Not satisfied with the current crop of mobile browsers on Android?  You might want to try the NetFront Life Browser, which comes packing a number of unique and interesting features.

Upon launch, it shows a unified navigation landing page consisting of two halves.  The top part shows active thumbnails of open windows (you can navigate it by swiping left or right), while the bottom half shows stacks of pages (with the top line showing the title and thumbnails) for the browser's  history, bookmarks, and scrapbooks (you can only display one category of stacks at a time).

In case you're wondering what scrapbooks are, it's a novel feature that lets you store cutouts of web pages.  Just draw a shape around the content you want to save and a partial screenshot goes right into your scrapbooks folder.  Other unique features include checkmarks (which let you leave marks on parts of a page), tilt mode (a useless but fun mode that displays the browser diagonally) and visual page loading (shows a screenshot when a page takes more than 3 seconds to load).

Default search is Yahoo (which can be good or bad, depending on your preferences), with quick filter options for Twitter, Yahoo Answers, news and weather.  There's no pinch to zoom, which they're oddly citing as a "feature" since you can do your zooming without using two hands.  Instead, zooming is done with double-taps, which you can do one-handed.  There are a couple of minor bugs, which aren't that big of an issue and should be ironed out during a likely update.

Personally, I don’t  see much of an upside with the NetFront Life Browser compared to the standard Android browser.  That doesn't mean your experience won't be different, though, especially if you find the scrapbooks capability useful.  Plus, it's free from the Android Market, so it should be worth the try.

[NetFront Life Browser]

Typing on the tiny keys of onscreen keyboards can be a frustrating affair.  As such, the deluge of alternative text-entry options making the rounds, such as Swype and SwiftKey.  A new Android app called 8Pen offers another alternative -- one that's weirder than anything I've seen before.

Instead of navigating a QWERTY keyboard, it uses a virtual interface that allows you to use spiral gestures, similar to what you will do with a click wheel.  Except instead of navigating lists and menus, the actions let you type text.

8Pen's interface divides the lower half of the screen into four quadrants, separated by crossing diagonal lines.  You start at the center, then move to a quadrant (which narrows the letters to 8), then move upwards or downwards to narrow the options to 4 characters.  Once there, you tap the screen lightly - one click selects the first character in the line, two for the second, three for the third and four for the last.  Personally, I hate the clicking up to four times part.  There's just something inelegant about tapping on the same spot the same way you press an alphanumeric button three times to get to the last letter.

After some trying out, my early impression is that it's like an alphanumeric keyboard reimagined as a click wheel and I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing.  QWERTY keyboards are familiar since we use it everyday. A click wheel for typing, on the other hand, is something entirely new.  Suffice to say, this will take me more than an hour of fiddling to get used to.

Like other alternative text inputs on a virtual screen, you'll either love 8Pen or hate it.  Despite that, it might be worth the $1.56 to try.

[The 8pen]



Some apps are just plain useful for extending your smartphone's actual "phone" functions and PhoneTell does a great job of that for Android handsets (it's coming soon for both iPhones and Blackberries).

Do you frequently find yourself unable to answer calls?  Start handling them better.  Instead of the usual missed call alert, the app gives you choices in pre-created SMS messages that you can send to the calling party instead.  You can choose from three pre-defined messages: "Call back later," "I'll call you back" or "Send me a message instead."  For the second one, it can automatically pencil it into your calendar too.  A fourth option lets you send your own pre-created message (up to 135 characters).

Even more impressive, when the person who called isn't in your contacts, the app will do an instant reverse lookup.  That way, it will have more to show you than just a number.  Heck, it will even identify if the number is a known telemarketer!

PhoneTell comes with a lookup feature that lets you search your contacts, along with your Google, Salesforce.com and LinkedIn accounts.    It's integrated right into your phone dialer, too, which means you can do a lookup right when you need it.  Aside from contacts, you can also type in companies and services on the search bar, with the results drawn out of PhoneTell's own database.  Yes, it supports Google Voice, as well.

When it comes to usefulness, this app is definitely worth the space it takes on your phone's storage.  Plus, you can't argue with the price: Free.

[PhoneTell]

Despite the Android Market filling up with inventory, the quality of apps are admittedly a notch below what you can find on the App Store. One of the bigger disappointments for me so far has been the lack of mobile drawing or painting apps that feel more serious than merely passive entertainment.  For all the good that Sketcher is, it really belongs in the latter, although it does manage to eke out some decent-looking results.

A port of a Flash-based web app (http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/), the software lets you put together sketches that appear surprisingly professional.  It won't actually make you a skilled artist , though; instead, the clever selection of brushes will do majority of the work.

When you swipe across the drawing area, Sketcher doesn't merely draw a line.  Instead, it fills the entire area you passed over with patterns that resemble an artist's pencil sketch.  The kind of shading and patterns drawn depend on the brush you use, of which eleven are available.

The UI is very basic and clean.  Just pick a brush, choose a color to paint and start drawing.   Making a simple line using one of the brushes can turn up something fancy-looking, so it's easy to amuse yourself.  Being able to use it to create discernible pieces, however, will probably require some getting used to.

Once you've finished a drawing, you can save or share it, although you can't open a previously stored image, which is just infuriating.  Every time you launch the app, it opens to the last sketch you saved, though, so that's a consolation.  Oh yeah, if you switch to a different app in the middle of a drawing, it's lost forever, and there's no "undo" feature, either.

Like I said, Sketcher is fun for entertaining doodles, but far from a polished offering.  You can download it free from the Android Market.

[App Brain link]

Can't stand constantly circling the block trying to find an open parking space?  If you're an Android user, Google's Open Spot app offers a quick way to discover available street parking in your vicinity.

The app uses your smartphone's GPS positioning function to detect your position.  Once it does, a Google Map display of the surrounding area then appears, with markers for reported available parking spaces.  The markers are color coded to indicate how long since it's been reported open (red for the last 5 minutes, yellow for 20 minutes and orange for those in between).

Of course, the only way Open Spot can learn of available parking spaces is if you report them, so you can send goodwill to fellow users by tapping on a street parking that you're leaving behind. Available spots will be marked open on the map for up to 20 minutes, unless somebody claims it.

Since it's new, don't expect to find it particularly useful yet (very few people are marking parking spaces yet, if any).  The app is solid, though, and works as advertised, so we doubt it will take too long to find users.  If you live in a big city, there's a good chance you'll find this turn into an extremely valuable tool within the next few weeks.  Google also rewards Karma Points for users who report open parking spots, though we're not really sure what they're for.

Going forward, we'd like to see Open Spot integrated into Google Maps Navigation, since having to launch a separate app for an essentially related function isn't exactly the most logical way to use it.  Despite that, we think this is a terrific utility.  Hopefully, you'll have enough folks in your area thinking the same thing to actually make this useful.

It's available as a free download from the Android Market.

[Open Spot]

The upcoming over-the-air push install feature for the Android Market is pretty mindblowing.  You know what tops that?  Somebody just beat Google to it.  That clever feature-stealer happens to be AppBrain, who just debuted their Fast Web Installer service.

If you're not familiar with AppBrain, it's basically an alternative front-end to the Android Market.  To use the new feature, you'll need the AppBrain app on your phone and an accompanying add-on, both of which you must give permission to use your Google account.  Once that's done, then it’s all a matter of using the AppBrain website while you're on a computer to find apps, then sending it to your handset for automatic install.  Yep, no cables and no sync needed - just pure push direct from the cloud.

The Fast Web Installer add-on works with all OS versions beginning with 1.5, which means everyone with an Android phone can use it.  Unfortunately, it only appears to work with free apps (for now), so it's not entirely a replacement for Android's promised OTA app installation.  Regardless, given that over 50% of apps on the Android Market are free, it does make for a very convenient feature.  Plus, you can use it today.

All this, of course, on top of AppBrain's already pretty robust feature set, which makes it a highly-recommended alternative to the Android Market's default interface.

[AppBrain]

Don't have one of those fancy Android phones with a built-in aggregator for messages and social feeds?  Grab the Executive Assistant from the Marketplace and get the same "all data in one place" functionality without needing to upgrade to a more expensive handset.

Right from the unified interface, you can keep track of your email (Gmail and other POP/IMAP accounts), text messages, missed calls, upcoming calendar events, Twitter timeline, Facebook updates, Google Reader news and even your favorite widgets.  That's a whole lot of stuff you can gander at in one glance, saving you from having to do a lot of navigation work.

Aside from being able to track information, you can launch apps, return missed calls and use voicemail (Google Voice and VisualVM) directly from Executive Assistant.   The UI is good, with customizable colors and transparency, but nothing exceptional.  It is functional, though, and will probably be useful to many users looking to streamline the way they track various information.

You can use it in four different modes: as a normal app that you can launch, a home screen widget (you'll need to launch the full app to scroll through the full list of items), a welcome screen (for immediately using the app as soon as you unlock the phone) and a lock screen replacement for previewing all your information.  The lock screen was pretty good on a 2.1 ROM, though I've heard reports of flaky performance on 2.2 versions of Android.

Overall, Executive Assistant is a very useful app, especially if you don't have any other options for keeping track of your information in a unified screen.  Plus, the ad-supported version is free, so you can easily try it to see if the app suits the way you work.  Later, you can upgrade to the ad-free version which sells for $3.99.

[Appventive]

Onscreen keyboards make typing on a mobile phone much harder. However, the touch interface also allows for more inventive ways of text input. While everyone's still racing to find the most efficient way to make words appear using virtual keys, ShapeWriter sounds like a good alternative to use now.

Like Swype, it works by letting you drag your finger between letters to build words. Instead of just registering your taps and displaying the corresponding letter, it tracks the shape you create with the movement from one key to another. It then compares that shape to a database of words and, once it comes up with a match, will display the corresponding term, along with possible alternatives. Capitalization is handled automatically, although you can hold down the "Case" key to get all available options in case it doesn't get it right.

Because it removes the need to lift your finger off the screen to render a new word, it allows for considerably faster speed than conventional typing. It works quite accurately too, provided you're tracing through all the right keys you're supposed to.

ShapeWriter has over 50,000 words that you can shape-write by default. For new words not in the dictionary, you can tap the keys just like a regular keyboard, adding just one extra tap at the end to save it to the app's lexicon. The default keyboard layout (it offers a number of formats), which saves you the hassle of switching to a new screen for symbols, is also highly-appreciated.

One caveat: it does suffer from problems when you have too many apps open. When the keyboard lags, it ends up splitting the shape you traced into two words (or more), but that has more to do with you taxing the system than any real problem with the software.

Available free from the Android Market, ShapeWriter is arguably the best virtual keyboard you can get on the platform today.

[ShapeWriter]

Looking for an easy way to backup data on your Android phone to the cloud, just in case things go south? You may want to look at Cybersynchs, a new wireless synchronization app available on the Android Market.

Forget about storing address books and messages - the app stores practically everything. As of now, it can backup contacts, messages, voicemails, GPS locations, call logs, settings, ringtones and videos. Yep, no music (probably due to licensing issues), but they do promise to add more to that list of supported content.

With your data stored on the CyberSynchs server, you can easily access any backed-up information even without your Android handset. You can use the desktop app or the web interface, for instance, to grab photos you took or important messages you received when you accidentally leave your phone in the office. Even better, the service is supported in numerous other phones, including Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Mobile, so you can use a different handset to get access to your information when necessary (such as when you buy a new phone).

The interface is clean and simple, with very easy operation. You will need to set up an account from the website, though, rather than the app itself. After that, however, you can simply launch the app and sync at will. The sync can be run in the background, so you're free to use your phone while your hefty video collection uploads to the remote location. It's also a persistent app, so if Android closes it (as it usually does when freeing up memory for other apps), it will simply relaunch in the background at a specified time interval.

Overall, Cybersynchs is an excellent cloud backup service, with a simple but effective process. The app is free; the service, however, comes with a $2.99 monthly subscription. We think it's worth the price.

[Cybersynchs]

MLB's At Bat made its debut on the iPhone last year. This year, Android users get their turn at the service, which is an absolute must-have for any baseball fan.

While the app itself seems lightweight (0.9MB Android Market download), the features aren't. In fact, it's quite surprising to see how much functions they crammed into it, all in a clean and straightforward interface.

On first launch, you see all MLB games scheduled for the day, with options to navigate both forward and backward into the timeline. It's an easy way to see game schedules, as well as to check out past scores. Click on a game and you'll get detailed information about it, from box scores to pitch-by-pitch descriptions to video highlights. Unfortunately, no streaming video on At Bat 2010 for Android.

The main selling point here is the Gameday Audio, which lets you tune in to any game broadcast during the year, from spring training to the World Series. With a live data connection (3G or WiFi), you won't have to miss a single game anywhere you are. Do note that some pre-season games won't have audio available, but all games after that will have feeds for broadcasts from both home and away teams. Streaming isn't perfect (yes, audio is sometimes dropped), but the quality is good.

Priced at $14.99, MLB At Bat 2010 for Android may seem a bit too expensive at first crack. Consider that it gets you audio for all games during the year, along with a slew of scores and stats, however, and it actually sounds like a fair deal.  Sucks that streaming video isn't available, though.