The 36 best Android apps

With more than 20,000 apps available through Google’s Android Market, it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the mountains of chaff. We’ve downloaded and tested hundreds of Android apps to bring you the definitive guide to the best paid-for and free apps available.

(Note: application prices and availability are subject to change)

1. AROUNDME (Free)

AroundMe puts the GPS radio inside your phone to spectacularly good use, helping you to find everything from cash points to cardiac wards in the local vicinity.

The app has 18 pre-selected categories, and don’t be put off by the Americanisms: searching for “gas stations” will still point you towards the nearest BP station.

It also accepts free text searches: ask for “sports shops”, for instance, and it will hunt down the local Nike stores, Foot Locker and even non-specialist retailers such as Argos. Results are presented as a list (nearest result first) or as pins on a Google Map, allowing you to gauge exactly how far you’ll have to travel to find what you’re looking for.

2. PICSAY (Free, Pro version €1.99)

Photoshop Mobile may have grabbed the headlines when it launched on iPhone and subsequently Android, but PicSay is a far more powerful picture editor. It’s crammed with tools that you’d expect on desktop software – exposure, contrast, saturation and hue modifiers sit alongside a variety of tints, colour tweaks and distortions.

It uploads pictures direct to your Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and Twitter accounts, and the Pro version adds more effects and distortions, such as colour extraction, finger painting and photo filters, as well as geotagging.

3. SPOTIFY MOBILE (Spotify subscription required)

If avoiding the irritating ads isn’t enough to tempt you to pay £10 per month for a Spotify subscription on your PC, accessing its vast library of music on your mobile could well be.

Spotify Mobile streams music over 3G or Wi-Fi, and there’s also the option to store playlists locally for when reception falters – although these have to be re-synched every once in a while. But that’s a small inconvenience for having access to practically any song you can think of wherever you are.

4. 3G WATCHDOG (Free)

If you don’t have an unlimited data plan, it’s vital to keep track of your monthly allocation – 3G Watchdog will make sure that you don’t incur any hidden charges.

Tell the app your data cap and monthly rollover allowance and it will do the rest, displaying a colour-coded icon in the corner of your screen: a green icon means you’re safe; orange indicates you’re nearing your limit; and a red symbol means you should probably reign in your downloads.

5. ALOQA (Free)

Using your phone’s GPS, Aloqa scans the surrounding area for a huge range of attractions, landmarks and places of interest. The software adds intelligent extras: search for cinemas and it will bring up what time films are showing, for example, while clicking on a restaurant will also unveil a phone number.

It’s possible to customise your feeds with dozens of filters – from cash machines and comedy clubs, to local Wikipedia pages and trendy bars.

6. BACKGROUNDS (Free)

Use the Backgrounds app to spice up the boring homescreen on your Android phone. Thousands of images are on offer and, to make wading through the options easier, they’re neatly categorised. Dozens of images stretch from basic patterns and abstract art to sports teams, games or movies, and you can also browse through the most popular images.
7. BBC NEWS (free)

An app coded by Google’s Jim Blackler, BBC News presents the latest headlines from across the network. Feeds for the site’s most popular stories are available, as well as regional feeds and those for tech, entertainment, sports and politics.

Clicking a story opens the link in your browser, and a widget puts the day’s top story on your homescreen. Much-improved official BBC apps are due to launch in spring/summer.

8. DOLPHIN BROWSER (Free)

With tabbed browsing, content sharing with Twitter and Facebook, trending topics and page sharing included as standard, Dolphin offers a host of features that aren’t included with the basic Android browser. That isn’t the end of its charms, either: integration with Google services, RSS management, multitouch zooming and customisable themes make Dolphin the most powerful browser on Android.

9. FACEBOOK (Free)

Facebook’s range of mobile applications offer most of the features available on the main site, with your newsfeed, friends list and notifications present, alongside smartphone-specific tools, such as the ability to take a photo and upload it directly to the site.

While some features are missing from the Android version – chat and messaging are both included in the iPhone app, for instance, and available in separate applications for BlackBerry and Symbian – all benefit from a slick interface that’s faster and easier to use than the clunky mobile websites.

10. MYBACKUP PRO ($4.99)

One of Android’s most annoying quirks is the inevitable factory reboot of your phone during a firmware update, but MyBackup Pro simplifies the process by preserving your contacts, apps, bookmarks, text messages and more.

The software can back up your data to either an SD card or the app’s own servers, and then restore it within minutes, removing the hassle from potentially painful Android firmware upgrades.

11. ROBO DEFENSE ($2.99)

Desktop Tower Defence gave a name to a genre when it was released in 2007, but few games have managed to replicate its compulsive gameplay. Robo Defense, though, has nailed it: 100 levels of difficulty, a collection of fiendish enemies, and four maps provide a formidable challenge that requires plenty of tactical thought.

12. GOOGLE (Free)

The vast compendium of Google mobile apps are overshadowed by one astonishing feature: voice search. Say anything from “petrol stations in Luton” to “Brothers in Arms lyrics” into your phone and Google’s magnificent speech algorithms translate flawlessly almost every time, without any prior training.

Better still, results are delivered in a mobile-optimised form, with quick access to maps and directions in the petrol station search, for example.

13. QUICKPEDIA (Free)

Wikipedia’s interface isn’t exactly geared to mobile browsing, but apps such as Quickpedia make exploring easy thanks to its tabbed interface.

Predictive searching, featured articles and the latest news are handled by tabs at the top of the screen, and it’s even possible to use your phone’s GPS unit to find landmarks with Wikipedia entries nearby. The software’s slick reformatting of Wiki pages also makes entries easy to read on smaller smartphone screens.

14. TWIDROID (Free, Pro version €3.39)

Android’s best Twitter app, Twidroid offers basic services as well as website and image previews, photo and video posting, retweeting, background notifications and geotagging support. The Pro version adds multi-account support, desktop widgets and bit.ly integration, making it a vital upgrade for power Tweeters.

15. WAVESECURE (Free)

WaveSecure was one of the overall winners at last year’s Android Developer Challenge thanks to its innovative range of smartphone security features. Should your handset be stolen and a new SIM inserted, for instance, the handset will be locked, your previously assigned “buddy” will receive a text alert, and the phone’s GPS can be used to track the stolen device.

You can access your backed-up data on WaveSecure’s website and even wipe your phone completely. Our only qualm was reduced battery life but, if security is a concern, that could be an inconsequential price to pay.

16. CELESTE SE ($1.99)

Plenty of apps have contributed to the buzz behind augmented reality, but Celeste SE is one of the most impressive. We used our phone’s GPS to track Saturn in real-time, and watched as the planet was rendered onscreen against actual images of the night sky, viewed through the phone’s camera.

It’s great for amateur astronomers too: it’s possible to research moon phases and sunrises, discover in-depth information about the solar system, and look up how the planets will be aligned in the future.

17. LOCALE ($9.99)

The Android Developer Challenge-winning Locale uses your phone’s GPS to create profiles that alter your phone’s behaviour depending on your location: turn your Wi-Fi on and ringtones off when you’re at the office, and reverse those choices when you arrive home.

It will even turn off power-hungry components when your battery dwindles. Dozens of conditions can be set to alter your phone’s behaviour, and it introduces a level of customisation that’s rarely found on the average smartphone.

18. PLINK ART (Free)
Take a picture of a painting and Plink Art will identify the image before loading your phone with information about it This app is one of the most innovative uses of a smartphone camera we’ve seen: take a picture of a painting and Plink Art will identify the image before loading your phone with information about it. The slick interface displays the artist, year, type and location, as well as any related Wikipedia info, and it will even allow you to order prints of a picture. Just remember – you’re not meant to take photos of Mona.

19. GOOGLE EARTH (Free)

This stunning Google Earth app offers the same high-resolution satellite imagery we’re used to on the PC, but in the palm of your hand. Tilt to adjust perspective, click to get geo-located Wikipedia information, and add the Panoramio layer for access to millions of geo-located photos for good measure. Connect to Wi-Fi, rather than the unreliable 3G, to avoid any graphical stuttering as you zoom down from the sky.

20. TUNEWIKI (Free)

As well as acting as an intuitive media player, TuneWiki comes with a host of other functions: lyric and video searching, Last.fm and Shoutcast radio directories, the ability to build YouTube libraries, and the TuneWiki community, which creates playlists based on popularity, location and genre. A vital download if your smartphone is your primary music device.

21. LAST.FM (Free)

As with the desktop version of this music streaming service, you can create playlists based on your favourite artists and genres – or browse through tags to find hidden gems – before sharing your favourites with fellow users. The Android version allows background playback too.

22. SHAZAM (Free)

We’ve all been there, listening to the radio or watching the telly and wondering just what the heck that music being played is. At last, there’s an app that saves the embarrassment of attempting to hum it to your wife.

Just hold the phone to the music source and hit the Shazam button, and within 30 seconds it reveals the artist and track being played. Well, 90% of the time anyway, which is impressive enough.

23. PHOTOSHOP.COM MOBILE (Free)

It’s worth thinking of Adobe’s Photoshop app as a companion to the Photoshop.com online sharing site. It offers 2GB of online storage as standard, and a raft of basic editing features including exposure, cropping, contrast, focus, sharpening and saturation. You also get a handful of artistic effects to mask the smeary photos afforded by smartphone cameras.

24. REBTEL (Free)

First and foremost this is a service rather than an app. The idea is that, when you’re abroad or want to call international numbers from your mobile, Rebtel (www.rebtel.com) will assign a local number that acts as an alias for the real one.

You’re then charged local rates plus a small charge per minute depending on the country. We found connections weren’t always 100% reliable, but for the cost savings it’s worthwhile.

25. TRAPSTER (Free)

Trapster takes advantage of the GPS radio in modern smartphones to provide free speed camera alerts, and display them on a special version of Google Maps. The database is user-generated, so as well as alerts, the app provides the facility to report unmarked speed cameras – just tap a button onscreen to mark the spot.

The phalanx of user-spotted cameras means Trapster is updated more often than satnav systems, and it marks mobile speed camera sites as well as static ones.

26. COPILOT 8 UK & IRELAND (£27)

CoPilot 8 is the best mobile phone satnav app on any platform, bar none. It’s easy to use, with most options one or two finger taps away, it calculates sensible routes, boasts accurate mapping, and both the onscreen and spoken directions are clear and easy to understand.

Innovative touches include providing instructions for the next two upcoming junctions rather than the usual one, showing you the cheapest nearby fuel prices, and there’s also a facility that plots the location of friends on the map.

The fact that it does all this for only £27, and without ongoing usage fees, means it not only beats rival TomTom on features and usability, but it also costs less than half its price.

27. WHITE NOISE (£1.19)

White Noise is designed for anybody being kept awake by snoring partners, or those who struggle to sleep without the comforting sound of whale song and lapping beaches in the background. The application offers 40 ambient sounds to lull you into the land of nod, and it provided genuine relief for the tinnitus sufferer in the PC Pro office.

28. EVERNOTE (Free)

If you’re a serial note-taker, Evernote is the smartphone app to put at the top of your list. Snap a picture of any text – including handwritten notes – and Evernote will read the text, index it, and synchronise your captured notes with the companion app on your desktop PC.

It can be put to all sorts of uses, from scanning jottings to storing business cards and recipes from cookbooks. And, once you’re back home, you can organise your notes to your heart’s content.

29. BARCODE SCANNER VERSION 3.1 (Free)

Barcode Scanner uses Google’s ZXing Java library to process barcodes on pretty much any product. Point the camera at the code and use the screen to ensure it fits within the target rectangle. Once the app recognises the barcode, it performs either a product search to see if you’re getting the best possible price, or a general Google search for more information.

30. BETTER KEYBOARD (£2.99)

The one thing we don’t like about Android is its standard onscreen keyboard. Fortunately, there is another way: the Better Keyboard offers compact Qwerty and full Qwerty layouts, easier symbol entry and, crucially, effective prediction and auto-correction.

You can also tweak text to your heart’s content, with extras such as the ability to use words in your contacts file in word suggestions, and the option to display blobs that show exactly where you touched each key. And there’s a raft of downloadable skins to give it a fresh new look. Excellent stuff.

31. BIGOVEN (Free)

Ideal for looking up those last-minute recipes, BigOven can be relied on to offer a variety of approaches to the dish you’re looking for. There are buying tips for ingredients, a random recipe feature for those looking to experiment, and a cookbook to store your favourite recipes.

32. TV GUIDE.CO.UK (Free)

This lightweight app offers programme listings for more than 400 channels, including Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, Freesat or Tiscali, covering a 24-hour period. A user-friendly interface allows you to customise listings to suit your needs, making this a simple but effective way of organising your viewing schedule.

33. TASK MANAGER (Free)

If you own an Android phone, downloading an app to control and kill applications running in the background is a must. If you don’t, your phone may slow to a crawl before you can say “I wish I’d bought an iPhone”. Task Manager is one of the best, allowing you to kill memory-hungry background apps and selected others whenever the phone is locked. A desktop widget lets you see how much memory is in use at any one time.

34. JEWELS (Free)

Clones of famous games litter the Android market, but Jewels – a tribute act for casual gaming giant Bejeweled – is one of the best. Three modes are included, but the standard and infinite modes pale in comparison to the super-addictive timed option, where you race against the clock to top the high-score table.

35. DOCUMENTS TO GO (£5.99)
Documents To Go has been a smartphone staple for a decade. The software allows you to view and edit Office documents on the move, as well as read Adobe PDFs. While only a sadist would perform serious document edits, it’s an effective way to take key documents with you.

36. ANDROMOTE PRO LICENSE (€2.98)

Playing media (specifically music with a UPnP streamer) can be laborious, involving switching on your TV, browsing your network shares then turning it off once your tunes have been selected. With AndroMote you can sidestep that process. It allows you to browse your network for UPnP servers, build playlists, and stream them directly to your player – all from the comfort of your phone.