Android Apps

[timtadams]

Hi all

I thought I'd create this post as sort of resource for Android users. If I need an app for something the first thing I do is browse the internet to look for forum discussions, instead of searching Google play. There are often too many choices to download and try so I thought it would be handy if people would post their experiences with certain apps here. I may try and keep an updated list of top apps in the OP if I can be arsed.

I'll put links later maybe.

Browsers
Opera Mobile
Turbo mode sends the data first through their servers where they compress images before it goes to your phone. This is great for speeding up page load times and reducing download consumption. Note that you can still redownload an image in full quality if you desire. It has saved me 38% download.
Another great feature is that for users who haven't rooted their phone can effectively create an ad blocker for the browser in a few simple steps. (details to follow). Also contains many options and even the ability to display pages in desktop mode. FREE. No ads.
How to block ads:
Create a notepad file called "urlfilter.ini"
Paste this code and save

Opera Preferences version 2.1
; Do not edit this file while Opera is running
; This file is stored in UTF-8 encoding

[prefs]
prioritize excludelist=1

[include]
*

[exclude]
*mgid*
*dt07*

Under the [exclude]tag, copy and paste the list from here. The two I've added aren't on the filter lists.

Opera Mini is a barebones version of Opera Mobile and a less than 1MB install. You can install both.

Video Players
MX Player
Allows playing of many file types like flv and such which many other players don't. Also scales very well and smooth playback. Definetely one of the best video players for android. FREE. In app ads.
Ad free version costs $5.62

Audio Players
Winamp
Simple yet effective. Allows syncing with mac/PC. Neat 1x4 widget, and a large widget to if you want album art. FREE. No ads.
Pro version ($4.99 USD) includes a number of options such as graphic equalizer, browse by folder, and many other things.

Control Widgets
These are widgets of variable size that squeeze in a variety of buttons of your choice.

Power Controls
Add widgets and include a large variety of buttons for toggling basis system settings. Eg toggle auto rotation, wifi, WiFi hotspot, mobile data, flight mode, silent, vibrate, GPS, disable screen auto off, bluetooth, brightness, volume slider, sync, flashlight and still many more options.
Also includes application shortcuts. I use these extensively to increase density of launchers and toggles on my home screen. For example, Two 2x1 widgets with 5 shortcuts each allows 10 applications to fit neatly in a horizontal row. That is my favorite configuration. Adjust background transparency and colour of widget too. FREE. No ads.

Sound Recorders
Rehearsal Assistant
Allows lossless wav recording and apparently gives good quality recordings compared to many other apps. Very simple. Note has no widget but adding app to home screen allows almost instant 2 touch recording. FREE. No ads.
TapeMachine
A far superior product. Has many options and is on a whole other level. However free version only allows 1 min recording. Costs 4 bucks to remove limit but would be worth it if you would really make use of it.

Flashlight
TeslaLED
I know power controls include flashlight option but this is a good standalone flashlight app. I prefer it for flashlight anyway as it is a full 1x1 widget unlike in power control widgets. You can also add customisable widget depending on whether you want to have to touch once or hold to activate LED. You can even add variable strobe light or Morse code within app.

Games
I don't often play games but when I do they're awesome.
Cartoon Wars
A fun simple game. you get mana and use it to send units to attack the enemy who does the same. Use coins and gems gained to upgrade units and mana regen. Infinite levels and you will be hard pushed to each level 200. Don't need to pay for coins/gems to fully upgrade units. FREE.

Radiant Defence
A superb tower defence. Set in space you build towers to kill the many wonderful and weird aliens before they reach your spiral. You have to pay for packs to unlock many towers, $1 per pack and there are 4 packs. However you don't need to buy packs to have fun. Many people comment it's impossible to get past mission 4 or whatever out of ten, however I have almost reached the end of level 8 without paying, and plenty of fun was had.

Power Saving
Juice Defender

Screen Dimmer
Screen Filter
Ever use your phone at night in the dark? If you have you probably feel your eyes burning even on the lowest brightness setting. Simply add this widget to home screen and touch to dim. When you add widget you select the % you want to dim from 0-100%. Just touch widget again to deactivate. Be careful if dimming to around 20% when in daylight. Saves battery power too.

Auto-Rotation Control
Rotation Locker
This inconspicuous app is one of a kind. This allows locking of the screen IN LANDSCAPE. As far as I know only one other app does this and it is pay for and not superior. All other rotation lockers do not support locking in landscape. Note, you may have to put widget in middle two rows if your home screen doesn't do landscape as it will cut off bottom. Just re-add widget if you make this mistake. I use this when trying to read stuff in landscape when phone is horizontal and it keeps flipping.

YouTube Downloader
TubeMate
Allows you to download YouTube videos and save them to your phone. It's not available via the app store but it's easy enough to install. Whenever you click a YouTube link you choose whether to open it with a YouTube app or TubeMate. In TubeMate you touch download and select what quality you want to download. I think this is the only way to download YouTube vids in Android. FREE.
To install:
Download apk file from link.
If extension is .zip, change to .apk
Run on phone. You may have to allow installation from unknown sources (allow installation of non-market applications) and re-run.

 

[Alvestein]

radiant defence is tough. how do you get past lvl 6?!

 

[timtadams]

I just mass the laser canon towers. I think you'll need a poison tower to help with the first few rounds.

Also, you get 10% interest on the money you have left at the end of every round up to 50. So at the start I buy minimum towers and try to always have 500 gold at the end of every round. That way you maximise your income.

[edit]
Actually, you need a good mix of fully upgraded towers. Try to complete each round to finish with at least 500 gold. That will give you maximum efficiency bonus (or whatever is its called).

I actually had a few screenshots but i cant upload them.

 

[Alvestein]

what the really powerful slow shot ones?

 

[Steve_God]

Browsers:
I've got several installed, but I find the default HTC browser to be on par with Chrome Beta, albeit slightly more integrated due to it being part of the Sense package.
Dolphin... Firefox... Opera Mobile... all ok, but I've been let down by them in previous versions (mainly around sites with flash).

Video Players:
VPlayer - highly recommend it! Will play anything I've thrown at it.

File Explorers:
ES File Explorer - will allow you to stream from network shared folders or devices (which given I've got all my stuff on a NAS box, is perfect for me)

Audio Players:
I also rate Winamp, however I actually prefer MortPlayer, as it allows you to have a folder recognised as an album, which I prefer given not all my music is perfectly ID3 tagged.

Games:
Droidippy - for Diplomacy on your mobile
ShakyTower - motion based game around blocks, simple, yet very clever

Others:
TED - for videos of cool and interesting talks on all sorts of topics (similar to a lecture, but actually interesting) from the website ted.com

 

[MartinGoodwin]

Hi all

I thought I'd create this post as sort of resource for Android users. If I need an app for something the first thing I do is browse the internet to look for forum discussions, instead of searching Google play. There are often too many choices to download and try so I thought it would be handy if people would post their experiences with certain apps here. I may try and keep an updated list of top apps in the OP if I can be arsed.

I'll put links later maybe.

Browsers

Turbo mode sends the data first through their servers where they compress images before it goes to your phone. This is great for speeding up page load times and reducing download consumption. Note that you can still redownload an image in full quality if you desire. It has saved me 38% download.
Another great feature is that for users who haven't rooted their phone can effectively create an ad blocker for the browser in a few simple steps. (details to follow). Also contains many options and even the ability to display pages in desktop mode. FREE. No ads.
How to block ads:
Create a notepad file called "urlfilter.ini"
Paste this code and save

Opera Preferences version 2.1
; Do not edit this file while Opera is running
; This file is stored in UTF-8 encoding

[prefs]
prioritize excludelist=1

[include]
*

[exclude]
*mgid*
*dt07*

Under the [exclude]tag, copy and paste the list from The two I've added aren't on the filter lists.
is a barebones version of Opera Mobile and a less than 1MB install. You can install both.

Video Players

Allows playing of many file types like flv and such which many other players don't. Also scales very well and smooth playback. Definetely one of the best video players for android. FREE. In app ads.
Ad free version costs $5.62

Audio Players

Simple yet effective. Allows syncing with mac/PC. Neat 1x4 widget, and a large widget to if you want album art. FREE. No ads.
Pro version ($4.99 USD) includes a number of options such as graphic equalizer, browse by folder, and many other things.

Control Widgets
These are 1x4 widgets that squeeze in a variety of buttons of your choice.

This allows up to six buttons in the 4x1 widget. It also allows the insertion of a 1x1 widget as a single button of your choice. Eg toggle auto rotation, wifi, mobile data, flight mode, silent, vibrate, GPS, disable screen auto off, bluetooth, sync and flashlight. The toggle mobile data and flashlight are my favourite. FREE. In app ads (i.e. When adding widget)


All the same controls as above with extra data controls such as wifi hotspot etc. also has options for brightness, screen time out, battery info and a few others. Allows 8 buttons across a single 4x1 widget. Adjust transparency and colour of widget too. FREE. No ads.

Only reason I mention powerful control is the ability to add 1x1 custom buttons which I think is neat.

Sound Recorders

Allows lossless wav recording and apparently gives good quality recordings compared to many other apps. Very simple. Note has no widget but adding app to home screen allows almost instant 2 touch recording. FREE. No ads.

A far superior product. Has many options and is on a whole other level. However free version only allows 1 min recording. Costs 4 bucks to remove limit but would be worth it if you would really make use of it.

Flashlight

I know power controls include flashlight option but this is a good standalone flashlight app. I prefer it for flashlight anyway as it is a full 1x1 widget unlike in power control widgets. You can also add customisable widget depending on whether you want to have to touch once or hold to activate LED. You can even add variable strobe light or Morse code within app.

Games
I don't often play games but when I do they're awesome.

A fun simple game. you get mana and use it to send units to attack the enemy who does the same. Use coins and gems gained to upgrade units and mana regen. Infinite levels and you will be hard pushed to each level 200. Don't need to pay for coins/gems to fully upgrade units. FREE.


A superb tower defence. Set in space you build towers to kill the many wonderful and weird aliens before they reach your spiral. You have to pay for packs to unlock many towers, $1 per pack and there are 4 packs. However you don't need to buy packs to have fun. Many people comment it's impossible to get past mission 4 or whatever out of ten, however I have almost reached the end of level 8 without paying, and plenty of fun was had.

Power Saving


Screen Dimmer

Ever use your phone at night in the dark? If you have you probably feel your eyes burning even on the lowest brightness setting. Simply add this widget to home screen and touch to dim. When you add widget you select the % you want to dim from 0-100%. Just touch widget again to deactivate. Be careful if dimming to around 20% when in daylight. Saves battery power too.

Auto-Rotation Control

This inconspicuous app is one of a kind. This allows locking of the screen IN LANDSCAPE. As far as I know only one other app does this and it is pay for and not superior. All other rotation lockers do not support locking in landscape. Note, you may have to put widget in middle two rows if your home screen doesn't do landscape as it will cut off bottom. Just re-add widget if you make this mistake. I use this when trying to read stuff in landscape when phone is horizontal and it keeps flipping.

YouTube Downloader

Allows you to download YouTube videos and save them to your phone. It's not available via the app store but it's easy enough to install. Whenever you click a YouTube link you choose whether to open it with a YouTube app or TubeMate. In TubeMate you touch download and select what quality you want to download. I think this is the only way to download YouTube vids in Android. FREE.
To install:
Download apk file from link.
If extension is .zip, change to .apk
Run on phone. You may have to allow installation from unknown sources (allow installation of non-market applications) and re-run.

Real good information.. I was looking for some sites which could provide me android apps without much cost.. i hope your shared links work well... Thanks again

 

[timtadams]

Haha, forgot about this. You're welcome!

Btw, while i'm at it I might add some other apps I highly rate, or are at least useful.

Firefox
While Opera is still my preference by far, Firefox for Android has improved significantly in the last year. Also, because it is Firefox there are some decent addons.
Specifically, this video downloader is very useful for downloading videos from websites other than YouTube.
Flash Video Downloader - Youtube Downloader, version 3.8.8
Now the name is misleading because due to Android market policy it is not allowed to download from YouTube (that's what the YouTube downloader in my original post is for). But it works for most other websites and it's really easy to use.
And of course there is Adblock Plus.

IRC
AndChat
Easy setup and easy connection to multiple servers. Includes 'perform on connect'.

Office
Kingsoft Office
This.
Completely FREE. No ads. Fully featured.
Word, Excel, Powerpoint. Supports Microsoft 2007+ files. And, save as pdf.

Navigation
MapsWithMe Lite
Simply download an entire country/state in one go and have easy offline maps. No connection required once your map is downloaded.
Now I admit, it is not as featured or clever as google maps, but the trade off is no connectivity required. Also, the lite version is only as useful as a paper map (except for size and detail).
Detail is very good. Includes supermarkets, fast food, pubs, bars etc.
While it incorporates GPS, it does not yet calculate routes.
The Pro version is 5 bucks and is the only app I have ever paid for. While travelling Europe/USA I use it almost every day. Pro version enables search function (super useful) and pins (also super useful when you wanna hit a number of locations).
Developers are also very responsive and helpful which gets big props from me.

Panoramic Photography
DMD Panorama Free
This allows very easy 360° panoramas. And after you've done your 360°, it shows you your panorama and you slide to where you want centre to be before pressing the back button and it is saved.
Globe Photo
This is a neat little app that can turn your panoramas into globe photos, or little planets, or whatever you want to call them.

Data Management
DroidWall
REQUIRES ROOT
Great for keeping data in check if your plan has little data or you are roaming. Lists every single app and you select what you want to enable data for, for either wifi or mobile data.
For example, I got 50MB Europe roaming for £10 when in Europe. I made that last a month by enabling stuff like only Viber and gtalk (gtalk requires google play services (not google play), so if you wanted it I would disable account sync).

PS google hangouts sucks D, so if you use gtalk, I recommending not upgrading. If you want gtalk back you can simply uninstall hangouts.

File Explorer
ES File Explorer
This one as Steve said.
Very functional. Allows access of servers on network. Eg access shared files from other computers on network. Also allow easy copying from one device to another via Bluetooth. And of course all the normal file explorer stuff.