Comments on: Looking for your Android App recommendations

By: Kuckuck

Kuckuck — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:30:20 +0000

A few that I find useful:

Dimmer (night mode)
Makes your screen as dim as hardware will allow to save battery.

Color Flashlight
Lets you use your phone as a flashlight or a strobe light or a rainbow epilepsy machine or a red light or a green light…

IP Messenger
Allows any phone or computer on a wi-fi network with IP Messenger running to send messages or files to each other (using the wi-fi).

By: Jheherrin

Jheherrin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:08:12 +0000

Battle.net Mobile Authenticator (free ;) )
Google Sky Map
My Tracks (in addition to all the other google map apps if you do anything outdoors)
ColorNote (post it notes for android)
Toddler Lock (I actually find myself playing with this as much as my 3yr old does)
Flashlight (incredibly useful, uses the flash on the camera as a flashlight rather than the screen)
Aura (for eve-online addicts)
Games – everyone will have personal preferences here, mine are currently Tank Hero, Gem Miner and Enjoy Sudoku
A decent calculator (personal preference is RealCalc at the moment)

These are the ones that have persisted on my HTC.

Jheherrin / Kasreyn – Aggramar EU

By: Maknol

Maknol — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:33:33 +0000

Thank you all for the app recommendations. I’ve just purchased a Motorola Droid and these tips were invaluable!

By: Meg

Meg — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 20:12:39 +0000

Agenda Widget – If seeing your calendar entries are important to you
Amazon Kindle – eReader
Antivirus (or something similar) for checking any addons you install
Battl.net Mobile Authenticator – Duh! ;)
Craigslist Notifier – Will send you notifications when keywords you enter pop up under new listings
eBay – If you’re an eBayer
eBuddy – All in one for chat (Facebook, Google, Yahoo, AIM, etc)
Facebook
Gauge Battery Widget – The battery indicator LIES – this, helps you see the troof
gReader – RSS Feeds
Handcent SMS – Makes text messages purdy
Launcher Pro – Allows you to customize your home screen. And, while you’re at it, there’s an app called “Home Switcher Free” that allows you to switch between Launcher Pro & your original one that came with the phone (or any other home screen app you’ve installed) Allows you to set default.
Pandora
Photoshop Express – Free, allows you to crop, modify photos from your gallery
Ringdroid – Allows you to take any MP3 and cut out the part you want to use, to create custom ringtones
ShopSavvy – Used for barcode scanner – In practical use for shopping, allows you to scan a barcode, to see how the price compares to other stores. If you don’t care about using it for comparing prices, then at least download the app called “Barcode Scanner”.
Swype – Sign up for the beta on Swype’s website – it’s a keyboard app (your phone may have come with it)
Twidroyd/Twidroyd Pro – My preferred Twitter app
Vlingo – Highly recommended and works very well for verbally telling the phone what you want it to do “i.e. “Text Meg: I’m running late”
Winamp

Also, set everything so it saves to Google (contacts, calendar entries, etc) so it call all be recovered if you do a factory reset or anything.

IMPORTANT: If you ever ever EVER do a factory reset, switch to another phone, etc, make SURE you remove the authenticator from your battle.net account first. The authenticator app that you install on your new cell phone has a unique ID. Once it’s lost, it’s as though you lost a physical authenticator, and you would have to go through account identification all over again, etc. Just…don’t do what I did. LOL

Before the recent change where Android apps became available online, and you could synch that with your phone, I used a program called AppBrain, and synched all my apps between my cell phone and the website. When I got a replacement phone, I just downloaded the AppBrain program on my cell phone, entered my credentials, and all of my “add ons” were instantly available to synch up with what had been saved to the website. The Android Marketplace just allowed something similar to start happening in the last week or so, which may make the AppBrain program obsolete.

Subscribe to RSS feeds from sites like “Android and Me”, “Android Central”, “Android News”, “Hello Android”, “Phandroid”, and if you’re interested in taking it as far as rooting the phone, etc., I recommend you become familiar with the forums on XDADevelopers.

Enjoy! You’re going to become addicted quick!

By: gnomeandaway

gnomeandaway — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:21:44 +0000

most of what everybody else said. but astro file manager lets you back up your apps to your sd card very handy for when u do a software update to your handset.

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 17:46:23 +0000

Oh, that reminds me: Launcher Pro. Gives you a lot more control over your home screen’s behavior.

By: Flawlless

Flawlless — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 07:37:34 +0000

Google Listen,
Battle.net Authenticator,
Ventriloid,
Tweetdeck(For all your Social Media needs(I only use Twitter/Facebook), also on the PC as a standalone app or as a Chrome-extension so you can use what ever device is closest),
if you have an old xbox with xbmc on it, get the xbmc-app,
Audiobook player Free,
Dropbox(for moving files easily between your computers and your phone),
Mumble(if your guild uses a mumble server instead of Ventrilo),
Smooth Calendar and/or Pure Grid Calendar,
Games: Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, SliceIt, Squibble(or Squibble Lite until you’ve finished that, then you will get the real deal.)

I also use Zeam as launcher, I do not know if the Optimus has a good version of android on it, but my SE phone uses a tweaked version of android that doesn’t allow more than one widget on each homescreen, so I use Zeam instead.

By: Minos

Minos — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 06:10:15 +0000

I’ll echo the recommendations for Google Sky Map and Tricorder. Carrr Matey lets you “drop anchor” in a big parking lot and then uses the GPS to guide you back to your vessel. Bubble, Compass, and Metal Detector are another few useful ways to use the sensors. Digital Recipe Sidekick is a great recipe book, and it’ll even read the recipe out loud so you don’t have to get cookie dough all over your phone.

By: Ard

Ard — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 05:58:20 +0000

RiegnMan, there’s no such setting I can find in the Google Voice settings.

By: Tammy

Tammy — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 05:45:02 +0000

Everyone has awesome app suggestions so I won’t repeat *grins*; the one thing I will add to the discussion is to think of your phone as yet another computer and that it can become infected. Only download applications you trust! While it may be difficult to figure out if anything is truly trustworthy, it’s like anything else, a lot of common sense.

There was an app a few months back that made people’s cell phones call Antarctica, that costs about $7 a min; I’ve no idea how the writers got the money they charged up on the phone but either way people didn’t realize their phones were making the calls until they got the bill.

One can definitely go overboard on the apps so only download what you use all the time. I have friends who can’t put their phones down for half a second without checking up on Facebook or whatever *laughs*. Your phone is what you make of it, good or bad; enjoy!