Spotlight on Android Apps

Like a lot of people these days, I spend a heap of time each day in front of a keyboard. With this in mind I'd been dragging my feet on getting a smart phone until a couple of months ago. I've always known there is a great business case for mobile devices for certain occupations, but I am happy to report that even for a tech head like me some things really do work better on a mobile device. Here are some great Android apps that just wouldn't be the same anywhere else.

My Tracks

Google and maps already go together like strawberries and cream. By now we're all used to GMaps telling us where to go, My Tracks takes this to the next level by keeping track of where you've been. By sampling your GPS position My Tracks allows you to plot your journeys on a Google Map and provides you with a heap of great data on how long your trip took, how fast you were going and even tracks your elevation (though this seems a bit unreliable, unless Darwin has developed a mountain range in the past few days). Being able to so easily keep a log of my exercising I think will prove a great motivation to get off the couch. In the best Google tradition it is still marked as beta, and can be a bit hit and miss to get started as the GPS kicks in. So far I've lost a couple of trips because the tracking hasn't triggered till halfway through the journey, but hopefully this will be improved in future updates and a great app will get even better.

Here at Captovate we've been doing the 10,000 Steps challenge, and My Tracks is a great complement to that allowing me to visualise how far 10,000 steps really is.

Out of Milk

Shopping lists just got a whole lot easier. My girlfriend has infallible memory when it comes to what's in the pantry, me not so much. Many's the time I've had to head straight back out to pick up the one essential ingredient that I've no doubt neglected to purchase. Out of Milk levels the playing field. Being able to use my camera as a scanner and taking inventories of what we have and what we need seems like a tall order, but so far Out of Milk has managed well. Scanned items can be added to various Pantry and Shopping lists, allowing you to tick them off as you add them to your cart and even calculate what it's going to cost you if you've been setting the prices of items. The app also claims to let you track the costs of items over time, but for me if it means remembering to grab some eggs once in a while I'm already in front.

Out of Milk also supports any sort of todo list, and it's been a breeze using it to record my daily totals for the 10,000 steps challenge.

Google Skymap

HTC Hub

Ok, I'm cheating a little here. But HTC has done a great job of dressing up some of Android's rougher edges and I think that deserves a little acknowledgement as well. HTC Sense is a UI layer that sits on top of the Android operating system kind of like what the Aero interface did for Windows Vista. The net result is an interface that I'm more than happy to show off to the most dedicated of iPhone owners. HTC Hub is an application that allows you to further personalise Sense by downloading and adding more widgets, soundsets, backgrounds and other goodies to your HTC device.

handyCalc

At first glance, firing up this app might remind of something out of a 1980's computer lab, but dig deeper and you'll realise function never goes out of style. This little app can take care of a whole heap of different calculations such as graphing, solving for x, and of course your run of the mill arithmetic. A currency converter and more unit conversions than you can point a stick at keep this from being purely a nerd's toy.

TBA