My List of Favorite Android Apps

So, as I promised, I'm writing a post about my favorite android apps. It's taken a while because I had to work on the photo post first. But here goes! Oh, and I've included links to the websites for the apps, if they were easy to find!

There are about 20, and they are all free apps, as I've only been willing to buy one app so far and that was the SNEsoid, a SNES Emulator, so I could play Final Fantasy III on my phone :)

First on the list is PandaHome. I recently discovered this one and I love it! It's a replacement for the home screen, allows you to have more than 3 and some of the themes have cute customization stuff that go with. It also cycles through so if you get to the end of the list of home screens, it starts at the beginning. But my absolutely most favoritest part is the docking bars! Really, I'm fine with 3 home screens and don't need more (though I take advantage of them using Panda) if I could just get a docking program that went with the home screen I'd be happy, though the themes can still be pretty cool. But the docking bars are awesome! There is one on each side so I've set one with the main programs such as the camera, messaging, phone and things like that and then I've made the other one my speed dial list! lol. I love it! So much easier than going into the program and hunting for a name or a picture!

It's after Christmas now but this one still bears mentioning for next year, Santa Live. It plays a new video clip of Santa every day and stores the list so you can watch them over and over. I don't know how many hours the girls were entertained this month by watching little clips of Santa! There are a variety of other kid's programs the girls really enjoy but this one tops the list!
Tied for third are two programs that I really like, one is Color Note, which gives you the option to "apply" colored sticky notes to your homescreen, and the other one is OI Shopping List, which I use for more than just shopping lists. I had been using the Color Note for shopping lists but with this one you can set it to look like a notepad with writing and when you click on it, it crosses it off :) I love that!

My favorite book reader so far is Aldiko. I love that it keeps your place in the book, even if you switch in between books, as long as it's left on your currently reading list, it keeps track of your last spot. It also pulls from a list of free books at feedbooks.com It reads epub files so any you own you can put on the phone and import them into the program. It also has a day and night mode that makes it nice.

Next on my list of favorites is Astro File Manager. Android itself doesn't have a file manager program and Astro, while it's the only one I've tried out, works great for browsing through the fires and copying and pasting and moving files.

I don't particularly care for the standard android calendar widget. I solved that with CalWidget. It's a great Calendar Widget program that pulls from your google calendar and the calendar on your phone (just like the standard one) only it's a lot more customizable and show more information. That's one of the great things about android. It's so customizable. Don't like something? Replace it with something else!

My next favorite is a to-do list program. Can you tell what I use my phone for a lot? lol. It's called Astrid and it's a great program. Easy to use and great for a visual reminder. I use the widget to see at a glance what I need to get done.

Another program I like, though I haven't used much is Shop Savvy. You can scan barcodes of things you're looking at to buy and it tells you wher the best price is and how much it is. It can be quite fun to use!

Digital Recipe Sidekick is one that I like to store recipes in. I downloaded two others and this is the one I ended up liking the most. I don't really have much to say about it other than it works great and is relatively easy to input and find your recipes and that's just what I was looking for!

I've downloaded the official TV Guide app and another TV Guide but the one I have liked the most is USA TV Guide. Though you're suppose to be able to set your favorite channels and I haven't figured out how to do that yet. The official TV Guide was a pretty nice program but I didn't like the ads that popped up on start up. They were annoying and it didn't seem quite as user friendly. The other one that I'd downloaded didn't navigate well and I just had issues using it where the USA TV Guide (I love the big screen tv icon hee hee) has just seemed the most user friendly and easiest to use.

Next on the list is Where's My Droid? There was another program I tried the free version of, but it was a pain. This one on the other hand, the free version is great! And such a must-have for those of us who easily misplace our phones! What it does, is if you can't find your phone, you send a text message with a certain phrase and it turns the volume all the way up and the alarm on. (even from silent mode!). MUST HAVE!

This one is mostly just cuz. I always wondered how congested our wifi setting was. Wifi Analyzer lets you find out! It shows you how many are using that channel and the other channels so you can change your wifi channel setting to one with fewer users. Just cool.

I don't really have any complaints as far as the stock android browser goes, except that I never found a way to go forwards after you'd gone back a page. Well, I figured out how to do that with Dolphin Browser and not only that but it's got the pinch-zoom. Though to be completely honest, I'm not sure I actually like the pinch-zoom. Ah well, I've actually downloaded one called X-Scope Lite to try out to see if I like it better.

This one is for anyone who owns a droid, and hasn't bought the $30 multimedia dock. It's called Dock Runner and it puts you into the mulitmedia dock mode. Honestly I haven't used it much because even though it dims a lot at night, my husband prefers complete darkness to fall asleep and it's too bright for him.

Here's another I haven't got to use much but want to try out! Locale makes it so you can set your phone to specific settings depending on your location. It reads the location and then does all the changes for you. Next time I go to the movies I've got to change it to those settings!

Another just for fun app, though I could see being useful at times :) is Fake-A-Call. It allows you to set it to a certain time or time interval (like 5 mins) to pop-up saying you have a call. No more trying to get it to ring on your own. The screen even pops up as if you were getting a call and you can set it to say who's calling! Very devious ;)

Photoburst is picture/media viewer that has the slide motion. Unfortunately the stock gallery viewer doesn't :( I'm not sure how much I really care for photoburst but it's the best one I've found with the slide so for now, it's here to stay.

I LOVE tv. I do, it's a terrible, terrible flaw I have :) And I LOVE the website fancast.com. But it requires flash to watch tv on it :( Well, I found the program tv.com and it's got tv episodes to watch on your phone! Unfortunately it only had one that I like to watch (Medium) so it wasn't worth the space it was taking up to me, but it DID have a lot of other shows as well so for you other tv lovers out there, this is an app for you.

Last on the list is one I just barely found (this ones for you Sam!) called Ambling Book Player. I've got the lite version cuz it's all I've needed so far and the full version is a little bit pricey, but still tempting. Oh, what does it do? It's an ebook reader, only it reads the book to you :) Sam had recently asked me if there was one and I didn't know of any then so I had to try it out when I found it. So, the other day I LISTENED to Pride and Prejudice :) It was pretty cool!

Well, there you have it. Currently, my favorite 20 apps on android. Ask me again some time, with how frequently new apps are coming out, the list may change!