A few Android apps, rated for simplicity

I got my first smartphone in early December. It's an Android phone, the Samsung Nexus S to be exact. In that time I've downloaded and tried a handful of different apps, so I'd like to share what I think. When it comes to computer software, I appreciate simplicity. Sometimes the program with less features is the one I'd rather use, if it has the features that I want. With more features, the program can be cumbersome to use, and it's more likely to slow down the computer. So when I started looking for some Android apps, simplicity was one of the main things I was looking for. So without further ado, here are the apps I'm running and what I think of their simplicity, in alphabetical order:

3G Watchdog by Richard Gruet - 4.5 stars (out of 5) - free
This handy app tracks your data plan usage, and it can show your total on a home screen widget. You tell it when your billing cycle starts and what your quota is, and it will monitor it for you. You can also set it to turn off your data when you reach your limit and alert you when you're close to it. Not much feature bloat here. The only things stopping it from getting 5 stars are two buttons: one that advertises the paid version of this app, and one that advertises an unrelated app. (The paid version can also tell you which apps are using your data plan, but since Android 4.0 has this feature built in, I don't think I'll pay for it. Just need to wait for them to send Android 4.0 to my phone...)

AK Notepad by Catch.com - 4 stars (out of 5) - free
Probably the only feature my old phone had that this phone didn't come with: an app for writing short notes to myself. This one's pretty simple, and you can make it alarm at a certain time for certain notes if you want. It occasionally asks if I want to sync my notes with a Catch.com account, which is a bit annoying since I don't have an account with them. Automatic backups are a useful feature, but I don't really feel like signing up for another website, even though it's free. The app can export the notes to the phone's USB storage, which then lets me back up the notes myself, but that's more work.

Antivirus Free by AVG Mobilation - 3 stars (out of 5) - free
I got this app more for its anti-theft and phone location features, rather than for antivirus. Antivirus is good to have too, but doesn't provide perfect protection. Its anti-theft features allow you to log into a website and do a few different things on your phone: turn on the GPS and show the phone's location on your computer, lock the phone remotely, make the phone ring even if it's in silent mode (which seems to take a few minutes), and even wipe all the data from the phone. It also includes some tune-up features that are supposed to help you save power. It has some features that I don't use, such as a task killer (see this article for a reason why) and it takes an unnecessarily high number of clicks to reach the tune-up features, so its simplicity leaves something to be desired. I've heard that Lookout Antivirus has a simpler interface, but I installed AVG because the free version of lookout doesn't support wiping data from your phone.

KJV/NIV Bible by Tecarta - 4.5 stars (out of 5) - KJV is free; NIV is CAD$6.09 on its own or $5.94 as an add-on; other translations are available too.
This app makes it easy to navigate various Bible translations, view two versions side-by-side, and search the Bible for certain words. Clean interface, easy to navigate your history and take notes. It can read the Bible out loud to you, with a computerized voice. Some of the cross-references between verses are kind of useless, which is a mild annoyance. But overall it's an excellent app, and the cheapest one that I found for the paid translations. (Yes, there are some that get you free access to just about any translation, but I think most of those require internet access.)

LED Light by picolyl - 5 stars (out of 5) - free
Light goes on. Light goes off. That's about it. Use your camera flash LED as a flashlight. My phone isn't even listed on the list of supported phones, but it seems to woyrk. No feature bloat, no ads, and no cost. And you can put it on your home screen as a widget, so just touching the icon on your home screen once will toggle the light.

ScanLife Barcode & QR Reader - 2 stars (out of 5) - free
The first app that I ever uninstalled. It reads barcodes and QR codes. For barcodes, it can show you the price of the item you scanned at certain online retailers. And for QR codes it shows you the data in the code or takes you to the webpage referenced by the code. Most of the time it's a simple, easy-to-use app (although I've scanned numerous products that it couldn't find online), but occasional annoyances convinced me to uninstall it once I found a replacement app. When I first got it, it regularly asked me to go to the Android Market to rate the app. So one time I hit the "OK" button, went to the Market, then quickly exited out of it without leaving a rating. ScanLife shut up about that after that. But it still occasionally asked me to take a quick demographic survey, which I didn't feel like doing. (I'll post a review of the app that I got to replace this once I have some more time to play around with it.)

SlideIT Keyboard by Dasur - 4 stars (out of 5) - CAD$5.99, or 15-day free trial
I got this one when it was on sale for 10 cents. It's similar to the Swype keyboard that comes with some Android devices (but not my Nexus S). It replaces the touch-screen keyboard with a different touch-screen keyboard. This one lets you type by sliding your finger around the keyboard rather than touching each key individually. Then it searches its dictionary to figure out what word you were trying to type. If it's not completely sure, it gives you a number of words to choose from. After a while of using this, I think it sped up my typing. And it can import your contact list into the dictionary, so if your friend has an unusual first or last name, it's no problem for this keyboard. (In my limited experience with Swype, I don't think Swype has this feature.) Not much to annoy me here, except that it periodically contacts the developer's servers to confirm your software license. So it will use up a little bit of your data plan, and I'm not sure if it works if you're out of range or have data disabled for a long time.

All prices are in Canadian dollars, and may not be up-to-date. Keep in mind that my star ratings are rating only for simplicity; they are not an overall app rating.

That's it for now. I have some more apps than this on my phone, so I'll add reviews of those sometime later. And I'll try to keep this post up-to-date.

Oops!

After getting dropped off at the carpool meeting point after work, I noticed an extension cord lying on the ground in front of my car. I thought I should move it out of the way so I don't run over it. Then I noticed that my car was plugged into it.

In the morning I had unplugged the extension cord from the outlet, but I must not have unplugged the car from the cord. So I must have driven all the way to the carpool meeting point (about a 5-minute drive away) with that loooong extension cord sticking out behind my car. And in the afternoon, the block heater timer was nowhere to be seen. I'd assume it came off somewhere during the drive, rather than being stolen, because the prongs of the extension cord were a bit bent. The timer probably would've protected the prongs.

I tested the cord and it still works. So that's a bit of good news.