As previously noted, my phone is a Samsung Nexus S 4G running the Ice Cream Sandwich iteration of Android. (You can probably guess the carrier by the model.) Since I spend the majority of my time at my day gig, I’m sure I use it less than many full-time freelancers or fictionauts. It has become the lifeline for all of my side and personal work, however, as well as my social connectivity. Still, as I have less time to dick around with the thing, it might be hard for me to even come up with 10 apps I’m really using all the time.
*In no particular order and subject to change without notice.
Let’s see …
Evernote. Love, love, love me some Evernote. I use it daily, for everything from saving RSS stories to recording brief interviews and song ideas.
Google Reader. If there’s an app on my phone that could even remotely be called a time-waster, this is it. But it’s all about keeping informed, right? People argue over the death of RSS, the Reader redesign, and prettier or more functional apps and/or interfaces – whatever, it works just fine for me.
Epistle. Simple note-taking app that auto-syncs to its own Dropbox folder. Some things that are in there right now: Fishing coordinates, a list of potential Christmas gifts for my wife, some comedy bits, the kind of light bulbs that go in the fixture in our kitchen. The big difference between the way I use this and Evernote is that I very rarely type something into Evernote. That’s for links and audio, this is for notes that are always on my phone.
Dropbox. Derf. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t use it, really, especially anybody with more than one job/computer/office. Since I’m not a graphics guy, I don’t need digi-reams of storage space, so it’s perfect for me.
Skitch. OK, maybe another bit of a time-waster. On my computer, it’s a tool; on my phone, it’s a quick way for the graphic-app-impaired to add dumb captions to dumb images. Fun and addictive.
IMDB. NOT a time-waster. A research tool. A news service for those of us in the pop-culture trenches. A bet-settler. Shut up.
Google Voice. I keep two lines for the time being, but if GV ever gets MMS messaging I’ll probably go all in.
Twitter for Android. I don’t go out of my way to hunt down and test the latest Twitter client every time something new comes out. The official app works for my needs.
BBC News. I’ve got a love-hate relationship with this app, it’s kind of unwieldy and can act a bit wonky, but at the same time it’s a smart, user-friendly, attractive design. Every time I uninstall it I invariably find myself downloading it again before too long.
Okay, so, nine then.