Editor’s note: Contributor Brad Spirrison is the managing editor of mobile app discovery services Appolicious, AndroidApps and AppVee. After having looked into the best iOS apps and games of 2011, Spirrison now turns his attention to the best Android apps of the year. Android apps come in all shapes and sizes – literally. Unlike iOS applications, which are basically created for two form factors, Android apps need to be developed with dozens (if not hundreds) of device-types in mind. This is on top of the inconsistent operating system releases still mucking things up. While all of this fragmentation is a headache for developers, ignoring a platform with 50 percent market share would ultimately lead to their peril. The best Android apps are thus the ones that can both push the technological envelope while also remaining accessible to the vast majority of users. This is no easy feat. We divided our list Read More

Editor’s note: Contributor Brad Spirrison is the managing editor of mobile app discovery services Appolicious, AndroidApps and AppVee. After having looked into the best iOS apps and games of 2011, Spirrison now turns his attention to the best Android apps of the year. Android apps come in all shapes and sizes – literally. Unlike iOS applications, which are basically created for two form factors, Android apps need to be developed with dozens (if not hundreds) of device-types in mind. This is on top of the inconsistent operating system releases still mucking things up. While all of this fragmentation is a headache for developers, ignoring a platform with 50 percent market share would ultimately lead to their peril. The best Android apps are thus the ones that can both push the technological envelope while also remaining accessible to the vast majority of users. This is no easy feat. We divided our list Read More

Lightbox, the beautifully designed social photo app for Android backed by $1.2 million in seed funding from Index, Accel, SV Angel, 500 Startups, and others, is today launching a revamped web interface that’s like a lazy man’s Tumblr. As with the hot blogging startup Tumblr, the idea with Lightbox’s new photo journal feature is to provide a stream of updates others can follow, share, like and comment on. For all its simplicity, Tumblr still involves the set up of a blog and mostly manual updates. Automatic posting of content requires additional configuration or the use of third-party tools. But with today’s Lightbox update, all users get their own Tumblr-esque photo blog, no extra effort required. Previously, Lightbox users were given a page for their public photos at a custom URL (format: your-username.lightbox.com), but the layout involved pages of thumbnails to click through. Today, that URL will now become a photo blog, where Read More

Advertisements We’ve covered some of the best antivirus apps and custom ROMs for Android, and now, in this post, we’ll be talking about some of the most feature-rich and popular photo-editing and sharing apps on Android. Check them out after the jump! TouchRetouch I’ll start off with my personal favorite content-aware filling app: TouchRetouch. It’s a one-trick pony, really, but the one-trick that it performs will leave you floored. It allows users to remove unwanted content from their photos and it does it exceptionally well. It’s a free app and can be downloaded from the link below. Color Touch Effects Color Touch, like TouchRetouch, is also a bit of a one-trick pony in that its strongest feature is that it allows you to color certain parts of a photo to make those certain parts stand out from the rest. On a desktop computer, this would normally require you to learn a Read More

Illustration by Michael ByersNavigating an app store can be tricky, with vague descriptions, dubious user reviews, and sometimes buggy apps. We searched for the best apps available. Locale$1 Locale lets you create location-based tasks. For example, you can have your phone turn on Wi-Fi when you get home, or have the phone silence itself when you get to work. It’s a great way to automate minor tasks, saving you a few extra minutes—and the embarrassment of having an overly noisy ringtone go off in the middle of a meeting. Head to Locale. SpringpadFree Create notes and reminders about movies you’d like to see, books you’d like to buy, or just events you’d like to remember. Springpad is also great for putting together shopping lists: You can quickly create checklists and scan barcodes to keep track of items you’ll need in the future. (Also optimized for tablets.) Head to Springpad. WunderlistWunderlist for AndroidFree Wunderlist syncs your to-do Read More

Illustration by Michael ByersNavigating an app store can be tricky, with vague descriptions, dubious user reviews, and sometimes buggy apps. We searched for the best apps available. Locale$1 Locale lets you create location-based tasks. For example, you can have your phone turn on Wi-Fi when you get home, or have the phone silence itself when you get to work. It’s a great way to automate minor tasks, saving you a few extra minutes—and the embarrassment of having an overly noisy ringtone go off in the middle of a meeting. Head to Locale. SpringpadFree Create notes and reminders about movies you’d like to see, books you’d like to buy, or just events you’d like to remember. Springpad is also great for putting together shopping lists: You can quickly create checklists and scan barcodes to keep track of items you’ll need in the future. (Also optimized for tablets.) Head to Springpad. WunderlistWunderlist for AndroidFree Wunderlist syncs your to-do Read More

GirlGoneGeek hasn't added any links to this page. Login to suggest a link. Good list. Any reason Path or VisR aren't on there? Path and VisR are my favorite apps. Path because it lets you do all the things picplz etc does along with share photos to selective people. VisR because it organizes photos by events so i can s check them out anytime i want and I can also post them to Facebook etc. I've actually never tried those apps so I didn't list them... but I'll take a look! They sound pretty sweet. advertisement Read More

It’s already July. Half of 2011 has sped by, and in its wake, a huge cloud of great Android apps. Bigger developers are releasing their offerings into the Android Market more quickly than ever, and the apps themselves keep getting better too. While it’s tough to pin down all of the fantastic releases of 2011 so far, here’s a handful of notable ones. A few new Android tablets have hit the market, but none of them have lit the world on fire like Apple’s iPad yet. But, with a few more killer apps, perhaps that will change, and News360 is a step in the right direction at least. Designed specifically for tablets, News 360 aggregates the latest headlines and commentary in an aesthetically-pleasing way, making it an ideal way to keep in touch with what’s going on. With plenty of personalization options and over 1,500 sources, News360 shows the kind of Read More

It's that time of the month again, which is to say it's time to clean up our list of the absolute best Android apps. What new apps will show up? Which apps get cut? Note: These are the apps that have been added or removed to our massive list of best Android apps during the month of June. Added: Google+: It's Google's big soiree into social "sharing". The app has it all: a stream that shows what your friends are talking about (like Facebook), Huddle which is an easy to set up group chats (like GroupMe) and will even automatically upload the pictures you take on your phone to the cloud (like iCloud). Once you get a Google+ invite, one of those features will pull you in. Lightbox: Lightbox is a stylish camera app that's good enough to replace the stock camera app. Though it doesn't have basic features like Read More

last 30 days SHOOT, ENHANCE, SHARE: Snap a pic, apply effects (e.g. Lomo, Retro Camera, HDR), and share with friends on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, & Tumblr. Free & fun! Also sync photos to your Android tablet and manage them online at OUR REVIEWS: - Gizmodo: Lightbox: Android’s Answer to Instagram, iCloud and More - ReadWriteWeb: Lightbox, Gorgeous New Photo App Goes Android-First - Mashable: Lightbox: Slick Social-Camera Android App Syncs Wirelessly - More: SOCIAL PHOTO GALLERY: Browse photos that your friends post on Facebook and Twitter in the Lightbox gallery. (Twitter photo sources supported are Twitpic, Yfrog, Lockerz, Mobypicture, and Instagram.) MANAGE YOUR PHOTOS ONLINE & FREE WEB GALLERY: All the photos you take with the Lightbox app are automatically uploaded to Lightbox.com for safe storage. So if you lose your phone, you won't lose your memories. Go to http://lightbox.com and click on the "login" link in the top right to Read More

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so. Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info. Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here: Today's roundup is sponsored by Gameview Studios and their game Tap Fish. Tap Fish, if you haven't picked it up for the name, is a beautifully designed Tamagochi-style aquarium game - you grow fish in multiple aquariums, breed new fish variants, clean up after them - you know the drill. Check out its features and jump to the Market to download it for free:   Whoa, whoa, whoa, look what just showed up, just in time to make it into today's roundup. Full movies and TV shows streamed to your Android Read More