WaveSecure
WaveSecure is the must have security app on your phone. It can help track down lost or stolen phones, remotely track the location of the phone/sim information, and even remotely lock or wipe the phone is needed. In addition, you can use it to backup/restore data on your phone. Finally, if your phone is stolen and a new sim card in inserted, WaveSecure will lock down the phone unless the secure code is entered.
WaveSecure is currently free for Android but costs $19.90 per year subscription on other platforms.

Contact Owner
You can never be too paranoid. Another security app that displays your (or anyone else’s ) contact information on the “lock screen” of your Android device, so that if you happen to lose it the finder will know how to contact you.

Advanced Task Manager
While there are other free task managers, this app is a step above and beyond. The user interface is well thought out, clean and professional. You can view process/system level information, memory footprints of currently running apps and if you have root access, you can terminate running apps. You can also white-list apps that should not be terminated.
Currently sells for 99c.

Google Voice
If you make plenty of long distance/international calling, this is a must have app. No longer do you need to call a central line, remember passcodes and then dial the international number. Just setup international dialing through voice, and dial away just like you would any local contact. International rates are very reasonable and sound quality is impeccable. In addition, messaging to and from voice is free and no text messaging charges apply. Check out the site for all the other goodies that generally apply to Google Voice and aren’t specific to Android.

Wifi tether for Root Users
This doesn’t apply to the community as a whole because you need to be running a custom ROM with root access. This app created a wireless access point to which you can connect your laptop to and then tether connections through your phone’s data connection. It couldn’t be easier to setup, supports encryption and in general works great.

There are many other apps that came close but didn’t make the top 5 cut. Some of them include Gesture Search, Juice Defender, Meebo IM, Shazam and Sipdroid.

Here are screenshots from Google for what girlfriend expect from their boyfriends and vice-versa.

Another example is how people look for depending on where you are on the world. The first is an example of US searches. The second for searches in India.

Interesting huh?

The iPhone looks great. You can’t beat how even the worst apps look so good. However, if you want a smart computer in your hands, this isn’t it. Sure you can check email and browse but you can’t background apps, everything is tightly controlled by Apple making it very frustrating for a tech buff like me to appreciate.

The G1 shine in these areas. However, it’s also its pitfall. I’m running cyanogen’s modified ROM. It gives me the latest and greatest in Android releases which I cannot get officially. But I also get random crashes, extreme slowness at times and other quirks that make the phone unusable at times. You could argue I could stick with the standard Google ROM. But then I’m running software that is a year old. Also, by running the official ROM, it does resolve all my issues. I can still run multiple apps in the background. This still makes the 500Mhz processor crawl to a halt at times. Since Android cannot control what apps are good or bad, or how much processing times each app takes up, it ends up making the phone unusable. If I stop all backgrounding apps, the phone is useful again but then, its just the iPhone.

So does iPhone have it right then. Yes and no. The ‘closed’ Apple policy has advantages. It can control things like user experience by blocking on not providing certain features (ie backgrounding, full bluetooth control etc). Users end up with a phone that works well under most circumstances and with ample battery life.

Android provides users with the platform ‘openness’. However, this leads users frustrated with a phone that could potentially run terribly slow or drain the battery within hours of use.

I think Android has the right approach. A lot of the problems are limitations of hardware. A faster processor, better battery can go a long way to alleviate the current issues. The openness is a more important aspect to maintain. Early adopters will feel the pain.

In the meantime, if someone has an old SE phone, I’d love to have it.

Well, here is the solution. And it is of course from Google.

http://www.seobook.com/excuse-me-where-did-googles-organic-search-results-go

Now, we have a new wave of Apple-hating Google fanboys. Google’s evilness has been slowly but surely growing and with that is an increasing number of followers who swear by the google way. Andriod is the latest in this wave of followers which includes editors for the Washington post. If Apple introduces a hidden kill-switch on the iPhone, its baaaaaad. But Google does it, anounces it (they obviously know it will be found and don’t want the Apple bad publicity) it is great. Infact, it is for the better good.

Hmmm.. And the logic is even better. Google system is open and so people could exploit users but putting out malicious software that users can install and cause havoc. Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah, every OS in the world connected to the internet download stupid stuff like Anna Kournikova naked apps. Hmmm, I wonder how the Washington Post would like Microsoft to automatically delete software they bought just because they think it will be malicious.