Android Apps

[20thStDad]

My wife just got a new phone with the Android OS. So...what apps do we need to go get? Post your favorite, most useful, most fun...

[Flashman]

Google Sky Map is great if you are interested at all in astronomy.

Wikimoble

FlightTrack if you travel much

Depending on your mail server you may need Touchdown (great Exchange client)

I also like Documents to Go, which gives you access to Word, Excel, PDF, and Powerpoint

[editor]

Be careful with installing some of the Android apps. I've read a couple of articles recently about apps that either aren't what they seem, or that aren't from the people you might think they are. One example given was bank apps that let you look at your accounts and pay bills, etc... Not all of them are actually made by the banks they claim to represent. In some cases there are three or four apps all claiming to be the "official" banking apps of a particular bank, yet none of them are. As with anything on the internet -- be careful to whom you give your information.

That said, if you need a commercial-strength Twitter client, Hootsuite can't be beat. Though, it's not free. I think it's like $1.99 or something.

[samagon]

I'm going to be moving from att back to tmobile and going from an iphone to a nexus one, so this topic interests me greatly!

from the iphone the apps that are most used by me are sports and weather.

I've found some good weather options, the weather channel app, the weather bug app (depending on where you like your source, wunderground or weather channel) I think they both offer animated radar, and there is a great widget that puts a clock on screen and a quick weather update, it's called beautiful widgets http://levelupstudio.com/widgets/weather

haven't really looked terribly hard for sports widgets and sports apps, but I really like score updates to be pushed to my phone, and a widget would be cool to see score updates as well. unfortunately, it seems espn has puts all of their eggs behind the idevices, I love the score center app for the iphone, but it doesn't seem to be available for the andriod.

[AtticaFlinch]

I don't have an Android, but I do have a Storm. The only app I cannot live without (anymore, now that I have it) is Google Maps. It works better than a GPS in my opinion, and the latest version is voice capable.

I would warn that you be careful what you install though. Some programs, even from trusted sources, will screw your phone up. A case in point for me was when I downloaded ESRI's GPS app for the Storm. It worked beautifully. It gave me precise coordinates for my location (the standard geodetic degree-minute-second system, WGS 84 and NAD 83), plus it could track my routes and later upload my plotted points as a layer in ArcGIS. The app was brilliant. I loved this app. The only problem was once I downloaded and installed it, my screen never went black. With this app, my phone had only about an hour of life with each full charge.

I don't know anymore what my point was, but I really hated to see that app go. I really wish it was more stable and worked better on my phone. I have not come across a better, more useful app than that. Maybe that will work well with your Android.

Also, if data usage isn't a concern for you, Pandora is sorta cool. I've also got Baby Go which keeps the kid entertained when she absolutely will not leave my phone alone. Considering you've also got a couple small kids, it would probably be useful for you too. Ever since I installed Baby Go, my kid doesn't rub the phone screenside down on the fireplace bricks anymore.

[Jeebus]

Don't use any third-party apps to bridge to p2p or finance networks unless you know for sure as mentioned above.

If you have mp3's you want to listen to on your droid, you can use software like Salling media to bridge iTunes NON-purchased/locked/protected music to your phone. Just regular unlocked mp3s.

Pdanet if you want to USB tether your phone to your laptop.

the Facebook app works fine, you just have to manually refresh it from the menu sometimes.

Zillow is fun when you're bored and want to look up house values and homes for sale similar to the Har map search. It also can track to where you are.

Houston transtar has an app showing the freeways and camera just like their website.

Redbox codes is an app that people post up all the free codes they have. I've rented at least a dozen movies and have yet to not have one of the codes work to get my movie for free.

iheartradio allows you to get all the local plus many national radio stations live via web stream.

shazam can tell you the name of a song playing on the radio.

fast food is a fast food restuarant aggregator that uses your gps to show you the closest locations.

Alqoa is similar but also does coffee shoes, malls, movie theatres, etc..

screen crack is the coolest app there is IMO.

metal detector actually detects metal, something that the iphone can't do (if you're the type that likes to get in pissing matches with iphone users over who's better)

google sky maps is pretty cool app that shows you the constellations in relation to where you are.

bubble is a multi-plane level.

compass is a compass with different features.

depending on what phone you get, there are different flashlight options - either for the screen to turn white or for the led flash to turn on.

The HTC droid Eris comes stock with the adobe pdf viewer and quick office for document viewing.

[20thStDad]

So far I did get Google Sky and Docs To Go, those promise usefulness or just are neat. I also found one that does a bunch of unit conversions, that is good times for an engineer. My wife also spent about an hour getting toddler-entertainment games (counting, letters, puzzles), there were TONS to choose from, and so far they have fit the bill.

I'll have her keep an eye on the battery life, hopefully none of those try to keep doing their own thing when they aren't explicitly open. I'll check out the Google Maps thing, I assume the app is more efficient than going to the same thing on the web.

One thing I can't understand is why anyone would want all those famous person quotes apps. Why the hell is a list of quotes by Maya Angelou or Jayzee interesting? It's not.

My wife really wanted an iPhone, but we've been on AT&T for the past 2 years and just can't take it any more. We're in the middle of the 4th largest city in the country, and we have constant issues with dropped calls or not being able to call out. My work blackberry is on AT&T and isn't as bad, but her phone was ridiculously crappy. Before jumping the gun and leaving we asked around, and others we know with AT&T had similar experiences. So, she's with T-Mobile now, and since it's on a non-contract basis we'll see how it goes. I used to have T-Mobile 6-7 years ago, and the only problem I had was reception in rural areas, which isn't that important for her. It's good all along I-10, she's not going camping or to work for a month in Gillette Wyoming like I had to. Ok I'm done going OT on my own thread...

[20thStDad]

Don't use any third-party apps to bridge to p2p or finance networks unless you know for sure as mentioned above.

If you have mp3's you want to listen to on your droid, you can use software like Salling media to bridge iTunes NON-purchased/locked/protected music to your phone. Just regular unlocked mp3s.

Pdanet if you want to USB tether your phone to your laptop.

the Facebook app works fine, you just have to manually refresh it from the menu sometimes.

Zillow is fun when you're bored and want to look up house values and homes for sale similar to the Har map search. It also can track to where you are.

Houston transtar has an app showing the freeways and camera just like their website.

Redbox codes is an app that people post up all the free codes they have. I've rented at least a dozen movies and have yet to not have one of the codes work to get my movie for free.

iheartradio allows you to get all the local plus many national radio stations live via web stream.

shazam can tell you the name of a song playing on the radio.

fast food is a fast food restuarant aggregator that uses your gps to show you the closest locations.

Alqoa is similar but also does coffee shoes, malls, movie theatres, etc..

screen crack is the coolest app there is IMO.

metal detector actually detects metal, something that the iphone can't do (if you're the type that likes to get in pissing matches with iphone users over who's better)

google sky maps is pretty cool app that shows you the constellations in relation to where you are.

bubble is a multi-plane level.

compass is a compass with different features.

depending on what phone you get, there are different flashlight options - either for the screen to turn white or for the led flash to turn on.

The HTC droid Eris comes stock with the adobe pdf viewer and quick office for document viewing.

Zillow and Compass sound like fun...what is screen crack?

[Jeebus]

It just makes your phone look like its been ran over by a car. Yeah, I'm that easily amused.

[Jeebus]

I'll have her keep an eye on the battery life, hopefully none of those try to keep doing their own thing when they aren't explicitly open. I'll check out the Google Maps thing, I assume the app is more efficient than going to the same thing on the web.

I completely forgot the most important app I have: advanced task manager.

It allows you to kill any or all tasks running in the background. I run it a few times a day because there are apps that will "phone home" on their own that you can't turn off and sometimes can't even uninstall (Amazon mp3 store immediately comes to mind).

It also shows you all running processes that you can kill as well, and it has the option to uninstall any app from either the currently running list, or the master list.

That, combined with the discipline of turning off wifi, gps, and bluetooth when not needed (various droid OS's make desktop widgets and/or you can download free versions) will extend your battery life drastically.

[kdog08]

Cardio trainer is a great app for exercising or keeping track of how far you bike/walk. It's pretty simple to use.

[Guest vklr92]

Android has gained enough popularity since its launch in late 2008, and is already competing tightly with Apple. The Android Market - the online software store hosted by Google - has over 460,000+ estimated apps available for both free and paid download, and as of July 2011, there were more than 6 billion downloads from the Android Market. We’ve gone through the best that the Android market has to offer, and this is a list that we consider to be the best Android apps.

Google has managed to ship over 107 million Android devices in Q2 of 2011, and with the increasing number of sales in the mobile market, developers are continuing to develop more and more apps for Android phones.

Here are the best android appls...

1: News Republic

2: Springpad

3: ATM Hunter

4: GasBuddy

5: Googlevoice

[elecpharm]

Google Maps is fantastic. On a recent trip tp Paris, I used it daily.

As Vklr92 stated above News Republic and Springpad are nice apps to have.

A few others:

1. TripAdvisor

2. Google Talk

3. Intel Pair & Share.

4. Where's My Droid

[samagon]

thanks for bumping this...

1.5 years on with Android, and still rockin/rollin. do not miss the iPhone at all, in fact, when I look at what Android can do out of the box, and what iOS limits you to, I can't imagine ever going back. Anyway...

Apps I use pretty much daily:

Beautiful Widgets

Tapatalk

handcent SMS

google voice

weather channel app

sports tap

sports mobile

news and weather

news360

angry birds seasons

Apps I have that are useful every now and again.

netflix

IMDB

Pandora

Fandango

FuelLog

[DistribAire P.E.]

I completely forgot the most important app I have: advanced task manager.

It allows you to kill any or all tasks running in the background. I run it a few times a day because there are apps that will "phone home" on their own that you can't turn off and sometimes can't even uninstall (Amazon mp3 store immediately comes to mind).

It also shows you all running processes that you can kill as well, and it has the option to uninstall any app from either the currently running list, or the master list.

That, combined with the discipline of turning off wifi, gps, and bluetooth when not needed (various droid OS's make desktop widgets and/or you can download free versions) will extend your battery life drastically.

this is what I was going to post, the advanced task killer is a must. its crazy how the droids have all these apps running in the background on their own.

[samagon]

I used atk for about 6 months, then when I got gb, I decided to see how battery life would be without using it. To my surprise, battery life did not suffer as a result.

I highly recommend if you have gingerbread, see how it goes without the task killer. You may find the same results.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

[elecpharm]

I've never used a task killer.

http://androidspin.com/2010/05/25/why-you-dont-need-a-task-killer-app-with-android/

[brian0123]

I've never used a task killer.

http://androidspin.c...p-with-android/

Thank you for posting that. As a developer, it drives me nuts when people continue to think you need a task killer.

[HoustonMidtown]

I've got a guy at work with an Android that recently wiped his phone (by mistake!)....he didn't have any of his stuff backed up -- what do you recommend for backing up all your stuff (music, contacts, favorites, etc) on the Android side -- I need to hook him up (Im an iPhone user so I have no clue what to tell him)

Thanks!

[samagon]

Chrome to Android is supposed to sync bookmarks. You can backup contacts to a csv that you have to manually import into Gmail (or at least I haven't found a better way). And music, use Google music to push to "the cloud" which you can then access from anywhere on the net.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

[samagon]

thought this would be a good opportunity to follow up. I bit the bullet/broke down and bought a galaxy nexus to replace the aging nexus 1 I've been using for about 2 years now.

to answer the question about backup...

As far as contacts, this is done via gmail automatically, when you first turn on the phone (maybe this is a feature of ICS though) it asks if you want to sync contacts/etc.

music is not backed up (but with google music, this shouldn't be an issue), favorites are not backed up (but there is a way to sync desktop chrome with your phone).

Anyway, I was surprised that it didn't recognize some apps I had that were available, I had to search the market for about 3/4 of the apps I use on a normal basis, where with my tablet it asked "do you want to install apps" the new phone didn't do any of that.

Apparently, there's some options out there that let you do backups of all app data (titanium backup is one I hear about the most) but you have to root to use, as my only real 'loss' was my progress on angry birds, I don't think I'm going to want to go through unlocking all golden eggs, get 3 stars on all levels again! but everything else is mostly just logging in (like netflix).