Apps

Lately I've been on a tear talking about some of the Android apps that I like. I decided that I should publish a list of the apps on my Android phone. Hopefully this will be useful to the two people that subscribe to my feed.

1. Utilities
   
   • Lookout: Free (at least for now) mobile security app. See my previous review.
     
   • EStrongs File Explorer: No self respecting Android user should be without a file manager. EStrongs has a good feature set and a better price...free. I liked this better than Linda File Manager.
   
   
   • Advanced Task Killer: Yeah, yeah, I get it - Android has a built in task killer and you really don't/shouldn't need one. I like this freebie better than Androids built in flavor because of features like auto-kill and ignore.
   
   
   • Network(Philipp Mangelow): This is just a shortcut to RadioInfo in com.android.settings. Not for everyone.
   
   
   • Speed Test: A good free app to test internet speeds. I used it to test 4G speeds in my area.
   
   
   • Dropbox: Free, cloud based app that lets you sync, store, and share files between your phone and desktop.This is one of my favorites.
   
   
   • Evernote: Free cloud based note management system. The app has a great UI and is useful for snapping images from whiteboard sessions and adding notes. The images are in a TIFF format, so text within the image should be searchable if any text can be recognized. I use this for snapping pictures of and storing business cards.
     
2. Media
   
   • Rhapsody: I had Rhapsody-o-Go account before I purchased my EVO. When I purchased this phone, I had visions of ditching my PMP and transferring my Rhapsody library to my phone. That chuckling in the background is coming from everyone who has realized how lackluster Rhapsody is on Android. With no offline playback (yet) and mediocre performance, I'm holding on for this to live up to what it could be. I'm glad that the app is free.
   • Shazam: Free app that lets you tag up to 5 songs/month. What's "tagging" you ask? Simply open the app and hit the big black "Shazam" button. The app "listens" to the song, save it to your history, and allows you to share the information with friends or even purchase the song immediately. Pretty cool. Paid versions remove the tagging limit. As a music guy, I rarely use this, but it's totally clutch when you want to find out the name of the cool song that just came on.
   • Pandora Radio: Free streaming app that lets you build personalized playlists simple by entering the track or Artist. I like this better than Rhapsody's station streaming.
   • Adobe Photoshop Express: Free app that lets you edit and share photos. You can crop, rotate, add basic effects, and adjust color. I'm certainly not a power user, but it offers everything that I need when using my phone to take pictures.
   • nook: The Barnes and Noble app that takes the e-reader to the phone. Supports app to SD since the books can take up a few mb. I also sync's with the desktop version. The page turning animations are every bit as nice as what you see on that other phone.
3. Social Networking/Chat
   
   • Twitter: Official Android Twitter app. Better than HTC's version.
   li>Facebook: Official Android FB app. Again, it's better than HTC's version.
   • Foursquare: Official Foursquare app for Android. This location based cross between Facebook and Twitter is seriously addictive.
   • Blogger-droid: Free app that lets you post to your Blogger account from your phone. You can view, edit, and delete posts as well as share pictures, videos, links, etc. And yes, I have posted from my phone before.
   • AIM: AOL's venerable AIM on Android. Just like the desktop version, this gives you access to Facebook chat.
   • Yahoo: Official Android Yahoo app. This probably has the best UI out of all of my apps. I keep waiting for the video chat...a la Skype.
   • gtalk: El Goog's chat app.
   • Fring: I use this for video conferencing. Not the best, but until Yahoo or Skype gets video-chat for Android, this is my go-to app.
   • Qik: Seriously, push to talk on a video-chat app???FAIL. If I could only remove this crapware that Sprint bundled with the phone. Oh wait, you can...root.

Almost half way...must..stay..focused...

4. Social Planning
   
   • Open Spot: Free Google app that lets users find/share real-time information about available on-street parking spots. It's not quite there yet, since it really gets better the more people use it. It will continue to get better as the user base grows.
   • Places: El Goog's answer to Yelp! and Where. I like that El Goog's send QR code stickers to businesses registered with Places. And really, who doesn't need an excuse to bust out the scanner app. Of course this is free.
   • urbanspoon: Free location based app that helps locate nearby restaurants, with prices and reviews. Shake until you find a place you'd like to eat. Bonus - integrates with Google Maps.
   • Fandango: Free app that lets you purchase movie tickets from the comfort of your phone.
   • OnMyWay: Free app that sends messages to selected contacts with an ETA. Requires that GPS be turned on.I haven't used this too much, but it's got potential. On the downside, GPS is a battery hog.
   • cab4me: A free location based app that let you locate and call nearby car services. Pretty good, but it was missing a few cab companies nearby.
5. Shopping/Finance
   
   • Square: See my previous review.
   • Paypal: Free app to send money and manage your Paypal account. I love that they added the "bump" feature that lets you transfer money by bumping phones together.
   • Shopsavvy: Free Android bar scanning application. Recognizes standard bar codes as well as QR codes. You can see examples of QR codes in previous app reviews. Scanned items will return local and web based prices.
6. The Rest
   
   • Swype: You can't really get this on Android unless it's pre-loaded by your carrier or hardware manufacturer, but I was lucky enough to get in on the beta. It's a free keyboard that let's you trace words on a keyboard and recognizes words by the shape that is traces. Also allows for standard input. It is amazing how fast you can type with this. Swiftkey is a good paid alternative.
   • Chrome to Phone: An app from El Goog that works in conjunction with an extension for the Chrome desktop browser that lets you push your desktop browsing session directly to your phone. Awesome. I use it to push a recipe from the web to my phone which is a bit easier to use in the kitchen than a laptop.

Thanks for sticking it out, I hope this list is helpful!

App Review

Geez. Either I've been living under a rock or I don't know where to look for good Android apps. I've recently discovered a few great ones like Square. Recently, I've had a chance to check out one more that I like.

The first is Lookout Mobile Security. QR code here. With the advent of the recent superphones from Apple, HTC, and Motorola (amongst other) we are starting to do many of our daily activities on our phone. With all of the apps and recent mobile security issues (here and here), security solutions are looking like more of a requirement than a nice to have feature.

A thorough video from www.droid-life.com can be found below. With a clean interface, it allows you to scan for malicious software and uninstall if it finds anything. It also allows for backup of contacts, call history, and pictures. I have to say that my favorite feature is the "locate" feature. Provided that your location services (GPS) are enabled, you can log onto the Lookout portal and locate your phone. You can even cause it to "scream", although I wouldn't recommend it as it is quite loud and annoying (as it should be).

The one area that needs improvement is the remote lock/wipe. This feature has been teased for quite some time now on Android. Given the price of this app (free), I can't find too much fault with that. However, it will be interesting to see if this is added with the premium product that they have also been teasing. Depending on your needs, the free version may fit the bill. All in all a solid useful app.

Review from www.droid-life.com

The Social Newtwork

I just went to the the new movie "The Social Network". It's the David Fincher/Alan Sorkin pairing based on the book "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich.

The movie was well acted, and did a pretty good job paying homage to the techie crowd, dropping terms like wget as well as references to perl scripts and mysql.

I haven't read the book (I have it on my nook), but I can say tat the general outline of the story paints a less than flattering picture of Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg. Whether or not the story played out as it appears in the movie may never be known. As for the characters themselves, I'm sure some artistic license was taken.

At the end, I'm not quite sure whether I like Mark Zuckerbergs character or feel sorry for him. Obviously, there is some truth to the story regarding the lawsuits et cetera, but I find it hard to believe that anyone is truly that removed from the rest of the world. My wife and I both gave this movie two thumbs up!

Casting : A

Plotline: A-

Dialogue: A

Update: Apparently Facebook took their staff to see the movie too. Story here.

Square Up - Review

While perusing the interweb, I came across a great article article about a mobile app. Every once in awhile, I see an idea and say to myself "Damn, if only I would have thought of that". This was one of those times.

The company is called Square.

The app (QR code here)? Well, it allows you to take credit card payments on your smartphone.

I tested it on the Android platform using my HTC EVO. It has a clean interface and is extremely simple to use. I was able to process a $10.00 payment to myself within minutes of registering for the service. Within seconds, I received two e-mails. The first was an e-mail noting that I had accepted a payment of $10.00 to my account. The second was my receipt. It's that simple. Really.

The registration process itself is straight forward. You'll need to provide some pertinent identifying information including a routing number. Once set-up, there are some things that you should know:

• They limit deposits made to your account to $1000/week. Anything above that will be deposited within 30 days (it is reviewed to help prevent fraud). Providing more information up front and continued use can raise that limit.
• There is a higher fee for taking a payment without swiping the card through the reader. The reader is free when you register for the service, but until it arrives, you'll be manually entering transactions.
• They charge a percentage of the total, plus a $0.15 fee per transaction. It's 2.5% for transactions processed with the reader and 3.5% for transactions processed without the reader. There is no monthly charge and no equipment charge.

It makes it so easy to easy to accept card payments, that you never really need to think about it. You can take credit card payments at a bake sale if you feel the urge. You can even track cash payments and download them as a .csv to import into other software. Plus, it's pretty fun to scribble your name on your phone.

This really is my new favorite app.

Square Up
App
QR Code

IE9 - Review

I was suring around that darned interweb on my beloved Chrome browser, when I thought I might give IE9 a try. After all, this was the new IE9 that has been optimized for HTML5, CSS3, and hardware acceleration, right?

The basics that IE9 gets right:

• UI:
  
  • Finally. Microsoft is getting with the program. The IE9 UI is lean and mean - a la Chrome or Firefox. I know this isn't some revolutionary advance in UI design, but it's still nice to see.
  • One of several cues borrowed from other browsers is that that address bar now does double duty for search and address.
• Speed Demon:
  
  • IE9 still scores slower than Chrome, Opera, and Safari on the benchmarks, but not by much. We're talking about 100 milliseconds behind the #1, Chrome. The days of using sluggish performance as an excuse not to use IE are over. Firefox and Chrome are baking in hardware acceleration into the next versions, so that gap may widen again. But for now, 110 ms isn't enough to make me look past IE9 as a candidate for my everyday browser.
  • Add in Management - IE9 has an add-in manager that includes such information as the estimated time each add-in addsto the start time of the browser. And yes MS add-ins are listed.
• Tab Management:
  
  • When you have more than one active tab, if you select the top-right "X" button for the browser, IE9 actually asks if you would prefer to close the current active tab, or close all tabs. Nice, right?
  • Also, taking a page from Chrome IE9 has the ability to easily pull off a tab into it's own browser session. I found myself doing this a lot when I wanted to compare tabs side by side using the "snap" feature.
  • Another feature "borrowed" from Chrome - When opening a new tab, recently visited sites appear. Additionally, the frequency of visits to the sight are represented by a volume bar. The longer the bar, the more visits to that url.
• Pinning url's from a Tab to the Taskbar:
  
  • I've always been a fan of the taskbar in Windows 7. It may not look as cool as the dock on Mac's, but I find it to be every bit as functional and a bit less cluttered. This is a matter of taste though.
    
  • Another neat trick when pinning to the taskbar is that the icon on the taskbar is "branded" like the site. When opened, the browser gets "branded" with the sites colors, including the forward and back buttons. This is not something that changes the game, but in a day and age where more and more websites are becoming like applications, it is nice to know that Redmond appears to be paying to both the big and small details.
    
  • One other unique possibility is the fact that the pinned sited can take advantage of Windows 7 "Jumplist" feature. That holds promise for such features as baking in right-click navigation into a site pinned to the taskbar. Hopefully this won't go the way of "slices".
  
  
  

Overall, IE9 represents a huge leap forward for Microsoft. They have addressed many of the issues with IE that have prompted so many users to switch browsers. It will be interesting to see how (read:if) this integrates with Windows Phone 7. Will they integrate such features as "IE9 to phone" like Google with their Chrome to Phone? Hint hint: Both would be awesome. Microsoft has shown that they can listen to feedback and has created some great products recently (Kin debacle aside). Let's hope they continue this trend. In the meantime, I'm going to keep IE9 on my laptop.