Ash Blue Web Design

Top 10 Android Business Applications

If you’re like most freelancers or small business owners these days, juggling your to-do list with life is like fighting off a dragon and ninjas at the same time (which is theoretically impossible). The second I leave my computer I start wondering if my next job will come in, what if a client’s website crashes, and the worst situation, what if somebody calls me offering free money? Wishful thinking, but its possible. To help solve my office dilemma I recently purchased an HTC Android phone. To help manage my life better, I’ve been searching around for the best Google Android applications to simplify running my business. Also, its very important you find some reliable and safe applications because several I downloaded sucked the juice out of my phone when I wasn’t even using them.

The best Android business applications

WordPress for Android

Ever shown off your blog and found a typo that you were dieing to fix? WordPress for Android gives you the ability edit/write new posts, moderate comments, and even modify your page structure. This is an extremely powerful piece of software that appears to be evolving weekly. Updates are very frequent and they keep on adding more features. This is the quality of a paid application without having to pay anything. Can be a little tricky to initially setup, but well worth the effort when everything is in motion.

Price: Free.

Remember The Milk

Remember The Milk’s mobile version syncs with their database so you don’t have to leave your task list at the computer. I’ve been using the free version on my computer for quite a while and I’m quite pleased. Lately I’ve been living off this program like an IV.  The application does cost money, but it goes straight towards development costs for Remember The Milk. You can try it out free for 15 days, be warned though, you’ll probably get hooked. It also integrates with item locations to make traveling easier. For more on Remember The Milk check out the in depth article I wrote.

Price: 1 year subscription $25.

Skype Mobile

Skype’s Google Android application is phenomenal. You can check your address book (or combine it with your existing phone’s contacts), voicemail, and missed calls. What makes this application shine for business use is its ability to route calls from Skype to your mobile phone.  This solution is significantly better than using Google Voice due to Skype’s larger number of call features. This way you can shut off your Skype account and control the flow of phone calls.

Price: Free… kind of… might require a yearly subscription if you want to make calls outside your country through Skype for free.

Dropbox

If you’re running a business then you probably have hundreds of files that require organization and sharing. Sometimes clients even ask if you remember particular obscure data from project documents and materials when you’re computerless. Usually you’ll have to respond with a guess, but not anymore! Dropbox’s mobile version allows you to look up and save items to their server via your Google Android Phone. This is quite a big deal, especially if you’re collecting pictures of an event since you can drop them into your account and instantly access them on a home computer. Now you can have access to all of your important documents without being locked in front of your computer.

Price: A 2GB Dropbox account is free, anything above that has a monthly fee attached to it. That amount of space should be more than sufficient as long as you aren’t hording pictures on your account.

AK Notepad

At the core of every good phone OS is the ability to create notes about important meetings, passwords, and other data. I searched around the Android Marketplace for hours trying to find a good notepad application, then I found AK Notepad. This application blows every text program out of the water for the Android. It takes great notes, auto saves, has themes, allows text size adjustment, and a boat load of other options for complete customization. If that isn’t enough, you can export notes with the share function to Twitter, Gmail, and a slew of other programs. A must have for everyone.

Price: Free.

Where’s My Droid

Every so once in a while I manage to loose my cell phone in the oddest of places. Usually it ends up buried in an abyss of papers, other times inside a shoe. This usually isn’t too big of a deal because you just need to call your phone right? But what if you put your phone on silent? Where’s My Droid gives you the ability to override your phone, max out the sound, and let it ring. In addition to this its capable of generating GPS coordinates of your phone’s location. The greatest part about this is this is all possible via sending your phone a simple text message with a keyword. Simple and wonderfully amazing.

Price: Free.

WiFi Analyzer

On several occasions I’ve been so desperate for a good internet connection I’ve held my arms out in an antenna like format. Hoping that my signal will just increase a few bytes and properly send my email. Those days are no more. The Wifi Analyzer allows you to look at the signal strength of all the connections near your phone. What’s even better is it will tell you how strong the signal is. Great for people who are desperate to get every drop possible out of their wireless’s signal. If you run a business this will definitely come in handy when you need a stable connection in who knows where.

Price: Free.

ASTRO File Manager (beta)

The Astro File Manager is only in beta, but its by far the best file management program for Google’s Android. Its so amazing it should be built into the Android CMS core. A few features are generating thumbnails for images and sorting everything (including your memory card). It also gives your the ability to share, delete, move, and search through your files. Probably the most interesting feature though is the ability to jack into a network anywhere with your login data and drop/retrieve files. I question how secure it is though (especially due to its beta status). Great for storing and managing your business’s files on the fly.

Price: Free for now because its going to cost money when the beta ends.

PayPal

With PayPal’s new Android application you can access a mini version of your PayPal account on the fly. Sessions time out fast, which is good to know since I don’t want anyone sending my money to their account. This application’s largest standing problem is the inability to request money from others. I’m quite perplexed as to why, maybe a security flaw or something? Although this is great to have if you run a small business and want to look through your PayPal account. I’m not too sure how much I trust myself to type in extremely detailed data on my phone’s tiny keypad considering how many spelling errors appear in the average text message. Sending money to someone with one extra zero could literally bankrupt you.

Price: Technically free… but PayPal charges a few dollars for all transactions due to insurance and overhead.

Delicious

Just a simple plugin that gives you the ability to share items on Delicious in addition to the Android’s default share options. Nothing really fancy, but its great to have access to bookmarking files on the fly. Not an official plugin by Yahoo, but can you expect them to develop an application for Google? We’ll probably never see an official application, but this one works perfectly fine.

Price: Free.

Application wish list

Right now there isn’t a decent screenshot application on the Android Market. I can understand its absence due to security precautions for user data. Right now there really isn’t a fantastic RSS or podcast reading program either. Any applications you can suggest or want to see?