Must-have Android Apps

Categories: Reviews,Technology

A friend asked me for advice on apps he should download to his new Android phone and I responded with a long-winded, 27-bullet reply (a last-minute addition to this blog post makes 28). Here it is.

100% vital (and FREE) apps:

  • Owner – Show  contact information on your lock screen
  • Battery Indicator – Puts an exact percentage of battery remaining in the top left notification bar
  • Advanced Task Killer – Android phones allow multi-tasking, unlike the iPhone which only allows 1 program to be used at a time, so some programs run in the background and waste your phone’s available memory. Use this app to “kill” all running tasks by the push of a button. Dont forget to put vital apps (ie: Battery Indicator) on the “ignore” list so that they continue to the run in the background.
  • Google Voice – If you have a Google Voice account, you can set it up on your phone to transcribe and play all of your voicemails right to your phone

Good to have:

  • Digital Clock – Put a big digital clock on the home screen
  • Facebook – Decent app for FB
  • gTasx – If you use Google Tasks, this is a standalone app for managing tasks (you can also point your browser to the mobile Tasks page but I like the app)
  • Personal Assistant – Check all of your bank and credit card accounts from one app
  • Sound Manager – You can schedule your ringer, alarm & media volume by time (ie: mute ringer from 9am-5pm while at work, etc)
  • Kayak – Find airline flights on your phone
  • Amazon – Amazon shopping app
  • PayPal – If you use PayPal a lot, this is a good app to monitor your usage and send money
  • Google Reader – To read your Google Reader RSS feeds
  • Listen – For podcasts
  • Stopwatch – Decent stopwatch app

Cool apps:

  • Google Sky – Points out the constellations in the sky
  • Pandora – I use this app for internet radio every morning in the shower
  • Ringdroid – If you want to edit mp3s to make your own ringtones
  • Shazam – Hold it up to your car speakers and it’ll tell you what song is playing
  • Tube Downloader – Download YouTube videos right to your phone (awesome)

Other Essential Android Tips

  • If you hold your finger down on an empty area of your home screen, you can install widgets or add quick-dial shortcuts, bookmarks, etc, right to the desktop of your phone. You can even create folders to hold shortcuts to apps that you specify.
  • Keep GPS turned OFF to save your battery life
  • Check all of your apps to make sure that sync’ing is done every hour or more, instead of every 15 minutes (to save battery life)
  • I even keep Wifi off to save battery, and only turn it on when I need it
  • Go to Settings > Location & Security to set an unlock pattern for your phone
  • Go to Settings > Language & Keyboard > Android Keyboard to “vibrate on keypress” — it helps with typing
  • Get a minimum 4gb microSD card to hold music on your phone
  • If you’re on a Mac, download DoubleTwist onto your Mac to sync your iTunes playlists to your phone

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