Myself, My Android

Earlier this week, I got a new phone. I’ve had my HTC Hero for almost two years and it has worked very well for me, but I got the chance to upgrade at a great price and with how fast things change, I decided to snap it up. I got a HTC Evo which will be completely out-dated when Sprint Releases the Evo 3D later this summer but oh well. It’s shiny and new and it works beautifully for what I need.

So I thought I’d share some of my favorite Android Apps with you while I was thinking about it:

• MyFitnessPal – this syncs up with the My Fitness Pal website and allows you to sync all of your nutritional and exercise data. All free.
• Open Sudoku – This comes with 3 levels of puzzels, 30 puzzles in each level, I believe and then you can download (for free) 100+ puzzles for each level. Excellent interface.
• Solitaire Free Pack by Tesseract – they have a premium pack that isn’t too expensive, but I still haven’t exhausted the tons of free solitaire games on this version.
• Just Pictures – This does a wonderful job of syncing with Flickr to show off your photos via your Android phone. It’s pretty fast and it caches well. You can also use it to set wallpaper.
• Kid Doodle – this is a neat little doodling app for kids; they draw in glowing neon lines and then can play back what they’ve drawn in movie style.
• Amazon Appstore – This was one BIG reason I switched to the new phone! My old one wouldn’t load Amazon Appstore. Now you can get Android apps through Amazon and they feature a paid app for free every day.
• Stitcher – This app lets you listen to podcasts without downloading them. You stream instead and don’t run out of space on your memory card.
• Pandora – Just like Pandora for anything else, you can make a station based on a song or artist. I find this especially useful for finding new running music and at Christmas when I’m sick of the junk they play on the radio.
• Shazam – It listens to the ambient music and tells you what it is and who sings it.
• Google Goggles – I’m not sure how this would be useful, but it’s fun to play with. It takes a photo and then scans it and googles what it thinks it is. Definitely does better with some things as opposed to others. It found my phone, the can of wasabi peas I keep on my desk, an image of Starry Night on my computer screen, and my cyber clean. It couldn’t find my Keen bag, my favorite pen, or our company logo.
• ES File Explorer – Lets you browse the files on your phone just like in Windows Explorer or whatever.
• Google Skymap – Allows you to use your phone to tell you which stars are where.
• Keyring – Allows you to scan in the barcodes from your reward membership cards and will display them for scanning instead of bulking up your keyring. Genius!
• Yelp! – Senses your location and then uses it to find you places to eat nearby.
• Groupon/Living Social – Both have good apps for holding your deals.

and for my brilliant finale:

• NETFLIX! They released the app, many articles said Evo was on the list of supported devices, yet I couldn’t download from the Android Marketplace. Found this thread and downloaded it anyhow and now I’ve got my Netflix on my phone. Nerdvana. Note: I had to use ES File Explorer to locate and install the package.

Any other faves?