Recommended Android Apps
Now that you have an Android phone/computer/PDA/brick, what apps should you install?
The Short Version
When someone asks me, I'll say DoubleTwist is great for iTunes lovers, Astro is a decent file manager-which you'll need for finding certain files on your phone. Docs Pics is good for google docs, Go!Lyrics (if you can find it) lets you watch the lyrics of the songs you are listening to, Quick Task Killer is about as good as anything else to maybe help on battery life (though the autokill can cause keyboard freezes and you have to exclude gps programs). Remote Droid lets you control the mouse on a mac or PC. Voice can be set up to show a preview of text messages to a google voice account, as well as transcribe voicemails for free. Maps is good for navigation (unless you go out of a 3g data range). SoftRace and SportyPal are GPS programs that are awesome to run, bike, hike, etc with. Delicious is a good bookmark saver and finder tool if you get a free account.
Astro File Manager-There may be better ones out there, but Astro allows you to view and edit the contents of the folders on your phone and SD card.
ArcMedia---Maybe lets you watch additional video formats on your phone. I'm not sure. Only download if you can't play video files you transferred to your SD card.
AroundMe- Not awesome, but can help you find nearby attractions like gas stations (no gas prices) and restaurants. "Where" is probably a better alternative.
Convert Anything-This can help with converting cooking measurements, weight, and more. I like to cook.
Craigsnotification-Lets you save searches for keywords you want to keep tabs on. If you leave "Background Notifications" turned on, it will run in the background by default if you set up a search and alert you when a new posting that fits your saved search criteria comes up. You have to set up a search and then delete it since it autosaves searches. Don't enable "notify me" when you set up a search if you don't want your phone to buzz whenever a new post starts up.
DailyStrip- Lets you keep tabs on most of your favorite comic strips.
Delicious- (There are a few out there...The one with a square with curved corners and no rotation allows you to search through your tabs by typing in a keyword. Then it pulls up the tags you have. You can click on the links you've saved and they open in your default browser. This works well with Dolphin HD Browser. Dolphin Browser HD has a seperate Delicious plug in that lets you save the page you are browsing with tags. It does not yet have a way of letting you search through your tags within the browser-unless you bookmark the delisios web page and search through the delicious web page. This Dolphin HD extension is a separate "app." It has rounded corners and a diagonal banner that says "New" draped on the upper left corner. It isn't awesome when paired with the Firefox browser... yet. Firefox starts up with a homepage that shows old tabs... not necessarily the linbk it was supposed to open. Once Firefox is open, you have to click on the link again.
Docs Pics -This is one of the best apps for integrating with google docs. It works well with the docs. It downloads a local copy to the phone. Then you manually "save" the file which uploads it back to google. You can create new "Sync notes", change the title of new or existing titles, and make changes. Just don't forget to save. You loose changes if you don't save it. Docs Pics is not great when it comes to editing Excel files. It will download them, allow you to make changes through a different app, like documents to go, but it is not great about reuploading the Excel files to make changes.
Documents to Go -(A paid app) Requires a key to do more than read files. This lets you edit Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. I'd like to get the 3.0 version which supposedly also syncs to google docs. Version 2.0 is only good for local storage and editing.
Dolphin Browser HD- Good because it supports flash video from websites (except hulu which will require a paid subscription) and multiple extensions that the default browser does not such as delicious bookmarks, a toggle between mobile and desktop versions of the web page, full screen, etc. It also allows you to be able to run flash based things like www.speedtest.net to view your web phone's internet speed. It seems less bulky than Firefox and starts up faster. This may be because I have not changed a Firefox setting to not view closed tabs each time the browser opens.
DoubleTwist-http://www.doubletwist.com/
This is one of the few free apps that will sync MULTIPLE playlists from your iTunes account with your phone. The program will need to be installed on the computer with your iTunes music as well as your Android phone. Works well with song and playlist integration in the music player. Playlists can be found in this app and in the music player. DoubleTwist runs as a seperate app from the default music player. There is a default setting for it to be the default app for headphone controls. Turn that off if you want to use the default music player. The doubletwist and default music player are very comprible, the DoublEtwist edging ahead with album art and ratings. However, GoLyrics which lets you see the lyrics of what is playing so you can sing along to the current song only integrates with the default media player.
eBay - Lets you keep tabs on ebay things. It likes running in the background. Download it if you will use it.
Evernote-It has potential. In theory it can keep your Evernote documents, uploaded pictures, and video together. Supposedly it can transcribe some words found in pictures you take into text. I found that it was not good at uploading video and pictures. It would hang on larger files and prevent smaller files from being uploaded. Google docs seemed easier. It did have an interesting voice recorder feature you could look into. It's just not useful to me yet. Additional functionality can be added by also downloading the evernote program to your computer-although it is not necessary.
Firefox- As of November, it was a bit buggy. It does have potential though. It allows you to actually edit google docs from a web interface. It is getting a growing number of add-ons and will likely be one of the nicer browsers out there. It syncs Firefox bookmarks and history with your Firefox account (which you will have when the new Firefox Beta becomes the new standard.) It allows for tagged bookmarks through Firefox-though a working Delicious extension is still in progress. It takes several seconds to start up. If the default settings are left on, Internet links that open with Firefox from other apps will be ignored when Firefox is opened and the home page with old tabs will be shown instead. It's a quirk that can probably be changed with some settings.
Funny Jokes- Has different categories for users to submit jokes. They tend to be a bit rowdy, but there are some clean ones mixed in.
GoLyrics-Shows lyrics for whatever songs on in your music player playlist. It was able to find about 50% of the lyrics in my library. It also has forward and backward buttons. The search function hasn't been too good. But it's decently integrated to the music player.
Google Sky Map- It's a battery hog, but it will show you where all the stars and planets are supposed to be. (Apparently it is not out for the iPhone.)
GVoice callback-If you want to save minutes, and you have a plan with certain numbers in a calling circle, add your google voice account as one of the numbers. You can get an $8/month add on with Sprint that lets you connect to one land line phone number without eating your minutes. This app will allow you to designate whether calls should always be made though your normal phone number or if you want to use the internet for a second to have your google voice number give you a free incoming call, which you pick up, then Google voice calls your friends or land lines or whatever.
ICE: In Case of Emergency- paid app- Lets you have a widget and an option for a lock screen that has your medical infoand who to contact if found info. The lock is a bit finicky with HTC and Froyo. The widget is fine though.
JuicePlotter-Without consuming battery (like most battery tracking apps), this app does a pretty good job of graphing the battery level. I use it to view how long it takes to charge, how quickly activities like WiFI and 4G sap the battery, etc. I was surprised to see that my phone only lost 2% battery at night over a span on 8 hours. It demistifies where your battery life goes.
Laputa- This is one of several e-readers. It has some good titles like "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "The Art of War." It has bookmark tabs and opens the book where you last left off.
MusicBox-Lets you view several top music charts. It also lets you stream and outright download songs to your SD card which are picked up by your music player.
Note Everything Google Docs- Combined with the Note Everything app, it provides a slightly more confusing alternative to Docs Pics when it comes to creating new docs. It only syncs with google docs word-type docs-no Excel. It does let you record something. Once the recording finished, It gives you a notepad to type notes as you listen to the recording. That note (without the voice recording) can be sent to google docs. the font is an ugly Courier New, but hey. The voice recording and note can be sent via e-mail. That's cool. There are some quirks, like being able to create an event from a pint note you drew in pretty colors... Not sure what was going on there.
PDANet- Allows you to tether your phone's internet connection via a USB cable or your bluetooth connection (though I have not tried the bluetooth personally) to a single computer that also has PDANet installed. I like an Internet connection on my computer during car rides.
PDF Viewer- Lets you view PDFs if you can't already
Phone Locater- has more settings than Where's my Droid. It is case sensitive. You ise it to ring your phone if you know it is nearby but on silent or vibrate. You can also set up the GPS to give you locations every few minutes incase you want to know where your phone is.
Quick Settings- This is an app, not a widget, that gives you 2 touch access to things like the screen brightness, 4G toggle, volume control, WiFi, GPS, 3G data, and airplane mode. I don't think it eats up as much battery as an actual widget. Open widgets supposedly take up battery life.
Quick Task Killer (installed as Process Killer)- I've found that this works better than most other process and task killers because of the auto kill function. You can leave the auto kill function off and use it as a regular manual task manager as well. If you are in desprate need for more battery life, you can set it up to autokill certain apps whenever you turn your phone off. It also has a manual kill button. I reccommend turning on the Auto Kill, leaving the kill interval "When Screen On/Off" and disabling the notification bar and autostart icon. You will then want to add things to the ignore list so you phone doesn't go crazy. Open the app, then hold down the names of the apps you want to ignore, then select ingore on the pop up. Include things like any GPS programs you don't want killed like SportyPal, SoftRace, Where's My Droid, Phone Locater, Wireless Tether/Sprint Hotspot, HTC DM, Juice Plotter, PDANEt, JuicePlotter, etc.
RemoteDroid-Download remote droid on your computer and your Android phone. Connect to the same (unsecured?) wifi connection from a nearby router (not your own phone's broadcasted wifi connection though-like Sprint Hotspot), and you'll be able to control your mouse, click, drag windows, right click, and type on your computer with the android's keyboard. I've tried others, but this one works the best so far.
Robo Defense Free- You have to use logic to create a maze of gun towers, rocket towers, slow towers, mines, and teleport towers to prevent enemies from geting from one side of the map to the other. The free version goes to level 10. For anyone that tries this, I have beaten level 10 with 21 out of 22 lives left without building a single rocket tower. Beat that...
RTM-tasks-Can help with task management
Shazam- lets your phone listen to and identify songs you hear so you know what the name of the song it. It lets you listen to only a few songs a month unless you pay for it. Not bad if you don't use it often. It only works when it listens to the actual song, not your friend humming something. Who knows what song they are trying to mumble.
SoftRace-Want to see where you are and where you ran on a google map? SoftRace and SportyPal do just that. Softrace lets you set up course challenges for other people with the same app to also try. It Displays time, top speed, Avg speed, top pace, avg pace and also has graphs for Speed vs distance, pace vs distance, and altitude vs distance. You just have to be a pit careful with the manual start. You have to wait a few seconds. Then press menu-start. Auto start is ok for distance runs. Can export files to SD card and facebook and twitter
SoundHound--This app tries to tell you what song it hears. Unlike Shazam, you can hum and sing. It recognized Bad Romance but didn't recognize my Elvis singing. Either I am tone deaf or not all music libraries are loaded onto this thing... yet.
SportyPal-similar to SoftRace but exports files in a different format, doesn't have the same challenges. SportyPal only shows one graph, but gives the results of MPH vs mi, and the info:Total time, Distance, Avg. Speed, Avg. Pace, and *Calories... Also integrates with facebook and twitter.
Swype- this keyboard lets you type without picking up your fingers between letters. Just slide your finger from letter to letter. I was able to use it, but spent more time correcting typos than typing. If you don't care about proper punctuation as much, go for it.
Voice- This is Google Voice's app. It's cool feature is a widget that displays your most recent text to your GV account or transcribed voicemail. You'll need to call your carrier and ask them to use your GV number as your voicemail box number. Once that is set up, you'll be ablse to read and listen to voicemails to both your GV number and your regualar cell number. It does not do MMS messages. It is not as good as your default SMS messenger; it breaks up messages from single contacts into multiple conversations, but it does prevent you from needing to save people's GV assigned phone numbers so they send messages to your google voice account instead of your phone. If you loose your phone, you loose your messages-especially if you have Sprint. It is good at searching for contacts, finding old messages, and calling people.
Where- Tells you gas prices, nearby theaters, movies and showtimes, coupons, etc. Not bad. Similar to Around Me
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Interesting mentionable
Applanet-
This is supposed to be a way to download paid apps for free. It mirrors the android market, but lets you download certain paid apps for free. In my experience, it rarely connects to its server. So it does not display any apps for you to download anymore. It occasionally worked in October, but there were not a lot of apps in its library that were worthwhile. It was mentioned in an article that the apps found here were not current versions and that it was possible that malware was found on some of them.
January update: It worked in December for a while. It seems down again in January. You were able to get free apps like the Shazam Pro (with unlimited searches per month), SwitchPro Widget, and a key for Docs to Go 3.0 (which has already shopped working.) You can download the most recent file on your phone if you create an account at www.applanet.net and register. Or get it here
http://hotfile.com/dl/96546330/f51ab35/Applanet_2.6.3.apk.html
Once downloaded, you may need to download it with a ".apk" extension, then use Astro, or some other file manager to find the file in your phone's download or downloads folder, then you can install it. Again, it's not working right now.
Also, for better battery life, get a 3500 mAh battery (vs the 1700 mAh standard battery in the HTC phones) and fat back case for your phone on eBay. They are about $15. If you don't have a slide out keyboard, you can choose to follow up with a $3 silicone phone cover.
