Android™ 3 SDK Programming For Dummies®

Chapter 15

The Ten Most Illustrative Applications for Android

In This Chapter

• Useful and engaging Android apps
• Applications that illustrate the various features of the Android SDK

After experimenting with approximately 300 apps in the Android Market we have found what we think are the 10 outstanding Android apps to showcase in this chapter. We present these 10 apps in four popular categories: gaming and entertainment, productivity, health and wellness, and map-based. The idea is to give you a sense of how feature-rich and engaging an app must be in order to be successful in the Android Market. The apps we chose also nicely illustrate the use of the various Android capabilities we describe in earlier chapters, so we point out these uses in our descriptions.

Some apps in this chapter showcase the more complex capabilities of the Android SDK that we don't cover in this book. We point them out as well so that at least you know they exist and can find out more from the resources we list in Chapter 14.

The nice part about these apps is that you don't have to spend money for them — because they're all free.

Angry Birds (Rovio Mobile Ltd.)

Angry Birds is one of the most addictive games ever, and it's technically well done. In addition to its attractive, smooth, and silky graphics, it incorporates realistic physics and has a plethora of levels (440 of them) to keep you engaged.

Playing Angry Birds is simple (see Figure 15-1): In a nutshell, you catapult cute — and annoying — birds at ...