what are the top ten must have's on the blade

[Guest Digitalize]

Wow that was harsh, mate. I think android is developing OS and it still needs much improvement. But i am certain that upfront, android will become a great OS, far more than the iOS. Remember, android is only a 2 years old OS.

iOS is only 3 years old, and there has only been an App Store for 2.... I can't see the Android market reaching the same quality the App Store has, maybe ever, unless standards are found, and google do some serious filtering to get rid of all the shite.

[Guest UncleFista]

"log me in" is very impressive, I love having access to my home pc in my pocket :)

Expensive if you buy it though....

[Guest Rotmann]

You can use TeamViewer for remote desktop and it is free (beta stage for Android, download .apk at www.teamviewer.com )

Other than that, must have:

Opera Mini (best for speed and data economy)

Skyfire (works for some flash movies)

PKT Auctions (waayyy better than the official eBay App)

Fancy Widget 1.3 (HTC Style Weather and Clock, newer Versions are rubbish)

GenieWidget (news)

Switchpro (best power control widget)

S-Banking (brilliant online banking)

Android System info

Autostarts (disable autostart of programs you don't need to remain in memory)

Barcode Scanner

Barnacle Wi-Fi Tether

DroidStats (perfect tool with widget to manage costs or remaining minutes / SMS / MB)

Watchdog (very useful if phone gets lost or stolen)

A Online Radio (all radio stations of the world)

Financisto (finance managing)

Layar and Wikitude (augumented reality)

ShootMe (screenshots)

SoundHound (recognise songs)

Spare Parts (set animations to fast, gives you the feeling that the phone is snappyer)

Titanium backup

Backgrounds

Advanced MP3 Download

Do not use any Task Killer, as it harms rather than help. You are way better off with Android System Info or WatchDog lite.

[Guest cartierv]

It's interesting how people look at Apple; "an iron fist". I just see it people straight up going towards basic quality and a great user experience.

People can tinker with rubbish on Apple systems too. And tinkering with stuff isn't a crime, but then we need a separate market or much clearer labeling for this, because the level of 'tinkering with rubbish' is overwhelming the market to the point it is one ridiculous mess of nonsense. I mean it's a pain in the ass for techies, I can't even see non-tech heads wading through all that crap.

Another problem mobile OS's face, is that on Macs (and PCs) there is incredible functional software available for free. And often of a good quality. Mobile devs (android I'm talking to you) need to be able to get to those standards at least, and understand that just because a new platform has appeared doesn't mean we have forgotten what quality software looks like.

Anyway we'll see how things go.

True. but when the iron fist is missing you get EVERYTHING the iron fist would otherwise have crushed - the dross and some good things too.

What you see is freedom - android allows folk to tinker - even tinker with rubbish.

Apple is like the exclusionist club - everyone is welcome to buy a ticket but only the celebrities can contribute.

Some people like it that way, but that's the difference.

[Guest cartierv]

Some more high quality apps:

Shead Spreet (pretty impressive spreadsheet editor - free)

Wifi Analyzer (good wifi signal checker)

ConnectBot (SSH - small annoyance: can't see hostnames on local network - think this is an android issue)

AndFTP

Aldiko (the book app - wouldn't mind the front graphics with bookshelf a little bit smoother)

[Guest Bassey]

Is it delivering attractive, usable, credible alternatives ?

Here's the thing.

If Linux or Android delivered something so new and so great the world would look.

But it doesn't and can't.

Actually, Android is massively outselling the iPhone but that is besides the point. I really can't understand why you are getting so upset about someone producing an alternative? You seem to love the iPhone and the way Apple are doing things. Great!

Others hate that. Why get so upset about others having a different point of view and trying to do things differently? You have what you want. Why spend so much time and effort trying to persuade everyone that they should give up on what they like and try and make it like an iPhone?

Is choice such an awful thing?

What you call "wonderful design" I call pointless eye-candy. I'd far rather an app be practical and ugly rather than beautiful but require an age to learn to use. I know lots of people think Apple produce good looking, easy to use stuff. That's great, I'm happy for them. Personally, I had to use Apple kit from (roughly) 1984 to about 2005 and I'd rather shoot myself in the face than have to use it again. I find it ugly, confusing and restrictive. Everything I want to do takes ten times longer on Apple kit than Windows, Unix, Linux, BSD or any of the other OSs I use. That's IF Steve Jobs thinks I should be allowed to use MY very expensive kit the way I want to. Often, he says I can't.

Live and let live. Lots of us are happy being free to make a few mistakes and find our own way to make our kit work how we like it. We paid for it, after all.

As for apps,

Opera,

CalWidget

Classic Tetris,

Angry Birds,

ConvertPad

Endomondo (sports tracker)

Just LiveScores (live football updates)

PhoneWeaver (phone profile manager)

PowerAmp (MP3 player)

Ulysse Gizmos (GPS and compass utils)

[Guest The Soup Thief]

No one's mentioned Tasker yet

It got app of the day a few weeks back and has been a massive help since

Guardian Anywhere is fab too - if you like the Guardian

The Demo of RD3 is a great sequencer / drum machine to play with

Realcalc is very handy

TuneIn Radio

Tango looks good (though Ive no used it in anger yet)

Titanium Backup gets a LOT of use

Volume Locker is simple, but kinda handy

Quickoffice

ChompSMS

[Guest davnig]

iOS is only 3 years old, and there has only been an App Store for 2.... I can't see the Android market reaching the same quality the App Store has, maybe ever, unless standards are found, and google do some serious filtering to get rid of all the shite.

But who decides on what is shite as you so eloquently put it.

one man's beauty is another's ugliness, one man's folly is another's wife

I think i'd prefer to wade through it and decide on multiple comments and my own judgement as to what is right for me than to be limited to what others think is right for them

[Guest The Soup Thief]

Out of interest, is there quality control on the marketplace? If something just doesn't work, is there a mechanism for not accepting it / removing it?

I'm not talking here about how elegantly something's implemented - I'm talking more about the basics - will this app work or, even, is there a facility to stop people loading up the market with malware?

Obviously there are the Health Warnings as you choose to install an app, that it will have access to your location details or whatever, but they are so vague as to be near useless, IMHO

[Guest ezablade]

Out of interest, is there quality control on the marketplace? If something just doesn't work, is there a mechanism for not accepting it / removing it?

I'm not talking here about how elegantly something's implemented - I'm talking more about the basics - will this app work or, even, is there a facility to stop people loading up the market with malware?

Obviously there are the Health Warnings as you choose to install an app, that it will have access to your location details or whatever, but they are so vague as to be near useless, IMHO

I would say the closest thing to that is the user ratings. Would you install something rated 1 star and that had loads of negative comments?

As for malware, I think Google can pull apps whenever they want, and that includes uninstalling from your phone! I think that so far I've only heard of one such being pulled, which was created by some genius as a test to see if he could steal data... purely academic research... yeah, right. Think Apple also have this ability.

[Guest davnig]

I would say the closest thing to that is the user ratings. Would you install something rated 1 star and that had loads of negative comments?

As for malware, I think Google can pull apps whenever they want, and that includes uninstalling from your phone! I think that so far I've only heard of one such being pulled, which was created by some genius as a test to see if he could steal data... purely academic research... yeah, right. Think Apple also have this ability.

I would have thought they could only uninstall if it was installed via market, maybe???

If you install via apk then I don't see that they would be able to, unless some uber-genius knows otherwise???

[Guest Ricey155]

apples apple and android is as said

hey its new i like it, you can tinker with both but apple try a lot harder not to let you lol sadly they don't win

as for apps cheers for all the recco's very helpful

ive been using endomondo on my iphone since march when i started tracking my cycling and its brill works great and its nice to see an online record since day one

[Guest SamH]

I really like Doggcatcher for listening to podcasts.

Re the ongoing "quality v crap" debate:

I'm never going to need 300,000+ apps. Only really need a handfull.

This phone cost me £80. When Apple's gear is as cheap I'll maybe give it a try.

Android has delivered me a gadget which allows me to do so much more than call & text when I'm mobile.

Absolutely fantastic :)

[Guest finbaar]

Please stop talking about Apple. The OP asked about apps for the SF so I cant see what this is adding. If you don't like the Market apps then feck off and use an iPhone.

Stop trolling.

[Guest 900i]

1. Adfree

2. Angry Birds

3. Currency Converter

4. Evernote

5. Google Reader

6. My Tracks

7. No Led

8. Quick Boot

9. RealCalc

10. Shop Savvy

11. SUFBS

12. Tasker

13. Titanium Backup

14. Traffic Intel

15. VM Heap Tool

[Guest nonamer123]

How have you managed to get need for speed to work? Which rom are you using?

NFS runs perfectly well but there's no textures, can't see cars, dark (black), there's a guy on YouTube that has it running amazingly

NFS runs perfectly on my blade :)

I have Pauls Froyo-Rom :) Do you have orangerom or a rom with hardware acceleration disabled?

[Guest ScaredyCat]

But who decides on what is shite as you so eloquently put it.

one man's beauty is another's ugliness, one man's folly is another's wife

I think i'd prefer to wade through it and decide on multiple comments and my own judgement as to what is right for me than to be limited to what others think is right for them

Precisely. YOU get to decide what's s*** not some faceless Apple guy. As a developer you also don't need to worry about pouring hours/weeks/months into something only to have the rules changed or to end up 'confusing' users over duplicated (apple supplied) applications. The freedom android gives me far outweighs any shortcomings of the market.

As for your views on linux, I simply think you're wrong. Just because it doesn't suit you doesn't mean it's not right.

SC

[Guest ScaredyCat]

1. SMS Backup

2. Tasker (not from market from website [encryption])

3. K-9 Mail

4. APG (useful with K-9)

5. Google Goggles

6. Subsonic (with server, allows you to play your music from home)

7. Tweetdeck

8. Titanium Backup

9. Barcode scanner (must have)

10. Quickdesk

SC

[Guest Magnets]

Opera Mini

GPS status

myphoneexplorer

noled

timeriffic

tunein radio

where's my droid

wifi analyzer

widgetsoid switcher

[Guest cartierv]

Well. Yes. We are allowed to like to different things. Thank God. But the problem I have with 99.9% of the Market, and historically quite a lot of Linux things as well, is that I'm not persuaded people are making informed choices in that kind of way.

Or put it the other way round if Linux or Android think Apple have got it all wrong then do something better. Recreating Windows X for years I think is kinda stretching that a bit. As far as I tell Google have recreated the App store with market anyway, and indeed borrowed plenty from the iPhone.

So what I'm seeing are not 'choices', informed decisions, but something else and all I'm saying is it's difficult to hide that.

I'd just like to say as well, this is not just about taste and choices anyway. It's just about standards. And if wading through a ton of sh-t like porn bookmarks, various novelty joke apps like 'girl fart', crappy clock widgets and a host of diabolical nonsense apps that someone's put together in an evening and rated with 5 stars is other people's idea of 'choices' it just makes the whole platform look silly.

It would probably benefit everyone if the standards for the market were tightened up justa little...

But who decides on what is shite as you so eloquently put it.

one man's beauty is another's ugliness, one man's folly is another's wife

I think i'd prefer to wade through it and decide on multiple comments and my own judgement as to what is right for me than to be limited to what others think is right for them

Edited December 16, 2010 by cartierv

[Guest _Carl_]

Well I cant think of ten (essential apps anyway) but here's a short list

1) Desk Clock - A must very nice and knocks spots off of orange's alarm app *yuck*

2) Titanium Backup - to remove all the orange junk

3) Launcher Pro - much more appealing then the stock launchers

4) beebPlayer - Useful for when your on the go

5) Adfree - nuff said

[Guest southpaw1]

i fear i may sound a bit of a tit for suggesting this but hey ho , here goes ,

Google Maps ,

Reason ; I have a teenage daughter at that awkward age and on google maps i can pinpoint her location , So when she tells me she is going to a friends i can double check she is at that friends on GM map , Re-assures my Mrs who is a bit of a worrier when it comes to the kids

(obviously my daughter has an android phone too for this to work)

[Guest Bassey]

i fear i may sound a bit of a tit for suggesting this but hey ho , here goes ,

Google Maps ,

Reason ; I have a teenage daughter at that awkward age and on google maps i can pinpoint her location , So when she tells me she is going to a friends i can double check she is at that friends on GM map , Re-assures my Mrs who is a bit of a worrier when it comes to the kids

(obviously my daughter has an android phone too for this to work)

Not wishing to worry you but all that tells you is your daughter's PHONE is at her friends house.

[Guest stoofer]

Trying to stay on topic and attempting to ignore the irony of the 'it's hard to find good apps' debate cluttering up a 'tell me some good apps' thread...

Still relatively new to owning the device, but for me:

1: Backbreaker Football - on the SF you must have a ROM with hardware acceleration enabled for it to be at a playable framerate, though.

2: Winamp - my music player of choice. Handy widget controls, too.

3: QuickOffice - for when caught without something with a real keyboard.

4: Robo Defense - TD game, not sure if I actually really like it, but certainly gets me to sleep quickly... :)

5: Advanced Task Killer

6: Jewels

7: Blade Wifi Fix.

8: Onion News Network

9: [Reserved for when I settle on a satnav]

10: [Reserved for Words With Friends when it's out...]

[Guest Arr Too]

10: [Reserved for Words With Friends when it's out...]

What's wrong with WordFeud?

Has nobody mentioned AppBrain Market? Fixes almost all the issues that are glaringly obvious in Google's own Market (like being able to filter and sort).