Android Market Passes 10K Apps; Here's My Five Favorites (With QR Codes)
Google's Android mobile operating system isn't as popular as the iPhone, but its application marketplace is wide open and one service tracking Android apps reports that there are now more than ten thousand available. Below are my five favorite Android apps so far, along with QR codes you can scan (I'm using the BarCode Scanner app) to find them immediately in the marketplace.
Androlib is the service that's identified the 10k apps and is also where I got the QR codes to jump to my favorites. Robin Wauters caught and reported on the 10k news first.
Android is Google's operating system for mobile phones.
QR Codes are two-dimensional matrix bar codes scannable by mobile phone and other devices.
Augmented Reality is a class of software that displays data on top of a view of the real world.
An easy way to share links to your favorite Android apps would be really nice, something like Appsfire offers on the iPhone (our review). In this case we'll just publish the 2D QR codes for each of these apps. If you download the first one on the list, BarCode Scanner, then you can just hold your phone up to your screen and you'll be sent to the App Marketplace page for whichever app you point at.
BarCode Scanner
This free app scans barcodes and QR codes. It works quite quickly and well. Book ISBN codes will call up Google Books search options, including the option to do a full text search inside the book or read reviews. That's pretty fabulous; I've always fantasized about being able to do a "control-F" on paper books I'm reading. This just might be that kind of experience. Having seen QR codes start appearing in more and more places - this app feels like it opens up a whole new world of fast, easy mobile browsing.
TwitterRide
It's not easy to find a good Twitter app on Android. There are a lot of very light-weight ones. TwitterRide appears to be the most stable and easy on the eyes. It does the basics but doesn't support search. So far I think I like it best, though.
Dizzler Music on Demand
Dizzler lets you listen to a whole lot of songs streaming off the web, for free. You can search by artist or song and it seems to work quite well. Playlist syncing is coming soon, the developer says.
Someone in comments said this was like Spotify lite, but it actually looks a lot like Seeqpod (R.I.P.).
Wikitude
The Wikitude Augmented Reality browser lets you view geo-located Wikipedia entries and user-generated map markup from Wikitude.me. You can view these Points of Interest as overlays on top of your camera view of the world around you, as points on a map or in a list. It's awesome. These are the early days of Augmented Reality: software makers need to fine-tune the user experience, users need to learn just how we want to use these technologies and GPS and map makers need to get a whole lot more precise in the the data they offer.
That said, Wikitude is pretty fabulous. I spent on hour last night adding Points of Interest in Portland, Oregon (where I live) and I think it's well worth it for other people to do the same. It's really easy and as soon as you've added them, those points will show up on peoples' phones running Wikitude.
Layar
Layar is a Wikitude competitor and is better known. It's more flashy and commercially oriented, but it's a must-see as well. Yelp reviews, Google Local Search, Trulia real estate, Wikipedia and many other sets of data can be placed on top of the Layar Augmented Reality browser. It's got a ways to go until it becomes useful for mainstream users - but readers here are geeks and you don't want to be left behind on AR. Give it a shot and you'll be impressed.
Those are my favorites so far, how about you? Let us know what Android apps we should check out below in comments. Love ShopSavvy? AppManager? What are we missing? Let us know.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
I love being able to take my Barcode Scanner app and scanning those images then downloading them. I'm trying the Dizzler app now!
I would strongly recommend Twidroid over TwitterRide - much easier to use. TwitterRide always crashes on my G1.
FlyScreen for Android (www.flydroid.com) is coming to the market soon!
ThrottleCopter is a great time sink.
"Thou shall have no other app before Google Voice."
P.S. You can extend the function of the free bar code app ( or any Android app for that matter ) with an Oil Can script:
http://vimeo.com/2378475
Just tried using BarCode Scanner to scan the QR codes in your post when displayed on a BlackBerry Bold's screen. It worked!
Even without zooming the Bold's browser page with your article, BarCode Scanner quickly recognized the QR code and displayed the URL. Great stuff!
really looks a guy wrote this article :)
any woman would recommend: "My Days"
the ultimate period and ovulation tracker for ladies.
anyhow, nice app collection.
Miri, we don't need an Android app for that in our house. :)
I use "Where" daily, as well as "chompSMS" & "Save MMS". I agree that Twitdroid is more stable.
Calorie Counter is the only app I use every day, outstanding.
ThrottleCopter is a great time sink.
Sorry but Twidroid is definitely the most feature-packed and stable Twitter client.
I'm currently using Swift for my Twitter App. I like it better than Twidroid, which I used for a while before I discovered Swift. I've tried about every twitter app for a couple of days, and Swift is fast and stable, and updating regularly to remove the few crashes that it has as well. One feature that I like is that it remembers where you were in the twitter stream, so you can read everything you have missed, but it also provides a "jump to now" button to just skip to the most recent tweets.
Marshall,
Thanks! Great to hear that you like our application. If you like this expect to be amazed during the Picnic event in Amsterdam (23rd-25th of September) Will you be there?
Marshall, I really like Google Listen. Its not fully baked yet, but being able to download podcasts direct to the device, on demand, is very compelling. I expect that Google will shore up the weak points in an upcoming release.
To be really subjective I will say: Nimbuzz.
The time sensitive UI is Sweet!
How about "My Coupons", second page of "most popular apps" in the market FYI...
^ i love mycoupons!
miri, actually, even blokes can find My Days useful. Not least to help track the other-half's cycles, mood swings, help to avoid accidents too.
As for twitter clients, I use Swift which I find far more user friendly than TwitterRide or Twidroid.
Thanks so much for posting the QR Codes! - this should be common practice when talking about smartphone apps, but sadly it isn't.
Hey,
I noticed you're using qr codes to directly link to the Market. My website just added support for QR Code market links to its api. The link below will generate a market link to TwitterRide and display an nice Android icon on the QR Code so people know what it's for.
http://www.mskynet.com/qrgen?qt=url&data=market%3A%2F%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DTwitterRide&nocap=1&col=000000&width=355