Did you get the smartphone you had on your Christmas list this year? To try and help those who may have received a smartphone for the first time and do not know what to look for we put together a quick list of recommended apps for Android and a working list of Windows Phone apps as we are currently reviewing the Verizon Wireless HTC 8X.
Android
There are approximately 700,000 apps in the Play store at the time of this post so we are sure you will not have a problem finding apps to install on your phone. These are just a few quality, free apps you might want to explore.
1. Lookout – One of the best security apps for monitoring apps for malware and finding your phone if it goes missing.
2. Evernote – The greatest app for taking notes. Notes can be viewed and created from a phone, any computer web browser or installed on your personal computer.
3. Hootsuite – A somewhat all-in-one social media app. The app supports multiple Twitter accounts, Foursquare, Facebook profiles, Facebook pages, and more.
4. A good photo editor – This recommendation has a couple of choices and trust us, they are better than Instagram.
HTC provides its own useful photo enhancing tools, but to go the extra creative step we suggest Camera360 and the rising app, Snapseed. Both are chalked full of brilliant filters and effects for styling your photos.
5. Ingress – For a little gaming action, we recommend you sign up at Ingress for an activation code since the location-based game is still in closed beta. Search Google+ for the keyword #IngressInvite to see how others are getting early invites.
Windows Phone
We have only had our demo unit for a little over 24 hours so we are still working in this list. Please add your recommendations in the comments for us to try out.
1. Security app – This was something I had a hard time locating. Lookout has yet to release a WP app and ones listed did not look worthy of installing.
2. Evernote – Regardless of the platform this has to be the second tool we look for when setting up a new phone or computer. Everything from what you had for dinner to how much bread you need to buy to saving that thought before you forget can easily be recorded and shared in many different ways.
3. Social media app – We have tried the Facebook and Twitter apps, but they are disappointing although I like the Twitter app more. The People Hub is an attractive way to view a combined feed from these networks so be sure to add them in the accounts section in the settings. We have the lite version of Rowi installed, but have not had a chance to test it out.
3. Game – So far we have downloaded the game Ragdoll Run and can see how easy it is to run and jump for hours, but we want to know what you are playing to put the HTC 8X to the test in the graphics department.
Like we said, the Windows Phone list is a work in progress and we really want to have the best experience with Microsoft’s mobile OS so please share your app recommendations in the comments and if you are an app developer, feel free to contact me to do a review on your app while the platform is in my hands (andy @ htcsource . com).
We will try to update this post as we discover more WP apps and get better associated with the platform.
Picture: things.com
