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Help apps for android

crow11ad

Android Enthusiast
Oct 22, 2009
415
206
Well I know there are a few apps threads, but did not really find one that would describe what they do or why others might like it. Might help others find something that they did not know was out there in the market. So if anyone has any suggestions, please post with the name of the app, description and if it costs or if it is free (free is always good).

I just found this app called tunewiki.

This is a music app. Not just another regular music app, but pretty cool. So if you have any songs on your phone, you click on it, then it will find the cover art (kind of like what pandora does) but also show the song lyrics. You can then hit the tv tube looking icon and then it will search youtube so you can see the video. And this is free. :D
 
The ereader I use is Aldiko. It's free, but it only reads .epub extensions. I'm not sure about the free books since I have a lot of .prc book I downloaded for Mobireader on my winmo phone. I used calibre to convert them to .epub.

I like Aldiko much more than I liked Mobireader. The layout is better and I like the tap the left or right of the screen to turn the page.

I just looked at the description of Aldiko and it says they have a "huge library of ebooks (mostly free)".
 
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Tricorder (free): turns your screen into a simulated Star Trek tricorder. Has some interesting (if mostly useless) data the phone/GPS pulls up, like gravity info, solar activity, compass... mostly just a 'fun' app.

GPS Status (free): Another gps app that will do a few neat things. Tells GPS location (lat/long), magnetic field at your position, compass, acceleration, velocity, and lets you point your phone to the location of the nearest GPS satellite. This one's more useful that tricorder if you get lost in the woods or something. Also has a 'radar' mode that will let you trace out a path (or something, haven't figured it all out yet).

Google Sky (free): When properly synched with GPS, you can hold this up next to whatever celestial body you're wanting to identify, and it tells you what you're looking at. Where's the moon? You can search for heavenly bodies and it will make an arrow that you can follow to point to where an object is.

Night Clock (free): turns phone into an alarm clock, you can adjust the color/brightness of the display, set a custom alarm tone, snooze duration. Only concern is it might burn the screen if left on all night every night...

Bubble (free): a bubble level app, pretty damn accurate.

Battery Graph (free): to help all of you people boggled by the battery meter quirk, this gives a graphical representation of battery use. I would have returned my Moment if I didn't have this to show that the battery holds at 15% for like 6 hours, so it isn't actually at 15%.

Flashlight (free): Turns screen white, sets backlight to full power. The app description is funny, but its just simply something to give you some light. I wish it would turn on the external LED flash, but whatever.

Shazam (free): "What's this song called?" Ask no more... Identifies a song by listening to part of it. This works even in a crowded bar, unless you're too far from a sound source.

Twidroid (free): Twitter app. Simple. Sounds cool.

Unit Converter (free): Self-explanatory, handy for me (engineering student)

Movies (by Flixter) (free): looks up movie times, reviews, dvd releases, and some other nifty stuff. When GPS is set to active, it will find theaters and rank them by distance from your location.

Advanced Task Killer (free): Kills apps. Go away, random app!

Barcode Scanner and/or Compare Everywhere (both free): Scans barcodes, finds prices/product info. Not totally reliable, but neat.

Mabilo (free): Ringtone app. Works like android market, sort of.

Ringdroid (free): Lets you make custom ringtones from mp3s.

Battery Widget (free): push it and it lets you disable/enable wifi, gps, bluetooth. Also shows a bigger battery meter with %.

Sound Grenade
(free): makes that super-annoying mosquito sound. Set it off in a crowd and watch people freak out (hard to pinpoint!)
 
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Games:
Brain Genius (free)- Random puzzles, the 'fizzy or flat' puzzle is off, but the variety and the grading is alot of fun!
Pinball (free)- Straight forward. Can lag though if you have a browser open at the same time.
Robo Defense (free)- Tower defense game.
Labyrinth - Accelerometer based game, get the ball to the end of the maze.
Klondike Solitaire (free)- Self explainitory
Sudoku (by Frank & Chase) (free)- The best Sudoku game I have been able to find.
Head to Head racing (free)- Tilt the screen the steer. Simple and fun and there is a better paid version.

Tools:
Spare Parts (free)- Additional menu options for your phone.
Flash Cup (free)- The flashlight app that I use. I agree with Zumaki though, they need one that works the LED flash.
Remote Droid (free)- Turns your phone into a remote touchpad/keyboard for your computer! A MUST HAVE if you hook-up your computer to your TV to watch Netflix or whatever online video.
Ultra Note (free)- A note taking app, quick and simple. There may be better ones out there, but this is simply what I needed.
Timeriffic (free)- Allows you to set your Ringer's Volume and GPS and WiFi and airplaine mode and all that stuff on a schedule of your choosing! Set it to turn off all your stuff at 10:00pm when you go to bed and wake up when you do. Have it silence your ringer right before class in case you forget. Have it shut down your Wifi when you know you're not going to need it so it doesn't waste battery. It's a great app.
Wheres My Droid (free)- Find your phone if the ringer is off or if you left it somewhere far enough away that you can't hear it! It will turn on the ringer and ring, or find your phone via GPS, both options are independantly accessible. This app is a necessaity IMO. Either it will come in handy if you install it, OR some day you will wish that you did.

Others:
Pkt Auctions (free)- eBay for your phone. Buy, Sell, watch, search, and get notifications. It even allows you to use the camera to scan barcodes, an then automatically finds them on eBay! I have found it to be very accurate.
SnapPhoto (free)- seems like a good improvement on the basic Moment camera when it comes to white balance and stuff, though it does not have a zoom option.
TV.com (free)- An additional line-up in addition to what SprintTV provides.
Advanced Task Manager (for purchase) - Great app killer IMO, better than TasKiller

Themes:
Beautiful Widgets and Open Home (both for purchase)
I like the clock that comes with Beautiful Widgets. It makes it easy to set alarms, and the weather display, with 1-touch 3-day weather is nice too.
So far I have found a couple themes that I like, but I hate the side-sliders. I can't figure out for to get rid of them.


Also, don't overlook the previous suggestions that have been made. I second the Movies by Flixster app, it's great.
But I'm not a big fan of Bubble, just because this phone has the volume button on the side that throws it off level.
 
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Hey critical -

I too found those side sliders annoying. Go into openhome settings and uncheck the 2 options that say something like 'dock applications' and 'dock soft key search'. That'll get rid of them!

Thanks! I have gone back to using open home again and personalized everything :)
And as an fyi to everyone. Open Home might be the best theme app out right now. Because all of their themes are free (you only have to purchase the original software) plus it's aHome compatible, so it allows you to use pretty much every theme on the market.
 
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Question.... what's the catch with i Music? Is it illegal?
I just downloaded it. According to them, the app itself is merely a search engine through which you can find music that is hosted by other unaffiliated people. And they say that once you download and listen to a song, that you must delete it on your own.

So I guess if you do that (delete them after you listen to them) then it is not illegal?:rolleyes:
 
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Jogger - this jogging app is exactly what I needed, it uses your GPS signal and saves a map of your run, it tells you how fast you're running, how many calories you're burning, running distance and a few other things.

Its funny the GPS worked fantastically on this app, but it still has trouble on Sprint Nav
 
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Jogger - this jogging app is exactly what I needed, it uses your GPS signal and saves a map of your run, it tells you how fast you're running, how many calories you're burning, running distance and a few other things.

Its funny the GPS worked fantastically on this app, but it still has trouble on Sprint Nav

Have you tried MyTracks? It doesn't have the calorie thing, but it has a bunch of other cool tracking features for joggers/runners/bikers, and the option to upload your routes to Google Maps or Google Docs. I'll give Jogger a look.
 
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Thanks! I have gone back to using open home again and personalized everything :)
And as an fyi to everyone. Open Home might be the best theme app out right now. Because all of their themes are free (you only have to purchase the original software) plus it's aHome compatible, so it allows you to use pretty much every theme on the market.


Critical - dumb question, but, how do I find Open Home in the Market? I tried searching for it and got all the themes, but not the app itself. Is it under another name?

Tim
 
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for those who don't want to pay for openhome, pandahome is a nice home replacement with its own set of themes. and also the ability to mix and match themes to my tastes.

i personally like the simplicity of advancedlauncher, which gives me the basic home screen, but with the added ability to add new pages (up to 10) and set which page as my home page.

both are free home replacements.
 
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i personally like the simplicity of advancedlauncher, which gives me the basic home screen, but with the added ability to add new pages (up to 10) and set which page as my home page.
Sweet. That was my main purpose for getting open home. I wish I had known about it before (but that's what this thread is for right? :p

I'm gonna stick with open home though, 1-because it's too late for a refund, and 2-because I've gotten used to the new look of the launcher.

Again, thanks for that Weeton.
 
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for those who don't want to pay for openhome, pandahome is a nice home replacement with its own set of themes. and also the ability to mix and match themes to my tastes.

i personally like the simplicity of advancedlauncher, which gives me the basic home screen, but with the added ability to add new pages (up to 10) and set which page as my home page.

both are free home replacements.

PandaHome has bricked several phones.....beware!
 
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