Dragon's Lair Fans - Arcade Lifestyle

General Chat => All the rest => Topic started by: ckong on March 10, 2012, 08:57:29 PM

Title: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: ckong on March 10, 2012, 08:57:29 PM
Yes, today I finally made the big step from my ancient Symbian Nokia to a very nice Galaxy Note.

But now I have to choose the best apps available, and I don't have a clue. So please tell me: what are the best free or commercial Android apps?
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: Blanka on March 10, 2012, 09:15:45 PM
I gave up on apps. 90% of the app applications, have an equal or better working browser version optimised for mobile (linkedin mobile is better than linkedin app, marktplaats mobile is better than MP app, maps mobile is better than maps app, most techblogs are better on mobile than in app form). Maybe only app working OK is Ebay as it is fast and lag-free in the final bidding seconds. My Android phone is phone+wifi hotspot+camera at the moment. Nothing more. All other crap has been erased including Email. With apps you constantly run into OS-version mismatches, bugs, crashes, update problems, and most important, big privacy leaks. Browser versions do not suffer from this. Email is horrible too on a mobile: people start to expect you to read and react everywhere. Typing mail on mobile sucks, and with those modern syncing options, you forget to react to 80% of your emails when you have a decent machine to answer on as all message state "read". So now my mail is only read at the desktop again, once a day, and replied to immediately. Mobile email is the most horrible mind-fuck ever.
All this does not apply to games, but I have an arcade for games, not my phone.
I reinstalled Android on my phone, and the best thing I did on the second round is to never log in to a Google account with it. Just to make sure nothing is bugging me on my phone. If you give your phone a Google account to login too, lots of unwanted behaviour will occur thanks to unwanted syncing. You can't just sign in to the Market. It will sign you in to all: Calender, Mail, Contacts, Youtube etc.

Still waiting for a minimalist linux OS for mobile with the consumer in focus, not the appmakers or the advertisers like on Android.
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: jcp on March 10, 2012, 10:48:29 PM
I have a little Phone under Android 2.3.6 (Samsung I5510).

Well, the most appreciated applications are the news reader for me : Reuters, Le Monde (french paper), etc ...
I can play with the emulators too : Mame (Zaxxon is one of my fav), Vice (C64) and 2 others (MSX and Collecovision) which work fine too.
About the specific games : Edge and Edge ext are great in order to play with the sensors of the phone.

That's all, I'm not a heavy user of phone mobile.
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: gyruss on March 11, 2012, 11:09:05 AM
Whatsapp  ;D
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: Muerto on March 11, 2012, 03:19:27 PM
I agree with gyruss, WhatsApp is brilliant, most of my friends live in Denmark, and with this you can text for free as long as youre connected to at least o, E, 3G or wireless..

But good apps, it depends what youre going to use them for...
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: SeTTleR on March 13, 2012, 02:16:54 PM
Hi,
I love my Android Phone and IMHO one of the best thing is the Synchronisation stuff with my Google Account. I have now my phonebook synced as well as my calendar. So I can use it on my PC at home, on work and on my phone. But I agree that checking mails on phones sucks. It is handy in some situations and I use it there, but I don't check them regularly.

For playing games: I prefer those games designed for mobile phones. The emulators and stuff work very well, but I can't get used to the controls. There are no buttons and sticks, you only touch your phone.. the feedback is missing there.

Games I like to play are AirAttack HD, Angry Birds, Bistro Cook, Blast Monkeys, Loosen Wire, Mahjong, Meganoid, Pong Multitouch, Time Chaos. I recently tried ScummVM which I thought could be cool on the phone, but that sucks.. :) The controls are not that good as I thought.

Some other good Apps are:

Jorte as Calendar App. It has nice Widgets

World Newspapers as News Reader. There you find lots of Newspapers from all around the world

Welches Netz? - It's a german app where you can see which provider the person you call uses. That is very handy as I have only flatrates to some providers and free minutes to the other. Maybe there is something similar for the dutch phone network, if you need something like that

3G Watchdog - counts how many MB of 3G traffic i used. That's handy if you have only a certain amount of MB for free.

TV-Guide - the TV Program. I think this is also only good for german TV :)

Titanium Backup - You need root privileges for that, but it's the most sophisticated backup tool I know.

Dolphin HD - A very nice browser

Note Everything - easily create and manage notes

miCoach - from adidas, very useful if you do a lot of running. Tells you the time and distance you have run, as well as the route using google maps, and so on

Lookout - Checks every app if it is safe and let's you look and locate your phone if it's lost

K9-Mail - EMail Reader (if necessary)

Google Skymap - You can see where which star is

FX Camera - Nice picture effects

EBay - very good app, works extremely well

So that was my little list. Hope you find something useful on it :)
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: jcp on March 13, 2012, 03:39:49 PM
CamScanner & Adobe pdf reader are must have applications too  ;).
SeTTleR : you need a mobile phone with a keyboard in order to play emulators.
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: SeTTleR on March 13, 2012, 03:44:17 PM
CamScanner & Adobe pdf reader are must have applications too  ;).
SeTTleR : you need a mobile phone with a keyboard in order to play emulators.

Yeah, missed the Adobe PDF Reader :)

Mmh ok, if you have a keyboard, it might work ok. I have a Samsung Galaxy S i9000 which has only a touchscreen. Playing Emulators with it sucks...
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: Luigi on March 14, 2012, 06:35:38 AM
Don't have many apps on it. Angry Birds and Cut the rope (costs a few cents) are fun games.

For MP3 I bought Player Pro Music Player LINK (http://www.androidpit.de/de/android/market/apps/app/com.tbig.playerpro/PlayerPro-Music-Player)
worth every cent :)
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: level42 on March 14, 2012, 09:05:38 AM
...Adobe pdf reader are must have applications

Doesn't Android support PDF's natively ?
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: SeTTleR on March 14, 2012, 12:08:08 PM
...Adobe pdf reader are must have applications

Doesn't Android support PDF's natively ?

Someday I wanted to open a PDF and I couldn't figure out how, so I installed Adobe Reader. That's all I can say. Maybe there is a reader somewhere, but I couldn't find one.
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: level42 on March 14, 2012, 01:01:56 PM
Ah...iOS (and OS X) supports it natively so no need for slow andprocessor hogging Adobe apps :)
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: Belike on March 14, 2012, 01:58:43 PM
I have only one application :D
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-M8WDwcnimLE/T2CVli9Rg9I/AAAAAAAAFk8/3SsLNfNdmaE/s912/tron%2520clock%2520001.jpg)

(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ikdKC0_Jkb0/T2CVlsRWiHI/AAAAAAAAFlA/GMVtb7IOLw8/s800/tron%2520clock.jpg)
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: Reinhold on March 15, 2012, 04:49:06 PM
Wicked Tron Clock...

Just downloaded it ;)
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: ckong on March 15, 2012, 10:49:01 PM
Thanks guys, downloaded some of the mentioned games and the tron clock of course.
Title: Re: 'must have' apps for my Android phone
Post by: ckong on March 27, 2012, 10:16:59 AM
Ted Air is awesome.