Pittsburgh Ventures

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I am a happy new owner of the Motorola Droid, running the Android OS on Verizon.  I promised to spell out which apps I am enjoying most, so here is a list of some of my favorite ones:

• Screebl - top of my list, one of the first apps I willingly paid for – and it is tough to get money out of me.  This simple app detects the orientation of your phone, keeping it on when it senses motion and non-flat position, and then turning it off otherwise.  This prevents the screen from going dark when I am reading email/RSS, and then saves battery life when I put the phone down.  Sounds simple, and it is – but it does its job well.  The free version is just as good as the paid version ($1.99, I think), but the combination of really liking this simple utility app, and getting a personal “thank you” from the developer when I tweeted about it made we want to support the team’s further work.
• Greed – another app I paid for ($1.99), but the free version is fantastic as well.  A well-built Google Reader app that allows me to keep up with my RSS while on the go.  Notable features include full-screen reading, easy navigation, and alerts to new content.
• Twidroid – one of the best Twitter apps on the Android platform; again, paid for (a whopping $4.99), but I don’t think I would recommend paying for the Pro unless you really need it.  I like many of the app’s features, but it is lacking several small touches that would make a real difference in usability (such as page anchoring in Lists mode).  The developers clearly are working on adding as many features as they can, as a new release comes out every week or so.
• iheartradio – a simple radio app built by ClearChannel that allows on-the-go access to all their stations.  Still a little buggy, but then again, internet radio is still a little buggy, too.
• Evernote – I signed up for this service last year, but didn’t really use it too much.  I am restarting the engine in 2010 so that I can get serious about keeping a daily journal of my experiences and thoughts, and the mobile Evernote makes that so much easier to do.  Great free app with camera and voice recorder integration.
• VisibleVote – I just started using this app on the recommendation of an iPhone wielding friend, and it looks great, especially after prolonged use.  The app allows you to see how your representatives in Congress and the White House vote on the issues, allows you to vote along side them (it claims to make them aware of your position, although it isn’t clear to me how they do that), and very usefully allows you to shoot them an email or make a call to their offices.  A great step forward in mobile transparency in governement!
• Pandora – this ubiquitous songs/music discovery app is simple and elegant, and is a must have.
• Weatherbug - what was a bit of a pain on the PC (to support the free version, I always had to choose to see/listen to ads from a list of underwhelming sponsors) is a nice Android add-on.  Best features are temperature measurements in the top notification bar and weather alerts.

One thing the Android Market clearly needs is better sort/search functionality – with ~20K apps and growing, finding the best of the best is getting tougher.  The market contains user ratings (1-5 stars), comments, and upload counts, so why can’t we do a simple search on these fields?  That seems like a no-brainer.

I would love to hear about your favorite apps.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 10 Android Apps Every Google Nexus One Owner Should Have (rotorblog.com)
• Clear Channel Radio Debuts Android Version of iheartradio App (techcrunch.com)
• Evernote Passes 2 Million Users (bits.blogs.nytimes.com)
• 7 Must Have Droid Apps For SMPIOs (piosocialmediatraining.com)
• Hands on with the Motorola Droid: Sexy (crunchgear.com)
• Motorola Droid gets fully previewed, ‘must-have’ claims may not be far off (engadget.com)