Ten Essential Android Apps
The mobile applications to download first
Product Round-up You've taken delivery of your shiny new Android handset, you've logged into the Googleverse and now you're thinking 'what next?'. Well, you can start by downloading the following ten apps that will help you get the most from your handset. Whether you want to read, write, chat, work, travel, watch some TV or just to keep your handset in tip-top form there is an app for that.
eBuddy
eBuddy ticks all the mobile instant messaging boxes. It supports MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GTalk, Facebook, ICQ and MySpace, lets you access multiple accounts from the one screen and can be left to run in the background if you want to use your phone for something else. The screen layout is well thought out, letting you conduct multiple chats at the same time without writing something inappropriate to your mum when you have her on one screen and your inamorata on the other.
Reg Rating 90%
Price Free
More Info eBuddy
Twidroid
Not the most colourful or decorative Twitter application, but it makes the most use of the available screen acreage and, frankly, we prefer it to either HTC or Motorola's Twitter clients, or Tweetcaster for simplicity of use, stability and clarity of presentation. Upgrade to Twidroid Pro for €3.39 (£3) and you can add multiple accounts, change themes, access some rather decent widgets and get a shake-to-refresh function, but we can live without those so the free version is our recommendation.
Reg Rating 80%
Price Free for basic app, £3 for Pro version
More Info Twidroid
COMMENTS
My Top Ten
Not being a social network victim and travelling more by public transport than car:
1. Task Manager (Wing Tseng). More sophisticated than ATK and has a handy widget to kill all background tasks.
2. BeebPlayer (David Johnston). No argument there. Top application, and free, too.
3. EStrongs File Explorer (EStrongs). Manipulate files on device, SD card and Windows shares.
4. WiFi Analyser (farproc). Does exactly what it says on the tin, and does it well.
5. Movies (Flixster). What's on, where its on, what time its on. Reviews (Rotten tomatoes) and previews.
6. National Rail (croworc). Train timetables and live times. A bit flaky but the only App available.
7. RealCalc (Brain Overspill). Excellent scientific calculator.
8. MyTracks (Google) Because I sometimes like to know where I've been.
9. BBC News (Jim Blackler). Convenient source of news. Headlines widget.
10. Tricorder (Moonblink). Because I'm a geek.
RE: backup
Nandroid backup. The importance of this facility cannot be stressed enough. It's got me out of a couple of tight holes.
Of course, this requires an unlocked bootloader. If you don't have one of these, please buy an iPhone and stop reading El Reg.
Re: Just shows what a rush job Android is
Quote: "Android's got a long way to go to catch up with iPhone, which has almost pushed me back to the Apple camp."
Get real! The iPhone didn't even have cut'n'paste, video recording, mms, etc etc until relatively recently. If anything is "rush job" it's the fruitphone's OS.
Really useful review, thanks.
Just confirmed once again that I have absolutely no need of a smartphone, whether Android or from the Blessed Jobs! I'll stick to a simple mobile phone (that can both make and receive phone calls and texts - brilliant!) and a real computer for any serious work. Saved me a fortune - ta!
ok but....
would have been nice if for each product you had listed minimum android version. Us poor Hero users are still stuck in the dark ages of 1.5 waiting on HTC so no doubt some of those apps wont work.
