When it comes to the matter of smartphone apps, nothing can beat the iPhone App store. But the Android Market also has more than enough apps to overwhelm you. You might have your own favorite Android smartphone apps. But if you are a bit confused with all the different apps available this year, you can check out our list of 15 of the most useful ones. Considered by some as one of the top benefits of Android, the Google Voice app gives you a phone number that you can use to ring to multiple places or devices. It also lets you access all of your voicemail and text messages from the Web. Most of the smartphones available on the market comes with great multitasking capabilities. But this makes it important for all users to manage their apps so that they don’t hurt the performance of the device or its battery life. That is why it really helps to have an app like the Advanced Task Killer (ATK). This app provides you with a widget that you can tap once to kill all open apps. The killing can also be done at periodic intervals. You just have to set up ATK to do so. Dropbox is a cloud service that automatically syncs a folder of files between multiple computers. The Dropbox app extends this service to Android and interacts with other apps to open files such as PDFs, image files, and business documents. Evernote is a great note-taking app. This app will be very useful to you, provided you are used to typing on a virtual keyboard. Although there are many to-do apps available on the Android Market, many prefer this app because of the clean, easy, Android-friendly user experience. One of the biggest advantages of using Taskos is that it comes with voice recognition. You just have to speak a task and the app turns it into a to-do item. We are not sure why Google hasn’t created an official app for Google Analytics, either for Android or iPhone. One of the best Android ones available is DroidAnalytics. There is a free version of this app available which offers a great little reader for Microsoft Word and Excel files. But for $15 you can upgrade to the full version which will allow you to create and edit files and also add PowerPoint files to the mix. If you are a fan Read More

The Android Market may not have as many apps as the iPhone App Store yet, but there are still more than enough to be overwhelmed, and it continues to grow at a breakneck pace. To help you sort through them all, here is my latest list of the 20 most useful Android apps (this is an update of my 2010 Android list). I’ve also recently updated my list of the most useful iPhone apps and you’ll notice several of the same apps on both lists. Remember that I primarily had business professionals in mind when making this list and also keep in mind that this is a snapshot in time. The Android platform is developing so quickly that I guarantee my home screen will look different a month from now. Still, here’s my list of tried-and-true Android apps that I can highly recommend. Google Voice is a service that is so useful I consider it one of the top benefits of Android itself. The service gives you a phone number that can ring to multiple places or devices and it allows you to access all of your voicemail and text messages from the Web. The Android app integrates even deeper. It can make outgoing calls look like they’re coming from your Google Voice number so that you can keep your real mobile number private. One of the realities of having a multitasking mobile OS is that you have to manage your apps so that they don’t hurt performance or battery life. Advanced Task Killer (ATK) is my favorite on Android. It even comes with a widget that you can tap once to kill all open apps and you can also set up ATK to kill all apps at periodic intervals. Some people will argue that task managers are irrelevant and unneeded in Android, but I still prefer to use ATK. Dropbox is a great cloud service that automatically syncs a folder of files between multiple computers (Windows, Mac, or Linux). This app extends Dropbox to Android and interacts with other apps (such as Documents To Go) to open the files. It allows you to access PDFs, image files, and business documents by simply dragging them to a folder on your computer and then you immediately have access to them from your mobile phone, once you have this app installed. Once you get used to typing on a virtual keyboard (and it honestly Read More

Smartphone owners running Google's OS need more than just a top ten list to stock their devices with the best programs for entertainment, productivity, reference, and more. Reference Read More

The iPad is an amazing device for surfing the web. Its large screen and multitouch gestures make it feel like you're actually holding a web page in your hands. Web browsing on the iPad is going to get even better with the release of iOS 5. That's when Safari on iPad gains Reading List and Reader functionality and the all-important tabbed browsing. However, as good as the iPad is at handling web browsing, some websites would clearly benefit from a dedicated iPad app. When viewed on an iPad, these sites lack key features that they show off to full effect when used with desktop browsers. Other websites have a high amount of interactivity that may work on an iPad, but that interactivity doesn't translate well to a touch interface. I realize that any website could be made into an iPad app. Most websites, however, don't need them. Here at TUAW, for example, there's not much interactivity that goes on when you visit beyond clicking on articles and posting comments. Both of those things are handled easily on an iPad. The same goes for other mainly news-driven sites where the main feature is reading -- dedicated apps really aren't needed. For more complex interactions, an app is a big help. Here's my list of four websites that need an iPad app... and also one service (or group of iPad apps, really) that needs a website. Facebook is the biggest offender among websites missing an iPad app. Why? Well, the site does have 750 million users. By the beginning of next year there will be 50 million iPads on the market -- and most of those iPad owners use Facebook. However, the site's traffic doesn't alone dictate the need for an iPad app. No, Facebook.com needs an iPad app because its web functionality is cumbersome when viewed through Safari on the iPad and some features are missing entirely. The biggest missing feature while viewing Facebook's website on the iPad is Chat. There's just no way to chat with all your Facebook friends through Facebook.com on the iPad. There's also no way to upload photos or video to your wall, as tapping on "Upload" won't access your Camera Roll or Photos libraries on your iPad. Furthermore, Facebook relies on a lot of pop-up windows that you need to scroll through. These windows normally appear when you click on "X number of people like this" Read More

Summer's coming to an end and the time has come to head back to school. Whether you're starting first grade, middle school, high school, college, or a master's program, you'll probably need some new tools to get the most out of your education. You may need to head out to to the store to find your pens, pencils, notebooks, folders and books, but there are also a lot of helpful resources to be discovered via your Android phone. Here we've listed a variety of notable handy apps, available for students at all different education levels. More fun than numbers on paper, Math Wizard is an exciting, silly game that can be used to teach kids basic math skills: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Flash cards and study questions are used to guide students through the material. The app also records how quickly each question was answered so that parents and teachers can see a report of their progress. This feature offers statistics on the student’s trouble areas, and the difficulty level can be adjusted for individual needs. This app brings the classic Dr. Seuss story to life! A very special e-book, The Cat in the Hat is like a digital pop-up book. Words on the screen bolden as the story is read aloud by a narrator with a light and fanciful voice. When touched, any object in the illustration will be read aloud, and words will fly around the screen. This way, not only do young children have the opportunity to learn, but they can also feel like they're part of the story. Young readers can choose to have it read to them (“Read To Me”), read it silently to themselves without a narrator (“Read It Myself”) or have the story “played” like a movie. ("Autoplay”) The creators of The Cat In The Hat application, Oceanhouse Media, also make a few other similar apps, including a few other favorites by Dr. Seuss like The Lorax and One Fish Two Fish and the Little Critter series. You could buy one of those enormous and expensive Texas Instruments graphing calculators... or you could download one onto your phone for free. Algeo Graphing Calculator has all of the options you'll need to do your homework, including the ability to calculate derivatives, tally statistics, compute various trigonometry and algebra problems, among other things. Here's another app that will help you in your math classes. Formulas Lite is Read More

Posted by Comments 25+ Best Back to School Android Apps for this year’s school season. In this list you’ll find the most useful recommended Android app picks from the expert reviewers here at AndroidTapp.com. This well-rounded list included those for studies, saving on books, budgeting, documents & note taking, getting acquainted to your new campus and more! We’ve included easy & convenient tools to download and buy: Check out this list of recommended apps for staying on track of classes, monitoring course work, flash cards, dictionary & thesaurus, plus Wikipedia information! We know college students do not have any money, why not save some of the small bits by cutting costs on books and managing you finances… Untether from the computer to view/edit documents on your phone or Android tablet. Whether they’re stored in the cloud or local, these apps can keep you stay productive. Whether you need help locating the labs on your new campus or looking for great points of interest… these apps can help! If you can find your books in electronic format, these apps are some of the best to consume them on… there’s even one in the listen that will read books to you! Don’t be late for class, use these sophisticated alarm apps to ensure you wake from that deep sleep more refreshed. It is proven that music helps the brain focus better, so plug your favorite genres into these streaming music player apps. Check out some back to school apps lists from the past: Updating... You must be logged in to post a comment. Read More

We all know how versatile and powerful today's smartphones are, with numerous games and apps showing off their fun sides. But what about the boring stuff? What about when you really need to edit potentially libellous statements out of a Word document in a hurry? Android has a wealth of productivity tools at its disposal, ranging from free and simple text editors and "to do" lists up to impressively feature-packed and rather costly suites of document management apps that promise PowerPoint and Excel editing on your mobile. Official options are a little lacking, though. There's no proper version of Open Office on Android, for example, while rival smartphone maker Microsoft is obviously a little reluctant to launch any official MS Office apps on Android as well. Fortunately for business-minded users, Android has many third-party options offering similar collections of fully compatible office apps, optical character readers, scanners and converters, all ready to let you use your phone for something a little more useful than moaning on Twitter all day. So here are our 10 Android office apps so you can make your phone work a bit harder. As well as an excellent mobile web interface accessed through the Android browser, Google has recently released a separate Android Google Docs app. The benefits are integration with your Contacts list for easy file sharing, plus it uses your Android phone's camera as a character reader to scan documents. The Android app also supports Google's collaborative editing system - as long as you're using a mobile data connection of some sort. This is a rather expensive option coming in at whatever the current equivalent of $14.99 is, but you do get a lot in the Quickoffice Pro bundle. It implements proper support for Office apps on Android, letting users read, edit and create docs on the fly. It even manages PowerPoint, but you'll need something with a decent size screen to use it to a satisfactory degree. If you'd prefer a free option, Olive Office Premium does a similar job of supporting Office docs on Android. It handles Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus docs saved in Adobe's PDF format. It supports rich text, tables, images and charts, making Android look properly businesslike. A more advanced version of the document scanner found within the Google Docs app, CamScanner lets users import various office docs into Android by converting photos into PDF format. Its most useful Read More

Sorry kiddos, the summer is drawing to an end and it's time to start getting ready to crack those books again.  In fact, we venture to guess that some of you might already be in class right now and should be paying attention to the teacher or professor.  We're here to help you start the new school year off right and are happy to give you an invaluable resource with more than 50 Android apps geared for back-to-school season.  Whether you are looking for handy apps to have in the classroom or if you need a new set of kicks, we've got you covered. Many of the apps listed below are free, but there are the occasional pro and paid versions. We suggest coughing up a couple of bucks and getting the paid clients as they generally offer more features and remove unsightly ads.  What's more, some of these have excellent tablet experiences for those of you who have a Honeycomb device. Also bear in mind that we're not advising you download every single title below, that would be silly.  No, we're simply pointing you in the right directions based on your needs. Hit the break to see what apps we recommend for you as summer ends and the school year begins. Shop for School Supplies and Clothes Find Deals Wherever You Go Get Some Shoes on Those Feet! Reading Apps and Services Cloud Storage and Note-Keeping Apps Official Google Apps Additional Resources for Students What Did We Miss? Try as we might, we know we're gonna miss a few apps.  That's where you come in!  Leave a comment below to share your picks for helpful Android apps for back-to-school time and we'll add them to the list! Read More