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My Top 10 Favorite Android Apps (so far)
So I recently got a Sprint version of the Samsung Galaxy S phone called “The Epic 4G“. I can safely say that after owning it for almost a month it is THE best phone I have ever owned.
For those of you that know me, I have had a long standing boycott of the iPhone due to the fact that I need a physical keyboard on any texting or smart phone that I own. I have tried time and time again and I just can’t seem to get used to the whole touch screen keyboard thing.
Thus the Sprint version of the new Samsung phone was a total win for me since it includes the sliding keyboard. Buying this phone also introduced me to the world of Google’s Android OS. Previously, I owned a Palm Pre which used the WebOS platform… and even though I LOVE my new phone, there are still things that the Palm OS did just a little better.
Anyway, in playing with Android, I have found some pretty snazzy apps. If you like to suggest some others I should try, please let me know. Here’s the ten that I have been the most impressed with/enjoyed the most so far…
AndFTP - the best of the free FTP apps I could find.
Angry Birds – when is the full version coming out??!!! Even Palm’s WebOS has a full version already. Dammit!
Google Goggles – I am yet to actually use this app for anything practical, but there is something to be said about the fun involved in taking pictures of things and see what Google finds as a result.
Google Voice – the ability to call from my Google Voice account on a whim gets built into my phone via this app. This is extremely useful when using the phone for the business line (which is a Google Voice number.) Pure awesome.
gReader – I still keep track of websites via RSS, and this little app allows me to keep plugged in to my Google Reader and updates the articles. This is a great for when I want to keep caught up on reading and there isn’t a PC around.
Hootsuite – just like the online website, I can manage and play with a number of the Twitter accounts I manage. Now if they’d only get Facebook integration built into the Android app, too…
Mojo NES – old school Nintendo goodness that plays classic NES games on my phone. I am using the free one and it seems to work fine.
RockPlayer – this lets me play DivX files on my phone. With the extreme prettiness of the screen’s resolution, this is VERY important… and it looks DAMN GOOD.
WordPress – how awesome is it that I can make posts like this from anywhere?
ScanLife - an app that scans bar codes and then looks them up on the Internet for price comparison. I see this getting a lot of use this Christmas while shopping.
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I’m with Joey with Handcent SMS. Fantastic little text message app. More customizable, plus I like the pop-up options.
Linda’s good. I still use Astro as a file manager. Either way.
Here’s a bunch I like:
Carr Matey is a cool app that is great for theme park parking lots and big parking situations. It lets you “drop anchor” where you car is, and then uses GPS to navigate you back to it later.
Lookout is a virus scanner progam I keep on the phone for when/if I download stuff off-market. Regularly updated and solid.
TripIt is a great travel organizer that lets you forward your travel itineraries along (or have TripIt automatically import them from Gmail), and then you’ve got a whole master travel plan on your phone—check-in links, flight information, weather and traffic stats for your destination, and so on.
I don’t like the stock browser, though it’s better under Froyo, but Dolphin HD is what I’ve been using. Gesture-based browsing, tabs on top that disappear for full-screen browsing, add-ons that can block ads and send articles to Read It Later, and quite a few other doodads worth checking out.
Tasker – I just found this, so I haven’t played around with it. But it’s a customization dream. It’s an automaton utility that lets you set up behaviors. Want to have your phone turn on GPS and Bluetooth, raise the ringer volume, and automatically launch the Navigation app when you’re in the car, but turn everything off and silent when you put your phone face-down at work? It can let you do that kinda thing.
Coupons – daily coupon deals, restaraunt freebies, stuff like that. Regularly updated.
Shazam – Let the phone listen to that song you can’t figure out the name of and Shazam identifies it for you.
Tricorder – turns your phone into a Tricorder. With sounds. And actually works! It’s info you probably don’t care about (solar flares, magnetic fields, Wi-Fi field strength) but it’s just cool.
gMote – it’s like XBMC remote, but works across several platforms. Windows Media, VLC player, all kinds of stuff. You can also pay $5 for an iTunes compatible one too.
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Well as much longer user of the Android OS, I own a Nexus One… and a rooted user as well, I have a few apps that I find extremely useful as a ‘poweruser’.
Shop Savvy – I prefer its interface over ScanLife, I also keep Barcode Scanner on the phone as well because in my work, I like the ability to read a bar code just to see if its 3of9, UCC128, etc.
Auto Memory Manager – Memory Management was always an issue with earlier Android Builds. Task Killers were all the rage. Supposively this has been solved with 2.2 Froyo. Nexus One phones are running 2.2.1 now and I was going to run experiments to see if I really needed this anylonger.
Battery Graph – I just like to know when peak periods of battery drain are.
Linda Manager – The one thing Android out of the box is missing is a good file manager. iOS is missing this as well, and its something I miss from my time with Windows Mobile. Linda Manager handles it extremely well, while also having an independent application manager.
Handcent SMS – I loathe the Android native SMS interface. Handcent SMS takes what is good about how iOS handles it and adds a few Android specific tweeks.
Power Manager (Full Version) – Power Management is one of the biggest issues with the larger Android phones. Automatic throttling down of processes when the battery drops below 20% is very helpful. Though specific ‘cooks’ of the Android OS (i.e. Cyanogen) have even more robust power management applications built in.
XBMC Remote – Well I do have 2 XBMC boxes in my home.