Motorola Xoom: The Missing Manual

Chapter 5. Ten Great Android Apps

In the previous chapter, you learned how to download apps. Now it’s time to put that knowledge to good use. You can get plenty of great apps, with more written every day—everything from games to productivity tools, entertainment, information, and more.

This chapter introduces you to 10 of the hottest ones around. Don’t stop there, though—after you give these a try, go out and find your own new favorites. You may be the first to discover the next Angry Birds phenomenon!

Games

Angry Birds

Anyone’ll tell you: Angry Birds is the most addictive game you can download to your Xoom. It may well be the biggest productivity-killer since Solitaire for Windows 95. Once you start playing it, you’ll have a hard time stopping. “Just one more level,” you’ll keep telling yourself. An hour later….

An international phenomenon, the app is said to have been downloaded 100 million times and counting. Among the many who play the game, according to the Wall Street Journal are British Prime Minister David Cameron and the famous literary novelist Salman Rushdie, who in a radio interview, boasted that he is “something of a master at Angry Birds.”

It’s not only good enough for one of the most powerful politicians on the planet, and a potential candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature; the game has even begun to expand beyond the world of tablets. You can already buy Angry Birds ...