Useful Android Apps
 

With the absolutely staggering amount of apps out there it can be easy to miss a very useful or neat application. For those of us running the android OS, what apps do you use? This isn't just about productivity apps, but things like games, hobbys, etc.

I'll give a quick list of my favorite ones:

Games:
Angry Birds (Obviously)
Pew Pew
Stupid Zombies (at 11mb it's the largest game I have on here, but very worth it)
Jewels (A bejeweld ripoff)

For rooted devices:
Wireless Tether (turn your phone into a mobile wifi hotspot!)
Droid X Overclock

Other productivity apps:
Droid Light (just turns on the flash, but is very bright)
c:geo (For those of you who like geocaching)
Office Talk Free (Integrates with your company's OCS servers, allowing you to use Office Communicator from your phone)
Touchdown (at 30 bucks, it's a bit pricey, but it's worth every penny. Androids email integration is balls)

If I think of more I may post them.

PDAnet. Allows tethering (via USB) without any sort of hacking, rooting, etc. $16 and well worth it.

And +1 on Touchdown.

I use easytether. It was free and didn't require any special installation. :)

Liquor Run

/thread

Kindle
Colornote
ConnectBot
Exchange Rates
File Expert
Opera Mini
Relax and Sleep
Telnet
TeslaLED
Thinking Space
Winamp

The Weather Chanel
Pandora
Amazon Appstore (for getting free "paid apps")

Advanced Task Killer
Ebay
Google Earth
Facebook
Gmail
One Click Lag Fix
Pandora
PayPal
The Weather Channel

I keep it simple.

Pulse News - very solid RSS reader. Best on iPad, but good on Android.

Google Gesture search - one handed lookups - very slick.

Tripit - I travel constantly, and so this is a requirement. Organizes itineraries for me.

Android Calendar Dialer - If you are on a lot of conference calls where they include the conference dial in # and a code # in a calendar invite, this is what you need. It figures out how to dial the conference number, than the access code.

Reddit Is Fun - a decent free reddit reader.

Fleshlight

Torque

All Free Apps:

To Do List
OnePunch
SpeedView lite
GPS Test
WiFi Analyzer
G-Mon
Key Ring
Converter
FBReader (when tied to the Guttenburg Project)
SoundHound
AudioManager
Shush!
TranZilla
Bump
Movies (by Flixter)

craigslist!!!

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the killer app - Google Nav.

C

that's because it's a factory freebie, but def good +1

even though it's not functional yet i have to add

netflix

timeriffic (set volume, wifi, bluetooth on a schedule)
sound manager (set volume not on a timer)

weatherbug because all other weather apps drain batteries on my phon

gtasks

dropbox!!

bookmark for google docs on home screen

photofocus / cam calc for DOF calcs

livebookmarks

dc metro transit map/schedules

Screen Filter - Lets you modify the display brightness beyond the factory settings, even to 0 lux. Amazing for OLED displays, still useful for LCD displays.

Linda Manager - File manager that allows large downloads in the web browser

Slacker Radio

AndroidVNC - VNC for Android

Audiogalaxy - Cloud music, except your home PC is the server

Flash 10.1 - If you don't have Froyo (2.2) and it's available for your phone, get it. This brings the phone to near-PC web functionality. It's the boss.

I have the stock Power Control widget on my home screen. It's useful.

For tethering, I'm running a non-stock ROM that allows use of the native android wifi hotspot features. It's the easiest and best if you know how to flash ROMs.


It would be helpful if you posted what phone and if you're running a non-stock ROM, which one.

Samsung Captivate running Cognition 4.3

Free
Anycut - Lets you create shortcuts for all kinds of things, like sending a message to a specific person.

Throw a Panda 2 - Throw a panda, buy upgrades, pretty simple. Great time waster.

Lookout - Scans stuff you download to check for spyware, malware, w/e.

Cool Reader - Will read epub files off your SD card. Allows you to customize the text, and background.

Keep Screen - Stops the phone from falling asleep while certain apps are open. Very useful for apps like desktop clocks and such.

Scanlife - Barcode reader. Shows other businesses that have the product for sale and their price, works on QR codes too.

Family guy find the difference - I love find the difference games.

Obviously you need Angry birds, and words with friends.

Paid
I have only paid for two apps since having the phone.

Juice Defender pro - Lets you create a profile to save battery life. Can automatically change up your data settings when the phone is in a specific state, stops the phone from searching for wifi when you are no where near a wifi signal. Claims to have improved my battery life by 2.02X $1.99

Widget Locker - Lets you customize your lock screen. Got this so I can have my camera and flashlight apps on my lock screen. $.99


HTC Inspire 4G.

My Samsung EPIC just got the FROYO update and has become even more of a horrific piece of shit. Headed to the Sprint store this weekend to see what they can do, otherwise it's time to try an I-phone... but have to wait until June to see if there's a new one actually going to come out this year.

Froyo ruined my mytouch as well. Some phones just dont have the power for it.

Have you updated all of your apps since the Froyo install? Some of them don't play well with the intall. Alternatively either root the phone to pull out some of the samsung/sprint bloatware, or else do a clean install of the EC05 update with Odin to fix all of the problems that were left with the transition from EB18. The market and appstore will save your purchased applications and automatically download and install the latest versions of all of them once your fresh EC05 is setup. Your contacts are likely saved to google, so those will also automatically repopulate. Anything on your SD card (music/photos/files/etc) will remain on your SD card (although you may want to remove your SD card while you Odin it). You'll have to start over in Angry Birds though :(

ODIN is Sprint/Samsungs software for installing stock ROMs to the phone. By ODIN-ing to EC05 (latest epic update) your phone will act as if it came with EC05 from the factory.

Haven't done anything to it... random crashes, battery lasts half as long, vibrator goes off intermittantly for no reason, runs half as fast doing anything, reset all my setting for everything upon install, reception sucks, gets really fucking hot for no reason, takes twice as long to charge... and the only fucking thing I can find that it did was add a "silent" quickbutton. I thought Froyo was supposed to be the ballz... it's been complete shit.

So, I'll take a shot at the "clean install". How do I know where all my contacts are stored? I don't know if they're in Google, but I'll see about activating that function. If I pull my SD card, all the data is still avail so I think it's inside the phone memory... how do I transfer all my contacts to the SD card so I don't lose any just to be sure?

All I'll really need to reload is Pandora, The Weather Channel, and my Leeroy Jenkins soundbytes.

How do I perform the "clean install"? Spoon-feed pretty please.

I decided to try the free easytether last night and it worked like a charm on non-https sites.

RunKeeper is a good app for any kind of outdoor exercise. I use it for cycling, my parents use it for hiking, my sister uses it for running. It shows your route on google maps, and gives you pinpoint elevation and speed data graphs which match up with the map.

ConvertPad for any kind of unit conversion you could think of.

RealCalc for a scientific calculator

Barcode Scanner, i used it in the store while shopping tv's instead of driving to every store to cross-shop the same model

Gmote to use the phone as a remote touchpad/keyboard for the computer over wifi, good for watching hulu without getting up while the laptop is hooked up to the tv

Just exported all my contacts to SD card... just hit the menu button inside CONTACTS and there's a quick-key for it (Import/Export).

For samsung epic only

go into your contacts, select a contact, look at the "joined contacts" section of the contact. if it has a google "g" there, then it's saved to google. When you create a new contact, do you save it as a "google" contact, or a "phone" contact? "google" contacts save on google's servers to your google account. "phone" contacts are locally stored in phone memory.

Guide here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki...axy_S/SPH-D700

Download and install these:
ODIN software
ODIN phone drivers under "software"

Download the ROM from one of the 3 links on this page (about 300mb):
EPIC EC05
Alternatively, use the EB13 update here - 290MB (the EC05 was just a small update to the EB13. EB13 Is the original FROYO OS, and might make for a much easier install given the information in the thread):
EB13 update

IMPORTANT: Make sure you have installed the drivers before starting. Also, remove the SD card from the phone (this may not be necessary, but having the SD card installed has caused Odin to fail for a number of people, so might as well just do it).
1. Open ODIN on your PC (desktops are preferred over laptops and use a USB port that is directly soldered into the motherboard).

2. Put your phone in download mode (Shut it off, wait for lights to all go out, then hold 1 on the keyboard while powering up). Please note that if your phone doesn't go into download mode it is in all probability that you were pushing down on more than the single number 1 key. The download mode shows an Android using a tool to dig through a pile of rubble (no kidding).

3. Connect phone (you should see odin put a Com4 or something like that in the first box. The actual number is NOT important what is important is something popped up there when you connected your device, meaning ODIN can see it)

4. Select the victory_8G_100528.pit on the right in the pit section I didn't even know what this file was originally, so I ignored this instruction.

5. In the PDA Section place the full Stock DI18 tar (SPH-D700-DI18-8Gb-REL.tar.md5 approx 255 MB) for a full wipe and full return to stock. You can get the file from a number of sources here: http://www.multiupload.com/X9AB1U56JV (Use the EB13 link i gave you above)

6. Hit start. It will do its thing. Doesn't take long you can see the progress bar. If it sits on File Analysis for longer than 30 seconds its not going to happen. See the troubleshoot section below.

7. Device should reboot and should be done.

Dude, that's EPIC!!! Get it "epic". HAHAHAAAAAAA... fuck.