What are some must have Android Tablet apps?

RangerXML

RangerXML

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Apr 16, 2006
Messages
6,402
So I got my Android tablet set up and I realized I loaded up mostly the same apps I installed on my iPhone/iPad, right down to Solitaire. Are there any specific apps to Android that I should look out for, two I already picked up are AndroZip and ASTRO (File Browser). One specific thing I'm looking for is a console (telnet, ssh and a prompt), would love if it were transparent so I could run it with my Matrix Live Wallpaper, would look so nifty! What are some other suggestions?
 
PocketCloud - RDP Client

TeamViewer - Desktop Remote Control (Difference is that there's no need to setup your router for it to work, tho you have to run the server on your PC)

PC File Sync - Creates a mirror of a shared PC folder on your phone. Anytime i need to add a file from my PC, to the tablet, i copy it to the shared folder and sync. No need for cables or network browsers.

Color Note - Creates checklist/note widgets on your homescreen.

Goggles - Barcode, QR Code, or anything that needs a visual search.

WoL Wake on Lan - Turn on the PC by remote so you can access it with RDP.
 
Speaking of Google Music, how is the offline listening work? I keep most of my music on my iphone and keep most of my storage for movies, books and programs. I want to sometimes listen to music without tethering when I'm just reading and Music is suppose to support some offline music, and but it alwaystells me I need to be connected to start it.
 
I believe when you're on wifi you can choose to download songs from your music account to your device's local storage, I haven't tried it yet I simply use it to play whats on my sd card , and when I have 4g reception I use it to stream my whole library .
 
Is there any RDP that uses the native Windows program? I really like Mesh from Windows Live Essentials, but there is no Android app and the mobile beta seems to be over (and its not blocked by my provider).
 
Not sure what you mean by that. But there's only one RDP and it's exclusively used by microsoft (i.e. there's no RDP for mac or linux). Any RDP you see is automatically assumed to connect to a Windows PC.
 
Anyone know of a good alternative to Navfree? Really was hoping that would be in the app store but no luck. Offline maps and GPS for around the world (namely US, Germany and Japan, since that is were I spend most of my time).
 
Google Maps. You can either just browse around while you're connected on wifi and the map data gets cached. Or you can use the cache function and have it cache a 10 square mile are of where you tapped.
 
I did a little research and found MapDroyd, what is 6GB of space to have all the maps in the world at your fingertips :D Even gives you the option to download the maps via the PC (working on that right now).
 
Google Earth on Honeycomb is amazing. I love to see 3D buildings in my city. Also, TeamViewer. I use it for work sometimes.

Other than that: If you have a keyboard, you have to get Polaris Office (already preloaded and licensed on the Asus Transformer). It is the best mobile office app I've seen so far, capable of some light office work including spreadsheets and word processing.
 
RangerXML said:
Speaking of Google Music, how is the offline listening work? I keep most of my music on my iphone and keep most of my storage for movies, books and programs. I want to sometimes listen to music without tethering when I'm just reading and Music is suppose to support some offline music, and but it alwaystells me I need to be connected to start it.
Click to expand...

I got into the beta but was quickly disappointed by the way Google Music handles offline pinning of files... It basically saves them to an encrypted database that only Google Music can access, so you can't do anything else with the library files that you pin for offine use but play them on Google Music... Can't pick one to use as an alarm/ringtone, can't even play them on another music player (I happen to like the stock music player on my EVO, scrolls smoother than most and the lock screen controls are better integrated than most too).

This is probably a concession Google had to make with the studios, even from your PC you can't re-download anything that you've uploaded to the Google Music cloud, so its basically a one way thing.

I've been using Amazon's Cloud Player instead... Sure after 5GB you have to pay but $20 a year for unlimited storage (of music) seems reasonable to me, it used to be 20GB but they changed it (to compete w/iCloud I guess even tho they're on different platforms). I buy a good chunk off my music from Amazon anyway and it's automatically added to the cloud when i purchase it so it works out nicely. I can download any track that I've uploaded or purchased to my Amazon cloud from any device, as well as stream it, and the player has some smart playlists for recent purchases and recent uploads.

The UI isn't tablet optimized or spruced up for Honeycomb but it works just fine on my Transformer. I think as a whole it actually competes quite nicely w/iCloud, dunno why they aren't advertising it more. iCloud wasn't even slated to do streaming (just downloading/sync) but it seems they've added that in the beta, dunno whether it'll go live. I figured the lack of streamng was a concession Apple had to make w/studios to get the track matching feature in but I guess not.
 
Snowpea said:
most important app on any device?
dropbox.
Click to expand...

QFT Outside of that, I probably just use my Transformer for browsing and e-mail like 90% of the time so I actually don't have a lot of recommendations, but I'll throw out two...

ImageshackDroid - good alternative to Dropbox for hosting pics

TexTab / SyncSMS - both do the same thing, allow you to receive and answer text messages from your phone, but on the tablet. Very very convenient with my Transformer's dock keyboard. The difference between them is TexTab uses Bluetooth to sync w/your phone and SyncSMS uses WiFi and your Dropbox account instead. Each has it's uses depending on where you use your tablet the most I guess.

The IMDb app is also pretty slick but it has less info than the regular site (or even the phone app I think), luckily it has a built in browser and handy links to the full site whenever you need more info on a movie, artist, etc. I just use it for showtimes and to look up movie trivia.

Edit: Gtasks is also nice if you just want an uber simple task or to-do list that syncs w/your Google Tasks. RTM and all that stuff is too fancy for me, I like my to-do simple, so this works well. On my phone i use the Pure calendar widget to display it but on my tablet the standard Gtask app scales well enough that I haven't even bothered w/a widget. I tried teh standard one and it didn't scale well so I'll probably install Pure as well if I feel like tossing more widgets on my tablet home screen.
 
Last edited:
/rant/ said:
Google Earth on Honeycomb is amazing. I love to see 3D buildings in my city. Also, TeamViewer. I use it for work sometimes.

Other than that: If you have a keyboard, you have to get Polaris Office (already preloaded and licensed on the Asus Transformer). It is the best mobile office app I've seen so far, capable of some light office work including spreadsheets and word processing.
Click to expand...

Quick question, have you used Polaris on your TF recently? My Polaris install seems to have developed a huge bug and I haven't been able to figure out how to fix it (did some quick research but found next to nothing due to the nature of the problem), I dunno if it happened after the 3.2 Honeycomb update or what but... Whenever I long press text to copy/pate within Polaris I no longer get the option to copy or cut on the action bar at the top, in fact the only option I get is paste.

I rebooted it and cleared data on the Polaris app, nada. I'm gonna end up buying QuickOffice if I can't figure it out, I think QuickOffice is a little more polished but my EVO 3D also came w/Polaris and I wouldn't have minded it if it didn't develop this issue. it's actually still working just fine on the phone.

Edit: I just went and re-checked it, I actually don't even get the text selection markers, I can long press anywhere and I just get the option to paste but I seem to be unable to select text at all which is probably why I can't copy/cut, so the is really that I seem unable to select text as of recently. Was working fine a month ago, sigh.

Edit #2: Nevermind, figured it out... Weird, I tapped and long pressed and wrangled with it for like an hour the other day and didn't get anywhere. Apparently to select text you double tap, then the cursors for fine tuning the selection come up, and to cop/cut selected text you long press it. Weird, could've swore it used to be just a standard long press to go straight to cut/copy, like it is elsewhere on Android.
 
Last edited:
Oh yeah, if you have a Transformer and the dock you absolutely need Dual Battery Widget so you can properly monitor your dock battery... Can't believe ASUS didn't include any way to view the battery percentage on your dock out of the box. That widget addresses that shortcoming, works very well, and you can tap on it for some extra battery stats.

Also, there may not be a FB app for tablets yet, but FB messenger is compatible w/HC, so if you use FB chat/messaging at all, that should serve you well. I found no use for it on my phone w/the dedicaed FB app already available, but it's handy on the tablet. FB Messenger is from FB itself btw, not a third party app. Personally I find 3rd party FB apps and widgets to be really hit or miss, seems user permissions and stuff trip them up a lot so they end up displaying half the content that you usually see on your feed on a PC or on the mobile app.

Used to love the Pure Messenger scrolling widget as a way of displaying my feed on the home screen, but when every 3rd party FB app started behaving like that last summer they all became kinda useless.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top