android apps review two weeks in

So I recently picked up a decent modern phone with nice data capabilities. My first instinct was iphone, then I toyed with the idea of blackberry ( which my wife did go with ) and eventually went with Android. There has been a lot of hype about the current iPhone vs android platform wars and I felt pulled to the Google and open source side. I picked up the HTC Hero with Sprint as my carrier. So far I have to say I’m quite impressed. I did find navigating the OS and settings to be quite tedious at first and also had just a short period of touch screen adjustment to go through but overall have found the upgrade to be quite satisfying. As a benefit to any other new android users i’ve also decided to start writing periodic app posts to share good resources and tips. This being the first I’m going to start with my initial top 10 from 2 weeks in.

1. WPtogo – a great app for privately hosted WP users with all the basic writing and comment moderating features. I tested a few others but found most of the WP branded apps are built for free account users.

2. Beelicious - a fantastic app. Makes it super easy to come back to those great articles or sites later when I’m waiting on a bus or train and it syncs up with my online delicious account in seconds so its perfect for a user that is split between multiple machines for work and home.

3. Mobile GA – all the primary Google analytics reports with a nice switch to graph transition on screen tilt. Perfect for reviewing my sites visitor reports on the go.

4. Last.fm – always had an interest in the main site but now with mobile capabilities this has become a staple and the suggestion engine has been a real treat.

5. PhotoShop mobile – another already known staple to any web or design pro that is perfectly taken down a notch to polish mobile shots.

6. FxCamera – a fun fully functioning camera that adds some nice out of the box effects to add an artsy style to mobile photos.

7. Astro file manager – this is the most comprehensive file managment app I have found. Perfect for dropping the test apps and unneeded data.

8. AndFTP – a nice mobile ftp client for quickly grabbing files off the server for some updating or quick fixes.

9. BlueRSS – the best rss reader I have found so far. It’s quick, responsive and keeps me up to date on the posts from my favorite blogs and news sites.

10. ContactGroupU – a nice contact manager that automatically imports contacts from Google and makes catagorizing easy.

These again are just the apps I’ve run across in my first 2 weeks on the platform they are Not in any ranked order and if alternates that are more optimal are found I encourage feedback through comments or email at Joshua@ollomedia.com