7. Spotify
Price: Free
If there is one thing that the iPhone has
over an Android handset, it is Runes. The link between iPhones and Jobs’ music
service is one that Google’s chiefs and overlords could only dream about. Until
now, that is.
Spotify
Spotify is the next best thing for those
looking for a music fix. To run the app on your Android phone, you need to
subscribe. You also need to make sure your phone contract allows a lot of web
use because you will be streaming music to the handset. This is OK if you are
using Wi-Fi, but on the go it will be 3G, and this could get pricey.
Layout-wise, those familiar with the
desktop version will feel right at home. There are nice additions, such as the
What’s New tab, and unlike the iPhone version, it can run in the background
while you still enjoy games or update your Facebook status.
The real drawback is if you are using an
Android handset without a 3.5mm jack. This is a bugbear because the supplied
headphones aren’t great. If you have a Hero, though, Spotify on Android is for
you.
8. Triplt Travel Organizer
Price: Free
Triplt
Travel Organizer
Triplt is one of those apps that can become
indispensable. Simply forward your confirmation email from your airline to the
dedicated email address, and all your travel information is accessible from
your smartphone or via the website
If you use a merged corporate calendar,
this is a great way of letting people know you’ll be out of the country should
they need you.
Sending the email with the travel plans is
quick and painless, then the rest is pretty much done for you.
We’d perhaps like the ability to edit the
information from the app itself, but as a general base for all your travel
knowledge, Triplt is tops.
9. SwiftKey 3 Keyboard
Price: $4.99
Predictive
text goes to a new level with Swiftkey’s snooping of your messages.
While we’ve all become more nimble fingered
when it comes to touchscreen phone tech, if you don’t message using text
speech, you’re going to be slower than your average teen. So to get faster, you
have a choice: forget all you learned about grammar and embrace text shorthand,
or use SwiftKey.
SwiftKey is the Mystic Meg of apps,
predicting what you’re about to text. Download is fast but you must add a 3MB
language pack.
The layout is much like any texting app,
except you have the predictive words at the top. This is the scary part; the
words that appear at the top are the ones you will want to add into the text.
This isn’t done by magic but by analyzing the texts you have sent in the past.
It’s a little like a stalker who learns the
way you walk to work then jumps out of the bushes offering a number of
shortcuts for your journey, but a lot less scary.
Yes, there are some privacy issues, but we
don’t see a problem with the app rooting through texts for familiar words and
not context.
We do have a problem with the fact that you
have to use a full QWERTY keyboard - it would have been nice to have the choice
of keyboard size. Minor niggles aside, SwiftKey is an excellent texting app.
10. Music Beta
Price: Free
Music
Beta
Music Beta for Android is a strange beast,
given that it is currently only available in the US and the service it is for
(the cloud music service offered by Google) is invite only. If you manage to
become part of this exclusive club, this app will allow you to stream all your
uploaded music straight to your smartphone. If not, then it will merely act as
a normal music player.
There’s no denying that adding content to
the cloud is the future of computing, so it is great that Google has decided to
enter this space. Its official music player for Music Beta is interesting, in
that it is not as slick as we would have hoped.
The Android app offers a similar view to
that on your desktop, and there’re also things such as cover flow so you can
switch seamlessly through albums. Other options include the ability to make an
instant mix, create a playlist or search your content.
The app gobbles 3G so it’s best to use over
Wi-Fi. Couple this with an ugly widget and what you have is the start of
something great but with enough bugs to deserve its beta tag.
11. BBC News
Price: Free
BBC
News
Each row on the app is populated with
around 10 stories; to see them all, you just have to swipe to the right. You
can configure the categories you see by going to the bottom of the app and
clicking ‘Add Category’.
Once you find a story you like, click it
and the article appears almost immediately. From here you can tap the screen
and make the text bigger or share the article through social networks and the
like.
Once you are in an article, you don’t have
to go to the homepage to rifle through more stories - simply swipe the screen
and another article in that specific category appears.
There’s a lot of video that can be accessed
and all this uses the same iPlayer-style video player. So, even if you click on
a video within an article, you are transported to a separate page. Wait a few
seconds and the video loads. Obviously, we recommend doing this on Wi-Fi, as it
would cane your 3G.
12. Train Times UK
Price: $5.25
Train
Times UK will help you catch a train, even if the railways aren’t so reliable.
Train Times UK wears a big badge saying
that it is recognized as an official app for offering train times in the UK but
it is not the app recognized by National Rail Enquiries - that one is Rail
Planner Live. This is because UK rail information is now available to anyone
who wants to create an app.
It uses all the same information and
presents it in a nicer way than its rival. As both apps cost the same, there is
not much to choose between them.
Train Times UK allows you to look up train
information across the whole of the UK but not Northern Ireland. It also gives
you live departure info and offers directions to your nearest station. We did
notice problems with the app working with Gingerbread (Android 2.3) so we are
hoping that there will be an update to sort this out.
Apart from that, Train Times UK is a great
guide to the UK’s rail system - no mean feat, considering how complicated and
unpredictable it is
