The Android platform is still in its infancy and whilst a robust smartphone platform there are simply not that many developers out there making apps for the fledgling OS. This is essentially down to the lack of hardware (only the brick like g1 and the Magic/Ion at this stage, although 18 more handsets and according to reports from Computex a bunch of netbooks are due to launch with the mobile OS this year). I remain confident that once we have more hardware out there, the platform itself will become more pervasive and more people will start to develop for it. At this stage the majority of the app market for Android seems to be taken up by G1 users themselves learning to program using the SDK. This is obvious by the shaky and often buggy nature of the apps that are out there. Whilst this is admirable and I am mildly envious of anyone that can program it's not ideal when you just want apps that work and perform the function they say they can on your phone. Having said all of this there are some good apps out there and here is a list of my personal top 5.
Locale (Free)
Locale is a very useful app that I've had on my phone since I got it. It will allow you to set profiles on your phone according to yup, you guessed it, location. You can also set via time of day, date and even by contact (useful when the ex keeps calling!). So for instance I have a friend that lives opposite the pub. When I'm at his place I don't want my phone set at loud, however when we do get to the pub which is quite noisy, I like to be able to hear my alerts. So I've set two locations, one for his place where the alerts are at a reasonable level and one for the pub where my alerts are distinguishable above the noise.
The same thing with work. The moment I walk through the doors, my phone switches to silent and I have no need to think about it again. I have also set the wifi on board to switch off when I step out of my home wireless network to save on battery. However there are certain spots around where I live where I can get free wifi and when I step into one of these spots, the 3G switches off and wifi takes over. There is even a Twitter plugin which to me seems kinda lazy but I guess could have a function somewhere?? The options are seriously endless on this one. No doubt some bright spark will have it set up with an Arduino to scratch his arse at 3pm every afternoon!
GDocs (Free)
Not made by Google, but a fine example and use of the Android/Google open source ideal. This little beauty gives you view access to your Google docs. You can edit the file once you have downloaded it to the phone. Whilst I wouldn't recommend it for any heavy duty writing I did use it to write parts of this article and I have used it a couple of times now to take meeting notes at work. Dead simple and straightforward, your presented with a simple list of your current documents once you have logged in. Long press anyone of these and you can either 'View remote document' or 'Download' for later editing. There is no control over fonts or general style but I tend to format a document when I'm proofreading it afterwards anyway. The only real problem with this app is its lack of share/email options. This said it is a brilliantly smooth and simple little application, your productivity rates will soar, be warned!
Astrid (Free)
My favourite of the many to-do lists out there. Featuring easy access to your tasks via the notifications bar, synchronization with your remember the milk account, highly customizable task entry and the ability to easily add tasks to your calendar. Not much more to say about this one, except it works and works well.
GMote (Free)
An awesome little app I’ve had on my phone since day one. As the name suggests, this turns your G1 into a remote for your computer once you have downloaded the server app from the Gmote website. One of its best features is the ability to browse your computers media direct from the apps file browser and then play it in a light weight implementation of VLC on your computer. You can also set it up as a remote touchpad and even surf the web from your phone and then fling the pages over to your computer when you find something interesting. Relatively simple to setup, the only real issue I’ve had is having to re-enter the computers ip address when the phone goes to sleep.
PureRSS (Free)
Delightfully simple in its implementation, simply copy and paste your feed urls into the app and away you go. It will sync automatically (set sync from disabled to 5 minutes to 1 week) or you can reload all feeds or reload each feed individually. The thing I love about this app is that it gives you all of the available article and any pictures contained within unlike some RSS readers. Again not much more to say except it simply works.
There are of course many other applications out there, this is just my personal top 5. Let me know what yours are and why in the comments below. And of course there are paid applications out there but I have found in the true spirit of open source, the best ones are free. There are many exciting developments coming up for Android including making use of its support for 3D graphics via the openGL API (look for the Neocore demo application in the market) and my personal favourite bit of info released at the recent Google I/O, Spotify for Android. I'll keep you posted as I find out more.
-Pip Wilson
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