DRIOD App Guide

525 Appendix DRIOD App Guide This appendix includes information on apps you can download and install for your DROID. We’ve included QR codes, so you can use a barcode scanner app on your DROID to navigate directly to a given app. Read Chapter 17, “Exploring the Android Market,” for more information on QR codes. CAUTION: We want to make you aware that apps may change frequently. Some of the apps listed in this guide will have been updated, others may be gone altogether, and new and improved ones added by the time you read this book. Please use the apps listed in this guide as a starting point to become familiar with what is possible and help you find some useful apps. Document Tools If you work in an office, you may need to deal with documents. At the time of publication, there are no solutions to reading Microsoft OneNote on Android. That may come in the future, but for now we recommend using Evernote instead. Of the document-management software we tested, DataViz’s Docs to Go and QuickOffice Mobile Suite from QuickOffice were the most stable and offered the best interfaces for both viewing and editing documents. However, you may have different results with different types of documents, so the best approach is to use free trial versions of apps that interest you and compare how well these apps display the types of documents you typically use. Docs to Go allows some editing and formatting, and it will even handle DOCX files. It’s not a replacement for a full-sized word processor, but it is a good complement to one. 525 526 APPENDIX: DRIOD App Guide TIP: Check out Chapter 21: "Working with Notes and Documents" for descriptions of how to use Docs to Go and QuickOffice. ThinkFree Mobile is another popular choice, although in our testing it suffered from more formatting errors when trying to display documents. Table A–1 shows these and other document tools. Table A–1. Document Tools. App Name Price Notes QR Code Docs to Go, Free The free trial allows you to view documents, by DataViz trial/$14.99 and the paid version allows you to edit them. It supports Word and Excel formats; the paid version also supports PowerPoint. QuickOffice US$9.99 This is a complete software solution offering Mobile Suite good capabilities for creating and editing from Microsoft Office documents on your DROID. QuickOffice, For some PowerPoint editing it has better Inc. capabilities than Docs to Go. OfficeSuite Free The free trial is for 30 days. The app supports Viewer, by trial/$1.99 Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files. Mobile This app had a high failure rate in our testing Systems when trying to open files. ThinkFree Free/$9.99 The free version is just a viewer. The paid version Office Mobile, can be purchased either item by item (e.g., word by ThinkFree processing, spreadsheets, and slideshow) or all Mobile at once. It will download and open Google Docs, and it has a built-in file browser. Overall, this app has a nice feature set; in my testing, however, it did not display documents well and often made them difficult to read with black backgrounds. Adobe Free Allows you to view PDF attachments, but Reader, by does not let you create or edit them. This is Adobe stable, free, and offered directly from Adobe. It also supports pinch-to-zoom and viewing from the Web. APPENDIX: DRIOD App Guide 527 Printing If you’ve got a document ready for printing, why not print it directly from your phone? PrinterShare lets you do exactly that. However, as of publishing time, it did not yet support printing Word or Excel files, so this app is most useful for printing photos, not Office documents. You also need to install desktop software in order to print to non-Wi-Fi printers. The free trial lets you print a test page to verify that it will work. As Android gains popularity, you can expect to see more printing solutions; however, at the time of publication, it’s a lonely field. Table A–2 shows PrinterShare, the only app in this category. Table A–2. Printing Apps. App Name Price Notes QR Code PrinterShare Free Use the free trial’s test-print feature Droid Print, by trial/$4.95 before committing to a purchase. Be Mobile Dynamix aware that Office files are not supported, but PDF files and photos are. 528 APPENDIX: DRIOD App Guide File Management It’s nice to be able to view or edit your document attachments, but it’s also nice to know where those files are stored on your SD card without having to connect your phone to a computer in order to do basic file-management tasks. Your DROID comes with the Files app for file management. File-management software lets you see and move your files; it also enables you to break things if you don’t know what you’re doing or you aren’t careful. Use caution when moving files and renaming folders. Of the apps we’ve evaluated, EStrongs File Explorer was our favorite, but there are many strong, free choices. We like to combine File Explorer with Dropbox, which allows us to share and sync files through the Internet and access them from any computer or mobile device. Table A–3 lists the available file-management options. TIP: To learn more about Dropbox, check out Chapter 21. To learn about which folders store all your pictures, videos, and ringtones, check out Chapter 25: "DROID Media Sync. Table A–3. File-Management Apps. App Name Price Notes QR Code EStrongs File Free This app allows file copying, file moving, Explorer, by multiple file selections, ZIP expansion, app EStrongs management, and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and Bluetooth file transfer. AndExplorer, by Free This app allows file copying, file moving, LYSESOFT GZIP, and other file-management functions. It features a straightforward user interface. APPENDIX: DRIOD App Guide 529 App Name Price Notes QR Code File Manager, by Free This app has a cleaner interface than Apollo Software EStrongs File Explorer, but it does not include support for Bluetooth file transfer. Linda File Free Linda File Manager is also a solid choice, Manager, by but it also lacks Bluetooth support. Nylinda.com Dropbox, by Free This app allows Dropbox users to access Dropbox and share files between users and computers as if they share a common folder. Basic accounts are free, and premium accounts offer more storage. Visit the website at www.dropbox.com for more info. See Chapter 21 for more details about Dropbox. Virus Protection, Backups, and Security Viruses may seem like a remote worry; however, as mobile devices become more popular, the bad guys will figure out better ways to distribute them. However, losing your phone and/or having it stolen are big potential problems right now, especially if you store sensitive data on your phone. It may be a job requirement that you be able to wipe business data from your phone if it is stolen. Your DROID already ships with the ability to remote wipe and back up your phone data. Lookout Mobile is our top pick in this category. It’s free and provides three services within one app. If you feel the virus protection is unnecessary, you can disable that feature and use only the Data Backup and Missing Device features (see the figure to the right). We also appreciate that it sends you an email whenever you use remote location to make sure your online account hasn’t been breached. 530 APPENDIX: DRIOD App Guide Table A–4 shows virus protection and other security apps. Table A–4. Virus Protection, Backups, and Security Apps. App Name Price Notes QR Code Lookout Mobile Free This app provides virus scans, remote Security Free, by location, and file backup. The remote Lookout location can either show you where your phone is on a map (if GPS is enabled) or emit a loud alarm. KeePassDroid, by Free This is a password manager based on Brian Pellin the open source KeePass project. You can combine this with Dropbox to make a cloud-based password safe. WaveSecure, by $19 per WaveSecure offers theft protection with WaveSecure year remote location, remote lock, and remote wiping of the data on the SD card. Norton Security Free trial This is a beta release with an unknown Beta, by pricing model for the full release. Its NortonMobile features include virus scanning, call screening, remote wipe, and remote lock. Super Private Free This app blocks unwanted SMS and Conversation, by phone calls and filters specified SMS Superdroid.net conversations for privacy. APPENDIX: DRIOD App Guide 531 Presentation Software Most of the document-management software listed earlier can handle viewing PowerPoint files. Chances are slim that you’ll need to actually present from your Android phone; however, if you need to, you can use Docs to Go or the slideshow feature in your phone gallery in a pinch. At this time, the DROID and DROID 2 do not support TV out, so you can’t just plug the device into a TV or monitor and see video images. This is a hardware – not software – limitation, so most of us actually giving presentations using Android phones are stuck projecting them from an overhead projector. However, the DROID X does come with TV-out capabilities, which means you can present slideshows from your phone. This also means you can pair them with portable projectors that take standard TV connections, use the MightyMeeting app, and leave the PC behind.

Load more