You may have noticed that there has been an explosion of Android an' Droid apps in the last few months. We thought it would be a good time to round-up all the best free Android an' Droid apps. We were going to make this a top ten Android an' Droid apps, however when we surveyed the reviews and the most-important media-syncing apps compatibility, we had to add a few more applications that don't run on the Android smatphone exactly but run on your PC.

With over 20,000 apps in Android Market it can be overwhelming. We grouped the apps into types - Music, Lifestyle, Syncing, Search, and Photos.

Please note with some apps that will only run on certain Android phones such as Droid, an alternative is offered when available for the other Android smartphones such as, Droid Eris by HTC, myTouch 3G, T-Mobile G1, Motorola Cliq, Samsung Behold II, Samsung Moment, and HTC Hero.
Streaming Radio, Music, Ringtones

Part of the beauty of having an unlimited data plan with your Android phone is the ability to get streaming radio stations that you like. There are a number of streaming audio apps that work on Android phones, here are some of our favorites:


Slacker - their news release calls Slacker a "music discovery experience," giving users the ability to create a nearly unlimited number of custom stations, over 100 expert-programmed Slacker genre, seasonal and spotlight stations, or over 10,000 artist stations.


iHeart Radio - iHeart Radio streams broadcasts from nearly 400 of America's favorite local radio stations from Clear Channel. Many of the radio stations are talk and discussion. All of iheartradio's digital-only channels like erockster, Pride, Christina Aguilera Radio, Eagles Radio, the White House Brief and dozens more


Ringdroid - Dominic Mazzoni developer of the uber-popular open-source sound/audio editing/recording program Audacity, now works for Google. Google encourages employees to write their own programs and Ringdroid is a special gift from Mazzoni that keeps on giving. He really knows how develop music editing programs. Ringdroid lets you record or edit music and turn it into a ringtone. It supports WAV, MP3 and 3GPP/AMR files.
Also-Ran Pandora - a favorite app on the BlackBerry, iPhone and Palm Pre, Pandora creates radio stations based on songs and artists that you like based on algorithms from the Music Genome Project. Pandora Radio streams the songs to you. Note Pandora only currently works HTC G1 on T-Mobile, HTC Hero on Sprint and HTC myTouch 3G on T-Mobile

Lifestyle Lightening


Feel-Goodies - this app reminds you how wonderful you really are. Just tap through empowering Feel-Goodies, to uplift you during down time. There's a free version and a premium version in the works. Download Feel-Goodies, today. You never know when you're going to need them.

Media Syncing
Media Link - to save you the trouble of having to manually copy your media files from your computer to your Droid by Motorola, or Motorola Cliq, Motorola offers a free version of Media Link to Droid owners. This app is a must-download for to move, sync, and manipulate pictures, videos, and music. It syncs music in Windows Media and iTunes.

For other Android smartphones, there's Salling Media Sync that works on both PCs and Macs. Salling Media Synct is compatible with Droid, Droid Eris, HTC Hero and T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G. This syncs iTunes and Adobe Photo Elements only.

Also-Ran: Dazzboard Android Universal Media Management (UMM) provides Android media access through the web. Dazzboard allows users to push-and-pull data instantly between their portable Android phone and PC, or to move content directly from a device onto the social media.

Loco n' Local Search

Google is a megasearchistic company therefore all the search features including audio are great on Android phones but what if you need a bit more information or want to take picture something more?


Google Googles - works on Android 1.6 phone and above, Google Goggles lets you use pictures taken with your mobile phone to search the web. It's ideal for things that aren't easy to describe in words. Google Goggles works better with certain types of queries. Try taking pictures of books & DVDs, landmarks, logos, contact info, artwork, businesses, products, barcodes, or text. Currently, it's not so good when taking pictures of animals, plants, cars, furniture, or apparel.


WHERE - s a bundle of useful GPS apps that help you find people, places and things. Are you looking for the hottest restaurants, coffee or need a cheap fill-up? Maybe you want to know the local weather, traffic or headlines? Whatever you are after, WHERE has it in little information widgets.


GetFugu - we have no idea what the name means, but this app does allow you take photo of an item or say the brand name, then Getfugu searches for the item. Users get exclusive promotions, videos, trailers, coupons and more. They also get based on location products and services that are close by. for sales, find great dining or events.


Layar (Augmented Reality) - Layar displays digital information on top of what you see through your phone's camera. Worldwide features include hotel-finding/booking, event ticket buying, the world's first LBS graphic novel, user-submitted celebrity sightings, restaurants, a reality quiz game, Foursquare, Google local search, Wikipedia articles and Yelp. Note: Layar appears to working on Droid although official announcement has been made, yet.

Photos


Adobe Photoshop Mobile - Photoshop.com Mobile for Android equips consumers with quick and easy image-editing tools, color adjustments and instant photo-sharing capabilities. It can come in handy when you are taking photos on-the-go. Touch to crop, rotate, flip, saturate and blur. Upload and share your photos with a free Photoshop.com account.



PicSay - app that helps you spice of photos with sayings and annotations. The free lite edition of PicSay is available for download on the Android Market. You can color-correct your pictures and add word balloons, titles, graphics, and effects like distortion. All in a fun, intuitive, and easy-to-use interface.
The pro editon is available in countries that have support for priced applications.


PhotoBucket - a web-based photo service that gives users the ability to browse, save, and share media. You can browse Photobucket Find Stuff categories and discover photos. You can access image URLs and copy and paste for linking as well as upload multiple images at the same time.

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