Android App Spotlight #35: Untappd

So you're checking in to the locations you visit and the boring shit you're doing at home, but are you really sharing all the meaningless information you can? The answer is no, at least if you are the makers of Untappd, a new mobile app that seeks to answer that question that has plagued us all  from time to time: "Whatcha drinkin'?"


To me, this seems like more than just another checkin app, if only because tracking beer is something to which I am no stranger. Since this time last year, I've been taking photos of the beers I've drunk and keep a collection of them online. (it's been a while since I've uploaded a new batch, but they're patiently waiting on my camera) I got the idea for this from a guy I met (and many like him) who collected beer bottles as wall decorations. I liked the idea of collecting them, but thought that keeping track of hundreds of beer bottles could get out of hand, and moving them would suck. This served as a fun compromise.

Untappd is like this, except more social. You make friends like you would on any other social networking site, and when you're at the bars, you can "check in" the the beer you're drinking. You can also share the bar you're at, too. From there, you can check in to just the app, or you can share with your friends on Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter. You can earn badges, too, if that's your thing.

What's notable about Untappd is that it's not really an Android app at all - it's an html-based mobile app, which you access through your phone's browser. Traditionally, I'm not a fan of these types of apps, as they're not as stable as their locally-stored counterparts, nor do they take advantage of the platforms unique features, but they do allow for widespread use, and - in Untappd's defense - this is the nicest mobile app I've ever seen. I've still come across some flakiness while using it, though.

(You do know how to make a shortcut to a website on your home page, right? How you bookmark the website in the browser, long press on a blank area of your home page, select shortcuts, select bookmarks, and select your bookmark? You totally knew that, right?)

No God-fearing American dislikes beer, and if you expand your tastes beyond Miller Lite, you might want to share these tastes with friends. Untappd lets you do that, and hey - no precious MB's taken up on your phone's hard drive.

Android App Spotlight #34: ASTRO File Manager

Price: Free ($3.99 for no ads)
Website
AppBrain


This is one of those apps that's so integral to the way I use my phone that I take it for granted. You're probably already familiar with it, but if not, you should be: Astro is a simple and effective way to browse the file structure of your phone and the contents of your SD card without needing to hook your phone up to a computer.

It's pretty much a full-featured file manager, allowing you to rename, edit, and delete any file on your phone, plus the search function has come in handy a couple of times. Most importantly for me, it's been an easy way to install non-Market apk's - just throw them on the SD card and navigate to them through Astro. While typing this, I've discovered that the app even has the ability to backup and restore all of your apps - something for which I've been searching for quite a while. (It's said that if you restore apps through Astro they won't appear in you Market's listing of your installed apps, which would make updates difficult. However, they should show up in your AppBrain list of apps, and if you install new updates via that program, it should get the Market to recognize that you have it installed again.)

Astro is one of those must-have apps back in the day when Android didn't have that many "must-have" apps of which to speak, and it's easy to see why. If you have any desire to tinker around with the guts of your phone, you will need an app like this at some point.

Android App Spotlight #33: picplz

Price: Free
Website
AppBrain

Tell your life's story through pictures with picplz, a nifty app that not only allows you to take ordinary pictures and make them interesting through the application of various filters. You can show them off on the picplz site, but you can also tag the photos with the location of where they were taken. At the same time, if you so desire, you can check yourself in via Foursquare and post it to Twitter or Facebook, too, to share with your friends no matter how few social networks they belong to. It's surprisingly fun to try and come up with good pics to share, and if you're going to checkin anyways, (you do check in, don't you?) it's a cool way to do it.

Android App Spotlight #32: Withings WiScale

Price: Free
Website


Alright, let's say you have the awesome Withings Wifi Body Scale, which takes your scale readout and sends it online for tracking on the Withings site, uploading to Google Health, or even Twitter. Now, let's also say that you would like to have access to this information no matter where you go via your Android device. Unfortunately, there was no way for you to do this, until now! with the beta release of WiScale, a port of Withings' iPhone app.

It's a pretty simple app, with a single-day breakdown of your weight, BMI, and fat mass when the phone is in portrait, and a line graph that shows progress over the span of weeks or months. What else could you want in an app that reports the output of your bathroom scale? I guess the ability to install to the SD card would be nice, but it's only 450KB, so it's not all that big of deal.

Obviously this app fulfills a distinct market - those who have splurged on the scale, and own an Android phone, and want to have immediate access to their weight at all times, but it could be useful the next time you're trying to decide between the deep fried bacon and the side salad when ordering at a restaurant. Personally, I could have used this about four months ago, though that deep fried bacon was mighty tasty.

Android App Spotlight #31: Lookout

Price: Free ($2.99/mo or $30/yr for advanced features)
Website
AppBrain







With how much we are using our smartphones nowadays, more and more of our sensitive information is sitting, unprotected, on our phones. What happens if someone steals your phone, or you lose your phone, or you accidentally erase all of your Google contacts? I'm not going to lie - my backup strategy is largely throwing it up into the cloud and hoping the Big G holds onto it, but anyone who's serious about backing up (and we all should be) knows that the key to protecting your data comes in redundancy, so while Google will probably keep everything nice and neat for you, it's no guarantee. Furthermore, with the future of computing being these little handheld computers, you're going to start seeing some viruses that target the platforms, and given Android's unfettered Marketplace, how can you make sure the apk you're about to install isn't going to steal all your information? Oh, and another thing, what if you misplaced your phone in your apartment and can't find it?

There's a solution for all of these things by way of Lookout, an app that combines signature antivirus protection, data backup, and lost phone services. I've been using if for the past six months, and I'm generally pleased.

Every time I download an app, and every week (the frequency can be changed), my system is scanned. While it's only signature-based scans (it's looking for pre-defined malicious code, so zero-day vulnerabilities are still a threat), but I haven't had a virus yet! That's probably specious reasoning, though, as I don't know if any viruses have actually been reported on Android. Still, each of these components can be disabled individually, so you can turn it off if you don't like it.

The app can also back up your calls, contacts, and pictures on a frequency of your choosing. The calls and contacts backup are just a source of redundancy for CallTrack and Google Contacts, respectively, but it's good to have that extra safety net. The pictures, though, is new, and something that I find useful, though be sure you choose to back those up during a time of night when you're plugged in, because I imagine that takes some juice. You can restore your data onto another phone if you so choose.

There's also a locating service that allows you to track your phone's location from the Lookout website. You can ping your device at any time, and it reports back with a Google Maps overlay. You can also choose to make your phone "scream," which signals a loud alarm on the phone, and remotely wipe or lock your phone.

The ability for remote wipe and lock is coming in the paid version of the app, which is being released on November 16th. Once that paid version is released, it's also moving some of the features available in the free version - mostly the data backup features - into the paid version, but until that paid version is released, you can still grab the free app and be grandfathered in on the backup services.

I would have happily paid a one-time fee for the app, but with the subscription model they're adopting ($2.99 a month or $30 a year), I don't know if I'm willing to pay that much for the remote wipe capabilities. Add to that HTC's new website which will provide much of that functionality for their phones for free, and I don't know if this was the wisest decision to make pricing-wise. Regardless, there's going to be a version of Lookout running on my phone for some time to come, giving me considerable piece of mind.

Android App Spotlight #30: Angry Birds

Price: Free (!)
AppBrain
Website

The final version of Angry Birds was released today. Featuring 150 levels of pig-smashing goodness, Android gaming is taking its first steps towards legitimacy.

Several things are interesting about this release. First, the game is first released exclusively on the GetJar market, with promises of the Android Market and Motorola "SHOP4APPS" to come soon. This market fragmentation is only going to get worse as popularity for the platform and other people start curating their own app markets. Personally, I don't care, as I can just go and find it whether it's located in the GetJar market, or the Amazon Market, or the Best Buy Market, but I think it might be difficult for ordinary people to find what they're looking for across a dozen different marketplaces (until there's a market app that searches across all markets...).

Of course, since I started typing this entry, GetJar crashed under the demand for the game, and is now available in the Android Market, too.

Secondly, the full game is a free, ad-supported version - the only other free versions of the app is a demo on Apple's Market. It's interesting that Rovio, despite having the #1 best-selling paid app on the iPhone for weeks, decided to go the ad-supported route for Android. It's probably the better move, as current stats are showing that iPhone owners are much more likely to pay for apps than Android owners, but given the demand that crashed GetJar's servers, it's clear that there's a significant demand on our platform, too.

Whatever political implications arise from this release, the Android version of Angry Birds is just as good as that on other platforms, and at the low, low price of free, there's no reason for you to add this to your collection.

Android App Spotlight #29: Gmail

Price: Free
AppBrain
Website

The Gmail app was updated today for those of us with Froyo, adding some improved controls, better navigation of nested conversations, and some Priority Inbox support. It's also no longer a part of the OS, so the app can be updated more frequently, but it also means you have to go to the app store and download it yourself. Also, if I squish these couple of sentences between two pictures, it makes the post look longer than it really is.

Android App Spotlight #28: Barrr

Price: Free
AppBrain
Website

Seeing as how today is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I thought it would be appropriate to bring attention to Barrr, a cute little pirate-themed time management game. The game is simple enough - pirates come in with some certain needs, and you have to help them get what they want. More pirates and more activities crop up in later levels, and those impatient pirates start getting angry real fast.

The app was created by a couple of Dutch students for a school project, so the game is pretty short and not likely to be updated anytime soon (though I wouldn't mind giving up some doubloons for some additional content), but with free you get what you pay for, and on such an auspicious occassion as they one we're celebrating today, you owe it to yourself to pay respect to our brethren sailing the high seas.

Android App Spotlight #27: doubleTwist

Price: Free

AppBrain

Website

We got some problems.

One of Android's weak points is media management. Every time I want to add music, movies, or books to my phone, I have to plug it in to my computer, mount it as a USB drive, go into my "Music" folder I created, and create a new file for the album. This is as barebones as it gets (You could use Awesome Drop if you wanted to make things easier, of course). iTunes doesn't have this problem - you drag music from your iTunes library into your phone, and that's that.

Speaking of iTunes, it sucks. Maybe that's a little harsh - I've been using it since version 4.1 back in 2003, and I like it because it can easily handle my 200GB of music without much stutter. Over six versions it's also become quite powerful and very customizable. Of course, over six versions its also become a bit bloated and outdated, offering support for a variety of services I have no interest in (friend me on Ping!) and it's incredibly frustrating how they've chosen not to properly implement coverart in recent versions. 

And while we're on the subject of flawed music software, let's get back to Android and its stock music player which hasn't been updated since Android 1.x. Aesthetically it doesn't fit with the rest of the OS, and it's limited in functionality - offering support only for music, organized in only a couple of different ways, and support for a playlist or two, not that I've ever went to the trouble of exporting an iTunes playlist as an .m3u and importing it to my phone. 

I got two words to say to all three problems: doubleTwist (maybe it's one word). It's been around for a while, and it consists of two separate components: a piece of software for your desktop, and an app.

The desktop application is pretty much a straight rip-off of iTunes, attempting to match most of its look and functionality. doubleTwist (program) imports your iTunes library and playlists, including pictures and videos. There's even a built-in video converter, so any video you drag onto your phone should theoretically be transcoded so as to be playable. You also get a podcast browser and an interface to Amazon MP3 for buying music. It's as close as you're getting to iTunes for Android, though there are plenty of problems with the software - I don't think it works with .m4p files, so any older music you've purchased through iTunes shouldn't work (though it's not like it was working on Android anyway). The video transcoder is a nice thought, but it doesn't fare that well in execution - any Xvid files I tried to convert failed with an error (though if you use RockPlayer it shouldn't be a problem). Otherwise, music, podcasts, and pictures are all easily added to my phone without issues. The worst part about the program is it isn't nearly as customizable as iTunes, offering many fewer ways to edit and organize tracks. It seems to be a bit slow to respond, too, like when I'm typing an artist into the search bar.

doubleTwist also offers an app that duplicated much of the functionality in the standard Music app, though in a better looking interface, and with the addition of some nice features. You still have your music sorting by artist, album, song, and playlist, but there's also a home for podcasts and videos that you've brought over from your computer. Also interesting is the radio entry, which seems to cull radio stations from all over the country, organize them by genre, and present them for your listening. It's no Pandora or Last.fm, but if you're looking for something a little more raw or specific, it's a pretty cool feature. 

As boring as it may be, the default Music app gets the playback right, featuring little more than the artist info, coverart, and big navigation buttons, and doubleTwist presents a similar look, though it doesn't add much aside from an easy way to rate music. It also doesn't have a landscape view, which can be frustrating for the car rides. Regardless, by keeping a similar presentation to the classic Android player, while updating the look and adding a handful of nice features, it keeps things familiar and usable. 

I don't think I'll keep using the doubleTwist program - it can't match the functionality of iTunes, and I have no problem digging into my phone's file structure to manually add songs. Other people might not feel so comfortable doing this, in which case I would recommend doubleTwist as the easiest way to get your songs onto your phone. I'm on the fence as to the app, too - I'm pretty content with the plain ol' Music player, but again, doubleTwist's product is a nice improvement for those who are looking for a little bit more from their players. The choice is up to you, and that's what Android's all about.

Android App Spotlight #26: Remote Notifier

Price: Free
AppBrain
Website (Get desktop component here)

Back when I had my old Audiovox PPC4100 I always wondered why there was no way to interface between my computer and my phone when I had the thing docked and connected to my PC. It was especially an issue when I was wearing headphones and I would miss a text or incoming call because I couldn't hear the thing. They were both running Windows (at the time) and yet I was lucky to have my email and contacts synced without issues. Turns out (spoiler alert!) Windows mobile was a horrible OS, and it took six years and several phones to find a fairly elegant solution.

Remote Notifier is an app that communicates with a corresponding program on your Windows, Mac, or Linux desktop. Install both applications and you will get handy alerts on your desktop whenever you get a call, text, MMS, or a battery notification. Everything is customizable, you can choose what you want to be informed about.

Personally, I switch to my wifi connection whenever I'm in my apartment, and that makes it easy to get the notifier working using the default settings. For those who want to use their 3G to send the info, it will take some more confooguration of the app-motron, or whatever, so the site has a good tutorial on how to do it. Remote Notifier is another one of those tiny apps that does one thing really well, and is such a small burden on your phone's resources that it's cool to have and doesn't cost you anything.

Android App Spotlight #25: Awesome Drop

Price: Free
AppBrain
Website

Dudes, we've known for a while that Android is awesome at syncing to the cloud, and clunky as hell when trying to move files from your computer to your phone. That process just got quite a bit easier with Awesome Drop. The premise is simple - sync the app with the website via a PIN, drag files from your computer into the website's dropbox, and they appear on your phone. Awesome indeed, and demonstrated well with some smooth bossa nova via this video from the website:

There are some downsides: you need a browser that can handle HTML5, for starters - so only Chrome, Firefox 3.6 or Safari 5 (IE9 should work too, whenever it comes out). The files are listed in the app while the session is connected to the website, but once you break that connection, they can only be found in your SD card's "root\Drop" folder, so you'll probably need a file manager like Astro to view to them later. Finally, I've heard that the app doesn't play nice with different folders, so everything's going to get dumped to that one directory. Still, this is an elegant solution for those of use too lazy to dig up the USB cable when we need to move a quick picture or mp3.

Android App Spotlight #24: Watchdog

Price: Free ($3.49 paid version)
AppBrain
Website


When I first got my Nexus One, a task killer was one of the first recommended must-download apps. As time went on, I only occasionally used it, often when I noticed my battery was depleting faster than I would have liked, and even through I killed all of the unnecessary processes it didn't seem to have that much of an effect. Even today task killers are still popular, but on Froyo and even Eclair there is an ever-growing sentiment that they are largely ineffective, and in the case of Froyo straight-up don't work. Turns out, even though you may see those open programs in your favorite task killer, they aren't really using any system resources. There are some apps, however, that aren't written so well, and may very well be utilizing a higher-than-average amount of your CPU. How do you know? Well, you install something like Watchdog, of course!

Watchdog is a nifty little program that sits in the background and watches for apps misbehaving. When it catches something that meets a percentage of system utilization that you can specify, it lets you know and it can take actions to correct the problem. More than that, it also allows you to see just how much of your CPU your apps are using, so you can see for yourself that the Facebook app isn't sucking as much juice as you originally thought. In fact, I only recently received validation that the program worked - the Android Market was using 88% of my CPU when it started automatically downloading 5 updates at once.

Honestly, the real reason your battery life sucks (pun) is because you keep using the phone. It takes juice to power that gigantic screen and transmit across all four antennas. The sad fact is that if you really want your battery to last, you need to use it as little as possible. On the rare occasions when it actually is due to an app, Watchdog will be there.

Android App Spotlight #23: GetGlue

Price: Free
AppBrain
Website

Many people in real life are only now beginning to find value in apps that check them into businesses. So imagine me trying to convince you to take the checkin one step further and start checking in to everything else you're doing, whether it be watching a TV show or movie, reading a book, or playing a videogame?


NOW YOU CAN!


GetGlue is a website that focuses on likes. Think Facebook has cornered the market on liking things? Think again. You can like anything you want on the website, but the fun really begins when you download the app and a new and exciting world opens to checking in to just anything your heart desires.

I almost find checking in to activities more useful than locations. I watch a crapload of television and film, and sometimes in my discussions with my friends they misunderstand just what I'm all about, and am surprised to find that I'm a fan of True Blood or Aqua Teen Hunger Force or How I Met Your Mother. Checking in to these activities serves as a way of sharing my interests with my friends and possibly starting conversations I might not otherwise have had. Let's talk about that film I saw or book I read - and you know I read it, because I f'n checked into it, that's why.

Liking and checking into things earns "stickers," a straight ripoff of Foursquare's badges. The thing about GetGlue is that 1. Stickers are easier to earn than badges and 2. They're not just digital bragging rights - if you earn seven stickers, you can get actual stickers mailed to you, so now you have physical proof of just how many mundane moments of your life you are sharing with people you think give a shit on the internet!

The app feels a little hefty at 4.75 MB, and it's a little slow to load, but I haven't run into any hiccups aside from them not recognizing the Truffaut film Bed and Board, but stickers are cool, and maybe one day I'll have that in-depth conversation about SCTV that I've been dreaming about. So add me as a friend why dontcha?

Android App Spotlight #22: Angry Birds Beta

Price: ??
AppBrain
Website

Rovio is releasing a link to a beta of Angry Birds this Friday to all those who sign up at their website. Review to come later. What are you waiting for? Go!

Android App Spotlight #21: RockPlayer

Price: Free
Website

Early this year I ripped my thousands of TV shows and movies to 9.5 TB of external hard drives so I could access them on my home theater PC and so I didn't have to sort discs and sit through minutes of ads just to get to a menu. The format of choice for non-HD shows and movies is Xvid (you know, those .avi files) - even if you don't know what Xvid is exactly, you will probably know that the format can sometimes be played natively in hardware, but not typically. Sure, for the occasional file you might be able to transcode the video into some other playable format, but I'm lucky if I have a 50% success rate, and that's not counting if the audio and video remain in sync.

Given Android's admittedly poor management of media, we should at least be able to lord our support of a wider range of video types - especially the arguably biggest on the internet - right? Originally, the only Android app I could find to accomplish this sort of thing was yxflash, but the resulting product was unwatchable.

Spurred by I discussion I had about the disappointing Archos 7 Android personal media player, I set out to try and find another app that might be up to the task of decoding my vast library of TV and movies. It seems like I found one in RockPlayer, a  simple video player that plays all of those .avi files just as nice as you please.

The app is dead simple: choose a file, and it starts playing. Aside from a quick audio stutter when starting, the playback is flawless, as far as I could tell. There were no problems seeking, and the app even saves your place when you exit. Even though the app is in early beta, I would happily pay a Lincoln just for what I already get here.

It even plays x264 720p videos that you also may or may not be downloading from the internet! It doesn't play them very well, though. To see it in action, check out the quick video I made:

Android App Spotlight #19: Sipdroid

Price: Free
Appbrain
Website

Session Initiation Protocol is commonly used to control multimedia streams at the application layer, according to Wikipedia. While there's a little too much on that page to wrap my head around, the most popular app that takes advantage of it, Sipdroid, presents a dead simple interface.









Using it along with several other services, you can do things like this:

I was able to set it up with these instructions and no issues whatsoever. Of course, it defaults to being used whenever I'm connected via wifi, which I don't like, as it isn't as glossy or integrated with the Android interface. You can turn that off, though, so it sits in the background, waiting for a call to your Google Voice number. I wouldn't leave it running all the time, because it probably uses at least a little battery life, and also if you use the integrated Google Voice app, your phone essentially rings twice, and you immediately miss one of the calls. Nevertheless, I was able to make a call this afternoon with no sim in my phone, which might be helpful if you, for example, take a little jaunt over to Qatar in the future.

Android App Spotlight #18: SportyPal

Nike+ is the main reason I purchased an iPod Touch. It was pretty cool to have the software track the distance you've run, and I used it quite a bit after I got it. It was not without its faults, though - the device tracks movement via an accelerometer, which calculates distance via a standard calibrated step, so if your stride varies, it can throw off the measurement. The way the app interfaced with my music was a bit clunky, too, making it difficult to select anything other than a playlist. While the website provides a nice medium for tracking your runs and communicating and challenging other users, the site is absolutely drenched in Flash to the point where it affects usability. It's difficult to share general information, too.

Once I got my Nexus One I realized that there are apps that do a similar tracking to Nike+, though using the GPS, thereby making it quite a bit more accurate, and since multitasking is no big deal, it's easy to leave the running app... err, running, and switch over to the music player with no fuss. It didn't require a special dongle in my shoes, either. The only question then is to choose the best app.

When I started looking, there were only two main contenders: Buddy Runner and SportyPal. Buddy Runner seemed the most like Nike+ in that it duplicated pretty much all functionality - including the computerized voice telling you the distance remaining - but the interface of both the website and app was not very pretty, and it was hard to share my workouts. I ended up going with SportyPal - it looks quite a bit better, and you can do other exercises, like cycling, rollerblading, down to "exercises" like sailing and surfing. What's better is that you can manually add exercises - so if you do things like weightlifting or running indoors, you can add those to your profile. The thing doesn't speak to you like Buddy Runner, so if that's your thing, you might want to keep looking. The original idea was that I would use SportyPal outside and Nike+ inside, then manually add the run later to my SportyPal profile, though that idea never came to fruition and I sold my iPod two weeks ago because of lack of use.

I haven't had too much trouble working with SportyPal, though apparently the appscape has broadened a bit since I last looked. A Lifehacker poll  says good things about RunKeeper and Endomondo, but I'm not really interested in checking them out. SportyPal meets all my needs quite sufficiently.

Android App Spotlight #17: Adobe Flash 10.1

Price: Free
AppBrain
Website

One of the biggest complaints about iOS is the browsing experience is considerably hindered by the lack of Adobe Flash. Yes, there are better solutions for browsing and video on the way, but in today's world, Flash is the background of too many websites to be ignored. This might not be such a big deal on a phone you're using to  quickly check a website, but on a big device like the iPad, it can be very obvious that you're not surfing the "full internet."

Steve Jobs has said that Flash is buggy and a battery suck, but this is also the guy who also insisted the original iPhone not be 3G, there was no need for copy/paste, and the iPhone didn't need apps. Rather than waiting for the very nature of web design to come around to HTML5, Android Adobe were quick to jump on this hot button issue and announced that Flash would be available with Froyo at this year's Google I/O.

Like some of Froyo's other touted features, it doesn't came native to the phone - you have to visit the app store to install it. My guess is that this was done in order to show respect to my Nexus One's precious 512MB of storage space (more developers need to enable the ability to store their apps on SD cards), though I reckon it's not a real consideration if you have a post-N1 phone.

Installation is easy enough, and in usability, it seemed to work fine - just recently I was able to visit a restaurant's website the featured a Flash splash page, while my Flash-less friend was out of luck. I haven't noticed a significant degradation in battery life, either, but that's because of the feature that makes this work so well: in the browser (default browser, anyway) settings, select the "enable plug-ins" option, and choose "on demand." For every piece of flash content you visit, there will be a little green download icon over it - click it, and that piece of Flash content will be opened. This is especially great for avoiding ads, both from having to look at them, and having to use the battery to download them.

I haven't done a lot of long-term testing of Flash videos, but I would imagine sparing use would be required for your battery life to not completely go to hell. Flash on Android is more about removing some of those big barriers to surfing on the go, and with the ability to only activate it when you need it, there's no reason to not download.

Android App Spotlight #16: CallTrack

Price: Free
AppBrain Link
Website

One of the great things about Google Voice and Gmail is that all of my communications are saved. While it's nice to have a record of every text message, voicemail, and email saved, phone calls themselves are fleeting. Who tried to call me last month? How long was my last conversation with my mother? Why is no one keeping track of these statistics?

CallTrack is a simple program that does one thing well: it logs every call and its duration to a Google Calendar. You can choose to log incoming, outgoing, and missed calls, and you can choose on which of your Google Calendars to save. That's all there is to it, but it serves as a means to fill the gap in your communications records.

Android App Spotlight #15: Rdio

Price: Free, with $9.99/month subscription

Website

Back during my freshman year of college I recall getting turned on to this new service called "Rhapsody" which allowed you to play any song you wanted via the desktop client of your computer. It wasn't the only service of its kind at the time, and since then the space has grown further. I stopped using the service within a year (and stopped paying for the service a year or two afterwards, because I completely forgot to cancel my subscription), because I had my ample iTunes music collection to allow me to listen to anything I wanted. The service would be nice for trying new music without having to buy, but because I'm adept at the internet, I can discover most any music to try without paying the $15 a month.

Today, my music collection is 175GB strong, and I still have no desire to pay to stream a compressed song over my desktop speakers. My phone, on the other hand, is a different story. Music apps like Pandora and Last.fm are popular on both Android and iOS, and while they can provide an easy way to introduce you to new music based on algorithms, you don't have too much say in which song plays next. Given the ubiquity of 3G, and the lack of 175GB microSD cards, I can't carry most of my music with me, so streaming once again becomes an option worth considering.

Rdio is a new social music service currently in invitation-only beta. It offers the music library of streaming services like Rhapsody, but also some social aspects like Last.fm. More importantly, the service offers a way to sync the music on your desktop into the service - similar to the gone-but-not-forgotten Lala, so provided Rdio has the rights to it, it is automatically entered into your collection. Even more importantly, there's a pretty slick Android app, which not only looks better than the stock Android music player, but also offers the ability to sync songs to your phone for offline play.

It's still a new service, so there are some problems - after syncing my desktop music, I have the same album listed sometimes three times in my collection, and others with notes in the song titles - particularly in rap albums - might not match the song title that Rdio has it listed, so I have to search and manually add those tracks. Other albums were added to my collection, despite the fact that Rdio doesn't have the rights to them, so I can't play them - this angers me more than it should. 

I have a 16GB microSD card in my Nexus One now, and about half of that is filled with albums I'm listening to at the moment, but there's been more than one occasion when I'm in my car and want to listen to a song but I forgot to put it on the card. Provided Rdio offers it, I think this will be a useful service, though I'm not sure if it's useful enough to justify the cost of subscription. I think others who aren't as reliant on their offline music collection might find it immediately more useful. Lifehacker has a good rundown of the features if you're interested in learning more.