Dan Murphy's Blog

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:

• Barrage Lite
• BreaktheBlocks lite
• Golf Scorecard
• Pinball
• Radiant Lite

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

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

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!