Wednesday, February 9, 2011

REALLY smart phone

I've been playing around with Tasker, on my Android, and it's quite a head trip. It lets you set up all sorts of rules and tasks, such as 'when I'm home, turn on wifi' and 'when I'm at work, switch to vibrate'. Right now, I'm working on a rule that says 'If I'm at the tube station and on my way home, automatically send a text to Jess.' I haven't quite got that sussed yet, and when I do I'm sure Jess will ask me to quit it, but it's a fun little brain teaser.

I looked back on my post from June of last year and found of my top six apps, I'm only using three:
  1. Remember the Milk, an online task organizer which automatically syncs with Astrid on the phone (I'm still using Astrid on the phone, which is brilliant, but the syncing services were all awful.)
  2. Google Calendar
  3. Soocial, which syncs my contact lists on Gmail, Hotmail, and phone
  4. Memento, which lets me store notes in any format I like I'm now using Springpad, which manages notes, to do lists, movies, events, restaurants, and more in one crazy mess that somehow works.
  5. Nimbuzz, which manages all of my IMs (Windows, Yahoo, Google, and Skype, all in one place) Nimbuzz no longer supports Skype, but Skype now has its own Android app.
  6. Last.fm for streaming radio This one just came off the list today, as they announced they would start charging for the Android app. I'll still use it on the PC, though.
  7. However, I've added many more to my list:
  8. Alarm Clock Plus, which is brilliant -- you can set an alarm to play a random song from a playlist, and increase the volume every 30 seconds. It can even announce the time, weather, and morning's news headlines! (However, I found that freaked me out a little bit.)
  9. PlayerPro, a music player, which integrates with isyncr to sync with iTunes on the laptop wirelessly. How cool is that? (Tofether they cost me £5.)
  10. OI Safe, a free app that securely encrypts your info, so I can safely carry around all of my financial information without worrying about losing the phone.
  11. MyBackupPro, a non-free app, but the only one that will backup OI Safe. :-(  However, if I ever lose my phone I will be able to restore everything, over the cloud.
  12. OurGroceries, a grocery list that syncs on the web and (more importantly) on Jess' phone.
  13. FoxyRing, which automatically adjusts the ringer volume based on the ambient noise. (It also has a cool widget that lets you turn the phone on silent for a certain length of time, which is important as I have a habit of coming out of the movie and leaving my phone on silent for 2 days.)
  14. iNap, which uses GPS to trigger an alarm (great for train journeys!)
  15. Kayak, which has long been my favorite travel comparison web site, now also allows me to manage trips and automatically adds them to my Google calendar.

So that's my list of must-have apps for the Android. I'm sure there are similar alternatives for the iPhone, but I still don't like Apple.

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