One benefit of Android phones is the ability for users and apps to access the phone’s sensors and controls to make things automatically happen. Apps to help with this automation can be complex and intimidating.

Often when comparing Android and iOS, folks will point out that Android phones are more customizable. They don’t just mean with wallpapers and such, however. Users and apps can take finer control of the phone’s settings or read sensors to fire off events. Call it “smart customization” if you will. Apps such as Locale and Tasker are prime examples, but they can be overwhelming to use at first.

If you’re in the market for a brand-new smartphone–or if you feel that you haven’t fully taken advantage of your current one–finding great apps is the last piece of the puzzle. The sheer number of apps available on the market can be daunting, but our package of essentials should be more than enough to get you started.

In this article we’ve assembled the top software for Android phones; if you have a different mobile OS, be sure to see our picks for BlackBerry, iOS, or Windows Phone 7.

Our list is selective: Apps such as those for Amazon, Facebook, and Google Maps aren’t included here, because if your phone didn’t come preloaded with those, you’ve probably already downloaded them. The apps we did choose to list are intended to expand the functionality of your smartphone and make tasks easier, faster, more secure, and even more fun. You may even discover a few items in this collection that you simply can’t live without.

You can easily find the following apps by searching in the Android Market. You’ll need to have an account there, and the apps may cost a dollar or two. Before you buy, read the minimum requirements for each app to confirm that it will run on your phone. Remember that downloading apps counts against your monthly data-usage limit. And for the latest app reviews, be sure to visit our Android AppGuide.

Advent of smartphones has made many spheres of life easy. From online shopping, to banking, handling daily chores all can be done from a touch on your cell phone screen. Supporting fast internet speed, modern browsers, high definition cameras and robust apps smartphones has changed the blogging business revolutionary.

Reference Link:

http://gigaom.com/mobile/make-your-android-phone-smarter-in-5-minutes-with-atooma/

Android is open source platform and provides all information and services to all sans any license fees. It has capacity of getting compatible with almost all browsers hence you can make it compatible with any browser. Competition between mobile developers is increasing due to new versions of mobile platforms developed in the market. No doubt that everyone wants to and tries to corner Androids sizable portion of market share. This open source platform attracts android application developers to build fabulous mobile applications. This is the main reason for Android, since its launch Android has become vastly popular and admired by many mobile application development communities.

Android mobile platform consists of Android operating system and Android SDK as well as android middleware. SDK is the basic platform which provides android app developer required tools and technical support for developing apps and APIs. The best thing about Android is, it is based on Linux platform hence it facilitates absolutely easy accessibility to environment and the core functionality for building fabulous applications for the smart mobile phones. It has capacity of scaling up from its current level and provides the best solutions.

Android platform is powerful in providing accurate information required by users with quick information gathering techniques. It has capacity of greatly reducing development time and efforts required and this helps in completing the project quickly and easily. This will help you to stay ahead of your competitors all the time. Android Development tools are easy to use and implementation so any android app programmer can use this platform quire easily. It does not require learning any language for Android application development and one can easily perform better with the existing knowledge and ability or qualification. The following are the reasons why it is preferred by many of the Android developers / users:

Biggest advantage is Android is an open platform and free. So many manufacturers can design a variety of software loaded on the Android system.

Android display system can be changed to horizontal or vertical, making it easier for the user in finding an adequate picture.

If one has a phone with Android consistently then s/he can download and install several free programs for Android and can open many windows at once.

Many Android applications have been, until April 2011 has reached 250,000 applications for Android. With the support of many applications, the user can change the screen display.

Android phones can also function as a router to share Internet.

The ability for anyone to customize the Google Android platform will open up the applications playing field to small and new players who lack the financial muscle to negotiate with wireless carriers like AT&T and Orange.

The consumer will benefit from having a wide range of mobile applications to choose.

Although this will depend on the carrier, one will be able to customize a mobile phones using Android platform like never before, right down to the screen.

Features like weather details, opening screen, live RSS feeds and even the icons on the opening screen will be able to be customized.

As a result of many mobile phones carrying Android, companies has come up with such innovative products like the location aware services that will provide users with any information they might be in need of.

This information could help developing further apps like knowing the location of a nearby convenience store or filling station. 

Reference Link:

http://mobileappsinfo.blogspot.com/2012/06/android-platform-most-preferred.html

Advent of smartphones has made many spheres of life easy. From online shopping, to banking, handling daily chores all can be done from a touch on your cell phone screen. Supporting fast internet speed, modern browsers, high definition cameras and robust apps smartphones has changed the blogging business revolutionary. Now bloggers don’t have to sit in front of their PCs or laptops and make posts or uploads images. All this can be done from their smartphone. Indeed advanced blogging functions, writing posts to uploading images and videos all can be done even when a blogger is travelling. Being an ardent Android Fan I will share of the high quality Android apps that are must for every blogger.

Apps For Mange Your Blogging

WordPress App: This app allows you to manage all your wordpress blogs from your phone. It provides all those wordpress tools which are available in its online version. From creating new posts to managing all the comments you received on your posts, to uploading multimedia files on your blog all can be done through this app. You can also analyze your blog visitor’s statistics from it. And it is a FREE app.

Text Editor Apps

QuickOffice App: Many bloggers prefer to first write their post in word and then paste it to the html editor of their blog. Then this app is for you. In this paid App ($14.99) you can connect with your dropbox, Google Docs and other online document sharing site accounts.
Writer App: If you like to write your posts in plain text editors than instead of paid word docs, you can use this FREE writer app which provides you with simple, free plain text editor.

DroidEdit Pro App: This one is my favorite. This app provides you with best of the environment for writing and editing your HTML posts. Bloggers liking hi-fi features will love this app because of its syntax-based color-coding, keyboard shortcuts, HTML previews, and connections to Dropbox features. But for all this one has to pay the price of ($1.69) which is worth spending.

Image Editing Apps

FX  Photo Editor App: This paid ($3.99) android app can make image editing an easy task for bloggers using android smartphones. In this app you will find options for image editing like resize, rotate, crop and many more complex process.

Photoshop Touch App: This one is perfect for android tablets. Taking flexibility of your bigger screen you can add layers to your images with this app for which you have to pay $9.99.

Analytic and Social Media Apps

gAnalytics App: This free app gives you the mobile version of your Google Analytics. With this you can manage all your analytics accounts from your smartphone.

Hootsuite App: Sharing a blogpost in social media is good for blogging. So to continue that from your android phone Hootsuite is a good option. Professional bloggers can add their social media profiles for Facebook, LinkedIn and twitter at one place and can manage all from social media management dashboard of the FREE app.

File Management Apps

Explorer + File Manager Pro App: After paying $3.99 for this app one can directly access all their files from their android phone.

FTP Café App: If you want to manage your ftp from your phone this app is apt for that. At the cost of $3.99 FTP Café offers you all the functions which an FTP can do from file upload to download.

Notes and Reading Apps

gReader Pro App: Pay $5.99 and get this gReader Pro App in your android phone which wil let you e-read through your favorite blogs.

Evernote App: This is a FREE cloud-based notes App in which you can make endless notes.

 Reference Link:

http://bigpassage.com/operating-system/best-blogging-apps-for-android-smartphone-2

While Android users are still busy getting their hands dirty with the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS, that is currently used only in 1% of all Android devices, Google is again ready for an upgrade. Yes, from updated sources its known that the next version of Android OS after Ice Cream Sandwich will be nicknamed “Jelly Bean”. So all Android lovers, lets get ready for another desert treat from Google.

Jelly Bean may debut with Asus

Though nothing is yet announced officially,  most probably Asus is going to debut the Android 5.0 Jelly Bean. Benson Lin, who is an Asus executive for smartphones devices, has disclosed in a report to Techradar that “Asus is very close to Google, so once they have Android 5.0 I think there will be a high possibility that we will be the first wave to offer the Jelly Bean update”. Asus was also first to provide the Ice Cream Sandwich OS on its Transformer Prime Tablet.

“Key Lime Pie”, coming as the successor of “Jelly Bean”

Again the latest buzz is about the sixth version of Android OS which will be the successor of “Jelly Bean”, could be named as “ Key Lime Pie”. It’s quoted by Chris Ziegler, a blogger, that “ We’ve been tipped by a reliable source today that Google will be using the name “Key Lime Pie” for the version of Android that comes afterJelly Bean(in fact, the information comes from the very same source that tipped us to the Jelly Bean code name last year)”. It’s even assumed that the “KLP” may be introduced some where in 2013. So to taste the delicious desert from Google, we all have to wait till that period.

So far Google has already brought out seven different versions of the Android OS, all of which are named after some deserts. These are Cupcake(1.5), Donut(1.6), Eclair(2.1), Froyo(2.2), Gingerbread(2.3), Honeycomb(3.0) and finally the Ice Cream Sandwich(4.0). Lets see whether these speculations about “Jelly Bean” and “Key Lime Pie” come true.

Reference Link:

http://www.androidreviewblog.com/android-news/android-jelly-bean-and-key-lime-pie-more-treats-from-google-are-on-the-way/

As smartphone camera sensors have improved dramatically over the past few years, more and more apps have addressed our needs to modify, collect and share our photos. Take for instance Instagram’s recent success (and by success I’m stitching together both the mass adoption of the photo network as well as the sum for which it was bought by Facebook). Instagram is but one example on how much smartphone users have adopted their smartphones as the primary means to take pictures.

Obviously, now that most smartphones have the ability to shoot full HD videos, it was only a matter of time before ambitious startups began addressing the video recording capabilities of our personal mobile computers through mobile video editing and video sharing apps. Magisto is one of these startups, and a successful one at that. Its cloud-based editing tool, released this January exclusively for the iPhone and iPad, has recently crossed the million user barrier. The entire Magisto userbase has created/edited more than 7 million videos so far, an impressive number by any standard!

Following in the trend of “successful iOS apps that have been later brought to Android as well” (other examples include Instagram and Temple Run), Magisto has recently announced that they are rolling out their cloud-based video editing app for smartphones using Google’s Android platform. The basic functionality will remain just as it is on iOS: users can select a few videos, a soundtrack, then Magisto uploads the videos to the cloud, processes the videos, then provides a link to the edited video. The ability to share that video via Twitter, Facebook and e-mail will be present as well.

According to the company, the Android app will come with several Android-exclusive features, such as the ability to select the videos from the gallery (you don’t even need to launch the app). Magisto’s Android app is compatible with Android versions 2.3 and above, although the developers have said they are working with Google to release a Magisto app especially optimized for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. We’ll be here to report when that happens, but until that time comes, you can drop us a comment in the section below and let us know if this basic video-stitching app is what you have in mind when thinking of editing videos on the go!

Reference Link:

http://www.androidauthority.com/magisto-cloud-video-editing-112033/

If you’ve published an app on Android Market, you’ve probably used Application Statistics to help tune your development and marketing efforts. Application Statistics is a set of dashboards in the Developer Console that shows your app’s installation performance across key dimensions such as countries, platform versions, device models, and others. Today we are making Application Statistics even more powerful for publishers, adding new metrics, new ways to analyze your data, and a redesigned UI that’s much easier to use.

First, we are adding important new installation metrics to the dashboards. You can now see your installations measured by unique users, as well as by unique devices. For user installations, you can view active installs, total installs, and daily installs and uninstalls. For devices, you can see active installs as well as daily installs, uninstalls, and upgrades.

Along with the new metrics, we’re also introducing two new data dimensions — Carrier and App Version. You can use them to track your app’s installation trends across mobile operators or monitor the launch metrics of specific app updates.

To give you visibility over your installation data over time, we’re adding timeline charts for all metrics and dimensions. At a glance, these charts highlight your app’s installation peaks and longer-term trends, which you can correlate to promotions, app improvements, or other factors. You can even focus in on data inside a dimension by adding specific points (such as individual platform versions or languages) to the timeline.

Finally, we’re bringing you all of the new metrics, dimensions, and timelines in a completely redesigned UI that is faster, more compact, and easier to use. Each dimension is now displayed in dedicated tab, making it easier to click through your stats daily or as often as needed. If you track your stats in another tool, we’re also adding an export capability that lets you download your stats in a single CSV file.

Check out the new Application Statistics next time you visit the Android Market Developer Console. We hope they’ll give you new insight into your app’s user base and installation performance. Watch for related announcements soon — we are continuing to work on bringing you the reporting features you need to manage your products successfully on Android Market.

Reference Link:

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-app-stats-for-publishers-on-android.html

Earlier this year, we launched several important features aimed at making it easier to find great applications on Android Market on the Web. Today, we’re very excited to launch a completely redesigned Android Market client that brings these and other features to phones.

The new Market client is designed to better showcase top apps and games, engage users with an improved UI, and provide a quicker path to downloading or purchasing your products. For developers, the new Android Market client means more opportunities for your products to be merchandised and purchased.

In the home screen, we’ve created a new promotional page that highlights top content. This page is tiled with colorful graphics that provide instant access to featured apps and games. The page also lets users find their favorite books and movies, which will help drive even more return visits to Market.

To make it fun and easy for users to explore fresh content, we’ve added our app lists right to the Apps and Games home pages. Users can now quickly flip through these lists by swiping right or left, checking out what other people are downloading in the Top Paid, Top Free, Top Grossing, Top New Paid, Top New Free, and Trending lists. To keep the lists fresh and relevant, we’ve made them country-specific for many of the top countries.

To help you convert visitors to customers, we’ve made significant changes to the app details page. We’ve moved the app name and price into a compact action bar at the top of the page, so that users can quickly download or purchase your app. Directly below, users can flip through screen shots by swiping right or left, or scroll down to read your app’s description, what’s new, reviews, and more. To help you promote your product more effectively, the page now also includes a thumbnail link to your product video which is displayed at full screen when in landscape orientation.

For users who are ready to buy, we’ve streamlined the click-to-purchase flow so that users can complete a purchase in two clicks from the app details page. During the purchase, users can also see a list of your other apps, to help you cross-sell your other products.

With a great new UI, easy access to app discovery lists, a convenient purchase flow, and more types of content, we believe that the new Market client will become a favorite for users and developers alike.

Watch for the new Market client coming to your phone soon. We’ve already begun a phased roll-out to phones running Android 2.2 or higher — the update should reach all users worldwide in the coming weeks. We encourage you to try the update as soon as you receive it. Meanwhile, check out the video below for an early look.

 Reference Link:

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-android-market-for-phones.html

The invention of telephone has led to a faster means of long-distance communication. And with the advent of mobiles the usage of phones has expanded more than just calling and receiving messages. This mainly happened with the invention of numerous mobile applications, including Android. Numerous activities such as chatting, dating, games and lots more can be carried out through this advanced mobile technology. As a matter of fact we can say that our world has come closer due to advanced cell phones.

The advanced Android application development has spearheaded multitasking, resulting in developers creating applications with unlimited capabilities. Business activities have become easier and people are able to strike better deals with android apps. The several applications that Android Phone has developed include:

• Communication
• Business
• Multimedia
• Travel
• Internet
• Games
• Library
• Utility
•  Security

Additionally, the reason for the popularity of the applications of android could be that it has customized applications, developed websites, capacity of testing applications independently, developing enterprise applications, overseeing migration & porting, and maintaining, supporting, and distributing android applications. It has become one of the fastest growing applications sectors for its ability to contribute effectively regarding personal entertainment and easy to conduct business factor.

Due to the development of different mobile applications numerous types of phones or tablets have been created to capture the attention of people. Moreover, the work and lifestyle both have become easier with the development of advanced android apps, including easy multitasking, instant notifications, extensive chat or interactions, custom home screens, etc. all these have indeed enhanced and explored new methods of powerful communication and sharing.

Many companies these days are hiring android developers to cater to millions of people around the globe using advanced mobile applications for making their easy. Be it Smartphone’s tablet computers, or any other portable devices – a large number of mobile applications are created to attract consumers throughout the world. Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is one of the latest and powerful version of Android phone’s today. There are teams of mobile application developers who are providing customers with excellent android applications and are able to develop and execute any type of projects on time and within budget. According to a market survey, more than 300,000 Android applications are available in the market and the Android application industry is growing by 32% every months.

 Reference Link:

http://www.gatewaytechnolabs.com/blog/2012/06/android-applications-enhancing-today%E2%80%99s-business-needs/

The Android app for Microsoft’s cloud storage service SkyDrive is now available for download in Google Play. The service is already available in app form for both iOS and Windows phone, and the new Android version offers many of the same features of those existing apps.

The main purpose of the app is to give users access to their files stored with the service from their mobile devices. Users can view documents that others have shared with them, as well as their own recently used items. Users can also open files and upload files, including photos and videos, to the cloud from their phones.

In addition, the Android app allows users to create new folders, delete files, and share items with other users.

For business users who have Android devices, this new app will allow them access to their cloud-stored files from anywhere. Since more and more companies are using cloud storage, and Microsoft is a major player in the industry, this new offering is sure to impact many business owners and professionals.

SkyDrive received a complete re-design earlier this month to make it fit with the new Windows 8 user interface. This redesign came with a couple of new features, including drag and drop organization, instant search, a contextual toolbar, and more.

Microsoft has also made some other big changes recently, such as the rebranding of Hotmail to Outlook, in order to make all of its products consistent.

It may seem odd to some that Microsoft would create apps for its competing devices and operating systems, but it seems the company wants to make it as easy as possibly for more consumers to use the service, especially with such big name competitors as Apple iCloud and Google Drive.  Especially since Android is currently the most popular smartphone operating system, it makes sense that Microsoft would make a SkyDrive app available on this platform.

Microsoft says that the app works best with Android 4.0, but users of any device with Android 2.3 and above are able to run the SkyDrive for Android app.

 Reference Link:

http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/09/microsoft-introduces-new-skydrive-android-app.html

Android developers have to be knowledgeable of different design principles while undertaking Android application development. This knowledge can provide consumers greatest connection with using Android apps. It is often impressive to surprise customers in a pleasing way. In order to accomplish this, developers can employ a pleasing floor, well placed animation and a nicely timed sound outcome.

To permit the customers immediately contact along with adjust objects in the application is among the designing concepts that developers need to think about in the operation regarding Android development Sydney. This performs two things: diminishes intellectual attempts to operate a task as well as fulfills consumers emotionally. Any time application is manipulated by creating personal variations, the experience of applying that application becomes really gratifying along with the a sense of belonging. It is essential that customers get desirable and purposeful defaults. Yet, at the same time, Developers care ought to be utilized that fun linked to those defaults along with optional customizations do not block major tasks.

To find out users desire should be of utmost priority to developers. Nevertheless, it will take tolerance as well as determination. If the previous selections are made effortlessly obtainable, it can save the developers through asking the users to make identical choices frequently. As an alternative to extended phrases, it is far better to utilize shorter phrases throughout Android app development.

Another designing theory belongs to employing photos to spellout thoughts. No doubt that photographs are much more effective compared to the terms. Pictures realize success much more in bringing in people’s attention as compared to the terms. Android developers really want to help to make this easier in a perception which as an alternative to delivering the users with quite a few possibilities and also decisions, they need to make the applications in a manner that carry the best speculate and behave. They should additionally supply the choice regarding undo.

The prosperity of Android apps lies within the reality that consumers are captivated me by way of it. Demonstration regarding excessive information at the moment is going to make the users perplexed. To carry out so, developers can crack duties and info in to small elements. Developers need to deliver the thing which is needed in the second and also the rest can be handled later.

To adopt people directly into confidence is additionally the obligation of Android developers. App must have the spots that are exceptional and a connection is set up amongst screens when you will discover transitions. An app ought to present feedback upon tasks inside progress.

Those ideas that have been developed utilizing a lot time ought to be conserved using Android app development. Configurations, personal details in addition to creations throughout phones, tablets as well as computers should allow it to become easily accessible. This is actually the most sensible thing to upgrade.

To generate the users access the apps easily, the developers may make useful differences in applications that are successfully specific. Developers need to stay away from processes that happen to be locations that seem similar however act in different ways on the very same insight. An application need to behave just like a beneficial, devoted personal helper. When people are usually executing just about any task on application, they wish to continue being concentrated and therefore virtually any trouble can go in opposition to the curiosity of the end users by making them frustrated.

To make folks within control of apps is to cause them to become self-dependent inside the utilization of apps. Hence, Android Developer has to make the application by making use of graphic designs in addition to muscle pattern memory via additional Google android apps. A swipe motion functions as a very good navigational step-around.

When people make use of smart phone applications, they do feel themselves intelligent. Therefore, correct healing guidelines are required any time something goes wrong. Additionally it is indicated not to weight the users along with considerably specialized specifics. In the event that those mistakes get preset behind the curtain, that will be wonderful.

 Reference Link:

http://aaronmarston.webs.com/apps/blog/