Android phones pack tons of apps, and if you’ve used a smartphone before, you might think you already know everything there is to know about them. But think again. Android apps are different. They’ve got tons of brilliant benefits and unique abilities. Here are 10 things you probably haven’t realised about the wonderful world of Android apps.
Android Invasion! Everything you need to know about Android phones
Android apps aren’t censored
Android apps aren’t censored or approved. If a developer creates an Android app, it can be downloaded from a website or distributed through the Android Marketplace without needing Google or anyone else to approve it. That means Android app developers have a completely free hand to create innovative apps, and you don’t need to worry about your favourite app suddenly being yanked from the app store.
You can run several Android apps at once
With the Android operating system powering your phone you can run more than one app at a time. That means you can be chatting with someone using Instant Messaging, quickly jump to your web browser to look up a web page, grab a number from your contacts list and return to your chat without having to close any of your Android apps.
It’s lightning fast, and means you can get more jobs done with less waiting around. Other mobile operating systems try to skirt true multitasking by offering push notifications from apps, but these usually mean you can still only open one app at a time. That’s most frustrating when you want to use two apps at once, such as listening to music with the Spotify Android app and answering emails at the same time.
Android apps can work together
Android apps can work together and access shared information. Android apps can pull in contact data from your address book, integrate with your Facebook account, grab information from the web and combine all those elements together. Your calendar and contacts aren’t walled off from the rest of your Android apps, and developers can make full use of the phone’s basic abilities.
For instance, it’s possible to make a call from within an Android app, whereas other mobile operating systems force you to quit the app and start from scratch. All in all, it means it’s easier for developers to create really handy apps to make your life easier with an Android phone.
Android apps can use all your phone’s power
Just as Android apps can work together to share data, they also make use of all of your phone’s core functions. If you want them to, Android apps can make calls, send text messages, use your phone’s GPS or take pictures with the camera. They also have the full power of your phone’s processor to play with. In the case of the HTC Desire and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, that’s a screamingly quick 1Ghz chip.
Some rival operating systems are more closed, and developers often have to wait a while until the manufacturer decides to open up functions before they can create apps to make use of them.
Check on other Android apps without leaving the one you’re in
Because you can run multiple Android apps at one time, you’ll often have notifications from different apps waiting for your attention. When something happens in an app even if you’re not looking at it, an icon will pop up in the status bar so you can see that something needs your intervention.
You can see whatever Android app you’re currently using, and the notifications they’re throwing up, by dragging down the bar. Best of all, you can check your notifications without having to leave the Android app you’re currently preoccupied with.
Android apps can be available immediately
When you hear about a cool Android app, you can usually go and grab it immediately. Because Google doesn’t pre-screen apps, if a developer creates a cool app, they can send it out into the world as soon as its ready. That’s far less frustrating than seeing a cool app demoed before realising you have to wait for it to go through an approval process. Android apps arrive when their creators think they’re ready.
You can change the default browser
While Android has its own built-in internet browser, you also have the choice of a growing selection of other browsers. That means you can try another Android browser like Opera Mini or the forthcoming Firefox for Android, which offer faster browsing and a fistful of new features. Being able to choose between browsers means you’re not relying on one Android app development team to make surfing the web fun, fast and reliable.
Android apps aren’t reliant on an app store
The Android Marketplace is a great way of finding lots of brilliant apps in one place, but app creators can also put their Android apps on their own websites. There’s a great selection of Android app review sites out there to help you find great new Android apps and you can usually grab the apps straight from the website using your phone or computer.
Another great feature of the Android Marketplace is that it doesn’t ask for your details when you only want to grab a free Android app, there’s no need to register, just dive straight in and start downloading!
You can side-load Android apps via Mac or PC
You can back up and store Android apps on an SD card. Download a selection of Android apps on your PC or Mac to take advantage of your speedy home broadband connection and you can sling them onto your Android phone without needing to hook it up to your computer, or dive into an app store at all!
It’s not just apps, there are widgets too
As well as fully fledged Android apps, there are widgets. The great thing about widgets is that you can drop them onto your home screens and see useful information at a glance. Widgets can show you things like upcoming calendar events, the weather forecast or the current song playing. You can also interact with widgets. For instance, if you have a widget showing your music playlist, you can use it to flip through tracks without firing up a whole new app.
