Here are the Android Apps that I currently love. It’s not a complete list, but it’s a pretty good start.
Music and sound apps
- Subsonic: stream music from your home computer to your phone
- Listen: save and play podcasts like This Week in Google
- Tuner – gStrings: a great guitar tuner
- Pandora Radio: stream customized music based on artists you like
- RingDroid: Make a ringtone or alarm out of any sound you record
- Voice Recorder: Record audio and mail it to yourself
- Shazam: Identify any song you hear
Apps for when you’re traveling
- TripIt: keep track of trips and plane flights for upcoming travel
- Google Translate: translate tons of languages into tons of other languages. You can also do voice-recognition-to-text for English, then translate. This app will even do text-to-speech (voice synthesis) in many languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, and German.
- Yelp: Find great restaurants nearby. Pro tip: scan the reviews to discover good dishes to order.
- Compass: also handy when you’re traveling
Social apps
- Twitter: official Twitter app for Android. This app can take empty/missing pictures in your contacts and populate your contacts’ pictures with their Twitter profile pictures, which is nice.
- Seesmic: another fantastic Twitter app for Android
- Google Buzz widget: an easy way to post to Buzz from your phone. By the way, I’ve noticed myself using Buzz more and more recently. When I started on Twitter, it took me several months to warm to the service. I think the same principle applies to Buzz. Buzz fills a nice niche between Twitter (microblogging) and regular blogging. It’s great when you want to throw out one quick idea, but you need more than 140 characters. You can read my Buzzes (or follow me on Buzz) if you want.
Cool demos / showing off
- Google Skymap: move your phone to see where stars are. Like augmented reality for the sky.
- Tricorder: shows all the different sensor readings of your phone. Includes accelerometer and tilt sensors, GPS and lat/lon, wifi, cell phone strength, compass, acoustic data–even solar activity.
- Metal Detector: an app that detects metal. I still don’t know how it works (maybe it uses the magnetometer sensor that allows the compass), but it actually does work on many types of metal
- Google Earth: most of the eye candy of Google Earth, but on your phone
- LED Scroller: enter a message and your phone turns into a faux LED scrolling sign. Kinda low-tech, but impresses people more than I expected.
- Hypnotic Spiral: makes a swirling spiral that you can control
- The Schwartz Unsheathed: a light sword that makes cool sounds as you move your phone.
Signal strength apps
- Wifi Analyzer: walk around and see a dynamic graph of wifi signal strength. Great for picking the right place to sit in an airport or cafe to get the best wifi signal
- Antennas: shows a Google map with nearby antennas on it. Good for monitoring your phone’s signal strength
- RF Signal Tracker (two versions, Donut and Eclair): another app to measure cell phone tower signal strength
QR Code and Barcode apps
- Key Ring: scan your loyalty and other membership cards (e.g. Safeway, or your gym). Then use this app instead of carrying a bunch of membership cards around. I wish my phone could replace everything in my wallet.
- App Referrer: shows all your installed apps. Click on an application and it will generate a large QR barcode on your screen that your friend can scan to install the same app.
- Barcode Scanner: scan barcodes and QR codes. Very handy to install applications and visit urls. Note that the “Barcode Scanner” app (like App Referrer) can also show QR codes for applications — just press the options button. Can also show QR codes for contacts, bookmarks, and the clipboard.
Core apps / misc
- My Tracks: records where you go using GPS and lets you upload a “track” to Google Maps
- Navigation: get turn-by-turn directions as you drive
- Movies: check movie times and see ratings from critics vs. audiences
- Wheres My Droid: If you lose your phone and it’s in silent mode, this app will help you find your phone. I’ve tried Mobile Defense and that’s also very nice.
- WordPress: Upload images and blog from your phone
- Amazon.com: mobile shopping, plus add things to your Amazon wishlist
- Shopper: Google app to scan barcodes and show product search results
- BBC News: see the latest in world news. This is an unofficial widget.
- News and Weather: customizable news, plus this app shows weather in your current location. Wish I could enter 3-4 cities and flick between weather reports though.
- Weather: see the weather in multiple cities
- Google Finance: check stock prices and news
- Google Maps: see where you are
Google also offers a lot of mobile apps, but I just wanted to highlight my favorite applications.
Okay, those are my favorite Android apps, but what did I miss? Which Android Apps do you love?
{ 71 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for doing more than the standard 10 item list (that usually feature the same 10 apps). I agree with you on every app you mentioned that I have tried. So now I am off to download all the ones I haven’t tried yet.
I like
Animal Translator – it’s kind of fun to show off this to my friend.
and Layar
a lot of the apps I use are in your list, a couple of other I use are;
- connectBot – for tweaking/restarting things on my server(s) via SSH when Im not near a pc or my laptop
- ASTRO – for managing files/folders on my phone and sd card
- robo defense – for passing the time while waiting for the train or when ever I get a spare 5 minutes (its very addictive)
Thanks for sharing your list.
I can add some apps (all from Market):
Mobile GA – Google Analytics in your pocket
Locale – a dynamic settings manager for Android
NewsRob – Google Reader in your pocket
GPRS Monitor – very useful when you have limited data transfer
TasKiller – task manager, close all apps and free memory using one click
Astrid – tasks – to do list
No foursquare love?
Advanced Task Killer (ATK) is a must: makes it very easy to see which apps are running and close them all with one tap. Great for battery life.
Great list.
Great list, Matt! Thanks, I picked up a few new apps that I hadn’t heard about before.
One thing that really needs to be fixed is the Android Market – it is really terrible at app discovery, and payment (showing multiple currencies, for example) really needs to be fixed. Compared to iTunes (which sucks in its own special ways!) it isn’t doing a good job at helping users to discover and use new apps, which is critical for Android’s success IMHO.
Dave
How do you discover these apps? Word of mouth? Searching around in the Android market on my phone is a pain and, other than lists like this one, I’ve found it very hard to find apps that I might actually use.
Very satisfied about Android OS, using most of your apps ( instead of Barcode Scanner I also recommend BeeTagg ). Too bad I can’t install Google Goggles on Cupcake ( v1.5 ).
power manager is pretty good along with yelp’s app.
i am moving to android soon so thank you for this. saves me time knowing what is good
ES File Explorer to manage files on your device and transfer files to and from your PC via WiFi.
Your post’s very timely, as a dev i just got a Nexus from Android’s Device Seeding Program
Sky Map is definitely cool. I’m also surprised to see how well my own app worked out (Tag-ToDo-List) which i only developed on the emulator until now (this is my first Android phone), you might like it too 
I also found Quick Settings, an app that exposes some settings (easy or not so easy to find otherwise) and found it very useful where mobile data transfer and volume are concerned.
I’d add Google Goggles to “Apps for when you’re traveling.” For example, in Seattle I saw a pretty cool-looking building. Google Goggles let me know that it was the Seattle Central Library. If I didn’t know it was a public building, I wouldn’t have known that I could go inside.
Not an essential app, but if you want to save battery life it is: Advanced App Killer; simple and kills apps that would remain open sapping battery life.
Car-finder app: gps-based app that, while not oft-used on the occassional mass parking rarity, works like a charm. also good just for marking a spot you like/love while hiking back-country skiing. Best of all, if you’re a fisherman and you want to mark your spot when you get into some good fish, you’re all set.
Foursquare and Causeworld are both good apps, but use of these are far from universal.
Another great weater app is Weather Bug.
Great list!
Here are 3 of the apps I use the most:
Handcent SMS – Voice recognition texting
Opera Mini – Browser, of course
List Master – Voice recognition list entry
For music I like Slacker Radio
EasyTether & NPR News is a MUST
Replica Island is a great Android game that could become the Super Mario Bros for Android.
Matt,
Could you DM me at googleandblog to setup a 15 minute time-slice at Google IO for your thoughts on Android before SMX Advanced? Could be anytime on May 19th or 20th.
Thank You,
Michael Martin
Google Voice (http://www.google.com/mobile/voice/) – lets me make and manage all my calls through google voice, with better visual voicemail than the carrier-specific stuff.
Geobeagle (http://code.google.com/p/geobeagle/) – Specifically for geocaching, but a makes doing so very easy, and avoids the usual planning requirement.
The barcode scanner will make a bar code for apps, just like App Referrer. No reason to have App Referrer…
I like spotify (need premium membership) and keeper is good for passwords. Thanks for sharing the list.
Point Inside is fantastic for indoor mapping and navigation, and it is free which about all I can afford
I love advanced task killer and es file explorer
Love the QR Code and Barcode apps… It’s the way of the future!
Three favorites:
Bambuser for streaming live video from the phone
Calltrack to keep track of my calls (logs to my google calendar)
and of course Appbrain to manage and browse apps the way Market should have been
Great list, Matt.
I’m seriously thinking of giving up my iPhone, switching to Verizon, and getting an Android-based phone. Are you using the Droid or Nexus One? Do you have a recommendation on which is the better?
PodKast with a “K” is a better podcast tool thank listen. I think you should try it out:
Matt, I thought you were an iPhone user??
I am also a big fan of Advanced App Killer.
EasyTether is also good for writing large or involved blog posts on the go.
I also like andchat for portable Irc.
Matt, I was going to get an Android, but there are too many apps still missing.
I can’t use a phone without Audible, for example. And I know it’s weird, but I read books on my Kindle for iPhone and it sucks not to have that.
I understand why the smaller app makers aren’t there yet, but I wish the big guys were on the Android already.
here are my apps:
http://www.appbrain.com/user/BUGabundo/apps-on-magic
Juice Defender is pretty useful, it powers does the radios based on various criteria.
Doubled my battery life. (x2.54 in last 48 hours).
It’s disappointing to see some of the comments recommending “task killer” apps. Task killers on Android are in general a waste of time and a ripoff. Particularly automatic task killers.
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html
My can’t live without apps…..
Navigation
Movies
Shopper
Yelp
and Pandora Radio
Without these I simply can’t function
Peace
Matt, how was your Holiday? I hope you missed all the trouble in Bangkok and visited Phuket intead.
I protest the lack of NewsRob. The pro version overrides the volume button so you can page forward/back through your news feed. Best feature ever. I’m about 10 minutes faster scanning through my ~175 daily feed items than I am on the desktop since both the feed item and article are pre-loaded plus I can do the news filtering on the subway.
I’m also a fairly heavy Locale user. Flip on airplane mode at night when I’m at home, disable radios at low power, trigger syncs when I hit the wireless network at work, toggle ring modes in various places, etc.
Loops, a looping music composition tool, is pretty neat.
ASE, the Android Scripting Environment, is a fun little toy for one-off little scripts.
Shuffle is a good Getting Things Done app with Calendar integration.
About phone locator, try MapUs a friends, family and phone locator. http://j.mp/MapUs
My favorite app is hands down Setting Profiles. Because it has location based rules, it sets my phone on silent when I get to work and on loud when I leave. I like that it works with cell tower ID’s and it doesn’t consume battery.
Thanks for sharing this list Matt , I’m a soccer fan and I love soccer world cup 2010 – wm2010 for the coming world cup (disclosure: it’s my app), trip it , my tracks. I can’t wait to have a nexus one, and it’s abit weird I can’t find it in germany for now and can’t test those apps, I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer. Great list.
Google Finance and WordPress are the ones I use most and I also like these very much..
Wow, some good suggestions–thanks! David, I tried Foursquare on the iPhone a while ago, but never really got into it.
David Sifry, that’s good feedback. I’m sure the team has heard that, but I’ll file it away to ask them about it.
Teodor Filimon, I hope you like your Nexus One! I’ve really enjoyed mine a lot.
Michael Martin, let’s keep it informal, but snag me when you see me and I’m happy to chat.
Jeff Martin, agreed. I found it before I discovered that feature in Barcode Scanner, so I wanted to give App Referrer a shout-out.
Bruce Keener, I have a Nexus One. Personally, I’d recommend the Incredible over the Droid. For me, I don’t use the keyboard that much and prefer the smaller size because it slips in my pocket. It seems like the Incredible is a really sweet phone.
Andrew Warner, the two that I’ve heard as missing on Android were Mint and Audible. Mint just came out recently, but if you’re an Audible person then you’re still out of luck for now. But I have found that most apps are either on Android or a similar app is available. I’d say that Audible is the most prominent missing app that I can think of off-hand.
Bob McCormick, agreed that recent Android models don’t really seem to need a taskiller like the G1 might have needed at times.
Dave (Original), the holiday was great. We hit Japan, Hong Kong, connected for two hours in Singapore, then several days in Thailand. Most of the time was in Chiang Mai, but we spent one tense night in Bangkok. That’s a good name for a band, by the way.
Yeah have to agree with commenter the app store for android is a mess. JUst seems like the apps go on and on and on though Android has less then iPhone. Also many of them look amateurish and clunky, which makes finding the quality ones even harder.
Demographically Android owners from my experience with friends who own such devices would never think about buying an app. This is out of 10 friends and colleagues who own an Android phone. iPhone and Android owners are different breeds and as a dev Im coding for a platform that’s more likely to provide me revenue then not. Hopefully this generalization is way off, but so far it seems not.
Thanks for sharing.
The Apps I like best are (next to some already mentioned) :
Alice: Tells you when your favorite band is in town by matching your Last.fm playlist with some other database.
BuienAlarm: Gives an alert before it’s going to rain at your location. Saved me a couple of times! (I think this is Dutch only)
The CNN widget is much better than the BBC widget.
Matt – where are the QR codes? Don’t forget you can use goo.gl to make them
One app I use all the time is Searchify. It lets you do things like wikipedia search and unit conversion from the android search box. Quickest way to look things up on wiki I’ve found. Quick entering of calendar events is super handy too.
http://olilan.co.uk/searchify
Tx, interesting list! I recently installed F-Secure Anti-Theft for remote wipe or lock in case the phone is lost/stolen. Won’t do much good against a knowledgeable thief, but it gives me better odds at protecting my data than nothing.
Give these a shot:
Aloqa is great for finding the closest stores and services to your current location (e.g. post office, restaurants, barbershop).
StopWatch Perfect for what it is.
Urbanspoon Another great nearby-restaurant finder with a fun, random slot machine option to help you scout out new places you haven’t tried before.
Steamy Window Good, mindless fun. Drag your finger across your clouded screen, watch the moisture condense. Blow on it to build the moisture back up.
Zillow Check out the homes around you and what they last sold for.
Exciting post as I just took delivery of my nexus one on the 30th (UK vodafone). Having never owned a mob before it’s taking a bit of getting used too but I can tell straight away that it is more than just a phone but a personal computer and I’ve had a great time playing with the apps.
As a Tower Defence fan on the PC I have already located some great tower defence games which are free and great fun. Bubble Defence being the best so far
The metal detector app is a bit hit and miss – it goes off even when no where near metal so although a bit of fun I don’t think it would actually be useful for anything.
for battery life, just change the settings for your email, sense or any other application that gets updated frequently. That makes a big difference and removes the need of using an app killer.
Hi,
Nice list !
PS: If you are a guitarist, you should try TabDroid (a guitar pro tablature player)
Just acquired the HTC Incredible. It’s my first droid phone after suffering with the Windows Mobile 6 on the Saga. Glory! those days are all gone! The 8mpx camera is Incredible. The android os is beyond fun and useful and easy. Happy happy days. Having this list of recommended apps is also quite lovely … thank you to you all!
My friends and I are most amused by Teeter which came on the phone. But then … we’re old and easily amazed.
I will admit that my son does work for Verizon and that he did warn me that if I didn’t LOVE this phone he would disown me. But … no worries. I am madly in Love with this phone.
Again! Thank you very much for this list
My favorites are the barcode scanner and google sky… oh and google goggles is fun. I also downloaded one called Scoreboard that I think is made by google, gives you scores your favorite teams.
I’ve been looking for a good RSS reader for the android that works well with google reader, anyone know of any?
Love Pandora (secret…if you are over the 40 hour limit you can still listen no your phone)
Wow, you listed a lot of other apps I would like to try. Since I am on the G1 I guess I will be removing some first.
Shazam – coolness!
I also use these regularly:
AgendaWidget – show my Google Calendar as a widget on my home screen
KeePassDroid – password manager
ChompSMS – needed for sending SMS to multiple people
NewsRob – syncs my Google Reader account
I appreciate the shout out, Matt!
Oh, and Jeff Martin, yes Barcode Scanner now does the QR Code generation for an app (it didn’t when I first wrote App Referrer.)
However App Referrer can also send a market link via SMS, Email, Twitter (at least for two clients which I could find a public intent to send a tweet,) or a URL to generate a QR Code image through Google’s Chart API (so people could post barcodes in a web forum from their phone.) Also from popular requests you can send an email with links for every app you have installed. Handy for sharing or just keeping a list for your own reference.
You can play with the other methods by changing your default sharing method in the Settings, or a long press.
- Greg / Drathus
App Referrer author
Hi guys,
I don’t have an Android. But it sounds like a cool phone. I just might have to purchase one.
Kind regards,
Sam
X
I started running and working out so I also like a plenty of sports tracker specially the “runner”
Matt, can you give us some advice on making (Android) web apps more Google friendly?
Web apps can have heaps of factors that Google could easily see as questionable seo tactics, or low quality pages.
For example, a mobile web app that produces image (html5 canvas) results from 20+ input fields and has page sections ‘display:none;’ that are only displayed according to calculation results.
Such pages have barely more than the complex data entry forms and data validation code, with the only text being control labels. There’s no room for verbose text that may be beneficial to rank an ordinary page well in Google.
Thanks for any guidance.
What the doodle?!?
just seen this and thought it might interest people reading this post and looking for some new/popular apps – http://www.androidnetworkawards.com/
Also to chime in on some useful apps (other than ones like Locale, Astrid, Astro, etc which have been mentioned)
Advanced Audio – Automatically sets the volume level (media and phone) based on the connection (wired, bluetooth, speaker, etc)
ConnectBot – SSH client
Server Assistant – Simpler way of running “common” *nix server tasks; lets you add a server, then a command and it gives you a button to press to run it.
GPS Logger – Generate a GPX or KML log file based on a time or distance sample. Perfect for geotagging pictures later.
Pure Grid Calendar (.99€) – Beautiful set of skinnable calendar widgets.
KeepScreen – App to keep the device from sleeping when a specified App is running. I use this when using my Droid (plugged in) as a music player at my desk at work so I don’t have to wake it up and unlock the screen to skip around or pause the music.
Hoccer – Motion actived sharing app which exists for Android, iPhone, etc. It’s the first one I tried which let me share things with an iPhone user. Bump didn’t work for us when we tried.
I would say WeatherBug for Android is the best weather app since it provides live data from neighborhood weather stations plus it has some very cool time-lapse camera images.
Matt,
It’s a great list but not globally available -
Pandora is US only
The ability to input voice into Translate depends on whether it’s rolled out in your country or not. It’s not available to me in the UK.
Google Earth is only available where your handset type / network is registered with Google – I have a HTC Desire on T-Mobile UK and Earth still isn’t available since this is a new combination. This is a very frustrating aspect of the Android Market – Apple get criticised for over-control but Google’s control of Market is over-burdensome IMHO.
As usual a lot of the Google hype about products / apps / functions is US only.
It can get very frustrating when there’s a lot of talk about certain functions / features etc and then you find they are not available to you.
However, fair credit to Google today on the new side panel in Google Search results – this was rolled out to a large number of countries / languages at the same time, which is a good thing.
I like aloqua and foursquare also for local info like restaurants and movies but the Three Stooges soundboard app is hours of fun
The USA today app is one of the best for news, Advanced Task Killer is great for speeding up android after you slow it down with apps, lol
Can’t believe more people aren’t using/recommending appbrain. I can’t live without it plus it lets you view market place via web.
I, like Paul, cant get Google Earth and couple of other apps now I have changed to a HTC Desire in the UK with Vodaphone, which is far and away the most super-ist, awesome-ist phone I’ve ever owned!
By a pure stroke of luck, I had an “accident” with my HTC Magic which was running Android 1.6 Donut which was good, but not a patch on the Desire with HTC Sense and Eclair 2.1 its really ironed out all the issues I had with Android and I cant imagine life without it now!
I love the fact that all the “sheep” run out and buy iPhones, but the latest Android Smart Phones offer so much more and aren’t as restrictive as iPhones.
Great apps I use are:
Cardio Trainer – I’m training for a marathon so being able to get all the GPS data of my runs, tied in with Google Maps, whilst listening to my playlists and racing against myself with voice updates on how well I’m doing has been invaluable.
eBuddy – allows me to sign into Google Talk, MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ and Facebook Chat all at the same time in one great app – I love it when I’m away from a computer and fancy catching up with friends.
Zedge – I get bored of ringtones, wallpapers and notifications really easily and Zedge has the best collection to easily browse and download……..and their FREEEE!
If someone can just create an App to play AVI movies I’d be a very happy man!
There is one called yxflash but its about “10 bucks” (that is how you guys say it right?) …too pricey for me I’m afraid!
Android forever!! ;O)
Here is another app to add to your lisr. Audible player for Android is now in Beta!!
Read more at http://wp.me/pCOs1-aw
i want to share the 40th android app which is android cell phone spy software (Mobistealth). A great and impressive spy software for android based cell phones and must have android app for parents to monitor their kids to keep them safe and secure
Just downloaded 15-20 apps out of the list — thank you so much!
Pandora station is very cool – kind of exciting to have a playlist randomly programmed with your fav artists. I don’t have an Android – a freind at work does – and this app is at the top of his list. I forwarded your suggestions onto him.
Btw, as some posters mentioned (and I’ve heard others concur) – news apps are slow to come to the market. This has kind of kept me from trading in my Iphone, but nonethless, the intrigue is there.