Matt Buchanan, Author at Gizmodo

FxCamera

A free, and solid camera app with standard—but essential—photo effects, like Polaroid, Fisheye and ToyCam. FREE From The App Developers: FxCamera enables you to take a picture with various effects.

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Using your phone as a remote control for your computer is practically a God-given right, and Gmote’s the best Android remote for playing and controlling movies and music on your computer. FREE From The App Developers: Gmote turns Android into a remote control for a computer, allowing users to run movies and music at a…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Google Goggles

Google’s splash into visual search is impressively eagle-eyed, able to scan not just barcodes, books, movies and music like other apps, but landmarks artwork and business cards, too. FREE From The App Developers: Use pictures to search the web with Google Goggles.

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Google Voice

Google Voice simply changes the way you use your phone, and the app’s seamless integration is a killer feature for Android as a whole. Get in line for an invite, if you haven’t already. FREE From The App Developers: Use Google Voice with your existing number and get Google voicemail, voicemail transcription, custom greetings, international…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Kindle

One of the last major apps I’ve been waiting for on Android is finally here: Kindle. It syncs all of your Kindle books, as you’d expect, though it’s missing features like full text search and in-app purchasing. FREE From The App Developer:Read more than 620,000 Kindle books with our free application for your Android phone.…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Listen

For being a Google Labs project, Listen is full-featured and excellent podcast app, with search, subscriptions and support for streams and downloads. FREE From The App Developers: Listen from Google Labs brings podcasts and web audio to your Android-powered device. It lets you search, subscribe, download and stream. By subscribing to programs it will create…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

NESoid

It’s BYO ROMs, but this $3 NES emulator single-handedly solves Android’s gaming problem by letting you play any NES game you can get your hands on. Bonus: The smug sense of satisfaction that this would never fly in the App Store. $3.49 From The App Developers: NESoid is an emulator for the Nintendo Entertainment console.…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

NewsRob

This is what we imagine a mythical Google Reader RSS app would be like, with two-way background sync and full feed downloads. (If you’re not a Google Reader user, we’d recommend the 99-cent FeedR, for its simplicity.) FREE From The App Developers: NewsRob is a RSS/Atom reader that auto syncs with Google Reader.

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

OpenTable

Never be forced to talk to a real human being to make a reservation again. (As long as the restaurant’s a part of OpenTable, anyway, which it probably is, if it’s worth eating at.) FREE From The App Developers: With OpenTable for Android you can make free, instantly confirmed restaurant reservations at over 11,000 restaurants.…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Pandora

Pandora CTO Tom Conrad may have said, “I need Android like I need a hole in the head,” but Android definitely needed the best internet radio app around. It auto-suggests music based on other artists you like using sorcery. (Or algorithms.) FREE From the App Developers: Pandora Radio is your own FREE personalized radio now…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

PdaNet

The ridiculously easy way to tether your laptop to your phone, over USB or Bluetooth, without rooting it. If you don’t wanna cough up $30 for the full version it’ll still connect to non-https:// addresses just fine. $24 From the App Developers: PdaNet provides you with FULL Internet access so all your email, instant message…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Places

Google’s Places is our preferred directory app for finding what’s nearby—restaurants, coffee, banks, shopping, whatever—mostly because it’s easier to use than the arguably more jam-packed Where. But also because its information seems to be getting more detailed useful at an exponential rate. FREE From the App Developers: Places Directory allows you to browse nearby places…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Qik

Live video streaming over 3G or Wi-Fi, which one-ups the others with support for full res 720×480 DVD quality video from the Droid. FREE From the App Developers: Join Qik to share live video with anyone and everyone – or only share with the people you choose. Use Qik and start showing your audience of…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Retro Defense

The gorgeous, and possibly definitive, Android tower defense game. $5 From the App Developers: Retro Defense is a tower defense game with a killer retro theme. Your goal is to stop the invaders from getting through the board. You know the path they’ll take, so you have to spend your money wisely and build the…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Ringdroid

If you wanna make your own ringtone, Ringdroid is how, either using an MP3 you already have, or by making a whole new one. FREE From the App Developers: Ringdroid is an Android application for recording and editing sounds, and creating ringtones, directly on the handset.

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Runstar

A very pretty running application, it offers full stat tracking and everything else you’d expect from a fitness app, with more features, like multiple exercise modes on the way. If only it made the Droid light enough to actually run with. FREE From the App Developers: runstar™ is the only running application you’ll ever need;…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Shazam

What’s that song playing in the background? Hold your phone up, and Shazam will tell you. It’s magic that never gets old. FREE From the App Developers: Create music moments. With Shazam you can identify music tracks, store them, and buy them; plus you can learn more about the artist and connect to their MySpace…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Twidroid

Still the Twitter app for Android, even if the free version holds back features like bit.ly support, it gets better all the time. And with newly launched plug-ins, its potential seems limitless. FREE From the App Developers: Twidroid is the industry-standard Twitter client for android and among the most used Twitter applications across all platforms.…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Voice Recorder

You need a voice recorder app. This is it. FREE From The App Developers: This application is a handy voice recorder. The recordings are saved to your SD card.

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Wapedia

True, Wikipedia apps are glorified shrinkwraps, but Wapedia makes settling trivia showdowns at dinner really fast, with a clean presentation to boot. FREE From The App Developers: Wapedia is the fastest way to access the contents of Wikipedia on your phone.

Tech News Matt Buchanan Dec 31

Matt Buchanan

FxCamera

Gmote

Google Goggles

Google Voice

Kindle

Listen

NESoid

NewsRob

OpenTable

Pandora

PdaNet

Places

Qik

Retro Defense

Ringdroid

Runstar

Shazam

Twidroid

Voice Recorder

Wapedia

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