Think Tank here again with a review of the top 5 Moto Droid applications, ranging from useful to entertaining, all available on Verizon's Motorola Droid. For some background information, the Motorola Droid was Big Red's first phone of the DROID variant to be released last year, which has since sparked an Android SmartPhone revolution across all networks. While not the first smartphone to run on an Android OS, an open-source OS, it was the most widely advertised phone of its kind at the time. I purchased the phone in late June of 2010 and it have been pleased with it ever since. I do not intend to compare Android's and iPhone's because that would be the obvious comparison of apples and oranges, rather I would like to stick to what I know and give a brief report on my Top 5 most useful Android applications worth looking in to.
1. Astro File Viewer- AFV gives the user the ability to manage folders, files, and storage within their phone. The usefulness of this application is tenfold if you are a user who relies heavily on your microSD card because you can manipulate it from Astro, within Astro you can perform all the functions of a normal computer, such as, copy, paste, rename, delete, and even create a Zip file within Astro. Overall, Astro File Viewer is a powerful application which makes more difficult tasks, like installing manual updates much easier.
2. Wireless Tether- Note: This program will only work with root access and superuser permissions, doing so could also end in a permanent termination of your contract with said provider. There are a number of good wireless tethering programs on the App Market, but the point is that your phone has the power to take in 3G signal and put it out as Wi-Fi, but Verizon locks down this capability on the phone, and charges up to 40$ a month on some of its models for this capability. However, if you root your phone, which is easy enough to do with an online guide, and install a wireless tethering program, you can do it for free. Take caution, if you go over your phones monthly data limit you'll be a victim of Verizon's per MB highway robbery overage prices.
3. Last.Fm- I'm a big fan of last.fm in general, and prefer it over similar apps like Pandora, because on Pandora, you hear the same 5 songs, with commercials interspersed between them, unless you want to pay extra. Last.Fm is completely free and ad-free and can work off of Wi-Fi rather than 3G, it also has a neat "scrobbling" feature which takes artists from your physical music library and adds them to your last.fm library. If your looking for a solid music app, I would look no further than last.fm.
4. Barcode Scanner/Google Goggles- this is a combination of two apps that take advantage of the phones optical device, which by the way is a top notch 5MP camera. The Barcode Scanner is used to scan both QR codes and normal barcodes to look up information on apps on the market and anything with a barcode really. The Google Goggles are an application from Google that takes a picture and searches google for said picture. It is mostly accurate, but really all depends on what you take a picture of, a popular label will most likely turn up more hits than a picture of your dog or something menial. Both of these apps are practical applications that can be useful and are definitely worth a download.
5. Everything Else- there are a number of useful apps that I havent covered, like Adobe Reader, Document Editors, Fandango, and Google Calendar just to name a few.
I hope this has been helpful and informative in the process of having fun with your Droid!
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