Top Android apps you can't live without [2010]

[Singh400]

I can't install Swype because not enough space (waiting for 2.2). And I don't think I would like BlindType (if it's the one without a keyboard) I need to see something to know where I am putting my fingers, to get close to the letters.

You can have the keyboard showing as well with BlindType... ;)

[FunkTrooper]

I can't believe no one's mentioned DoggCatcher. So I'll mention it: DoggCatcher (those of us outside Google's chosen few Market-enabled countries can get it from http://www.snoggdoggler.com/).

This is by far the best podcast app ever. No more syncing from PC to phone; instead just subscribe, download and listen to podcasts in one handy app :D Brilliant!

[LingeringSoul]

I'm still running Android 1.5 on my HTC Hero unfortunately, so I don't have access to some of the new and fresh apps that other people have. I'll probably take the plunge and root my phone this weekend. Until then...

Astrid Tasks: I'm extremely forgetful by nature, and so task management is pretty important to me when it comes to phone apps. As far as productivity apps are concerned, this one is pretty good. It has definitely come a long way in the past few months. It runs a bit sluggish on my phone, but apart from that it's all good.

ColorNote: Every smartphone needs a notepad, and this is the best one on Android in my humble opinion. Password protection, different colours, and just a generally pleasing aesthetic (definitely a rarity when it comes to Android apps).

Advanced Task Killer: My HTC Hero is getting up there in terms of age, especially with phones like the Desire and the Incredible out there. This keeps my phone running decently fast. The fact that it improves battery life is an added bonus.

Seesmic: I tried Twidroid before switching to Seesmic. I hated how Twidroid would always re-launch itself when being killed, and I hated how ugly it was. Thankfully Seesmic has neither of those problems.

Battery Widget (HTC Sense Exclusive): I need to know my battery percentage, and this little widget happens to look quite nice. It complements my home screen quite nicely.

Facebook for Android: An obvious one. It used to suck massively, and now it sucks less. Still has nothing on the iPhone app (or even the Blackberry app for that matter), but it's getting better.

Engadget: It's Engadget and it's an app. Not much else to say here.

HandyCalc: I don't use my phone's calculator for anything other than very simple computations, but it's always nice to have the option there if I need it.

That's pretty much it for my favourite apps. Most other apps I've tried have come and gone, but these ones probably have a permanent place on my phone.

[*RedBull*]

Only if you run apps that suck down your battery without you keeping an eye on them. All task killers do on 2.1 or newer phones is allow you to keep less of an eye on what your phone is doing. Any battery saving a task killer does, can also be done by the owner being more careful with their apps.

Like a friend told me who has the lastest Andriod phone, just using the phone drains the battery. I'M SAYING VERY LOUDLY, SYSTEM PANEL LITE TASK MANAGER does a ****ing good job of keeping your battery usage down. Almost 20hrs with moderate use, mostly making calls and doing some WiFi, the battery life is down to 50% after 20 hours. Awesome.

[Nagisan]

Like a friend told me who has the lastest Andriod phone, just using the phone drains the battery. I'M SAYING VERY LOUDLY, SYSTEM PANEL LITE TASK MANAGER does a ****ing good job of keeping your battery usage down. Almost 20hrs with moderate use, mostly making calls and doing some WiFi, the battery life is down to 50% after 20 hours. Awesome.

I ran a task killer for about a week and noticed no discernible difference in battery life compared to not running a task killer. Yesterday I had 80% battery life left when I went to bed with light usage, thats 2 5 minute calls, receiving email all day, leaving wifi enabled all day (even when leaving a wifi area), and sending and receiving a couple texts. Total time my phone was on was around 15 hours, no task killer. I forgot to put it on the charger last night, so now, 8 hours after that, its at 70% after roughly 23 hours.

Task killers make no difference if you are careful with which apps you use, the only time they help is when you use crappy apps that continue hitting your CPU while your phone is locked, or updating themselves constantly. If you take the time to set your phone up properly, you do not need a task killer to get good battery life out of it.

Also, in general, your display is going to use a large majority of your battery. The only time anything uses my battery more than my display is when I am not using my phone at all. Even then, my highest battery consumption comes from the phone radio antenna and what not, not the apps I am running. My highest app consumption comes from LauncherPro, which after 20 hours of the phone being on, is less than 7% of the drain.

[*RedBull*]

Only if you run apps that suck down your battery without you keeping an eye on them. All task killers do on 2.1 or newer phones is allow you to keep less of an eye on what your phone is doing. Any battery saving a task killer does, can also be done by the owner being more careful with their apps.

Well if you notice my sig, you'd see what phone I have and what firm ware version. Motorolla still hasn't put out the 2.1 or higher for that phone...

I ran a task killer for about a week and noticed no discernible difference in battery life compared to not running a task killer. Yesterday I had 80% battery life left when I went to bed with light usage, thats 2 5 minute calls, receiving email all day, leaving wifi enabled all day (even when leaving a wifi area), and sending and receiving a couple texts. Total time my phone was on was around 15 hours, no task killer. I forgot to put it on the charger last night, so now, 8 hours after that, its at 70% after roughly 23 hours.

Task killers make no difference if you are careful with which apps you use, the only time they help is when you use crappy apps that continue hitting your CPU while your phone is locked, or updating themselves constantly. If you take the time to set your phone up properly, you do not need a task killer to get good battery life out of it.

Also, in general, your display is going to use a large majority of your battery. The only time anything uses my battery more than my display is when I am not using my phone at all. Even then, my highest battery consumption comes from the phone radio antenna and what not, not the apps I am running. My highest app consumption comes from LauncherPro, which after 20 hours of the phone being on, is less than 7% of the drain.

See my response above. I don't use crappy apps, I'm very selective, but both WiFi and Bluetooth eat up power. The other internal processes I want to selectively disable are Happening, Motoblur services (all three of them), and a few others I don't remember just now. My phone would be much better about the battery if those apps didn't run all the time. It's nice for you that your phone does soo well about the battery, however since you haven't gotten a clue about mine, it has a problem with battery consumption. I found a great app that clearly makes a difference with the battery usage. It's rather arrogant of you to assume all phones are equal and all apps are equal and all experiences with such apps are equal. I shared about my experience with System Panel Lite Task Manager and it's huge benefit on battery life. IF you don't find it helpful move on. ;)

[Nagisan]

See my response above. I don't use crappy apps, I'm very selective, but both WiFi and Bluetooth eat up power. The other internal processes I want to selectively disable are Happening, Motoblur services (all three of them), and a few others I don't remember just now. My phone would be much better about the battery if those apps didn't run all the time. It's nice for you that your phone does soo well about the battery, however since you haven't gotten a clue about mine, it has a problem with battery consumption. I found a great app that clearly makes a difference with the battery usage. It's rather arrogant of you to assume all phones are equal and all apps are equal and all experiences with such apps are equal. I shared about my experience with System Panel Lite Task Manager and it's huge benefit on battery life. IF you don't find it helpful move on. ;)

I leave wifi enabled all day and it uses less than 8% of my battery usage throughout the day, also, as you said, you are on a phone that does not run 2.1 or higher, therefore you will gain a benefit from task killers. As for motoblur services, thats actually a really bad idea. The second the phone needs them it will start them up again (and generally with system services like motoblur, it starts them up again as soon as you wake the phone back up), which causes more battery drain then letting them idle. I think if you want to get rid of motoblur and what not, you need to root your phone and remove those things (make sure they are safe to remove, some motoblur services are not safe to remove and will cause issues, while others are safe to remove). You would get much better battery life by doing that than you would by running a task killer (but, as you are not on 2.1 or above, you may still want to run one).

[Sawyer 99]

Installed Swype couple days ago...

WOW! MUST HAVE app of 2010 for sure!

[*RedBull*]

I leave wifi enabled all day and it uses less than 8% of my battery usage throughout the day, also, as you said, you are on a phone that does not run 2.1 or higher, therefore you will gain a benefit from task killers. As for motoblur services, thats actually a really bad idea. The second the phone needs them it will start them up again (and generally with system services like motoblur, it starts them up again as soon as you wake the phone back up), which causes more battery drain then letting them idle. I think if you want to get rid of motoblur and what not, you need to root your phone and remove those things (make sure they are safe to remove, some motoblur services are not safe to remove and will cause issues, while others are safe to remove). You would get much better battery life by doing that than you would by running a task killer (but, as you are not on 2.1 or above, you may still want to run one).

Dude just move on already. I'm not going to root my phone. The task manager is doing what I need it to do, :rolleyes:

[Hardcore Til I Die]

Installed Swype couple days ago...

WOW! MUST HAVE app of 2010 for sure!

I tried Swype for a few hours and couldn't get on with it at all! I type fast enough on the stock keyboard anyway :D

[Nagisan]

Dude just move on already. I'm not going to root my phone. The task manager is doing what I need it to do, :rolleyes:

All I said is if you want to remove motoblur (which you are telling the task manager to kill) then you should root instead. However, motoblur doesn't use many resources at all, so it shouldn't be something on the top of your "remove/disable if possible" list.

I understand your not going to root your phone, all I'm saying, is thats the proper method of getting rid of motoblur, as all killing it with a task manager does is cause it to restart every time you unlock your phone, and stop every time you lock it. Effectively reducing battery life due to the process constantly starting and stopping (this would be like shutting your car off at every red light, only to turn it back on when it turns green).

Don't get mad at me for suggesting the smart way to do things as opposed to the dumbest way, sorry if you are unable to understand what your doing with the task manager, but its not the right way to handle apps that misbehave and cause high battery consumption, especially if its a system service thats going to simply restart every time you use your phone.

I tried Swype for a few hours and couldn't get on with it at all! I type fast enough on the stock keyboard anyway :D

My first phone came with Swype so I never got use to using the stock keyboard before hand.....sometimes though, with swype, I find it almost simply refuses to type certain words. I will swype through the letters, it will put up some other word, I will delete that word, swype it again, and it brings up a list which lacks the word I'm looking for. In the end every now and then I end up manually keying in the letters for certain words because Swype just doesn't seem to be able to pick up that word. I haven't played with its settings much so that could be the cause, but it seems to constantly miss a few words while at the same time picking out a word when I go very wrong with my swype input (I have accidentally swyped in a word where I would go the wrong direction for a letter or two only to correct myself partway through it, and it comes out with the word I was trying to swype....). Hell, I even discovered a new word the other day (don't remember it though) because Swype put the wrong word in a few times.

That being said though, Swype is generally much faster than typing in the letters for me, but I never got use to the old method so I do not have a comparison.

[*RedBull*]

All I said is if you want to remove motoblur (which you are telling the task manager to kill) then you should root instead. However, motoblur doesn't use many resources at all, so it shouldn't be something on the top of your "remove/disable if possible" list.

I understand your not going to root your phone, all I'm saying, is thats the proper method of getting rid of motoblur, as all killing it with a task manager does is cause it to restart every time you unlock your phone, and stop every time you lock it. Effectively reducing battery life due to the process constantly starting and stopping (this would be like shutting your car off at every red light, only to turn it back on when it turns green).

Don't get mad at me for suggesting the smart way to do things as opposed to the dumbest way, sorry if you are unable to understand what your doing with the task manager, but its not the right way to handle apps that misbehave and cause high battery consumption, especially if its a system service thats going to simply restart every time you use your phone.

You like having the last word and insulting people in the process. It's only dum to you. I'm not mad. I'm not arguing with you. You are ignored.

[Elessar]

Any apps for watching live sports? Like F1, Hockey, NASCAR, etc?

[presence06]

Has anyone tried Twicca for android? It's still in Beta, looks kind of like TweetDeck. Just curious, I can't stand the Twitter for Android app, needs a lot of work like Facebook.

[Sawyer 99]

I tried Swype for a few hours and couldn't get on with it at all! I type fast enough on the stock keyboard anyway :D

Haha, im new to the whole touch-screen keyboard, so I'm loving Swype! haha

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Any free alternatives to Tasker & Locale?

[Singh400]

Any free alternatives to Tasker & Locale?

Timeriffic?

[Marcus16]

maybe I missed something.

doubletwist is a sync app, and you were talking about btunes, which I found the site and its a ipod touch looking media player for android.

which is why I wasn't sure why you were comparing them.

doubleTwist has a media player app for Android. http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.doubleTwist.androidPlayer

[Xerxes]

Installed Swype couple days ago...

WOW! MUST HAVE app of 2010 for sure!

What the hell is Swype? I tried looking for it on the Marketplace but it's not there (Telstra HTC Desire) :/

doubleTwist has a media player app for Android. http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.doubleTwist.androidPlayer

The doubleTwist media player is awesome, if they add support for lock screen controls (like the default HTC one) I'd use doubleTwist full-time in a heart beat!

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Timeriffic?

Looks awesome, got it doing what I want except one thing. It can't turn on or off Mobile service (3G)?

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

What the hell is Swype? I tried looking for it on the Marketplace but it's not there (Telstra HTC Desire) :/

The doubleTwist media player is awesome, if they add support for lock screen controls (like the default HTC one) I'd use doubleTwist full-time in a heart beat!

Have you tried HomePipe Free? It works pretty good, but is kinda ugly and is missing some features I want. Wondering if doubleTwist is better.

[Xerxes]

Have you tried HomePipe Free? It works pretty good, but is kinda ugly and is missing some features I want. Wondering if doubleTwist is better.

No I haven't, never heard of it till just now when you mentioned it. I took a quick look, it looks interesting...I prefer the UI of doubleTwist though to be honest (all it's really missing for me is the lock screen controls, that is only thing stopping me dumping the default HTC media app), but I'll give HomePipe a go as well thanks! (Y)

Edit: I tried out HomePipe, it's not bad but unless you have unlimited data it's kinda useless (I only get 500Mb included a month) so I'll stick with doubleTwist, but thanks for the suggest! :)

[LiquidSolstice]

LauncherPro Plus with Sense UI + Fancy Widget. All the awesome Sense apps, none of the Sense lag.

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

No I haven't, never heard of it till just now when you mentioned it. I took a quick look, it looks interesting...I prefer the UI of doubleTwist though to be honest (all it's really missing for me is the lock screen controls, that is only thing stopping me dumping the default HTC media app), but I'll give HomePipe a go as well thanks! (Y)

Edit: I tried out HomePipe, it's not bad but unless you have unlimited data it's kinda useless (I only get 500Mb included a month) so I'll stick with doubleTwist, but thanks for the suggest! :)

I'm sorry, I thought doubleTwist streamed the content as well? So wouldn't it use just as much data....

[Xerxes]

I'm sorry, I thought doubleTwist streamed the content as well? So wouldn't it use just as much data....

Yeah, doubleTwist plays local content on the phone which is what I want. I don't need to carry all my music, I just copy across a random selection of music to my phone and change it now and then, works for me and keeps the space usage down (Y) although I mainly use my iPod touch though :p but still use my Desire for occasional use too.