The Android market is one of my favorite places to spend time while on my Motorola Droid, but cruising the market is not nearly as fun as messing around with some of the great applications that are available. Trying to decide which of the hundreds of thousands of applications are a solid starting point can be a daunting task, but we love to help you out with that. Let's take a look at some great applications that our writers use on their devices.
Ali Fazel - Mangler
Ever want to talk to your MMO buddies while you're out and about? How about leading 
a raid when you're nowhere near the controls of your level 80 Death Knight? Now you can do all of that on the go with Mangler. Mangler is an open-source Ventrilo client for Linux that has been ported to Android. It works a lot like Vent does on your desktop. You add the server along with your user name information, and then you can connect. There are even some advanced audio settings that you can configure, although of course not even close to what you can set up on your PC or Mac. There are occasional glitches and FCs, but keep in mind that it's not a full release yet, and they don't happen that often anyway. [Market Link | AppBrain]
Kyle Gibb - Congress
It's election time again the U.S. of A. and 2010 is set to be one of the more important 
mid-term elections in recent years. No matter where on the political spectrum you fall, there are tons of important issues ranging from the economy to the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Congress allows you to quickly find information for your state's pair of Senators along with your Representative or you can browser all Senators and Representatives. The app can tap into your GPS to leave no doubt which district you reside in and thus which member of the House represents you. From each official's page, you can quickly access contact info, voting records, sponsored bills, news, what committees they sit on, and more. [Market Link | AppBrain]
Jerry Hildenbrand -- Retweet
The native Twitter client is light, fast and integrates with your contacts, but in the 
features department, it's lacking a bit. Retweet fixes part of that by adding in "old style" retweet functionality to the Twitter for Android app. Often it's better to quote and add to someone's tweet instead of just republishing it, and that's exactly what retweet will let you do! To use, hit the action button on a tweet, choose to share, select the retweet app and you're in business. Retweet is free, and despite warnings that it is for Android 2.1 it works a treat on Froyo as well. [Market Link | AppBrain]
Sean Brunett - Picture Dial
Do you have one or two contacts that you communicate with all the time? Want a faster, 
more efficient way to contact, preferably directly from the home-screen? Picture Dial does just that. The app allows users to place a widget on their home-screen that can be personalized based on your contacts. There are two different sized widgets, large and small. The large version allows four contacts and takes up 50 percent of the real-estate on a page.The smaller version allows for two contacts. After deciding which version you want, go into the settings and choose which contacts you want to place there. You can then choose whether to direct dial, text or email that contact. You can even set it to ask every-time which action to perform. It’s a handy little app, and one that will save time and energy! [Market Link | AppBrain]
Andrew Melnizek - Dictionary.com
For all of you loquacious (download the app, m'kay?) people out there who 
just can't get enough words in a day, there is an app for you. The Dictionary.com takes everything you love from the website and squeezes it into one little package. This means all your favorite definitions can be found in one convenient place. The app also allows you to look up synonyms to words using Dictionary.com's sister site: Thesaurus.com. Last but not least, you can place a widget on your Android home screen that will give you Dictionary.com's word of the day. Oh, and don't worry if you can't pronounce some of the words, the app will say it out loud using its creepy male and female voice. (loh-kwey-shuhs) [Market Link | AppBrain]
Phil Nickinson - Hella Umbrella
Imagine a side-scrolling game like Super Mario Brothers, then turn it on its head. 
Literally. Hella Umbrella -- currently in beta -- is a basic side-scroller in which you maneuver your little gal through a series of levels in search of rain for her parched town. You can create and share your own levels, which is nice, but it's the upside-down gameplay that will really get you. Tilt the screen 90 degrees, and you start to fall, with only your umbrella to slow you. You end up having to play the game upside down (what is right-side up, anyway?) as much as anything, and you really can get quite dizzy if you're not careful. Free beta. [Market Link | AppBrain]
Dallin Hampton - Trivial Droid
Quite honestlyj I’m not one who typically wastes precious space on my phone with 
pointless games like Pocket God which is on it’s way to Android. But I find Trivial Droid to be quite a bit of fun. It’s got a good well of questions that it draws from with more added each update and a good spread of categories that allow for a fresh experience with every play. Now I’m not saying you’ll never run across the same question twice (which I have on multiple occasions) but with time, this app should grow more and more giving you a little something to tell your friends about every time you come across a little interesting fact that, whether you got the answer right or wrong, you can still share with your friends to seem like a bank of wisdom. The app is free which gives you all the more reason to just try it out and see what you think about it for yourself! [Market Link | AppBrain]
Jared DiPane - SpongeBob Memory Game
Many times I catch myself on the go with little kids around and they see me playing all 
these fun games on my Droid and they want to join the action. Luckily developers think about this and develop games and applications that will meet these needs. The SpongeBob Memory Game is a great option for this due to its very easy to use, yet practical interface. The children can easily touch the screen to try and reveal the characters and match them. This game is a great option for those who travel with children, or for those who may just have a love for SpongeBob, like myself. [Market Link | AppBrain]
21 Comments
cant believe angry birds didnt make the list,lol
Agreed.
I downloaded the beta this afternoon after reading about it here on AC, and i'm totally hooked. Can't wait for the full version to be released.
I've had it on my vibrant since it was announced this morning
Wish I could add it to my list, but keeps force closing nearly every time I launch it on an EVO. Hopefully the beta gets updated shortly.
Phil, just so you know, you accidentally typed "hello" instead of "hella" for the title of your pick, "Hella Umbrella". Thanks for the list guys! :)
edit: *Phil (or Jared, whoever typed it up)
The game IS called Hella Umbrella FTW...
Angry Birds not on here, rather angry.. regardless thanks for reminding me to download Dictionary though
Hmm, as a new Android user (after smashing my second crappy Blackberry to a quick end in frustration with its crappy unworking trackball), I was looking forward to a bunch of really awesome apps I should go download. But alas, these are all pretty lame. Is this really the best the Android market has to offer? A retweeter, a dictionary, and a congress reference?
I don't know if you're trolling or not but assuming you're not just look at the top 50 or so apps in each category.also look deeper in games and tools... there's some really awesome stuff in there... there's even an app that measures how tall something (like a tree) is and it's accurate to like 6 inches lol. Unfortunately at this point the market interface is kind of a mess and you may want to try a site like http://www.appbrain.com if you are having trouble finding some good apps. I usually use the app's rating as a pretty good metric of whether it is worth downloading or not. Also these posts are designed to highlight some of the more obscure apps that they liked or found useful as it would be kind of pointless to just like list all the apps that everyone already has on their phones...
I just want a screen shot of lookout telling me congress is safe
I was contemplating the jump from my web-os Palm Pre to an Epic 4g with Android. I heard that there are like 70,000 apps. If this dictionary app and that congress app are what I've been missing I think I'll stick with web-os...
Obvious troller is obvious. If you are that braindead of a user who thinks there are 5 apps on the entire platform go get a Godphone. We don't need retards showing off the platform. In point of fact its preferable you don't so go to the Apple store this morning and get one.
WebOS is a great OS on the Palm Pre...and it is hard to consider leaving it. As many others have said, it is perhaps one of the finest mobile OS's around. However, I think you will be quite excited and happy to go from a Palm Pre to a HTC EVO (running Android's 2.2, Froyo). I switched to the EVO from the Pre...and this is what I found.
There is more to a phone than a slick interface. Pre has a great interface, but where are the apps. If you don't need any apps, then the Pre is probably where you should stay (if your Pre isn't crumbling). Build quality on the EVO is many times as good as the cheaply built Pre. (How sad that Palm went cheap to build such a great phone!). The Build quality of most Android phones is superior. The HTC EVo is a delight.
Screen size. I still have my Pre. And its screen size is not so good. I can read my EVO so much more easily. And here is a marvelous thing: You can actually press your finger where you want to go on the screen, and it goes there! And when I am reading, I can really read it. Size does matter.
But the bottom line for me was the applications. Whether you are a business user, a student, a teacher, a doctor, or pastor, there are going to be specific apps that are going to be "must have's" for helping your daily tasks. 80,000 apps and counting. I bet there is something out there that suit your needs.
what about a good golf game
WOW! All this passion because the staff wanted to share SOME of their FAVORITE apps. Folks, get a clue, the list is not all inclusive and is not the best of the best, it's a list of some of the apps that the staff use and like. I'm sure your list might be different or not, but the point being, it's their opinion and not necessarily their favorite app, just one they use.
My list would be different in that I'd list Launcher Pro as my favorite, then move to Appbrain, then Settings Profiler, then Gesture Search and finally (at least for a top 5) Google Voice SMS. That's not to say that these are the only apps, just today the ones I use and like the most. The difference between my top app and the bottom app is not very much, matter of fact it was hard to decide, but a decision had to be made. :-)
So enjoy the list, like it or not, but don't hate, just don't use and move on to something else.
Jeessshhh!
Very well said.
To the Android Central Staff: Do not be discouraged by the trolls!
Your weekly app picks have added 1 or 2 new apps to my collection each time you post them. Thank you for taking the time to give us a sampling of the extensive app catalog!
They should make Congress for state and local governments. prop 19, welcome to califonia!!