2010 has been a fantastic year for the Google Android operating system. Towards the end of 2009 we started seeing the game step up in terms of hardware which in turn, saw the iPhone see some stronger competition for once. With the release of Froyo and now Gingerbread more recently, the OS is becoming a very worthy competitor in the smartphone game.
Along with the increase in hardware quality and quality of OS, we've also seen the increase in how good the apps are becoming for Android based smartphones. What we want to do here is draw up a list of the best android productivity apps that are now available. See the full list below...
The list contains five productivity apps for Android that you can download. Some of them are free to use while some require a subscription to a web service to be activated. Costs are fairly minimal for these kind of tools. The apps are not in any particular order as each is good in its own way. The list is merely to give you some handy ideas about how to be more productive whilst on the move.
Evernote
Evernote is becoming a hugely popular service in 2010 with thousands of users signing up daily. Evernote is a very simple app that lets you capture notes, enter text, clip webpages, grab sound recordings and capture photos. Once captured, the content is then synchronized with an online account which can then be accessed from the desktop on a Mac or PC as well as a web based service (as well as iOS devices which also have an app). When content is captured, you can easily organise it in to folders (called notebooks) and file them away. Evernote makes all your content fully searchable.
By having the Evernote service cloud based, it lets you quickly write out a shopping list on your desktop and then when you load up Evernote on your phone, the shopping list is automatically synced. Overall, a very handy app that I personally use a number of times a day. Evernote can be found over here.
Dropbox
Dropbox is next on our list. What Dropbox allows you to do is create a special folder on your desktop computer (Mac or PC). Any files dropped in to that folder are then syncronised automatically to a cloud service.
The Dropbox Android app then can be used to access those files such as PDF, music, photos, documents for business and any other files you want. More details can be found over at Dropbox.
Remember the Milk
Although Evernote and Dropbox allow you to access all your documents and specific files where ever you are, what they lack is some sort of task management tool. Remember the Milk is one such tool (one of many) available for Android smartphones.
The app is free to install although to use it, you'll need a Pro account on the Remember the Milk website that costs $25/year. With that you get full task management system that allows you to create tasks easily, be reminded of tasks whilst on the move and locate tasks so you can best plan which order you want to get things done. A full tour of Remember the Milk can be found over here.
Quickoffice Connect
Quickoffice is another app that costs. What t does is allows you to edit Office documents stored in multiple locations such as in Google Docs, Dropbox, Mobile Me and stored locally. Quickoffice is described as the only Microsoft Productivity Suite available for Android based smartphones.
Files that can be edited with this app include "DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX" from Office 98 to 2008. We suspect a 2010 update will arrive soon. Full details can be found over here.
mNote - Simplenote
For those who have heard of Simplenote, it's an iOS based app that is the most basic text editor you could want. All you have is a button to add new content and when you write in plain text, the first line is used as the title of the file. Android based smartphones do not have access to Simplenote just yet through an official app, but one of the apps available (for free), is mNote. mNote taps in to the Simplenote API and can be used to edit and synchronize plain text notes stored on the web.
Although a very basic app, this is what it's designed for. Its aim is to get rid of the clutter and allow you to just write. Details here.
Productivity Apps Conclusion
Although we have only listed five apps today, there are many more that help you to be more productive (assuming you use them correctly and as intended). Let us know in the comments what Productivity apps for Android you prefer to use.