All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

Ok, so Android is getting to be a huge deal, and the off-topic section could use this. Soo many people are going Android these days, and this would be a good thread to state which Android apps YOU use, and maybe a couple of words about it... Like what the app does and how well it does it (and if it "force-quits" a lot)... What apps do you use?

Mine are pretty generic so far, but I getting into developing apps... so I may even write a couple someday.
1.) Dropbox --- Great implementation on Android for sharing files among your personal devices.
2.) File Manager --- Everyone will use one sooner or later, so in this reguard it's just a matter of which file explorer you pick. Most of them are GREAT.
3.) Google Sky Maps --- If you like the stars or astronomy, you'll flip over this really cool FREE Google app.
4.) MorseCoder --- Just a cool Morse Code app.
5.) Music Player --- Really original name, I know. But it does what it says, and it does it VERY well. It also includes a nice widget.
6.) Sketcher --- Draw with your fingers, with several really cool effects.
7.) VLCMote --- A simple remote interface for VLC's web interface.
8.) Wattpad --- Great reading app... they feature the whole Gutenburg Project I believe.
9.) Unified Remote --- Great mouse/keyboard/media remote software I've come across so far.

 

I think there was another thread somewhere (couple of months ago), but what the heck lets have another.

- Pure calender widget (does exactly what it says )
- Twidroyd Pro (Paid twitter app)
- Status Note (note in the status bar, as a notification)
- ADW launder
- Swiftkey beta (good text prediction, free right now)
- Tunes Remote (acts as remote for itunes)

 

System Panel - Monitors battery, CPU, and Device usage. Also can be a task killer for those who think it saves batter . $2.99
LauncherPro - Seven to one screen home screen App, smooth, customizable dock bar. Free(for the time being)
Beautiful Widgets - Clean and sleek widgets for weather, time, wifi, airplane mode, etc. $2.99
Btunes - basically the itouch music player. $1.99
Swype - text input method. Free
Agenda Widget - Calender app with an amzaing amount of visible customizations, alerts, and syncs. Free
Gameboid - A to die for gameboy emulator. Chews through battery but now that I have it I can't live without it. $2.99
OI File Manager - a fie manager. Free
Droidfit - an exercise app that lets you know when an what you did and what you plan on doing. sounds stupid but really pays off. Free

 

Juice Defender - Saves battery by switching things like 3g data off when the screen is off/controlling battery eating features
Cubed (3) - One of the best free music players even if I prefer Morph Flow view over the default Cube
RockPlayer - Plays almost any file type, still being worked on though so still early days
Astro File Manager
Task Manager
MP3 Tagger - Allows you to fix those dodgy mp3 id tags
Tunee Music - Russia presents free music...
Smart Monitor - monitors CPU usage/storage/memory/data usage

 

i updated my htc desire to android 2.2 today !

 

Don't threads like these belong over at Brighthand, just like desktop threads belong in DTR?

 

The difference is, DTR was created because NBR'ers wanted it, and then well, they left it. >.> And most older NBR accounts were ported to DTR were as Brighthand is a stand alone site. Essentially, the old desktop section on NBR became DTR, Brighthand is just Brighthand.

 

and whats the verdict? is teh hawt?

 

there are many minor changes in the ui, and the phone feels slicker to use as well. there's video recording with the flashlight on in 720p, and there's flash too!

 

Well it should be... With JIT enabled, 2.2 pretty much doubles the linpack score! ^^;;;

 

Awesome so far! Alexrose1uk... RockPlayer FTW!!

 

if i take my phone to a different country, will it work there? i mean outside of u.k./europe.

it is a sim-free phone (i.e., it's not on any contract or anything such).

 

The Desire is quad-band capable, so it will work in most countries that use GSM networks, though you may not get 3G data.

 

By sim-free you mean it actually has NO sim card? Is it CDMA? Otherwise if it's sim-unlocked it should work for voice anywhere in the world, and up to EDGE everywhere also. 3G is a different bag, with only certain 3G freqs supported in certain markets, 3G isn't guaranteed to work everywhere unless you have a "penta-band" phone like the new Nokia N8.

 

no, by sim-free i mean without a contract, unlocked. correct me if i'm wrong, but i think the htc desire is a quad band phone.

can you tell me in which countries would i not be able to use 3g (except the countries which don't have 3g obviously )? thanks.

 

Mobile networks - GSM and 3G coverage

 

..........

 

Try clicking on the drop-down box.

 

yeah that drop down menu is way hard to detect, it's blended in with the webpage's color so i couldn't see it before.

 

Aps that I like:

- Advanced Task Killer (Kills apps running in the background)

- Documents to Go (View Word, Excel and Power Point documents)

- Opera Mini (A web browser that is literally 2-3x faster then the stock browser on my Mytouch)

- Labrinth Lite (Very fun marble maze game)

- gStrings - (Digital Music tuner, use it for tuning my guitars)

- Pandora - (Listen to internet radio free)

- Robo Defense - (The best most fun free game I've found to date!)

- Wifi Analyzer - (Good app for detecting Wifi signal strenth and AP channel info etc)

- Astro - (A decent free file manager app)

 

the adobe reader is awesome for me.
the shopping apps, aka, amazon / ebay are constantly used by me
batterytime lite is very nice for me to gauge how much batter i have
ebuddy is a great alternative to AIM
SpacePhysics is pretty fun
and of course, the Engadget app is very nice

i get 2.2 this week, so i'm excited!

 

Twonky Media Server for Android. It's the media sharing app I've been looking for my entire adult life. Prayers answered...

 

GrooveShark for Android is another life changing app. Visit m.grooveshark.com after you've created a free account and download the Android client, or search for it on the Market. It runs on ALL Android phones v1.1 and up. Step666 got me curious about GrooveShark through the current song thread, and wow. Cannot thank you enough Step666! BTW, it's had EVERY song I've looked for so far.

 

SetCPU (root only): For those overclocking daredevils
ROM Manager (root only): Download and install custom ROMs with ease, along with backup management, all from the comfortable UI land of Android
Wireless Tether for Root Users (root only, duh): Does what it says, BT or WiFi
System Panel: System monitor (CPU, temp, mem, etc.) and task manager
Chrome to Phone: Send URLs from your browser equipped with this extension to your phone with a single click
Bump: Show those iPhone users that you can do it too (and share your stuff with them)
MotoTorch LED: Use your camera flash as a flashlight, strobe light, or morse code transmitter
Metal Detector: Detects (ferrous) metal
Zombie, Run!: Neat game that uses your GPS info to plot zombie infestations that you must avoid while getting to a goal

 

I spent about an hour yesterday playing around with Google Goggles on a Galaxy S and was extremely impressed.
By far the best app I've tried on Android so far.

 

Im not sure when Telus is going to update to 2.2, cause I cant just do it, correct? Thought it was only for unlocked phones...

I love the task killer though, super useful, the shotgun and lightsaber are fun too

 

If the Desire is rooted (like every HTC phone IS) then yes, you can probably do it right this moment I kinda wish I had bought an HTC.

 

Co-Pilot Live 8 - Great GPS app
Quadrant - Benchmarking tool for phones overall performance
J Benchmark - Benchmark phones internal/external SD drive for read/write speeds
Meridian Media Player - offers more options than the default players
Google Goggles - OCR's and recognizes stuff using your camera
Beautiful Widgets - better looking home screen
Autokiller - Memory/Task manager (needs root)
Moron Test - Fun tricky game
Speed Anatomy - find the body part
Alchemy - Mix all sorts of chemicals and materials to make something

 

Rooting and unlocking are different thing. Unlocking just lets you use teh phone on other carriers.

You can technically root your phone and install custom roms (2.2 SenseUI rom are already there for the HTC Desire). But keep in mind that does void the warranty and if you want to sent it in for repairs you will have to "unroot" it. You will find detailed instructions for both procedures in the XDA dev forums. ^^

Well he has to root it first.



EDIT: Just tried the Trillian (IM Client) open beta on Android, what a fail, couldn't get my WLM account to connect at all.

 

What scores are you guys in froyo getting in Quadrant?



My SGS Eclair 2.1 rooted, no OC

 

I shall embarrass myself with my rust bucket.

Qualcomm MSM 7200A running @ 576Mhz (HTC Magic with 32A chipset)
Android 2.2 (CM6.0.0 RC3, JIT enabled)

Score: 381 (best of 2 runs)

Linpack: 3.917


EDIT: Flipfire I wonder how your score you be if you were running android 2.2 with JIT.

 

Woah. I just got my Samsung Vibrant (US T-mobile). How are you able to get 2300? I just did a full benchmark and only scored around 950+ which is just slightly above the Samsung Galaxy score shown in the result.

To OP: Great topic, I was just wonder what are some of the best apps for android since it is my first android and first smart phone.

 

Only reason im getting high scores is because the SGS has a crazy gpu in it, its nearly faster than a PS2 & XBOX combined in terms of gfx crunching power. See here for a 2010 smartphone comparison

 

But my vibrant is basically a rebranded sgs. I am on 2.1 but unrooted.Oh, did you happen to apply the "lag fix"?

 

You're aware that those figures have never been confirmed? One Android fan site published them as a rumour and everyone else has just run with it.
Certainly, the Galaxy S family benchmark better than Snapdragon-based handsets when it comes to graphics stuff but nothing that backs up the claimed triangles/sec figures.

Also, you're referencing a comparison sheet that claims the Evo 4G has a front-facing camera that is capable of 720p @30fps and a main camera that can only do 720p @25fps...

 

^ Well ive only read a few articles like this one that seems to say so. Personally id like to benchmark it to confirm but i dont know of any app.

I like this video too:
<width='640' height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TPyFB44Raag?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TPyFB44Raag?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='640' height="385"></embed></object>

Yup definitely do the one click lag fix and it will jump to 2000+ and get rid of all the choppiness.

I updated the firmware, rooted then did the lag fix. I got the firmware with the no carrier bloatware.

 

I remember that one It was debunked. They're using the "Triangle's" per second instead of the proper "Polygons/sec". It lets them get away with astronomically high numbers. The GPU with the Hummingbird in the Galaxy S is:

PowerVR SGX540 (28 MPolys/s, 1Gpx/s@200MHz, Max Memory Band (GB/s) 4.2GB/s)

Not too dissimilar to the GMA500 from Intel or the GPU in the iPad/iPhone 4:

PowerVR SGX535 (14 MPolys/s, 1Gpx/s@200MHz)

 

I guess your right there.. Futuremark needs to make some 3Dmark android apps soon

Anyway that NOVA game and its pretty good, its similar to Crysis. Its $4.99 here. Backbreaker Football is another good game for $1, it was originally from the iphone.

 

Even ignoring the relative merits of different ways of measuring performance, I'm sure I'd read a few comments/articles etc plain-up questioning whether the quoted figure is even accurate.
Some guy from Samsung supposedly said it performed to this incredible level without any sort of proof, it could be a lie, a mistake, a misquotation. I mean, if it was that much better, wouldn't Samsung have built some sort of statue in front of Apple's HQ already?

Not to take anything away from the Galaxy S and it's siblings, they are still ahead of Snapdragon-based handsets in terms of performance, there's no denying that.


Personally though, I'm holding out in hope of the Dell with the 720p screen.

 

Thanks Flipfire. I did the lag fix and the phone is alot snappier now, and my qudrant score is now averaging around 2200.

 

Everyone here with a Samsung Galaxy S... Check this story out!

 

-Pandora
-dolphin browser
-pdanet (for those who want free tethering without having to root)
-Battle.net authenticator (no more damn keyfob!!)
-androidVNC
-Advanced task killer for auto killing certain apps
-slingmedia player (expensive but awesome for streaming tv on the go)
-barnacle
-weather and toggle widget
-H7C clock and weather

There are more I am sure but Im very new to actually owning and relying on an android phone so Im sure there will be plenty more by the time I get my epic 4g.

 

It looks like Samsung sold quite a bit of Galaxy S phones (expected since all carriers in the US has one and there is an international version as well), hopefully they can start pushing out Froyo in september like they promised.

From what I read online, most people recommended not to use a task killer if you have 256 MB of ram or above. The reason being that android does a great job with memory management and in addition it preloads/cache some application into Free ram. Therefore, by force closing the application, you only makes the phone work harder to load all those application again thus lowering battery life, etc. I wonder how true this statement is though. From my experience the phone runs great without killing any applications.

 

Also killing certain things can cause more trouble then it could possibly help. But the phone I have runs like poo without clearing it out every so often. Thank God its only temporary until the 31st when I get my new phone.

 

I agree with you there. Usually the only apps that really get killed on my phone are the ones that stay logged-in in the background and are constantly sending/receiving information while the phone is in standby, for instance AIM or anything like that. It really helps battery life. Other than that, I've set my memory management to "Aggressive", and that seems to noticeably speed things up.

 

-Trillian
-psx4droid
-titanium backup
-setcpu
-su
-file manager
-task killer
-linpack
-quadrant
-metamorph
-snesoid/gbaoid
-qik
-terminal
-root explorer
-screen crack
-notepad
-cachemate
-rom manager
-nfs game
-speedx 3d
-raging thunder

 

My Quadrant is bigger than your Quadrant

Interesting read.

 

Anyone here on NBR with a backflip, it's FINALLY been rooted! Head to ATTDroids for more info. Basically we'll probably be getting 2.1/2 before Moto ever pushes it. Anyways here are some recent ones I've found...

AutoZone - Brilliant car part catalog app.
BetterKeyboard - Awesome replacement for the stock Android software KB. Plus it's skinnable.
ConnectBot - Command line emulator. Requires root to be useful.
Dell Service Tag Scanner - A godsend for people who do a lot of computer repair.
TweetCaster - Twitter done right.
Congress - Useful if you want to keep up with what's happening politically.

 

Bump! Cause I just bought an Android phone!

 

angry birds beta for android is out!

The loading screen is more buggy than the rachni home world but once you finally get in its super fun