Best Android Apps

Many who have used the Android Marketplace know that it's sometimes a little difficult to find things. Especially if they're not very popular or well-known. With Amazon's plans to launch their own Android app store, it's an almost certainty that the Android Market will see a revision soon. However, until then, here's some of my favorite apps that I've discovered during the past year.

Tajm

A simple clock widget that displays the current time in text strings instead of numeric values. That's really all there is to it. You can change the color and what information is displayed. It's pretty cool.

LauncherPro

"Launcher" is an easier way to say user interface (well, actually UI is...) The stock Android launcher gets the job done, for sure. Other companies have also created their own launchers, like HTC's SenseUI. However, some people want more out of their phone. For those people, I'd highly recommend LauncherPro. It provides new icons, customization options, and very well designed built-in widgets. You get all the basics for free; but if you want the widgets and increased customization, you can pay $2.99 to the developer to unlock the extra features. Why can't you do this through the Marketplace? Well, the developer lives in a country where you can't charge for apps. Payment is handled through Paypal. It's well worth it! (link to LP website)

Handcent SMS

A SMS client with robust customization. You can modify almost everything about how you read and reply to text messages. For example, you can choose colors for the message bubbles, adjust the size of the font, customize notifications (different icons on the status bar for different people), and even set a custom background to display the conversation on. The developer also offers themes if you register on their website. I currently have a space theme with planet Earth and blue/black message bubbles. Looks great. Also, it's all free. (website)

Music PlayerPro

Despite the pretty banal name, nothing is banal about this app. Once again, you have to pay for it (though a trial period is available), but it's hands down the best music player I've found on Android. It automatically downloads missing artwork and photos of bands and musicians for the artist view. To give you an idea of how awesome this is, I had a Street Fighter II song in my music library that wasn't labeled. From the application, you can edit title, album, artist, etc. I put "Capcom" as the artist and, almost immediately, a Capcom logo was displayed for the artist view. For those who are ADD about their music libraries, this is really cool. You can also customize the way the player itself looks with skins that come with the app and it has a huge options menu that you can tweak to your liking. Only complaint I have about the app is that sometimes you have to manually refresh the "mediastore", which is basically your library of music, after you add new songs. Very minor complaint. Very. Link!

twicca

My Twitter client of choice is twicca. A crisp, clean UI is one of the main draws for me. Simply selecting a tweet gives you the option to reply, quote and reply, retweet, go to the user's profile, follow any links posted with the tweet or hash tags (#likethis), favorite, and manage the user (lists, etc.) It also seems to refresh and load tweets faster than the official Twitter app and TweetDeck. It makes being a Twittard easy. Also, the option to color-code different people you follow is a nice touch. Completely free, btw. Linkage


DroidIris

I love Cooliris. Cooliris is a browser extension (available for IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and more) that turns a simple photo search into an interactive experience. Using whatever search engine your prefer, it grabs all the images that come up and displays them in lines that you can use your mouse to slide and zoom through. DroidIris is essentially a mobile version of Cooliris. The touch controls work just as you'd expect them to: drag to see more images, pinch to zoom, tap to select. It's just awesome. You'll feel like you're in Minority Report, flinging pictures all over a screen like Tom Cruise. Link-tastic

That's all for now. I'll post more interesting apps as I find them. Hope you enjoyed. :D