So I got a smartphone. Need apps!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I finally gave in to the smartphone wave and got an HTC/T-Mobile G1 today. I was actually way out in front of the wave originally - I had an HTC/T-Mobile SDA back in the day, but that was in the dark days of Windows Mobile and there were no programs available more interesting than “Flight Simulator Light”.

Anyway, I know I need Bump and the barcode scanner thingy. What else?

So far I’ve installed a flashlight utility, a task manager, Picasa and some other stuff I’ve forgotten the names of, including a better battery life tracking utility.

2

I’ve got a T-mobile myTouch. Now, I haven’t had much of a chance to check out the true efficacy of this application, but this is the deal. I had never lost a cellphone in my life until I bought an expensive smartphone. Nevertheless, I smartly opted for insurance which I had never done before. On January 1 and January 31 of this year I managed to lose my phone permanently. So, I’m using this application.

Mobile Defense.

It basically tracks your phone via a website. So, if you lose your phone, you can check where it’s current location is. Let’s hope I never have to use it, but at least I’ll have some hope of recovery. For some reason, people just don’t turn in $500 smart phones.

Also, I’m using MyTracks to track my hiking and walks around town. I haven’t used it a ton yet.

My friend was running the Santa Barbara Marathon and was carrying his phone so we used this application to track his progress. II was able to hang out at a local bar and then waited until he was near and then went out to see him run by. It’s called Instant Mapper and can be watched on either the internet or your Android phone.

3

Downloading Mobile Defense now. Thanks!

Keep 'em coming, people.

4

I had no idea Mobile Defense existed, and really really could have used it when I lost my phone (eventually found it…another story).

Thanks so much for this.

5

I love Shazam. It can identify almost any song in about 10 seconds, showing title, artist, album, etc.

Also try looking for apps based on your favorite websites for handy mobile versions thereof. I have IMDb, ebay, facebook, and google, and they’re all less cumbersome than using the full versions on the phone’s browser. (There’s no Straight Dope app yet, though!)
Oh, and Dictionary.com. A whole damn dictionary in your pocket!

6

Shazam! That’s the one I was thinking of - some guy showed it to me on an iPhone a while back and I couldn’t find it on Google.

I discovered an xkcd reader yesterday, which was awesome. Maybe I’ll learn to program Android stuff and make an SDMB app. :slight_smile:

7

Google Sky Maps
Seesmic or Twidroid for Twitter (still testing both)
GeoBeagle for geocaching
Advanced Task Killer

There’s a ton of barcode scanner apps, and I don’t know which is best. There’s Shop Savvy, Barcode Scanner, and even Amazon has one.

8

Make sure you have the latest version of Google Maps. It’s not really part of the OS, it’s a separate app and you can download the latest version through the Marketplace.

9

What’s the barcode scanner app do?

10

I got my G1 last April…

Daily Strip - daily comic strips, u can select from a large number of comics
<city> traffic - I have Houston Traffic - I think there is one of these for any city that has ‘Transtar’ traffic cams
Steel - minimalist browser - I like it better than the one that comes with Android
CameraZoom/CameraFX - really extends the camera options
Meridian Player - music/media player
StreamFurious - streaming audio
Google Listen - podcasts
Weatherbug - probably the one I use the most
ToggleBlu - widget to toggle bluetooth on/off
Places Directory - ‘find something near me’ - works with Google maps
Google Maps - make sure to update it from the market to get turn-by-turn navigation
StickyNote - postit note widget
LapseDroid - time lapse photography for Android
RingDroid - ‘cut’ a ringtone out of any .mp3 file
Documents to Go - view/save MS office docs from email
Google Goggles - another bar code/recognizer app
qik - video streaming/recordidng FROM your android phone to your acct on qik’s website
AppManager/AppsInstaler - lets you backup non-paid apps to your SD card to free up memory in the G1, installer will install them from SD card
Advanced Task manager…
Audio Manager - manages volumes (ring, media, notificatons…)
Car Mode - turns on speakerphone for incoming calls
ShopSavvy

There’s alot more out there, but these are what I have loaded for now…

11

The phone came with Google Maps preinstalled and it prompted me to update it a few hours after I turned the phone on, so I presume it’s the current version.

ETA: Thanks, cd - especially for the browser recommendation. I don’t care for the Android browser either but I didn’t know if you could replace it.

12

We use a grocery shopping app on our Palm Pilots. Extensively - in fact it’s not an exaggeration to say that this was one of the big reasons we got the palms, many years back.

There isn’t a comparable one for the Android platform… yet… The best one I’ve seen in researching is “Ourgroceries” which has some neat features, but does not yet have some features we rely heavily on with the Palm.

Splash-Shopper for the iPhone seems closer to what we’re used to having and it may

This will be a major factor for us in deciding which platform to commit to when we make the jump to smartphones. I wanna stick with Verizon, but we’d lose too much functionality!

13

I think the most common use is: if you’re at a store looking at a product, and wondering if it’s much cheaper online, you can point your smartphone at the barcode, and the app looks up the price automatically.

Also, a 2D barcode (like the QR code) can encode a lot more information. It can contain a URL, for example, so you can point your phone at the barcode, and the app takes you to that URL. Or it can contain contact information; someone could display their phone/address/etc on their smartphone screen in the form of a 2D barcode, and you can point yours at it and capture the information.

14

I have a fairly simple one called “Battery Status”, quite literally just gives a percent (in denominations of ten) as to how much battery you have left. It’s not TOO spectacular, but it’s free. If anyone has a better one I’d love to hear it.

City Caller ID: When someone calls you it gives the city that the phone is registered in. It’s free and interesting, but according to the developer they’re being sued for it, so it might go away.

Weather Channel app: I like this one cuz you can set a home location, and the temperature is always displayed in the status bar, open it and you get more info. Also turns red when there’s a warning or advisory or something.

imusic: Free music! Kinda hard to work, but worth it.

15

What does it do?

16

Lessee:
I have a list of things I buy at the grocery store, drugstore, hardware store, or wherever. This is something we have developed over 7+ years of using the tool. Made the first few uses laborious though: “We need paper towels. Are they on the list? No? gotta enter that one”.

Then I have a list of the various stores we go to, e.g. Safeway, Giant A, Giant B, Giant C, Whole Foods, hardware store, drugstore, etc.

For each grocery trip, I go to the “list everything” view and check off everything I need to get, including quantities (3 cans tomatoes, 4 pkg paper towels etc.).

Then I go shopping in Giant A. I go to the “what I need” view, tell the tool that I’m shopping in Giant A, go to Paper Towels, check the store layout and enter aisle 12 for its location. I go to aisle 12, grab the towels, and check them off the “what I need” view.

Repeat with tomatoes, in aisle 6.

Sounds like a pain.

BUT - the next time I go shopping for those same things, I put the tool in “Giant A” mode, and it tells me I need to go to aisle 6 then aisle 12. It sorts things by the previously-entered aisles. I can’t tell you how much faster the trip goes, with this ability.

Now, say I want to shop for tomatoes and paper towels in Safeway. Same thing. I’ve got my list, no aisles set up for Safeway, so I have to find 'em the old fashioned way first. Then I update the aisle info.

Next time I need towels and tomatoes, I go to whichever store is more convenient, tell the tool which one I’m in, and it tells me which aisles to go to.

As far as I can tell, Splash Shopper pretty much duplicates this but it’s not availale for the Android platform. OurGroceries does not - you can enter the list of things, and what aisle they’re in, but you can’t store different aisles depending on which store, and you can’t (yet) sort by aisle. I believe the makers are working on adding that sort, but not yet the “different aisles for different stores” feature. They do have something pretty nifty though - if I read their site correctly, if you and your spouse both use the tool, and you check off “paper towels” because you bought some… it disappears from his copy as well. Neither SplashShopper nor HandyShopper (the Palm tool) does that at all gracefully.

17

Here’s what I have on my G1 (all free):
“A World Of Photo” - kind of a random photo sharing game sorta
“Advanced Task Manager” - nice task manager that can also uninstall apps
“Aldiko” - ebook reader
“Barcode Scanner”
“facebook”
“Google Sky Map”
“iheartradio”
“Jewels” - free bejeweled clone
“Listen”
“OI Shopping List” - just a shopping list
“OpenSudoku” - Sudoko
“Pandora”
“PDANet” - allows me to tether laptop to phone
“Shazam”
“textonphone” - anothe ebook reader
“ToggleWifi” - toggles wifi with icon on desktop
“TuneWiki” - musicplayer that shows lyrics as music plays
“Voice” - Google Voice app
“WiFi fixer” - prevents Wifi from shutting of when phone goes idle - needed for tethering
“WorldTour” - changed wallpaper to random worldwide cam views

18

I didn’t see it listed so I’ll suggest you check out androlib.com. Almost all of the apps in the market are shown there with some explanation.

Bob
MyTouch 3g, Android 1.6

19

One of the most important apps for me is a password safe.
There are several of them out there, but I don’t know which ones are available for your phone.

I use SplashId on my iPhone. It syncs with the desktop version.
I have between 200 and 300 passwords stored, between work credentials (Unix servers and Oracle accounts) and every single online store where I have done business.

It generates random passwords for me, and keeps track of them quite nicely. I keep different passwords for each email account and bank account, for security reasons.

If I lose the phone, nobody can see my secrets and I can sync to a new phone from the desktop.

20

I liked CBS Radio. Gives music station, but also those news/traffic/weather AM stations.