Android Essential Apps

So for my first post, I am going to list the "Must Have" apps for my personal favorite smart phone operating system, Android.

Zedge (free) - The first app on my list, and for good reason, Zedge lets you search for, and more importantly download free Ringtones, Notification Sounds, and Wallpapers directly to your phone. You can even set your new ringtone or wallpaper right from the app! From popular music, to funny sound bytes, to theme songs, and sound clips, Zedge has it all.

Wallbase (free) - Now, although you can get wallpapers off of Zedge, I mostly use that app for sounds, and the reason why is Wallbase. Wallbase is a search engine that only finds High Resolution wallpapers, if you got an android phone with an HD screen, these wallpapers look absolutely amazing! You can search by popularity (always a really good place to start), topic, or even color.

Tiny Flashlight + LED (free) - This app does one thing, it lets you turn the flash on your phone into a surprisingly bright flashlight. Yes, this will drain your battery like crazy, but for emergencies this is too helpful a feature not to have the option on your phone.

Juice Defender (free) - Speaking of battery, Juice Defender is the best battery saving app on Android phones. All you have to do is install the app, open it once and select enable and then you can just leave it alone. Juice Defender tweaks some of the background processes in your phone, you won't notice the difference in usage but it will usually squeeze 1-2 extra hours out of your battery. Juice Defender stays enabled even if your phone powers down so you don't need to constantly re-enable it.

Go SMS Pro (free) - Go SMS is a replacement application for text messaging. It has a couple really cool features compared to the stock messaging app. The first is that it handles group text messages better, especially those sent by iPhone users. Second it allows you to skin your text messaging app and make it look however you would like. Finally when you receive a text message it pops up right on top of whatever you are currently doing on your phone allowing to read and reply to the message right there without having to get out of what you are doing and then you can go back to your current activity as soon as you send your reply.

Pulse (free) - Pulse is my favorite of the News Reader applications. This means you can select your favorite websites, online magazines, even your facebook and twitter pages, and see all your updates in one convenient and easy to use place. You can favorite and share articles from the app.