[Editor’s Note: This is part three of a five part series of must-have apps.]
Right now I have an Android powered HTC phone and I love it.
It is certainly not the most up-to-date Android powered smartphone, but it has a sweet custom OS called MIUI which I installed that makes it run sexy!
I have quite a number of apps installed on my Android right now, but there are a handful that I simply couldn’t live without. These apps make my life so much easier and more enjoyable. To some of you these apps may be quite obvious as most of them are extremely popular apps within the tech community, but for some of you it will be the first that you have heard of these apps.
I highly recommend that if you have an Android phone you should try out all of these apps. They are all awesome in their own way.
So, lets get to it, my 5 Android apps that I can’t live without!
1) Vignette
Cost: $3.99
Available from the Android Market
Being a stickler for good quality photography I have always been someone who gets mad at people who buy a mobile phone based on what the camera is like as they are planning on using it as their primary camera. That being said, mobile phone cameras are getting better and better, and although you will never be able to get anywhere near a decent lens in such a small space, who wants to carry an SLR around with them all day? Therefore I must confess that for me, my phone has become my primary camera that I shoot photos with day-to-day.
One of the main reasons that I came across Vignette is that I was getting quite jealous of iPhone users who were using Instagram to shoot photos and add effects on their iPhone. I was looking for something similar, and although Vignette doesn’t offer the same kind of upload features as Instagram, the effects options are vast and pretty fantastic.
My personal favorite effect is “Velvia” which makes the colours in the photograph a lot more vibrant.
I highly recommend this app if you are often taking pictures with your Android, I promise that it will make your experience 100 times better!
2) Wunderlist
Cost: FREE
Available from the Android Market
A good friend introduced me to Wunderlist last year and since then I have never looked back.
All of us have lists. Whether it’s a bucket list for life, a shopping list with your spouse, or a work to-do list (I have all of these contained within my Wunderlist app). Wunderlist offers an amazing interface for you to keep all of these lists. This includes features like date deadlines, space for extra notes about the task, an option to star urgent tasks, and obviously an option to tick them off once they are done!
One of the huge benefits I have found with Wunderlist is that you can share certain lists. For example, my wife and I have a groceries list. I have it on Wunderlist on my Android (and iPad, Mac and work PC) and I have shared this list with her so she also has it on her iPhone. Wunderlist regularly syncs, so even if I have left for work, my wife can continue to add items to the shopping list throughout the day until I go shopping after work. Similarly, if she heads out on an unexpected shopping trip and picks up some of the bits on the list before I get to the store, she can tick them off the list and they will disappear from my list. This is just one example of how the collaborative list feature can work, but I am sure that from that you can see that there can be many more uses!
In my opinion there is no other way to keep lists, and Wunderlist is available on most other platforms which means you can have your lists on all of your devices, fully synced. Beautiful.
3) Buffer
Cost: FREE
Available from the Android Market
It’s no secret that I am a bit of a social media addict. I do have one dirty little secret though, and that is that I sometimes schedule tweets.
You see, I like to be consistent with my social media engagement, yet, sometimes due to work commitments and general life, it is not always possible. Buffer helps me “keep regular” by tweeting for me at certain times of the day which I set. This can be as little or as many times as you like. Then all I have to do is just queue up some interesting tweets (and now Facebook posts also) ready to be sent out at my assigned times.
Being able to queue up tweets and posts from my phone is extremely handy as I often think of things on the run, or come across interesting articles and links whilst I am browsing the web on the toilet (seriously, smartphone and tablet devices have changed the way I poop forever).
The Buffer app is free, and a queue of 10 tweets is also free. I subscribe monthly and pay to have a larger queue of 50 tweets. The free 10 tweets should be enough for most though. Check it out for sure!
4) Evernote
Price: FREE
Available from the Android Market
If you don’t know what Evernote is then where the heck have you been?
Evernote is the ultimate note-taking app, available across many platforms, so you can use it on all of your devices. If you don’t know about Evernote you need to know. It is the best way to file and store all sorts of information. To describe how it works in words myself probably wouldn’t do it justice. Check out this video from the Evernote website to see the kind of thing Evernote can be useful for.
[tentblogger-youtube OlOLXWvaIy0]
Pretty neat right? I use Evernote on my phone for all sort of things.
Ordered a bottle of wine you never heard of at a restaurant and it was delicious? Take a photo of the label so you can remember what the name was. The text on the label will be fully searchable and you can even add location information so you can find notes based on where you made them. Insanely awesome!
For my work I have to do a lot of face to face interviews for writing articles. Whenever I interview now I record the whole thing directly to Evernote, as well as either typing, or writing and then scanning my notes into the same file on Evernote.
It’s brilliant, trust me, if you don’t use it now, start using it, add a bit of imagination and it will change your life!
5) Angry Birds
Cost: FREE
Available from the Android Market
Every mobile device, in my opinion, is naked without Angry Birds! It is the most well known mobile game in the world right now, and as frustrating as it can be at times, it is also awesome.
For me I find it to be a perfect companion whilst sitting on the toilet and in other similar situations. When you want to pass some time doing something mindless, this is definitely the app for that moment.
Angry Birds is FREE, so there is no excuse to not have it on your Android. Just don’t come knocking at my door when you get to “that level” which is seemingly impossible to complete!
So, there ends my 5 Android apps that I can’t live without, now it is over to you.
What Android app can you not live without?
Mark says
First!
A good list there Mr. B!
I thought I’d throw my list in there for good measure: http://www.irishmark.net/2011/01/05/my-android-apps/
James Brooks says
Thanks Mark!
Will check it out 🙂
Glenn says
It’s a shame that none of these apps work on the Kobo Vox, they have their own store.
ThompsonPaul says
Evernote works really for handling lists too. If you have Evernote Premium, you could put the lists you want to share with your wife into a notebook and share them with her (latest update allows her to edit them as well.) That way you could consolidate Wunderlist and Evernote for one less place to keep track of 🙂
Although I do think Wunderlist might have a few extra features – depends which you value more, the extra functions or the simplicity, I guess.
Thanks for pointing out Vignette. hadn’t come across it before.
James Brooks says
No worries Paul! 🙂
sava says
prayter.com is going to launch their android and blackberry apps soon. i think i would add it to my must have list.
James Brooks says
Sounds cool. Looking forward to checking it out!
wvpv says
1. Google Voice – i use it heavily in the browser and on my phone
2. Hootsuite – i can post to Facebook from here
3. YouVersion – almost done with the OWN365 reading plan
4. Swype beta – much better than the pre-installed version. i was a loyal SwiftKey user until i installed this. one handed typing FTW.
5. Words With Friends – that and Pocket Empires are the only games I play on a regular basis
Honorable mentions: Amazon App Store, Wunderlist (anxiously awaiting the release of Wunderkit), Launcher Pro, Widgetsoid, Titanium Backup, Google Music
Question.
Vignette is better than PicPlz?
Tre Lawrence says
James, I love you brother… but WHAT ABOUT DROPBOX?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL.
Seriously… great list. thanks for posting. Off to try Wunderlist and Buffer.