My Android Apps

Update 2010-08-15 - I’ve also added some new apps to an updated post.

The past 48 hours has been very eventful in my Android world. Thanks to the instructions on rootyourdroid.info (hey, it’s an expensive phone and locked hardware - I’m not fooling around the way I would with something more common), I rooted my droid and did a few minor hacks. Though, I must say, it pains me to see all of the post-rooting instructions based on access via adb, instead of using a terminal emulator on the phone. Also, last night, my mother (definitely not a technical person) for a Droid - and loves it! (My dad got one a month or two ago).

Anyway, in the last 24 hours, I’ve gone app-crazy. I thought I’d share some of my findings here. Unfortunately, while a few of the app/file managers out there do dump a list of applications, I can’t find one that dumps a list including the package names (which are required to create an effective link to the app). If any of you know of one, please enlighten me. For now, I’ll construct this list by hand (using the list from ASTRO 2.2.4), and maybe write an app to do it in the future.

(Note: These links all use the market:// URI scheme, so they’re only useful if clicked on an Android device with the Market app.)

• AndFTP (1.3) - A good FTP/SFTP client for Android, includes pubkey-based authentication and host storage.
• Android Battery Dog (0.1.2) - An app that runs as a service and collects detailed statistics on battery usage, including temperature, charge percent, voltage, discharge rate, battery technology and external power status. While it can display a graph or formatted data, its’ real shining point is the ability to export timestamped semicolon-delimited data files for external graphing and analysis.
• Any Cut (1.0) - Allows you to create shortcuts on your home screen to almost anything, including Android OS Acitvities, direct calls or direct text messages.
• ASTRO (2.2.4) - File manager that allows copying of files on the device (both internal memory and SD card), image and file viewing, listing/management of apps (including finding out the package name of an App), reading of tar and tgz files, etc.
• Battery Widget (1.5.2, by mippin) - Very simple widget for the home screen that takes up one square and shows current battery level. When clicked, provides shortcuts to settings screens for display, GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth.
• Compass (1.1) - Simple compass app. Shows a compass which seems to be accurate, current lat/long and current street address. Has extensive settings and some nice skins for the compass.
• ConnectBot (1.6.2) - A very good SSH client for Android. Allows storage of multiple hosts, pubkey-based authentication (with a master password), etc. Unfortunately, doesn’t seem to have any way (that I can find) to enter certain characters, such as tab and pipe (|).
• Dolphin Browser (2.5.0) - An alternate browser for Android. I haven’t used it extensively yet, but it shows multiple tabs at the top of the screen like Firefox (easier to switch between tabs than the stock browser’s Menu -> Windows) and supports iPhone-like multitouch on the Droid.
• drocap2 (2.07) - Screen capture program (requires root). Allows you to trigger a capture from the notifications bar and stores captures on the SD card.
• DroidLight (3.0) - Nice twist on the usual flashlight app. By Motorola, this app triggers the camera’s flash LED in a steady burn mode, providing very good light output. Probably a real battery killer.
• FoxyRing (1.12) - This was an ANdroid Developer Challenge winner and, among other things, it claims to monitor ambient sound levels and adjust your ringer volume to match them. Unfortunately, due to the overly restrictive End User License Agreement (EULA), specifically the strong provisions against reverse engineering and redistribution, I was forced to uninstall the app before even trying it.
• GPS Status (3.0.3) - Very nice app. Provides a display like a real GPS, showing the location and status of various satellites (in a rotating compass), heading and orientation, number of fixes, estimated error (DoP), signal strength graph for stelites, speed, altitude, pitch/tilt of phone, magnetic field, acceleration, coordinates and time of last fix.
• iPerf (1.07) - An iPerf client for Android that seems to work fine. How cool! Seems to be a wrapper around the binary, lets you specify CLI arguments, shows console output.
• Meebo IM (22) - A simple, good, multi-protocol IM application.
• Metal Detector (1.2-RELEASE) - Maybe not that useful, but way cool. The Droid (and perhaps other phones?) uses the compass to detect magnetic fields to trigger the modes for car dock and multimedia dock. This turns it into a metal detector. Wonderful cool-ness factor.
• Nagroid (0.0.7) - A Nagios watcher for Android. Can be configured with only one URL, but can do HTTP Basic Auth and handle self-signed SSL certs. Options to hide everything that’s OK, and show only unhandled (un-acknowledged) problems. Also can start a service to poll and alert at regular intervals. Only down side is that it only handles one Nagios URL.
• Network Discovery (0.2.7.1) - Intersting little app that I haven’t played around with much. Does port scans of IPs and runs a “network discovery” of the LAN, though it doesn’t say whether it is active (ping/port scanning) or passive (ARP). Displays info on devices (IP, MAC address, decodes MAC manufacturer name from address) and a button to run a port scan.
• OSMonitor (1.1.0) - Good process monitor for Android - shows running processes. load from each process, total CPU usage, network information for all NICs (WiFi, BT, cellular/PPP), active TCP connections, battery status, storage status (of ALL filesystems), and internal log.
• Ping (1.5.3) - Simple ping app. Lets you enter an IP and select how many pings to send out. Shows console output.
• Shazam (1.3) - Yup, same thing that was the killer app for iPhone.
• SMS Backup & Restore (2.1)
  • Allows backup and restore of SMS data to/from SD card, as an XML file. Good for Droid users who experience the disappearing SMS bug.
• Speed Test (1.7.0) - A simple speed test app for Android from speedtest.net. Not sure how accurate it is, but it does upload and download tests over WiFi or cellular/PPP.
• Spirit Level Plus (1.2) - Simple but cool. Spirit level for the phone, using the builtin accelerometer. Seems relatively accurate.
• StopWatch (1.07) - AWFUL. It’s a stopwatch app, but I could not get it to stop displaying stuff in the notifications bar.
• Terminal Emulator (1.0.4)
  • Terminal emulator for Android. It feels so wonderful to be able to pull up an app, pop open the keyboard, and type “su” on my phone. On the down side, once again, I can’t figure out how to enter the pipe or tab characters, and I don’t know what shell the phone has on it.
• Wifi Analyzer (2.2.9) - REALLY COOL. Vaguely WiSpy like, but I doubt it’s accurate. Shows a graph of spectrum utilization with SSIDs and signal strength, a time-based graph of signal strength per SSID, a simple list of APs with channel number, BSSID, frequency, signal strength and encryption, and a simple “signal meter”. Looks like it could be pretty useful.
• WifiScanner (1.7) - Simple WiFi scanner app. Shows all detected WiFi APs along with SSID, BSSID/MAC, signal level, channel and encryption.