Air Control Lite

“Air Control Lite is another iOS staple. It’s a great game because it’s simple, challenging, and has addictive game-play. Planes come on the screen, and you have to land them without crashing into each other. Sounds simple, right? This is my ‘go-to’ game when I am sitting in a waiting room or somewhere else where I have 10 or 15 minutes to kill but not enough time to get really absorbed in a complex game.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

The Great Land Grab

“In a previous blog, I lamented that being torn between the iOS iPad and the Android platform would result in me falling in love with some non-cross platform game that was unlikely to make the jump. The Great Land Grab is it.

“This game divides the globe up into rectangles that you can purchase. You can purchase the square you are in for the listed price or any adjacent square for 10x the price. Once you own a property, you get an hourly rent for it. But at any time some other varmint can come along and buy your property out from under you. I drive, my wife navigates, and we buy up land as we travel around.

“There’s a lot more to it than this, and it’s addictive and encourages long Sunday drives out into remote areas where you discover all kinds of new things about the area where you live. Android only, and no signs of it going to iOS.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Email apps

“The thing about Android OS is that there aren’t a lot of business apps that are necessary. When it comes to mail, just about everything you could want is there. At least, that has been my experience.

“People with unique mail systems like Lotus or who rely heavily on calendaring and scheduling will find a variety of apps to meet their needs in the Android Market.

“In my Mail home-screen, you may notice I have Verizon Visual Voice mail, but it’s $2.99 a month and not worth it. For me, there’s only one additional app for communication that I require, and that is Google Voice.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Pandora

“Pandora is just what you would expect. You can create custom channels that determine your musical tastes and play customized radio over 3G or Wi-Fi.

“While they warn that heavy data use may occur, I know three people who use it as their primary source of music while driving, and none of them have exceeded the 5GB limit that Verizon currently enforces on data.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

iMusic

“iMusic is an alternative music player that will allow you to search for a song by name. It will generate a list of sites on the web that offer this song and allow you to download the song to play it locally or stream it over the Internet. Anyone downloading and using this app should be well aware of the current climate toward this kind of application.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

DoubleTwist

“DoubleTwist is like iTunes for the Android. It’s actually a decent iTunes alternative for many iPods and other music devices as well. It has an integrated, much better music player, direct purchases from the Amazon music store, cover-art, and no restrictions on how you manage your music and other media files.

“If you took iTunes, removed Steve Jobs Orwellian death-grip on it, and made it massively cross platform so that it would return the power to the consumer u2013 DoubleTwist is what you would have. Not available on iOS devices.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Utilities

“As an IT professional, my professional tool-set on my Android device consists mostly of cloud-based, multi-platform apps and power-user tools designed to give me more control over my Droid or to assist me in my professional duties.”

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PdaNet

“PdaNet by Junefabrics is a modem-tethering application. At this point, I’m not sure how it violates Verizon terms of service, but none-the-less, the kings of greed claim that they can detect unauthorized modem-tethering and will cancel your account if you are caught using these kind of applications.

“At the very least, they can exist and Verizon can’t just banish them from the market. No need to hide modem-tethering apps as flashlight apps in the Android marketplace.

“With PdaNet, you can hook up your Droid to your laptop via USB or Bluetooth, open up the client software there, click Enable, and ride the information super-highway like a lawless Hell’s Angel, thumbing your nose at the man. When you get caught and they shut you down, switch to Sprint.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Antennas

“This app exists mostly so that Android fanboys like myself can humiliate dweebs with their brand new iPhone 4 by showing them *graphically* how good a signal we have and exactly where the tower is compared to our location. ‘What, you only have 1 bar? There is a tower right over there. Maybe you just need to hold your phone differently. Weird.’

“In the image, I’m golfing with my boss and showing him that there is a cell tower right nearby the Country Club with a very strong signal. I’m not sure why his iPhone couldn’t get a signal. I let him beat me at golf to help heal his hurt pride.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

ES File Explorer LAN tab

Here is the LAN tab, attached to my freenas 1TB NAS drive. Pretty cool. Not only can I accidentally delete files on my phone with ES File Explorer, I can accidentally delete files on my network shares as well, all with the careless swipe of a finger.

“Who needs a phone that protects you from yourself? Real nerds have Android phones and DR-plan documents.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

ES File Explorer SD card

“And here is my SD card. There’s just something comfortable about being able to manipulate files at the file system. This is a must-have app.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

WiFi Analyzer

“The only serious work related tool I have on my Android is WiFi Analyzer. Mobile devices are great site security assessment devices, and WiFi Analyzer is probably the best app designed to assist with WiFi surveys I’ve ever used.

“WiFi Analyzer will give you graphical ratings of which channels are the best choice for your WiFi access point.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

WiFi Analyzer gauge

“Another WiFi Analyzer tab gives you a gauge that tells you the signal loss from your currently associated AP.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

WiFi Analyzer options

“You can choose from Channel graph, Time graph, Channel rating, AP list, and Signal meter.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

WiFi analyzer channel graph

“Here’s an example of the channel graph near my home, showing my AP in red and a neighbor’s AP in blue, along with the signal strength of both and what channel range they’re on.

“This tool is useful for determining if multiple devices are stepping on each other in channel range and otherwise fine-tuning your WiFi network for maximum efficiency and reliability.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

White Noise Lite

“If you do a lot of business travel, you’ve found yourself in a corner room between the stairway, elevator, and ice-machine, with a balcony facing the check-in area of the hotel. White Noise might be able to help.

“With White Noise Lite, you can select from a variety of different background noises designed to drown out other noises and lull you into blissful sleep, so you’ll be at peak performance for that intensive Cisco Certification course tomorrow.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Home screen nirvana

“In my opinion, the real strength of Android is in the user customizable nature of the OS, including Widgets.

“Here you see a slightly obscured screen-capture of my Android home screen. The Weather Channel app in the corner tells me if I should bring an umbrella today or not. The Digital Clock widget displays time and date. Beneath it is a picture frame.

“Next to those are a 1touch folder and an internal memory use widget. The 1touch has a collection of icons that do what they say u2013 perform a 1touch dial of my most frequently called numbers. The memory widget reminds me that I can’t wait for Froyo to allow app developers to install their programs to the SD card, instead of the limited internal memory of my phone.

“The control panel below controls WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Push Refresh, and screen brightness. Home screen nirvana.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Weather Channel widget

“One touch on the Weather Channel widget brings up the local information. I can drill down to radar, maps, weather alerts, hourly-, 36 hour-, 10 day forecasts, and more.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Twitter widget

“Here is the Twitter Widget official app. It displays the single most recent tweet from those you follow. Click on the widget to open up the full Twitter app.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Twitter app

“Here is the Twitter app home screen. I used Twidget Lite, a competitor Android app, for a long time – even after Twitter finally released their Android app. Then Twidget stopped working, so I switched to the official Twitter app.

“Anyhow, it really is the most full featured Twitter app on Android, and it’s actually more intuitive and powerful than the Twitter web site. I’ve had more Jason Hiner, Twitter A-Ha moments using this app than in using Twitter with other apps for an entire year previous to switching to this app.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

Twitter app feed

“Here is my expanded tweet field.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert

SwiftKey Beta

“Finally, as anyone who has used an iOS device and an Android device will tell you, the Android default virtual keyboard isn’t very good. Fortunately, because you have an Android, you can pick from a variety of other keyboards, and you’re not limited to doing it only the way Google thinks you should. In this case, it means finding a keyboard that is close to possible to the virtual keyboard that Apple thinks should be the only choice on their iOS devices.

“This image shows SwiftKey Beta, which is currently a hot alternative Android keyboard I’m trying out. It has predictive technology that scans your SMS messages to determine your writing style, which is supposed to give it uncannily accurate predictive abilities. It walks a much finer line in crossing into Apple’s intellectual property than Google seems willing to go, and that’s a good thing.

“Unfortunately, Android warns you that apps like this could be collecting your keystrokes, which – along with the way it scans your SMS messages – might turn off some of the more privacy-minded Android users out there.”

Image credit: Donovan Colbert