Share your favorite Android apps!

Discussion in 'The Living Room' started by Serenity, Dec 10, 2012.

  1. #1
    Serenity

    Serenity Suffocating in the mess

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    Hey, 'Droid lovers! [​IMG]

    I'd like to take this opportunity to open discussions about what apps you can't live without on your Android phone or tablet. Whether it's an addicting game or a productivity app you'd be lost without, this is the place to post your opinions and share your knowledge with other Android enthusiasts!
    Make sure you link to the app's marketplace or website, and please note it it's free or premium for others' convenience. Also, please don't spam your own apps.
    I'll start with a few of my favorites.

    Springpad (note-taking app): This app complements the web service www.Springpad.com. It allows you to make folders (called notebooks) of organized notes, tasks, to-do lists, and products. Something I like using this for is syncing notes across platforms, from the PC to my phone and then to a friend's PC. Especially useful for jotting down quick thoughts (about music, art, or something you want to look up later) or just using as a shopping list. Totally free.

    Cut the Rope (puzzle game): This cute game features a little monster named Om Nom that you have to feed candy to. Sounds simple, but this puzzle game gets progressively more difficult as it throws new obstacles and ways to cut the rope and drop that candy to Om Nom. This simple, fun, but challenging game is perfect for playing on the subway or in the waiting room. Available ad-supported and free, or premium with no ads.

    PlayerPro Music Player (media player): The stock music player for Android is good, sure, but this 3rd party player adds some useful features like an equalizer and playlist features as well as a nice UI to boost your music-listening pleasure on the go. Free trial available, but it is a premium app that costs $4.99 in American currency.

    Pocket (productivity app): This app complements the web service www.GetPocket.com. What I use it for on the PC is quickly adding a web article, funny picture, or any other website to read later without cluttering up my bookmarks. On your phone, you can access these articles on the go for a quick or in-depth read, then mark it as read when you're finished to delete it from your 'to-do list.' Available for free.

    Quell (puzzle game): This is another puzzle game with great graphics and a simple premise. Move your orb to collect all the raindrops in a level using as few swipes as you can. Try to achieve the minimum amount of swipes! This has to be my favorite mobile game to pass the time away. Quell and its sequel Quell: Reflect are both premium games, worth $1.99 and $0.99 in American currency, respectively.

    Please share your favorite games and apps with others! You never know what gems are out there unless someone is willing to share! ;)
     
  2. #2
    Jesse

    Jesse Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

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    Aldiko Book Reader (Free-Premium): In my opinion the best Book reader software, hands down. It supports borrowing digital books from public libraries, it supports EPUB, PDF, and ACSM formats as well as tagging and cataloging books, includes free legal book downloads provided by Project Gutenburg. It's fully customizable has a great user interface.


    Goodreads (Free): The perfect compliment to Aldiko for book lovers. It allows you to keep tracks of the books you've read and to rate them as well as to view/write reviews as well as to update your progress in the book you're currently reading. A Lastfm for all your printed media.

    Utter! Voice Commands Beta! (Free): The most amazing and customizable voice command I've ever seen/used. Think Siri on any combination of steroids or drugs you can imagine, and you'll be almost able to grasp the potential of Utter.


    Bacon Reader
    (Free-Premium): What I prefer to use while browsing Reddit. I like the holo theme, the multiple account login, the subreddit seach and the overall experience.


    PowerAmp Music Player (Trail-Premium): An awesome Music Player for android that has many features lacking in Google Play Music such as a tag editor, 10 band advanced equalizer, lyrics support, album art animation, impressive user interface, skins, and the ability for plugins as well as an album art downloader.
     
  3. #3
    Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    Nice. I hope I find some cool apps here.

    btw. My phone saves all apps on the SIM card instead of the memory card. How do I fix this?
     
  4. #4
    Serenity

    Serenity Suffocating in the mess

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    I love Aldiko, didn't know there was a premium app available though. I'll have to check that and Goodreads out. I'm not sure how much I would use voice searches, but if it's free then I'll give that a try, too!

    You mean it saves to the phone's onboard memory? I used to use this app called Apps 2 SD in order to move some of the apps memory to the SD memory card. Try it out and see if it does what you need. Most apps will save to the phone memory by default but with this you can move a majority of the installation files to SD card. Some apps may not work, though.
     
  5. #5
    Jesse

    Jesse Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

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    Which version of Android do you have? I think 2.2 (froyo) and up has a built in feature to transfer programs to your microSD card.

    Go to

    Settings
    Manage Applications
    Move to Storage

    or you can install a 3rd party program such as APPS2SD, as Will suggested.

    Utter! is not necessarily a voice search. You can make your own commands and basically tell your phone to do whatever the fuck you want it to do. It's not some Siri clone that is about a personality to your device, it's about controlling your device completely. Here's a pretty lengthy video of a sample of what Utter! can do.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A_irIFVI1x0

    And from Google Play "Differences between the Aldiko Book Reader Premium and the Aldiko Book Reader Free are: the Aldiko Book Reader Premium has highlights, notes and home widget features, gets faster update and does not contain advertisements."
     
  6. #6
    Serenity

    Serenity Suffocating in the mess

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    Holy crap. :lol: "Yes, master?" That app really does look useful. Siri seems fun to use for the novelty of it but she doesn't do much. I could see Utter! being a lot more useful. I'll definitely be giving it a go now. :thumbsup: Sausages!

    I didn't even remember Aldiko having ads, I tune 'em out. I actually read in some of the reviews that the paid app runs a little worse than the free one. Hmmm.
     
  7. #7
    Chris

    Chris LPA Addict LPA Addict

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    I've been using Poweramp for awhile, I love it!
     
  8. #8
    Jeff

    Jeff WORSHIP LPA Addicted VIP

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    I usually like to play Canabalt HD, which I got from Humble Bundle For Android 4, Quomai, which allows me to use my rewards cards without needing to have the cards on me, and the Angry Birds series, because why the hell not?
     
  9. #9
    Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    I have 1.6 (Xperia x8) but I'm gonna upgrade it soon. I'll try out the app you suggested me. Thanks! :)
     
  10. #10
    Jesse

    Jesse Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

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    Damn, still on Eclair? How do you live?

    Cordy (Free Demo-Premium): An awesome puzzle platformer with 3D elements in the veins of Little Big Planet. I find it quite fun, and a little bit addicting. You can download the demo version that contains four levels or you can buy the entire game through its own purchasing system.

    ScummVM (Free): Scumm Virtual Machine also you to play many classic point and click adventures directly on your Android device! Play classics such as Sam & Max Hit the Road, Broken Sword, Monkey Island and Discworld! This program is a total nostalgia machine if you grew up and had a computer in the late 80's and 90's. Give it a try. :)


    Dropbox
    An could storage locker for all of your digital content. From the Google Play store
     
  11. #11
    Serenity

    Serenity Suffocating in the mess

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    Thanks so far for the suggestions, guys! Keep 'em coming. :)

    Ah, yes. Poweramp is pretty good. Can't stand the stock Samsung player.

    I haven't heard of Canabalt but I'll definitely check it out. Actually, I didn't know they did Humble Bundle for Android at all, so thanks!

    For the love of god, please upgrade it! :lol: Good luck on trying out the app. Hope it works for you as intended.

    I have both Google Drive and Dropbox but I've never really known what to do with them. What do you use your Dropbox for?

    Haha, Cordy is fun. I'll have to try out ScummVM, too.


    Sorry for the huge multi-quote, guys! :mellow:
     
  12. #12
    Jesse

    Jesse Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

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    I use it to back up my literature as well as to save webcomics,free legal pdfs-ebooks, downloading small torrents directly to dropbox (discontinued for now :sniff:, audio projects, personal documents, application backups and apk storage. I don't really use Google Drive since they then possess ownership of your media, while with dropbox you keep all the rights to what you upload.
     
  13. #13
    Filip

    Filip god break down the door LPA Contributor

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    :lol: Lame phone, and I honestly don't even care about it that much anymore... I will upgrade it, though. :chuck:

    Thanks, everybody!
     
  14. #14
    Serenity

    Serenity Suffocating in the mess

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    Ah, the Experia is an alright phone, you could be doing worse. :thumbsup:

    Ah, I didn't know that about Google Drive's policy. I would've assumed Dropbox to do the same, but I guess they don't.
    Even so, I don't think I would need it for any of those things...all I've ever used Drive for was for my online word processing documents. I might use it for APKs though.
     
  15. #15
    Vriska

    Vriska Wiki Staff LPA VIP

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    Photo Editor when you need to touch something up real quick. I've had several instances of "I want to use this picture as my background but it has too much contrast" syndrome.

    Skype. dur

    SkEye Planitarium Turn your tablet into the viewport of the night sky. This app shows and labels the stars in the direction your machine points at. Which is a funciton you can turn off if you choose. Don't have to be too bummed about cloudy skies or daytime with this app.

    [LOCAL APP HERE] There might be really cool apps for your local area. I have a bunch of these, like to track the locations of the city busses, and they're cool.

    Silent Toggle Widget Essential for those of us in class or meetings who need a fast switch. Given that these widgets are so simple you can probably get a different one with more buttons depending on your needs and it would work just as well.

    Task List I am irrationally attached to this to-do list. Something about g-tasks I don't like, even though the latter would sync with the cloud. This one just feel better.

    Super GNES super Nintendo emulator! RPGs work fine with a touch screen interface. I wouldn't play a platformer on a tablet, though. That's not the fault of the apps though.

    Reddit is Fun This was my choice reddit browser. I've never heard of the bacon one posted earlier, so I've downloaded both and I'm going to compare them soon.


    I, too, am a Poweramp user. After trialing PlayerPro and Poweramp I eventually went with Poweramp with its queue and playlist functionality, although PlayerPro is better at grabbing track artwork. While Poweramp has a lot of impressive features, I don't rate their UI's highly. User Interfaces are not supposed to surprise people. They're supposed to do what I expect them to.

    I also tried Spotify, though it's nigh useless without a Premium account. Radio is semi-okay but it has the absurd idea of giving you only a limited about of skips. What benefit is there in making me listen to a song I hate? Why do Unlimited users get no love? Couldn't we at least get more radio skips than free users? Hell, last.fm doesn't have radio skips.
     
  16. #16
    Serenity

    Serenity Suffocating in the mess

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    That's quite an impressive list. I understand your contempt for Spotify, it seems pretty half-assed, though I would hope that they improve it in the future to better support Unlimited members. Personally I have no use for the "Radio" function as I could just as easily use Pandora for that.

    I understand what you mean about Poweramp, it really is a powerful player. Unfortunately, and as unreasonable as it is, I can't get by the UI. :lol: It really puts me off. Personally Playerpro works just as well for me.

    I might take a look at a couple of the apps you mentioned. I could definitely use an emulator, that's for sure.
     
  17. #17
    minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    Astro File Manager / Browser to browse through files on my phone
    Dolphin Browser for browsing - I know a fair few people here use this as well. I use Firefox for pages with Flash players and stuff like that
    Evernote for note-taking.
    Lampshade for TVTropes - the only Android TVTropes app compatible with the current OS version. Probably the only Android TVTropes app in existence, actually
    Reddit News Free for Reddit - I use BaconReader as a backup because, every now and again, it can compensate for a missing feature or two in News Free
    Tweet Lanes for Twitter - I also use the official Twitter app. I kind of switch between them
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2012
  18. #18
    Serenity

    Serenity Suffocating in the mess

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    I've never even thought of looking for a TVtropes app, so that's pretty cool! Thanks, Tony. :)
     
  19. #19
    Vriska

    Vriska Wiki Staff LPA VIP

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    Oh god a TV tropes app. The siren call of a time abyss. Maybe I've read TV tropes enough that I've memorized the entire website, so that subsequent linking attempts can't troll me.

    And as a follow up, I'm sticking with Reddit is Fun.
     
  20. #20
    Ree

    Ree a female witch. LPA Administrator

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    Great thread! I downloaded so many apps on my old phone but ever since I got my new phone I'm trying to only download apps I use a lot rather than cluttering my phone up with crap.

    WhatsApp - Essential app. I use this the most.
    Chrome Or Dolphin Browser - I alternate between these two browsers.
    QuickPic
    The common apps like Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
    Astro file manager
    London Tube Map/other travel apps
    Flixster - To find out local cinema listings and new movie releases
    HSBC bank app :lol:
    ColorNote
    Draw Something
    Dropbox
    Snake '97 - Classic game!
    Tango - Free video calls

    Sorry, I'm on my phone so I can't post links to those apps right now. I'll edit this post later.
     

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