One I haven’t seen mentioned is Google Currents. If you like reading it’s a nice smooth reader app, you can subscribe to diverse sources such as Forbes, Mental Floss, Boing Boing, Popular Science, and Salon to read articles. The interface is more like a book reader and less like a web browser.
Seconded. I’ve gotten some good stuff that way and some real crap (quickly deleted). I even got the phone-based Office applications (Docs To Go etc.) free that way.
Dropbox - amazingly essential. Lets you sync files to your desktop, other devices etc.
A password vault. Several of them use Dropbox to sync passwords among your devices and your desktop. We have 1Password which I actually do NOT recommend, as its Android version is readonly. You have to add new passwords via a desktop computer or an iPod Touch/iPhone; we had iPods when we first started using it. All it can do on the Android is download records entered elsewhere. Well, obviously it’s got the data password protected on the phone, and can auto-fill some logins.
DropSync: one limitation of Dropbox is that it only auto-syncs from a couple of very specific locations on the phone. I have some apps that save their backups to other locations. Dropsync (which cost a couple dollars) enables files to be automatically synced from any directory.
Oh yeah - also useful to help you find gas when you don’t know where the nearest station is. Relies on users to enter prices (and offers a weekly drawing for a gift card as an incentive to do so).
Sleep Bot is a free sleep logger - terrific tool (much better than anything I found on the iPhone).
Med Helper (free and pro versions), tracks medications (scheduled, times taken etc.).
Sneaky… must remember this :D.
An alternative to Our Groceries and several others: To Market. It doesn’t do the cloud synching like Our Groceries, but what it does do is let you track a single item, and its aisles at multiple different stores. I’ve never found any way to do that in the other applications, short of duplicating the item in multiple lists or something. We tend to shop in one of several stores depending on which one is convenient - and it’s nice to know that at store 1, cereal / coffee / paper towels are in aisles 5, 3 and 9, while in store 2 they’re in 17, 5 and 3 (we can just check off the items from the master list, then sort by aisle for whichever store at the time).
BubbleUpnp is essential if you have any DLNA-capable devices in your house (and you probably do.) Lets you stream media from your phone to your TV, browse videos and photos on a PC acting as a server, etc.
You might also check to see what devices you have that your phone can act as a spare remote for. I can control my Sony BluRay player, LG TV, and WDTV Live media player with mine, which is handy when you want to sit down to watch something and one of the remotes is hiding somewhere.
I also have Boxee on my PC with the TV set up as a second monitor - controlled with the Boxee Thumb Remote, which is nice because it’s gestural so you don’t have to look at it to use it. This is awesome.
You absolutely need Tapatalk, in case that hasn’t been hammered home enough.
Some sort of remote desktop software is handy, so you can use your computer through your phone if you need to. (Main use for me - managing downloads while I’m away.) If you have a router that you can configure with port forwarding, you can use a direct RDP client like 2X - but if that’s asking a bit much you might check one of the pay apps like PhoneMyPC.
- Your favorite newspaper(s). I love catching up on my phone.
- CNET - tech news
- ESPN - best for sports
- Readability - read something cool on the internet, but don’t have time? Save it for readability, which also reformats it for easy reading
- Sudoku and Chess. Lots of options out there
- Mega Jump. Fun game
- Cut the Rope. Game
- I don’t think anyone mentioned angry birds yet. I think the most popular game app in the universe. For a reason.