Chapter 22

Ten Great Chrome OS Apps

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using nifty graphical editing tools

Editing video

Listening to online music

Playing some great games

Apps are all people hear about today. Apple, Android, and Google all have application stores. With literally millions of apps available, we are in application overload. Still, many beneficial apps are available for Chromebook users. In this section, you get a brief overview of ten apps that make your life on Chromebook more enjoyable, productive, and entertaining.

Skype

Skype is the original killer app for texting and video chatting. With millions of users worldwide, Skype is the app that works on all platforms: Chromebooks, Android, iPhone, PCs, Macs, and even Linux systems.

Skype became popular when it was a great way to communicate for free, helping users avoid costly international calling fees. Another cool Skype feature is that you can call a landline phone with Skype if you want. Unfortunately, that does cost you a per-minute charge because a landline is involved.

WeVideo

Not having a lot of storage or resources on your Chromebook doesn’t mean that you can’t have a lot of fun working with video. WeVideo is an excellent app for editing video anywhere in the world. You can work in multiple editing modes (storyboard, timeline, or an advanced mode) and connect with your Facebook, Google Drive, or Dropbox to make dragging and dropping video files and photos easy. Add effects, text, transitions, and subtitles, along with background music or recorded voiceovers to bring your videos to life. You can export WeVideos to various web services in standard definition and high definition. Video is a serious business on the Chromebook with WeVideo.

WeVideo has been around for years and is still popular, as evidenced by its millions of users and high ratings. WeVideo is free to use, but with a paid subscription, you unlock more features like a vast library of stock images, videos, and audio.

Lexulous Solitaire

Lexulous Solitaire is a word game that’s a mix between Solitaire and Scrabble. You start with a game board and seven letter tiles, and you try to think of words with your tiles and place them on the board. If you love Scrabble but don’t have an opponent, Lexulous Solitaire is just the ticket. I’m a fan of word games; I like to think it keeps me young, but maybe I’m just fooling myself …

You can also play against others, making the game similar to Scrabble. You can’t cheat like you can in the board game, though (snicker!).

Angry Birds

You’ve been living under a rock for the past decade if you haven’t heard of Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a fun way to kill time with your Chromebook. Essentially, the premise of the game is to fling birds at the evil pigs and make their makeshift towers fall with a spectacular crash. Quite a bit of strategy is involved, especially in the more advanced levels, because you have to toss birds that can smash through different materials to get to the evil green pigs. The one thing that makes the game genuinely remarkable, aside from the hilarious audio, is the fantastic physics engine that calculates trajectory, velocity, and the force and sound of impacts. But don’t kid yourself: This a game doesn’t develop mental strength. Still, Angry Birds is one of the most popular computer games ever, with over 100 million downloads.

Today, you have many different Angry Birds games to choose from: Angry Birds 2, Angry Birds Friends, Angry Birds Evolution 2020, Angry Birds Transformers, and many more!

Chrome Remote Desktop

Sometimes you may need to get work done on a machine other than your Chromebook. Or maybe you have some files that reside on another device that’s miles and miles away. Remote Desktop is a great way to remotely access your other computers without having to be in the same room, or even in the same city. The Remote Desktop client must be installed in the Chrome browser of each machine that you want to control. You also have to make sure that the other computers are connected to the Internet and the Chrome browser is open.

You can also remotely access, and even control (with the owner’s permission), someone else’s Chromebook. You can control your friend’s Chromebook, or your own, from a Mac, PC, or another Chromebook. My mother has a Chromebook, and sometimes when she has a question, I can access her Chromebook and remotely control it to show her how to do something. This type of access is a great way for someone to be the IT department for relatives and friends.

PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a powerful photo editor that works great on a Chromebook. Technically a Chrome browser extension, PicMonkey is chock full of filters and other special effects to make your photos really dazzle. You can fix exposure problems, crop and resize photos, touch up photos to take the years off those family portraits, and add graphics, icons, text, and more. PicMonkey is a great app if you are into serious photo and image editing.

PicMonkey offers a free trial, Try it— if you love it, you’ll want to buy it!

Sketch The Best

This app is the Adobe Photoshop Sketch app for Chromebook. The ultimate in sketch tools, Sketch The Best lets you create digital art, whether you’re just starting out with art or are a modern master. With Sketch The Best, you draw with different pencils, pens, brushes, watercolor, acrylic, ink brushes, and more — all digital. Create your art in different layers and then edit, combine, and manipulate the layers and even name and save them.

Sketch The Best is a Chrome browser extension and works on not only your Chromebook but also the PC and Mac.

Pandora

Google Play may be a bit much for those of us just looking for a little background music while we work or play. Enter Pandora, a wildly popular Internet radio platform that lets you create stations from songs, performers, and albums. Pandora uses a combination of algorithm and user feedback to ensure that songs that load into your radio station fit the sound you’re looking for. Pandora is a free service, like Google Play — and that should be music to your ears!

Like a lot of free apps, you hear commercials on the free version of Pandora. For a modest monthly fee, the ads disappear forever, and you discover even more great features.

Microsoft Word Online

Google Docs, the word processor from Google, is impressive. But if you come from a lifelong career working in Microsoft Word, Word Online may be the right option for you. Create documents of all sorts, from letters to research papers and autobiographies. Word Online is a near replica of the desktop experience, just online. Share your documents and invite collaborators to participate in the editing of documents with Word Online; then save your documents in OneDrive or download them for storing elsewhere. Word Online is an excellent option if you aren’t ready for Google Docs.

Do note that you need to have an Office 365 account to use Word Online.

Weatherbug

The makers of Weatherbug touts that it’s the fastest, most accurate weather application currently available. Weatherbug is a ray of sunshine in your Launcher menu. Save multiple locations in your Weatherbug for quick referencing. Check current conditions or long-term forecasts. The virtual window gives you a pleasant visualization of the forecast. Weatherbug also funnels out real-time weather alerts to make sure that you’re in the know when severe weather is moving into your area. Also, check out local or national radar and plan a long trip with a precise weather forecast.

I especially appreciate Weatherbug’s lightning strike detector. For me, as a frequent air traveler, thunderstorms near airports matter because ramp operations are suspended when storms are too close, which translates into delayed or canceled flights. No planes can come or go, and when you’re trying to make tight connections, having this information can make all the difference when it comes to getting home on time.