Great Android applications

There are thousands of free applications available for Android based phones. Most of them are avialable though Android market, but where there is a strict policy in the iPhone App Store it seems Android Market is very loose on quality and testing. Some applications just don’t work at all or they are just plain bad quality.

Among them there are some jewles that I’d like to recommend.

Locale
With Locale, you create situations specifying conditions under which your phone’s settings should change. You can have situations griggered by you physical location (cell tower, wifi network or gps), battery level, calendar events, contacts calling or just plain time of day.

Locate situations

Creating a situation

Things I use it for:
- Automatically turn on WiFi when I’m at home
- Automatically turn off ring tone and turn on vibration when I’m at work
- Automatically turn off WiFi when battery level comes below 30%

Great application that delivers exactly what it’s promising.

Url: http://www.twofortyfouram.com/

ES File Explorer
Sooner or later you need a file manager that you can use to copy files or navigate your SD card. There are many good candidates to choose from, but this one habe an extra feature that makes the deal for me: built-in support for browsing windows network shares.

ES File Explorer by EStrongs Inc.

Key features:
- Manage/(un)install applications
- Manage files on phone, LAN and FTP
- Search and open files

Files on phone

Files on network share

Url: https://slideme.org/application/es-file-explorer

Disk Usage

Now where did all that space do? This is a great small utility that graphically shows you where all the real estate on your sd-card went. You can even tap a folder to zoom in and explore even further.

Disk usage

Url: http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-google-android-diskusage-jxE.aspx

Spotify

You have probably already heard about Spotify. This great application lets you listen to all of Spotifys large music calalogue on your Android phone. Requires a premium subscription.

Key features:
- Listen to any of Spotifys tracks on your mobile
- Create play lists (syncs with Desktop Client)
- Offline mode (store your favourite play lists on the SD card for easy playback
when you are not connected to WiFi)

Spotify

Url: http://www.spotify.com/en/mobile/android/

Bubble

A virtual bubble level. Now this is a cool small app. It detects your phones orientation and shows a bubble level on the appropriate side of the screen. If you put your phone flat it displays a two dimentional bubble.

Great for those “does that picture line up” moments

Linear bubble

2D bubble

Url: http://www.ktk.bz/2009/02/bubble.html

Barcode scanner

This application uses the camera to scan a bar code. When the code is recognized you can click a button to do a product search online. If it’s a movie or a book or a well known product you will most probably find a match. You can check out reviews, compare prices and even purchase the item online if you prefer.

Key features:
- Scan barcodes on CDs, books, and other products, then look up prices and reviews.
- You can also scan QR Codes containing URLs, contact info, calendar events, and more.

Scanned bar code

Online book search

Url: Android market, search for Barcode scanner