truly excels is in its powerful podcast search function. Search for podcasts based on keywords and the list of podcasts being downloaded will be automatically refreshed in the background. You can determine how often the lists get refreshed. [Get the app]

You Might Like:

1. 15 Android Wear Apps You Should Download
2. 8 Free Apps To Monitor Your Kids’ Smartphones Activities On Android
3. 8 Tips & Tricks To Get The Most Out of Google Now
4. Automatically Toggle Your Android Phone’s Silent Mode Using Silence

Fahad Khan

Fahad Khan is a writer for Hongkiat.com. He is an energetic engineer and teacher with a love for stimulating technology and handy tools, apps and services.

Tags:

• android
• mobile apps
• podca

5 Apps To Shop From Home For The Holidays (Reviewed)

December is here which means the obligatory soul-searching and gift-finding marathon has begun. For the latter, there are plenty of gift ideas available on this site and on many others, but that is no reason for you to actually shop til you drop. There are plenty of apps out there to help you shop smarter this Christmas holidays.

We have here 5 apps that can help you have better control over your shopping tendencies, monitor your spending, track your online purchases, find discounts as well as browse and find what you need (and want) more efficiently. Now you don’t even have to leave the house to do your shopping (yay for technology, especially if you are in the US because these apps work best there).

Recommended Reading: 20 Mobile Apps For Shopping Discounts And Deals

1. Wanelo Shopping

If you love shopping, you’ll want to try out Wanelo Shopping. It’s basically a combination of social media and shopping – think Pinterest, but for shopaholics. With Wanelo, you can follow your favorite stores as well as your favorite Fashionistas (if they’re on the app, of course). It has an interface that is easy to navigate through on your mobile, and a fun color scheme which can really brighten up the shopping mood. Wanelo is available on the Web, Android, and iOS services.

Platforms: iOS | Android | Website

What I Liked

Category Browsing

There are plenty of different categories to choose from such as “Trending”, “Home” and “Newly Added” just to name a few.

They even got a” Holidays” and “Browse by Style” category, which can be real helpful.

Take for instance, “Browse by Style”. There are plenty of subcategories that you can experiment with for instance fantasy, minimalist, soft grunge and more.

Tinder-like Swipe

If you don’t want to go through every item like you’re digging through a bargain bin, you can use this feature.

Swiping right lets you choose what items you like, left, what you don’t like.

What you do like will then end up in the “Quick save” section of your profile.

Follow Stores & Personalities

Want to keep up with what is coming to your favorite stores?

You don’t have to visit the store every single day, just use the “follow” feature to stay updated with the latest.

As a plus, you can also know what other fashionistas are currently raving about and jump onto the latest trends ahead of the crowd.

What I Didn’t Like

Automatic push notifications. I don’t know about you but the push notifications, to me, are frequent and they get annoying after a while. If you are like me and prefer to be left alone to browse at your own sweet time, you can turn this feature off.

2. Coupon Sherpa

A sucker for coupons? Well, then Coupon Sherpa is going to be your best friend. It started out as an iPhone app back in 2009, providing shopaholics with the mobile version of money-saving coupons. All you need to do is show the mobile coupon with your phone or print it out if you want to use the deals. If you’re shopping via the website then you can use the codes for more savings. The Coupon Sherpa app is available for Android, Apple and you can even access the deals via the site.

Platforms: iOS | Android | Website

What I Liked

Organized Tabs And Layouts

The layout of the app works really well and with tabs like “Hot deals” and “In-store” that you can choose from.

I found it useful for quick and easy navigation. The system itself works well too as I could easily spot the brands and deals that I would be most interested in.

Huge Retailer Variety

There’s a great selection of brands to choose from like Banana Republic and H&M.

To top it off, it’s not just select brands but departmental stores and factory outlets that give out these coupon deals too.

Location-Based Searches

If you’re looking to save money within your area, this feature will prove to be useful.

After enabling location services, you can see the best deals that are near your location with this feature.

You can even search via your zip code, if you don’t want to share your location data.

What I Didn’t Like

The Coupon Sherpa mascot. I’m just not loving the mascot design but other than that, I have no complaints.

3. Monefy – Money Manager

If you’re an impulse shopper, like myself, the holiday sales may feel like a bit of a curse especially if you are trying not to break your budget this year. Monefy is a budgeting appthat can help. Generally used for everyday spending, Monefy can also be used to help you watch your Christmas shopping. Create a category specifically for Christmas, to keep tabs on whom or what you’ve been spending on.

Platform: Android – Free | Pro

What I Liked

Clear Chart Expenditure

Like other similar apps, you can use categories to determine what goes where in terms of your expenses.

However, for Monefy the use of icons and a chart make it easy to see at a glance and keep track of what and where your money is going month after month.

Monitoring Cash Or Card Spending

Under “accounts”, you can choose if you want to log in your expenses under Cash or Card.

The Card option is absolutely crucial for those who love shopping with credit cards – and who would like to outlive their credit card debts.

You never know when you might get carried away with purchase after purchase.

Security and Backup

Monefy comes with passcode protection, Dropbox syncing and the option of additional data backup.

When it comes to your finances, you can never be too careful.

What I Didn’t Like

Ads. If you want more categories, you will need to allow the ads to roll. There are a few other apps out there that lets you do this for free, so this was a bit of a letdown.

4. ShopAdvisor

ShopAdvisor is an app that can help and advise you whilst you’re out shopping for those holiday gifts. All you need to do is input the item that you’re looking for and it will search through different retailers and bring up available options for you. The results vary depending on how detailed your search is. The app is available on iOS, Android and as a website.

Platforms: iOS | Android | Website

What I Liked

Different Search Methods

You can speak, scan a product’s barcode or type out your search query to find what you’re looking for.

This is a great feature for quick general searches or if you’re just browsing through the store and want to know if you can get a better deal elsewhere.

Watchlist

This lets you keep up-to-date with a particular item. There are 2 types of alerts you can set for yourself: time alert and price alert.

The time alert reminds you at a preset time daily about the progress of the item.

The price alert only takes effect if the item goes under a certain price change that you’ve predetermined.

The “Refine” function. If you know what you want, the refine function will help you narrow down your choices according to manufacturer, material, style, size, length and color.

What I Didn’t Like

Navigation. Tabs help in general navigation but it gets a bit complicated when you’re looking for something like how to view it in map form. It’s all in the details. Also, the Android app looks amateurish compared to the iOS and Web version. Would have loved for their presence to be more consistent on all platforms.

5. Slice – Online Shopping Tracker

If you make a lot of online purchases, then this is the tracker for you. Slice helps you keep tabs on all your purchases. You can sign up via social media (Google+, Yahoo and Facebook) or via your email address. No more wondering if your Christmas gift has been shipped yet or not. On top of that, it has a couple of fun features. You can access Slice online via the website or on your mobile phones using the app for iOS or Android.

Platforms: iOS | Android | Website

What I Liked

“Discover” Function

Browsing for deals and bargains online is made easier thanks to this. It’s divided to “price drops” and “recalls”.

You can get your money’s worth and know if a product you’ve ordered online previously has been recalled.

“Slice And Dice” Function

It helps you keep track of your budget. You can see how much you’re spending in different categories in terms of online purchases.

It’s presented in the form of a colorful pie chart that’s easy to intrepret.

What I Didn’t Like

Some purchases were’t valid. Not sure if it is just me but when I used Slice, it actually showed me items that were merely promotional emails.