If you don’t remember what Swype is, it was the world record setter for texting on a phone.  Just click the first letter and drag your finger around the screen to the other letters in your word and it finishes up for you.  It isn’t perfect but it’s still fun to use.

Just sign up at their site, they’ll email you a link and you go from there.  http://beta.swype.com/

Click and hold on the text field (where you would normally tap to bring up the keyboard) and you can choose to set your input to Swype.  Happy Swyping!

This app works similar to the standard market that’s provided on the phone but gives you access to basically everything out there.  Originally when searching for “Skype”, “Skype” was never once listed as a result and I had to use fring to do my Skype-ing on my phone.  Fring works great since you can call and do video chatting and such but conversations come across in single message windows so if you’re in a conference with 20 people, you have 20 messages with no way of telling who-said-what-when.  That’s off topic so…when using AppBrain to do the search, first on the list is “Skype(beta)”.  And it works great!  The only downfall of it is no video calling (I’m hoping they’ll fix this soon).

I also noticed that my qik app doesn’t work.  I got it to run the first day I got my phone but I don’t think it was working correctly.  Now every time I run it I get a “force.close” on it.  But guess what?  I did a search for qik and found another version.  It’s a different icon color from the other but it works.  I think I’ll stick with fring for video though…I don’t like running qik and having some random person viewing my feed typing “hey dude say something” across my phone’s screen.  Creepy.

A nice feature is you can post a copy of what what apps you have on your site and it keeps you updated.  Just set up an account at http://www.appbrain.com and choose “manage my apps” from the menu on your phone.  You’ll have to login and from there you can sync your installed apps.  Under the “my apps” link on the website you can view the list of what you have installed or choose to post links or embed the list on your own website.  Below is a copy of what I currently have installed. I hope to update these in future posts.

werdisturbed’s Apps on the phone

Phone: PC36100
102 total, 102 free (100%), 0 paid (0%), 138MB total size, $0 total price

• Fireworks Live Wallpaper
• Camera 360 Free
• Toss It
• WallMe Lite – Live Wallpaper
• Shake2PlayNext
• Bump
• Memory Trainer
• HOMERUN BATTLE 3D FREE
• Slimeball Speedway (Lite)
• GalaxIR
• Bistro Cook
• Pocket Empires Online
• Dial Zero v1.04
• What the Doodle!? (LITE)
• Qik Video
• Space Physics Lite
• Gmote 2.0
• Bezier – Live Wallpaper
• Finger Bowling
• Music Junk
• Smart Shortcuts
• Antennas
• Silhouette Live Wallpaper
• Aquarium Live Wallpaper
• AppBrain App Market
• WordPress
• App to QR
• Massive Awesome
• Carrr Matey
• Space Man
• ShareMyApps
• Find My Way
• fring – free video calls, IM
• Star Wars Light Saber
• SayMyName Dessert
• TuneWiki Social Media Player
• Nesoid Lite (NES emulator)
• SuperGNES Lite (SNES Emulator)
• Slacker Radio
• Softrace
• Network Discovery
• Lookout Mobile Security FREE
• Dolphin Browser HD
• ZENONIA® Free
• Car Finder AR DEMO
• OI File Manager
• Super KO Boxing 2
• Digital Wall Free Wallpaper
• Throw a Panda (FULL free!)
• Farm Frenzy Lite
• Shoot U! (LITE)
• Jewels
• Bluetooth File Transfer
• TiKL – Touch To Talk (PTT)
• ShopSavvy – Barcode Scanner
• Pandora Radio
• MySpace Mobile
• AppRemover
• Speedtest.net Speed Test
• Edwin
• Stop-Motion – Lite
• Classic Simon
• Mileage
• Tower Raiders FREE
• Winds of Steel Demo
• Blow Up (LITE)
• Key Ring Reward Cards
• Documents To Go 2.0 Main App
• TripIt – Travel Organizer
• MixZing Media Player
• Google Earth
• CallTrack
• Handcent Font Pack3
• Handcent Font Pack2
• Handcent Font Pack4
• Handcent Font Pack1
• Handcent SMS
• cloudList – grocery /todo list
• Robo Defense FREE
• doubleTwist Player
• PhoneFlicks-Netflix Android
• iheartradio
• PicSay – Photo Editor
• ConnectBot
• Advanced Task Killer
• Wikitude World Browser
• TravelCamerAR
• Layar Reality Browser
• Text-To-Speech Extended
• Translator ConveyThis
• Google Maps
• FxCamera
• Fandango Movies
• Google Goggles
• Ringdroid
• Compass
• Google Sky Map
• Shazam
• Google Voice
• Meebo IM
• Zillow Real Estate
• Facebook for Android

View this app list on AppBrain

Edwin

Gotta be my first pick for just being awesome.  It’s a little quirky at times but a total wow factor when you show it to someone.  Basically you’re greeted by a giant microphone and when you press it, it waits for you to say something.  You can ask it anything…from something simple like “where am I” or ” what’s the weather” to the difficult and amazing “translate ‘where did you put my dog, it was here just a minute ago, give it back or i will punch you in the face’ in French”.  Yes it will translate that into French…or Spanish or about 40 other languages.

SayMyName Dessert

By default this reads SMS messages on your phone but I disabled that.  I have a cheap bluetooth earpiece that I keep on almost all the time so I hardly ever look at my phone.  I tried to assign different songs to different people but there are so many people I talk to on a daily basis that it’s too much to keep up with.  That’s where this comes in.  It reads the name of the caller thru the speaker to tell you that “Jack” is calling.  That’s all it says…”Jack” and that’s all I need it to do.  If you have several Johns in your contact list, you can tell it to read the whole name.  Very useful app.

Navigator

Not to be confused with the Sprint Navigation.  I originally thought it was the same thing but it’s A) free and B) not a pile of crap.  I have a Navigon GPS in my wife’s car and we haven’t used it since I found this app.  As you type it searches for locations nearby and searches thru your contact list.  The 2 big sellers for me is that it’s just a matter of hitting “Layers” in the menu to place all the information you need on the screen or having the ability to see the Google Street View of the destination or a turn by turn in GSV.  I have gotten so frustrated in the past with my other GPS due to not knowing really where my “destination on the left” really is…is it right here on the left or 100 feet ahead on the left?  Now it shows me exactly what I should see.

Google Sky Maps

This is a required thing.  Pulls up a map of the night time sky and where you point your phone is what you see along with all the details of what’s there.  Planets, stars, constellations, everything.  If you ever walk outside at night, you need this.

Google Goggles

Take a picture of something and it searches for whatever it is and finds related items.  Shoot a logo and usually the company’s home page is first on the list.  Shoot text and it will search for that text and even translate the text from one language to another.  Landmarks, art, books, DVDs, etc is all supported.  Animals, furniture and apparel are not…so if you don’t know what an elephant is, you’re out of luck.  Unless it’s in a work of art.

Bump

Fist bumping at its finest.  Pass contact info, photos and apps to other users of the service.  Start it up on both phones, choose what to send (if not your contact info) and bump fists (with the phones in your hands) and you’re done.  There is an iPhone Bump app as well.

Fring

Until they get Qik working on the EVO to stream video, this is what I’ve been using to communicate thru Skype and do video conferencing.  It’s quirky at times but it’s the best at what it does.  Another cool thing to show friends.

Lookout

A free service thru myLookout.com that allows you to run antivirus, back up your pictures/contacts/calls.  The best is a locate feature on their site that lets you either find the phone by GPS location or making it “scream” until the phone is turned off.  My wife’s phone needs this feature for when she can’t remember where she placed her phone.  She looses it about 3-5 times a day.

Advanced Task Killer

You’d be surprised at the crap that starts up on this phone by default and what one app will start up with it.  Edwin pulls up everything under the sun to make it function properly and of course doesn’t shut it down when it’s through.  ATK runs in the background and when run, brings up a list of running apps with check boxes next to them.  Just check the boxes you want and then “kill selected apps” and you’re done.  It’s smart enough to save your previous picks so you can just click to run and hit the kill switch and you’re out.  By default it kills itself but I turned that off so I can just pull it down from the status bar quickly and kill off whatever I don’t need.

Well that’s it for now.  I have a lot more cool apps here I’m testing but figure that’s enough for now.  Check back for more.

There’s only been one or 2 instances where I thought “well the Palm did that better” but it’s more of what I’m used to than what other people might think.

As everyone has complained about, yes it does chew thru the battery but each user’s experience will vary.  Even if I plug mine in to charge every time I’m at my desk, I’m usually at 15% by 4pm while someone else up here doesn’t charge theirs and is running around 50% at the same time.

I’m a tweak monster right now so I’m constantly pushing the thing to see what all it will do.  Downloading and installing every app if it looks interesting and deciding to keep or uninstall as I go.

As I said, I’ve switch from the Pre and if you have one and are wondering if you should switch, I have to wonder why the hell you wouldn’t?

I found a great place http://htcevoapps.com/ that’s been updating nearly daily with cool little apps to tweak your EVO…or Android phone in general.  It’s a good place to start in order for you to get a good idea of what the phone and OS have to offer.

Photos come through beautifully and text is crisp and easy to read.

Not an exciting post, but one I thought was worth mentioning.

Well I have actually been working with the product, Magicjack, for a long time…I just never saw the need to want one until I really started looking at my phone bill.

With my internet service and my phone service, we were averaging around $88 per month…$45 of that alone wound up being my home phone.

I needed a home phone for 2 reasons:

• Our satellite system required a phone line to dial out (not really an issue but more about that in a minute).
• The wife’s family lives out of the country and we weren’t wanting to pay for the international cell charges or mess with “are the online” with products like msn messenger or skype.

Now about a year or so ago I had purchased a Magicjack, set it up and then sent it with my father-in-law for him to use while he was at home.  This would allow him to be wherever there was a computer with internet access and be able to make or receive a local call from the US.  So we were able to pick up any phone here and make a call out of the country as if it were a local call…so no long distance…all for $20 per year.  That was my first personal experience with the magicjack and while I was impressed with it, there was something keeping me from making the plunge to purchase one for my home.  What that was, I really don’t know but these are the main issues that I have with the magicjack and I think prolonged my purchase.

• The computer the magicjack is hooked up to has to remain on at all times for the magicjack to work.  All calls made while the magicjack is offline will go onto the magicjack’s voicemail system.
• The software required to run the magicjack is something that can’t just be tucked away in the background.  Sure you can hide it down to the taskbar, but whenever a call comes through or the phone is picked up to dial, the software takes focus.  Most people won’t even notice this…I do because it will close down whatever game I’m playing to focus on the magicjack.  Not very good when you’re deep in it playing Call of Duty or something similar.
• Can’t keep your old number.

Basically in the long run I did decide to make the switch and besides the software popping in and out while playing, I don’t have any REAL complaints.  My computer is always on and my old number just got calls from telemarketers all day long.  As for any issues with “well running your machine uses electricity”…true but it only equals to about $13 per month in electrical charges.  Remember I’ve reduced my $45 per month charge for phone service down to $1.67… so that’s not an issue.  As I said before, the computer was always on so it’s not a change.

Now, if you’re a person who calls international, Vonage has recently stated that they now offer free international calls to 60+ countries around the world with their $25 per month service.  That’s pretty tempting if you call international frequently and for long periods.  If not, the magicjack will also give you the option to prepay to call internationally.  From what I have seen, their pricing plans for most countries are pretty competative, ranging between 1.8 and 5 cents per minute.  Some more obscure countries calling to cell phones run closer to 18 cents. Even at that price point, it’d take you over 2 hours of calling to that place to warrant getting Vonage.  If you’re fortunate enough to have someone in a $0.02 per minute country, you have 20 hours of calling before you hit the Vonage limit.

When connecting the magicjack line in your home there are really two ways to do this.  Either purchase a cordless phone and base station with multiple phones connecting to the same base (common now) or disconnect your phone line where it comes in from the phone company (usually on the outside of the house) and plug the magicjack into the wall…now all of the jacks in your house will have dial tone.  Each person will do this differently, I opted for the first since I’ve always used the single base with multiple phones.

Bottom line, if you are looking for an alternative to your home phone service because you really can’t see yourself using it like you used to, I’d pick up a magicjack.  For the $40 price tag and with it getting you the first year of phone service included, that’s less than what I was paying for in a month.

Instinct

You know, I was really excited when I heard all the rumors that Samsung was releasing an “iPhone killer”…finally. So I start reading about the new Samsung Instinct and getting really excited about all the cool things it does like shown on this site.

Now coming from a Palm Treo 755, I am used to having a smartphone with all the bells and whistles so to have a company boast that their new product is an iPhone killer would mean that it’s a smartphone, right? Wrong. It’s a phone with a touch screen and a semi functional web browser. Eeh. Looks like I’m sticking with my current Treo until they finally get off their butts and make a new user interface while running linux…supposedly going to be released late last year. I don’t know why it would be so very hard for them to make a true iPhone killer.

* They already have a huge user base.
* They already have a touch screen OS with applications from all over the net.
* It plays music/videos/etc and even streams from the web (shoutcast.com)

Edit: I have seen a lot of activity on my site from people searching how to access shoutcast on the instinct.  Though I don’t own one, there are a lot of places out there reporting this problem.  The only solution I’ve heard of is by using Orb.  Here’s a link to a howto from people who actually got it to work.

The list goes on and on especially if you include the additional applications you can get from the web (like the ability to ssh into my server straight from my cell phone).

The truth of the matter is that their current and previous products have been doing what the iPhone does now, it just lacks the sex appeal.

I remember reading a review of the iPhone when it first came out and the reviewer was raving on and on about what the product can do. I proceeded to go down the checklist of the things that were claimed that it did and nothing else could. Yup, the Treo did those things.