Osbor reviews-
Lightningbug
HEY YOU
having trouble sleeping? or perhaps want something very simple to get you relaxed or focused on a volume of work?
well lightningbug will (most likely) do-you-for, read on for more.
Price: FREE
Developer: 1908 Media
Version availability: all versions from 1.5 onward
At its core, Lightningbug is essentially a sound machine. you can enabled and disable several sound effects that will continuously loop or activate at random.
your first boot up will show you the "simplicity" theme. in which only the basic rain sound and lightning sounds are enabled. In addition, flashes of randomly generated lightning will flash across your screen in conjunction with the sound effects. An image of simplicity is below. (image from the Android Anarchy video review of the app)
Each "theme" has a set of sounds with it that can be enabled or disabled. However each theme has some sounds exclusive to itself, and no included with other themes.
For instance; the "Beach at night" theme has the sound of seagulls and gentle waves, and the background image is that of a calm beach illuminated by the full moon. It also has the rain and thunder sound icons. However is does NOT have sounds from the other themes, such as the monastery theme's "monks chanting" sound. Or the white noise sound from the "generator" theme. This keeps the themes sensical and contained (monks chanting on a beach is a little illogical), but the extra option would be nice to have been included.
upon tapping the screen once, an interface appears with a few options. (pictured)
tapping once on a sound icon (the ones on the right) will enable or disable them. you can enable or disable all the sounds at once if you so wish. Long press on each sound to change the volume of each one individually (if, say, the loudness of gulls is not to your liking). You can even change the color of the lightning using the "bulls eye" icon on the left.
There's also a handy little alarm clock feature (accessible by tapping on the clock icon in the image above), with several different fonts to display it in (assuming you are to use this as a bedside clock replacement and simply MUST have the font to your liking.) That said, the alarm clock is hideously basic. only one alarm to be set and to specify if it's recursive (daily) or not. quite irritating.
A handy quality of Lightningbug is that you can specify it to run in the background at all times, such that you can listen to soothing rain or waves while browsing or listening to music (rain behind jazz sounds AWESOME, in case you were wondering.) However do realize that this feature doesn't jive well with task killers and the like, possibly causing problems if it were to be forced closed. Problems including, you know, crashing.
the themes included in the current version are;
(sounds universal to all themes are the two different rain sounds and the thunder sound)
Simplicity;
*background image; none.
*exclusive sounds - the lightning bug sound, a kind of synth-y insect noise.
The Monstery;
*background image; a mountain pass, occupied only by the silhouette of a Buddhist monastery.
*exclusive sounds - Chant, a rarely-looping sound of northern chinese buddhist monks making the all-too-recognizable "OHM" sound. - Bells, the deep ringing of large cathedral bells, only one ring, doesn't loop often.
Beach at Night;
*background image; a moonlit beach with the sea in the distance, a palm tree hangs low from the left
*exclusive sounds - Waves, three or four looping sounds of surf. Gulls, three sounds of sea gull calls.
New York Skyline;
*background image; the big apple at night time, looking at the skyline from the river. lots of lights.
*exclusive sounds - Siren, a not-often looping sound of ambulance sirens passing by in the distance. Traffic, literally just honking and driving sounds, is almost continuous.
Van De Graff;
*background image; just the top metallic orb of a van de graff generator. the lightningbolts from other scenes now strike the generator in the scene.
*exclusive sounds - Discharge, the standard lightning sound is replaced by little "ZAP!"s when bolts of electricity strike the generator. Lab noises, simply the bubbling of test tubes. White noise, just constant low-level static sounds, soothing if a bit unsettling.
Earth Attack!;
*background image; space! specifically the area surrounding earth. earth is on the bottom of the screen, with many little flying saucers shooting multicolored lightning bolts at it (effective weapons?)
*exclusive sounds - lasers, simply the sound of aliens discharging their weapons. Chatter, generic alien chatter sounds.
Overall beach at night wins my vote for best scene. Calm and surf are almost synonymous.
PROS;
-Clean, simple, effective.
-three of four clicks and you can set it down on a table and trust it to work for hours.
-quite a few scenes with appropriate sounds for each.
-GREAT for people who feel like they cannot get to sleep fast enough.
CONS;
-A little basic, an overall lack of features
-sound files aren't very varied so if you listen hard enough you'll notice some pretty obvious loops.
-the alarm could be a bit more advanced.
GRIPES;
-no real widget. a crying shame in my opinion. a simple widget with two or three programmable "settings" would be AMAZING. granted it's fast enough to get into the app itself, but still.
-some sounds are theme specific, why not have a "universal pool" to choose from?
-no option to replace the default sounds with your own. i have TONS of surf sounds i would LOVE to use in the simple interface of lightningbug, but sadly there is no option
this app gets 4 brightly flashing insects ..... out of 5
Lightningbug
HEY YOU
having trouble sleeping? or perhaps want something very simple to get you relaxed or focused on a volume of work?
well lightningbug will (most likely) do-you-for, read on for more.
Price: FREE
Developer: 1908 Media
Version availability: all versions from 1.5 onward
At its core, Lightningbug is essentially a sound machine. you can enabled and disable several sound effects that will continuously loop or activate at random.
your first boot up will show you the "simplicity" theme. in which only the basic rain sound and lightning sounds are enabled. In addition, flashes of randomly generated lightning will flash across your screen in conjunction with the sound effects. An image of simplicity is below. (image from the Android Anarchy video review of the app)
Each "theme" has a set of sounds with it that can be enabled or disabled. However each theme has some sounds exclusive to itself, and no included with other themes.
For instance; the "Beach at night" theme has the sound of seagulls and gentle waves, and the background image is that of a calm beach illuminated by the full moon. It also has the rain and thunder sound icons. However is does NOT have sounds from the other themes, such as the monastery theme's "monks chanting" sound. Or the white noise sound from the "generator" theme. This keeps the themes sensical and contained (monks chanting on a beach is a little illogical), but the extra option would be nice to have been included.
upon tapping the screen once, an interface appears with a few options. (pictured)
tapping once on a sound icon (the ones on the right) will enable or disable them. you can enable or disable all the sounds at once if you so wish. Long press on each sound to change the volume of each one individually (if, say, the loudness of gulls is not to your liking). You can even change the color of the lightning using the "bulls eye" icon on the left.
There's also a handy little alarm clock feature (accessible by tapping on the clock icon in the image above), with several different fonts to display it in (assuming you are to use this as a bedside clock replacement and simply MUST have the font to your liking.) That said, the alarm clock is hideously basic. only one alarm to be set and to specify if it's recursive (daily) or not. quite irritating.
A handy quality of Lightningbug is that you can specify it to run in the background at all times, such that you can listen to soothing rain or waves while browsing or listening to music (rain behind jazz sounds AWESOME, in case you were wondering.) However do realize that this feature doesn't jive well with task killers and the like, possibly causing problems if it were to be forced closed. Problems including, you know, crashing.
the themes included in the current version are;
(sounds universal to all themes are the two different rain sounds and the thunder sound)
Simplicity;
*background image; none.
*exclusive sounds - the lightning bug sound, a kind of synth-y insect noise.
The Monstery;
*background image; a mountain pass, occupied only by the silhouette of a Buddhist monastery.
*exclusive sounds - Chant, a rarely-looping sound of northern chinese buddhist monks making the all-too-recognizable "OHM" sound. - Bells, the deep ringing of large cathedral bells, only one ring, doesn't loop often.
Beach at Night;
*background image; a moonlit beach with the sea in the distance, a palm tree hangs low from the left
*exclusive sounds - Waves, three or four looping sounds of surf. Gulls, three sounds of sea gull calls.
New York Skyline;
*background image; the big apple at night time, looking at the skyline from the river. lots of lights.
*exclusive sounds - Siren, a not-often looping sound of ambulance sirens passing by in the distance. Traffic, literally just honking and driving sounds, is almost continuous.
Van De Graff;
*background image; just the top metallic orb of a van de graff generator. the lightningbolts from other scenes now strike the generator in the scene.
*exclusive sounds - Discharge, the standard lightning sound is replaced by little "ZAP!"s when bolts of electricity strike the generator. Lab noises, simply the bubbling of test tubes. White noise, just constant low-level static sounds, soothing if a bit unsettling.
Earth Attack!;
*background image; space! specifically the area surrounding earth. earth is on the bottom of the screen, with many little flying saucers shooting multicolored lightning bolts at it (effective weapons?)
*exclusive sounds - lasers, simply the sound of aliens discharging their weapons. Chatter, generic alien chatter sounds.
Overall beach at night wins my vote for best scene. Calm and surf are almost synonymous.
PROS;
-Clean, simple, effective.
-three of four clicks and you can set it down on a table and trust it to work for hours.
-quite a few scenes with appropriate sounds for each.
-GREAT for people who feel like they cannot get to sleep fast enough.
CONS;
-A little basic, an overall lack of features
-sound files aren't very varied so if you listen hard enough you'll notice some pretty obvious loops.
-the alarm could be a bit more advanced.
GRIPES;
-no real widget. a crying shame in my opinion. a simple widget with two or three programmable "settings" would be AMAZING. granted it's fast enough to get into the app itself, but still.
-some sounds are theme specific, why not have a "universal pool" to choose from?
-no option to replace the default sounds with your own. i have TONS of surf sounds i would LOVE to use in the simple interface of lightningbug, but sadly there is no option
this app gets 4 brightly flashing insects ..... out of 5
