My favorite android apps

[indigo_rose99]

One of my friends is finally converting from palm to android. No making fun! Many days I still miss my palm. But there are perks. And I figured that in my near future will be making a list of my favorite apps for her. So, here we are.

I have a Note II and a Xoom, and in many cases I like the same apps on both. But not everything.

I like on both phone and tablet:

• Note Everything -- For my notes. I paid for Pro version so I could lock some notes. I love that my notes are not on the cloud.


• File Manager -- Allows me to navigate through the files on the droid as if it were windows explorer. Really handy when I am trying to find a specific file, or wondering if I actually have a file.


• Moon+Reader -- Book reader. I mostly read *.epub files on it, but it reads other formats. Scrolls. Modify the bright/dark. Day vs night button. Flexible to font size and color. My absolutely favorite book reader. With Pro, has TTS. And the TTS has a sleep setting (= stop after a certain amount of time).


• Business Calendar -- The default Google calendar is ok. But.... I am a HUGE calendar user. And the default calender would not allow me on my phone to create a short term repeating event. Something that would repeat for 5 days, for example, but no longer. Business Calendar (there was a free version for me to try out) not only allowed that (worth the $$!), it also has a bunch of other cool features that I discovered over time.


• Alchemy -- Game. Puzzle where you combine elements to create other things.


• Set -- Game. Yes, like the card game.


• Robo Defense -- Game. Tower defense. Strategy in preventing the robots from crossing the screen. There is a free version if you want to try it out.


• Skype -- To log into Skype from wherever I am.


• ElJay -- Yes, to access and post to LiveJournal.


• RealCalc -- My favorite calculator. I still miss the easy Palm V button for a calculator.


• Opera Mobile -- Browser.


• Astro Player -- Plays a wide variety of audio files.


• Plants vs Zombies -- Game. Tower Defense. Not as flexible or replayable as Robo Defense, but very pretty. I had to buy it off of Amazon Apps, which was a pain.


• Bonsai Blast -- Game. Shoot colored bubbles.


• Drive -- Link to Google Drive, which allows me to share documents. I can even edit them offline.


• Google Reader -- To read my RSS feeds. Which will be going away soon. No, I have not managed to find a replacement I can live with. Hate the first five replacements I tried. Still working on it.

Phone only:

• Sleep as Android -- My wakeup alarm. Can be set to do a gentle early wakeup when it notices that I am moving around. Makes cool graphs of my sleep activity (very impressive to engineers and other statisticians). Confirms whether I slept well by telling what percentage of the time I was in deep sleep.


• Stopwatch & Timer -- Because I like setting timers for stuff.


• Unit Converter -- Converts temp, volume, etc.

Tablet only:

• Brightness: A button to quickly change the bright/darkness settings of my screen


• Grave Defense HD -- Game. Tower Defense. Did not install it on my phone because I was afraid of spending ALL my time playing it.


• Grave Defense HD Free -- Game. Tried it on my phone, but it was using too much of my mobile monthly download. What on earth could it be downloading every day that would take up so much space and time?! So, tablet only.


• Night of the Living Dead Defense -- Game. Tower Defense. I might be in a rut.