Essential Android Apps

I've had my Acer A100 for 3-4 months now. I've been using it every day for both work and personal use. I try to do everything with the minimum number of apps. I've used a lot of other apps that I didn't keep. These are the ones I keep. For the apps below that are not free, I use the paid version.

GENERAL and UTILITY

  • Amazon App Store: go to settings/Applications and enable Unknown Sources. Then go to Amazon.com and download their app store. Most apps are in both Google's & Amazon's markets, but some are only in one. Also check out the free app of the day.
  • Evernote: best note taking app in the universe. Take notes on any device and they automatically sync across all devices. Works on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and even Linux (via the browser).
  • OneBusAway: Tracks Seattle area metro buses in real time. The developer recently graduated from UW and now works at Google.
  • Astro File Manager: Your basic file manager: explore, search, copy, move, delete, etc. Simple, intuitive, powerful, and configurable. Also has other utilities like full directory sizing, task/process list, etc.
  • Dropbox: Synchronize files across all your devices: docs, pictures, videos, anything. 2GB of space for free and native support for Android, iOS, Windows, Mac and Linux.
  • Thumb Keyboard: split to type with your thumbs. A simple idea yet highly effective. Amazingly customizable for phones and tablets of all sizes and makes special chars accessible.
  • WeatherBug: a graphical weather app with satellite imagery, forecast, etc.
  • RealCalc: the best Android calculator. Worth the upgrade from the free version.
  • Titanium Backup: Amazing backup & restore utility, has saved my bacon twice. Back up apps, their data, automatic schedules, copy files to DropBox, etc. Supports multiple backups & selective restore. Worth the upgrade from the free version.
  • PrinterShare: print from your tablet. Auto-detects nearby printers on the network and prints files to them (docs, images, PDFs, etc.). No need to install drivers, it just works (most of the time).

    • READING

    NOTE: Mantano & Repligo are both excellent PDF readers. Neither is clearly better in all areas, and both are worth buying.

  • Mantano Reader: there are a lot of reading apps for Android, and this is the best. Reads PDF and ePub. Fast, stable, handles big complex docs, excellent support. Also can use any TTF fonts you drop into its "fonts" subdirectory.
  • Repligo Reader: Tied for best Android PDF reader, but is PDF-only. Advantages: slightly better UI and annotation capabilties than Mantano, and writes its annotations into the PDF file (not in a separate file), and has faster performance with some files. Disadvantages: Does not read ePub, and crashes with very big complex docs.
  • Kindle: essential for reading books you buy at Amazon. Not very configurable, but it gets the job done.
  • Reader HD: an RSS news feed reader. Most RSS news readers only work well when constantly connected via 3G. This one caches articles in memory (full text & images) and works well on Wi-Fi only devices. Synchronizes with your Google RSS subscriptions.
  • ColorDict: an in-memory dictionary. It works standalone and embeds into several other readers including Mantano.
  • Docs To Go: reads Microsoft Office docs: Word, Excel, Powerpoint. Also lets you edit docs. Has some limitations with complex docs (for example graphs in spreadsheets), but essential if you need to use MS Office docs on your tablet. Comes with a PDF reader that I never use because Mantano is way better.
  • Jota Text Editor: if you need a GUI editor for ASCII text files, this is the one to get. Simple, fast, handles BIG files.

    • NAVIGATION

  • Sygic: the best Android navigation app. Loads states into memory with roads, addresses, points of interest, speed limit zones, etc. Smooth, fast great GUI with 3-D buildings. Routing/nav/directions done in-memory in real time - miss a turn and it instantly updates your route.
  • Avilution Aviation Maps: best general aviation pilot GPS based moving map. Loads VFR & IFR charts, procedures and AFD all in-memory. If you have network, provides weather - METARs, satellite imagery and more. Load/save routes/waypoints etc.
  • GPS Status: shows GPS status: age of AGPS data, # of satellites being tracked, signal strength, speed, altitude, accelerometer readings, compass, etc. Great app for doing exactly what it says: checking GPS status (among other things).

    • VIDEO & MUSIC

  • Netflix: Does exactly what it says. The video streaming is smooth and high quality, much better than flash-based apps. Combined with the Acer A100's HDMI out, it's great for watching on the big screen.
  • MX Video Player: flexible all-purpose video player. Can play pretty much anything on any device (software decoder). Has a nice UI and supports hardware acceleration, including the A100's Tegra2. You may not need this app, since the Acer A100's built-in Gallery player is pretty good.
  • Music: Android's built-in music player works very well. I store my music on the tablet with one "song" per MP3 file grouped into directories by "album". This app finds all the music on the device and shows it grouped by folder. My only gripe is it uses its own names instead of the filesystem directory names, so I never know exactly where in its list my new albums will appear. But they are always in there, and they play just fine.

    • ADVANCED

  • Terminal Emulator: Android is linux, and this is the linux command prompt for your device. Does not require rooting, but if you're not rooted there are only a limited number of things you can do.
  • ConnectBot: an ssh utility. Works great with good vt100 terminal emulation and access to ctrl and other keys you need at the cmd prompt. Combined with VPN, I use this to access linux servers at work.
  • AndFTP: just what it sounds like, an FTP utility. Simple and works great.
  • join.me: try the site: http://join.me Like webEx, except it's simple and it actually works.
  • Cisco AnyConnect: the VPN of choice for many companies On Acer devices, requires rooting and a "tun.ko" driver (via "insmod").
  • Superuser: for rooted tablets, controls which processes/applications have root access.
  • Busybox: linux command line tools in a compact package for mobile devices. Includes which, cut, paste, grep, find, etc. you name it, all the essential cmd line tools.

    • GAMES