There are many posts on the internet providing you with lists of “essential apps” you should install on your new WP8 device however I thought i’d write a quick post for the Apps you just don’t need.
Apple started this all off with the catchy phrase “There’s an app for that” and post iPhone there is a seemingly huge need for a huge app store for a device to have access to or its going to fall over very quickly. While not strictly true as history has shown us most people use the same 50 or so apps, what is interesting with the Windows Phone is how much of the app functionality has been built directly into the OS.
Apple’s iPad is a great device and despite a few hiccups IOS6 will be a great IOS release. the device comes with a great selection of software however a few hours of the App Store will prove that there are alternatives to the default apps, and rather than having to spend that time hopefully this post can point you to some alternatives to those default apps.
There is no doubt in my mind that the future of personal computing is at that point where a huge shift is going to made in the next 12 months away from the traditional desktop and over to the mobile device. The smartphone and the Tablet are for this next generation of computer users the way forward. The acceptance of the simple fact always on communication is a must. Driving this forward will be the applications we use, these will dictate how each individual mobile platform is used and its core group of users far more i belive than cost or hardware specification.
This for me is the delux launcher for the Android platform, and its not free, its £10 well spent however as this takes your standard interface and adds a touch of magic.
The Whole interface is based on a rather beautiful carousel system and provides some stunning widgets most of which provide a popout 3D example of them. The interface is still in beta however has improved in stability over the months i’ve been using it, and once you’ve used it, its hard going back.
A new social media platform and unlike Facebook, Google are right on the button (or is that circle?) with this app, simple interface and good integration on a social media platform which will no doubt grow.
The Evening Standard went free and handed out by annoying people infront of the Underground stations. The phone app offers very fast access to th headlines found on the free tree-based version. With the addition of hyperlinks.
As a smugmug user, this is an obvious choice, there are a whole suite of apps available for this great photo service, what the Mobile app specifically does is as well as allowing you to upload photos to the site, it also has bolt in shared service, so when you press share on other apps, you can share photos up to SmugMug.
I was going to put the spotify app up here, however having installed this yesterday and because i have such a large music collection this blows spotify out of the water allowing me to stream my audio content to my phone over wifi OR 3G..
As a Twit Lister and watcher, this is a must, there are many apps which let you listen to twit, this is one of the few at the time of writing which allows the streaming of the live channel. However to use it you MUST have flash installed. Great for train journeys..
I use this as my RSS Aggregator on Chrome on my mac and the Android app is equally as good at providing great access to both my Google Reader feeds and additional content. Using the screen very well the slick simple interface is well designed.
Ok, so i have a PHONE, so why the need for a VoIP App? Well I use the Truphone number for my actual number, and that means changing my phone number doesn’t mean having to redistribute my new number, i just redirect the Truphone number. The truApp kicks in when you are in a Wifi zone which you have access to, and allows you to put calls via the dialer to international numbers potentially cheaper..
I’ve tried them all, from the stock browser to the Opera one (which is quick, but stores data on their site). This is stable solid well supported web browser, has multiple plugins themes and addons.
One of a handful of apps which i use EVERY DAY, this app takes photos, puts themes over them, and uploads them to the PicPlz soical site as well as Tumblr, LinkedIN, to Dropbox and Twitter/Facebook.
Taking the photos you have taken using your phone, this app turns that photo into a greyscale photo, then rubbing your finger over the photo brings out the colour under your finger. You can then save these photos to the phone (and maybe upload the photos to Smugmug or PicPlz)
This app is equal to the iPhones new HDR feature. Taking three photos in succession and doing HDR properly NOT taking a single photo and hoping to simulate HDR.
So you can get this.. (Feel free to click on the photo to see the larger version)
This for me, is what the Android Camera App should be, offering a basic camera at its heart, however adding filters every month to enhance in realtim your camera shots. Providing HDR (single shot ) filters and many other in photo/app settings for Exposure, picture size, trim photos, cropping etc. All of this under a VERY simple configurable interface.
This for me is the best Twitter app on the Android platform, offering again, a simple interface providing access to all the Twitter stuff you expect. Also notifications in the android toolbar when tweets come through.
And last, but no means least is the Tumblelog Beta, this is the best of the Tumblr Apps i have used, with a well thought out interface with nice sized buttons. Linking into the Android shard system which allows the user to post from other apps which support share to their Tumblr Log.
Ignore the beta tag, this app is stable..
* Post to Tumblr. Send a Text, Photo, Quote, Link, Chat, Audio or Video post. * View your dashboard, posts and drafts. * View your liked posts. * Following list; * Blogs cache. You can view blogs when you’re offline. * Edit or delete your own posts. * Supports multiple blogs. * Quick Reblog and Like. * Follow or unfollow. * View notes. * Animated GIFs. * Save images to SD card.
And as a final world..
Google have done something quite magical with their android Market site.. not only is it a pleasant site to use. Once logged in and you have a phone attached something excellent happens. You can install an App from the market place webpage directly onto your phone without touching your phone.. Stroke of pure genius..
We love both Android and iOS, but the open nature of Android just means it can do things others just can’t. Here are our favorite Android apps and features that you won’t find on its Apple-clad brethren.
We didn’t hold anything back in this list: rooting, jailbreaking, editing system files are all fair game. If there was some way to do it on the iPhone, we left it out. So, while there are a lot of great things about Android that don’t come out of the box on the iPhone—like free turn-by-turn navigation or pull-down notifications—there are still ways to get those features on the iPhone. So here’s our list of the ten features you just can’t get, no way, no how, on a jailbroken or non-jailbroken device.
A note on flame wars: We love iOS, and obviously it has many of its own things going for it. This post isn’t meant to flame or troll the iPhone; it’s more of a “If you’ve decided to go Android, make sure you’re taking advantage of these awesome exclusive features, since they’re part of what makes Android great” post. Please keep the flame wars to a minimum in the comments.
10. Alternate Keyboards
From text predictors likeSwiftkey to the innovative likeSwype and the downright adventurous like8pen, you have a lot of different keyboard choices on Android. Typing on a tiny phone keyboard isn’t anyone’s idea of fun, so it’s great that Android provides so many options to make it as painless for people as possible, and super easy to install. The iPhone has other keyboards, but they’re usually separate apps that require you to import text to another program—it’s just the kind of system-level functionality that’s hard to get around.
While iPhone users can customize their home screen quite a bit if they’ve jailbroken, they don’t allow the kind of customization that you can get on Android with custom home launchers. Third party launchers can add all sorts of extra features to the home screens of your device, like gestures, different kinds of shortucts, and even low-level settings that can help speed up an older phone. Whether you’re using the super-fastLauncherPro or the insanely customizable ADWLauncher, third-party launchers add a ton of configuration to your device.
7. Widgets
Sure, they take up a bit of space, but there’s no substitute for the convenience of having a big weather widget right on your home screen, or a music widget to show you the currently playing track. Even more useful are the to-do list widgets, that take an “in your face” approach to productivity, which is not only effective but necessary from people, as they don’t require you to actuallylook for your to-do list—they’re always reminding you of what you need to do. If you’ve jailbroken, you can get widget-like apps for the iPhone, but you can only put them on your lock screen—not the actual home screens that you’re always swiping through.
6. Removable Storage and Battery
It isn’t part of the Android software, necessarily, but Android’s open nature allows for quite a few hardware advantages too—namely the ability to take out, swap, and upgrade your battery and SD card. If you find that you’ve maxed out the storage on your iPhone, you’re pretty much out of luck, whereas with an Android phone you can pop in a new SD card and have gigabytes more storage to play with. Similarly, you can swap out a spare battery for longer trips or even get an extended battery that’ll help your phone go longer without charging. Photo byHiroyuki Takeda.
5. Wireless App Installation
Browsing for and discovering new apps should be fun, not challenge to make it through a tiny app store with your sanity intact. The App Store and Cydia App Store aren’t exactly fun to browse on your phone, but you either have to download apps on your phone or plug it into iTunes to sync them all over. With the new Android Market, or with third-party sites likeAppBrain, you can find a cool app, hit the install button, and it’ll be on your phone the next time you pick it up. It doesn’t get much more convenient than that.
4. Custom ROMs
While there are a lot of third-party apps that give you advanced features on Android, one of the coolest parts about the entire OS being open source is that people can take it, tweak it all over, and install their version instead of the one that comes with your phone. Whether it’s the feature-filledCyanogenMod or the interface-overhaulingMIUI ROM, there’s little limit to how much you can tweak your Android experience. As with launchers, these give you a lot of system-level tweaks that you just wouldn’t be able to get this easily on other platforms—and it puts them easily within users’ reach. Whether it’s tweaks that speed up your phone or features like FM radio, custom ROMs are without a doubt one of the biggest advantages to Android’s openness around.
3. Controlling Your Phone From Your Computer
This one’s a little more out there, but we’ve featured quite a few apps that let you actually control your Android phone from your PC—whether you just want to send texts from Chromeor access any of its other functions right from a web browser. You won’t find this on iOS—again, it required delving into baser functions of the phone that it just doesn’t allow.
2. Flash
Say what you want about Flash, but it’s everywhere you go, and when you’re forced to view the web without it, you realize how much you actually rely on it day-to-day. Whether its accessing fully Flash web sites, watching Flash videos, or playing games like the ones onKongregate, having Flash installed on your phone and tablet let you access a lot of things you otherwise couldn’t have. We may grimace when we hear its name, but it’s too prevalent to go without. It just feels like you don’t have the whole web at your fingertips.
1. True App Integration
Google Voice may finally be available for the iPhone, but the experience will never be the same as it is on Android. Other iPhone apps always direct you to the default dialer and visual voicemail apps, so even if you want to use Google Voice full time, you have to manually navigate it to yourself. On Android, apps like Google Voice integrate directly with the operating system—if you want to make calls with Google Voice, every call you make from the phone’s dialer goes through Google Voice. When you click on a phone number in your browser or in Google Maps, it goes through Google Voice instead of sending you to the wrong dialer. True app integration like this makes using custom phone, SMS, voicemail, and even browser apps absolutely seamless on Android, which is something you won’t find on the more locked-down iPhone platform.
We do love the iPhone here at Lifehacker, but we also love tweaking and hacking our phones into oblivion, and Android just does it better than any other platform. These are just a few of the many tweaks you can make to an Android phone, but they’re certainly some of the most special. Got any of your own favorites that weren’t featured? Be sure to share them in the comments below.
Just when you thought it was safe to run around installing any apk you can get your hands on. Mobile security team Lookout is reporting a new trojan that is making the rounds, dubbed “Geinimi”. It’s essentially being “grafted” on to legitimate applications, mainly games, and distributed into third party App stores. So far, it has only been downloaded from applications hosted by Chinese App Markets.
We love both Android and iOS, but the open nature of Android just means it can do things others just can’t. Here are our favorite Android apps and features that you won’t find on its Apple-clad brethren.
One of the most powerful, useful Android apps around is Tasker, the automation program that lets you 
While iPhone users can customize their home screen quite a bit if they’ve jailbroken, they don’t allow the kind of customization that you can get on Android with custom home launchers. Third party launchers can add all sorts of extra features to the home screens of your device, like gestures, different kinds of shortucts, and even low-level settings that can help 
Sure, they take up a bit of space, but there’s no substitute for the convenience of having a big weather widget right on your home screen, or a music widget to show you the currently playing track. Even more useful are the to-do list widgets, that take an “in your face” approach to productivity, which is not only effective but necessary from people, as they don’t require you to actuallylook for your to-do list—they’re always reminding you of what you need to do. If you’ve jailbroken, 
It isn’t part of the Android software, necessarily, but Android’s open nature allows for quite a few hardware advantages too—namely the ability to take out, swap, and upgrade your battery and SD card. If you find that you’ve maxed out the storage on your iPhone, you’re pretty much out of luck, whereas with an Android phone you can pop in a new SD card and have gigabytes more storage to play with. Similarly, you can swap out a spare battery for longer trips or even get an extended battery that’ll help your phone go longer without charging. Photo by
Browsing for and discovering new apps should be fun, not challenge to make it through a tiny app store with your sanity intact. The App Store and Cydia App Store aren’t exactly fun to browse on your phone, but you either have to download apps on your phone or plug it into iTunes to sync them all over. With the 
This one’s a little more out there, but we’ve featured quite a few apps that let you actually control your Android phone from your PC—whether you just want to 
Say what you want about Flash, but it’s everywhere you go, and when you’re forced to view the web without it, you realize how much you actually rely on it day-to-day. Whether its accessing fully Flash web sites, watching Flash videos, or playing games like the ones on
Just when you thought it was safe to run around installing any apk you can get your hands on. Mobile security team Lookout is reporting a new trojan that is making the rounds, dubbed “Geinimi”. It’s essentially being “grafted” on to legitimate applications, mainly games, and distributed into third party App stores. So far, it has only been downloaded from applications hosted by Chinese App Markets.