NB. A newer list can be found here.
So, I’ve upgraded from a cheapo android running Froyo, to a cheapo
android running Gingerbread.... All I know is that the phone came preinstalled
with Google apps that I don’t want, and that have taken up most of the internal
storage, so I have even less space for my own apps than I had on the previous
phone. I’m still working my way up though, so this is a temporary stop. I also
hate how dark the phone skin is- not just a dark theme, but everything seems
dark- and it’s not the display, either. (The technology-minded people will
probably know what that’s about- something to do with the type of screen,
probably; I don’t know).
Complaints aside: I wrote a post last year about my favourite android apps. This time I will post about some of the apps I have installed on this phone (in alphabetical order), and what I think of them. In the interests of full disclosure, I am currently going through an obsession with productivity.
App2SD
Invaluable when you have very little internal memory. I used to use
Sam Lu’s version of this app, but after uninstalling it on my previous phone it
wouldn’t install again, so I switched to the InfoLife (I think) version, which
works fine. I wish it would create space from fresh air though!
Astrid Tasks
So, I’m a latecomer to the Astrid party, but I have good reasons for
this. Remember the Milk was perfect for me, and I installed and uninstalled Astrid
a few times before because while it seemed cute (nice UI), I didn’t get why it
had to be so complicated, and why it had to take up so much space. Well, I’ve
installed it now and am using it for my medium term lists. (Please don’t ask me
why I am doing such a complicated thing; I am still getting to grips with the
way I want to do these things).
Auto Vibrate
This is invaluable! Because one thing I hate my Nokia for is having
to silence it manually every night. Since I installed Tasker and balked at the
nerdity one has to apply to use it and then uninstalled it, AutoVibrate
silences my phone every night and "unsilences" it every morning
without my intervention at all. Perfect.
Avast
Well I don’t know what it does, but I love it on my computer so I
installed it. I haven’t activated all the fancy things (antitheft and so on)
because I used to have other apps for those things, so at the moment it runs in
the background, and I have no idea what it’s doing.
Aviary
So, I installed this fairly recently, and like how easily it does
basic picture edits. Nice UI too. It’s survived my constant uninstalls so
far... Beyond that... Not much else to say.
BBC News
I like this app! It’s lightweight and you can share from it. And I
like BBC news on TV. So it’s like the best of all possible worlds.
Bible
So, this app has had a major update, and I finally like it! It looks
really good now, and a lot of the bugs seem to have been ironed out. I have
offline Bibles so I usually don’t turn on my data to use the app, but I like
the “Today” feature too (which needs data), that gives you a Bible verse every day. Awesome.
Do It Tomorrow
Just recently installed this app, and it’s droll...... I would also
have uninstalled it by now, and not because there’s anything wrong with it (-OH!
EXCEPT you can’t turn the stupid sounds off! I discovered this the hard way at
2am!), but it’s lightweight, so it stays for now.
Evernote
I can’t do without Evernote. I guess I could, really, you know, but I
can’t. I have read loads of blogs about how people use EN (and RTM- more
later), and learnt a lot about how powerful it is. I’m not using it (properly)
for GTD, but it’s all set up if I do want to. Sometimes I put lists in EN; I
compose or plan blog posts in it; I use it for journaling now, and I clip
millions of things from the web into EN. I’m a very visual person, and I love
to clip images. It sort of becomes a Pinterest for my computer. I also add
manuals, templates, recipes, documents, correspondence, travel information, and
a zillion gazillion other things. I am still using a free account, and so far
that serves me perfectly. I do find the phone app a bit less useful than the Windows
one, naturally, but I think it’s supposed to be that way. The phone app is for
adding links and some notes and stuff, and accessing my notes, which is fine.
GTasks
A new discovery! I had no use for Google tasks, but this is now
where my daily list goes. It’s a pretty disorganised list, so anything I
remember I just put in there, and it’s fine for little things like remembering
to pick up bread. So this is my short term list app. (I did say I found a
complicated way to do things). It’s minimal and great. I used to use Any.Do,
which is simply beautiful, but Any.Do has grown more massive with every update (last
time I used it, it was more than 10Mb!) which I can’t do with my cheapo. Not if
I want a variety of apps.
Handcent sms
I didn’t really need this, but I installed this on the new phone
because it’s the easiest way to change my notification tones. I suppose there
are other ways to do it, but after researching for 5 minutes, I installed
Handcent. Plus I like the nifty pop-ups.
Holo Launcher
I’ve tried quite a few launchers, but this one stands out because it
looks pretty different, and doesn’t take up too much space. I love it so much I
installed it on my mom’s phone as well. And it’s very customisable, and pretty
fast. I did like Launcher 7 but got bored with it quickly, and it’s pretty big.
I don’t remember why I uninstalled LauncherPro. Anyway, this suits perfectly.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a really weird app. I don’t know why the Twitter bit of
it doesn’t know it’s me when I look myself up- that’s just weird. And it gives
me both follow and unfollow options for everyone, even those I’m already following.
And unfollow doesn’t seem to work. (I may be using a very old version, because I
sideloaded it). So I’m not entirely sure when I use Hootsuite if it’s going to
suddenly disown me. Anyroad I like it because it has NO ADS (I HATED Ubersocial
for introducing them, because that was my favourite Twitter app by far!) and
because I can post to facebook from there. It works really well, apart from the
aforementioned quirks.
Instagram
So, as you know Android users were really keen to get on the
Instagram bandwagon. I was lucky enough to use apps like Pixlr-o-matic first...
Because Instagram is pretty blah. The filters are fairly ordinary. I will
continue to use it because there are some great web services connected to IG,
and I want to be able to take advantage of that. One thing I must mention is
the camera on my phone is death, and I’m likely to take pix with my Nokia, or
my point-and-shoot, and then transfer them to this phone, then upload. It’s
also pretty heavy on data use (not good for us stuck in the 3G world), so maybe
IG will be my occasional friend.
Little Photo
It has some hilarious filters, but also some really nice ones, and
it’s a really simple app. I like that.
Minimalistic Text widget
The only widget I’ll talk about here. I ended up uninstalling all
the other time widgets because you can create so many different versions in Minimalistic
that it will satisfy the need to change my desktop.
Minimal Lock
Just installed this this morning. It shouldn’t even be on this list,
because I haven’t had time to see if I like it :)
MoneyWise Pro
Hey, this is a handy one. I imagine there are other apps out there
doing the same thing, but this is dead simple and lightweight too. I’ve used it
for a few weeks, and I only need to remember to record all my expenses. I’ve
kept a spreadsheet for years to budget and record monthly spending, as well as
to see how I spent money over the course of a year, but I’ve never been able to
turn on my computer every night and record how much I’ve spent that day (too
much work), so this seems to solve that problem.
My Data Manager
Also recently installed. I’ve always been incredulous when I run out
of data (prepaid plan), and now I can actually see that my provider’s not
cheating me (heh). Just helps with budgeting.
Opera Mini
No list would be complete without OM. It’s still my go-to browser,
and I eventually uninstalled Dolphin on my old phone. I can’t get away from OM
because it’s a good thing, and keeps my data bill down.
Ovo Timer
Such a cute little timer. I love simple things that work perfectly.
Awesomeness.
Palmary Weather
After trying a few other apps, I settled on Palmary. The widgets are
nice, and I love how it’s very accurate about Bulawayo’s weather.
Photo Editor
A finicky app, omw! But that’s because it’s massively complex, able
to do so many things on a tiny little phone. I haven’t tried the other more
complex picture editing and drawing apps, but I stumbled upon this app because I
wanted to be able to add text to my pictures the way I wanted to, and not too
many apps allow you do that. Being limited by space on my phone, this has
turned out to be the best app for that. It also has various other things I use,
like resizing and cropping. Not the prettiest app though.
Photo Grid
Discovered this recently, because I wondered how people stick their
photos in grids, and did some research. There are many apps that can do the
same thing, but some I tried were buggy, and others unnecessarily complex. (Amazing,
when they have the exact same frames!). This has been perfect for what I wanted
to do. Feel fairly sure that there’ll be new contenders sometime soon though,
since this appears to be a very competitive corner of the market...
Picasso
It’s so basic, no frills, and I have spent hours drawing very badly
with my index finger on a tiny screen. There really is no reason an adult
should have this app, except to play.
PicSay
Picsay Pro is actually worth getting, but Picsay’s good too. You can
add all sorts of stickers to your pics, and also speech bubbles and stuff. Nice
for fun.
Pixlr-o-matic
What can I say about this app? It has a gazillion filters, frames,
and effects, and you can add them to your pictures in all kinds of
combinations. Most of them are really very nice. This is probably the only app
of its type you’ll ever need. Incidentally, they have a really, really great
webapp (Pixlr Express) too!
Pudding Camera/ Retro Camera
Because of the rubbish camera on my phone, I’ll never know how great
these apps can be (not for a while, anyway), but so far I’ve really enjoyed
these 2 apps! Pudding Cam has quite a lot of options, and is still on my phone.
Retro Cam I uninstalled yesterday for space, because the stuff it does I can do
with a few other apps, but it’s a really nice app! While we’re going through
the filter phase.
QuickPic
I hated it on my previous phone, but I HATE the gallery on my new
phone, so this is suddenly my fav new gallery app. It actually works really
well, and I must remember to donate to the developer :)
Remember The Milk
This is my long-term list app, and I resisted installing it when I
first got this phone, but I couldn’t do without the things it can do. I set up
smart lists (there are a lot of how-tos online) and I also need the lists I had
created there for other things... It’s just better at organising lists than any
other app (desktop or phone) that I have used. Apparently classic GTD requires
you to just add everything to your inbox and then add tags and use smart lists
to organise everything. That just doesn’t work for me: opening my inbox and
finding a lot of unrelated things just totally does my head in. So I have a few
lists, and I can either check my next actions (smart list) or what I need to
get from the supermarket when I do my monthly shop (ordinary list). It works
differently to my catch-all GTasks daily list, and my new weekly Astrid lists,
because I don’t open RTM more than a few times a month, but that’s the point; I
can add medium- to long-term things there. That’s how I have decided to tackle
my lists, and my system works perfectly for me, even if it’s perhaps
unnecessarily complex. It doesn’t even bother me that RTM syncs only once every
24 hours, because I don’t need to sync often at all.
Snaptastic
This is also a nice photo-editing app, and it does very nice
adjustments. A keeper.
Senti Wayk
I am honestly only keeping this app because it’s pretty! I like the
way you set an alarm. I haven’t used the bells and whistles at all.
Swype
This phone came without Swype, probably because the manufacturer
wanted to add their own bloatware as well as Google’s.... It turns out that Swype
is huge! So I sideloaded a slightly older version of Swype I found online, so
my head wouldn’t explode from trying to type on that tiny screen. I am so glad
I did that. I saved my life.
Thinking Space Pro
Being a visual thinker and learner, I don’t know why I didn’t try
this before. Maybe because right through school I was taught to think in a
linear way. Anyway, this app is allowing me to express thoughts and ideas
differently, and that’s waaaaay cool. I have Freemind on my computer as well,
so- score! It took me a few tries to learn how to use this app, but I’m glad I
installed it.
Twicca
I reinstalled Twicca so I could change my Twitter profile picture.
Seriously, none of the other apps would do it, nor would Twitter’s mobile site.
But I do like Twicca a lot anyway, and I should use it more often, because it
works really well. Even with the funny English.
Vignette
Almost now my favourite filter-and-frame-applying app, but then
there’s Pixlr, isn’t! I like how this app is able to do so much, and so nicely,
too! I haven’t used the camera side of the app much (for reason of bad camera),
but that also seems to have many useful functions.
Unit Converter
I live in Zimbabwe. Currency conversions are part of daily life. It’s
also awesome how many other conversions you can do. Nice app!
___
Friendcaster
I’ve just installed this to this phone, because I hate the way the
preinstalled facebook app works. I had uninstalled FC on my last phone because of
an update that made it very buggy... Will see how it works this time.
Catch
I installed this briefly, and to be honest it seems really cool! But
for me it’s redundant, because I’m already using EN so much. I will probably
check it out more when I get my next phone.
___
There are some apps that I’d love to have but am doing without
because of the lack of internal storage. These include Dropbox, Angry Birds,
Any.Do, Feedly (recently uninstalled also to save data), Foursquare, Pocket,
etc. I recently uninstalled Whatsapp as well not because I don’t LOVE it, but
because it seemed to balloon even when I hadn’t activated it (a bug??); but
then I use Whatsapp on my Nokia, so I do stay in touch with everyone anyway.
___
And that's it for now! Hope someone finds this helpful :)
___
And that's it for now! Hope someone finds this helpful :)
___
Update:
A few more apps I’ve happened upon (as you know, an apps
list is never complete).
Shush!
This asks you when you turn off your ringer how long you
want your phone to be silent for. Only quibble is that it doesn’t seem to go
below 15 mins, but cool otherwise.
Silent Time
Similar to Auto Vibrate, but a much nicer interface. Haven’t
used it a whole lot because already had Auto Vibrate.
Bubble/ Bubble Level
Two apps which do exactly the same thing. No use for them
yet, just cool to know you can use your phone as a spirit level.
Moon+ Reader/FBReader
Why did I do without an e-reader app on my phone for so
long? I have loads and loads of books on my computer, and reading them as pdfs
on my phone is just terrible (all that zooming in and out!). This must be sort
of how owning a Kindle feels (ahem). I prefer Moon+ because of the page-turning
animation (it just looks better). By the way, Calibre is handy for converting
those pdfs (and text files) on your computer into any format you wish.
AfterFocus
So, this app will blur the background in your photos, so
that you seem like a really brilliant photographer, and all your friends will
applaud. Thing is, when I look at the photos on a bigger screen (ie, computer),
I can see the edges of the blur, so I haven’t been doing it right. Cool app
nevertheless.
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