Some of my favourite Android Tablet Apps
First things first, this post is related to “true” Android tablet applications that were designed for Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich. There aren’t any games on the list this time round, perhaps I’ll cover that another day. Feel free to comment with your own favourites.
Most of the below are available on the Android market er…oops I mean Google Play Shop or Store in the USA (apparently we don’t understand the word Store here in the UK).
I immediately stumbled across this app when I bought my first Tablet, unlike a lot of other keyboards it has the option to split the keyboard in half making the most used keys easily accessible. It doesn’t suffer from typing delay like some of the alternatives and the auto correction is pretty good too.
Being an avid Film and TV fan I like to be able to look up reviews, trailers and general information about cast members etc… It houses all the information available on IMDB.com inside an excellent tablet layout which is easy to navigate.
Although IMDB can provide all of the information available in Flixster Movies, this is great to see new movie releases and their trailers at a quick glance.
GMail
Quite simply this is the best client for Google Mail available and of course Google Apps for business. However if you are a Microsoft Exchange user all is not lost, the built email client in Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich has excellent Exchange support.
Whilst Google Chrome is still in beta form and is only available for devices running Ice Cream Sandwich I have to give it a mention. In tablet form it looks almost identical to the desktop application we are all used to, it offers bookmark sync, page sync across devices along with a fantastic feature named link zooming (probably not its official name). When I tap on links I quite often end up hitting the wrong one. This is what link zooming solves. Put simply the specific area is enlarged allowing you to be more accurate with your fingers. NOTE: The Beta really is a beta, it has a number of problems such as hanging at the moment!
GoLauncher HD
You may or may not be familiar with the term “launcher”, in simple terms its manages your home screen and applications menu. GoLauncher has been available for phones for some time but only recently has a tablet version been released. Fresh out of Beta and now on v1.0 it has a custom dock for your most used applications and a fantastic screen to add/remove shortcuts and widgets. It is also far smoother than the stock Honeycomb/ICS launcher. Currently available from the developers website.
Does what it says on the tin. It’s a file manager but with a difference, using fragments it allows document previews such as TXT, PDF’s and various image files. It also has full network support for accessing files on shared storage. Unlike other file managers it has drag and drop support – a Marmite feature in my view.
If you don’t use Google docs and you have an Android tablet this app may convert you. It looks perfect and works well for manipulating and sharing Google Docs!
Quite simply one of the best document editors/viewers available on Android. It has integration available for all popular cloud storage providers including Google Docs, Box, Dropbox etc…
I originally thought that Dropbox hadn’t updated their app to include a tablet UI but it turns out they had. Both Box and Dropbox offer a similar functionality for online file storage and their tablet apps are equally as good!
I’m not one for taking notes very often but I have found Evernote to suit my needs perfectly. Notes are synchronised between all of your devices and the tablet interface is pretty clean too. Unfortunately it doesn’t use Android 3.0/4.0 design elements but the upside is that it works on a multitude of tablets on the market.
There are plenty of other tablet applications available these are just the ones I use the most. Feel free leave comments with some of your favourites. A great list of Ice Cream Sandwich style apps is being compiled on a post over at The Verge.
If you are itching to get you hands on a tablet (iPad or Android device) then get in touch with us. We’ll explain the differences and suggest the best fit for your business.