Okay! I’m going to let you Droid users know the skinny on apps. This will be a two day post linking to my most used and favorite apps on the Android platform (I am an addict, no denial here. that all writers on the Droid platform should not be without, especially during NaNo. The list will have bullets and be linked with a little description. And for the artsy folks I will have links to my fave photography and camera apps (no, Android does not have Instagram ( )

1. Gmail- who doesn’t have a gmail address? Don’t take this off of your phone. It comes standard. It works a lot better than previous versions and has colored. Labels. So why not?
2. Dropbox- Cloud storage is very, very important. You can backup all your photos, docs, videos, etc on the cloud, which is just another way of saying your info is on a server on a website. But because some of these servers don’t use redundancy, which in essence is keeping your info available by looping it through several different servers just in case one server goes down, it is good to have your data on several cloud servers. Dropbox offers 2gb for free and then there is a nominal fee for 50gb, I think $10 but if you are only storing docs, 2gb should be enough. These other apps are also cloud apps that I use for my own redundancy: Box.net  or Boxroid for Box.net (5gb free but if you login using an iOS device like an iTouch you get 50gb free!!) SugarSync (5gb free) HiDrive (really secure but I can’t get it to work on my phone right now, 5gb free), Google Docs or GDocs (It is free for 1gb but it costs $5 a YEAR, a YEAR! for 20gb of space or $20 a year for 100gb of space across all of your Google services)
3. FolderSync- Don’t want to manually sync your files from your Android device? Use FolderSync to set up folder pairs for automatic background sync. For use with Dropbox, SugarSync, HiDrive and Box.net!
4. Maildroid Pro- Now this is the best, most functional email client on the Android platform but, it is pricey ($17.99). I would not use anything else, but if you can find an alternative app for cheaper then go for it. But I’ve tried them all and this one is a keeper. Not only does it work like and better than Outlook with Rules, Identities, signatures, IMAP and POP3, it is beautiful and handles the push and pull of your mail accounts with ease. (Wait for the update on 10/26/11. The current update is not good. Having trouble with a scrolling issue. The dev is super responsive and has tested and put through a test run with the non pro users so that he is certain this version works. Gotta love devs like Joe. UPDATE: Since the first draft of this post, Joe has updated Maildroid and it is blazing fast. Get it now!
5. Evernote- Remember everything. That’s their motto. And it fits. Snap photos of passages in a book or of things you see on the street, store them in Evernote. Record audio, make check lists and store them as notes in Evernote. Create notebook heirarchies, tags, and attibutes. Download the web clipper for your browser on your computer and clip whole web pages and store them in Evernote. Evernote stores your notes on their site (cloud). It is free for 500mb a month note capacity and something like 120 web clips. If you want offline notebooks it is $5 a mo or $45 a year.
6. Business Calendar- Um, no offense Google but this is what Android’s calendar should have been. This is, by far, the best calendar I’ve used on either iOS, PC, or Android. It is $4.99 and worth every penny. You can sync your Facebook events, all your Google calendar accounts, Toodledo tasks, you name it. Gearing up for NaNo and sticking to your schedule is a cinch with this app. Go on now and get it!

Writing Specific apps

1. My Writing Spot- This is a neat little app that can sync with the website My Writing Spot for online access to your files. It is essentially a novel or short story writing app that you can arrange the way you’d like, chapters, scenes, etc. Then you can go online and sync and download your file as a Word document etc. If you use novel writing software, you can import the file into your novel writing software with a little bit of file savvy. It is a simply neat little app to have, as you can use it as your primary novel writing software and you’ll always have a backup in the cloud. It is $2.99. Pretty good price for such a nice app.
2. Documents to Go ver 3.0- This is my Word Processing app of choice to look at my Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations but there are other apps that do the same thing that might work best for you. Quick Office Pro has integration with Google Docs, Box.net, SugarSync, and Dropbox, therefore negating the need for the official apps but Quick Office does not render files properly, not quite like Docs2Go. Just Office for Android. Plain and simple. To edit documents you must buy a key and at $14.99 it is the cheapest in the Market. You can find it here.

This is Android apps for writers day one. Stay tuned for other great, essential apps, most of which are free.

To see what I’m using, here are some screenshots of my HTC. Enjoy!