Now, I know many of you share the same passion as I do… Android. Now how many of you share a similar passion for bagpipe music (you couldn’t tell that from my G+ profile pic?).
Well, the other day I got word of a great app for those who have Android and a love of the ‘wailing music machine’ – a book store catalogue from the College of Piping available for your viewing. Nice!
Personally I’m a Pipes|Drums reader, but there’s no app for that. Nor do we have access to the ‘Magazine’ section of the Play Store in Canada (not that either would be in there yet I think)… so I’ll read up. Plus, as it being a UK production and we’re so close to the Worlds, it’s nice to get some ‘home turf’ information.
On opening the app you’ll get a nice welcome (which doesn’t exactly fit the screen) but it tells you that there’ll be issues of Piping Times, Pipe Band, catalogues (from sponsors) etc…
At the moment there’s only a couple issues of Pipe Band, one of Piping Times, and some catalogues from vendors (their main sponsors). Not much of a selection, but it’s still new.
Now you’ll have to click on the edition you want to read and it’ll start to download the issue. It can take a while as it has some enriched media embedded in the issue. Once done you can read away. Just use the normal flick gesture to flip through the article (be patient as it isn’t as responsive as you may expect). You’ll see it full screen, and will need to pinch to zoom on text to read, but it’s not that bad.
When a page has some rich media you’ll see a Play button – hit it and the video will load embedded in the article.
The only gripe I have with it is that it can be a storage space hog. With 3 issues and 2 catalogues downloaded it’s over 400MB on my phone. I have a fair bit of space, so I’m not concerned, but if you had something with less internal space you might have to watch it.
It’s also not neatly polished as of yet… they have some ways to go to be as fluid as it could be, but it’s less than a month old. So I’m willing to over look it, plus to have something to read offline!
So, if you like your Android device and like hearing about piping news and that ilk, then go download this now!
Play Store Link
