[App] Stick It! Brings new meaning to multitasking on your Android Device

The true power of Android and its multitasking abilities are a topic of great debate. Does it do good, is it a hinderance, does it make a difference in your use of your device? All are question that can be answered in positive and negative ways. I like to think that it is a good thing. When people think multitasking though, they think of navigating multiple screens at the same time, like you would on a PC. Most Android devices are phones, with tablets just starting to really push their way forward. With limited real estate available of a 4 to 5 inch display, you can easily understand why having two apps open at the same time would be tricky to do.

We have seen CM9 messing with some new stuff that is gonna bring about a change to that. For tablet users at least. For the rest of us though, we crave more and more options everyday. That is when I discovered and app by MBFG called Stick It! Free your Player! Just looking at the screenshots got me interested, then watching their demo video of it in action on a Galaxy Tab 10.1, I knew I had to buy it.

Stickit! is an application that lets you do a few different things. Its primary purpose is to play a movie or video file in a player on your screen. Unlike traditional players though, this on is resizable, themeable and never goes to the background. Meaning that you movie will continue to play where you can see it while you navigate your device, respond to emails, Gchats text messages anything else you want to do. The movie will continue to play over the top of any application you open. The only place I have found the app to be covered, is at the bottom of your screen when your keyboard pops up. Not a huge deal though.

 I tested it out a my Galaxy S device, which is A Vibrant from T-Mobile. So I am running a much slower phone than what is out there. I didn’t have any issues watching an MP4 video file that was converted from a 720p source while texting the wife and talking to the Aspin team on GChat. Tapping your movie will pause it. Re-sizing it and moving it around is really easy as well. You can pop it into full screen mode or ‘minimize’ it to your notification bar. While minimized the video pauses, then opening your notification bar and tapping on it resumes its function on your screen.

Boasting an impressive list of supported playback formats is great, but there are many more additions that really make this application shine. Beyond the already mentioned wonders. If you are a big YouTuber, you can tap on the share button on the video and share it to Stick It! Which opens the player on your screen and you can watch the video while surfing for others or whatever else you wish to do. Not all YouTube videos will play though. Due to how some of them are set up on YouTube themselves, you might not get to play it. It still is a great addition though.

 Another useful feature for the video junkies out there, is multiview support. Meaning you can open up multiple instances of the player and move them around your screen. Each one can have a different movie or video available to play. This function has limited support across our wide variety of devices. I was able to utilize this function and as long as only one was playing at a time I was fine. Once both were playing I froze up. I highly doubt anyone would want to fill up a 4-inch screen with video player though, but I can see how this would be cool on a tablet.

 Finally, the supported media goes beyond your traditional formats. You can program in MMS, RTSP and HTTP as well. Letting you stream things like webcams, video surveillance or just pod casts. All right to your screen with out opening another app or leaving an app to check on something else while it is running.

The app was just update yesterday and includes a major re-write of the software, improved YouTube support the addition of a seek bar and a enque function to que up multiple videos to play one after another in one player.

All-in-all, this app is absolutely amazing. As I have said a few time, it works great on my Vibrant, but it will truly shine on a tablet that has more real-estate to use up. I can easily see myself watching a movie, reading and writing an article and responding to email if I was fortunate enough to have a Transformer or Prime. You really should check it out. I think you might just fall in love.

Application: Stick It! Free your Player
Developer: MBFG
Cost: $1.49