[App]cessorise

Sometimes the best apps are right under our nose, or are being used extensively by our friends and family without us ever noticing them. The trouble is that tablets and smartphones have become quite a personal thing. Maybe it’s because we touch them with our fingers; or maybe its because we have become precious about our iPads, iPhone, Android or Windows phones.

For whatever reason, being able to sneak a peek at somebody else’s device is a rare thing, so here’s a look over the shoulder of an Android user:

Generally Android users are either technically aware or extremely cost conscious, or both. With around a million apps in Apple’s iOS App Store and the Google Play store you will find plenty of cross over between the two, but some stand out more than others.

SwiftKey Keyboard

As good as Android is, pretty much the top ranking paid app right now is the SwiftKey Keyboard. February this year saw SwiftKey 4 arrive with features designed to make typing on a touchscreen faster, easier and more accurate. Its makers describe it as having a “mind-reading” personalised autocorrect engine that will learn your favourite words and phrase sections the more you use it. Users can personalise predictions even further by granting this app access to their Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, SMS or blog posts.

Andmade Share

The somewhat confusingly named Andmade Share exists because Android’s default “share” functionality isn’t quite as good as it could be. One user recently wrote, “I have seriously no clue how Google hasn’t built this into Android already.” So if you like to share photos, text and other content on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks you should probably take a look at this free app. You can share to multiple social applications/sites at one time and even drag and drop the your network “share list” around into your order of preference. Why didn’t Google build this? Because someone else did first and now it’s free and mega-popular, that’s how open source and Android can work sometimes.

Dubai on Android

Does Dubai do Android you are asking? Does it ever is the answer. Thanks to the Dubai Department of Economic Development we can plug into Dubai Calendar. This free app lists conferences, concerts, exhibitions, festivals, special promotions and events related to culture, art, fashion, health and sport. Designed to interest business travellers, tourist and also residents, this is quite a nice app to have for every week (if perhaps not every day) reference.

Other Dubai-centric Android apps of note include Jobs In Dubai, the Dubai Map car, bike and pedestrian navigation system app, plus any number of apps dedicated to hotels, food and drink, shopping, and a strangely over abundant supply of city wallpaper apps. How could we not also just mention the free Dune Bashing in Dubai video game for Android? We just did, so that’s OK then.

Androidify

If you really take to Android then of course you are going to need to follow Google’s green robot logo theme and Androidify yourself. This app allows you to create your own Android avatar (or indeed avatars plural) and express your new robot-like self. In much the same way as Xbox users might already be familiar with creating their own cartoon version of themselves, this apps allows you to style your robot’s hair, throw on some shades and or even stick on a hat. Is it silly? Yes it is. Have 24,000 users “rated” it on Google+ and said they like it? Yes I’m afraid so, so dive in.

New app addicts may eventually find themselves running out of power on the move, so our final recommendations for this week are the Sandberg Powerbar and Sandberg Powerbank products. Especially suitable for UAE-based users with an almost unlimited amount of sunshine, these stand-alone reserve battery units have powerful solar panels installed on the back, so all you need to recharge it is light. They can be recharged anywhere - even in electric light, if you are sitting on a plane or at a train station, where there are no mains sockets.

The Android universe is huge already and growing all the time, so much so that, along with Apple’s selection of apps, it has become tough to navigate. Our only commentary at this time is that it’s best to look to community top rankings and see what others find most appealing. Top apps on Google Play are broken down by top free, top paid, top new paid, top new free as well as top grossing. Go on, be a robot.

The writer is a freelance journalist who specialises in software applications, games and gadgets.