Check out the latest and greatest in apps for your Android smartphone with our monthly app roundup.
SoundCloud
The music-based social network makes its way to Android.SoundCloud, the music-based social network loved by musicians and fans alike, has had an iPhone app for over a year now but has only recently entered the Android realm.
The main purpose of the app is to stream tracks to your handset. The front screen lists the latest tracks from the people you follow, but you can also search for tracks by users you don’t follow, or for new users to start following.
The playback screen has a neat layout, displaying the album art, a waveform of the track for easy navigation, and one-touch access to the user’s profile, or to mark the track as a favourite.
Sadly, it doesn’t seem to support downloading the tracks to your device for offline playback, but it does support background playback, so you can leave the app and not miss a beat.
A novel feature is the ability to record any sound around you and upload it to SoundCloud. This is great for jam sessions, concerts, or noting some dope beats that are coming from a nearby ghetto blaster.
The Android app is still missing some of the iPhone version’s functionality, but SoundCloud is promising regular updates to bring it up to par.
Free > SoundCloud > bit.ly/gaQXzJPhonalyzr
When trying to figure out the best plan to move to, going over your old bills is usually a necessary evil. Now, however, there is a better way.
Phonalyzr looks at the call logs of your device, and breaks the information down into relevant parts. What days/times do you most use your phone? How many SMS are you sending per month?
It then plots this information into handy graphs, or exports it to a CSV file on the SD card, allowing you to analyse it yourself.
Free > Martin Drashkov > http://www.androidmarketapps.com/tools/phonalyzer/GTasks
Google tasks is a great way to organise your life, and offers just about all the features you need, except for one: native support for Android.
GTasks provides this support. It offers management of multiple task lists, sharing of tasks, notifications for approaching due dates, and widgets for quick viewing and creation of tasks.
It also has an API, so that other applications and widgets (like the Android Agenda Widget) can display your tasks.
Free > Dato > bit.ly/hVgLVESwitchPro Widget
A simple, attractive and fully customisable widget that allows one-touch toggling of most system settings, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, data connection, airplane mode, silent mode, auto-sync, auto-rotate, brightness, screen always on, reload SD, 3G-2G, battery status, unlock pattern, reboot (rooted phones only), speaker mode, auto-screen lock, mount SD, Wi-Fi hotspot, USB Tether, and even a flashlight.
Appearance, size, transparency, and colour are all customisable, so you can guarantee that it will fit with the overall feel of your homescreen.
US$0.99 > Droid Shogun > aleigood.blogspot.com