I know that there is already a vast number of blogs and websites
dedicated to great Android applications, but I wanted to add my own
list!I’m sure quite a lot of these will be repeated on other sites but
I hope you find the following useful, if you click on the name of the application you will be taken to the online Android Market. You can select the applications from there, and it will be downloaded on your Android phone. The first set of apps
will be general applications, while at the bottom of the page there
are some games.
This application is quite self explanatory, and you will need something
like this if you are going to make use of the QR codes on this website.
This is one of the best scanners I’ve found and it is very easy to use.
A great app for music lovers, Alice tells you when and where
your favourite artists are performing. Alice will sync with your
Last.fm artists and you can add more separately. You can set the radius
in which it notifies you about upcoming gigs. Never miss out on
performances again!
The perfect way of sharing applications with your friends. Load
the program, select the application you want to share and a QR code
will appear on your screen. The friend you want to give the application
to then loads his/her barcode scanner, scans the code and they will be
directed to the app in the market place.
For the more advanced users you can download application apk files from
the internet and then install them directly on your phone. If you know
how to get these files then I recommend this app for installing them.
Astro is a file manager app, which makes organising your phone
very easy. The app is just like any file organising system, where you
can copy, paste and delete files on your phone and search for files on
your phone.
Bambuser is a video camera app which connects directly to the
internet. Using a variety of quality settings you can publish videos on
the internet live. So you could be recording a talk, or an event, or
anything you like and people can watch it live on the internet. You are
given a URL that you can send to people so the know where to watch it.
There is another app that is similar to this which is qik, but there
are no real options to alter the quality on that app, and that is why I
have used Bambuser, although qik does allow you to save straight on to
the SD card as well, which you can not with Bambuser.
The only widget that I have recommended, this great widget gives
you a percentage break down of your battery life. Also, by clicking on
the app you can quickly get to a particular settings screen, and
clicking on the percentage brings up some information about your
battery. This includes, how long it has been running and the status of
the battery.
Again, this is quite self explanatory. A lot of modern
smartphones, as a standard, do not allow people to send files via
bluetooth, I presume this is because in the not to distant future
everything will be done via the internet. However, for now, people do
still want to send and receive files via bluetooth and this simple app
will let you do that. Select which file you want to send from your
phone, search for bluetooth devices and send it. Very simple, very
good.
Celeste is the first of two space related apps that I recommend. With
this application you can scan around the sky with your phone, until a
graphic of one of the planets (or the sun or moon) appears you can then
click on the planet of your choice and the path of that object will
appear on your screen. A great way of finding where a certain planet
will be at a certain time of day. You also get a series of interesting
bits of information for your selected object.There is also a free version with less features.
At first sight this application seems expensive, but bare with me.
CoPilot Live 8 is a turn by turn sat nav application, and it is
fantastic. Can easily replace your Tom Tom or whatever you use, the
price quoted is for the UK but you can have maps for most of the world
for a higher cost. The maps are fully downloaded on to your device, so
you don’t need to wait for them to stream off the internet like Google
Maps, there are also a whole host of POIs (Points of Interest) which
you can search for. A great sat nav for a very cheap price (in
comparison to external devices).
UPDATE: Goole Navigation may replace CoPilot in the
long term, but at the moment it still doesn’t work half as well as
CoPilot, so it is not ready to replace it yet.
Another great Google application. Goggles allows you to take
photos of objects and let Google tell you what it is! Found a landmark,
don’t know what it is? Take a picture of it and Google will tell you,
take a picture of a book or album cover and you will link straight to
it. Fantastic! It is not completely finished yet, for example taking
pictures of furniture or things like that at the moment does not work.
However in time hopefully this will work, none the less a great
application! (Note: This is only available on Android 1.6 and greater).
This is probably my favourite application, every looked up at
the sky and wondered, ‘What is that?’, well Sky map is the answer. Open
the application, point it at what you want to find out and the name
will be on the screen. You can search for items as well, Sky Map lists
planets, stars and Messier objects. You can also search the map for
constellations, a fantastic application!
An app for the sports fans. This application will let you choose
what sports (and subsequent leagues) you want to follow. Then the
homepage of the app will display the scores and standings of each
sport. You can also manage favourites, such as favourite teams or
people and get updates for them during a game. For example, you can
select to follow English Football, then the Championship, then
Newcastle United. Once you have a team selected, you can select how the
phone will update you with scores, these appear as notifications.
Want to translate something? Clearly Google Translate is the way
to go with this, so use the application! Nothing else needs to be said.
Want to tune your instrument? Use an application! Simply turn on
the app, pluck the string (or do whatever it is on the instrument you
are playing) and the app will show you what the note is, you can then
tune your instrument to the exact note you require. Very simple yet
very effective.
This is a replacement for the standard SMS client on your phone.
Handcent allows for complete customization, which is always good, and
one of the greatest assets is a pop up window. This again you can
customize, as to when it comes up, but it gives you a great way to
quickly reply to text messages.
All good phones need a calculator, and there is none better than
HandyCalc. There is a currency and unit converter, equation solving,
graphing, trigonometric functions and you can define your own
functions.
A cinema goers app, Movie Finder searches for cinemas nearby to
you and displays what films are on. You can then also find out what
showings there are. You can search by location, by films or by rating.
Finally, you can also select any film you want to find out more
information, go straight to its IMDb page or watch a trailer for it.
A replacement for the standard internet browser on your phone. After
trying out all the big alternative browser options for Android, this, I
have found, is by far the fastest. Unlike other browsers it loads the
whole page, as if you were at your computer, and then you just click on
the area you want to zoom in to.
On most Android phones there is no built in way to use mp3 files
as ringtones or notifications. Ringdroid does this job really well. If
you have an mp3 file on your phone that you want to set as your
ringtone or notification tone then first off import it into Ringdroid.
Then you can cut the file, for example you may just want to have the
chorus rather than the whole song. Once you have finished cutting the
file you can save it has a ringtone or notification and set it.
An app that works really well with Spotify. Listening to the
radio and a song comes on which you really like but have no idea what
it is or who it is by? Load the app, click listen and about 10-15
seconds later the song title, artist and album are displayed. You can
then use this information in i Music to download it.
Not much really needs to be said about this, the mobile version of one
of the greatest things to come out of the internet. The only thing that
I will say is that you need Spotify Premium to use this.
There are a lot of camera apps on the market all which have a variety
of functions. However the application which I have found that takes the
best quality photos is Snap Photo Pro. The application also detects
stability, has a zoom feature, lets you set the white balance, has some
effects and has multishot.
Again, there are a lot of applications for Twitter and Facebook on Android
phones, including one that comes as standard with HTC Sense. However
the best that I have found so far is TweetDeck. You can search for Tweets
and profiles in Twitter or Facebook. You can simultaneously post on Twitter and Facebook at the same time and effortless attach photos, videos or shorten URLs. Also you can set up notifications for various situations.
Tube Downloader
I often get asked how to extract the music from a Youtube,
DailyMotion or Google Video file, and this is possible on a computer
very easily. But it is also very easy on your phone! Tube Downloader
does two main things, you can either download any video you want, to
play back on your phone at a later point. Or you can just download the
music track that plays in the background of the video, it does all this
quickly and effortlessly.
This is one of the only games I have found for multiplayers on one phone, and it is great! The game is entirely based on reactions of the players, a question comes up on the screen and it is the first to tap the screen when the correct solution comes up. It is very fun and can give you hours of fun. There is also a free 2 player version.
This is a simple, and very addictive game, the whole object of the game is to see how far you can get down the level before you loose. There are a series of gaps in bars going across the screen which you need to navigate through, you do this by titling the phone one way or another – sounds simple but it is surprisingly difficult.
This game is actually very similar to the above 4Ever Fall, but with a slight difference. The ball bounces. Not much difference maybe, but it makes the game so much more difficult, and I enjoy both of them.
You need to dig mines to find ores, metals and gems which you can then collect and sell. With your profits you can buy upgrades to dig deeper and support more complex tunnels. However all the time you have to make sure that you don’t get stuck!
The most long term game you will probably get on your phone. You start the game with £100,000 and the aim of the game is to get £1,000,000 as soon as possible! You do this by buying shares in various companies, which ever ones you choose. The thing that makes this game excellent is that the share prices are the live, real, share prices from the Stock Market. A great way to see if you could survive on the Stock Market!
Very similar to 4Ever Fall, but the other way round. You control a small red ball that jumps, and the aim of the game is to get as far up the level as possible by jumping onto small platforms, again, you do this by tilting the phone.
This is a great tower defense game, there are a constant stream of ‘enemies’ that are walking from one side of the screen to the other, and it is the aim of the game to stop them, by destroying them with your various towers. During the game you earn points to buy upgrades, and there also rewards for completing certain tasks. I really like this game, there is also a paid version with more features and levels.
One of the winners of the ADC2, this is an awesome online multiplayer game. It is basically pictionary online, where each player takes turns to draw a specific picture while the others guess. A point is awarded for guessing correctly or if someone correctly guess your picture. It is equivalent to iSketch which is a popular internet game.
Shot 2nd Edition
Finally we have Shot, 2nd Edition. This is a massive logic game, where the object is to remove all the balls from the field by dragging and bumping balls into each other until there is only 1 left. It is a very entertaining game, and with such a vast number of levels and 3 levels of difficulty it is guaranteed to keep you entertained for a long time!