What's your favourite app or game?

M

Matt Harle

Guest
I think it's safe to say that we all use mobile apps and games in our daily lives now, with the rise in popularity of smart phones and tablets. So, what app or game do you get the most use out of?
I've found the Tube Map by MxData to be invaluable on my trips to London. It does pretty much anything you need it to, from telling you the status of each line, routing a journey for you, telling you the times for the first and last trains, and giving you your Oyster Card balance. For people that aren't from London like myself, it saves a lot of time, and makes commuting so much easier.
I'm also unable to put down Temple Run and Angry Birds, especially now that Temple Run 2 is out. Addictive isn't the correct word to describe it.

So, feel free to share your favourite apps!
 
Next Metro is very handy for me. Tells me when the next metro is. Bit of a Ronseal thing going on there.
AirMusic is pretty good too, lets me stream music from my iphone to my Xbox360.
StreamItAll is my app for radio, 02 told me off once because I had it eating 3G all day every day for a fortnight.
BBC iPlayer was good for watching Doctor Who in Benidorm. Just make sure to do the downloading using a bar's Wifi.
Xbox SmartGlass is rather pointless right now, though I think it could prove more interesting in the future.
Sonic 2 I'd say is my favourite game on the iPhone.
 
Android :)
These are just the apps I have on both my phone, hp touchpad (with cyanogenmod) and my nexus 7
Airdroid - brilliant remote access app, lets you use your pc browser to access you device like a 'desktop' via wifi. It's completely free but to be honest I'd happily have paid for it but I do wish the interface was less mac styled.
Business Calendar - name says it all really
Bump - cross platform 'contact details' sharing
Office Suite Pro - Until android has a free option (google bought quickoffice iirc) this is the office suite I use
Real Calc - scientific calculator for those times when you need to do more than 1+1
Google Analytics - as name really
Chrome to Phone - used with fox to phone (and in chrome too) to send webpages to android devices
Diceplayer - media player that happily 720p streams from my pc over wifi
Still on the look out for a more 'holo ui' styled email app.... the built in ones are ok but nothing special and k9 is looking dated
edit: obviously I have things like evernote, google drive, box.net, dropbox and skydrive apps installed too.
 
Well, my phone is half out of action. Only works sometimes, but, just before it broke I'd found some great uses for;
Paypal, Natwest, Santander
All good for checking and moving money and things on the go.
Temple Run
Ideal for curing boredom waiting for a client. Basically, it's a game for when you have a lot of waiting around to do.
Can't wait to try these on my new phone;
Google Calendar
Some form of app that synchs me up with GCal so I can check my diary on the move. I know there's an app there, just got to find the best one. Recommendations?
Dropbox
Self explanitory - files on the move.

Also need to try Evernote, although I can't really fathom what it does?
 
evernote - advanced clipboard/note taking app, not quite up there with onenote in my opinion but a good cross platform alternative and it's free :). Think of it as a 'mood board' for your pc/phone where you can add snippets of things you find interesting
 
Pulse probably gets used the most.Just upgraded to special agent from junior agent in Seek Droid in a January sale.+1 for AirDroidI seem to be using less and less 3rd party apps the stock ones get better.
 
I also use the IMDb app quite a bit. For all those "what else was he in?" conversations in the pub.
PayPal and HSBC's Fast Balance are my money apps.
And there's a rather good free sat nav app called NavFree.
 
I've found the IMDB app to be quite useful before.
A few others that I forgot about:
Yell - Excellent for finding addresses or contact information.
Hailo - A taxi service app.
DSLR Filmmaker Toolkit - I don't have it myself, but I've worked on sets with people that use it, and say that it contains virtually everything you could need to shoot with.
Google Maps - An essential iOS app that perfectly replaces the mess of Apple Maps.
 
Levi said:
evernote - advanced clipboard/note taking app, not quite up there with onenote in my opinion but a good cross platform alternative and it's free :). Think of it as a 'mood board' for your pc/phone where you can add snippets of things you find interesting
It looks really stylish, but, there are apps out there already that do everything that Evernote does?
 
not saying there isn't other options, one note is one for example but evernote is cross platform, syncs online, and arguably the biggest name out there in this type of tool.
 
Levi said:
not saying there isn't other options, one note is one for example but evernote is cross platform, syncs online, and arguably the biggest name out there in this type of tool.
Yeah, I'm intrigued by Evernote like I say. It looks awesome and sure it'll function fantastically too! Just torn between getting a slightly worse phone and an iPad, or going for a cracking phone and slightly worse tablet now. Decisions decisions.
 
get nexus 4 and nexus 7/10 :)
Although there is a rumour of an upgraded nexus 10 already....and the nexus 4 needs to be instock lol
 
Levi said:
get nexus 4 and nexus 7/10 :)
Although there is a rumour of an upgraded nexus 10 already....and the nexus 4 needs to be instock lol
Is that the Google gadgetry?
 
yes and no, they are the 'pure google experience' devices but they're manufactured by lg, asus and samsung and supported by google on the software side.
Benefits with the pure google experience is no annoying skins to slow down updates or the device and google should give regular updates. Even when the updates stop, you'll likely be after a new shiny toy by then, you'll have teams like cyanogenmod (got cyanogenmod 7 on my phone, it's old in tech terms) keeping new roms available so you can get a newer version of android onto the devices, they're still supporting the google g1 (the first google phone) to some extent lol.
 
I've been looking into that Nexus 4. It looks a great phone. I'm somewhat of an Apple fanboy, got the iMac, MacBook and iPhone, but I'm sorely tempted to get a Nexus 4 as 1. they're cheaper and 2. not sure I like the new iPhone all that much.
And, I don't use things like iTunes and that with my phone anyway.
 
My friend got the Nexus 7 a couple of months ago, and he loves it.
 
Tony Hardy said:
I've been looking into that Nexus 4. It looks a great phone. I'm somewhat of an Apple fanboy, got the iMac, MacBook and iPhone, but I'm sorely tempted to get a Nexus 4 as 1. they're cheaper and 2. not sure I like the new iPhone all that much.
And, I don't use things like iTunes and that with my phone anyway.
it really does depend on your usage, if you're tied heavily into itunes and apples calendar, mail etc then an iphone would be a better option but if you use google services or your own then there is nothing that the iphone can do that a nexus 4 cant do. It's not like you can't add music onto the android phone either, you even get free google music storage for 20k songs (itunes match but free) which allows you to stream etc and can transfer from itunes (not ones with drm obviously) folder
 
I use iTunes as my default music player, just because it's there, not for any other reason. I used to use Apple Calendar but recently switched to Google Calendar. I do use Apple Mail, but I'm sure you can get the mail to your Nexus anyway? I only use Mail again, because it's there.
How does the Google storage for music work? Do you just have a file that you can drop stuff in?

How's the app selection?
 
google music, basically it's an 'online storage' for your music - it is literally the same as itunes match (I think that's it's name) where they scan the folder and then 'add' the file to your account (can be issues with parental advisory tracks same as itunes) if it's matched. Any tracks they don't have are uploaded, you can have 20,000 tracks stored there for free and they can be played via web browser, android etc. Streaming and download/cached options on android. You can also buy music from google music.
Just go and take a looksie, its free - https://play.google.com/music/ should work...
I haven't found a way of linking that to my pc yet so I can 'stream' my music in a player, I can only use the web interface, so I'm still stuck with the 20k songs on my nas too :( But it is good for android etc.
As to app selection, I haven't been unable to find an app to do anything I want and 90% of mine are free too :)
I've got remote desktop (windows), snmp and network scanners (I'm a geek and like to keep a check on my network etc :)), streaming media players for files from my pc and software to make my device a dlna server (universal unlike airplay), youtube, netflix, iplayer (no lovefilm iirc). There's offline browser viewers like pocket too.
Even just found a free completely offline navigation package (uses some of the same maps apple does...) which is great for my nexus 7 (has gps but no 3g without tethering to my phone, my choice)
You can look at the apps available on android by looking on the google play store before deciding on android/ios., The best bit of web based play store (theres one on the device too) in my opinion is if you see something you like you can send it to your android device (need one first obviously) so it will install automatically.
oh and for reference, carphone warehouse (pc world will price match, thats what I did) has been selling the 32gb nexus 7 wifi only for £179 thats £30 less than google play store if you include postage :)
 
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