Ask HN: What Android apps do you use?

[riams]

Hey HN, I recently got a SGS2 and I really love it. I'm always looking to improve my Android experience, and am curious to know what Android apps you use and recommend. Cheers!

I know this has been asked before, but couldn't find anything asked/written in the past year on HN.

[jacobr]

Galaxy S2 here as well.

- Opera Mobile I can't stand the stock browser, especially the tab switcher. I probably spend 90% of my phone time in the browser. I also work for Opera :)

- Swype Once you get a hang of it, typing is incredibly fast.

- WhatsApp Instead of SMS.

- ConnectBot For ssh, including irssi (there's a special mode with irssi shortcuts).

- AudioBook player Very straight forward.

- ezPDF Can wrap your pdf's, change background colour, read them out loud...

- Color Flashlight The only one I could find that would use the S2's camera flash.

- Toddler Lock For when the kid wants to play with my phone. Disables all buttons, enters airplane mode and lets you draw on the screen with a bunch of sound effects.

- KeePassDroid I save most password in the browser, but keep them here and occasionally sync them with my desktop computer via sftp.

- AndFTP Ftp, scp, sftp, etc.

- SwitchPro Widgets

And stock apps for camera, music, etc.

[mike-cardwell]

Here are some of the more interesting apps I use. They're all free. AdFree requires root access, but the rest don't.

  AdFree        - Blocks advertising domains in /etc/hosts
  AutoGuard     - Video/audio records my car journeys in case I get in an accident
  BackTrack     - Tells you the direction and distance to a location you previously
                  saved, without using Internet access.
  K-9 Mail      - Superb IMAP client. Much better than the stock app
  APG           - PGP app, which integrates with K-9 Mail
  Kik Messenger - Like Blackberrys BBM, but works on Android/iPhone/Windows phone
  TextSecure    - Adds public key crypto to SMS storage, and also to transmission
                  if both ends are using it.
  Prey          - Will allow me to track my phone if it gets nicked.
  RedPhone      - Encrypted phone calls

[mrinterweb]

If there is one application that really makes me appreciate having an Android phone, it is Tasker. Tasker allows you to defined custom rules to automate your phone. An example of how Tasker improves my life would be that I have defined rules that will mute my phone's notifications automatically at 12:00am and reset the volume to normal levels 8:00am. This helps me sleep. Tasker's UI is clearly the product of a programmer, but the functionality it offers is hard to beat. I am pretty sure that Apple would never allow such an application that has the level of control over the phone as Tasker does.

Are there any other automation application recommendations?

[SkyMarshal]

An anti-answer: Use as few apps as possible, and when you do download ones, make sure to go into Settings -> Manage Applications and move them to the SD card if they didn't automatically install there.

Don't know how the SGS2 is in this regard, but my Nexus S absolutely chugs if I'm not careful to keep main memory as free as possible.

[mrinterweb]

I have found this to be the case at times. Not all apps are created equally and some are less responsible with their memory and how many CPU cycles they consume. With a true multiprocess OS like Android, this can be problematic as background applications can be unnecessarily greedy. One application that can help determine what applications are consuming CPU, memory, and battery is "System" by NextApp, Inc. With System's monitoring capability you can often determine which applications are misbehaving.

I once was trying to figure out why my battery was only lasting four hours. I used System's monitoring and figured out that the Facebook app was consuming >90% of CPU cycles. I learned later that the bug was confirmed and that Facebook fixed the problem, but in the meantime, I was able to uninstall Facebook and thus I restored my phone's battery life and responsiveness.

I'm sure there are plenty of other good system monitoring applications for Android. System is the only one I have used.

[phunehehe]

I have a Nexus S. I install everything shiny on it (by looking at the featured apps, the weekly top apps from AppBrain, the iPhone top Apps app). I have never moved any app to SD card. The phone didn't chug so far...

[mrich]

S2 has heaps of internal storage (16GB) so this is not a problem :)

[SkyMarshal]

Nexus S has 16GB of internal storage too, but it's considered to be the SD card (no external SD card slot). It only has 1GB RAM, but for some reason apps are allowed to install there instead of the SD card. Install too many, and you fill up that 1GB with installed apps and running apps, and then the whole OS starts to chug.

[Jose_GD]

Are you sure apps are allowed in to install in RAM? It seems to me you're confusing RAM with internal storage. You don't fill up the 1 GB RAM with apps, you use the 16 GB internal storage for them.

[joelanman]

  - NewsRob (for Google Reader)
  - Twitter, sometimes Seesmic (Seesmic is a bit more powerful)
  - GoDroid, for playing Go
  - Glympse, great app for sharing your geoposition with friends for a set period
  - Connectbot, for SSH
  - FlickFolio, for uploading to Flickr

[flexd]

I have a SGS2 myself, loving it! How long does your battery usually last? I find myself having to charge nearly every day but a friend with a very similar usage pattern only has to charge every other day. His phone is newer than mine but we run the same software versions :-/

Here's the stuff I use:

  - DrumSound app for those times you need a quick drumsound! http://trommelyd.no/ 
  - JuiceDefender (free at the moment), seems to help a lot. 
  - Twitter/Facebook/Google+, hoping the average person will move to Google+ as I find it much nicer.
  - Connectbot IRSSI for SSH (and irssi)
  - AlarmDroid, for much better alarms/countdowns/timers.
  - Spotify for genious easy music playing (requires premium)
  - 3G Watchdog to keep track of my BW usage. I have a 600MB quota I'm never close to.
  - RealCalc for a better calculator on the go.
  - Dropbox to easily access things
  - Notifo for awesome irssi highlight notifications as well as pushing the current page I'm visiting from chrome to the phone (say I'm looking at a recipe and I'm going to the store)
  - SSHdroid (not used often) to ssh into the phone.
  - ElectroDroid for amazingly useful calculators, resources and pinout info.
  - Hacker News and Reddit is fun
  - Google Docs
  - Various games (Angry Birds, Dragon Fly!, Fruit Ninja, X Construct and the FPse emulator)
  - Hacker's Keyboard, full-sized keyboard which is nice for SSH
  - SoundHound for recognizing songs
  - EverNote (not used much) for keeping notes
  - Astrid Tasks for keeping tasklists
  - A flashlight app for turning the lights on/off.
  - Epicurious for food 
  - DuckDuckGo app for super easy access to information

As well as a bunch of Norwegian-only apps (Package tracking, norwegian equivalent of Epicurious, City Bike info, Bus info,Yellow pages)

Wow, I really use a ton of apps.

[riams]

It lasts a little more than a day, regular usage, not too much gaming. I noticed that the latest 2.3.4 ROM really helped boost battery life.

As a side note: Samsung has released an official 2000mAh battery for the SGS2. It's very reasonably priced here in Sweden, at less than 300 SEK. See: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1239719

[flexd]

Nice find! I'm still on 2.3.3 and it says there's no update available yet.

[riams]

You should root and install 2.3.4 via Odin. The battery difference is substantial.

[martincmartin]

I've got a Galaxy S2 as well (Epic 4G Touch), here's what I use:

- k-9 for home email. It's an open source email reader based on the standard Android email reader.

- WeatherBug widget for weather

- MapQuest for navigation, since it generally choose a better route than Google Navigation for long/tricky drives

- Google Navigation for my daily commute, since it has a better traffic display

- GTasks for note taking, it syncs to Google Tasks.

- Peapod whenever I'm running low on something in the kitchen, I just scan the barcode and it's automatically added to my Peapod order. It's awesome.

- Touchdown for work email, since it has great Exchange integration, plus it can read emails to me while I'm driving.

- Pandora

- Audible.com for listening to audio books while driving (I download them at home on WiFi, although I now have an unlimited data account so I don't really need to)

- GOdroid, since it consistently beats me on the easiest level. :)

- DropBox

- ASTRO for process/file management.

[riams]

Some of my recommendations:

- Hacker News Reader by Corey Trager. Currently the only client that works for me.

- DrioidWall, sort of like LittleSnitch for the Mac, you can block apps from accessing the internet.

- JuiceDefender. Some say that it doesn't work, but after customizing the settings, I find extends my battery pretty well.

- Douban.fm. Good online radio app for those of us outside US without access to Pandora et al. Chinese startup so speeds can be slower at times.

- For my todo list, I use Flick Note as a widget extended to cover an entire homescreen (with TouchWiz 4.5), synced to Simple Note. I also use Flick Note for all other note-taking needs, and have frozen/disabled a few default apps with similar features. On my Macs I use Notational Velocity to edit the list and GeekTools to display on my dekstop.

[100tonmantis]

I have a Nook Color running CM7. Here are some things I use that I hadn't seen much mention of yet:

* FBReader and PDF Viewer for ebooks. - I haven't found the need to use anything more complicated than these. They both save my place in the file and pick up there again when I reopen it. They are also very reliable.

* SoundCloud for finding new music. - This app could be more featureful but it gets the best parts of the site.

* Reactable and Caustic for trying to make music. - These are both really amazing. Caustic is a more traditional interface (like Reason) but really well done. Reactable is a really fun toy that lets you manipulate sounds using an interface made for touch and experimentation.

[dorian-graph]

Ah, the SGS2, great phone. I'm currently using an SGS1. Here are the apps I use 'regularly.'

  - Flickr [new]
  - Songbird—Favourite music player so far
  - Aldiko Book Reader—Excellent interface + easy importing of PDFs and other files
  - Dictionary.com—Recently updated with a new interface and is also much faster
  - Dropbox, ConnectBot—SSH on the go
  - Pingdom—Notifications of website downtime
  - Opera Mobile—Favourite browser
  - Prey
  - JuiceDefender Plus—Has noticeably improved battery life
  - CardioTrainer—For running

[Raphael]

I can't recommend Aldiko enough. I've found so many books in ePub format. (Although some seem to be OCR, as there are obvious typos.)

[barrkel]

    LauncherPro, for a more configurable launcher
    Google Reader and NewsRob, when online and offline respectively
    Kindle
    ES File Explorer, probably the best file explorer
    AK Notepad, smaller than catch.com stuff
    Battery Left, uses history of usage to estimate remaining time
    Arity, decent calculator implemented as expression evaluator
    DoggCatcher, works far better than Google Listen for me
    Wifi Analyzer, great for e.g. surveying hotel wifi reception
    Compass, to guess what direction to walk in without needing GPS fix
        Very handy when e.g. emerging out of the tube in London
    Act 1 video player, nicer interface for playback
    3G Watchdog, fantastic to monitor b/w usage if you have a quota
    APNdroid, to disable mobile data usage for certain when roaming
    Extended Controls, to make settings handier to acccess
    Fuel Log Pro, to monitor gas prices and usage
    IP Cam Viewer, to check my home cams when I'm away
    Maps+, for cached (i.e. offline) maps access when roaming
    Micro Second, for monitoring clock drift. With root it can fix it, but I don't
        run root. My network time is about 5 minutes out, and my phone loses about 
        2 minutes a week.
    MultiPicture Live Wallpaper, far more flexible wallpaper
    OpenTable, Yelp and Google Places, to find somewhere to eat when abroad

[wickedchicken]

I wrote some posts about this: http://qrunk.com/view/more-android-apps and http://qrunk.com/view/sweet-android-apps but a few are worth mentioning here:

Airpush detector (screw these guys)

Aix Weather Widget

DI Radio (great electronic streams, been listening for 10 yrs now)

G-Stomper (sweet drum machine)

Twicca (elite Twitter client)

Android Agenda Widget/Agenda Widget Plus (lets me see my calendar and Astrid tasks in one list view)

Kalør Clock (classy desk clock while my phone is charging)

[rodh257]

-TweetDeck (best twitter client IMO)

-Hacker News Reader (HN client, I have a few installed as they regularly start/stop working)

-Reddit is fun (reddit client)

-Hanging with friends free (hangman game)

-Google listen (podcasts)

-Amazon Kindle (books)

-Google Authenticator (two factor auth for google services)

-Alarm Clock Plus (alarm clock app, has a feature that makes you do math before you can turn alarm clock off - only way I can get up after late night coding )

-Google Reader

-Pulse Reader

-ESPNCricinfo (cricket scores)

-Beautiful Widgets (weather widget, changes background based on weather)

-Robo defense (tower defense game)

[blinkingled]

Here are some that I have on my Atrix that aren't already listed (as far as I can tell) -

    Plex for Android - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.plexapp.android&feature=search_result

    DoubleTwist w/AirSync and AirPlay - https://market.android.com/search?q=doubletwist&so=1&c=apps

    Go Launcher EX w/various themes and widgets - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.gau.go.launcherex&feature=search_result

    WiFi Explorer - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dooblou.WiFiFileExplorerfeature=search_result

    Google+ - Great app, uploads my photos instantly and automatically - worth for that itself.

Go Launcher is my default launcher - smooth, doesn't get in the way too much and is fairly stable. Has a ton of themes, widgets and addons.

Plex is on both my Tablet and Phone - put my old HP Mini to work connected to my router and portable 1TB drive which has all my media that can be viewed with Plex remotely. Great looking app with great features!

WiFi Explorer is useful for transferring files to and from the phone over your WiFi network using a browser - seems to work great.

[bundy]

Rooted EVO 4G here with Cyanogenmod 7

- Swype: I can't type on a mobile phone without this thing anymore.

- ConnectBot: For random times when I need to address an issue by SSHing into some servers.

- Evernote: I used to use the Google Docs app, but have since replaced it with Evernote for all my note taking. It has a native app for most if not all devices and works better IMO.

- Wunderlist: This is a recent addition that has replaced GTasks. It looks better, has a native app for all platforms. Unfortunately, Android version doesn't let you reorder tasks, but I'm willing to live with that since I'm near a computer all the time.

- Netflix: Great for roadtrips or longer drives. Unlimited data plans are awesome.

- Skype: For free video calls.

- Amazon Appstore: Free faily apps. Hit or miss, but some great stuff on certain days.

[Edit: formatting]

[babebridou]

I don't use that many apps - well, the usual I guess. in metro underground commutes I tend to rely on apps that only use minimal connectivity. The official twitter app for instance, works well.

To quickly preview t.co and bit.ly links without slowing down to a crawl I built and published a minimalist app called FairyPreview https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fairyteller.linkpr... that I can only recommend :-)

Otherwise, advanced task killer, ACV for comic book reading, AndroZip and Astro for file browsing. And Spotify.

[jeffool]

  -Mint.com
  -Audiobooks

A bunch of others as well, but I think that's the only one not mentioned so far. Add in extra votes for Google's (Gmail, Voice, Talk, Music, Maps, G+, etc.) and the official Twitter app; it works well for me. And "Audiobooks" is only a Librivox front-end, really. I love it, though. I often listen to books as I drift off to sleep.

And games? GOD I love games.:

  -Game Dev Story (Or any Kairosoft game with a flavor that floats your boat,
   but I think most agree GDS is a good place to start.)
  -Pirates and Traders
  -Plants vs Zombies
  -Archipelago

[dshep]

Some of my favorites:

  * twicca, a twitter client
  * Tasker, program your phone
  * AnkiDroid, flashcards
  * Aix Weather Widget
  * FlickFolio, sync your flickr photos while you charge

[51Cards]

I have a Nexus One. Many apps have been mentioned here already but here goes:

K-9 for email.

Pulse as a general reader for popular sites.

PocketCloud RDP client (brilliant mouse interface).

XiiaLive Shoutcast Radio client.

NoteEverything (BEST note keeping app, I am completely in love with it)

Vlingo (nice alternative to Google's voice features, especially for voice dialing)

Google Gesture Search (brilliant)

Trillian for chat.

Ebay app is excellent.

If you're in Canada, the Canadian Tire app is also great.

Overlook Fing networking utility.

FTPCafe Pro - best FTP client, only one I have found to do SSL FTP correctly.

AndSMB - SMB client.

GTunes - nice little MP3 finder.

The rest are all pretty common, Dropbox, all the Google apps, etc...

[d99kris]

Some of the apps I use:

  Google apps (Docs, Gmail, Maps, Talk, + etc)
  Polaris Office
  Local banking apps 
  Local public transportation and taxi apps
  Whatsapp
  Facebook
  Dropbox
  Linkedin
  Skype
  IMDb
  RealCalc
  ConnectBot (SSH client)
  XE Currency (exchange rates)
  ES File Explorer (for access to SAMBA shares)
  ChromeMarks (for sync of bookmarks to Chrome bookmarks)
  Shazam (finding artist/songname of playing song)
  Barcode Scanner (for work)

[EricButler]

I have a Nexus S running Blandroid. Apps:

  The usual google stuff (Talk, Voice, Gmail, Maps, Translate)
  Twitter, Facebook, G+

  Foursquare
  GroupMe (Can now be used for one-on-one messages too instead of SMS.)
  OneBusAway
  FareBot (My app. Check the balace of your Clipper/ORCA card. Requires NFC.)
  TripIt
  Shazam
  Chrome to Phone
  ROM Manager
  Catch Notes
  HotelTonight (awful awful app, but I got a good last-minute hotel deal with it)
  Uber

[lzm]

  - Amazon Kindle, for reading books on the bus
  - DI Radio
  - OI Notepad
  - OI File manager
  - Aix Weather widget, has a temperature/precipitation graph

[riams]

Sorry for being a noob, but how do unordered lists work on HN?

[udp]

There's no such thing, but you can indent text to have it wrapped in <pre> and <code>

[czervik]

A favorite that hasn't been mentioned yet: TuneIn Radio - seems to have pretty much every radio station.

Surprised more aren't using Google Navigator, easily my favorite droid app.

[avar]

I'm running a Samsung Galaxy S2 that I've rooted. Here's my most commonly used applications, all of which I recommend:

* Smart Keyboard Pro: https://market.android.com/details?id=net.cdeguet.smartkeybo... -- Allows me to use a Dvorak keyboard on the phone, but even if you don't use Dvorak it's still a great purchase. It has a lot of options to make your typing more efficient that the stock keyboard doesn't have.

* The Kindle app to read books. Now I mostly use it to read .mobi files I've downloaded instead of buying things at the Amazon store, for which it works brilliantly. I wish it allowed copy/pasting of text though.

Google Reader for RSS/Atom

* GMail application for GMail.

* The stock Mail application for work IMAP, although I'll test out K-9 mentioned in this thread

* ColorNote for taking notes / shopping lists.

* live logcat for the novelty of having a l33t boot sequence (and getting rid of that annoying Samsung boot-up sound): https://market.android.com/details?id=eu.chainfire.livelogca...

* Root Explorer to manage root-only files.

* Skype to make video calls

* ConnectBot to ssh from the phone, although I haven't found out how to enable landscape mode in it, which is annoying.

* Listen for podcasts, although I haven't found out how to make it auto-download say the last 3 podcasts of everything I subscribe to.

* BBC News and Al Jazeera video for some world news

* Gh4a to browse GitHub

* AdFree to block spam

* Screenshot to take screenshots

* WolframAlpha for any sort of conversion / math queries.

* A PushUp / SitUp / Squats app (all separate apps) for managed stationary exercise. Although I'd like to find something that I could turn on and would give me instructions for a general N-minute workout that could be done at home.

Things I wish I didn't have to use, or don't know how to do, but haven't found out how to replace / do:

* The default Samsung camera application. There's no way to turn off the shutter noise on it, and it'll plain refuse to take pictures if the battery is low.

* The default task switcher, which often doesn't list the application I've just switched from (even though it's still open)

* The default system clipboard which doesn't seem to have a history / search feature like Emacs's kill ring.

* Having the default Samsung apps installed on the phone. I tried to use Titanium Backup PRO but it didn't work for removing or freezing them.

* Having something like Gesture search which searches across the entire phone but doesn't require me to draw on the screen, I just want to type a query.

* Sometimes the phone will go into some sort of voice command mode. I haven't found out how to disable it.

Lastly I plan to write an application that hooks into the "Share" handler for text/plain content and extracts the content of the clipboard, scans it for a URL, and pastes that to the clipboard.

I've found that quite a few apps have a "Share" functionality, but no "copy the URL of what I'm looking at to the clipboard", and I haven't found any existing app that works around this.

[mjdwitt]

something ... which searches across the entire phone

You can actually use the default Google Search app that comes installed on most versions of Android. You just have to go into its settings and tell it to search more than just the web.

And as far as removing those default apps that you can not uninstall: since you already have your phone rooted, you can just delete or rename their process files and they will be effectively uninstalled.

[Malcx]

>>There's no way to turn off the shutter noise on it,

Use root explorer to find the sound files (sorry I can't remember where they are off the top of my head) rename them or just delete them and restart your phone.

You need make sure you get all the focus/shutter files.

[thedufer]

There was at some point a bill to make it illegal for a phone to not make some sort of shutter noise. I can't determine whether it passed (I don't think so), so you may want to be careful about this. This may also explain why you can't turn it off easily - manufacturers would have been responsible for changing it so you couldn't turn it off had the bill passed.

[avar]

That works for everything but the autofocus sound, I disabled the shutter sound using this method, but the autofocus sound is compiled into the camera application.

[CJefferson]

Just one comment on this high-quality list, for podcasting.

Google seems to have basically abandoned 'google listen'. After trying various programs, I've settled on BeyondPod. While it takes a while to configure and has some rough edges, it will automatically download new episodes and delete old ones.

It lets you set to only download when the phone is on wi-fi, or charging, or both (my personal preference).

[morsch]

I wish Google had at least released the sources for Listen. I like it far better than the three or four podcast apps (including BeyondPod), but it needs maintenance.

[rbrcurtis]

doggcatcher is the app I use for podcasting. It is highly configurable, can do all the things you mention and a lot more, and isn't rough around the edges at all.

[bbk]

//* Screenshot to take screenshots

Does the back button + Home combo (works for Galaxy S) not work for S2 ?

[riams]

>> I tried to use Titanium Backup PRO but it didn't work for removing or freezing them.

Worked for me. What happens if you launch them after attempting to freeze?

>> Screenshot to take screenshots

You don't need an app for this. Hold menu + power button.

[avar]

It just refused to work (i.e. clicking on "freeze" with those apps returned an error), and since it's a paid application I only had 15 minutes to try it out if I wanted a refund.

[antimora]

On samsung it is hold back button + click home button.

[clopey]

This sounds like just what you're after for a N-minute workout

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.skimble.workouts&#...

[michalstanko]

>>> Sometimes the phone will go into some sort of voice command mode

That happens when you press the home button twice. Happens to me all the time.

[dhughes]

Or a double-tap of the phone body it's a feature in Settings>Motion

[flexd]

There is no sound on mine when I've turned sound off. You didn't try muting it? :-)

[mrich]

Apps aside, I can recommend putting the latest beta MIUI ROM on the Samsung. The default Samsung UI is kind of ugly in my opinion. With MIUI you get a beautiful interface which is very customizable. Standard disclaimers apply.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1130951

[mkopinsky]

For someone currently happily using a dumbphone, who recently had an embarrassing experience that could have been prevented if I had a GPS and is now considering drinking the kool-aid, what can you tell me about the standard disclaimers? I know that rooting the phone means you lose your warranty, but what I'm not sure of is a) how easy is it to restore the original ROM so that VZW can't tell the difference, b) how much value a warranty has anyway. When my last cell phone broke Verizon didn't offer to fix it, I had to get a new phone using an upgrade.

[mrich]

First, I can definitely recommend getting a smartphone. I'm normally a late adoptor, but I am glad I switched relatively early to a smartphone. I ran into people now and then who tell me they don't need their phone to do X, they just want to call people, but I'm sure once they have all the functionality in one device they would never give it back.

Regarding risks, I ran into a problem with the custom MIUI ROM where I couldn't boot the phone anymore. I was scared there for a second (since I couldn't even get into the recovery mode) but I just found the current official Samsung firmware, flashed it and everything ran fine again. You can tell though that it has been modified, since each flash of a firmware increase an internal counter. So in theory there is always the risk of a bricked phone or voided warranty. But I don't know anybody who had this happen.

[mkopinsky]

For me, so far it's been a lifestyle choice. Seeing the extent to which I am addicted to my computer and am totally glued to it when it's turned on, I am scared the same will happen with a smartphone. On the other hand, being able to look something up quickly on a smartphone might make it easier to keep the computer off and engage with life.

[qjz]

FWIW, I was once like you and resisted getting a smartphone for quite a while. Now I'm no longer chained to my desk. I can go on an epic bike ride, chart it with GPS, and never miss an important email. If anything, the smartphone has given me more freedom, improved my health, and increased my awareness of my surroundings (never get lost, locate nearby businesses/attractions, leave the house more often). The nice thing about a smartphone is that it spends most of the time in your pocket. You only pull it out when you need it.

[axiomotion]

Flashing back to the stock rom/kernel in Samsung phones takes about 10 minutes with a tool called odin.

[flexd]

I actually find myself liking the TouchWiz interface over HTC Sense. I've tried others HTC phones before and my SGS2 is the first android device I've owned. It's quite nice so I haven't bothered changing roms yet. I might if there's a significant battery usage improvement though.

[mrich]

I came from a Motorola Milestone/Droid which has a higher-res screen and the big font/menus of the S2 was a real turnoff for me first. I even thought about getting an HTC Sensation which has a slick UI with small fonts. But once I put MIUI on it I never looked back, the UI is just beautiful (a little iPhone-inspired though, but not copying the bad things - e.g. the 'back' button in the upper left corner). Don't think you will see battery improvements since the UI is mostly black-on-white as opposed to the default, which is suboptimal for AMOLEDs.

[mrich]

Update: This is the current version (known bugs are listed) http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1278306

[riams]

From what I can gather, the MIUI SGS2 port isn't officially supported by MIUI, and has a few bugs and issues. Do you think it's good enough to use on a day-to-day basis?

[mrich]

There are some bugs, and with the beta I had two months ago I ended up in a state where the phone wouldn't boot anymore. Afterwards I flashed it again and didn't have any problems since. Haven't updated to the latest version though. Everything I need works (so basically all the features of the phone).

[rwl]

The one app I find essential on my Nexus One is GrooVeIP. It allows seamless inbound and outbound calling over wifi via Google Voice and Google Talk. I use prepaid minutes when not on wifi; I pay less than $10 per month. When I make outbound calls on a cell nerwork, I use Prefixer to route them through Google Voice for the sake of caller ID.

[nurbl]

A few favourites from my (rooted) SGS2:

Epistle - a simple text editor which transparently syncs to Dropbox.

YATA! - my favorite timer app

Chordbot - really cool for trying out music ideas

d7 reader - No nonsense google reader client

UPnPlay - for playing audio/video off my NAS

MortPlayer Books - audiobook player

QuickPic - best gallery I've found

Pinboard - for saving bookmarks

...and games: GameBoid, psx4droid, Snes9x, UAE4Droid (all emulators), ScummVM, Wesnoth, Nethack, Xenowar...

[gbog]

FBReader is a good reader not mentioned here

[sandoz]

Agreed.

I just wish it could sync bookmarks between my PC, phone and tablet.

[sho_hn]

Try FBSync: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.asd.fbsync&hl=...

I haven't yet.

[sandoz]

Me neither since it requires root - my phone is rooted, but not the tablet.

[miniatureape]

Wow. This is great. Calltrack sounds neat. Thanks to everyone for sharing.

Notes My bank's app Shazaam ConnectBot Google Wallet - with NFC, which I've yet to try out Dingbat - An app that sends your loved one's a message when your battery is going to die (Useful for making sure you connect before its too late)

[pbsurf]

CyanogenMod 7 on N1 here.

* Any Cut (Jeff Hamilton)

* Barcode Scanner - reads barcodes much faster than Goggles

* Droid48 - HP48 calculator emulator

* EBookDroid - djvu and pdf reader

* Google Goggles

* Google Sky Map

* GPS Status (Eclipsim)

* Jorte (Johospace)

* SMS Popup (Adam K)

* Speed Test (Ookla)

* Swype

* Widgetsoid2.x

* Yelp

* AdFree

* Instant Heart Rate (Azumio) - measure pulse by placing finger over camera

* Tide Prediction (Muchoviento)

* SMS Backup (Christoph Studer) - backup SMS to gmail

* JetNote and JetDraw (disclaimer: I am the developer of these apps)

* Torch, terminal emulator, and file manager included with CM7

[seltzered_]

on a nexus one running cyanogen:

stuff i use:

* dropbox (for accessing keepass)

* keepass

* beyondpod (for podcasts, it's meets my stream/download needs but there's probably better written apps out there. for those looking, just pay for a good one instead of wasting your time getting frustrated with the free ones)

* rhapsody (music)

* gcalwidget (might have mispelled this)

* yelp

* google voice

* renderFX widgets at night. I'm a f.lux fan.

stuff i formerly used:

* gtasks (I've moved to trello, which has a mobile webapp, hope they make an offline mobile app)

One big thing to note is that I use far less apps than i used to, but this maybe because I can easily tether my phone and quickly open up my macbook to do things. I even preferred checking yelp via my laptop in the car during my last roadtrip. That said, I'm burning to get either an ipad or a thinkpad tablet soon as a book-reader/travel-laptop-second-screen/drawing tablet.

I've also never liked typing on a small keyboard.

[iamben]

3 apps that haven't been mentioned yet but I couldn't rate highly enough:

Pubtran - if you're in London, is fantastic for trains and tubes.

Vignette - Absolutely beautiful and beautifully made camera app (lots of filters and whatnot).

gStrings - Brilliant guitar tuner.

Also worth noting: Pure calendar, Tweetdeck, Google Goggles.

[freshrap6]

Apps that haven't been mentioned yet that I use:

   - Hacker News Droid - HN Reader
   - Hooopla - to find out fun activities going on nearby
   - Todo.txt Touch - can be synced and edited on all my computers, and used the cl
   - Opera Mobile

[print]

CyanogenMod 7.0.3 t-mobile Slide 3G (aka HTC Espresso).

* Work: All the Gmail usual suspects (most recently G+). Rom Manager, DroidWall

* Play: SqueezeControl (for squeezebox). Google Navigation rocks. RoboDefense, Solitaire. Wordfeud (better WordsWithFriends)

[kalleboo]

* PlayerPro for music listening

* Bankdroid for widgets to show my bank/credit balance

* mNote for SimpleNote syncing

* Aedict for japanese dictionary

* Google Listen for podcasts, but I'm looking for something better

* Raziko for japanese radio streaming

* BatteryView to keep track of how fast I'm draining

[bmul17]

Here's my current list:

-advanced task killer, to manage running processes

-all recipes, to find dinner options

-amazone kindle

-amazon app store, they give away one paid app every day

-barcode scanner

-daily dilbert

-google reader, hn droid

-gtasks, to manage gmail task list

-movies, to see upcoming movie releases, trailers

-netflix

-games (crossword, spaghetti & marshmellos)

-shazam

-spotify

-touchdown, corporate email

-verizon dvr, remote control dvr access

-wifi analyzer

[alexitosrv]

Hey guys, do someone has found any application to add Undo capabilities to text editing? It's making me crazy, when sometimes I press the wrong zone and a whole email/sms/note gets messed up.

[maxbrown]

Shameless plug

If you're looking to find more free Android apps I have a little side project up at http://randomfreeapp.com that might be handy :)

[martincmartin]

I'm looking for a good VOIP provider. I could use Skype, but I keep hearing they're more expensive than the other options. I'm in the U.S., mostly calling Canada. Any suggestions?

[jpulgarin]

AnkiDroid, Bank of America, Evernote, Facebook, Grooveshark, Hacker News Reader, HipChat, Listen, PayPal, Reader, reddit is fun, Skype, StopWatch, Twitter, Voice, Words Free, Yelp

[trout]

handcent SMS - I like the popup feature, only non-stock SMS I've tried. Touchdown - I like the customization, I only have to enter my pin when entering the application.

Google authenticator - if you're carrying an android and using gmail you should be using two factor.

Astro - solid file browser

Dolphin - only browser I've used outside of stock, very solid, tabs, sync.

Evernote - unified note taking across my 3 devices (phone, laptop, laptop)

LTE on/off - turning off 4g in spotty areas or when I'm low on battery

Meebo - I use it for a xmpp client

Pandora

Swype

Webex - I do a lot of these, and this app is great

[Derfrankie]

All the Apps are great here but be sure to check out CallTrack - it adds an event to your Google calendar for every phone call you make or get with numbers and length.

[mrich]

Hasn't been mentioned yet: Dolphin HD, a tabbed browser with power-user features (swipe right to see bookmarks, bookmarks sync). Very nice on the S2's large screen.

[yemel]

My favorite apps, listed in no particular order: 1. Twitter 2. Google Docs 3. Dropbox 4. doubleTwist 5. GTalk 6. Navigation 7. Opera Mini 8. WhatsApp 9. Taskos

[andrewljohnson]

If you are a hiker or boater, send me an email (in profile) and I will send you my apps for these. Gaia GPS and Marine Charts.

[sjs382]

Other than the stock apps and Google Voice:

Camera360, Jorte (calendar), Tweetdeck, Google Reader, Dogcatcher (podcasts), Dolphin Browser

[alexitosrv]

Besides the things I read in the compilation on this page, I bought the Repligo PDF Reader and it's a delight to use.

[justinhj]

facebook messenger, dropbox, chrome to phone, alogcat.

incidentally the stock galaxy s phone app does allow me to tun off the shuttet.

also run my own app, a live wallpaper water simulaytion linked to online weather. com.heyesjones.rainwallpaper

[buster]

Interesting to see how everyone uses a completely different set of apps

[monkeypizza]

ankidroid for flash cards with a bunch of prebuilt decks

N-back for doing n-back (it's the one with an orange goldfish icon)

[Kwpolska]

basic set: Twitter, ConnectBot, ES File Manager, Google Goggles, Note Everything, Palringo.

[notatoad]

on my incredible S: firefox, docs, skype, and kindle in addition to the standard set.

[buster]

My Nexus One runs MIUI for 2 weeks now with the following software (hasn't change for months):

Öffi (awesome public transport app for free) https://market.android.com/details?id=de.schildbach.oeffi

Plume (Twitter Client) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.touiteur

Feedr (RSS/Google Reader) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.feedr

Cardiotrainer & Addons https://market.android.com/details?id=com.wsl.CardioTrainer

imdb https://market.android.com/details?id=com.imdb.mobile

all kinds of Google Apps, most recently Google+ https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.app...

Flighttrack (track your flights and notify of changing flight times) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobiata.flighttrac...

Kayak (flight search) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.kayak.android

SMS Backup (automatically push SMSs to a GMail folder = never lose SMS) https://market.android.com/details?id=tv.studer.smssync

Documents to go (Word, Excel, GDocs Client) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dataviz.docstogo

ROM Manager (manage custom ROMs and kernels) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.romma...

Chrome to Phone (send links from Chrome to your mobile) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.app...

Cab4me (shows cabs, stations, numbers of cab companies in every city) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.cab4me.android

Trillian (messaging, duh) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ceruleanstudios.tr...

MySettings (longpress search button = Settings popup ) https://market.android.com/details?id=jqsoft.apps.mysettings

Make your Clock Widget (awesome custom clock widget) https://market.android.com/details?id=net.hubalek.android.ma...

Beautiful Widgets (same as above) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.beautifulw...

Jorte (awesome calendar widget, far better then the Android Stock Widget) https://market.android.com/details?id=jp.co.johospace.jorte

ReadItLater (well.. read it later client) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ideashower.readitl...

every game from Hexage is high quality and fun, most recently Robotek! https://market.android.com/developer?pub=Hexage+Ltd

[maykelange]

cyanogen on Desire HD

Go dev team suite: - Go launcher Ex : great customizable launcher with lots of themes and great transition effects http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5LISE8BU_E - Go dialer Ex, Go contacts ex , Go sms : themable contacts and messages apps. Using the dark theme for both - Go twitter widget : nice twitter widget (transparent theme) - Go calendar widget : click on a day to see the details of that day (transparent theme) - Go keyboard: nice keyboard with lots of themes, and swype input - fancy widgets (free) : the clock/weather widgets. Get the MIUI themes.tried beautiful widget but didn't like it.

- Juice defender lite : great app for reducing power usage.turns off radios(wifi/data, but can still receive calls) when screen is locked, and turns them back on regularely(every 15min). Didn't try the premium/ultimate versions.

- 2 player reactor: very fun multiplayer game. nice to play in a bar. gets harder with every beer ;)

- Grocery smart: shopping list app that sync with the web(http://www.grocerysmart.net/).

- TuneIn radio: lots of webradios from many different countries

- my data manager: monitor how much data your apps are consuming

- Google sky: nice app for astonomy lovers. point it at the sky, and it tells you what starts/planets you're looking at. mostly an app to impress other people. - Google goggles : take a pic of something and your phone will analyse it to detect what it is. tested on monuments in paris. works well enough.like google skyp,mostly used to impress people, no practical use.

- yata: simple countdown timer

-Google reader/ gReader for rss feeds. I think the google app is good enough. gReader brings more features to the table. Try the free version (ad supported) or 5$ for the full version.

-Brilliant quotes: nice widget to show some inspiring/funny quotes.

-Changelog droid: keep track of what's changed in your apps after every update.

-Spotify (subscription 10$/month): music app.supports offline playlists.works on windows/mac/linux.can use the desktop client to choose which playlist will be available on your phone.can play songs already on the phone.nice widget.

-imo.im : good im client. you can start a conversation on your phone, and then continue the conversation on your pc if you go to their site. http://imo.im. iOs clients available too. -Trillian: switched to this im client for their features. continuous chat like imo.im but with a nice windows client and your chat logs get automatically saved to the cloud ( requires subscription)

[codypo]

I am legally obligated here to post the Famigo Sandbox. Our app finds the kid-friendly stuff on your phone and builds a sandbox around it, so your kids can play the games thy like without them accidentally sending a text, getting on the Internet, etc. Then we send you an email with what they've been playing, and games we think we'd like.

Other great apps, gaming focused: the Marbians, Alchemy.