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Android Software Thread - Tasty Desserts, Tastier Apps

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Transdroid
App
Free
+
Transdroid is an Android torrent client manager for µTorrent, Transmission, rTorrent, Vuze, Deluge 1.2 or BitTorrent 6.
 
Tworak said:
Transdroid
App
Free
+
Transdroid is an Android torrent client manager for µTorrent, Transmission, rTorrent, Vuze, Deluge 1.2 or BitTorrent 6.
Click to expand...
Have you tried TorrentFu? How do they compare?
 
Karma said:
Here are a few cool apps people can search the Marketplace for. All free.

SpecTrek Light - Augmented Reality ghost hunting game.

Bubble - plumb/level

DockRunner - Droid ONLY. Turns on the clock/weather/slideshow/music app that is active when attached to the Motorola dock.
Click to expand...

Added all the suggestions to the OP (we had to expand the list is now so big!), but I can't find these three on AndroLib. If you still want them added to the OP, could you please give me the links?
 
Just bought a HTC Hero online :D I've never had a phone of any sophistication and am hoping to be overwhelmed by awesome - is this likely? Is the android software compatibility good with the HTC Hero, for that matter?

Can't wait until it comes in :D
 
batbeg said:
Just bought a HTC Hero online :D I've never had a phone of any sophistication and am hoping to be overwhelmed by awesome - is this likely? Is the android software compatibility good with the HTC Hero, for that matter?

Can't wait until it comes in :D
Click to expand...
I just got a hero a few days ago and all I will say is yes you will be overwhelmed, especially if its your first smart phone.
 
Some of these are mentioned in the OP or in subsequent posts but after a couple of weeks toying with my HTC Hero, here are my recommendations:


MISC APPS

TaskKiller - you can add a little Android TaskKiller icon/widget to any of your home screens to end all non-vital tasks with a quick tap. You can go into the App itself to see what is running, and how much memory its using.

AppsOrganiser - allows you to place Internet, Games, Multimedia, Tools and 'Other Apps' icons to your home screens, which then bring up pop-ups showing the apps in that category. Nice way to clean up your home screens.

Astrid - a calendar/reminder system, it can sync with DontForgetTheMilk.com

Aldiko - eBook reader with lots of public domain books and a facility for buying O'Reilly books etc.

Gentle Alarm - an alarm clock system that will wake you up gently. It uses a gentle vibrating rhythm to lull you out of your sleep half an hour (by default) before you want to wake up. If you sleep past this 'pre-alarm' it begins to try and wake you up with a ringtone-style alarm.

Layar - one of those 'augmented reality' apps that use the camera on the phone. Search for something you want to find via one of the many 'layers', then look through your phone and see a HUD, and a radar showing you where the search results are. OOh look, three pizza places over that-a-way!

wpToGo - update your Wordpress account on the go


GAMES

abduction! World Attack - use the gyros to bounce a cow upwards.

Moto X Mayhem - this has just won in the ADC2 awards. Its not on the market yet but you can get an early build here or here. You'll need eoeInstaller or a similar app to install it.

ggNES - NES Emulator

Nesoid - a better NES Emulator with onscreen D-Pad and start/select buttons.

Snesoid - SNES Emulator much like the above.

Hyperspace - a basic Super Monkey Ball style 3d tilt game. Move a football through a course (soccer-ball for our friends over the pond), you can make the ball jump and run it over speed-up blocks. Available to buy and as a demo (Hyperspace Lite).

Light Racer 3D - this is basically the bike game from Tron; a 3d version of Snake. Pretty tough actually. Available to buy and as a demo (Light Racer 3D Basic)

Mystique: Chapter 1 - you can get this for free. 3d point and click horror puzzler.

Radiant - an old school shooter referencing Space Invaders etc.. it has character dialogue that reminded me of the way dialogue was done in Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Available to buy and as a demo (Radiant Lite)

Speed Forge 3d - a 3d racer with weapons/items. Available as a demo

Sudokster - Sudoku. Simple really.


MULTIMEDIA APPS

beebPlayer (for UK only) - watch the BBC iPlayer on your Android phone

FxCamera - add post-process effects to the photos you take. ToyCam emulates the effect on old toy cameras, polandroid adds a polaroid style frame to your picture, FishEye adds a FishEye lens effect, Symmetricam does symmetry effects, and the AndyWarholizer does what you might think it does: replicates the image 4 times in 4 different colours.

Meridian - a media player that supports a surprising amount of video formats and subtitles.

MixZing Lite - better than the native music player on most Android phones, it does ID3 tagging and finds your album art too.

Ringdroid - cut up your songs / recordings and turn them into ringtones

Shazam - want to know what that song at the party, on TV, or on the Radio is? This is what you wanna use.
 
New version of Dolphin out now. Improved appearance of tabs and refined multitouch zoom. It's basically amazing. Downside is you lose all your bookmarks/settings as it's an entirely new build.

EDIT: Just discovered something pretty awesome about the triple-tap zoom- when you pinch zoom and let go, it remembers that as the "zoom in" level. So when you triple tap, it will zoom back out, then triple-tap again zooms in to that level, so you can set the level you want on a particular page.
 
When you say refined multitouch zoom - is it nice and smooth now?
Its smooth on the default HTC browser, and although I liked the look of Dolphin I found myself going back to the original one just because zooming felt worse
 
Hawkian said:
So when you triple tap, it will zoom back out, then triple-tap again zooms in to that level, so you can set the level you want on a particular page.
Click to expand...
Does it remember for individual pages? Like a zoom level for neogaf and a different one for penny-arcade?

That would be pretty goddamn great.
 
radioheadrule83 said:
When you say refined multitouch zoom - is it nice and smooth now?
Its smooth on the default HTC browser, and although I liked the look of Dolphin I found myself going back to the original one just because zooming felt worse
Click to expand...

It's quite smooth with good sensitivity. It's not iPhone-smooth, but about matches the HTC default browser now from what I remember.


poweld said:
Does it remember for individual pages? Like a zoom level for neogaf and a different one for penny-arcade?

That would be pretty goddamn great.
Click to expand...

That's exactly right. :) But I don't THINK it remembers after a full exit of the browser, though I haven't tested.

eznark said:
Anyone have any solutions for using Dropbox?
Click to expand...
Missed this before, but the web interface for Dropbox works perfectly well- www.dropbox.com.

No options thus far for actually having a dropbox folder on your phone though, that I know of.
 
Packrat
App
Free
+1
"PackRat is an application for packrats such as myself: if you’ve got an extensive collection of music, videos, books, video games, etc. chances are that when you’re in one of those second hand book shops on Charing Cross Road, you’re not always entirely certain whether you already own a particular book or not."

Developer Site

Good enough for a free app. Having some trouble with adding DVD titles, I suspect it's because the application is not referencing enough databases for information.

Worked well on the esoteric books I scanned with it, and works well with games so far. Also works for trade paperbacks of comics. :D
 
I just spent 20 min on the can being sucked into Claymore on MangaDroid. The Droid's hi res really makes something like this fantastically awesome.

The funny thing is I am not even a manga reader.

Anyway, it's free and very recommended if you are into this stuff.

DoggCatcher is $6.99 but the closest I have found at replicating the iPod podcatching services I was so used to. Runs great with a ton of features. Everything else I tried simply didn't do what I wanted and this does.

gsDroid gives you live XBOX Live Friends listing for free. Totally cool.

Giant Bomb app is now available on Android as well. Still in Alpha but runs very well and once again free.

Also...After trying and hating just about every RSS Reader app on the Marketplace I still see that simply homescreen bookmarking Google Reader is the way to go. Works just as slick as it did on my Touch.
 
As a followup...

There is an app called DockRunner for the Droid that turns on the Droid's 'Dock mode' without the need of a dock. Pretty cool, but one of the things I've noticed about it is if you keep it running in the background it will allow you browse the Droid home screen in horizontal mode without having to slide out the keyboard as you normally need to do at the moment.
 
eznark said:
womp, how is podcatcher for updating times? Google Listen is shit, podcasts show up seemingly at random.
Click to expand...

So far so good, Doggcatcher is working well. I only listen to a few podcasts and I basically just download the ones I want individually as they appear. A quick refresh is all it takes however and it has been great at updating them when a new episode pops up. Clicking on the shows you want adds them to a download queue from where it simply starts leeching them down. One very cool feature you can switch on is to have the app only commence downloading when you are connected to a power source - This is great if you do overnight charging and then wake up with all your shows downloaded and ready to go in the morning.

I was never an iTunes guy and avoided it when possible which is why I loved being able to do this through the Touch and now via the Droid as well.

Give it a try, remember that if you don't like it you get 24 hours to get a refund. :)
 
That GiantBomb app is very promising. Videos work super well, news is easy to read; really solid foundation. I'll keep using "Listen" for the Bombcast, though.
 
womp said:
Not as awesome as your avatar.
Click to expand...
Haha, thanks.

I'm considering trying out doggcatcher, even though it is a little pricey. Google listen does not work well at all. Podcasts don't update, as. Some of you have pointed out already.
 
Anybody know of any good call / phone number blocking apps?

Gotten two calls from some dillweed misdialing today and I'd like to just prevent this from happening in the future. Especially since one woke me from my slumber. >:|
 
The Take Out Bandit said:
Anybody know of any good call / phone number blocking apps?

Gotten two calls from some dillweed misdialing today and I'd like to just prevent this from happening in the future. Especially since one woke me from my slumber. >:|
Click to expand...
send the number straight to voicemail
 
How do I get the default SMS to stop receiving messages along with the Handcent one?
Ive set the Handcent to be the default but I still get double of every message.
on the Droid btw.
 
No problem.

-1 for Ringdroid. Completely useless on my droid. Entirely random audio capture despite pressing record well in advance, busted editing, in the end it was easier to just make the ringtone in garageband and upload to the phone via BT.

Also tried to reboot Droid and uninstall / reinstall app. :/
 
alkido is pretty great for a free app - love the interface and they have hp lovecraft / arthur conan doyle on there
 
The Take Out Bandit said:
No problem.

-1 for Ringdroid. Completely useless on my droid. Entirely random audio capture despite pressing record well in advance, busted editing, in the end it was easier to just make the ringtone in garageband and upload to the phone via BT.

Also tried to reboot Droid and uninstall / reinstall app. :/
Click to expand...

Weird stuff. +1 to cancel that out I guess. It works great for me.

But more importantly! Is the app you use to transfer stuff via bluetooth listed in this thread?

I gotta remember to officially submit a couple freebies I've found really useful.
 
Some apps I've checked out recently... starting with some home replacements, didn't see any reviewed yet.

PandaHome
App
Free
+1
Free home replacement app! For something that's free, it's incredibly impressive. You can set a number of homescreens up to 7, I think, skin just about everything, and take screenshots of the homescreen. There are some really nice themes already available. I don't find it as easy to use as dxTop, but for free you can't go wrong.
http://www.pandaapp.com/pandahome/android/support.shtml

Sweeter Home
App
Free
+1
Free home replacement, but still in pre-beta phase, and it shows. Despite the very rough edges and lack of variety in available themes. But its approach to home replacement is by far the most radical of all the apps I have seen. Practically everything that appears on the screen (or doesn't) is completely customizable. If well supported, this could one day become the home to beat.
http://www.sweeterhome.com/

dxTop
App
$2.99
+1
Great home replacement that gives you 4 homescreens, 2 drawers (all apps with more displayed, and running apps with ability to kill), replace individual icons, auto-rotate with accelerometer, screencaps of homescreen, and fully skinnable goodness.
http://www.dxtop.com

qbp.jpg
rubg2s.jpg
10dzerk.jpg
kezos2.jpg

This is the home replacement app I settled on. There is a free demo so you can get a feel for it, but it didn't take me long to decide to shell out the 3 bucks (UNINSTALL THE DEMO FIRST! I got an unfortunate demonstration of the Market refund feature by accidentally uninstalling the wrong dxTop). You get 4 homescreens, but not in the way you might think. They're arranged in a diamond- top, left, right, bottom- with no center screen. Or, an even better way to think about it: swiping a certain direction always brings you to the same screen. The little icon between the two drawers shows you which one you're currently on.

I imagine this could be kind of jarring to Android veterans used to the homescreen, as there's no logic to going "back" to the screen you were just on. But for someone new enough to completely jettison the original homescreen with no problems, it's great to have every screen one swipe away.

As you can see above you can get some pretty dramatic changes going on. And the auto-rotate solved my biggest complaint with the phone so far.

It's a powerful app. For some reason, it's much smoother and quicker on my Droid than the default homescreen. Now I've actually killed the Home "app" on my phone. There's even a skinnable iPhone style-lockscreen if you're into that kind of thing, but I really love the ability to turn off the sound from the lockscreen so easily (movie theater essential!).

Another app I didn't check out but has great reviews is GDE. I know it lets you have multiple homescreens and has a nifty cube effect good for impressing people. dxTop was a quick and clear winner for me, though.

The rest of these are some small but very useful apps that people might like.

Screen On
App
Free
+1
This is an essential battery-saving app: install it, choose which apps you want the screen to stay on forever during, and profit. Anything you don't check will autolock as normal. Maps, the multimedia/car dock app, browser- anything you want to stay onscreen will. Just remember to set your auto-lock duration to 30 seconds; 15 is too short for the app's checking mechanism.

MotoTorch LED
App
Free
+1
Use the LED as a flashlight on the Droid- it's actually fairly bright. Leave this running in the background and head into the video recording app to take some night video.

Layar
App
Free
+1
Extremely robust augmented reality browser. See POIs, restaurants, hotels, wikipedia entry locales, floating Space Invaders, and basically anything else you can imagine superimposed over your camera view.

ShapeWriter
App
$9.99
+1
The keyboard replacement to end all others, ShapeWriter is like the Swype technology just being unveiled on the Omnia II, except with 9 more years of development. Draw the shapes of entire words to type- marvel at the eerie accuracy and ease of correction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeTb7nPYlOA

I downloaded this app thinking it'd just be a novelty for me since I have a hardware keyboard- indeed, if you have only a touch keypad, check this out immediately. But even for Droid users, this app is impeccable for two situations: one handed typing, and typing while the phone is in a dock (i.e., poking with your index finger). For these alone I think I'm not even gonna wait the 30 days of the trial to shell out the 10 bucks. It seems steep, but if you use the phone's keyboard every day, this and dxTop can be had for less than an extra large pizza.

Hope these are of some use!
 
Hawkian said:
Weird stuff. +1 to cancel that out I guess. It works great for me.

But more importantly! Is the app you use to transfer stuff via bluetooth listed in this thread?

I gotta remember to officially submit a couple freebies I've found really useful.
Click to expand...
+1 for RingDroid from me as well. Created a cusom ringtone and notification yesterday with little hassle. Great little app.
 
I looked at Open Home but Panda Home seemed to replicate its features.

Could you maybe explain a little bit about what an app does if you're going to post it in bold here? :P
 
Is there anything on the lines of MobiTV? Also is there a way to make apps terminate automatically after you go to home screen?
 
Hawkian said:
Weird stuff. +1 to cancel that out I guess. It works great for me.

But more importantly! Is the app you use to transfer stuff via bluetooth listed in this thread?

I gotta remember to officially submit a couple freebies I've found really useful.
Click to expand...

Its simply called Bluetooth File Transfer. Total freebie. Works well so far.
 
RobertM said:
Is there anything on the lines of MobiTV? Also is there a way to make apps terminate automatically after you go to home screen?
Click to expand...

I've been using TaskKiller until I read some of the dev literature... and now I'm not using it. I've still got it installed so I can see what programs are still running, but its not actually needed.

If you want to use another app just go to the home screen and stop worrying about it. If an app is written well it will create a save state and run its stop or pause routine, and in doing so is free to be terminated by Android should the phone start requesting more memory. When you load the app back up again, the routine that restarts the app should load the relevant data to make it SEEM as though you never closed it at all. Its genius really.

Things like music run independent of apps as a service, and like the apps, that service can be 'paused' using a save state - so all you have to do is pause the music and home-screen make things 'killable'.
 
That shapewriter app is amazing, I wish it cost a bit cheaper though. Who knows I need to use it more and if I get to use to it I will buy it.
 
If I may recommend one it is the Mediafly app.

http://mediafly.com/

My favorite podcasting app. I hated Doggcatcher. With mediafly I can manage my subscriptions from the web. Very Nice. And the audio one is free but it is well worth $0.99 for the video one.

Also just tried Pandahome. Really nice except some widgets didn't work. Like Twidroid.
 
Fox318 said:
If I may recommend one it is the Mediafly app.

http://mediafly.com/

My favorite podcasting app. I hated Doggcatcher. With mediafly I can manage my subscriptions from the web. Very Nice. And the audio one is free but it is well worth $0.99 for the video one.

Also just tried Pandahome. Really nice except some widgets didn't work. Like Twidroid.
Click to expand...

What didn't you like about Doggcatcher? I had Mediafly on my Blackberry but I didn't feel like I was in total control, oh, and whenever I would get a phone call while listening to a podcast then I'd end the call and resume, it would restart from the beginning.
 
Fox318 said:
If I may recommend one it is the Mediafly app.

http://mediafly.com/

My favorite podcasting app. I hated Doggcatcher. With mediafly I can manage my subscriptions from the web. Very Nice. And the audio one is free but it is well worth $0.99 for the video one.

Also just tried Pandahome. Really nice except some widgets didn't work. Like Twidroid.
Click to expand...
-1 to Mediafly. It's in beta, so perhaps it will get some cleaning up in time, but it has some real issues. The menus are a goddamn mess (to mark a podcast as auto-download, you must navigate to an episode of that podcast, long-touch it, click information, then hit menu, then hit auto-download. Seriously, what??) and the auto-download feature itself seems more than spotty.

Also, as far as I could tell there is no way to scrub through a podcast :lol

The ability to login to the site to manage your podcasts is really neat, though. Will keep an eye on it, but for now I think I'm gonna give Doggcatcher a shot, and if all these fail me, either go back to Google Listen or write my own damn podcast RSS feed reader.
 
Google reader works very nicely on Android phones and is a good way to manage RSS and podcasts (though it doesn't play podcasts in the browser). It's not an app though.

Check out Xtreme Labs Speedtest to run an upload/download speed test to see your phone's current data connection.
 
Google Listen has worked perfectly for me, but i'm no podcast-fiend, just a few subscriptions here and there. +1

GhostRidah said:
That shapewriter app is amazing, I wish it cost a bit cheaper though. Who knows I need to use it more and if I get to use to it I will buy it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's truly impressive. I haven't shelled out the cash yet but I don't think I can go back at this point :lol
 
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