Top Ten Android Apps

By BOB TEDESCHI
NYT

A few weeks ago, I compiled a list of essential iPhone apps for people who are too busy to sift through the roughly 300,000 titles in the App Store.

Android users have it even worse. Although there are fewer apps to peruse (around 100,000 at last count), the Android Market is a nightmare to navigate compared with the iTunes App Store.

Yes, even though Google is the master of search, its Android Market’s search feature is less effective than Apple’s. The Market also has no answer for the App Store’s “Staff Favorites,” “Essentials” or “New and Noteworthy” selections, which pull good apps to the front of the catalog.

But that’s why I’m here. Android users, I hereby present 10 indispensable apps and then some. (This list and other lists of favorite apps can be found at http://nyti.ms/fKliAm.)

Some apps on my list are unique to Android, even though app developers still seem to develop for iPhone first. Oh, and the best part about the list? Almost all the apps are free.

Let’s start with Google, which created the Android operating system. The company may do a poor job with the Market, but it creates — and, more to the point, it gives away — stellar software for Android devices.

Google Search (free) is a huge time saver, thanks to the voice-search function. (Ask it for Wikipedia entries and it fetches. Speak the name of a retailer and it finds the nearest location.) And Google Maps (also free) is a big money saver, since it provides the same turn-by-turn navigation features you would have to pay $10 a month for on other phone platforms.

(More here.)