Android App Love

I really, really love my android. It’s the last thing I put down before I go to bed at night, and the first thing I pick up again in the morning. Not only do I not miss my iPhone at all, but I find I take my laptop out of my bag less and less, preferring to rely on my phone for most tasks.

I have been very surprised by how excellent the applications are on the android platform. They easily match the quality of the applications available for the iPhone, and I have managed to find an application to fill every need without paying a cent. There seems to be a much wider range of high-quality free apps available in the market – at least, within my areas of interest. Some of my favourites include:

Aldiko

I’m a voracious reader who was won over to the concept of ebooks many years ago. Aldiko is my favourite application so far on Android. It supports both importing books from SDcard and downloading them from a variety of bookstores within the app, both free and paid. I have found the public domain classics downloadable for free through the app to be beautifully formatted. Purchased epub files from OReilly.com and Baen import without a hitch. The Nexus One’s large, high DPI display makes for an excellent reading experience.

KeepassDroid

KeepassDroid is an implementation of a Keepass compatible password safe for android. Combined with Dropbox, I use it to keep my password database on-hand wherever I am. It registers itself on the phone as a handler for kdb files, and so can open them directly from the Dropbox application. I prefer to use Dropbox to download the database to the SDCard so that I can access my passwords offline. KeepassDroid allows for adding, removing, and editing entries as well as viewing saved passwords. While viewing an entry, KeepassDroid inserts username and password copy actions into the notification area. This allows for quick and easy pasting of authentication data into application configuration dialogues or web forms.

WordPress

I don’t blog anywhere near as much as I’d like to, but more damningly I’m dreadfully lax about moderating comments on my various blogs. Akismet takes most of the pain out of dealing with spam, but nothing works quite as well as logging in to check the comments queue and manually fixing the ones it gets wrong. The WordPress application for android should change all that.

It supports both WordPress.org blogs, and instances of WordPress managed elsewhere. The application provides a simple interface for managing comments, posts, and pages. Writing a post of this length on the touch keyboard sounds like an exercise in frustration, but the application provides an excellent way to moderate and reply to comments on the move.

I traded my Nokia E90 for an iPhone because of the dearth of high-quality applications on Symbian. While the iPhone has a wide variety of good software, I became more and more irritated with the limitations of the platform. Android really seems to combine the best parts of both platforms, allowing me to access my data without needing to use proprietary software; and still providing a polished and feature rich user experience.