I admit, that I really like showing off the capabilities of my Android phone. It’s not a bragging thing, really, just that I want people to be aware of how our current technology can have impact in their lives.
The links to the apps are on AppBrain. If you have Fast Web Installer on your Android, you can install right from the links. If you don’t have it installed, you should get it. It makes backups to the cloud of your app lists, allows you to install from a desktop browser, and does batch upgrades from the market.
Here’s a list of a few apps that could easily make it into your office culture:
This app brings office-suite capabilities to your Android. With the free reader version, you can read Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and PDF files. With the pay version, you get all those abilities, with added editing capability of Excel, Word, and Powerpoint files. I have used the free reader on my 3.5 inch screen. I can’t imagine how painful editing would be! Still, if you have video out and connect to a monitor, this could be great. Otherwise, I’d say wait to see how it works in the coming Android tablet onslaught. Reader is free, $14.99 for the full version.
Google Voice is amazing. You can give out the same number to everyone- colleague, client, family, etc. but set up which phones it will ring on, or what they hear as voicemail. You can even set up schedules so that your office phone will ring 9-5, but will automatically forward to voicemail when you aren’t there. Google Voice is also great for international calling. You get rates very similar to Skype (nice and cheap), but over regular phones. The Google Voice app for Android gives you visual voicemail and free TXTing. Free.
This one might be a bit of a stretch, but if you are doing purchasing, this is a good way to get the lowest retail prices around. Definitely worth checking out, even if you can’t figure out how to make it good for office use. Free.
Document Scanner, PWN with your phone
This one is going to have you wondering where it has been all your life. Or perhaps, how did you manage with out it. You take a picture with the camera, and it converts it to a PDF. You can then upload that to Google Docs, and magically you have an editable document. Great if you want to look over that contract, or scan someone’s business card. Saves you a trip to the Xerox machine. Free trial, $3.98 full version.
Not perfect yet, but still pretty amazing. This app does a speech-to-speech translation. It accepts voice input in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish,