46. TapTu
Price: Free
With the advent of 10.1-inch Android
tablets, it’s more important than ever for developers to make a decent site
aggregator that not only stores all your lovely feeds but also enables you to
present them on your device so that it doesn’t just look like you have added a
small postage stamp to an A4 envelope.
Enter Taptu, one of the most beautiful
website readers of recent times, and one that also houses its fair share of
widgets.
TapTu
Taptu - which we tried out on the Galaxy
Tab 10.1 - is easy to customize. Simply press the ‘Add’ symbol in the top-right
corner and choose your feeds. Once you have done this, they appear in neat
lines on the screen.
You can choose content by looking through
the featured links, going to the topics section, getting it from your own
Google Reader or just finding a stream.
We usually dismiss topics on apps like
Taptu but we must admit that we got addicted to a few of the feeds - including
the movie and the tech one. The tech one was a touch sycophantic because we
just like reading about ourselves...
47. Google Translate
Price: Free
Google
Translate
No matter what your dad has taught you,
going to Spain and speaking English slowly while adopting a foreign accent does
not mean you have mastered another language. It just means you sound like a
tit.
Luckily, the frankly genius folk at Google
have created a phone tool which makes learning another language that little bit
easier.
Google Translate is a brilliantly simple
application that enables you to type a phrase into its search bar and it comes
back with how to say it in up to 50 languages.
The phrase is shown in text form. If you
want the app to speak it back to you, you must also install eSpeak for Android,
but the app does this for you if you ask it nicely (‘n glws in Welsh, according
to Google Translate).
The application stores up what you have
asked for and puts it into a history section - so you may want to erase ‘estas
sola?’ from the list before your partner asks what it means.
Other great things the app does is that it
can translate whole text messages for you and you can also send your
translations to others.
The app is so easy to use that you will be
using it to chase foreign students in no time. Just be warned that the robot
voice makes you sound like a female Stephen Hawkins.
48. Google Chrome to Phone
Price: Free
Share
desktop and mobile content with the Google Chrome to Phone app
Bringing together your phone with Google’s
desktop web browser, Google Chrome to Phone is the app to share content between
the two devices.
The first stage is to sync your Gmail
account in three steps on the app, after which you need to download the
extension on your Chrome browser. That generates a clickable icon.
Once you’ve done that, you can hit that
button to push content such as links, maps, texts and phone numbers straight to
your Android device. You’ll receive a notification in your status bar and
shortly after you can open the link.
If you’ve sent map directions, the link
opens in Google Maps, while sending a phone number launches the dialpad with
the number inputted inside. If you send over an email address, it appears in
your phone’s email client.
Google Chrome to Phone takes just a few
minutes to set up, delivering synergy between your desktop and phone, which
transfers content instantly. It definitely comes in handy when you are in a
rush and don’t have time to print off directions, which is a situation many of
us have been in.
49. Fring
Price: Free
Fring
If you are an online social butterfly, the
plethora of instant messaging options your extended social network uses
probably makes it difficult to keep up with what is going on and where.
So, if you keep getting your Twitters in a
twist, Fring could be for you.
Fring enables you to contact your social
network at any time without the need to log into to all the sites you have
joined. So you can contact someone who is on Twitter without needing to be on
the site yourself.
As with most apps of this type, Fring uses
your phone’s web connectivity to contact people. But it doesn’t have any messy
subscriptions to go through, which makes it instantly more likeable.
We were surprised by how well Fring works.
Its navigation through myriad social networks - in our case, Twitter, Skype and
Messenger - worked well and you were even allowed to choose whether you used it
over 3G or Wi-Fi.
50. Go SMS
Price: Free
Go
SMS enables you to do more with text messages than you ever dreamed of
For those not entirely satisfied with their
integrated messaging service, Go SMS serves as an alternative source for all
your text-related chatter.
Offering more than just another place to
send and receive texts, Go SMS enables you to customize the entire look of your
inbox by adding profile pictures, changing background and font colors assigned
to contacts.
As well as searching for contacts via
previous messages, you can view conversations in chat-style threads, and use
the Find SMS feature to search texts by specific words to find conversations
about topics you’d like to pull up for reference once again.
You can share messages via the likes of
Twitter and Facebook, and in Night mode, make text reading in the darker hours
a lot easier on the eye.
Security settings enable you to lock access
to the app using either a gesture pattern or a simple PIN to keep those
unwanted eyes away from your messages.
There are probably things you’ve never
wanted or even thought to do with your messages, but Go SMS will certainly
change that. Rival application Handcent SMS offers many offers similar features
but the wealth of options here makes this the more desirable download.
51. Gmail
Price: Free
Keep
on top of your emails when you’re out and about by downloading Gmail
Bringing the email experience from the
desktop application to your phone, the Gmail Android app helps you keep track
of your emails while you are on the move.
With support for multiple Gmail accounts,
you can expect many of the features already familiar to Gmail users, such as
searching through messages and viewing email messages by conversation. You can
also expect priority inbox markers, accessing synced messages when in offline
mode and a toggle so that you can hide or show quoted text.
Email notifications appear on your status
bar, but you can also choose to assign a ringtone or have the phone vibrate for
incoming emails. In a bid to help keep your email organized, you can add stars
to favorites and labels for personal, work and travel. To make the transition
from another email client easier, you can import contacts and mail from the
likes of Yahoo!, Hotmail and AOL accounts.
Gmail users will be happy to see that the
app stays relatively true to the desktop version, and with the ability to fully
customize your account, those new to Gmail will quickly recognize that this is
one of the best email clients around for Android phones.
