The Grey Lab

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Macbook Air Mockups

It gives a realistic feel of how the app or design would look like on a real device. So, today I am going to share some really nice and realistic Macbook Air and Macbook Pro PSD mockup templates. Whether you’re a designer or a developer, you can use these mockup templates to present your designs beautifully.

To use these mockup templates, you just need to open the PSD file in Photoshop and find a layer which includes the screenshot. You just need to double-click that screenshot layer(which will open the smart layer in a new tab), replace the default screenshot with your design or screenshot and save the new layer.

2 Morning Device Mock-ups

Free Photorealistic Web Mockup

Macbook Mockup

Vintage Macbook Mockup

Summertime Inspired Macbook Mockup

MacBook Pro Retina 15 Mockup

Web Display Mockup

Workstation Macbook Air Showcase Mockup

Macbook Pro Retina PSD Mockups

MacBook Air Mockup

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Android 5.0 Lollipop – Everything You Need To Know

After tons of teasing and even showing off parts of it earlier in the year The company has just announced Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The fifth version of Android was first announced on June 25th and seeded to developers as a preview that could be installed on selected Nexus devices. It was just a taste of things to come and it wasn’t until today that we learned what features will be included in the final release. And there are quite a few of them, among which the most noticeable change is a fresh new user interface called Material Design.

Android 5.0 Lollipop is coming to the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10, as well as Google Play edition devices, in the coming weeks. Motorola devices should get the update before the end of the year. Other manufacturers are yet to announce their plans.

So what’s new in Android 5.0?

Material Design

With Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google introduces a new design language for all its apps and services. It is advertised as a spiritual successor to ink and paper – and it was designed to feel like them. Whilst moving around the interface, you will see how natural it is thanks to realistic lighting and shadows, fluid motion, beautiful typography, and edge-to-edge imagery. There are beautiful animations and smooth transitions everywhere and large palette of colours brings the much-needed breath of fresh air to Android’s somehow stagnated look.

Notifications

Android 5.0 Lollipop will now display your notifications on the lockscreen. You can interact with them in a variety of ways. For instance, you can dismiss a notification with a single swipe or reply to a text message without even unlocking your phone. Google has also added priority mode that will prevent selected applications from sending notifications. You can also activate quiet hours or make the system display notifications only from certain people.

The notification panel itself now sports a much cleaner look. Along with it, Quick Settings received a major overhaul. Now you can swipe down from the notification panel to quickly turn on and off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, location sharing, and more.

Performance

Android 5.0 Lollipop is the first version of Google’s mobile operating system that uses ART as default runtime. The company says it offers up to 4 times the performance while running the same applications, enables smoother user experience, and improves multitasking by making background apps and services more memory-efficient.

Another new thing is support for 64-bit processors that should allow for even better performance in the future.

Battery life

Battery life is important and Google knows that. The company’s engineers equipped Android 5.0 Lollipop with a handy new featured called battery saver. It turns off some power-hungry features to help you get up to 90 more minutes of battery life.

Security

Encryption is now enabled by default on all new devices. It will secure your personal data SELinux module. Moreover, thanks to a new Android Smart Lock feature, you can unlock your device automatically when a paired smartwatch or car is near.

More

There are many bits here and there in Android 5.0 Lollipop. One of the coolest small features is the ability to tape your new Android smartphone to your old one and copy all information using NFC. Another one is the always-listening “OK Google” voice command that you can use to make a phone call, send a text message, or perform other tasks without touching the device. If you happen to share your phone with somebody, you’ll be happy to know that this feature has also been improved and comes with a slew of new options.

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Bolt — A Minimal Dialer App for Android

But this article isn’t about Android, it is about Bolt, a replacement app for Android’s Phone app which I discovered the last week. After looking at its screenshots, I immediately installed the app just to experience the beautiful interface which we don’t usually see in most Android apps. Bolt’s latest version looks a bit different from what I saw in the screenshots but it still looks beautiful. The sign up process is simple, it uses your phone number to log into your account.

Bolt shows everything on main screen, with recent contacts at the top which takes one-fourth of the screen and all your contacts at the rest of the screen. It shows recently contacted contacts at the top of the screen with the photo as background and contact name with three dots icon next to it. Tapping on the photo will call the contact and tapping on the name will show options for viewing the contact details and changing the primary number. You can horizontally scroll through the Recent Contacts block to see more Contacts.

Below the Recent Contacts block is where it lists all the Contacts organized in list-view. Frequently called contacts are listed at the top while all less-frequent contacts at the bottom. For a contact in the list, it shows the contact photo at the left, contact name and the last contact time in the center and a right-pointing icon at the right to view the contact details. Tapping on the photo or the name dials the contact. In the Action bar, you get a search button to quickly get to the desired contact, a dialer icon to access the dialer and three-dots icon to view other options and access app settings. Tapping on the dialer icon opens up the dialer from the bottom on the same screen such that you can see the contacts list at the top. After typing the number in dialer while calling, you have to tap the part at the top where it shows typed number to make the call, which isn’t ordinary and took me some time to figure out. On the main screen, you can slide towards right to access a menu where it shows your profile details along with your photo.

The best feature that comes with Bolt is that Bolt to Bolt calls are totally free. So if the person you’re calling is also using Bolt, then you can talk without any costs. Of course it uses Data Connection or Wi-fi connection for Bolt to Bolt calls. I haven’t made a Bolt to Bolt call so I can’t comment on the quality yet but the app looks promising.

I can only say that I love Bolt because of its minimalistic design and it already replaced the stock dialer and contacts app for me. Bolt comes with a beautiful UI and allows me to make calls quickly which is pretty much everything I think a good phone app should have. Bolt to Bolt calls are free, which is a plus. Also, developers of the app will be launching the iOS version of Bolt soon. Interested iPhone users can head over to Bolt website to sign up for early access.

Bolt is free on Google Play Store.

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Cabinet is a Lightweight File Manager for Android

Google is about to release Android L very soon and we can already see some nice apps on Google Play Store featuring Material Design UI. Cabinet is a simple and lightweight file manager for Android designed by Aidan Michael Follestad. The app is very simple to use and looks very nice in Material Design touch.

After launching the app, you get the main screen where it lists all your files and folders. Swiping towards right shows a menu with quick links to Storage, DCIM, Music and Pictures directory. On the main screen, it shows the folder/file icon with its name and a three-dots icon on the right in list-view. You get a list of operations you can perform after tapping on the three-dots icon next to a file or folder. Apart from the normal operations like copy, rename and delete, you can also create a zip of the folders or files. You can also Pin your favorite directories to the quick links menu. In the action bar, you get a Back button at the right for quick navigation and three-dots icon for accessing the app menu. From the app menu, you get option to Sort the files, Search, Filter and open App settings.

You can also perform operations on multiple files or folders by tapping and holding on the desired files or folders and then on the three-dots icon at the top right in the action bar to choose the operation. While selecting multiple files, you have to tap on the folder or file icon to select it. There’s also a Material Design inspired add icon at the bottom right of the screen tapping on which you get the option to add a New file, Folder or Remove Connection.

The app is fast and works very well. After granting root access, you can also access system files and directories. Cabinet is currently in beta and also has a Google+ groupwhere you can get early updates and request features.

Cabinet beta is available for free on Google Play Store.

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Audax Icons Pack for Android

I once installed Kovdev’s Domo icons pack and it didn’t took me much time to fall in love with the icons and the wallpapers. Till today, Domo was the only icons pack which I really liked, but Kovdev’s latest icons pack Audax, is now available on Google Play Store and it is equally beautiful.

We first had a look at Audax in a teaser post on Kovdev’s Google+ page which also had the release date mentioned which was yesterday. After using Domo icons for a long time, I wanted to give the Audax icons pack a go and downloaded it today. There are lots of icons pack with round icons on Google Play Store but Audax icons are a bit different. The icons in Audax are round and flat, but they also have subtle depth effect at the bottom, which gives the icons a nice effect. The best thing about the Icons packs from Kovdev is that they come with a icon picker which is better than the usual icon picker we see in most icon packs. While picking icons, you can search or view icons based on category to quickly get to the desired icon.

With beautiful icons, you also get a nice set of cloud-based wallpapers with Audax icons. These wallpapers are from Android’s top designers including Ryan Kelly, the designer of Murum app and Pedro Peguero Jr, the designer of one of the most popular icon pack, Moonshine.

Audax comes with over 2000 high-definition icons, 30+ wallpapers and Icon browser which makes picking icons quick. It is compatible with most launchers and you can always use Unicon app to apply icons on your favorite launcher in case it isn’t compatible.

Audax is available on Google Play Store for $1.99.