My Recommended/Favourite Android Apps

A smartphone is only as smart as it's apps. Apps(short for applications, I assume 90% of the world knows this) are no different from programs you run on your computer. They are just in miniature form. Apple made popular the phrase, "there's an app for that". They weren't lying. If you can think it, it's is 99% possible, or at least there is an app to fool someone that it is possible like this solar charging app for android phones.

Anyways, onto the apps, they aren't in any particular order but when I give the description, you will know how much I like a particular app. Since this is suppose to be a personal finance blog, let me start with my money management app:

My Money

This is THE app that made me create my first official budget. All I wanted was an app to track my spending. I didn't want anything that would be directly linked to my bank account a la mint. Main reason being that nothing of the sorts works for my little island Barbados. Anyways, in order to track my spending, the app requested that I create a budget, and also an account. What I did was, create two accounts, one for my checking and one for my pocket money and then created the budget. It has been awesome every since. I've never knew I would love having an actual budget, nor did I know it would have made tracking so much fun. It's been like a competition trying to stick to it. The app itself has some other nice features; it gives you the ability to not only track expenses, but also revenues and transfers between accounts, the bars for the budgets keep a different colour filler for the previous month so that you can see how you are doing compared to the last month with a quick glance, it also has the ability to create graphs. It can do a pie chart that show's the current month's budget and it can also do other charts comparing month to month but I've had it less than a month so I haven't been able to utilize those. The only improvement this app could use is to show percentages and figures on the graphs themselves. Other than that. Awesome app. 5 star recommendation. It also supports password locking in case you have nosey friends. Here is a sneak preview of my budget taken from the app itself.

Dropbox

The video on the dropbox website says it best. It really is a magical virtual box. Basically, it is just cloud storage(online file storage) that integrates with any of your devices you have it installed on. For me this includes my laptop, my phone, and my very old desktop computer that I use for printing. Once you put a file, photo, document in the dropbox folder, it becomes available on all your devices and also online through the dropbox website. The app for your phone also has some nifty features, like automatic upload of all photos snapped with your camera, a feature I love because it makes backing up and transferring photos a cinch. I literally got that above snapshot onto the blog in less than a minute because I instantly uploaded it to my drop box. It really makes transferring files a breeze. Another highly recommended app.

Note Everything
Just as it's name says, this is just a basic notepad application. Well it's a little more than basic. It has a good set of features, none of which I really care for. All I really wanted was something to drop down quick notes, like for example, if someone gave me an address or if I had a blog post idea in my head and I wanted to jot it down before I forget. It has a neat feature that allows voice notes as well which can come in handy in situations where typing isn't the easiest thing to do. The interface isn't bad but the entire app is a bit more than the basics, this isn't a bad thing, but for me, I prefer to just have the basics for some things.

Data Monitor
This app is actually going to be useless once Android updates from version 2.3 gingerbread to the new version 4.0 ice cream sandwich(this is mumbo jumbo to the basic phone user so ignore if you so choose). Anyways, once again as the name implies, this is an app to monitor your data. If you are like me and don't have an unlimited data plan, this app is absolutely essential to help you monitor how much data for the month you have used up. You can even set an alarm when you are getting close to your cap so you have that little extra security. I don't know if you have ever used more data than your plan allows but the charges are outrageous once you go outside your allowed amount. Save yourself the trouble and the money and let this app monitor your data usage.

WhatsApp Messenger
If you have a blackberry, think blackberry messenger, if you don't, think windows live messenger, facebook messenger, yahoo messenger, google talk or anything that you use to chat with your friends via instant messages. If you know of none of those, just think of texting but with a smoother/better flow. This is probably my most used app as it keeps me connected to P even better, she has a blackberry and I don't, but we both have whatsapp and it's free to instant message each other. The best part is that it is available cross platform so weather you have an iphone, an android phone, a windows phone, a blackberry, or a symbian(nokia) smartphone, all you have to do is install it and you and your friends can instant message each other to your hearts content.

Google Reader
This is my mobile RSS reader of choice. Only reason being is that I use it on my computer so it is automatically synced. It's good but it is far from great. It could really do with some improvements but like I said, it gets the job done and it is synced so that if I do use it to read a post on my phone, it automatically is marked as read when I go to it on the computer.

Some other quick mentions, some of these come standard with the phone and speak for themselves.

Gmail - Simply amazing integration for a phone, since both my main email and my blog email are google, this app has been splendid in working with emails on the go. It is beautifully designed and it works so smooth. It probably has to be the best gmail app ever.

Skype - Skype for mobile, if you have ever used skype, the android version is just as good as the full computer version, if your phone supports video calling, it works too and amazing well at that, I've video called P a couple times and it was awesome to be doing it from a phone, it's just like what you see in those futuristic movies haha.

Barcode Scanner - If you want to scan those QR codes, this is the app. It can also scan regular barcodes and do price look ups but that part doesn't seem to work for products here in Barbados(no surprise).

TED - This is a new app and also a new one to my collection, if you enjoy TED talks, you will love this app, I haven't used it fully yet but from a quick use, it is amazing, it looks good, works smooth and you can not only watch the TED talks, you can listen to just audio for a lot of them too.

Tiny Flashlight - Just in case you want to use your phone's flash as a flashlight in case of emergency, this does that. It does a lot more but this is the one thing I use it for.

Youtube - Youtube's app. what more can I say?

Web Browser & Keyboard
I want to give a quick run down of these two things in regards to my phone the Sony Ericsson Neo V. I use the stock(pre-installed) browser and keyboard with my phone but they are tonnes of options to replace the both of these. I see no need to. First, I use the browser just as I would on my home computer, it's much smaller but it works just as well. It can bring up full web pages as well as mobile versions. They both work really well. The browser even has flash support so it has no problem loading any site on the internet. I use it mostly to check blogs on the go and it is amazing in this department because it supports text reflow(when I zoom in, all text is automatically wrapped up to fit the screen so all I have to do is scroll up or down, no need to go left or right). The only problem I have with the browser is when I want to leave a comment on a blog. When I am leaving a comment on a blog, because of the screen size and it not being adjusted properly for the screen, it is extremely difficult to go back and edit a mistake when typing a comment. There is nothing I can do about this so I rarely leave comments if reading on my phone. In this regards though, I have to give a special mention to Andrea's So Over Debt mobile website(which I can't link to from here). Not only is the website optimize for mobile viewing, because it is, it is a breeze to leave comments on(I need to ask her how she set it up). As for the keyboard, the standard one is OK, the layout could have been a bit better when using on portrait mode but overall it is good. What makes it even better is that it has Swype. If you have no idea what this is, you need to go check it out. Need too! This makes texting on a phone unbelievable, Typing is so last year with this application.

Anyways, that's it for the smartphone review, tomorrow I am back to regular scheduled PF-ish posts, starting with how my first ever budget turned out. See you soon, and if you have any questions about the phone or andriod, leave a comment or drop me an email. I really love this phone.