Moto Droid

Got my Flash today... what a difference between it and the usual streaming media on sites like YouTube. Flash is so much better.

 

Joining the Droid family in early October with this:
http://www.droiddoes.com/r2d2/

It's nice being in college so I don't have a boss to judge me for being a nerd .

 

Just joined the 21st century yesterday.

Currently typing this on my new DroidX!

This phone is nuts...

 

Just got my Droid X today. Sweet hardware.

 

Just updated my DroidX to the OS 2.2 today.... This phone just got soooo much improved! It was pretty sweet before.... But had some issues... Now its almost a whole new phone!

 

Bought a DROID 2 this weekend. Very cool so far, but Android definitely has its quirks.

 

Remember, a huge 'feature' of Android is customization...make your phone what you want/need it to be...

I use a free app called KeepScreen. When a selected app is running, the screen will not time out. If my phone is docked and I'm not doing anything with it...it should time out. If I'm using Maps, or my Speedometer app, or Pandora, or ?...I want to prevent the screen from timing out.

I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of apps that are similar to KeepScreen.

Ted

 

I've been using Alarm Clock Plus; pretty much the same. It works well and prevents the "screensaver" from kicking in. Not as seemless as before tho (pre 2.2).

 

The update made the phone much better IMO, I got mine the day it came out and the seed has improved greatly with 2.2 I also really like the on screen camera button.

 

So I've now had my Droid X for a few weeks now and I'm loving it.

I've started figuring out how best to use my new capabilities.


My problem now is that I'm having difficulty choosing good apps.

I've been able to find a couple good ones that I paid for and have not regretted it at all...

Tape Machine (great audio recording app... can record in OGG for significantly smaller file-sizes)
LauncherPro Plus (excellent)
Greader Pro (unofficial google reader plugin... also awesome)
Tapatalk Pro


But now, I'm wondering what other apps everyone has found that have turned out to be well written and well thought out apps that are very useful?

 

Tasker will let your phone do anything. My phone goes on silent whenever I'm in class (via calendar) and goes to vibrate and data off when I put it face down on a table. When I plug headphones in, a menu with Pandora, Last.fm, and my phone's music comes up. And when they are unplugged, my media volume automatically goes to zero in case my music starts playing out of my speakers like it was out of my headphones on the way to class. Also my GPS automatically turns on when I turn Google Maps on and turns off when I exit it to save battery.

http://tasker.dinglisch.net/

Tasker is just a program that lets you write scripts to do just about anything you want your phone to do.

 

That looks awesome ... Unfortunately I just don't have the time to figure that stuff out yet...

Does anyone have any recommended widgets? I have found a silencing widget, a good flashlight widget , and a very useful auto-rotate toggle for using when Im in bed and I want the portrait mode to lock.

Sent from my DROIDX

 

IMO, specific apps are a personal thing. These phones are so customizeable that my perfect phone will/should be different than your perfect phone...

Some advice I read when I first got my phone has served me well over time: 1) be wary of apps with fewer than four star ratings...2) READ the reviews for an app you are considering...and, 3) LOOK at the permissions required by each app.

The rating system is easy to work-around...there is so much overlap and duplication within the market that there is *usually* no need to settle for a three or three-and-a-half star app. The exception might be a niche app or small market app that might be the only one with a feature you need.

Reading the reviews will help you figure out whether any issues that do exist are phone specific or might, for some other reason, affect you or not. Sometimes, a great app will have high ratings, but one glaring "issue"...I am dealing with this exact thing with ".Podkast Audio & Video." It's a great Podcast app, but requires the phone to be turned OFF to exit. It's annoying, but the app is good enough otherwise (to me) to justify it. By reading the reviews ahead of time, I was not surprised when it happened to me. BTW, that app is currently at 4 stars.

Looking at permissions is less of a user thing...more of a security thing. Also keep in mind that many of the free apps will need some extra permissions for the streaming advertising.

Most pay-apps have either a demo or lite version...allowing a test run. Also, most pay-apps can be 'returned' within 24 hours (with certain conditions).

Another tip is to not download a bunch of apps at once. Try to do it one at a time. This way, if an app is unstable or causes other issues, it is easier to pinpoint the soure of the problem.

Apps I use very often:

-Pandora (customized "radio")
-.Podkast Audio & Video (download and listen to podcasts)
-Music (I use the stock music app...haven't experimented much here)
-HP printing app (allows me to print straight to my wireless printer...and, control the printer configurations, paper source, etc.)
-F1 (need my Formula ONE fix each and every day)
-SpeedView (extremely accurate speedometer app...my van's speedo is ~30% off)
-Maps (I use Google Maps AND I have an offline map program)
-Scientific Calculator (I went through a few and found one that fits MY needs)
-Camera apps (I use the stock camera plus one or two others)
-News/Weather (I have a few)
-Happy Hour app (uses my GPS or network location to tell me where the closest happy hours are and when they end)
-Yelp/Where/Places (different versions of same concept...find gas, coffee, restaurant, etc...based on location, ratings and other user selectable criteria)
-Flashlights (I have one that uses the camera LED flash and one that uses the screen. The LEDs are brighter, the screen is customizeable (e.g., can use red to preserve night vision))

I have a bunch of once-in-awhile apps, too. I do try to be good about housecleaning...removing bad or seldom used apps.