With the new mobile phone sporting Google’s Android OS racing out
of the shops we felt it was time to look at which applications you
should have on this phone to make you mobile life easier and more
interesting.
Video Player
People are still confused as to why the latest handset to the market
doesn’t come with a video player out of the box. Trouble not because at
the Android Market you can download a video player for nowt.
It does basic video playback and you can browse the files you have on
your memory card. You can choose a file, play it, even fast forward,
rewind, pause, play and stop the file. That’s about your lot. At the
moment it supports a limited range of codecs. So until something better
comes along, this is recommended.
Weather Channel app
This great free application, unsurprisingly, tells you the
weather. But more than this, it does it by either text or video. The
forecasts go up to 10 days in advance. Among the information supplied
is wind speeds, pressure and will show up weather alerts in your area
or country.
The great thing about the app is that it takes advantage of the phone’s
location-based services. That means if you can tell if it is wet
without having to look outside, great, huh!
{mospagebreak}Cab4Me Light
This is a very simple app that shows you phone numbers of cab
firms depending where you are. Simply as that and it needs to be when
you are 10 pints of cider the weary.
Bonsai Blast
This strategy game is a little like Tetris – simple game-play but highly
addictive. In the game you have to make a string of bubbles with three
or more bubbles in them. Should you create enough strings before your
strand reaches the end you can go onto the next level.
The game has been out on other platforms for a time. There are plenty
of backgrounds for the individual levels as well as power-ups and
increasingly difficult levels to keep things interesting.
{mospagebreak}WikiTude
This must be the ultimate website mash-up app. This location-based
service will plot where you are on Google Maps and then pull in
pictures from Wikipedia. It will certainly give you ideas of what to do
when you are on your travels.
PacMan
While the original version just used a humble joystick, this update can
take advantage of the trackball, touchscreen and accelerometer, the
choice is yours.
The levels match the original ones closely both in terms of look and
sound and it plays remarkable well. In addition to the original there
are three levels of increasing difficulty.
ShopSavvy
Wouldn’t it be great if you could go into the supermarket and check if
that price is a cheap as it could be. Well with this app you can scan
thebarcode
using the phone’s camera, send it via the app and see if the item is
cheaper elsewhere. The app only works in your normal shops made out of
bricks. But if it means you can drive a couple of miles and get
something a tenner cheaper, it’s worth it.
{mospagebreak}BreadCrumbz
Ever wanted to set up a scavenger hunt? Wanted
to make it a bit web 2.0? Then this is the app for you. This program
leaves "breadcrumbs" by tagging locations you are travelling in using
the phone’s GPS. You can even leave picture markers as well. Shazam
This is definitely one to have if you are into pub quizzes (we hold a
few records in the Absolute Gadget offices for these). If you need to
know the name and artist of a song being played, this takes all the
grunt work out of trying to remember the song. Simply start the app,
hold the phone’s microphone to the air and it will analyse what it
hears. It will come back with an answer in a matter of seconds. It will
even point you to videos on YouTube of the song and can send you to the
Amazon MP3 store where you can buy said tracks to download and listen
later.
Locale
This is a great application for anyone that forgets to put there phone
on silent or turn it off in certain locations. This is a location-based
service that lets users tell the phone what to do in particular places.
It can even change your wallpaper from the babe from Loaded into
something more business-friendly when you are in the office. It will go
silent or even turn itself off when it senses it is somewhere where
you’ve told it to do something.
{mospagebreak}SplashPlay
This teaches you how to play guitar by
playing music and showing you a fret board that you can play on the screen
in sync with the music (like a version of Guitar Hero but you learn something). The app is punting a tutorial
device you can buy for your guitar, but it does teach you how to
play.
iSkoot for Skype
This allows you use your Skype
account to IM your friends, make Skype calls over the Internet, and
uses the phone for SkypeOut calls.