Android apps

[Irish Iron]

Loving my new Android (Xperia Arc) and I love going through top 10 lists of apps so here's mine (avoiding the painfully obvious like Angry Birds, BBC iPlayer etc): (all are free or have a free or pro version).

1) JuiceDefender has hugely increased my battery life.
2) Go Dev Team These guys do a sweet launcher, much better than the vanilla homescreens I got from Sony or Orange. Totally customisable, unlimited homepages. They also do a nice alternative contacts skin you can use instead of the default, plus some other nice apps and widgets like weather, calendar etc.
3) Lookout, an anti virus with a tiny footprint.
4) Screen Off and Lock. Handy little widget for your home screen for locking down the phone with some cute graphics.
5) 3G Watchdog. Nice little app for monitoring and warning you about your data transfer usage.
6) PowerAMP. Really cool MP3 player with clever equaliser.
7) Google Sky. Totally useless but so much fun in a pub when everyone is drunk.
8) Appbrain. Keeps everything up to date.
9) Kindle. I thought reading a book on a phone would be a **** experience, surprisingly not.
10) Angry Birds. **** it, its brilliant.

2 things I'm looking for are a free, nicely designed analogue clock with second hand and date and a free decent driving game.

[Dan1326]

Google Sky Map is the nuts, pinpoints each/star planet in the sky that you point your phone at. Also Shazam is the nuts.

[studenthammer]

Here's mine:

1. Kindle, as said by OP, is a lot better than i thought, some decent free books on there too.
2. Advanced Task Killer: Just saves having to close every app individually.
3. Air Attack HD: ridiculously addictive flight game.
4. App Folders: Lets me keep all my apps organised.
5. Astro File Manager: Simple enough, just uses a normal PC folder system to look for certain files.
6. ColorNote: Lets you 'stick' post-its onto your home screen. Great for those of us who struggle to remember things.
7. GameBoid: GBA emulator, don't care how old I get, Original Pokemon games will always be great for times of ridiculous boredom!
8. Opera Mini: doesn't have flash, but it's great for websites such as this, doesn't need a lot of signal and so much faster than stock browser. (Not to be confused with Opera Mobile).
9. Music Box Pro: Download songs for free on the go (not sure how legal it is, but still a great app).
10. Reddit Images: Perfect for killing some time.

I have a HTC Desire and still loving it, HTC Sense is a great UI with a few decent built-in apps too.

As for getting free apps, if you see an app you like but it is a paid app, just google 'NameOfApp .apk' and download the .apk file. After that just change the settings to allow the phone to install apps not from the market, install the app and you get a free app that was supposed to be paid. (The only thing is, apps installed this way don't update, which is slightly annoying...)

[Parkers_lovechild]

I have just got the Galaxy ace and dont really have any apps.

Whats angry birds it shows up free in my Samsung apps

[Wembley1966]

Here's mine:
2. Advanced Task Killer: Just saves having to close every app individually.

Don't use Task Killers if you think they're going to save you battery - they typically end up using more battery than if you don't kill apps. The way Android works is that it keeps track of apps that you use regularly and leaves open ones that you have been using. That way if you want to run the app again it doesn't have to go and open them - it just gets them out of memory. If they are still open but not being used they don't consume any resource and therefore don't consume any battery. If it has to reopen them from scratch it has to use CPU cycles which uses the battery much more than just getting the app out of memory. If it starts to get low on memory it gets rid of the least used one.

[HellCatinHeels]

2. Advanced Task Killer: Just saves having to close every app individually.

If you have HTC Sense 2.2 (Froyo) on your Desire, then Task Killer's drain the battery more than if you do not haveone. In older versions, a task killer was essential, but now the task killer means that apps will keep closing and re-opening which will kill the battery quicker. I deleted mine when I upgraded to 2,2

[KierZ]

i got my galaxy s2 the other day

so far we have :

alkido- for Ebooks
appbrain- like the market but only the decent stuff
atrackdog - keeps all apps updated
google goggles- just try it
jefit - exercises
liveprofile- free txt/mms
london tube status
poweramp- as said best music
picsay- image editting
miCoach- from adidas great for any runner
rac traffic- traffic
shopper- scan a book/dvd and googles searches for best prices
soundhound- finds any song
tunein radio- streaming radio links...good for 606 football
skyplus- remote recording
tweetdeck- best twitter/facebook app

[Oxonhammer]

On my HTC Wildfire (yes I know it cr*p) at the moment.

3G Watchdog - essential for me as I'm on PAYG with Vodafone and when you check your balance it doesn't show data usage.
XDA app - only so I can see what's going on in the development areas
Marvin - ZX Spectrum games on your phone!
Frodo - as above but for the C64 (bit buggy but works ok)
Google Sky Map
ES File explorer
Team Moto - Keeps me up to date on what's happening in MotoGP -- works great and is not a rip off like the official MotoGP app.

I added a speech pack for navigation as well as voice search.

[Hammersfaniow]

I got myself a Nokia N8 a few months ago and have never been big on the apps thing but thought i might give it a try, anyone know of any decent apps to get for it, and how to get hold of them ?

[Tristan Shout]

I've got a windows phone 7, all the apps are different from iphone and android

[studenthammer]

If you have HTC Sense 2.2 (Froyo) on your Desire, then Task Killer's drain the battery more than if you do not haveone. In older versions, a task killer was essential, but now the task killer means that apps will keep closing and re-opening which will kill the battery quicker. I deleted mine when I upgraded to 2,2

Hmm I didn't realise that, cheers. I only ever used it as it was quicker than closing a load of tabs in Opera or when apps froze, never really used it to save battery but never realised it uses battery...

[prince_huggy]

Don't use Task Killers.

Cheers for that info. I've now removed mine, I got into a bad habit of every time I used my phone I'd kill everything

Games and Apps:
Knockheads - Soooo Addictive!
Bubble Blast 2 - Even more so!
The Football League - Not used this yet :sad face thing:
Ach. Trop. - Log in to your XBox/PS3 achievements and trophies from your phone
Playstation - Log in to your PSN account
- The above two are currently unavailable as PSN was down -

[hammer etc]

essential for me as I'm on PAYG with Vodafone and when you check your balance it doesn't show data usage.

Have you got an online account to check your data usage. For £13 a month 12mth contract you can get 300 mins 3000 txts 100mb, has to be cheaper than Paye as you go, for £15.50 you get 250mb.

[the oldham stripper]

tesco mobile, £10 a month 500mins unlimited texts unlimited internet, been with them 9 months & haven't had a problem, plus a 1 month rolling contract

[szola]

Just stared using my new phone - the apple killer - Samsung

What a great new gadet!!!
Loving it.

Being a novice, I've a few questions for you more experienced users.

Is it worth downloading the Jucie Defender? I have an app called Gauge Battery. Is it the same as the Juice? Should I have both?

I see that many recommend Lookout. Do I need it or any similar apps?

I can recommend

- Viber - free calls
- HeyTell - the same
- Skype - also
- XE Currency app for those on the road
- Locus (free version) - good maps if you take your time and download the contries you are most likely to visit
- TripAdvisor
- Roidizer - for making old school pictures

I'm also usin both Dolphin and Opera. Opera seems to have some issues with some site. The Dolphin is stable and good. Anyone using this browser?

[Kludgehammer]

Yep, I use Dolphin. Tried portable Firefox, but it's dog slow and 5 times the size of Dolphin, which is a major issue on an HTC Desire.

I have:
AA
Amazon Kindle
Amazon UK,
Apps2SD
Barcode scanner
BBC+Sky news
BeyondPod
Capital Spreads
Cut the rope
Defensoid
Dolphin,
DriodIn (great for LinkedIn, and 1/5 the size of the official app)
ES File Explorer
exPDF reader (craps on the Adobe app)
Google sky map
imo Beta
Jewels
LiveScore
London Journey
Mobo Player (great for mp4 films)
Moon+ Reader (for ... ahem.. "free" books, but particularly CHM format)
Periodic Table
PowerAmp
Sky+
Skype
Stock Watcher
TimeZone
TouchDown (the dog's danglers for connecting to MS Exchange)
UK & World sports new (this might be obsolete, actually - think BBC+Sky app does everything this one does)
Unit Converter
Wifi Analyzer
Yammer

plus all the crap I'm not interested in like YouTube, and the built-in apps that I have better alternatives: Videos, Music etc.

[prince_huggy]

Is it worth downloading the Jucie Defender? I have an app called Gauge Battery. Is it the same as the Juice? Should I have both?

Yes get Juice Defender, it's awesome. Not sure if it's the same as Gauge though. Also, don't bother with any App Killers

[szola]

Cheers mate

[eastsidejon]

TouchDown (the dog's danglers for connecting to MS Exchange)

Is this any good for connecting to a cloud based MSOL server? I can't get my Xperia Arc to connect but colleagues who have other Android phones don't have any problems. I read some comments on other forums that suggest the Arc is a nightmare in this regard and so far I'm tempted to agree.

[szola]

Just downloaded Alarm Clock Xtreme Free


Even like the name. Supposed to be the bestest one the free circuit.
Now step two.
I want to be woken up by splashing waves, and birds singing.
How can I import/download sounds I want to wake up to?