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What are GAF's Top 5 Android Apps?

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B

BumRush

Member
I know there are a bunch of massive Android threads but I wanted to create a thread to only discuss everyone's top 5 favorite apps. It could be a nice place to learn about the best that Android phones have to offer. I'll kick it off with mine (no particular order)...

1) Launcher Pro - Allows you to customize almost everything on your main screen...amazing app

2) Beautiful Widgets - Tons of widget options / skis to once again, customize your main screen

3) Pageonce - Puts all of your bank accounts, debts (credit cards, loans, etc), investments and bills in one place...and it's free

4) Advanced Taskiller - Allows you to shut down ALL unused apps at once. Great for saving battery

5) Tango - Basically "Facetime" (iPhone's video chat app) for non iPhone phones

What am I missing GAF?
 
Bboy AJ

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
http://phandroid.com/2011/06/16/android-psa-stop-using-task-killer-apps-now/
 
M

mingus

Member
In no particular order:

Aldiko - all my ebook needs.
Chinese Character Trainer - does a pretty good job of making me think I'm keeping up with my Chinese.
ColorDict - offline dictionary (I don't have a data plan) that you can add modules for different languages, wikis, etc.
Swype - best keyboard ever.
Amazon Appstore - free app a day.
 
B

BumRush

Member
mingus said:
In no particular order:

Aldiko - all my ebook needs.
Chinese Character Trainer - does a pretty good job of making me think I'm keeping up with my Chinese.
ColorDict - offline dictionary (I don't have a data plan) that you can add modules for different languages, wikis, etc.
Swype - best keyboard ever.
Amazon Appstore - free app a day.
Click to expand...

Sounds cool!! Thanks!
 
T

The Shadow

Member
In no particular order:

Calorie Counter - Allows you to set a total calorie intake based on your activity level and then will subtract calories by meals.

CardioTrainer Pro - There's a few of apps like this one but this is the one I use. Tracks your workouts.

Yelp - If you travel a lot, this is a great app. Shows you popular spots in cities and will load directions into Maps or Navigation so you can find them.

Car Maintenance - Keeps track of repairs, gas fill ups, and general maintenance. If it's time to get your oil changed, it'll give you reminders.

mSecure - It's a paid app but I got it free from Amazon App Store. Stores passwords, keycodes, all that stuff but then encrypts them under a master password. You can also set it to delete all your passwords if the master password is inputted incorrectly too many times.
 
W

wormstrangler

Banned
ttorrent (an actual full torrent app, not just a remote control for your pc torrents)
skype
youtube
google maps
solitaire

I use my Galaxy S connected to my TV everyday (youtube, movies, music, etc). Love that functionality.
 
J

jtb

Banned
Facebook. It's a horrible, shitty app (though much less shitty than it used to be), but it + their new Messenger help keep me connected at all times. Which is really nice when you're trying to organize stuff, given that Facebook is ubiquitous.

Aldiko - I like to read, this lets me do that on my phone.

Maps - Well, it's absurdly helpful. And its OOTB functionality really has all I could ask for.

Pandora + Last.fm + Google Music - all great for juggling my music needs (and it's nice to have auto-scrobbling with Last.fm even if I don't pay for the radio function... which is really what Pandora is for - and is better at - anyways)

Game Dev Story - Best game on Android phones. When's the sequel coming?
 
T

thezerofire

Banned
taskkillers actually use up your battery more quickly. Don't use them.

Handcent SMS
Swiftkey keyboard
Soundhound Infinity
Fancy Widget Pro
 
T

twinturbo2

butthurt Heat fan
ESPN ScoreCenter (useful for catching up on sports scores)
Angry Birds (it's not a smartphone without it)
Riptide GP (a watery racer from the guys that made Hydro Thunder Hurricane)
Asphalt (I think it's only in the Amazon app store at the moment, but it's worth a download)
Pandora Radio (I like it, my mom likes it, everybody in the household likes it)
 
W

wormstrangler

Banned
the walrus said:
Facebook. It's a horrible, shitty app (though much less shitty than it used to be), but it + their new Messenger help keep me connected at all times. Which is really nice when you're trying to organize stuff, given that Facebook is ubiquitous.
Click to expand...

Goddamn right it's shit. Why is it seemingly always behind what's really on facebook. And it's limited functionality is infuriating. I just use the browser version.
 
B

beje

Banned
Spotify: mix and match my own music with a cloud library + auto-sync on the phone. Shame it's a little more battery hungry than other music players.

Twitter official app: it's the only one I know with push notifications so at least I get DMs and mentions on time, and not 3 hours later because the system decided to kill it due to low RAM (my phone's almost ancient) like it happens with polling apps.

U4bear: like Grindr but free, with more features, less queens and hotter guys.

Trillian: MSN and Facebook chat (+ a lot more) on push so it doesn't get better than that.

Titanium Backup: make a backup of your apps and data in case something goes wrong and you have to reformat your phone. Pro version does a lot more stuff like integrating updates on system partition, move apps from system to user areas and vice-versa, scheduled backups... totally worth those $5. Also useful to get rid of manufacturer/carrier bloatware and unwanted system apps (you can do it with the free version)
 
R

radioheadrule83

Banned
Do It Tomorrow
Task management for procrastinators.
Step 1) Note down things you want to get done
Step 2) Do it, or put if off until tomorrow.
Very simple, and oddly motivational. Its a simple, pretty app and it works! Try it!

Spotify
You need a Spotify subscription, but its worth it imo. Its not only the Spotify library anywhere you have a half-decent mobile signal: you can synchronise certain playlists (or all of them) to work offline on your phone, and do so over your home wireless network - your device will appear on the desktop client in the same way that iPods appear in iTunes.

Zedge Ringtones and Wallpapers
I don't really use ringtones, but I do like a nice notification tone to differentiate my Facebook messages from my texts from my emails etc. And I like a nice change of Wallpaper now and then. This is a good app for that.

Converter Lite
Metric / Imperial - whatever! No weight, length, volume or temperature will befuddle you again.

Rail Planner by Thales (UK Only)
Great for long train journeys. It'll even tell you what train platform you can expect to stand on.

Bike Doctor
If you have a bicycle but maintaining it isn't your forté, this'll help you out!
 
B

BackwardsSuggestions

Member
Go Launcher Ex - Find it more reliable than the rest. (It's a home screen app)

Facebook - As shit as is it, it's handy.

Coin Dozer - Fun game. It's a mobile version of those 1p, 10p slot machinces where to put in a coin and it pushes against other coins until they fall out.

Minecraft - Self ex.

Data Monitor - Monitors the data I send/receive over 3G,Edge
 
Boogie9IGN

Boogie9IGN

Member
Beluga - Great way to talk/send pics to a bunch of friends at once. Think of it as a chatroom that never goes offline
Handcent SMS - Texting (with a neat Super Mario World theme )
Yelp - Great to find a place to eat
Winamp - Good for mp3s
Tesla LED - Boom, instant flashlight!

I also like Launcher Pro for making my phone look snazzy, aDownloader for torrents, Battery widget, SiMi Clock for make your own clock widgets, Pandora for radio and Google Music to stream all my music from home.
 
B

BumRush

Member
Boogie9IGN said:
Beluga - Great way to talk/send pics to a bunch of friends at once. Think of it as a chatroom that never goes offline
Handcent SMS - Texting (with a neat Super Mario World theme )
Yelp - Great to find a place to eat
Winamp - Good for mp3s
Tesla LED - Boom, instant flashlight!

I also like Launcher Pro for making my phone look snazzy, aDownloader for torrents, Battery widget, SiMi Clock for make your own clock widgets, Pandora for radio and Google Music to stream all my music from home.
Click to expand...
Tell me more about simi clock
 
M

mj1108

Member
Handcent SMS
Tune In Radio
PageOnce
Google Music
Yelp

Bonus: if you use Exchange email at work, get Touchdown.
 
E

EvetS

Member
Tasker - Automates nearly everything. Maybe daunting at first to setup, but I found it indispensable. For example, I have it automatically switch to silent at campus, turn on WiFi at home, toggle on/off mobile data every hour, log battery level... and I've only scratched a fraction of the features.

Jewels Delux - Great graphics with different game modes that will get you hooked.

ES File Explorer - Nicely featured file manager that also browses windows shares in my network.

Image View - Opens up your pictures at the original resolution.

MortPlayer - Music player that can playback by filename/foldername (instead of id3 tags).


And if rooted:

Titanium Backup - Schedule backup apps and app data to SD card to be restored later.

ROM Manager - Easy method to flash a custom recovery, nandroid backup entire device, update to Cyanogenmod...

S2E Simple - Installs a script to use the SDext as your internal memory. Choose what you want to be moved to the ext3/4 partition, apps, app data, dalvch cache, download cache
 
Bboy AJ

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Plume - This is the best Twitter app, IMO. No one mentions it, either, which is strange. It is the best UI and has a bunch of features, widgets. Great, great app.
 
C

Chorazin

Member
Bboy AJ said:
Plume - This is the best Twitter app, IMO. No one mentions it, either, which is strange. It is the best UI and has a bunch of features, widgets. Great, great app.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more! Tons better than the official app, with a kick ass widget too.
 
A

alphaNoid

Banned
Launcher Pro
Google Talk
Google Gesture Search
Facebook
Citrix Receiver

Honorable Mention : Handscent SMS (best SMS program on any platform)
 
G

GK86

Homeland Security Fail
ADW launcher- love the wealth of options it gives you. Makes your phone fully customizable.

Maps- best way to get around the city.

IMDb- showtimes, reviews, trailers, upcoming all in one place.

Point- find restaurants, theaters, events, cheap gas near by your location.

Widget locker- slide to call/txt/whatever, custom lock screen.
 
J

jtb

Banned
rodrigoviola said:
Is there an app that lets you do Facebook group chat?
Click to expand...

This may or may not serve what you're looking for - but the Facebook Messenger app (the offical one, but not the Facebook app) has group chat. Not sure if they've patched in being able to see if everyone else is online, but its certainly a lot better for managing group messages (which are all merged with Chat anyways these days) than the Facebook app proper.
 
D

Dali

Member
tinyshark - use grooveshark on your phone for free (basically like spotify only better)
pandora
dolphin - my browser of choice
google listen - find and listen to podcasts
dropbox - upload files to a server for easy sharing between multiple devices
 
B

BumRush

Member
If people keep posting I can update the OP with descriptions of the Apps that seem to show up often...

...if not, this was helpful already! THANKS GAF!
 
D

dejay

Banned
Evernote - I also run this on my PC and can access via the web. I store all my thoughts, shopping lists, etc. It's easy to edit stuff and you can add photos and sound and everything syncs nicely.

Dropbox - Similar to the above but it's for files. I mostly use it for PC stuff but I keep my keepass stuff there too.

Tasker - Take control of your device and make it your bitch. It's pretty good for making your phone do things under specified conditions; things such as turning on WiFi when it senses it's close to your house, turning off sound between certain times or making your phone not sleep when an a particular app is running and you're connected to the charger.

BeyondPod - What I use for podcasts. Other's like Dogcatcher, but I've never tried it as I'm happy with BeyondPod.

Launcher Pro - Great launcher - I've probably tried them all but this gives me most of what I want.
 
S

S. L.

Member
Tweetdeck - folds twitter and facebook into one handy unbloated app

dropbox - it's useful

google maps - so i don't get lost

Windfinder pro - super useful if you sail
 
T

Triple Da G.O.D!

Member
SkyFire -The best browser on Android. Lets you choose at will to either launch a mobile or desktop version of a website. It also lets you watch videos you couldn't normally. But you can't rewind the video and it's useless for any phone running a firmware that handles flash. If it doesn't then what you can watch is a lot less limited. Only drawback is to that feature is you have to pay $2.99 to use it if you weren't an early adopter.

MangaWatcher -Lets you download manga from different websites to your phone. You can even let it download stuff for you and import manga from your computer. I would suggest just paying for the full version unless you want to keep up with less than 10 mangas at a time.

Tapatalk -Handy for those forums that use it. Makes it a lot easier to navigate said sites. I'm very glad that GAF uses SecondApps though.

SwiftKeyX -I have no idea how I'd get by without it. It does really help in your typing proficiency on your phone.

Astro Pro -The best file manager on Android. And if you can't stand ads then pay the $2 bucks to remove it. Does everything a file manager should.

Honorable Mentions

eBay -I really like how featured it's become in its last couple of updates. It's damn near like using the site itself now and I'd gladly suggest it over using the site.

Bank of America -If you have a Bank of America account then you need this app. Better than using the site in my opinion.

EasyTube/Tube X -If you need to download a video off of YouTube then this is that app. Downloading what you want is simple as finding the video and downloading what format you want it in.
 
I

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
In no particular order, of the stuff I couldn't live without:

ADW Launcher EX
Root Explorer
Pocket Casts
Swype
Go Dialer
 
A

abunai

Member
Runkeeper: stats and tracking etc for exercise
connectbot: ssh to my server on to go, use irssi etc
poweramp: best mp3 player i've encountered
baconreader: nice reddit reader with a better UI than redditisfun
setcpu: setting lower cpu speeds when the screen is off/other profiles saves a bunch of battery
 
C

Coeliacus

Member
Google Maps - No. 1 reason to own a Smart phone
Gtasks - Mostly just a notepad to tell myself to remember stuff
Foursquare - Social networking for going out - great for discovering the city
Datuner/Mobile Metronome/Guitar tabs - You get the idea
Swiftkey X - Better keyboard
Google Reader - Very nice app now.
 
N

nubbe

Member
Spotify - Cuz i am a party animal
Voddler - I like them french and spanish movies for free
Revision3- I'm a nerd
TED - I like to learn
Listen - People like to have options and I like to hate it
 
W

W1SSY

Member
Launcher Pro - I like how customizable it is and the widgets are pretty good.

Pocket Casts- My favorite podcast player. I have used Doggcatcher and Listen and this one has the best UI and works the best in my opinion.

Battleheart - A fun rpg that has controls that works well on a touch device.

Evernote - Just started to use it but the ability to keep notes between my computer and phone is great for to do lists and grocery shopping.

Gmail - I have to have a way for getting my school email and this works as expected.
 
C

Corran Horn

May the Schwartz be with you
LauncherPro - Make my phone look purty.
Opera Mobile - since posting on gaf with normal browser wont work for me.
BeyondPod - Podcast RSS Reader - Use it for my podcasts
Amazon MP3 - Listen to my music online.
At Bat 11 - MLB app. Listen to radio feeds of any game I want :D
 
pr0cs

pr0cs

Member
Free:
Quickpic
Audiogalaxy
Dropbox
Soundhound
My Tracks
Remote Desktop
Swype


Paid:
Colorize widget
Slingplayer
Whatsapp
 
A

andycapps

Member
CardioTrainer Pro - Workout trainer that tracks your times, speeds, approx calories burned, etc.
Camera Zoom FX - Much better than any of the default cameras I've seen because you can do quite a few filters (at full camera resolution if you want) vs. the hippstamatic or Instagram type stuff that isn't full resolution (that I'm aware of).
Tweetdeck - Best Twitter app in that you can do that, as well as Facebook. The presentation is better in it vs the others I've used. You can also change the text size so you can see more or less when you're scrolling.
Rom Manager - Helps quite a bit if you're into custom ROM's like myself. MIUI is currently my ROM of choice. I've used Cyanogen in the past as well as a little of Fresh.
Swiftkey X - Best keyboard I've used.
 
O

Orcastar

Member
In no particular order:

Spotify
Facebook
Youtube
Evernote
Google Maps

I always feel like I'm not utilizing my phone to its fullest... Maybe some of the apps listed here will help with that.
 
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