{"id":74,"date":"2010-11-12T10:12:31","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T15:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulbegley.com\/2010\/11\/android-software-list\/"},"modified":"2010-11-12T10:12:31","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T15:12:31","slug":"android-software-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/?p=74","title":{"rendered":"Android Software List"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lots of people are getting Android phones.&#160; My last update was in January, so it\u2019s overdue.&#160; The most compelling feature of the Android devices is the integration of all the applications, and in particular with Google Services.&#160; For example, search from the home screen can include Text, e-mail, contacts, calendar, or web.&#160; <\/p>\n<p>The Droid is the most stable smartphone I have ever used.&#160; It has run for at least 45-50 days at a time without turning it off.&#160; At this point, I cycle the power once a month and mute the phone each night.&#160; I don\u2019t recommend using a Task Killer.&#160; Lots of people seem obsessed with killing tasks to optimize battery life.&#160; I just don\u2019t load tons of widgets on my phone and enable wireless and Bluetooth when I need them.&#160; My experience is that running ActiveSync and Google Mail sync 24&#215;7, my battery can easily last through 12-15 hour days. <\/p>\n<p>Ad Hoc Apps \u2013 there are several times I have installed an app to solve a problem.&#160; I\u2019m am constantly amazed at the variety and quality of applications available for Android phones.&#160; <\/p>\n<p><strong>Favorite Apps<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Google Sky App \u2013 I use this at night in the back yard to explore the night sky before going to bed.&#160; The dog gets some exercise, and I unwind a bit. We have also used it to locate meteor showers and the Space Station. <\/li>\n<li>Evernote \u2013 I use it to capture information for later review or reference.&#160; It syncs with the Evernote desktop client.&#160; There is also a Chrome plug-in so Google searches also search Evernote data. <\/li>\n<li>Twidroyd \u2013 Twitter client, does a good job, but ever more intrusive ads in the free version may have be go pro, or explore other Twitter clients. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Installed Apps<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Touchdown &#8211; Exchange Activesync client &#8211; $20 <\/li>\n<li>Where&#8217;s My Droid &#8211; locate by sending a text or e-mail <\/li>\n<li>Twidroyd for Twitter &#8211; twitter client <\/li>\n<li>Google Translate <\/li>\n<li>WordPress &#8211; blogging tool <\/li>\n<li>chompSMS &#8211; Texting client <\/li>\n<li>Facebook for Android &#8211; Facebook client <\/li>\n<li>YouTube &#8211; upgrade from default client <\/li>\n<li>Google Maps \u2013 awesome, ties into Navigation which rivals, but will not replace my Garmin, and can show traffic overlays <\/li>\n<li>Aidiko Book Reader &#8211; eBook reader, with large, free library <\/li>\n<li>Google Voice &#8211; replaced Verizon voicemail, and use for international calls <\/li>\n<li>DropBox &#8211; sync files with PC&#8217;s and web <\/li>\n<li>Google Chrome to Phone &#8211; send web pages to your Droid &#8211; experimenting <\/li>\n<li>GMail &#8211; upgrade of default client <\/li>\n<li>NPR News &#8211; fair and balanced <\/li>\n<li>BBC News &#8211; because US news pretty much sucks <\/li>\n<li>Voice Search (Google) &#8211; improved client for voice search, marginal <\/li>\n<li>Places Directory &#8211; ties into Google Maps, very useful when you travel <\/li>\n<li>Astro File Manager &#8211; awesome, backup and restore apps and data to SD card <\/li>\n<li>NYCMate &#8211; NYC bus and train maps \u2013 very handy if you travel to NYC. <\/li>\n<li>Google Sky Map &#8211; awesome night sky map <\/li>\n<li>Google Finance &#8211; stock market tracking app <\/li>\n<li>Google Buzz widget &#8211; link to Google Buzz service <\/li>\n<li>Tone Picker &#8211; MP3 ringtones (free) <\/li>\n<li>Swype \u2013 alternate text entry app \u2013 \u2018wipe\u2019 your finger across the on-screen keyboard to spell words.&#160; Awkward with alphanumeric data entry, but amazing with text. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Uninstalled Apps<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These are applications I used on a regular basis.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>HandCent \u2013 excellent SMS client, but I uninstalled because it gets very, very slow possibly due to the number of texts I retain (&gt;10,000, every text in the past year). <\/li>\n<li>Barcode Scanner \u2013 does a good job of scanning barcodes, with Google search integration to comparison shop. <\/li>\n<li>Romote \u2013 Roku DVP Remote \u2013 awesome, awesome app.&#160; We took our Roku (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.roku.com\">www.roku.com<\/a>) on vacation, but forgot the remote.&#160; I installed and configured the Roku Remote in a few minutes, and it worked seamlessly.&#160;&#160; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lots of people are getting Android phones.&#160; My last update was in January, so it\u2019s overdue.&#160; The most compelling feature of the Android devices is the integration of all the applications, and in particular with Google Services.&#160; For example, search &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/?p=74\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,12,17],"tags":[24,62],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-android-2","category-mobile","category-software","tag-android","tag-software-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6YWFc-1c","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}