Dan Murphy's Blog » Cell Phone

Android Apps on My Phone

Dan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:31:50 +0000

Here are a list of applications that I have on my phone to date. I have used these a lot and think these are pretty critical to have.

I have linked them to Androlib and you should just be able to use barcode scanner to pick up the app from the website to the marketplace on your phone.

All of these apps are free to use and download, I have not paid for a single app yet!

Games:

Apps:

Barcode Scanner – Lets you scan barcodes and QR codes
Facebook – native app for facebook
Google Finance – Stock Market information
FmyLife – FML native app (just a funny website to read when you are bored)
Google Sky Maps – This is a star map that uses your GPS and compass to tell you what stars you can see when you look up
Meebo IM – This is a IM chat client for all chat services (AIM,Google,MSN,Yahoo,Jabber,etc)
News Pro – This is a news app from Reuters
Phoneflicks – Netflix app to manage your Netflix account
Places Directory – based on your GPS signal shows you points of interest (food, gas, etc)
Speed Test – SpeedTest.net native app for speed test of your phone internet speed
SportsTap – sports application for every sport and tells you the scores and keeps track of your favorites or all teams within 100 miles
USA Today – This is a great news/weather apps
Wikidroid – this is a native Wikipedia client
WpToGo – this is a native app for publishing to your WordPress blog or editing posts/pages
Androlib wallpapers – this is a great wallpaper app for your phone
backgrounds – this is another great wallpaper app for your phone
Last.fm – streaming music for your phone
Mabilo Ringtones – Tons of free ringtones for your phone
Pandora – another streaming music app for your phone
flashlight – turns your screen bright white for a quick use flashlight at night
3banana – This app is a note taking application that syncs with a website so you can login to the web and see your notes or do it on your phone. Love this one!
Advanced Task Killer – Helps me keep an eye on what’s running on my phone
Apps Organizer – This is a great app to help you label your applications and then create shortcuts to the labels, this makes having a lot of apps more manageable
Astro – this is a file manager/browser for your phone
DockRunner – this turns on the docking feature of your phone if you don’t have the $30 media dock
Handcent SMS – this is a replacement for the default text messaging application way more flexible and more options
KeePassDroid – this is a native version of KeePass to manage passwords
Locale – This lets you manage your settings based on time and location…ie when I am at work it goes to vibrate when I leave it goes to ringing
Missed Call – this lets me control the notifications of missed calls or text and little better (I can change the color of the flash LED to let me know what I missed)
Ultrachron Lite – This is a stopwatch/timer application
Where’s my droid – this app lets you text your phone with a message and your phone will turn to ring and ring loudly so you can find it if you lost your phone

Widgets:

CalWidget – Amazing calendar widget with a ton of settings shows your calendar events right on your homepage
S2 Calendar Widget – Shows a quick calendar (great for a quick glance at what day next Tuesday or whatever is, doesn’t show events)
Weather Widgets – Automatically updates based on GPS and give you current weather and 3 day forecast

Android Blogs & Websites

Dan — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:50:43 +0000

One of the biggest complaints I have read everywhere is the inability to really effectively search what apps are available for your phone. I have found 3 sites that do a great job of keeping me up to date and also have RSS feeds that are very helpful.

Androlib – this site is perfect for searching what apps are out there, then you can just scan the barcode and find the apps really fast via your phone. This is how I found a ton of my apps and also it has a list of the best of the day applications which I check everyday to see if there are any new apps

Android and Me – This one gives great reviews of applications and what is going on in the Android world

Phandroid – Is probably the most updated and most informational site as to what is going on with the Android community

Motorola Droid – Review

Dan — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:25:41 +0000

Wow, amazing, a phone that I actually like and didn’t fall short of my expectations. Of course it’s a little expensive and service isn’t cheap, but like most things if you want the features you have to pay for it. After waiting an hour at the store and getting everything changed over, and fighting with Verizon to renew my contract early I finally have my phone!

Some of the first tricks/things I noticed is this thing eats it battery like a mo-fo. Then I found out that probably the biggest drain on the battery is definitely the Wi-Fi…so I would suggest turning that off unless you want to use it. I also use an app called Locale to control where I am at what the power settings are based on my location. So if I am at home I have it turn the Wi-Fi on and while I am at work it turns everything to vibrate so I dont look like an idiot in a meeting. It uses the GPS to figure out where you are and you can control the settings.

Another things I noticed is you can see the applications that are running in the background, well there is one for GTalk always running…Well I am using Meebo app to manage all my IM stuff so I killed the process. Well as soon as I did this all of a sudden my phone stopped syncing with google (calendar and gmail). So looks like if you want you phone to sync with google (uh yea) then leave this application running.

The physical keyboard takes a while to get used to but is very functional and useful. After my LG Dare I was very afraid of the virtual keyboards. Well with this phone that is not true, I love the virtual keyboard and the auto text is fairly accurate and easy to control.

So now I just spend all my time searching websites for the latest and greatest apps. Love the app feature it lets you control a ton of stuff on your phone. Also love the fact it automatically notifies you of updates on the apps so you are always up to date.

I will be posting reviews for apps as I start getting a little better feel for them but I have about 10 I cannot live without already! I will also add some links to some Android web pages I found for reviewing apps and searching apps.

I highly suggest this phone if you are looking for a new toy!

BitPim – Manage Your Cell Phone

Dan — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:38:00 +0000

For the 100th time I was looking around the internet for an application that would let me sync my Outlook calendar from work with my calendar on my cell phone. This time I actually found something that will do that and much more.

BitPim is a free open source application that allows you to manage every aspect of your phone and then upload back to your phone. You can edit/save your contacts, calendar, pictures, ring tones, T9 settings, SMS just about everything your phone does. This is great because I do not have to pay Verizon for the service. You just plug in your phone via USB and sync it is very helpful.

I have attached the file to this post but you should probably get the latest version from the website: BitPim I just attached the file in case the application disappears as sometimes they tend to do. And since this is working currently with my LG Dare I might as well post the working version.

Download BitPim 1.0.6

LG Dare Phone Wallpapers

Dan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:27:41 +0000

So after playing around with my phone I quickly wanted to change the desktop background. I tried taking a picture of what I wanted from a computer and that has worked well for me in the past. But because the resolution on this phone’s camera is 3.2 megapixels the pictures didn’t quite come out right.

So I went to search handy dandy Google website and looked up what screen resolution I needed to have the picture set to in order to not distort it on the screen. While I was search I found something even better. The directions on the website say you need a picture with the resolution of 240X400 for no distortion. Then the forum goes on for currently 78 pages and has a ton of pictures both animated and still that you can download, copy to the SD Mini card, and put on your phone as the background. There are some really cool ones and I took a bunch expecting that I will probably rotate images a lot.

HowardForums: Your Mobile Phone Community and Resource

LG Dare Phone

Dan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:15:48 +0000

I just recently bought the new LG Dare phone. With my new job I was not able to check email or be on IM so I decided that would be the deciding factor between getting this or a regular phone.

I read a bunch of reviews about the phone because Laura was the first to bring it up. They are referring to it as the iClone. While its not quiet the iPhone, and the browser leaves a little to be desired and doesn’t support JavaScript it certainly gets the job done. I picked up a 4GB SD Mini card at Microcenter and plugged it in for a little extra capacity. Also the benefit of doing this is I can load content easily to the phone by taking out the SD card and putting it into a laptop and loading information then putting it back on the camera. A really nice thing about this phone is it has a 3.2 Megapixel camera which is super nice. It has a virtual QWERTY keyboard which is super easy to use and I like it better than the iTouch keyboard. It has a little forced feedback as you press the keys. The only issues I seem to have with this phone are when I try to scroll a webpage or list it seems to have a few issues, but I am sure that is more user error than anything.

I have high expectations for the phone as LG hasn’t let me down to date as this is my 3rd LG phone. Form factor is great and phone is easy to hold