Shiny Violet Star

Friday, August 29, 2014

Kawaii-ify Your Android Phone with cute/useful apps and themes!

A little over a year ago I made a blog post on how to Gal-ify your iPhone by accessorizing the outside and figuring out ways to even make the internal cute with apps and certain backgrounds. I'm here to add to the entry to include a couple of Android friendly apps that I've discovered after tinkering with a Galaxy Nexus.


Launchers:





Changing your launcher in a fool proof way to really customize your phone however you want it. There's a couple ways to do this. The top two apps I've seen people use are 'Homee' and 'Home+' once you install these apps onto your phone you'll be able to download selected themes (free and paid) that will change not only the backgrounds on your phone but even your icons/shortcuts to your apps if you let it!

A couple of popular themes? 



Sanrio and San-X (for those of you who like Rilakuma) has a couple of really great ones that are free that are super cute. The one a couple of friends and I are using is the 'my melody macron sweets' theme launcher. This changes your background and your icons! I didn't keep it but it turns your camera app into a cute bunny and also places bows onto your icons. 

Homee has a lot of different options to choose from based on your personal style. There's everything from 'Princess-esque' things to sexy gyaru prints with bling to creepy cute and Alice in Wonderland for your punk and lolita needs! 

Another really popular option is 'KiraHime' which I've talked about before. This is one of those animated backgrounds. What makes this unique is that your background will move and sparkle. 'KiraKiraJewel' is also the same concept as 'KiraHime'. Honestly I like it a little bit better.  They have a couple of trial backgrounds but the only down side to these other than from the fact that it can eat away your battery life is that you do have to pay for them! It's worth it though for sure if you like really pretty customized themes and use your phone frequently. I think there are also apps by the same makers that can change up your Widgets/Calendars/Clocks ect. You just have to look hard enough!




Another theme changing option (usually you do have to pay for this option) is the brand backgrounds! Certain gyaru brands collab up with app makers for a theme! Right here  I found a ma*rs one! You guys know how I love ma*rs so I fell IN LOVE with this background. It's also a Hello Kitty collab surprisingly. Not sure if Liz Lisa did one with 'my melody' considering they are also in a collab with Sanrio! I can assume these are crazy popular. Etude House also has a launcher app that works as well!

Another really fun option is to use Cocoppa. There are a ton of options on this app. It's not very iPhone friendly honestly-this was truly made for the Android babies since you can delete the original short cut and replace it with the icons of your choice. While this does of have theme and background options-this also can change up your icons. You can create your own, buy a couple of official ones,  that or download the ones that other people make! Currently; this is what my Nexus looks like! I like it a lot! I'm still an iPhone user (I adopted a neglected Nexus to tinker with it due to not getting access to everything because of the iTunes store and all. I wanted the best of both worlds) but it was a fun way to try out certain things! 

A couple of Android apps or apps I found on the Google Play store that caught my eye that are very J-Fashion friendly; 





Camera Apps:






The top one that's popular for people is 'Line Camera'. A lot of people already use 'Line' as a messaging app and I've talked about it before-but Naver has released a couple of 'Line' apps that can co-relate with eachother. One of those was the Line Camera app! You get a little bit of everything with this sucker! It's super convenient and impressive! There's PuriKura for those of you who like decorating your pictures (you can also purchase super cute stamps from their store) a collage option, and a beautifying option all in one that really helps really refine your selcas. This is probably the most used app for pictures for me just because I can do everything in one app instead switching around with different apps.

For those of you who want to do other things to your pictures I have not left you out!  I use Perfect365 a  little bit less now but back when I had a bit of weight on me to slim down my huge face. You can definitely start looking alien thought so be careful with the effects and don't over do it! 

I used PicsArt and Pixlr for a lot of different filters and effects that don't exactly fit into the J-Fashion category. The 'Reira' cosplay pics were editing with those really neat pink filters using these apps. They're super useful. I've been using Pixlr since 2011 even before I started really selcaing and editing  my selcas! 

DecoPic is another app I use for PuriKura. It's okay. It offers a bit of the things that I can't access on LineCamera. A huge trick I do is to just layer on each apps on effects..yu have a lot of 'progress' pics as you edit true and it's not as nice as just having one app to do everything but you'll have a pretty kick ass selca afterward. The power of picture editing is insane! Don't believe everything on the internet!!!




Extras: 





Liz Lisa has two different shopping apps. I obviously do not use these for for shopping but I do use these for keeping updated on what's released! It's actually pretty neat that there's a mobile friendly version of their online shopping store on the phone versus trying to open it via a web browser. 

The more impressive app is DreamV/Yumetenbo's hands down. It will show the new collections and keep me updated on when new items are released. I can look as each section like 'dresses' 'shoes' ect. and while I can't shop on it, yet again I can easily just know what all has been released and then go on Rakuten later on to buy what I want from there. It helps me not only study trends but certain new items tend to sell out quickly so it helps to be able to be the first to know when to haul ass to the shopping site for a must grab wardrobe piece!