Description: Share and stay connected with your friends with the Facebook for Android app.

Facebook for Android makes it easy to stay connected and share with friends. Share status updates from your home screen, chat with your friends, check out your News Feed, review your upcoming Events, look at your friends’ walls and user info, check in to Places to get Deals, upload Photos, share links, check your Messages, and watch videos.

Version: 1.6.2

Cost: Free

Developer: Facebook

There’s a few Facebook apps to choose from and this is the official Facebook App for Android. A lot of times 3rd party apps are better than the official ones. I actually like the official Facebook app. I find it loads quicker than other Facebook Apps and is easier to navigate and view pages.

This is such a widely used App that most people already have their own experiences with it. There’s too many options to go through. If you have questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll do what I can to answer them.

Similar apps: Facebook, Friendcaster, Seesmic

Download Here

Description: The Best Market Replacement App. Hand picked Top Apps, Top Games & more!
Install the best alternative to the Android Market. It’s the most feature-rich market replacement app.

Cost: Free

Developer: http://www.bestappsmarket.com/

Download Here

ESDN Apps Store

The main website is located at: http://www.esdn.ws
There is also a mobile site: http://www.esdn.mobi and a Facebook integrated application at http://www.facebook.com/wsdn_ws/

Description: Handcent SMS is a powerful free sms/mms tools for your android phone

Handcent fully unleashes the messaging power for android phones, fully customizable and more features than the stock android messaging app.

> Support All types for andorid phone,from android 1.5 to newest 2.3

> Full SMS/MMS support

> Support 20+ languges

> Group sending options,batch send

> SMS Popup with quick text

> Customize look with theme supports, include iphone look ,hero look, and support for downloading more skins and themes

> Individual contact notification,custom look (background,buble style) for different friends

> Security lock options, password protect handcent and your stock messaing application

> Backup/restore SMS /MMS, Handcent settings online and restore with one click

> My Handcent online services

> Built in spell checker

> Hundreds of handcent online themes, download them free and adding new themes everyday

> 20+ languages supported and will add more language support

> Better Mms support (better picture resize feature,help you download high resolution picture for UK carriers,settings Maximum Mms size)

> Handcent Mms Plus service, helps you send high resolution pictures and videos to your friends

> Additional smileys package add-on, you can download more smileys for handcent from android market

> Support local messaging protocol for different countries

> Split 160 feature support auto split message for CDMA network (for example: Verizon)

> Support for additional font packs, also can display sms message with many beautiful & stylish fonts

> Many plugins (Location,smileys,fontpack…)

> Built in Blacklist with the ability to make incoming mms/sms private per individual sender and help you block spam message.

> Supports manage drafts and undelivery messages

> Added vCard capacity for your android phone ,you can send/receive/import vCards from handcent

>Added Emoji capacity for your android phone,you can send cool/funny emoji icons to iphone and the android phones that installed handcent & handcent emoji plugin

>Handcent greetings include many holidays animated greetings ,you can choose the beatiful greeting and send to your friends.

>Handcent privacy box can help you hide & password protect threads/conversation, private conversations won’t be read(or be made visible) by other messaging apps(stock, 3rd party, etc.)

>Support Schedule SMS & MMS messages,you can setup schedule task by daily ,monthly ,weekly …,powerful

Visit http://www.handcent.com for more introduction & visit http://faq.handcent.com for frequently asked question

Version: 3.9.7

Cost: Free

Developer: Handcent

I really don’t need to say much about Handcent SMS. Along with Chomp SMS, they are both great texting apps. One difference, Handcent is ad free. They both offer a boat load of features. Download extra skins and font packs for Handcent SMS. You can’t go wrong with either Handcent or ChompSMS.

Download Here

Make sure you also download some of the available plugins for Handcent. I especially find the group SMS plugin valuable.

Handcent Group SMS Plugin

Description: SlideIT is the best keyboard for Android devices.
SlideIT, make it easy to write

SlideIT keyboard trial version 4

Supports many new skins

The innovative keyboard for quick and easy writing with over 1,000,000 downloads, 45 languages. A revolutionary way to write Email, to send SMS or just to chat with your friends…

Instead of entering text by tapping on letters, SlideIT keyboard eases texting by sliding a finger along the letters, while the words “magically” appear on the screen.

SlideIT keyboard is an excellent tool for entering text, enabling users to dramatically improve writing speed with practically no learning curve.

In addition, writing efficiency is further enhanced with SlideIT keyboard’s smart predictive texting and disambiguation capabilities.

SlideIT has over 40 freely available language packs and keyboard layouts for download. Whether you write in English, Serbian, Catalan or Arabic you can still SlideIT! the keyboard can be configured to load 2 languages simultaneously, and the user can switch between them at any time.

This version is limited to a trial period of 15 days

Version: 4.0

Cost: Free for 15 day trial, 6.52 for full version

Developer: Dasur Ltd.

Check out the video below on using the SlideIT keyboard.

SlideIT Keyboard works quite well. I have no problems with how it works. Typing by sliding your finger across the letters can be a lot faster than the traditional way of typing if you master it. One of the biggest issues with SlideIT keyboard isn’t how it functions but the trace type keyboard functionality is available on a lot of phones by default already.

SlideIT Keyboard may be a little better than the default trace keyboard with more options,shortcuts for phrases, and skins. But if it’s already available for free, I wouldn’t pay for SlideIT Keyboard. One of the reason’s to buy SlideIT may be if the default trace keyboard doesn’t have your desired language.

If your phone doesn’t have trace keyboard capability, SlideIT Keyboard would be a good option.

Download Here

Description: Just 3 steps to save a new contact: snap, recognize, save!

ABBYY Business Card Reader (BCR) offers an easy way to add a new contact to your smartphone’s address book: simply take a picture of a business card and save the contact.
With ABBYY BCR, you can get more info about your contacts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or find address from business cards on Maps.

ABBYY Business Card Reader intelligently identifies various contact information on a business card, such as first and last names, company name, job title, phone number, e-mail and Web addresses, and saves it to the corresponding fields in the address book.

System requirements: OS Android version 2.1 and higher, camera with auto focus.

KEY FEATURES:

• High-quality recognition thanks to ABBYY Mobile OCR Engine technology;
• Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter search feature will allow you to obtain additional information about your new contact;
• Address search on Maps;
• Minimal time needed to check recognition results;
• If some symbols are not properly recognized, BCR will not only highlight them but will also display the original image for comparison;
• Recognizes multi-language business cards: up to three languages on one business card;
• Recognizes business cards in 19 languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian (both Bokmal and Nynorsk), Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian.

The Lite version of ABBYY Business Card Reader is also available in the Android Market.

http://ABBYY.com

Version: 1.0.78.5

Cost: 9.99

Developer: Abbyy

I recently reviewed another business card reader app, World Card Mobile,  so this would be a good time to compare the two. This comparison is of 7/26/2011. I’m comparing Abbyy Business Card Reader version 1.0.78.5 to World Card Mobile version  2.4.20110711.

Features:

Both Abbyy Business Card Reader and World Card Mobile can use images taken with their camera or images from your SD card.

Both can save images taken with their camera.

Both can read a variety of languages. Abbyy Business Card Reader can read more languages than Mobile Card Reader.

Both can save contacts to specific accounts.

World Card Mobile can save contacts to a specific group. Abby Business Card Reader can not.

Abbyy Business Card Reader highlights scanning errors. World Card Mobile does not.

Both can edit contact information after scanning.

Both have options to find the contact address scanned in Google Maps.

Abbyy Business Card Reader has the option to search for the contact on Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter. World Card Mobile does not have this option.

Winner – Abbyy Business Card Reader

Taking pictures of business cards:

Abbyy Business Card Reader did a better job of taking pictures. Pictures came out clearer.

Abbyy Business Card Reader has the option of using the flash. World Card Mobile doesn’t have the option of flash. Because Abbyy Business Card Reader can use the flash, Abbyy Business Card Reader is able to take clear pictures even in low light conditions. World Card Mobile needs a well lit environment to take clear pictures.

Winner – Abbyy Business Card Reader

Scanning the contact information:

World Card Mobile was much more accurate scanning the information than Abbyy Business Card Reader. Every time I scanned a picture, either from the camera or the SD card, Abbyy Business Card Reader would have errors. World Card Mobile scans 100% correct most of the time. I scanned 4 different business cards multiple times. These are based on crystal clear images of business cards from the camera and SD card. They we’re all in English. As you can see on the 2 screen shots below, Abbyy Business Card Reader made some errors scanning the business card. The errors are highlighted in red. The ability to highlight errors is an advantage for Abbyy Business Card Reader.

I scanned the same business card with World Card Mobile and World Card Mobile scanned the business card correctly. You can see the same scanned business card in the World Card Mobile review.

Winner – World Card Mobile

Price:

Abbyy Business Card Reader is 9.99. World Card Mobile is cheaper for 5.99.

Winner – World Card Mobile

Based on the comparisons above, Abbyy Business Card Reader has a slight edge in options and does a way better job at taking pictures with the utilization of the flash.

Where World Card Mobile shines is recognition of the correct information scanned. World Card Mobile blew away Abbyy Business Card Reader in this department. This is the most important aspect of a card reader. A card reader should be able to recognize the correct information.

World Card Mobile is cheaper than Abbyy Business Card Reader and scans a business card more accurately so my recommendation is for World Card Mobile. If Abbyy Business Card Reader can fix the recognition issue, it would put up a better fight.

Download Here

Description: 34 cities now supported – due to user requests! Food Truck Follower uses Twitter feeds to help you find your favorite food trucks! Eliminate the guesswork in finding your next gourmet food truck meal!

Help support future development. Purchase the ad-free Food Truck Follower Pro. While it doesn’t contain any new features, it helps us fix errors, improve our food truck database, and provide feature updates.

Currently covers the following cities:
Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Orange County, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Raleigh/Durham, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Seattle, and Washington DC. More coming…

If you would like to request a new city, truck or feature, please send an emailto:food.truck.follower@gmail.com. We have added every user-requested city and truck so far.

Features:
- Choose your city the first time you sign in, and then change it later by clicking the “Location” button in the Menu.
- Choose whether to view by Food Truck or to view the Tweet Feed by clicking the “Display” button in the Menu.
- Choose which trucks to follow by clicking the “Trucks” button in the Menu.
- Ability to search the tweet feed to find key words like specific locations or types of food.

Please note: The majority of the trucks in our 34 featured cities do not yet have GPS tracking devices. Thus, an attempt to track them on a map through extrapolation would be highly unreliable at this time. We use a simple interface with an aggregated Twitter feed to make sure you have the most accurate, up-to-the-minute information about the locations of your favorite trucks. Once a majority have GPS tracking, we will add a map! Bon appetite!

Version: 1.2.0

Cost: Free

Developer: FTF

Food Truck Follower allows you to see all your food truck tweets in one app. Food Truck Follower has a nice filter function to filter the food truck tweets by city and food truck vendor. You first set your location, then select the trucks to follow. Food Truck Follower covers trucks from most major cities (check the description for cities). Food Truck Follower can search within the trucks you select to follow. The search ONLY applies to the trucks you follow, so if you’re searching for pizza, but aren’t following any trucks mentioning pizza, you won’t get any results. Food Truck Follower is a tweet aggregator so you’ll still have to read through the tweets to find where the food trucks are.

Food Truck Follower’s list of trucks and cities is impressive. With more and more food trucks popping up all the time, the list of food trucks is getting so large that it’s getting difficult to just go through the list to select the trucks. Food Truck Follower may need to start implementing a more advanced filtering or search function because it’s getting hard to go through a list of a couple hundred trucks to follow. With each food trucks tweeting 3 or 4 times an hour, the tweet list can also get quite large. If you’re following 10 trucks and each truck tweets 4 times an hour, the tweet count can get large real quickly. All these tweets can get hard to read if they don’t get categorized some how.

Food Truck Follower’s cool. It just needs a more advanced filter and search function.

Download Here

Description: TruxMap is a live gourmet food truck map for Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, New York City, Washington DC, San Diego, and Portland. The minute a food truck makes their current or future whereabouts known, you will see them on the TruxMap app. Menus and directions are just one touch away. The open food trucks are visually represented by green markers and the food trucks opening soon are represented by blue markers.

Quickly scan what food trucks are near you, browse through the menus and food images before making a decision. Once you’ve completed eaten the food, submit a review or your truck images so others can know what to expect.

Version: 1.2.3

Cost: Free

Developer: TruxMap 

Some times you don’t care about food truck tweets, you just want to know where they are! Live Food Trucks Map – TruxMap offers a simple easy to read interface of where the local food trucks are. Different colored markers are displayed for food trucks either presently in the area or will be in the area in the near future. Live Food Trucks Map – TruxMap successfully located most if not all the food trucks in the area.

Live Food Trucks Map – TruxMap used up only 2/3 of my screen. The display would be easier to view if it would utilize the whole screen. As you can see from the screen shots, the map is kind of small. Live Food Trucks Map – TruxMap is missing search or filter options. I’d like to be able to search or filter food trucks by food truck name or cuisine. Live Food Trucks Map – TruxMap only lists food trucks within your chosen citiy area so it doesn’t use GPS to see what food trucks are nearest to you.

Live Food Trucks Map – TruxMap is one of the better food truck locator apps. It doesn’t just aggregate food truck tweets. The physical representation of the food trucks on a map is much more helpful than just a tweet.

Download Here

Description: Paradise Island is lovely simulation game. Build your own empire!

“Paradise Island” is the game for all sun and sea lovers!
Tear yourself away from work and build your own sunny island!
Is it time to make your own business? Just have some practice! Rich tourists are just about getting to your warm beaches! Entertain them in casinos and entertainment centers, build hotels, restaurants and discos! Build your own empire of entertainment! Turn your island into best resort empire and learn to manage your own business.

Game tasks:

- build all kinds of buildings on the Island;
- improve your buildings, repair them and gain profit;
- expand your property by buying new pieces of land and areas of sea;
- create your Island with unique buildings and plants;
- compete with your friends;
- set up your tourism business;
- build the city of your dream and turn your life into a happy story;
- learn all tips of the game receive all possible rewards and win the Grand Prize!

Game features:

- beautiful and detailed graphics;
- extremely addictive and interesting gameplay;
- life on your island goes on even when the game is closed;
- there is a big choice of facilities and constructions, decorations and plants;
- tycoon and simcity features;
- more advanced, than a regular farm game;
- more than 130 of awards and achievements;
- Internet connection is recommended, but not necessary;
- Ad Free.

Facebook community: http://www.facebook.com/IslandAndroid

Version: 1.1

Cost: Free

Developer: Cooper Media Corp.

Paradise island is a wonderful tycoon type game.  With over a hundred different types of structures to build, you won’t finish creating your beach front resort any time soon. Each building is incredibly detailed. Special buildings are offered for special occasions. Each building can be upgraded many times.  When a building is being built, you can see the construction workers with their tools working on the building. Paradise Island didn’t skimp on the sound either. You can hear the sound of the waves, a fog horn, and a cha ching when you collect money.

If you’re familiar with the tycoon genre of games, you’ll enjoy Paradise Island. Many buildings have power and staff requirements before you can build them. Make sure you have pathways to the buildings. As great as Paradise Island is at the moment, it’d be cool if there was some type of customer satisfaction rating with customer statistics. Paradise Island is missing the challenge of keeping customers happy.

Each building requires you to manually press on the building each time to collect cash. I’d like the option to be able to automatically collect money even if I’m not logged into the game.

Try to build a Business Center Building ASAP do start collecting piastres.

Even without the challenge of a customer rating, it’s still fun to revel in a well built resort.

Own a piece of luxury and download Paradise Island.

Download Here

Description: Capture high quality HDR images in full resolution

Capture high quality High Dynamic Range images:

- Full resolution
- Take HDR image in one tap
- HDR image fused and tone-mapped on device within seconds
- Don’t have to be rock-solid while shooting
- Correct handling of moving objects and de-ghosting
- You can control tone-mapping parameters: contrast, micro-contrast, color vividness, exposure
- Save original exposure bracketed images
Why HDR
————

Real life scenes often have a wide range of light intensity, which cannot be captured by a camera. In a photo of such a scene the bright areas look washed out and everything in shadows is pictured as a black spot with no details. The HDR technique allows you to capture details in bright and dark areas and have them merged in a single photo.

HDR photography is widely adopted by professional photographers. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an HDR in mobile phones?

The problem is that HDR requires taking several differently exposed images in series, which must be precisely aligned and then fused. In order to be usable for real life scenes, the HDR feature should include moving object detection and hand shake compensation to avoid or minimize the ghosting in the final image. That requires a lot of computational resources and makes a challenge even for professional desktop HDR software.

Almalence has brought its expertise in professional HDR software to mobile phones. Our HDR fusion algorithms compensate hand shaking and detect moving objects in the scene, suppressing ghosting artifacts. At the same time, the algorithms are quick enough to provide comfortable processing time on mobile devices.

Version: 1.63

Cost: Free, 2.99

Developer: Almalence

The camera technology talk in the description went totally over my head.  I still have no idea how HDR technology affects the picture. Here are 2 pictures I took.  One is with the HDR Camera App and the other is with my default camera app.  Both these pictures we’re taken with an HTC Sensation 4g, 8MP. The photo with the HDR app looked a little more grainy but the colors looked better.  I’m not sure if I have the settings correct. I used the default settings.

Picture taken with HDR app

Picture taken with default camera app

Here’s some additional information on HDR technology.

http://almalence.com/doc/mobile-hdr-examples-deghosting/

I’d welcome comments from photophiles with experience using the HDR camera app.

Download Here