useful free android /iphone apps

[jonathan_matos5]

i found some time killer games but im looking for some apps that would actually be helpful

i personally just got a android phone (still getting used to it) but i figured the iphone people can join in too.

what are your cannot live without free phone apps?

[baalroo]

Stitcher and Feedly are my top two most used apps. Also, in terms of utility, Cover Art Grabber is pretty darn useful.

Dropbox, File Expert, and uTorrent Remote are pretty useful for file management stuff.

Oh, and MPC Remote is cool if you are a laptop-on-the-TV user.

[colcifer]

You can find a free android app for anything; I haven't paid for an app yet and I've had my Droidx nearly a year.

[matt descending]

Gstrings tuner. Pandora radio. Tricorder. Uloops. Ethereal Dialpad. Relax and Sleep. And Talkbass of course.

[silentmike]

Yeah, talkbass app is slowly taking over my life. As is my newly acquired reddit app.

[superbassman2000]

talkbass app, reddit mobile has been my favorite reddit app, Advanced Task Killer is a must for everyone, if you are a QR code kind of guy, I use QR Droid and it works great. If you are a runner, RunKeeper is a great free app for tracking yourself. SoundCloud app is great, and RD3 is my go-to for 808/303 writing as well as a great metronome and has covered the drummer in a pinch!

[Eric Perry]

Originally Posted by silentmike

Yeah, talkbass app is slowly taking over my life...

Although the current version sucks, IMO.

Being jailbroken, I can get older versions of *almost* all apps. Figures I can't downgrade TB, however!

[Johno Dunn]

Some what OT, but I have been having a problem w/my Android Pandora app. It plays about a minute of a song, then goes to the next song. Any one else experience this, or is it my phone?

J!

[baalroo]

Originally Posted by superbassman2000

Advanced Task Killer is a must for everyone

not really. android already does it's own app management, there's no real need or use for this app.

[SoonerMatt]

Advanced Task Killer - close background apps, free up memory, and improve battery
Album Art Grabber - download album art for your player
Angry Birds - because
Continental Airlines - paper-free checkin, flight status, etc.
ConvertPad - conversion calculators and tables for every unit you could ever imagine
Google Docs - view and edit you Google Docs files on the go
Dr. Web Light - looks for bloatware and spyware from anything else you might ahve downloaded
Gauge Battery - visualizes and gives a percentage of how much battery you have left
gStrings - tuning
JEFIT - exercise instructions, workout routine and improvement tracking
Mobile Metronome - free metronome
NetCounter - keep track of how much wifi and 3g traffic you've accumulated to make sure you don't go over your limit
Ringdroid - cut pieces of your songs out to use as ringtones
ScoreCenter - keep track on news and scores for your teams.
Stopwatch & Timer - because
TalkBass forums - do you really need to ask?
Wapedia - mobile Wikipedia app

[superbassman2000]

Originally Posted by baalroo

not really. android already does it's own app management, there's no real need or use for this app.

i will agree with you when you explain to me how to get apps to actually close when I close them...unless your idea of app management is to keep them all open lol

[baalroo]

Originally Posted by superbassman2000

i will agree with you when you explain to me how to get apps to actually close when I close them...unless your idea of app management is to keep them all open lol

The Android operating system has a built in app management system that it does on it's own. When it NEEDS more memory it will get it. I mean, if you want to just randomly close things that the onboard operating system doesn't think needs to be closed for whatever reason, then sure it technically does something that you can't normally do. But that sort of anal-retentive techie micromanagement most certainly isn't a "must for everyone" (as you put it). It may save a modicum of battery life here and there, but for most regular folks... it's just completely unneeded bloat. How many times do you think a guy who's just got an android phone for the first time and is making a thread asking what basic apps to pickup is going to know better than the OS itself which apps to close and which to let run in the background? My guess is going to be almost never. When you're using a task killer you're basically asserting that you know which apps to leave running and which to close at any particular time better than the designers of the applications and the OS.

[superbassman2000]

Originally Posted by baalroo

The Android operating system has a built in app management system that it does on it's own. When it NEEDS more memory it will get it. I mean, if you want to just randomly close things that the onboard operating system doesn't think needs to be closed for whatever reason, then sure it technically does something that you can't normally do. But that sort of anal-retentive techie micromanagement most certainly isn't a "must for everyone" (as you put it). It may save a modicum of battery life here and there, but for most regular folks... it's just completely unneeded bloat. How many times do you think a guy who's just got an android phone for the first time and is making a thread asking what basic apps to pickup is going to know better than the OS itself which apps to close and which to let run in the background? My guess is going to be almost never. When you're using a task killer you're basically asserting that you know which apps to leave running and which to close at any particular time better than the designers of the applications and the OS.

I understand what you are saying, but I am starting to think it's a YMMV issue--why does my phone last longer when I keep my apps closed compared to when i keep them all open? I'm not talking 3G services, I am talking like music players and stuff. That's why I think it's something people should have. But like I said, it's probably just a YMMV issue. If you are going to load your phone up with a bunch of games and the novelty apps, I think it's a good thing to have, personally, but YMMV

[fdeck]

I'm excited by py4a, though I haven't tried it out yet.

[MatticusMania]

So, I play dodgeball every Sunday. We usually determine team captains by having everyone pick a number, 1 through 100. Then we'll have some way of figuring out what the number is, usually found at random off of some object nearby. Last week it occured to me, that perhaps there might be a random number generator app. Opened up my Android Market, searched 'random number generator', and there we go!

[baalroo]

Originally Posted by superbassman2000

I understand what you are saying, but I am starting to think it's a YMMV issue--why does my phone last longer when I keep my apps closed compared to when i keep them all open? I'm not talking 3G services, I am talking like music players and stuff. That's why I think it's something people should have. But like I said, it's probably just a YMMV issue. If you are going to load your phone up with a bunch of games and the novelty apps, I think it's a good thing to have, personally, but YMMV

here's a good article that may clear some things up about android task killers.

Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them

Apps like Advanced Task Killer, the most popular task killer in the Market, act on the incorrect assumption that freeing up memory on an Android device is a good thing. When launched, it presents you with a list of "running" apps and the option to kill as many as you want. You can also hit the Menu button to access a more detailed "Services" view, that lists exactly which parts of each application are "running", how much memory they take up, and how much free memory is available on your phone. This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you'll free by killing it. As we've learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.

Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the "autokill" feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't—killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.

[chuck norriss]

chordmaster

[chuck norriss]

wolfram - facts about facts (not free)
kakao talk - free tm/group chat
skullcandy - surf reports

[Johno Dunn]

Fooducate. Changing the way I think about food!

J!