class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/words3.jpg?323f2c" alt="android word games" />

I know I’m not the only one around here who href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-cool-word-games-play-google-chrome-test-language-skills/">loves  href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-quick-online-word-games-play-vocabulary/">word  href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-word-games-play-sharpen-language-skills/">games. Well, today I’d like to share two free, fun Android word games. One involves a bit of fast action, while the other mainly involves looking and hunting around. Ready? Here we go!

Letter Rip

The first game I’d like to share, href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ant.letterrip.client&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5hbnQubGV0dGVycmlwLmNsaWVudCJd">Letter Rip, supports Android 1.6 and up. It has a 4.0 rating with 813 reviews, which isn’t bad at all, and you’ll soon see why. Here’s what the board looks like early on in a game:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/words5.jpg?323f2c" alt="android word games" width="300" height="500" />

The board starts out empty, and the tiles fill in gradually, about one per second. Your job is to drag tiles around to make words. Much like Scrabble, every letter has a point value, shown as a small number on the bottom-right corner. If you don’t make words fast enough, pretty soon the board looks like this:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/words7.jpg?323f2c" alt="word games for android" width="300" height="500" />

Meaning, it is now completely full. In the screenshot above, this happened because I simply didn’t play – I wanted to let it fill up. The game is far from over: You can still make plenty of words, and they don’t even have to be in a single line. Take this, for example:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/words9.jpg?323f2c" alt="word games for android" width="300" height="500" />

As long as the letters are somehow next to each other, the resulting word is acceptable. Personally, I really like this – it allows for a great deal of flexibility. Gameplay is very calm, and there are no stressful timeouts. Once I found “JET” above, I cleared those spaces on the board and got my 50 points:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/words11.jpg?323f2c" alt="word games for android" width="300" height="500" />

Now, I can drag any letter from the top row into the empty space, and I can also move other letters around. Let’s do this in two steps: First, let’s use the free space to shuffle things around a bit.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/words15.jpg?323f2c" alt="best word games for android" width="300" height="500" />

With this shuffle, I just made a new word, “WISH”, without using any of the letters above. With a quick swipe through those letters, I can claim it, earn my points, and clear those tiles.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/words17.jpg?323f2c" alt="best word games for android" width="300" height="500" />

Now I’d like to use the letters from the top bank, to make a new word:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/words21.jpg?323f2c" alt="best word games for android" width="300" height="500" />

Can you guess what word I made? I would not usually do this so early, but it shows what the top tray is for. Note that after I empty it out, it does not magically refill – you’d best save those letters for when you really need them.

After a while, it looks like all of your options are out:

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Not much to do without vowels. Now, you can either surrender, or buy new letters:

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Buying letters looks like this:

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Again, this is another very relaxing part of the game. You don’t buy random letters in hope you’ll get something good. You actually get to pick and choose the letters you want, and pay their price with the points you’ve accumulated so far. Of course, not all letters cost the same (just as not all letters are worth the same amount of points when used in a word).

Last but not least, I’d like to show you the generous options screen:

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As you can see, you get to control the board size, game speed, and even the minimum amount of letters that count as a word.

I really like Letter Rip! because I feel the designers went out of their way to create a calming game. Where in other games I would expect to have a timer, Letter Rip! just lets me keep on playing to my heart’s content. And where other games only let me create words from top to bottom or left to right, Letter Rip! doesn’t care about directions. Very enjoyable, and captures the feel of a crossword puzzle while providing something you can’t do with paper (move letters around).

Word Search

The second game I’d like to share with you is called href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.melimots.WordSearch">Word Search, and it also runs on Android 1.6 and above. It’s a much simpler game, really:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/wordsearch.jpg?323f2c" alt="android word games" width="300" height="500" />

What you see is what you get; it’s a large grid of letters, in which you have to hunt for the words listed. Once you find a word, just draw a line through it, and it becomes highlighted. It’s an extremely simple game, but is also nice and relaxed. I only wish there was a way to hide the list of words. As it is, the game doesn’t involve much thought, but mainly looking and hunting around for those words. That’s also a mental skill, however.

My other feature request would be a way to make the board dark. This could be a great game to play at night right before I fall asleep, but the bright white board makes that impossible.

Every time you start a new Word Search game, you get a different grid with different words. You can swipe the list of words left to right – you don’t have to stick to the order they are listed, of course.

There’s not much else to say about this extremely simple Android word game, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. If you like words, take it for a spin!

Your Turn

As usual, this is the spot where I ask you if I missed your favorite Android word game. I don’t mean Words with Friends; can you surprise me with an awesome free word game that not many people know yet? Tell me below!

Image Credit: href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-58783639/stock-vector-clerks-solve-a-crossword-in-lunch-hour-vector-and-illustrations.html?src=a2560904ade4f49f0da01d2985f68bd0-1-19" rel="nofollow">ShutterStock

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/intro_soundcloud_300px.jpg" alt="" />Discovering a new artist, album or record label that corresponds with your tastes and expectations can be a rewarding experience. These golden discoveries can be few and far between and that’s where I turn to using a few extra tools to help hone in on the music I love.

We first featured href="http://www.soundcloud.com/">SoundCloud on MakeUseOf initially href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/music-in-the-soundcloud/">back in 2008, and while the core service largely remains the same; much has changed. If you’ve been wondering what SoundCloud is, whether you can make use of it and what makes it so special then read on to find out why you should probably have been using this free service all along.

Follow The Music

The service operates much in the same way as href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/twitter">Twitter whereby, once registered, you can follow other users and receive notification of new activity in your stream. The process really doesn’t get more complicated than this, and once you’ve followed a few users then your stream will begin to look fairly busy.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/dashboard_soundcloud.png" alt="" width="579" height="355" />

Along the top of the page is the main navigation, including your Dashboard (essentially a stream), You featuring all your activity, including comments made, favourites and so on, Tracks which is a quick way of exploring music on offer (now includes a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-creative-commons-projects-pay-attention/">Creative Commons option), People for finding other users and Groups. You can of course search for music, though you’re probably better going by tags for specific genres.

width="100%" height="81" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> name="src" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F28395070&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" /> width="100%" height="81" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F28395070&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" allowscriptaccess="always" />

Listening to music via SoundCloud can provide an oddly visual experience. For starters, each track is represented by a waveform with comments layered on top. Comments are tied to specific points in the song, and will be displayed accordingly for future listeners. Much of the time whilst using the service I find myself transfixed by the waveform and fairly amused by the barrage of comments, especially near a drop.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/tags_soundcloud.png" alt="" width="579" height="366" />

Comments are not only somewhat amusing but also a great way of discovering other artists you may like. If you notice someone is frequently passing comment on music you’re fond of then why not see who else that user is following.

The player itself really has come a long way since our last profile of SoundCloud, and there are a wealth of options for each song. As well as sharing with a lot of social networks, clicking “Like” to favourite the song and of course adding a comment, it is also possible to buy or download the song (depending on what the artist has stipulated) and even href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/embed-mp3-player-website">embed the player within a website.

I’ve taken advantage of this here to bring you a few choice cuts from the service, and to demonstrate a great way of sharing your favourite tracks with those not currently using SoundCloud.

style="text-align: center;"> width="100%" height="81" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> name="src" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F9243449&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" /> width="100%" height="81" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F9243449&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" allowscriptaccess="always" />

SoundCloud Mobile

By far one of the best ways of using the service is via one of the mobile apps. Both the Android version and SoundCloud for iOS received updates recently, and whilst I can’t really speak too much for href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/android">Android, the updated app I’m running on my href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/iphone">iPhone is better than ever.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/soundcloud_ios.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="320" />

The recent iOS update finally added the viewing of comments during playback and refreshed the UI. Your followers’ activity in both versions is now constricted to the Stream tab with any sounds you choose to record or share going in the Activity tab. As you’d expect, the iPhone version continues playback in the background without a hitch (some apps still don’t do this) and you can skip and pause from your homescreen.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/control_soundcloud_from_homescreen.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="480" />

The only thing that the mobile version really lacks is the ability to download tracks, though if you really like a track that much you can favourite it and download it the next time you’re near a PC. The mobile SoundCloud experience is generally a faster and more pleasant way of checking your stream, and I’d thoroughly recommend it.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/now_playing_soundcloud_iphone.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="480" />

Download: href="http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/soundcloud/id336353151?mt=8">SoundCloud for iOS @ App Store /> Download: href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.soundcloud.android&hl=en">SoundCloud for Android @ Android Market /> View: href="http://m.soundcloud.com/">SoundCloud Mobile (Web)

Other Ways To Get Your ‘Cloud On

SoundCloud really has been growing for a long time now, and as a result there are a lot of ways to use the service. Mac OS X users who are running 10.6 or later can jump right in and download href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/soundcloud-desktop">SoundCloud Desktop, directly from the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/mac-app-store/">Mac App Store. The interface somewhat resembles iTunes and the software is ideal if you’re thinking of streaming SoundCloud for a party.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/soundcloud_desktop_app.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="313" />

There are further add-ons and plugins for the href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/soundcloud4ps3">PS3, href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/boxee">Boxee and href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/roku">Roku. In addition to this there are a wealth of apps that take advantage of the SoundCloud service. If you’re fond of mobile music making apps like the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-app-review-imaschine-powerful-portable-groove-sketchpad-ios/">recently featured iMaschine or href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/ims-20">KORG’s iMS-20 then you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out you can share your creations straight to SoundCloud simply by logging in using your chosen app.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/export_to_soundcloud_imaschine.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="480" />

SoundCloud’s href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/api-good-technology-explained/">API has spawned literally hundreds of additional ways to use the service, be it creating an online presence using your taste in music, setting up a trigger to href="http://www.ifttt.com/">Tweet your uploads using If This Then That or simply sharing a rough loop or two with your followers.

View: href="http://soundcloud.com/apps">The SoundCloud App Database

style="text-align: center;"> width="100%" height="81" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> name="src" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F28878460&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" /> width="100%" height="81" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F28878460&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" allowscriptaccess="always" />

Finally…

Who exactly is SoundCloud good for? Well aside from being an awesome tool for you and me to quickly discover new music, SoundCloud is also great for artists and record labels, particularly smaller ones.

My SoundCloud favourites are populated mostly by tracks from obscure artists, some just starting out, who I would never have discovered were it not for the service. Similarly, many of these artists and producers would never have received the same level of exposure had it not been for SoundCloud.

So there’s your final reason to sign up, download and wallow in the SoundCloud service. If you’d like to share any tracks, your profile or artists in the comments then go ahead.

Do you like SoundCloud? Have you used it for a while? Noticed the mobile updates? Post your thoughts in the comment box below.

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Mp3 Downloads is what everyone is after since the time of its birth. Over the years, the interest of music industry has moved on to embrace the world of WWW and since then, there has been no turning back. This format of digital music files has become the most common term in the music world and Free Mp3 Downloads is the way of music in the era of high progression with more and more to reveal in the future.

Having online buddies, who share the same passion with music can now be yours for the taking. Have your own profile or page and let others know what your favorites are and other things you might want to share with them, in the world of music. Know that you are getting all this for free; so don’t worry about downloading too many songs, since it is actually unlimited.

Concept of Free Mp3 Downloads

At first, no one could believe that music would be made available over the internet and especially in the downloadable form. With totally free mp3 downloads, the access to any songs is within your grasp. By just clicking on it, you could download your favorite track that you can listen anywhere, anytime you want.

Ease of Sharing and Portability

The best thing about Mp3 Downloads is the ease of sharing a song with your friend and the idea of carrying your music wherever you go. For example, you can have free mp3 music downloads and simply send it to your friend through email or refer them through the site you downloaded your song from. Plus, you can transfer the song in your portable Mp3 Player or burn it on a CD to listen to it in your car or wherever you want.

Free of Cost

The best thing about Mp3 Downloads is that they are free. Certain sites however charge you as much as a dime to pay for specific songs which are copyrighted but nevertheless, you can track those down for free as well. This option gives you the ability to find all the songs you like through Mp3 free download music facility over the internet.

Selectivity at Your Own Preference

With a huge archive of totally free Mp3 downloads at your disposal, you have the ease and comfort of downloading only the track that you want. With conventional way, you would have to buy the whole album CD of the artist just to listen to that one song you love. Free Mp3 Downloads leave the selection choice on your own will and with a huge collection to choose from, you could never get bored to download as many free tracks as you want.

File Sharing Portals

Free Mp3 downloads are also available through file sharing portals where all the users on that portal can easily download and transfer their music to their friends and other users. It shapes up to become a community where all music lovers gather up to share their music with each other. With file sharing portals, you would not have to go to internet browser and visit different sites to find free mp3 music downloads. These portals are very easy to find and access over the internet.

There are very many free mp3 downloads websites which allow music lovers to get free access or purchase any mp3 songs online. It is now simpler to get songs and different music videos through the different websites online. Many websites offering these services are however illegal and this is why one needs to be keen on everything so that he cannot fall in such hacks or get involved in other illegal practices that may mean hefty fines or even jail terms when caught.

The legality of downloading mp3 songs has however being managed through registration of different users in the mp3 downloads websites. This has made the practice better and advanced. With popular music download sites, for instance Bearshare, the availability of legal free mp3 downloads has been made a reality for all music lovers. This practice has become very popular in the modern world of entertainment.

There being many other legal free mp3 downloads sites, it is always good to know how to choose from their databases to get the best of their services. The deals at times become too much enticing that one is confused on what song to choose. However, the good thing is that the procedures have been made much easier. Most mp3 download sites offer free memberships but some have a minimal operation charge with a fixed price for downloads. Others have a standard monthly subscription fee, which is a must for every subscriber who wants to access downloads.

Consumers can listen to their favorites genres of music that are available at the websites. At times people, shun away from listening to music all because it is expensive to purchase different CDs from a wide number of artistes. This is why free mp3 music downloads have come as a relief the music lovers. However, getting totally free mp3 music downloads can prove to be difficult because many websites needs some finances to run the site and this is why they have a minimal charge.

All you need is to perform a search to find that particular site offering safe downloads using software which is free of viruses. At least you have a wide range of choice from rock & pop music, jazz music, hip-hop music, folk music, country music or any of your favorites from the mp3 downloads.

The good thing is that in case there is a monthly fee charged for each specific website, the exact cost of the respective downloaded track is usually lower than the mp3 downloads and this is why the download is cheaper and the best in getting your favorite music. What is even better is the availability of the latest free mp3 tracks which have been released of late and the gallery contains the earlier released editions. There are online mp3 music stores which will even offer you progressive pricing allowing you to purchase tracks at very cheap rates with the quantity of purchase for the mp3 downloads.