6 ms·

Matt Cutts: Android apps that I love

59 points by yanw 17y ago

anigbrowl 17y ago
An insanely useful collection - I'd never have spotted some of these just browsing the Android app store, which badly needs improvement.
- nooneelse 17y ago
  AppBrain is good for finding and managing apps. It also lets you put apps you hear about in lists, so you don't have to act on recommendations before you forget them.
ctd 17y ago
Did you see the Metal Detector app? I don't know if it's useful, but it's a cool idea.
- minouye 17y ago
  It works most of the time, but it's not accurate enough for any sort of application other than, "hey my phone told me this file-cabinet is metal!"
albemuth 17y ago
I hate that I can't download google listen on my phone, restricting an app such as this per carrier makes no sense to me :/
- zmmmmm 17y ago
  Get a pre-paid sim from another carrier. Don't activate it, just put it in your phone while you install whatever you want. Then switch back to your normal sim card. Presto - apps installed!
  - jackowayed 17y ago
    Pretty awesome hack, but doesn't work if you're on a lame network that doesn't use SIM cards.
- tocomment 17y ago
  Sorry, what's google listen?
  - shrikant 17y ago
    http://listen.googlelabs.com/ http://listen.googlelabs.com/ Listen from Google Labs brings podcasts and web audio to your Android-powered device.
- cullenking 17y ago
  Just get the APK from somewhere on the internet, rather than searching in the market. If that doesn't work, there are several really good stable roms out there you can flash onto your android device, which will get rid of any narrow-minded restrictions your carrier is pushing on you.
peregrine 17y ago
Some apps he missed but are also very very good are.. Aldiko: Excellent high quality ebook reader, with automatic download from feedbooks, gutenberg and import your own. Thinking Space: mind mapping Instafetch: instapaper integration. Mint: Mint.com's app Android is really developing.
- GavinB 17y ago
  It's really sad that Aldiko is such a good reader, but has no bookstore that sells current books for it. I'm stuck with Kobo's old Shortcovers app, which even they admit is outdated.
bwr 17y ago
Self promotion: "Edge Finder" applies an edge detection algorithm on the camera preview. Falls into the useless (but neat in my opinion) category. Also source is available :)
- tocomment 17y ago
  Do you charge for it? How did you build it?
  - bwr 17y ago
    It is free. I just thought it would be a fun experiment while learning the android SDK. It ended up being more difficult than I thought it would due to how the camera preview works. There doesn't seem to be any way of getting the camera preview without displaying it on a SurfaceView. The only way I could figure out how to get it to work was to put a View on top of it to draw the edge image on. I also tried making the View I draw on top a SurfaceView which allows for more control of when you update the view but you can only have one and for some reason that I don't understand I only ever saw the camera preview when trying this. The algorithm itself is just the most basic edge detection algorithm I could find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_detection#Other_first-order_methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_detection#Other_first-orde... I'm not entirely sure if that is what you were asking. It just requires the android NDK and SDK to build it. The source is at http://github.com/bwr/edgefinder http://github.com/bwr/edgefinder
KWD 17y ago
Well I've bookmarked this thread as I get my Android phone (Droid Incredible) tomorrow. Verizon surprised me with a ship date earlier than expected.
apphacker 17y ago
The only app I miss from my iPhone is Amazon Kindle. I really hope they make an android version soon.
chewbranca 17y ago
I'm surprised no one mentioned evernote. They released an android app a while back, very useful. I use it a lot for keeping track of receipts for invoices and various things I want to take a picture of and return to.
SandB0x 17y ago
Any recommendations for a Google Reader app? The mobile site is nice but I would like offline access for commuting.
- barrkel 17y ago
  NewsRob, as I mentioned in my other comment.
barrkel 17y ago
I'd add in NewsRob, an offline RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader - excellent for public transport etc. Caches images, can cache linked web pages too. Arity is a nice calculator - free expression input, can graph in 2 and 3d. Battery Left is an decent widget. It has a 1x1 widget that you can put on your home screen which estimates battery time remaining, along with a more precise % figure. It learns based on previous discharge cycles. Act 1 Video Player is IMO much better than the default video player - it has a nice touch-swipe skipping mechanism for locating in files. ES File Explorer is a pretty good file manager, especially since it can browse remote file systems over FTP, SMB (i.e. Windows shares), Bluetooth, etc. This means you can copy over music, movies etc. from your network shares onto your phone without having to plug into USB or remove the SD card (usually requires removing battery, rebooting phone etc.) Another file manager, ASTRO, is handy particularly for browsing photos. Android 2.1's Gallery app is fine for a handful of photos, but it slows to a crawl if you've built up a bunch. As a file manager, it understands nested directories, unlike Gallery. B&B Gallery is a useful counterpart to it; Gallery downsamples images before loading them, but B&B Gallery doesn't, meaning you can zoom in and see more details. ASTRO can also create zip files. AutoRotate is another widget - it can sit on your home screen and toggle the auto-rotate system setting upon touch. Very useful for browsing the web in bed or similarly reclined. To get the same functionality on my iPod Touch, I had to jailbreak it. And finally as a pure artistic toy, Doodledroid is a lot of fun. It has a selection of brushes with configurable dynamics, and fingerpainting with it feels good.
barake 17y ago
Wifi Analyzer rocks. Also try these: StopWatch, Timeriffic (ringer & radio settings based on schedules), Toss It, Trap! (it's Jezzball!)
tocomment 17y ago
How can the metal detector app work? I'm drawing a blank. Does anyone have any theories?
- RK 17y ago
  The internal magnetometer can measure local magnetic field changes due to ferrous metals.
  - tocomment 17y ago
    He says it works on non ferrous metals too. That's what really baffles me.
    - RK 17y ago
      Well, most things will have some non-zero magnetic susceptibility that will affect an ambient magnetic field. Ferromagnetic materials will have a larger effect. I just loaded "Metal Detector" on my Nexus One and played around with it. It seemed to only detect ferrous metals. For example it picked small steel tools fine, but couldn't sense an entire plastic bag full of (US) coins or aluminum objects.
- Groxx 17y ago
  Maybe by bouncing radio waves, similar to this? http://books.google.com/books?id=91B7QvCX_iAC&lpg=PP1&ots=1Sx87T2X1M&dq=sneaky%20uses%20calculator&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q=sneaky%20uses%20calculator&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=91B7QvCX_iAC&lpg=PP1&#3... It's not the same thing by any means, but I'd imagine you could bounce the cell signal off something, and capture the echo, or "listen" to its interference of surrounding background noise. (for non-clickers: Sneakier Uses for Everyday Things: calculator + radio = metal detector)
- cullenking 17y ago
  My guess is the electronic compass sensor is precise enough that passing by a ferrous metal will change the reading for a moment. If you have a weird 'spike' in the sensor reading it would be easy to see, rather than the gradual change you'd get from a directional change.
cludwin 17y ago
Good list, I would also add the following: a good sudoku game like opensudoku. connectbot for when you need to fix stuff on your server on the go (I did an app review on this app ... it's a must have). I think slacker is better then pandora (better variety imho) Bonus: For those who still go into video stores... use google goggles. If you take a pic of the dvd case, goggles usually is smart enough to take you to the IMDB page for that movie. - Instant movie review w/ no typing
martythemaniak 17y ago
Shameless self-plug: Phonalyzr is my little baby :) Also, I just tried Swype and its actually quite incredible. I think you can easily type twice as fast with it. Since the beta is closed, you can get the apk from my site: http://phonalyzr.com/com.swype.android.inputmethod.apk http://phonalyzr.com/com.swype.android.inputmethod.apk
- cullenking 17y ago
  I like your app! Unfortunately, it's something to just look at once/twice a month, but, nice work! Excited to checkout swype, thanks for the link. It's not pirated, just a closed beta?
minouye 17y ago
Great list. I'd add following: - DoggCatcher: Fantastic podcast manager. I used Listen for a couple of months but I had several annoying issues with playback. - WebSharing: A great little app that allows you to access and transfer files over Wifi. Great for when you want to move something to your phone and you don't want to get out the USB cable. - ShopSavvy: IMO the best mobile comparison shopping app on any mobile device - xScope: A great lightweight browser - FeedR: A no-nosense feedreader - DroidLight: If you have a flash on your phone, turn it into a flashlight! - TouchDown: An amazing tool for viewing Outlook email/calendar. If you use Exchange for mail, this is a must have--it basically replicates all Outlook functionality on your phone.
- GavinB 17y ago
  Thanks for the tip on TouchDown. I'm finally free from having to punch in my username and password every few minutes just to get to Outlook Web Access.
- nooneelse 17y ago
  The developer that did WebSharing also has another very good app, SystemPanel. Task managing (not that you need it, but it has more informative display than most others about what is and isn't using resources), app archiving, and history graphs for various system activities all quite nicely done.
bitwize 17y ago
DroidSound: MOD, S3M, XM, IT, NES, Genesis, etc. music player
mark_l_watson 17y ago
Good list, I just installed Compass and BBC news apps. "Car Home" remains my favorite app because it can show the area you are in as a composite satellite image and roads, do voice navigation, voice queries to find specific types of businesses near you, etc.
tpiddy 17y ago
cant wait to buy a htc evo and use some of these apps
Dobbs 17y ago
I love "Remember the Milk". Wonderful android app and even better web app
Concours 17y ago
shameless self-plug: soccer world cup 2010 - wm2010 is my app fo the coming soccer world cup, if you love soccer you should give it a try. I also like the Mint app and my tracks.
zmmmmm 17y ago
One of my favorites is QuickSSHD - dead simple, starts an ssh server on your phone so you can ssh in and browser around or even better, scp files to / from it (no need to plug in your phone to put files on it any more ...)
milofelipe 17y ago
Great list! I'm installing some of the apps now.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
I'm amused at how high/low-tech the method for passing on apps recommendations to friends is (generating a 2D barcode encoding some kind of URL that the other phone owner photographs, presumably with a special app?). Sound like something Google should standardize on.
- nooneelse 17y ago
  AppBrain has a "Share with a friend" function to send a recommendation via several channels (email, IM, etc).

59 points by yanw 17y ago

An insanely useful collection - I'd never have spotted some of these just browsing the Android app store, which badly needs improvement.

nooneelse 17y ago
AppBrain is good for finding and managing apps. It also lets you put apps you hear about in lists, so you don't have to act on recommendations before you forget them.

ctd 17y ago

Did you see the Metal Detector app? I don't know if it's useful, but it's a cool idea.

minouye 17y ago
It works most of the time, but it's not accurate enough for any sort of application other than, "hey my phone told me this file-cabinet is metal!"

albemuth 17y ago

I hate that I can't download google listen on my phone, restricting an app such as this per carrier makes no sense to me :/

zmmmmm 17y ago
Get a pre-paid sim from another carrier. Don't activate it, just put it in your phone while you install whatever you want. Then switch back to your normal sim card. Presto - apps installed!
- jackowayed 17y ago
  Pretty awesome hack, but doesn't work if you're on a lame network that doesn't use SIM cards.
tocomment 17y ago
Sorry, what's google listen?
- shrikant 17y ago
  http://listen.googlelabs.com/ http://listen.googlelabs.com/ Listen from Google Labs brings podcasts and web audio to your Android-powered device.
cullenking 17y ago
Just get the APK from somewhere on the internet, rather than searching in the market. If that doesn't work, there are several really good stable roms out there you can flash onto your android device, which will get rid of any narrow-minded restrictions your carrier is pushing on you.

peregrine 17y ago

Some apps he missed but are also very very good are.. Aldiko: Excellent high quality ebook reader, with automatic download from feedbooks, gutenberg and import your own. Thinking Space: mind mapping Instafetch: instapaper integration. Mint: Mint.com's app Android is really developing.

GavinB 17y ago
It's really sad that Aldiko is such a good reader, but has no bookstore that sells current books for it. I'm stuck with Kobo's old Shortcovers app, which even they admit is outdated.

bwr 17y ago

Self promotion: "Edge Finder" applies an edge detection algorithm on the camera preview. Falls into the useless (but neat in my opinion) category. Also source is available :)

tocomment 17y ago
Do you charge for it? How did you build it?
- bwr 17y ago
  It is free. I just thought it would be a fun experiment while learning the android SDK. It ended up being more difficult than I thought it would due to how the camera preview works. There doesn't seem to be any way of getting the camera preview without displaying it on a SurfaceView. The only way I could figure out how to get it to work was to put a View on top of it to draw the edge image on. I also tried making the View I draw on top a SurfaceView which allows for more control of when you update the view but you can only have one and for some reason that I don't understand I only ever saw the camera preview when trying this. The algorithm itself is just the most basic edge detection algorithm I could find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_detection#Other_first-order_methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_detection#Other_first-orde... I'm not entirely sure if that is what you were asking. It just requires the android NDK and SDK to build it. The source is at http://github.com/bwr/edgefinder http://github.com/bwr/edgefinder

KWD 17y ago

Well I've bookmarked this thread as I get my Android phone (Droid Incredible) tomorrow. Verizon surprised me with a ship date earlier than expected.

apphacker 17y ago

The only app I miss from my iPhone is Amazon Kindle. I really hope they make an android version soon.

chewbranca 17y ago

I'm surprised no one mentioned evernote. They released an android app a while back, very useful. I use it a lot for keeping track of receipts for invoices and various things I want to take a picture of and return to.

SandB0x 17y ago

Any recommendations for a Google Reader app? The mobile site is nice but I would like offline access for commuting.

barrkel 17y ago
NewsRob, as I mentioned in my other comment.

barrkel 17y ago

I'd add in NewsRob, an offline RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader - excellent for public transport etc. Caches images, can cache linked web pages too. Arity is a nice calculator - free expression input, can graph in 2 and 3d. Battery Left is an decent widget. It has a 1x1 widget that you can put on your home screen which estimates battery time remaining, along with a more precise % figure. It learns based on previous discharge cycles. Act 1 Video Player is IMO much better than the default video player - it has a nice touch-swipe skipping mechanism for locating in files. ES File Explorer is a pretty good file manager, especially since it can browse remote file systems over FTP, SMB (i.e. Windows shares), Bluetooth, etc. This means you can copy over music, movies etc. from your network shares onto your phone without having to plug into USB or remove the SD card (usually requires removing battery, rebooting phone etc.) Another file manager, ASTRO, is handy particularly for browsing photos. Android 2.1's Gallery app is fine for a handful of photos, but it slows to a crawl if you've built up a bunch. As a file manager, it understands nested directories, unlike Gallery. B&B Gallery is a useful counterpart to it; Gallery downsamples images before loading them, but B&B Gallery doesn't, meaning you can zoom in and see more details. ASTRO can also create zip files. AutoRotate is another widget - it can sit on your home screen and toggle the auto-rotate system setting upon touch. Very useful for browsing the web in bed or similarly reclined. To get the same functionality on my iPod Touch, I had to jailbreak it. And finally as a pure artistic toy, Doodledroid is a lot of fun. It has a selection of brushes with configurable dynamics, and fingerpainting with it feels good.

barake 17y ago

Wifi Analyzer rocks. Also try these: StopWatch, Timeriffic (ringer & radio settings based on schedules), Toss It, Trap! (it's Jezzball!)

tocomment 17y ago

How can the metal detector app work? I'm drawing a blank. Does anyone have any theories?

RK 17y ago
The internal magnetometer can measure local magnetic field changes due to ferrous metals.
- tocomment 17y ago
  He says it works on non ferrous metals too. That's what really baffles me.
  - RK 17y ago
    Well, most things will have some non-zero magnetic susceptibility that will affect an ambient magnetic field. Ferromagnetic materials will have a larger effect. I just loaded "Metal Detector" on my Nexus One and played around with it. It seemed to only detect ferrous metals. For example it picked small steel tools fine, but couldn't sense an entire plastic bag full of (US) coins or aluminum objects.
Groxx 17y ago
Maybe by bouncing radio waves, similar to this? http://books.google.com/books?id=91B7QvCX_iAC&lpg=PP1&ots=1Sx87T2X1M&dq=sneaky%20uses%20calculator&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q=sneaky%20uses%20calculator&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=91B7QvCX_iAC&lpg=PP1&#3... It's not the same thing by any means, but I'd imagine you could bounce the cell signal off something, and capture the echo, or "listen" to its interference of surrounding background noise. (for non-clickers: Sneakier Uses for Everyday Things: calculator + radio = metal detector)
cullenking 17y ago
My guess is the electronic compass sensor is precise enough that passing by a ferrous metal will change the reading for a moment. If you have a weird 'spike' in the sensor reading it would be easy to see, rather than the gradual change you'd get from a directional change.

cludwin 17y ago

Good list, I would also add the following: a good sudoku game like opensudoku. connectbot for when you need to fix stuff on your server on the go (I did an app review on this app ... it's a must have). I think slacker is better then pandora (better variety imho) Bonus: For those who still go into video stores... use google goggles. If you take a pic of the dvd case, goggles usually is smart enough to take you to the IMDB page for that movie. - Instant movie review w/ no typing

martythemaniak 17y ago

Shameless self-plug: Phonalyzr is my little baby :) Also, I just tried Swype and its actually quite incredible. I think you can easily type twice as fast with it. Since the beta is closed, you can get the apk from my site: http://phonalyzr.com/com.swype.android.inputmethod.apk http://phonalyzr.com/com.swype.android.inputmethod.apk

cullenking 17y ago
I like your app! Unfortunately, it's something to just look at once/twice a month, but, nice work! Excited to checkout swype, thanks for the link. It's not pirated, just a closed beta?

minouye 17y ago

Great list. I'd add following: - DoggCatcher: Fantastic podcast manager. I used Listen for a couple of months but I had several annoying issues with playback. - WebSharing: A great little app that allows you to access and transfer files over Wifi. Great for when you want to move something to your phone and you don't want to get out the USB cable. - ShopSavvy: IMO the best mobile comparison shopping app on any mobile device - xScope: A great lightweight browser - FeedR: A no-nosense feedreader - DroidLight: If you have a flash on your phone, turn it into a flashlight! - TouchDown: An amazing tool for viewing Outlook email/calendar. If you use Exchange for mail, this is a must have--it basically replicates all Outlook functionality on your phone.

GavinB 17y ago
Thanks for the tip on TouchDown. I'm finally free from having to punch in my username and password every few minutes just to get to Outlook Web Access.
nooneelse 17y ago
The developer that did WebSharing also has another very good app, SystemPanel. Task managing (not that you need it, but it has more informative display than most others about what is and isn't using resources), app archiving, and history graphs for various system activities all quite nicely done.

bitwize 17y ago

DroidSound: MOD, S3M, XM, IT, NES, Genesis, etc. music player

mark_l_watson 17y ago

Good list, I just installed Compass and BBC news apps. "Car Home" remains my favorite app because it can show the area you are in as a composite satellite image and roads, do voice navigation, voice queries to find specific types of businesses near you, etc.

tpiddy 17y ago

cant wait to buy a htc evo and use some of these apps

Dobbs 17y ago

I love "Remember the Milk". Wonderful android app and even better web app

Concours 17y ago

shameless self-plug: soccer world cup 2010 - wm2010 is my app fo the coming soccer world cup, if you love soccer you should give it a try. I also like the Mint app and my tracks.

zmmmmm 17y ago

One of my favorites is QuickSSHD - dead simple, starts an ssh server on your phone so you can ssh in and browser around or even better, scp files to / from it (no need to plug in your phone to put files on it any more ...)

milofelipe 17y ago

Great list! I'm installing some of the apps now.

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

I'm amused at how high/low-tech the method for passing on apps recommendations to friends is (generating a 2D barcode encoding some kind of URL that the other phone owner photographs, presumably with a special app?). Sound like something Google should standardize on.

nooneelse 17y ago
AppBrain has a "Share with a friend" function to send a recommendation via several channels (email, IM, etc).