Must-Have Apps for New Android Lovers

Since adopting the Android platform my main position has not only been that the use of the operating system need to be easy to use, but with an air of ‘finesse’ required.  This means that a relative ease to develop useful apps as well as use of the app.  I loved my old palm pilots because the system was easy to use, but not rudimentary, but sophisticated enough to handle all that I needed on a daily basis.

When I made the switch I was alarmed at how similar it was (both based on linux, or so I’m told – yet I never took to any of the linux distros).  My daily ‘routine’ of using Palm software was easily replaced with Android variants.

Interesting to see that with most of the discussions I’ve had with people is that when faced with app choices for a single purpose that they’ve always gone with the more functional despite it’s less than standard appeal (i.e. it’s not flashy, but it gets the job done).  To me that’s what draws me to the Android platform, the fact that the system still has that ‘yet  unfinished’ look to it.  That it does what it needs to without having to spend all that extra on flash.  I was always told in the land of retail sales that remember to not “sell the sizzle, not the steak”.  Using that analogy some of my favourite restaurants – ones that I continue to return to are the ones with the best taste for the value – and that relates to the whole experience.

So, what I’ve done is a little research into some of the every day apps that users have ‘at the ready’ on their phones.  Some of these might just be… well passe, but it adds to the usage of an open system.  Now these are just my thoughts and several others who I’ve requested input from.  Your experience may differ greatly from mine, and I’d love to hear your input as well.

*also – I’m not getting paid a dime by ANYBODY for this whatsoever – should you want to… you can leave me a note on how to wire me some!

Everyday apps 

Utilities – the programs I do daily to ‘get things done’

• dgMoney – at first I started to use my old PDAs to track my calendar and contacts – slowly but surely (…and don’t call me Shirley) I started to find that I need much more ‘stuff’ to stay on top of, and finances was one of them.  I’ve needed to know at a glance what my finances were.  Helps in deciding “should I purchase this flashy shiny new thing?”  I’ve tried a ton of other financial apps, but I keep coming back to this one.  I don’t need a flashy widget, or a special recurrence scheme.  Just a simple account tracker.
• Mileage – I bought an SUV thingie… part of being a gadget nerd is that you end up buying things that people go “what do you need that for?”  My car was no exception as I picked out the Aztek.  I wanted to point out to people that my mileage was just as good as theirs (it wasn’t), but by that time it had become routine for me to be able to enter the mileage.  To this day I can’t fill up a car with jotting down the info.  A little tricky now and again with the conversion thing (ie. if I’m travelling in the states it doesn’t allow me to enter imperial measurements just one time).
• datacounter widget – I got this when the heated debate about UBB came about (also a way to try to get my employer to cover the costs of my data plan).   Again, simple yet does everything it says it will do.
• Aldiko eReader – my old PDA quickly turned from a digital assistant to my mobile entertainment device as I discovered ebooks.  I still have literally GBs of books in the old prcDOC format for my palm.  I’ve tried several different ereaders for Android but nothing has the feel of a ‘book’ like this one does.  And it doesn’t try to force you into their ‘store’ or anything like that.  Got a book?  Plop it in and read!
• Google Reader – I cannot believe that it took me this long to find out about gReader.  Literally most of my day was spent going between dozens of different blog sites I liked to read.  I’d forget about one and then have to go back etc… I don’t know what or who clued me into RSS feeds, but it has been a god send.  So naturally I need this app when I’m away from a computer for any length of time.  My only problem with it is that once installed it does tend to steal some cycles by syncing the feeds a little too often (haven’t found a way to curtail that yet).  On a side note:  I think it’s part and parcel to adopting Android you suddenly become ‘all things Google’ – however not like those iSheep, you see the true value in the products produced.
• Perfect Viewer – After reading hundreds of books on my Palm I ‘upgraded’ and realized I could relive my youth and read comics on it as well.  Well, moreso I started when “Walking Dead” came out.  So I did a browse through the Market for a good comic reader.  Like Aldiko it’s just a very easy plug and play with whatever you got without trying to make you buy something externally.  You can make it complicated as you like, but really – just eliminate all the touch areas and just leave a button for ‘forward’ and ‘back’ and you’ve got the best comic reader out there.
• gTasks – now I really needed something better than having my calendar at the ready to be read – I needed something ‘in my face’.  gTasks allows a nice widget to sit on your screen with your ‘to dos’ – and it syncs with your google tasks so it’s the same data you’ll see on your desktop as well.  Simple… I like it.  It can be a bit too simplistic, but really how can you complicate this?
• eBuddy – how many social apps do you have these days?  How many of them have chat features?  I have MSN / facebook / gtalk / skype myself… not a lot, but enough that it’s a pain to juggle.  Now it doesn’t handle Skype, but I don’t really use that all that often, especially not as often on my phone (only just made myself the account to help piping instruction recently).  But the others work easily with eBuddy – and heck it even has my old ICQ option (anybody still use it?).
• Astro File Manager – a lot of the files I put on my phone I do through either by downloading via email or web.  They then go into a standard ‘download’ folder.  I don’t really get the choice of where it goes.  Astro gives me the power to move files around as I need.  Granted – it looks like pre-windows95 file management, however it’s all that’s needed.  And it has the bonus advantage of app utilities like ‘backup’ (should you want to reset your phone) or an easy way to install 3rd party apps.  Most useful I’ve found is that it can uninstall them for you more easily than the main system.  Let’s say you’ve downloaded linkedin’s beta apk file.  And you install it, but don’t like it.  To uninstall you normally have to go to Edit / settings / applications / manage applications / wait (‘cuz if you’re like me you’ve got a lot of apps for it to load) / find the app you want / click / uninstall.  Holy crap long.  In Astro, just find the apk, click it, click app settings and uninstall.  No waiting for all the other loaded programs to load up the database.
• Samsung Email – I admit – this is more ‘necessity’ than anything else as it ties to my work email.  But it does handle hotmail nicely as well as other exchange options.  The basic samsung email app with Galaxy phones was too simplistic and doesn’t handle the folders all too well.  I miss HTC’s Sense Mail app… but this program does the job quite well.

Games – stuff that let’s me pass the time

• AngryBirds (& Seasons & Rio) – Who doesn’t love this app?
• Stupid Zombies – is it just me or does the dude look like Bruce Campbell?  Gotta love a game that can feature him.
• Open Sudoku – when I was teaching adults it was a neat game to help them take a break in between assignments that still taught math and problem solving.  I hadn’t learned to play either, but since, I’ve been hooked.  Plus this app I think has the best ‘input’ system for the player than the others and it allows you to import (so when you’ve played all those others you can download thousands more!)

Social Media
Suffice it to say that any “smart phone” these days is being used for some sort of social media angle.  Now, personally I have Buzz, Facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn as outlets.  I’ve tried the conglomerate programs and built in ones, but… never felt like the real thing.  I always found myself coming back to the ‘official’ app.

Notice a trend?  Every one of those apps is FREE!  Sure there are some nice alternatives that cost, and I’ve tried them out but keep coming back to this idea of if it’s simple, don’t muck about.

Apps I miss/want
A while back I wrote about the ‘app’ experience for Android and said there’s no lack of apps.  However, over the past while there is one I’d really like to see:  Google Docs (like sorami for Windows Live which is fast becoming an every day app for me).  Documents to Go actually had some integration of Docs into their app, but I found it stripped out some of the formatting, which didn’t return when you went to the web version.  Sure you can go through the browser, but you just can’t edit like you should.  Plus, I use Docs a lot for forms, and you can’t edit them there, just see the raw data.

PLEASE GOOGLE… PLEASE build a google docs app.

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Now I did a quick run through with some iPhone friends and had them list what they used every day here’s their list.  Now I didn’t research how much each of them might cost, but I’m pretty sure they ain’t free for the most part.
iPhone Lists
– Social media: gmail, safari, facebook, twitter, LinkedIn
– games: color balls, shakeSpell, Scrabble, Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, words with friends
– others: weather eye, taking/showing pictures, CNN, Kobo, hipstamatic camera
-Google Search, Facebook, Hootsuite, Sportacular.
Games change weekly:
Most entertaining apps in a group setting: BaldBooth or FatBooth

BlackBerry
-poynt, weather network, the score, nobex radio

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What are some of your must-have Android apps?