New Android Apps: 10 Most Exciting

A two-dimensional barcode, called QR (Quick Response) Codes, typically contain web links and plain text. They can link to digital content on the web, activate numerous phone functions and connect the device to a web browser. All you need is an app to read them so as to ease your smartphone usage than typing a long URL in your browser.

TripIt provides a useful Android app to link your travel planning through web service. It keeps store of all your travel information at hand, without having to search through your email. All you have to do is forward all your ticket, hotel and rental car confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com from the same email, to add to your TripIt itinerary. It also keeps all your frequent-flyer program numbers at hand. This information can also be shared with friends easily. The app is free, though some additional features like automatic monitoring of flight charges, cost $49 yearly.

Designed specifically for handheld navigation, it combines GPS, orientation, 3D graphics, live video and web services for mobile devices. It is a new 3D application that places locations on a two-dimensional map. It works in three modes:

• Similar to Google maps, this mode lets you choose between satellite and street images and can search places and find directions,
• The next mode is for 3D landscape textured with satellite images. You can also pan the device which directs the virtual camera in different directions,
• The most exciting and unique “lifemode” links the previous two modes with reality. The Android’s built-in camera annotates place marks as real objects on the screen.

Invented by an MIT-borne group, Locale lets you mark your most frequently visited places on a map and set your phone to respond to those places in different ways, e.g. switch to silent when in office or at movie theater or turn on the lights when you're a few blocks away from your home. The application is designed to automatically change phone settings based on its location.

This application lets you call and text from your Android phone at cheap rates to over 250 countries. Just dial normal, local-rate numbers that connect internationally and start your communication at the cost of your mobile provider. You can easily look through their worldwide call rates to find a price within a fraction of time.

Be it at work, on the road or anywhere else, YouSendIt mobile app for Android lets you send files, share folders and sign documents. The app proves useful for sending and receiving large files from your Android phone and manage and share business content online. Save email attachments, modify documents, or take pictures and store them in an instant on the cloud.

PocketCloud provides access to all your photos, music and documents from your computers instantly. Backed with a fast and easy setup, the companion signs in with a Gmail account. So you can leave your laptop behind, without any concern for copying or syncing files. The application supports simple file management with create, rename and delete options, unlimited photo, video, audio and file transfers and searches for files across all your computers.

Access to one of the largest online information sources, Wikipedia is now possible on your Android phone with this application. WikiDroyd can extract the entire text of Wikipedia articles in more than 40 languages. This efficient offline Wikipedia reader stores databases for Android in various languages, while supporting features like history, favorites, random articles, sorting, etc. One of its recent updates includes copying text to your clipboard by long-clicks. The app is also space saving, as a collection of commonly-read articles uses only up to 1.6GB as compared to 3 volumes of full English library occupying about 6GB.

BioWallet is one the innovative apps for your smartphone. With an increasing amount of sensitive information at each person’s end, recalling it instantly seems a mindboggling issue at times. This app eases you of memorizing all this data by locking it using a biometric password manager. It recognizes your handwritten signature for access to bank details, passwords, videos, photos, etc.

Click nostalgic old-school pictures free on the Android with Retro Camera. With five camera settings and five sets of vintage vignetting, cross processing effects and film scratch, you will treasure memories close to your heart for a lifetime. The different cameras are inspired by the East German Bärbl, the Soviet Little Orange Box, the Polaroid-inspired Xolaroid 2000, the Pinhole Camera, and the FudgeCan.