With Android's market share having risen to almost 15% over the past year, there are now thousands of apps available for the platform - many of which can be extremely useful over the course of a typical working day. Having recently written about the respective value-for-money offered by the different mobile OS platforms' app markets, I thought it would be logical to follow this up with a sort of app showcase feature, 'zooming in' on exactly what some of the better apps out there can do.
So, this is basically the first of a series of such compilation lists, each of which will have a different OS platform and theme. This inaugural post will focus on Android and work-related apps for those working in the IT industry. N.B. It goes without saying that, though I'm choosing to focus on this one particular usage of such apps, most can be helpful no matter what your profession: with that said, let's get straight to it...
1. Wifi Analyser - A great free app for checking the Wifi channels around you so that you can find a less crowded one for your router. Pretty handy if you have a smaller office with many neighbours and want to optimise your connection.
2. Password Keeper - Another free one: does exactly what you'd expect, uses 128 bit AES encryption and is perfect if you have many accounts with various sites and services. Makes it much easier to create different passwords for everything (which is the sensible and safe thing to do), as you only need to remember one master password to operate PW.
3. Colour Detector - A clever app for developers which can provide you with the HTML, RGB, or HSV reference for any colour that you point your phone camera at. A nice example of augmented reality principles working in reverse, imagine the colours of a bar room wall inspiring and facilitating a new web design with the aid of this app.
4. Spending Monitor - Very useful for keeping track of expenses, especially if you move around a lot and find keeping receipts for everything to be annoying or difficult to implement. Has a nice interface and will be even better if a 'photo' option is added to you can just snap your receipt and then not have to worry about keeping it filed for two months until the next accounts are filed...
5. Skyfire - Nice web browser to have as a back-up since it neatly fixes the problems many others have with Flash. The search isn't so bad either so could potentially be a decent first pick as well.
6. Quick SSHd - Handy SSH server which allows a computer to connect to the Android device for remote access or file-sharing. Useful for about a 1001 things and can also write to SD cards.
7. Blackmoon Attachsave - Excellent attachment downloader for Gmail accounts which saves file contents to the phone's SD card for offline viewing. Has both a Full and Lite version so you can vary the amount of access to your email content.
Ok, that about does it for this app list - be sure to check Google's Android Market Showcase for more general highlights from the best up-and-coming apps. Look out for the next top app list on this blog in a few days time.
