If you just bought a nice new Android phone, you might think about getting a few apps for it. There’s nothing wrong with picking up new applications for your Android phone. In fact, it’s definitely encouraged. The culture of Android doesn’t assume that the phone will be able to do everything you want with no need for applications. Instead, the entire foundation of the Android platform is designed to encourage people to come up with solutions to make your Android phone run a little nicer, a little cleaner and a lot whole better.
It all really starts with the Android app market, a place where you can pick up the latest apps. Now, keep in mind that the Android market hosts both free and paid apps. Every program hopes to change your phone for the better, and the open source nature means that you can always count on yet another developer coming up with a program to make your phone does something cool. This is a lot different than the iPhone app market, which is tightly regulated. The apps in the Android market aren’t controlled very much at all, which means that you could end up getting a bad program here and there. This is where the community steps in to highlight the best apps. You can bet your phone that a bad app won’t stay in the market for long, considering how many people are addicted to all things Android.
Ready to jump in? Great! A few points:
One, you need to decide whether or not you want to upload apps to your phone from your computer or if you want to actually download them from the Android market directly on your phone. To go with direct downloads, you will need to open the Android Market application that’s already on your phone. You will be able to browse the market and download anything that looks interesting to you.
If you want to use an outside file manager to do this, there are some options as well — like AppBrain, Apps Installer and Astro File Manager. This will let you manipulate the “raw” APK file and install your application quickly.
If you’re not sure what programs to begin with, you might want to just spend some time navigating the market. Keep in mind that any file that you want to get is going to definitely to take up space on your phone, and that’s space that could be used for another program or even to store your personal files. If you really want to make sure that you’re balancing the space question properly, you will need to keep your apps on the SD card as much as possible. You can always swap out SD cards when you urn out of space, which is what a lot of Android users do.
Overall, the Android app market is definitely here to stay. You can be assured that no matter what Android phone you get, you will find something in the app market to make it work even better than the day you bought it!