Category: Uncategorized

A friend just got a good android phone, and I wrote her advice
about what to put on it. I thought you might like to know, too,
so here it is. The phone is currently a Google Galaxy Nexus,
which I bought in August of 2012. So it’s almost three year old
technology, but it still seems pretty functional.

Apps for using the phone

Call Filter

This one really saves me time. It lets me send all calls
where the number is hidden directly to voice mail. If a real
person I wanted to talk to did ever call from a number like
that, they would presumably leave a message, but it’s mostly
fundraisers or worse.

Dropbox

I thought when I started using this that it would help me
work on something on my laptop as well as my desktop. It does
do that, but even more often useful is that when I take pictures
on my phone, they automatically get uploaded to my
computer.

Prey Anti Theft

Of course, I installed this after I lost a phone. So
far it’s been tested only when I’ve changed SIM cards, which it
sees as a possible loss of the phone. But it does send you an
email and you can see on a map where the phone is.

Apps that let the phone function as lots of other small
electronic gadgets (or not)

Accupedo pedometer

Seems to be fairly accurate. Since losing the dog, I don’t
consistently do 10,000 steps a day, but if the weather ever
improves, I will start.

Accuweather

I never had a small gadget that did this, but it is useful.
This one works better than the other weather apps I’ve tried,
but it is a bit of a nuisance about telling me all the weather
alerts.

Calendar

I find the interface on this painful enough that I usually
wait until I get home to enter appointments, but it is useful to
be able to look at your calendar before you make an appointment.

Camera

I do still have a camera that’s better than this one, but
this is pretty good, and of course, the best camera is the one
you have with you.

FBReader

This is what I use to read books on all my devices. It may
not work better than the competition, but it works the same way
everywhere, so I don’t need to figure out how to find the table
of contents on the new gadget.

Mobile Metronome

Has all the features any other metronome I know about does.
It’s loud enough on the phone speaker for recorder playing, but
needs an external speaker for groups or loud brass
instruments.

On Track

I use this to record my blood sugar readings, but you can
use it to keep track of any number you want. I can show the
graph to my doctor when he asks how my blood sugar is doing.

Smart Voice Recorder

This is one that really doesn’t replace the special purpose
device. This app works better than the built-in one. If you
use high definition sound, your recorder will sound like a
recorder, but it will be much too noisy to listen to for any
length of time. So if you don’t have a special purpose recorder
(mine is a Zoom H2), it’s worth getting, but otherwise don’t
bother.

Spotify.

My latest discovery. I was using the Google Play
Music app for playing my music, but this lets you play other
people’s music, too. After my free trial is up, I may try
whether the Google All Access is as good or better about having
the music I want to listen to — they’re about the same price,
and Google or Spotify has made it impossible to use Spotify on
Google TV, so the Google thing would be easier to play through
my stereo.

Waves

This is tuning software, with all the features of even very
expensive tuners. (I haven’t tried defining my own temperament,
but they have all the temperaments I’ve wanted.)This is a
rewrite of g-strings, which has a free version that works pretty
well for recorders, but Waves isn’t very expensive, and works
better for the serpent. Again, the phone isn’t loud enough to
play a drone, and the speaker doesn’t have enough bass to play a
low drone, but you can put it through better speakers.