First it was only the iPhones with their amazing apps that could do anything from listen to your heartbeat to blow out the candles on your birthday cake. Everybody who didn’t have an iPhone envied them. I mean who doesn’t want a Fit or Fugly app?
But then the Androids started picking up speed and the app market began improving. Android has gained enough popularity since its launch in late 2008, and is already competing tightly with Apple.
The Android Market – Pre-installed on Android Devices
The Android Market - the online software store hosted by Google - has over 460,000+ estimated apps available for both free and paid download, and as of July 2011, there were more than 6 billion downloads from the Android Market. "Market", preinstalled on most Android devices, allows users to browse and download apps published by third-party developers. Users can also search for and read detailed information about apps on the Android Market website.
How to Find Great Android Apps
Well, Yahoo has a great directory of Android Apps called Appolicious (they also review and recommend iPhone apps). This is a great way to get an idea of the apps out there; to see what others say and to try them out.
AppStoreHQ brings the android phone user AppESP, a very comprehensive directory of Android Apps and Reviews from Blogs, Twitter and YouTube.
AppBrain Stream – Social Way to Discover new Apps
The newest way of finding Android apps, is a discovery service called AppBrain Stream - a social way to discover new apps.
In a way it is like a Facebook style social networking, but geared towards, and all about, Android apps. How does it work? Well when a user that you follow installs (or uninstalls) a new app, it shows up in your stream. Want personalized app recommendations? With Stream, you got it. You can also review items on-the-fly, post messages (and reply) to your followers, ask for app recommendations from other users and stay on top of updates for installed apps - all in your stream.
According to their website: “As the leading app discovery system for Android with more than 3 million users, we provide you with a collection of tools to discover great apps: Hot apps of the day, Personalized recommendations, App lists of other users, App search, Related apps, Top Apps by country and demographic, Apps with price drops, and many more”
Social App Discovery Tool
Let’s not get confused, AppBrain Stream is not about discovering social networking applications, it is about discovering Android apps and it is genuinely simple. If you can use Facebook, you will find this social app discovery tool easy to use and very useful. You'll see things like messages from your friends when they install a new app (or uninstall an app), personalized recommendations for new apps based on what you're currently using, updates to apps you're running, even app reviews from your friends and discussion about them. You can "like", share or add commentary to each of these entries, just like you would at your favorite social networking site.
Appbrain stream works more like an RSS feed where you get updates on what the friends whom you have added to your stream have installed. In short, AppBrain stream:
- Let’s you see what apps your friends are using
- Recommends apps to you based on apps that you like
- Post/receive messages to/from friends that you follow
- Announcements on new applications/updates
- Similar to Facebook stream, entries in your stream can be commented on, like/unlike. integration with Facebook and Twitter
Why do you need AppBrain stream?
Well you probably don’t need it but most Android users are just as keen as their Apple counterparts to find new apps and to play with them. Some apps are actually even useful. And we know that most people would rather rely on the recommendations of their peers than using a random Google search.
So if you have an Android Phone and you and you enjoy messing around with apps, this is the perfect way to find out what is available and to screen the good apps from the bad apps.
Karen Lotter - Karen Lotter is a journalist and writer based in Durban, South Africa. She has written profiles, features, advertising copy, ...
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