40. RD Mute
Price: Free
RD Mute serves one purpose – to turn off
all phone sounds when the Android accelerometer tells it that you’ve picked the
phone up and turned it over. It’s a silent mode shortcut for when you can’t
even be bothered to press a button. Put your phone on its front to shut it up-
and add any very important numbers to the app’s exceptions list, so people you
don’t mind talking to can still get through.
41. OnLive
Price: Free
The technically astounding streaming video
gaming service has now arrived on Android, with an official OnLive app enabling
Android users to play console titles on their phones and tablets via Wi-Fi.
It’s best played on devices with large screens, but it can still run on something
as relatively modest as an HTC Desire. On-screen controls are the big
trade-off, here-but it does work with OnLive’s Bluetooth wireless controller,
if you’ve seriously bought in to the OnLive dream
42. Daily Mail
Online
Price: Free
Quite a few official news apps have
launched on Android since we last updated this list. The Guardian has one, The
Times has one, Channel 4 News has one and so does the country’s guiltiest
pleasure, the MailOnline. It features offline caching and enables users to
specify a time for it to sync pages with the main website, so you’re in
complete control of how and when you get your faux scandal.
43. Sky+
Price: Free
The Sky+ app has been available on Android
for quite some time, but it’s recently been given a superb visual refresh and a
new custom interface for those doing their telly research on an Android tablet.
The feature set has been expanding, too, now including a nice Showcase front
section, more programme details, plus, of course, the Remote Record features to
set your Sky+ box recording through 3G or Wi-Fi.
44. eBay
Price: Free
Another app that has been available for a
while on Android, the eBay tool has also been updated so much that it’s now a
credible alternative to the desktop site. A recent update brought the ability
to list items direct from the app, while there’s a simple PIN system that makes
paying for your winnings via PayPal much simpler and less convoluted than it is
on the full-blown website.
45. Lovefilm
By Post
Price: Free
There’s now an official Android Lovefilm
app, which enables you to manage your account through your smartphone. You also
get all the peripheral nonsense, such as reviews and trailers, but the key
feature is the ability to manage your rental list, shuffling the order of your
requests and filtering out categories that you never bother with.
46. Tesco
Groceries
Price: Free
This isn’t an advert or a casual game
featuring Jamie Oliver; Tesco Groceries is a fully mobile home delivery
shopping experience, covering everything from booking your delivery slot to
amending orders that you’ve already placed. It uses voice input for easily
searching for items, plus there’s barcode scanner support for identifying and
ordering stuff direct from your cupboard. Makes buying toilet rolls fun.
47. Path
Price: Free
Path is an alternative social network,
designed to make sharing things with friends easier and more personal. It does
simple stuff such as share your music listening history, then it does weird
stuff like track how many hours you’ve slept for. It’s also location-aware, so
if you’d like it to broadcast your every movement, that’s possible. And if you
can’t pull yourself away from Facebook, stuff from here can be posted up there,
too, although posts can also be locked so they never leave Path if you’d
prefer.
48. Sky Sports
Live Football Score Center
Price: Free
The latest Sky Sports Live Football Score
Center app from BSkyB is an entirely sports-related option, giving access to
live scores, league tables, match stats and results. It also incorporates the
new Sky Sports News Radio service so you can listen in, live, to the blokes in
the studio guffawing away about free kick decisions.
49. Yelp
Price: Free
Yelp gives you similar functionality to
Google’s wide range of social place reviews, only here you also get an
augmented reality screen display, so you can point it at the skyline and see
what five-star eating establishments are in the area. Places are backed up by
user reviews; too, making it easy to get an up-to-date opinion about how
generous a particular café is with the chips.
50. Odeon
Price: Free
The Odeon Android app is impressive on a couple
of levels. Being able to buy tickets through your phone is still quite an
exciting thing to do, but this one goes further by including a graphical tool
that enables you to book the specific seats you want. Plus you get all the
scheduled film showing times and the trailers you’d expect from something
that’s trying to encourage you to endure another by-the-numbers Hollywood
product.
51. Sky Go
Price: Free
Access Sky’s sports and film channels (and
even Sky Arts if you’ve trying to impress a date) through Wi-Fi and 3G with Sky
Go, which is free to download and use as long as you’re already a Sky
subscriber. Those with Android phones that have been rooted and are running
custom software are out of luck, though, with Sky limiting access on hacked
models due to “security reasons.” Apart from that annoying caveat, it’s great.
52. Chrome
Price: Free
Everyone’s new favorite browser is now
represented on Android, with Google putting a full mobile version of Chrome up
on the Play Store. It’s a little limited in scope for users of older devices
because Android 4.0 or higher is required to run it, but if your phone ticks
that box, Chrome on Android offers unlimited tabs in a nice pop-up list,
desktop bookmark and open tab syncing, offline saving of pages and even that occasionally
very useful incognito mode for covering your weirder tracks.
53. Rightmove
Price: Free
After a massive period of iOS exclusivity
and the previous disastrous launch of a rubbish web browser wrapper app,
there’s finally a proper native Rightmove app available for Android. It has a
modern, Android 4.0 style layout (but works on anything with Android 2.1 or
higher), offering simple property searches, a Google Maps visual results
interface, and Street View integration. It’s fast and lovely to use.
54. TED
Price: Free
The series of technology talks by boffins,
in which they try to explain high concepts in a way the likes of us lesser
mortals can understand, is now represented on Android. The TED app enables
users to browse its database of well over 1,000 TED talks, all free to download
and try to get through in one go without having your brain explode.
55. ISSLive
Price: Free
Let’s be honest - ISSLive looks awful. But
beneath the clumsy interface and geeky layout sit all sorts of facts and
coverage from the International Space Station, with plenty of live feeds,
mission, crew and experiment data, and even a 3D recreation of Mission Control
down there in Houston to, well, look at. An oddball collection of the
interesting and the mundane, rather like an episode of The Sky at Night.
