Great Android Apps

[McBain]

Thought I would start a list of some of my favourite apps you can find on Android.

What The Doodle

Basically this is iSketch on your phone. It works surprisingly well, very easy to get into a game and as you would guess, very addictive.



Price: FREE

A World of Photo



Spin your phone to select someone to send you a picture. It wont be long before someone is asking you for a picture. You must use the camera, not an album.

Most end up being someone's TV or their dashboard, but every now and then you get an interesting picture and you can strike up a conversation with some random person in anothe country.

Price: FREE

BeyondPod

Add my RSS feeds, podcasts etc and it auto turns on WiFi during the night and updates/downloads. I then set a priority order, start up smart play and it plays its way through my podcasts.

Probably the app I use most, so I don't mind paying (even though I had a hacked version)

Price: $6.99

Layar



It takes the live image from your camera and overlays POI, spin around and watch the POI line up with whatever you're pointing at. The kind of app you would use to impress your friends.

Price: FREE

[Gamith]

Ooh - stop baiting the poor dears, they cant help it, and one day they'll grow up.

meanwhile there are a few more apps i have found fun/useful/interesting;
skymap,
whereami
ultrasound
point lite
london tube status
barcode reader
jewels
robo defence

ttfn

[Gamith]

Aldiko

An ebook reader on the android market that offers downloads of free books in the application.

Just tried it and it's very good - select from an extensive range of subjects, authors or whatever.

Definitely worth a look.

ttfn

[McBain]

Amazon MP3

Android owners can now one click buy MP3's... it that's what you're into



I just tried it out, buying Riverside by Sidney Samnson for only 29pm

PostDroid

I'll be using this when I'm on my next holiday. Take a picture, select a contact and write your message, send! Their postcard will be posted out and should be delivered anywhere in the world within the week.



You do have to buy credits, 3 credits is $4.99 or 7 for $9.99 (£6.15, or 88p each). 1 credit is 1 postcard.

[Gamith]

I can't include images atm since I'm at work, but:

Sky Map
Hold it up to the sky and it will show you the planets, stars and constellations that you are pointing the phone at.


Barcode Scanner
Takes a picture of a barcode and will contact the web for more info on the scanned product.


Point lite
Set up your POIs and it will show you the direction and distance away that they are.


WiFi Analyser
Shows the spread of wifi channels being used in your location.


ttfn

Thanks Mcbain - just finished this one off

[McBain]

Point Lite is the only one of those I don't have, but it looks quite good (I added links and images to that one, while I was there).

[McBain]

Fix My Street

Kinda cool, you can report problems on your street to the council, nice and easy. Add pictures, give some detail and apparently they reply reasonably quickly

I guess it's an app that links in through this website.

It helps that it's nicely presented too

[Gamith]

I have used fixmystreet several times and it tends to work (depends on the problem) -- I will definitely be adding this one.

ttfn

[McBain]

For the record, I've used Fix My Steet twice (abandoned car and HUGE pothole) and they got fixed in a week and then in 2 days respectively. Pretty good I recon!

For the benefit of Curfish and many others now flooding over to Android, let me give a few more great apps.

London Journey - £1.49





A brand new app on the market (less than 50 downloads, 2nd on the list of 'Just In', so bit of a risk) which looks to be great for those of us in London. Will plan a journey for you, using your own location info (doesn't need GPS necessarily) to where ever else in London you want, on Buses, Tube, LDR and all the rest.

You can also get things like Live Tube updates on service and such. Seems a really well presented app with a nice UI. Well worth the £1.49 I think.

Movies - FREE



Flixter app



I'm surprised I didn't post this one before, great app for checking movie times at local cinema, reviews, trailers and even links to Movies on Facebook so you can check friends reviews and leave your own!

Titanium Backup - FREE (I think)



Requires root, so might not be of any use to Desire owners yet



Allows you to backup your apps, with any data they use to a folder on your SD card, to be put back on after a wipe or ROM change. Invaluable to those that like to mess with new ROMs

[McBain]

HulloMail - FREE



Visual voicemail.



Sync's with your Google account (gmail for storage and contacts) to allow you to keep, forward and simply see who's left you a voicemail.

Places Directory - FREE





A simple but well presented app that hooks into the Google POI. Using your location information, you choose a category and it lists all the places nearby. You can see user reviews and even leave your own. These are the ones you see if you go to Google Maps and check a places reviews.

You can also see where it is on the map, press a button to call them etc. Very useful app.

[McBain]

Other great apps I need to put some information on (but in the mean time you can search them yourself) -

Automatic Task Killer
Google Goggles
Gmote
Handcent SMS
Phonalyzr
PowerTime Widget
SetCPU
Swype (beta)
Tweetcaster
Digg
Engadget
WordPress
Google Translate
GPRS Monitor
Pkt Auctions
Urban Dictionary
Act 1 Video player (paid app)
Album Art Grabber (paid app)
360 Live (for Xbox owners - paid app)
beebPlayer
BFBC2 Stats (yes, I can check my stats on my phone ) (erm... paid app )
Google Earth
TuneWiki
Penetrate
Bluetooth Power

Wow, I didn't realise I would recommend so many!

[McBain]

Okay, lets do a couple more from the list -

Automatic Task Killer - FREE



So, Android phones can multi task, have all these different apps running at the same time. Great, right? Sure, but it can slow things down. You don't want LOADS of apps running necessarily, some you just want to run when you launch them and close down afterwards.

With ATK, it shuts them down for you when you turn off the screen. You can set an exceptions list or you can put a delay in (I use 5 minutes) so if you're doing something on the phone, but it turns itself off as you're talking to someone, you don't want it to close whatever you where doing.

Must have app, one of the first to go back on when I flash a new ROM.

SetCPU - FREE

Another one for root users



Set different profiles to change your CPU speed in different scenarios. So, when I plug my phone in to charge, it lowers the CPU to 600mhz to stop it overheating. When the screen turns off, it drops right down to 300mhz to save battery power. If my battery drops down below a certain (changable level) it lowers to 600mhz, again, to extend battery life.

Gmote - FREE





Turns your phone into a remote control. Install the server version on your PC, point it to your movies and TV shows, then simply start the app, browse to whatever you want to watch and it plays it on your PC. You can even control the mouse pointer from your phone, like a touchpad.

Phonalyzr - FREE





A fun little app which gives you stats on who you call or text the most. Stats about how long your calls/texts are, what time, which days etc.

Handcent SMS - FREE





A replacement for the built in texting app. Have some very useful additions, such as the popup box (as seen in the picture) which lets you do quick replies very easily. You can use images as backgrounds and you get text conversations in an iPhone style speech bubble layout.

[McBain]

Well Orange have produced their Orange Wednesday app for Android now. I think I'm one of the first to have it as it's less than 50 downloads and just 2 ratings. In fact, it doesn't even show up on Andolib yet...

Here are a few more good apps -

Pkt Auctions - FREE





Search, watch and buy on eBay. Not much more to say really. Gives notifications when items are ending.

GPRS Monitor - FREE



There are many apps that will keep track of how much data you've used, this is one of the better presented ones. Don't forget to exclude it from task manager app killers...

(Other worth a look is 3G Watchdog, but doesn't look as nice)

Tweetcaster - FREE (or $4.99 for Pro)





There are many Twitter apps out there, most prefer Twidroid, but I much prefer the layout of Tweetcaster. Very nicely presented and somehow I have a version that allows more than one account (I think they did a limited promo). Can alter notifications to tweets, mentions, direct messages, but again, you need to exclude it if you want them to work.

Swype - Beta

I'm currently in the Beta of this, I don't know if you can still sign up, but I suggest you try -

http://www.swypeinc.com/

Look at some of the video's of how this works, it's a great keyboard. Slide your thumb over the letters and when you release it works out what word it was. The fastest one finger (or more likely thumb) input you'll find.



Even if they charge $10 when this is released, I think I'll be buying it, I can't bare to be without it tbh.

360 Live - $1.99





A must have for regular Xbox 360 gamers. The only app I've found that properly integrates into your Gamertag account, listing all your friends you can see what they're playing and send and receive messages.

beebPlayer - FREE





I think this is a must have app. It's an unofficial iPlayer app that works surprisingly well over 3G. Before yous start watching it tells you how much data the stream is over WiFi or 3G. It auto detects which when playing, but you can force it to stream higher quality (WiFi) even over 3G if you want.

[Gamith]

I found the automatic task killer very useful - I had a load of stuff running in the background and it's speeded up my hero really well.

ttfn

[McBain]

Found another very cool app this morning -

WhatGas - FREE





Annoyingly I was looking for a free version of this last night when I needed to fill up, and I find one this morning! There is a UK Fuel Prices app, which costs £5 a year, or £10 a year for the useful one, but I was hoping for a free one. This fits the bill, the difference being, prices are updated manually by the user. For example, the cheapest one near me is always Whetstone Shell garage. The app said it was 116.9p, but apparently all petrol went up overnight. I rode by earlier and sure enough, it was 118.9p so I've updated it myself.

Not perfect, as I'm sure sometimes data will be inacurate, but the more people that use it, the better it will be.

It does need some kind of 'take me here' button that passes it over to Google Maps to navigate, but maybe that will come in an update.

TuneWiki - FREE





I'm surprised I didn't list this one earlier. In it's basic form it's a music player, with a nice widget. If you want it to be, it's a Karaoke machine! When you play a track from your phone, it searches its database and hopefully (I would say 80% of the time) scrolls through the lyrics as the music plays!