My Favorite Android Apps
I’m sitting here without power at work right now and decided I would throw together a quick article on the apps that I use regularly on my Android phone.
DoggCatcher
DoggCatcher is a podcast application. I’ve been using DoggCatcher on a daily basis for over a year now. I’ve tried several other apps and always find myself working back to this app. One thing I appreciate is the amount of things I can tweak. The developer has incorporated a ton of features ranging from sort order, variable speed playback, to number of items to download. The app is also regularly updated; new features are constantly being added and existing features are constantly being polished. It is an expensive app coming in at $4.99, but it’s entirely worth it.
Website - Market Link - Trial
Screebl
I picked up Screebl a few months ago when it was free on the Amazon App store. Screebl is an interesting application that can keep your screen from entering sleep mode depending on the orientation of the device. How many times does your screen blank out while waiting for a long loading website or while reading an article? Screebl lets me set custom ranges, while the phone falls within those ranges, the screen will not go to sleep. This is amazing and I don’t know how I survived without it. It’s only $1.99 and well worth the cost.
Website - Market Link - Trial
ADWLauncher EX
I love customizing the look of my phone and find ADWLauncher EX to be very slick. I also find that it’s pretty snappy even on a crappier phone. It’s been incredibly stable and lets me tweak all the things that I want. I do wish I could customize folders a little more than I can, but it’s not a big deal. This app runs $3.32
Website - Market Link - Trial
Feedly
I use Feedly as my rss feed reader. I dig the interface and the fact that it syncs with my Google Reader account. Even better, it’s completely free! Check it out.
Gentle Alarm
You can find a dozen different alarm apps in the app store right now, but I’ve fallen in love with Gentle Alarm. It was originally a free app on the Amazon App store when I grabbed it. I don’t use an alarm clock at home, so I need something that I can depend on. Gentle Alarm has a couple nice features that I enjoy such as having a captcha when I go to snooze or shutoff the alarm. It also has a pretty slick widget. I can’t think of any features that makes it different from any other alarm app, but I like the way it looks and the alarm has always gone off. This app runs $2.86
Website - Market Link - Trial - Widget
Titanium Backup
I’ve been a fan of rooting my phones since I was first introduced to Android. One of the first apps I’ve ever purchased was Titanium Backup. This app allows you to back up the app and app data on your phone to your sd card or sync it out to Dropbox. It has some other interesting features such as freezing bloatware installed by your carriers (this simply prevents the app from running without actually uninstalling it), creating groups for batch operations, along with scheduling automatic backups. It’s a little expensive at $6.58, but if you root, I highly recommend it.
