Having an Android along for your daily commute or occasional car trips
can make the ride a lot easier, safer, and simply more fun. Here are
our favorite Android apps to have on hand when it's time to hit the
road.
Note: We've included links to each apps' homepage, which usually
include a QR code for easy installing or Market search directions.
We've also included a link to each app's page on AppBrain, where
signed-in AppBrain users can easily beam the applications to their
Android phone.
Maps, Navigation, and Car Mode
Maps, Navigation, and Car Mode all come with your Android (version 2.0
and higher), and they're all crucial to the Android-in-the-car
experience. Maps is less useful when you have your hands on the wheel,
but the ability to "Star" locations from your desktop or laptop
browser, then quickly pull them up for directions on your phone, is
very nice. Navigation, as we've previously detailed, is an entire
turn-by-turn GPS navigation package, as long as you're not driving too
far away from a data signal. The Car Mode makes pulling off Voice
Actions and getting Navigation directions safer while your hands are
occupied, and Maps' break-out app, Places, gives you a chance to see a
simple list of nearby restaurants, gas, ATMs, or other spots. [Free on
Android phones, but check Market for updates]
Vlingo or Voice Actions
If your phone's running Android 2.2, you can upgrade your phone's
built-in Voice Search to the Google-built Voice Actions. And if you're
double lucky, Voice Actions won't frequently crash on you, as it does
currently on at least a few of the Lifehacker editors' phones. With
Voice Actions, you can write texts or emails with your voice, search
Google, activate directions or Navigation, find or call businesses—all
after only touching the screen once, making it a very helpful and safe
car tool. If you're not on 2.2, or can't get Voice Actions to play
nice, you want Vlingo. Actually, you might want Vlingo anyways, if
only for the SafeReader function.
Vlingo's a third-party app that does pretty much everything that Voice
Actions can do, but uses its own server to pass your voice commands
along. It even offers its own keyboard with a dedicated Vlingo button
for entering your voice in any text field (great for those stuck on
much older firmware), and can take over the default action for holding
down your Search button. Even if you like Google's own Voice Actions
better, you can install Vlingo and use its SafeReader function. Set up
the app with your email accounts, and it can read your incoming email,
and text messages, out loud for you, whenever you've activated
SafeReader from a home screen widget. Pretty amazing functionality,
really, for a free app.
Waze
Google's Maps & Navigation wants to get you where you're going through
search, data points, calculations and voice recognition. Waze, too,
gets you there with turn-by-turn directions, but it also wants you to
run over cupcakes, share interesting spots and details about your
trip, and help you avoid traffic jams, accident scenes, speed traps,
and find good stuff through the power of social reporting. Anyone
who's running Waze on their BlackBerry, Android, iOS device, or other
phone while driving is feeding into Waze's maps and traffic data, and
those who really dig Waze can compete on picking up power-ups, share
traffic tips, point out free parking, and otherwise lend to the
community spirit.
Listen, Pandora, and NPR News
Your car is probably the one spot where you can really enjoy new
tunes, get in-depth with your podcasts, and listen to the news
uninterrupted. For Android owners with time to listen, Pandora, NPR
News, and Listen are the best. Listen is Google's own podcast app,
with great search capabilities, subscription syncing to Google Reader,
and a pretty smart setup for deciding when to refresh and download
your audio. Pandora is, of course, the very nifty streaming service
that creates "stations" based on artists and songs you like, and it
works just fine wherever you can get an internet signal. NPR's own app
for Android can stream your local station and download entire show
episodes, but also has a very handy ability to cherry-pick segments of
shows like Morning Edition or All Things Considered, then queue them
up in a playlist.
GasBuddy
GasBuddy does one thing and one thing well—points out the places where
you can fill up your car for less. On an Android, GasBuddy can map out
or list nearby stations using your location, or search out spots where
you're heading to. You also get details about the station, including
an address you can navigate to.
ParkDroid
In cities, at stadiums, and other places where you walk a long way
from where you park your car, you might have once said, "Boy, I should
draw a map!" Now you just open ParkDroid, tag your location with your
GPS powers, then go about your day until you're ready to head back
home. ParkDroid is more than just tagging, though. It pulls up paid
and free parking locations from the web and maps them out, then also
takes in free and paid parking finds from its users (unless you opt
for "Private" when tagging). If you're parked at a meter, or need a
time limitation, you can set that up in ParkDroid, too
--
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