Android Essentials Update
These are all Android apps I heartily use and recommend for my AT&T Galaxy S phone.
Find all these apps on Google Play for your Android phone.
RealCalc Scientific Calculator – a great calculator. The stock calculator suuuuucks but RealCalc is great (and costs like a buck or something!)
NoLED – It turns on the screen and tells you when you’ve missed a call or text. Essential (I can’t believe Samsung forgot this functionality!)
Google Goggles – great for scanning QR codes (those fancy new computer bar codes). It holds promise for doing a lot more, but not much more yet.
Fish Bowl – photo gallery
Clock – The built in Clock app with the wake-me-ever-so-gently “Smart Alarm” is my daily alarm clock and I love it.
Lord Of Magic – fun shoot’em up
Gmail – of course
Google Maps – of course
Silent Time – Works great to keep my phone quiet for my weekly appointments.
SwiFTP FTP Server – I use this and an FTP client on my home computer to move files from my computer to my phone
Hi-Q MP3 Recorder – Rock solid
I use this every day to record lectures and people giving me information. It is indispensable.
Chase Mobile – it’s pretty convenient depositing checks remotely!
Google Voice – works great. Once every couple months it doesn’t let me listen to voicemails but generally works great.
Andmade Share – makes sending attachments and such way easier
Astro Player – Music playback. Love it for the equalizer and playback speed adjuster. I record lectures in school. I use the equalizer to make the recordings listenable and I use the playback speed changer to scroll through the lectures quickly. Win!
BART Usher – It’s my go-to schedule travelling through BART
Data Traffic Monitor– Helped me diagnose a bandwidth hog program
Screen Filter – Indispensable brightness control for my AT&T Galaxy S phone.
Tasker – It is supposed to be super-duper powerful but the best use I found was that I created 6 (pretty useful) buttons with it that have obvious purposes: Sound On/Off, Wifi On/Off, 3G On/Off.
Wifi Manager – Lets me see the wifi networks around me at a glance. Nice.
Google Authenticator – If you use Gmail, you should use 2-Step Verification to protect your account! How to enable it. And a friendly video that walks you through it.
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Here are the maybe/maybe-nots
Groupme – I WANT to love it but 2 of my friends don’t receive the messages reliably :-(
SomaFM Radio Player – I WANT to love it but It uses a bit (30kb/min… 43 megabytes/day) of bandwidth and a lot of battery even when paused. I don’t have unlimited monthly 3G bandwidth so I’m wary to use the app.
Prey – It is supposed to track my phone in case I lose it. So far I haven’t gotten it to work right. But I’m on it.
What, no Dropbox? It’s free, and far easier than FTP for sharing files between your Android and your computer. And you can use it to share files with friends as well. And if you use that link to get it, both you and I get some extra storage space.