The time for the best Android apps of the week is nigh, so pull up a chair, pour yourself a stiff drink and join us as we regale you with tales of five must-have downloads for your Google phone. This week we’ve got 8-bit RPG goodness rubbing shoulders with a great new live wallpaper replacement, as well as an app which intends to make missing flights a thing of the dim and distant past.
As ever, you’ll find direct links to the relevant pages of the Android Market below. However, if you’re fond of barcodes that look like abstract modern art, you can utilise the handy QR codes provided to grab the links to this week’s best Android apps. Just make sure you have Barcode Scanner installed on your phone.
Free
The Android Market is growing at a frightening rate, with thousands upon thousands of new apps and games arriving on a monthly basis. Predictably, sifting through all of this content is also getting harder and more time-consuming, and despite its recent face-lift, the Android Market doesn’t make it easy to find exactly what you want.
This is where Chomp for Android (not to be confused with the superb ChompSMS) comes in. It’s the first app-related search engine for Google’s mobile platform and instead of searching for app titles, it allows you to search for keywords that relate to functionality. For example, if you want an app which relates to audio, you can type in ‘music’ and it will bring up a whole flood of results, from cloud-based services such as Last.fm and Pandora to dedicated media players and album art grabbers. Such a time-saving proposition is more than worthy of a place in our best Android apps of the week list.
Check out the best Android apps of all time: Top 100 right here
Free
In a world where everyone is obsessed with dual-core processors and Tegra 2-powered 3D visuals, it’s refreshing to see a game as unashamedly rudimentary as Gurk. Originally developed by Larva Labs (the guys behind the brilliant Androidify) for Nokia Series 30 handsets, the game is around 100K in size, but it manages to cram in a surprising amount of gameplay into that minuscule slab of data.
The chunky visuals are likely to put off a lot of players, but those of you that battle through the occasionally rough graphics will find a time-sapping fantasy romp that is perfectly suited to mobile play. And the fact that it’s being offered free of charge means you won’t have to fight through the dark land of Mordor to claim it.
£2.49
Missing a flight isn’t fun. Not only is it a costly exercise, the dangers of being stranded in a foreign country with nothing but your suitcase and few crumpled dollars make for a positively nightmarish situation.
As always, your humble smartphone holds the key to avoiding such a terrifying episode. Flightboard for Android gives you real-time updates for 4000 airports all over the globe, covering a staggering 1400 different airlines – even the ones that still insist on using wooden bi-planes held together with string and cello tape, we’d wager.
You can check the status of your flight on the move and make sure you get to the airport in good time, and it’s even possible to use Flightboard as a live wallpaper, so the information you need is always on display. If you’re a frequent flyer then this app is worth every single penny.
£6.24
After whetting your appetite for Tegra 2-powered visual finery with last week’s Samurai II, we’ve got another eye-searing helping of Android gaming brilliance in the form of Monster Madness. Built using the Unreal Engine 3, Monster Madness looks absolutely fantastic, and the local co-op mode allows you to share the insanely degree of violence with a friend via a Wi-Fi connection.
With countless beasts to destroy, levels to conquer and vehicles to command, this is one of the most robust action titles we’ve yet witnessed on Android. It’s a shame that only phones with Tegra 2 chips inside are capable of running it – be especially wary of this when you attempt to make a purchase.
Android’s live wallpaper feature was trumpeted as one of the operating system’s biggest enhancements back when the Nexus One was launched, but there have been few examples worth using on a daily basis. Photowall – Larva Labs’ second contribution to our list of the Best Android apps pantheon this week – allows you to add a personal touch to your phone’s home screen.
It pulls in images stored on your phone and on your Facebook account and lays them out like scattered Polaroids. New images fade in from time to time, creating an appealing visual snapshot of your social life. The app is offered free of charge but you can unlock more options by upgrading to the paid edition.
Just make sure you remove those questionable snaps you took during your last foreign holiday, otherwise you could face potential embarrassment next time you show your handset to an elderly relative.
