Finding cool apps for Android these days is a daunting task. Mobile devices are experiencing a sort of gold rush mentality among software developers who are trying to make their mark and turn a buck. And while this is good for innovation in the long term, it can be a gargantuan pain for consumers in the short term because it means you and I need to weed through a ton of mediocre applications to find the diamonds in the rough.
So, how do you find the good stuff without investing a bucketload your oh-so-valuable time?
One way to improve the signal to noise ratio is to use social marketplace apps. These tools interface with the native Google Android Market, monitoring it for trends. Then it reports back what’s new, what’s hot, and what’s not.
Two noteworthy apps in this space right now are AppAware which we’ve already covered, and AppBrain.
I’ve been using AppAware myself with great success. But funny enough, one of the top trending apps for the past few weeks is AppBrain. A quick review shows that AppBrain appears to be a more robust solution. It has an extensive website to browse and is clearly an active marketplace.
Now that I think about it, however, maybe the big take away for social market apps isn’t that consumers like me can save time by using them, but that mobile app developers in the ministry and non-profit space need to keep abreast of these players and make sure to submit their apps! And don’t forget to monitor the comments once your app is recognized in order to be responsive to issues discovered by your users.
Developing a great app is pointless if it goes unrecognized by the world at large.
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