Favorite Android Apps (1 Viewer)

[ManW_TheUncool]

The sale will last for ten days (notice a theme?), so procrastinators will have a little extra time to decide which ones are worth a dime.

Sounds like they have me in mind.

Of course, if I procrastinate and revisit here a couple times before it ends, I might get confused by our new post date/timestamp display and think I have one day more than I actually do...

Guess I'll need to whip out the Android emulator again since I still haven't rooted my wife's Nook Color (yet?) and haven't jumped on any new smartphones...

Thanks for the heads-up, Hanson.

_Man_

 

[Hanson]

Holeee crap!!!

More $.10 deals

I don't know how long these deals will last.

BTW, every Android owner should download Swiftkey X. For $.10 it's a no-brainer.

 

[Hanson]

Go to androidcentral.com and they will list the 10 apps for $.10 for the day by 9am. Today is day four.

 

[Hanson]

Google Currents is their version of Flipboard, an RSS reader that aggregates it into a magazine style format with pictures. The app syncs the articles for offline reading and will sync based on account, so whatever you set up on your phone will show up on your tablet and vice versa (although it's rendered differently on larger screens). Sites that have coded their content for Currents look great compared to Google Reader or Pulse and load the entire article instead of requiring you to load the rest of the article. The app is also available for iOS devices.

There are two issues I have with Currents that limit its impact -- for starters, if you leave the app to check your mail, it opens again at the home screen. THis requires you to dig back into the article you were reading, which can be a chore. And on occasion, the article will reload a picture or something and take you back to page one.

I haven't used an RSS reader since Pulse, which frustrated me because most articles were just summaries and required you to load the rest online. I will continue to use Currents for now, but I would like it much more if they fixed the multi-tasking issue.

 

[Hanson]

Today is the last day of the 10 cent app promo. Grabbed some good stuff along the way (ADW Launcher is fantastic) and probably wasted a couple of bucks on games I'll never play. Both the Market and App Store have a basement price of $.99 for paid apps. I wonder if they'll consider doing more lower priced promos like this one. When I look back, I wonder if my $3 spent on apps and games I'll never launch would have been better spent upgrading a free app I use daily to a paid app.

Although there were 10 apps offered for 10 days, there were in reality around 80 apps since a lot of them showed up on multiple days. I felt like a kid opening up a pack of baseball cards again -- got it, got it, new, got it twice, new...

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Forgot about the sale.

Are you saying they had different apps at 10 cents each day? OR are they all 10 cents for all 10 days?

Also, for Google Market, do I need to download the apps right away or does it work like Amazon's App Store as well?

Guess I'll find out later today when I get around to running the Android emulator...

_Man_

 

[Hanson]

On man, Man, they had ten different apps for $.10 every day. Some were offered on multiple days, but there were about 80 apps offered throughout the promotion.

While on Amazon you can download without installing, you have to download and install on Android market (that's because the Amazon apps are sideloaded, so you could stop after the download whereas the Market uses the installer app that does that automatically). You can uninstall the app right afterwards and still have the rights to the app for installation later, but I don't know what the emulator can and cannot do.

 

[Sam Posten]

Yeah i bought a dozen apps through the Amazon store that I was warned would not work well on my Fire... $1.20 wasted, or not? Time will tell.

 

[Sam Posten]

Winning!
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/android-trojans-downloaded-by-millions-still-on-android-market.ars

 

[Hanson]

BOGUS CLAIM!
http://m.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2143770/sophos-counterclank-android-malware

 

[Jacksmyname]

Old thread, I know but thought I'd post about apps I use on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
ES File Explorer-Excellent file manager; free, no ads.
File Manager HD-Excellent file manager; free but has ads.
Cloud Print-Very cool printing app. Free. Works with Google Cloud Print. I can print to my legacy HP usb printer from my tablet via WIFI.
Buddy TV-Free. Very good tv guide app.
Sketchbook Pro-I have the paid version. Pretty cool drawing/sketching app.
Photoshop Touch-A basic version of Photoshop. Fun to play around with.
My Movies Pro-I use the paid version. Used with a free barcode scanner app. Scan the barcode on a DVD with the camera,
app downloads all info. VERY cool!
Accuweather-Very nice weather app. Free, has ads.
WiFi File Transfer-Paid version. Manage and transfer files between tablet and PC via WIFI. Transfers are lightning quick.
Kindle-You know what this. Works well on my tablet.
Solitair by Mobilityware-Pretty good. Free, ads.
The ads in the apps I've listed here are all unobtrusive.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

This past weekend while visiting my parents in northern Michigan, I tried the free app "FoxFi", which turns your phone into a WiFi hotspot. There is no requirement to root your phone or pay your carrier a tethering charge.
FoxFi worked quite well, and was certainly much faster at 3G speed than my parents only Internet access -- dial-up! There will be some battery drain, but the phone actually continued to charge when plugged into AC power. WPA security is supported, and I was able to connect my iPad wirelessly to the newly created Droid hotspot without any issues.

 

[Hanson]

FoxFi is amazing. I've already cancelled my hotspot plan. You should also download the add-on that routes the traffic through a proxy to make it look like you're surfing the net on your phone and not tethering another device.

 

[Hanson]

Well well well... Sprint blocked FoxFi in their ICS update for the epic 4G Touch. Oh well. I still never really used it. The devs are supposedly planning a workaround. I can wait.

I enjoyed Amazing Alex for a while, but it started getting a bit too difficult in the fourth world. I've put it down for now. Incidentally, Rovio will not allow Transformer Prime users to download the game (it's blocked in the Play Store). I ended up buying it on my phone and then copying the installer to the tablet. Although Rovio claims:


Quote:

Unfortunately, while testing the game we found that Transformer devices are not capable of running it smoothly and therefore they are not supported by the game at the moment. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The game plays with zero issues. No slowdown, no crashes, and quite frankly, I don't know what Rovio's angle is, but there is no reason to withhold this game.

Then again, Rovio is selling a .99 SD version and a 2.99 "HD" version, with a very sketchy distinction between the two. Considering the installer file sizes are the same, it doesn't seem likely that one has higher res graphics than the other. And the fact that the graphics are loud and cartoony with solid blocks of color and lacking fine detail makes you wonder what exactly that extra 2 dollars gets you. There have been comparisons between both versions and the answer seems to be, "not much". Maybe even less than that. And remember, this is Android -- the OS scales to all resolutions. It's not like they had to create a distinct resolution for tablets like they do with iPads.

 

[Hanson]

Amazing Alex is in Google Play for the Transformer Prime after Rovio supposedly fixed the incompatability issues. Yet there's no app update. Something sounds fishy.

 

[kadeiwood]

I have so many favorite android application but X-Plore is a great way to look at an Android's file system, and its many added features are solid bonuses.
web design boca raton

 

[Hanson]

Flipboard + Pocket = Offline Paradise

So I've been using Flipboard on Android since it was released, and I've come to absolutely love the thing. I've used Currents and Pulse, but Flipboard is the first RSS reader that's really stuck -- I'm on it all the time now. The beauty of Flipboard is how fast the pages load in. I found Currents to be quite slow with page loads, and was frustrated by Pulse because so much of the content was one paragraph and a link to the webpage. The curated groups on Flipboard are very nice, although a lot of the articles are the same sourced article from multiple outlets. This is especially prevalent in Tech News. It would be nice if they could correct that redundancy.

I had tried Pocket back in the day when it used to be called Read It Later.I was unsatisfied with how fiddly it was and how slow it was to download the pages. I ended up never using it and neglected to reinstall it when I upgraded my phone.

Flash forward 2 years later, and I decided to take Pocket out for another spin. It's pretty excellent now -- you can Share Web pages to it or copy URLs to your clipboard and have it download the page. Very nice. Very useful. But wait... there's more.

Flipboard allows you to choose a default Read Later program. After anointing Pocket as the program, something altogether alchemical happened -- I can now save Flipboard articles to Pocket with two taps - Menu, Read Later. It's like goddamn magic.

"But", you may be wondering, "why do you need to do this?"

Because my office in NYC has multiple dead spots where no data nor wifi can reach. Like, for instance, in the bathroom stalls. Also, the train ride wreaks havoc on my Sprint 3G connection (forget 4G). And finally, my tablet is wifi only. If I'm on a road trip and want to read articles on my tablet, it's the perfect solution (let me emphasize that I am in the passenger seat at all times). BTW, did I mention that I can sync all the articles between my phone and tablet at the touch of a button? Because I totally can.

The other benefit is that Pocket has a white on black reading mode that allows me to read in bed without disturbing my wife.

Pocket has it annoyances. Like, I can't disable confirmation when I delete a file. It would be nice if I could batch delete a well. And in addition to the redundant article thing, only certain Facebook posts make it to Flipboard for some reason, so I still have to log on to Facebook on a daily basis. Which I really wish I didn't have to do.

But these are two very good products that, when combined, leverage each other for an amazing user experience.

BTW, FoxFi is still not working for Epic 4G Touch with ICS. It's been weeks now, and the devs haven't made any progress. I fear it's permanently borked at this point.

 

[Hanson]

More Pocket Goodness

Just downloaded the Pocket Chrome Add-on. Mind. Blown. Now I can save web pages from my desktop to my mobile for off line reading. Don't even have to load the page -- right click on the link and Save to Pocket.

 

[Sam Posten]

Interesting. That sounds like the exact opposite of anything I'd ever want to do (ie I find interesting stuff while on mobile but want to read it on a 'real' monitor later)....
But, don't Instapaper and other things like this already do what you want it to? Or are you saying that there is some additional synching going on with your mobile device that it happens in the background and you never have to intervene?

 

[Hanson]

There's a way to auto-download articles from sites in Pocket, but I'd rather curate my reading list myself. Also, Pocket costs zilch compared to Instapaper.

The way it works is: I send a link to Pocket from Chrome desktop, Flipboard, or Mobile Browser to Pocket. Now I can synch and download the article and any other articles in the queue across all devices with one touch. The devices can be set to autosync as well.

Since I do most of my at home reading on mobile, this is a boon. I don't have to browse, and I don't have to wait for pages to load. I rarely if ever sit at my desktop. If I need anything, I remote in via my tablet.