How to stream movies and TV shows for free on Android

Stream Movies In U.S.

HBO NOW

The stand-alone app corresponding to arguably the greatest TV network on the planet has had a bit of a shaky start in life, with many users reporting that they've been having trouble starting it on launch day (at the time of writing, it also didn't work with rooted devices).
But if you can get it to work, then you gain access to the greatest TV catalogue in history (for $14.99 after a 30-day trial). Big-hitting shows include Game of Thrones, The Wire, True Detective, The Sopranos - for those alone, it's worth the gamble, right?

Who cares if it was launched as a buggy mess? Just look at that line-up! / © HBO NOW

Download HBO NOW

Hulu

It was only in recent months that Hulu brought its streaming service to Android, which lets users watch premium TV shows and movies on their smartphones or tablets without paying a subscription fee. Hulu comes packed with current and classic shows, Hulu originals, movies and plenty of kids' shows, making it a perfect family tablet companion.
Of course, if you want full access to the Hulu library you will need to pay a 7.99 USD monthly fee, but there are plenty of gems to find in the free version too.

Hulu offers a free and paid service for online video and movie streaming to Android users. / © Hulu

Hulu

 

Stream Movies In Canada / U.S.

Crackle

Crackle is a hugely popular free app available in the US and Canada which is updated monthly with new TV shows and movies. Created by Grouper but later bought by Sony, the app features ads which run at regular intervals throughout the content, but as a compromise you get an excellent selection of media and an app which functions far better than some of the other TV service ports on the list.

Crackle offers Android users a bunch of modern and classic hollywood movies, for free! / © Crackle

Crackle - Movies & TV

 

Stream Movies In UK

BBC iPlayer

This catch-up service has been going strong for a number of years now and the slick Android app is a great way to watch TV series and movies. It doesn’t have a huge archive to sift through, but the iPlayer catch-up service was extended to 30 days last year, meaning you have a month to catch up on almost anything played on the BBC in the past month.

The BBC is home to many much-loved British shows like Dr Who and The Apprentice. / © BBC

BBC iPlayer

 

ITV Player

The ITV Player app suffered a woefully bad introduction to the Play Store with it being essentially broken on many devices. But, after turning many corners, it's finally in a decent state. The ITV Player app let’s you stream ITV channels live to your device, as well as catch up on any shows you may have missed from the past week.

The ITV Player app has had its problems but seems to be improving with recent updates. / © ITV

ITV Player

 

All 4 (4oD)

The recently rebranded 'All 4' - formerly know as 4oD has a fantastic selection of shows, aimed at a slightly younger crowd than BBC iPlayer. Frustratingly, many users are still reporting crashing and inconsistent performance, but it's free and has some great content, so don't let that put you off. Featuring interesting experimental shows like Black Mirror and Utopia, as well as the inimitable British comedy, Peep Show, All 4 is the place to go for the best of British offbeat TV.

The All 4 app includes TV shows from Channels such as E4, More4, and 4Music.  / © Channel 4

All 4

 

Demand 5

Channel Five’s premier catch-up service Demand 5 is also now available on Android. The updates aren’t as regular as we would like, but nonetheless Demand 5 offers a wide selection of Channel 5 shows and archived programmes to re-watch on your Android smartphone or tablet. The programming quality is arguably lower than the standard offered by Channel 4 and the BBC, although a bit of American Horror Story, or reality cop shows never goes amiss.

Cop chases, Big Brother, and other guilty pleasures populate the Demand 5 app. / © Channel Five

Demand 5

 

Stream Movies Worldwide

SPB TV

The Android SPB TV app is not region specific, offering content from around the world via a selection of weird and wonderful stations. It’s not the kind of app you will use to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster, and you won’t find NBC or Showtime on there, but if you want to take a chance on a wild card then this is it. A few of the stations definitely appear to be of a more adult nature (how you choose to use that information is up to you).

The SPB TV app features a number of international and independent TV stations. / © SPB TV AG

SPB TV

 

LiveNow!TV

LiveNow!TV offers a broad range of channels from around the world to stream live, as well as a variety of classic/B-movies; mostly a bizarre but entertaining mix of horror and Kung Fu movies. LiveNow!TV is a free service supported by ads and of course it doesn't have the same clout as something like Netflix or even Hulu. However, the live TV streams work surprisingly well, and it remains a great option for streaming a number of well-known channels.

For a free app, the number and quality of the live-streaming channels available in LiveNow!TV is impressive. / © Live Now!

Those are just a few suggestions for how to stream free movies & TV shows on your smartphone. Do you know any others?


Source : androidpit

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Check your phone or tablet battery level from your computer and other devices

The chances are that you have more than one Android device lying around the house. You may have a phone in your pocket, but you probably have a tablet or two lying around as well. A quick check of the screen will let you know how much battery life your Galaxy Note 4 has left, but what about the Nexus 7 that's sitting upstairs? Do you need to plug it in now, or will it be OK for a little longer? You could run upstairs to find out, but you could make life easier by using Potential, a handy mobile and desktop tool that lets you check the battery level of your phones and tablets without having to track them down. 

With Potential installed, you can use your phone, tablet or computer to check how long you have left before your Android devices need to be charged up. More than this, you can also check and control the status of wifi and Bluetooth connections.

The app is available free of charge and you can grab a copy from Google Play – in fact, you should install it on each of your Android devices. If you want to be able to keep an eye on your Android devices from your Window 8 machine, there is a separate app for you to install on your desktop, laptop, or tablet; you can download it from the Windows Store.

Launch the app on your Android phone or tablet, enter your email address and choose a password before clicking the Connect button – you'll receive a confirmation email. You'll then be prompted to enter a name for the device you're currently using so you'll be able to identify it later on. Repeat this process on each of the phones and tablets you want to remotely monitor.

The mobile app gives you a simple overview of all of the devices you have added to your account, and you can see at a glance how much battery life each has left. If you see that a particular device is running low and you want to try to maximize battery life, you can tap the wifi or Bluetooth icon to turn the connections off.

Should you ever get rid of one of your phones or tablets, tap the menu to the upper left, and select Settings. You can then tap the X next to a device to remove it. You'll notice from this screen that there is an in-app purchase available. This enables you to set up alerts for when battery levels reach a particular level.

The Windows 8 app works in much the same way. Fire it up, sign into your account and you'll see a list of all of your linked device to the left, Click each one in turn and you can check the details for individual phones and tablets.

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The Week's Best Android, iPhone, iPad, and Windows Phone Apps

Everybody knows the feeling of despair you get when you finally finish a TV series, but it's so much worse when your streaming service of choice doesn't have the whole lot. Then again, I suppose it's a great starting point to go off and watch it elsewhere. Sure Netflix might only have one season out of three, but that's one season you wouldn't have watched otherwise. Speaking of which, here are some apps you might not have known about:

iPhone Apps

Dreamstime Photography Companion: We all know that stock photos exist, but where do they come from? Well in the case of Dreamstime they come from contributing photographers. You simply upload your images to the app and it gets added to the marketplace, if any of your photos get used you get paid real money. It probably won't make you millions, but it's an easy way to monetise your photography. [Free]

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Climendo: Plenty of news outlets come with their own weather forecasts, but how do you decide which one to use and, more importantly, which one do you believe? Climendo takes five of the most popular weather services (different from country to country) and shows them side-by-side to give you the best idea of what's to come. [£0.69]

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Wiper Messenger: Private communication is all the rage, but can you delete logs from the other person's device? With Wiper, that's more than possible. With free worldwide texting and calls, it's one of the more private ways to communicate with people across the world for zero cost. [Free]

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Soundwave: An app that lets you chat and share music with your friends. By capturing the music you play from places like Spotify and YouTube it makes sure you'll never lose music again, and makes it easier to share it with your friends. The new version has private groups to make sharing easier, and personalised recommendations. [Free]

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Fantasy Football: The World Cup may be over but we have less than a month until the Premier League kicks off, so you might be thinking about your fantasy league for the next year. This offering from Yahoo is ideal with unlimited weekly transfers, private leagues, and cross-device synchronisation. [Free]

iPad Apps

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Flightradar 24 Free: Chances are you've heard of this one, FlightRadar lets you view millions of plans in transit in real time, and can identify any planes that fly overhead. This is an updated version which brings in a whole host of functions from the premium version absolutely free of charge. Now you can search for planes, identify overhead planes, and view pictures of them all for zero cost. [Free]

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Togethera: Finding an accessible private space to share photos online is easier said than done. The default for many websites seems to be sharing semi-publicly, and you don't want random strangers. Togethera is such a space, and it's simple enough for even the most tech-illiterate grandparents to use with no problems. [Free]

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Passible Password Manager: Passwords are a pain the remember, especially since each one has to be alphanumeric, with a capital letter, a special character, three hieroglyphics, and must be an anagram of the word salmon. Password manager will store your passwords for easy access to your apps, as well as your credit card info for your easy checkouts. [Free -- with subscription]

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Pause: Pause is a quarterly music magazine with includes reviews, features, and interviews. The latest issues have just been released, a guide to 2014 festivals, and the best of Q2 2014. [Free]

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Guardians of the Galaxy - The Universal Weapon: The trend these days is to release a video game tie-ins on mobile devices, but they tend to be over-the-top freemium games loaded with in-app purchases. Not so with this one. You take control of the eponymous Guardians in their quest to prevent the Universal Weapon falling into the hands of the villainous Ronan the Accuser over 25 different levels. [£2.99]

Android Apps

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Pullshot: Screenshots and photos are very distinct, and some phones don't distinguish between the two in your photo gallery. If that's the case, then Pullshot is there to help out. What it does is simple, it identifies your screenshots and organises them together for you automatically. From there you can further organise them into folders. [Free -- with in-app purchases]

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Kabx: Pretty much all taxi apps that work in this country are restricted to the Greater London area, which is irritating since roughly 87 per cent of the British population lives elsewhere. Fortunately Kabx is no longer one of those apps since it now works in Manchester. Book you taxi within seconds, organise how you're going to pay within the app, and with 2,000 drivers available you shouldn't have to wait more than five minutes if you're within the M60. [Free]

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QCast: QCast is a way of creating and controlling shared playlists on a Chromecast stick. Anyone who can connect to the Chromecast in question can add a song to a shared queue, and anyone can downvote songs they don't want to hear. Songs can be removed by the host, the person who queued them, or if the majority of people downvote it. You will need a Google Play Music All Access Subscription to host though. [Free -- with subscription]

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Notific: Lockscreen notifications are great, but not all apps support them. Enter Notific which will let you create a lockscreen notification for any app you deem important. As an example, by day-to-day phone doesn't support lockscreen notifications for Gmail, but with Notific it can do. Normally the app would light up your display whenever you get a notification, but it's clever enough to realise when it's in your pocket and won't light up until you pick it up -- saving you that precious battery. [£0.57]

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Short Paste: If you want to cut down a link you usually have to copy it into a link generator on the web, but if you're on your phone/tablet that might not be as easy as it sounds. As always, there's an app for that and Short Paste is simple and designed to work on a mobile device, so that you can copy the long link in and choose from one of many different kinds of shortened URLs. [Free]

Windows Phone Apps

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Clipr: The thing about backgrounds on any device is that the icons can get in the way of an otherwise amazing picture. Now the thing that separates the Windows Phone home screen from other devices are the tiles, and Clipr utilises those tiles to ensure you get the best background. It utilises the tile space, which means that they won't be getting in the way of your pictures; they are your pictures, after all. [Free]

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Chrome Mini: As far as I can tell there is, like many popular apps, no official Chrome Browser for Windows Phone; if you want the Chrome experience you have to go third party. Chrome Mini is such an app, dedicated to bringing you the basic feel of Google Chrome. It also claims to be the fastest browser available for Windows Phone, but I'll leave that for you to decide. [Free]

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Climatology: Sick and tired of your own home climate? Why not look into the different climates that exist across the world? Whether it's just for your own amusement, or if you're looking to go on holiday and don't want to get trapped by the wet season, this is something to look into. [Free]

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App Locker Pro: Sure you can lock your phone, but it isn't as foolproof as some people would hope. That's why you download an app like App Locker, which adds an extra layer of security to your important apps. Bear in mind that this isn't a case of you choosing which apps to lock, instead the app has a preset list and you can choose which ones you want protecting. Sure it's limited, but it's better than nothing. [Free]

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Spending Tracker: If you're anything like me, you just love to spend money on frivolous crap that you don't need. "It's looks so awesome" you might say, but how do you know if you can afford it? Spending Tracker is a financial app that logs how much you've spent, where you've spent it, and how much of your budget you have left. So whether you enjoy eating out, drinking out, or browsing eBay, you'll know exactly how much you can spend without missing this month's rent. [Free]

Source : gizmodo

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