Mobile world with Android

As I already wrote earlier, I was not one of the early adopters when it comes to smart phones. In fact, the first smart phone user in our family was my wife with an iPhone (which I am happy that it has been ditched in the meantime because my wife had some troubles with it from time to time and I could not do anything about them with this mega-locked block).

In the beginning of the year (which is only a few weeks ago) it was time to choose a new mobile work phone. As I already have a smart phone now, I was searching for a very simple phone for doing just calls. Battery duration was the primary "feature" I was looking at when comparing models. Unfortunately I was not able to find something better than the Samsung Galaxy S II which is again a smart phone. It has one of the longest battery times, is slim, lightweight, very low SAR value. And one of the reasons why I again have chosen an Android smart-phone: It is simple to setup - just login to my Google Account and all the contact data is there - automagically.

First I had a few concerns with two phones running against the same Google account, but I find it very fine now. I have setup mail and calendar for both phones and so I can very easily check appointments or emails on the second phone while talking (it often happens that a customer calls me and wants to talk about an email he/she has sent a few minutes ago. Easily now with a second smartphone.

You may not believe, but there are cases, where I go out or going on vacation without my Laptop in the luggage and I might be on places without WLAN access. So happened a few weeks ago when a customer called with an issue which I solved using the great TeamViewer Android application on my phone while having the customer on loudspeakers.

While in train or bus going to work in the morning, I do read news with the Google Reader Android app or listen to podcasts, so if I do not travel for a longer time right now, I don't turn on my laptop any more.

Here is the list of applications I am using on my mobile phone - bold ones are my frequently used apps:

• Advanced Task Manager (Saves battery power by killing apps that are not in use but otherwise remain started).
• AlarmDroid (Alarm clock)
• Apo-App (Austria)
• BarClone (Get rid of customer/club cards by having the barcodes in your phone and display them instead of using the card - unfortunately a lot of barcode readers in shops are not capable of reading the barcode from the display although other smart phones can read them without problems).
• Barcode Scanner (zxing)
• barcoo (Barcode scanner)
• BatteryTime (Display battery charge level more in detail or as icon on the Android-Desk)
• BeyondPod (Podcast software - like Google Reader for Podcasts)
• Bluetooth File Transfer (Phone-to-phone data exchange)
• Bump (Handshake with other people to exchange contact data)
• CamScanner (Scan documents with your phone)
• Citrix Receiver (Remote access to company citrix server)
  
• ConnectBot (Remote access to other Linux/SSH servers)
• Contact Widget (Put Quickdials on your Android-Desk)
• Dolphin Browser HD (Alternative Web browser)
• Dropbox (Access to your cloud files - I use it on Android for saving ringtones and small files containing notes or scans/photos done during meetings to get them automatically on my work machine without requiring the use of bluetooth or USB).
• ES Datei/File Explorer (File Manager)
• Facebook (if not already there, but I use it less and less because it gets slower and slower with each update)
• Financisto (Financial expenses tool)
• Flash Player
• Flashlight (several available)
• Genial Writing (Handwriting tool)
• K-9 Mail (Alternative E-Mail client - I tried several, that is probably the only one where you can configure IMAP folders to use in detail and probably the one with the most options).
• Money Manager (Financial expenses tool)
• MultiLing Tastatur/Keyboard (I tried several original keyboards of different phones and always finally downloaded MultiLink keyboard - it's simply the best with the most options.
• Note Everything (Note taking tool)
• (Opera Mini - as alternative for Dolphin Browser)
• (PowerTutor - if you do not already know what consumes the most power
• and consider appropriate settings)
• QR Droid
• QuickMark
• QuickOffice (View office documents)
• Reader (Google Reader)
• RealCalc (Alternative calculator with more features than the usual default ones)
• Schweizer Taschenmesser (several small tools)
• Shazam or SoundHound (both are quite equal - record music from where you are and get the name and interpreter of the music title being played.
• Stoppuhr (Timer)
• SwiFTP (Access your phone via FTP - must be on the same WLAN-net - use that at home to bulk-download fotos).
• Tasks To Do Free (Tasklist / todo manager)
• TeamViewer (Remote Support and meeting tool)
• TuneIn Radio
• XING (Xing social networking Android app)
• YoutTube (Video viewer - mostly already installed by default on Android phones)
• Zeiterfassung (Timesheet, worktime recording)

Related posts: Mobile phone situation.