Android <3 – 5 Best Apps

Purchased a Samsung Galaxy S a couple of months ago after trying to hold out for a Windows Phone 7 … phone. Never made it and my Samsung Omnia was getting a bit long in the tooth (though custom roms from XDA made it bearable). For various, probably unreasonable, reasons I was reluctant to but another samsung phone. Bit the bullet, and I’m glad I did. Phone is awesome yada, yada, yada. Just thought I’d share my top 5 favourite apps:

Launcher Pro Plus – US$2.99

Launcher app to replace Samsung’s iPhone-ish TouchWiz Launcher. I can’t give LauncherPro Plus enough wraps, smooth, powerful, intuitive, customizable. The ability to create shortcuts on your home-screens is invaluable. Not just app shortcuts though, webpages, contacts, activities(i.e. message a contact, navigate to a destination, etc). Really makes this phone fun to use. Free Version is full-featured but I recommend purchasing the app to help out the developers.

 

 

 

 

Handcent SMS – FREE

Replaces the standard android/samsung messaging app. Again really nice app to use, highly customizable, fast, etc. Best feature would have to be the “Quick Reply” popup that allows you to reply to an SMS without having the entire messaging app open up.

 

 

 

 

 

BRUT Mod – FREE

Worldwide navigation using Google Maps Directions, map tiles caching on SD card, etc. ‘nuff said

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AppBrain – FREE (Ad supported)

Replacement market app. Manage you apps online. Hot apps, recommendations, backups, app lists. It’s got them all. Fast clean, interface. I would probably purchase this to get rid of the ads, but they seem to only have a donate option :S

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winamp – FREE

Only just installed this, but it looks like it will be my number one music player for the foreseeable future. It’s got playlists, it’s fast, it’s smooth, has a great homescreen widget and best of all a lock screen widget. Not sure I could ask for much else in a media player.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s not really surprising that all these apps are just replacements for existing functions on the Galaxy S which are all severely hindered in some way. Next time I’ll look at apps that actually add features…