When I was in high school back in the day, sophomore year was The Year, because you could finally buy, and bring to class, a Texas Instruments graphing calculator, the litmus test of coolness. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but how many of us actually learned advanced graphing equations to make those funny-looking shapes kids love making? Most of us, I’d bet. Andie Graph for Android lets you turn your phone into a graphing calculator, a useful feature for engineers and mathematicians. Unlike most of the apps we review here, though, there is one extra step that is necessary before your phone will perform this app’s specific function, and that is that you download the ROM from your existing graphing calculator. For more information on how to do this, visit the Android Market link on your phone or PC, or visit the developer’s website by clicking http://dougmelton.com/andie-graph/%23faqs&usg=AFQjCNGVBf9lh1z855ejjkn_qmlhD6sCgA.   Less

Mp3 Music download for Android makes it easier than ever to search and play or download music from your favorite bands. This app seems almost too good to be true, but it really does work as well as advertised. While I did read a few reviews in the Android Market accusing the app of no longer working after some time, I haven’t had the app long enough to know if this is universally true. In my (brief) experience using Mp3 Music download, I was able to find a surprising amount of somewhat obscure music, and either play or download those songs. Searching through this app’s database is easy, and in searching for the most obscure artists I could think of, there were only very few I searched for that did not show up.   Less

Add special effects to your photos with Pixlr-o-matic, a fun, free app from Android. This pretty neat- though definitely limited- app lets you edit pictures stored in your gallery, or you can edit a picture you take while using the app. With options to “sepia tone” your image, or add a variety of tints, to letting you choose a frame for your image, to offering a variety of other unusual special effects, your boring cell phone snaps can get the Hollywood treatment, with Pixlr-o-matic for Andriod.   Less

Reliably entertaining app developer Zynga brings a new game to their Facebook-based arsenal, this time, a hangman-style game that lets you create your own puzzles and compete with a friend. Zynga’s Hanging with Friends lets you build a hangman puzzle from a pre-selected list of letters, which your opponent will then attempt to solve. Unlike traditional “hangman” games, there is no hanging man in Hanging with Friends. Instead, for each incorrect letter you choose, you get six chances to choose the wrong letter, and each time, an “x” will appear in your score box. Once you do win, however, you have the option of creating a puzzle for your friend. Like most of Zynga’s games, Hanging with Friends can be played across platforms (with iPhone users) and on Facebook. Unfortunately, the profusion of animations in the app’s background means that despite the game’s simplicity, it also has the potential to completely drain your battery.   Less

We all want to get the most out of our Android phones, and apps are often the way to do it. You have to be careful, though, that the app you downloaded doesn’t contain viruses, and Lookout Security and Antivirus can help you with that. And with the ability to bypass your device’s GPS settings, if your phone is ever lost or stolen, Lookout Security and Antivirus will help you locate it, even if your GPS is turned off. Lookout allows you to trial their app for free for 14 days, and after that, the app costs I don’t know how much it costs. As soon as you initialize your trial, Lookout Security and Antivirus will go through your downloaded apps and scan them for malware or spyware. I was happy that of my 141 applications, no malware or spyware was detected (I was surprised to have so many applications on my phone, too) and the test took less than a minute. You can use advanced location features from the Lookout website, which will help you do things like find your phone on a map (this won’t help you if you’ve just lost your phone in your house, though I recommend checking the washing machine), or emit a loud “scream” from your device to scare the fiends who stole it. If, however, the situation becomes dire, and you need to lock your device, or completely wipe clean your hard-drive, you will need to cough up for the Premium version of this app, but at that point, protecting your privacy from shady characters will likely be worth the cost.   Less

Commuters with 4G or WiFi access can rejoice- while streaming their favorite Netflix movies and shows to their Android phones. Netflix for Android turns your phone into a high-quality video streaming device, albeit with a tiny screen. While you can’t sign up for a Netflix account through this app, customers with existing accounts can log in using their app to view their “Continue Watching” list, top recommendations from Netflix, and to browse for streaming movies and DVDs. Once the new website changes go into effect, though, I don’t know how the DVD browsing feature will work, but then again, no one does. The Netflix player for Android has nice touchscreen features, including a timeline that lets you play or pause your video, or skip to the middle. You can even go full-screen without having to worry about any size-restricting borders. Be warned, though, that this app uses a lot of your battery. I did lose about 10% of charge after streaming about 30 seconds of video. Luckily, though, I never go far without my charger, and I suggest that if you download this app, to make sure you do the same.   Less

Consolidate medical and prescription information into one app with iTriage, for Android. While this app should never be used as a substitute for your doctor’s care, there are times when self-diagnosis comes in handy, and iTriage lets you input your symptoms before generating a list of possible ailments. Once you select the illness that sounds best (or worse, or most like what you have), the app will display a series of secondary features, including treatment options complete with recommended medications and a GPS-based list of specialists in your area. But while iTriage is a great place to store information, most of us don’t have the luxury of being able to see any doctor or specialist in our area, and even though you can input your specific health insurance plan from a long, prefilled list, the app has no way of filtering providers that accept your plan. Also, the only way to save your preferred doctor to this app is to search by location, rather than letting you simply input the name of your doctor. On the whole, though, while I’d recommend this app stay out of the hands of hypochondriacs, it’s useful to have in case of an emergency, or for maintaining peace of mind while awaiting an appointment with your physician.   Less

Save your voice minutes and talk to your friends with TiKL – Touch to talk for Android. This easy, walkie-talkie-style app lets you make VoIP, push to talk calls to other Android and iPhone, iPad or iTouch users who have the Facebook app. Just like Google Voice or Skype, TiKL uses data to let you talk to your contacts, which is useful for those of us without unlimited voice time, but not so much for people with limited data. What makes TiKL special is that it allows you to easily talk to multiple contacts at once, and the touch to talk feature is designed so that it’s pretty hard to be on a call without realizing it.   Less

In addition to containing a series of prebuilt flashcard decks, you can use Dictionary.com’s Flashcards app for Android to create your own deck of vocabulary flashcards to study on the go. In order to create a customized deck, you must submit some information, I’m guessing, that will either help the app’s advertisers better target you, or simply to provide demographic information to the developer. Once you’ve registered your email, name, age and gender, you can create your own deck by inputting words, then selecting from one or more definitions offered by Dictionary.com. In a previous review of the Dictionary.com app for Android, I lamented the omission of several real words, and so was unsurprised to find the same to be true for Flashcards. For instance, when I input “abnegation,” two definitions immediately populated, while “elision” elicited none (though this word can be found on the Dictionary.com website). This might make it more difficult to customize a deck for higher-level cramming, for tests like the LSAT or GRE, since there is no way to manually input a word’s meaning. It would also be useful to be able to return to the app’s home screen from wherever you are, which is not currently possible; instead, you must hit your device’s Back button repeatedly. But these limitations aside, the Flashcards app for Android is intuitive to use and also fun, as long as you call defining words from a list of four choices “fun” (and I sure do).    Less

In the somewhat adult-centric Android app market, it’s not always easy to find a well-designed app that also performs an educational function. Origami, by KarenElissa, does both. While the app is simple, and too basic for the advanced paper-folder, the layout is great, emulating typical origami instructions, but with the added benefit of putting each step onto a different screen. There are no detailed written instructions for diagrams in this app, which means that people with a basic knowledge of origami folds will have an easier time deciphering the steps in Origami for Android. And, as I mentioned earlier, this app focuses on basic patterns that Origami folders have probably made since childhood, I was pleased to find a diagram to build Google’s green “Droid”!   Less

Browse in style with the Dolphin Mini Browser for Android. With easy tab navigation, and a customizable homepage layout, browsing on Dolphin Mini is just like browsing the web on your PC. You can create your own touchscreen symbols to help you navigate to your favorite pages, and setting up all these customizable features is really easy. Plus, the tab navigation is easily the best part of this application- and there are even on-screen shortcuts that let you go back of forward a page. Dolphin Mini Browser is definitely better than the preloaded browser on Android phones, with more easily-customizable features and intuitive navigation.   Less

I always like to provide full disclosure, and here is something- I used to work for a software developer peripherally related to EA, so I’m always interested in new projects from this company. Plus, I grew up in the 90s, when EA really reigned supreme in gaming (hello, GoldenEye 007 and Sim City!). While this version of Tetris looks more streamlined than other versions of the game for Android devices, the unfortunate touchscreen-enabled piece rotation and dragging is hard to control. A tap on the screen turns your piece, and a drag pulls it down and to the side, but sometimes, it’s hard to not tap when you’re trying to drag, which all Tetris players know means the pieces turn the wrong way, at the worst time. And forget about dragging a piece under another one- it is basically impossible on my Samsung Galaxy Ace. Compared to other versions of the game that have handheld controller-styled buttons at the bottom, this one doesn’t match up. However, like I mentioned before, the game is styled really well, with colorful pieces, the traditional Tetris music we’re all used to, and if you do buy the paid version, you get “magical” mode, which drops down odd-shaped pieces and lets you pentris. However, I highly recommend you try before you buy, and if you have a trigger-happy thumb like I must, consider downloading Pentris, by MardelGames, instead.   Less

I know smoothie season is almost over, but let’s break out our blenders one last time in honor of this app for Android. Search the database for recipes by inputting an ingredient, or by scrolling through their list of favorites. This app is not at all complicated- in fact, it is very simply done, but when it comes to smoothie recipes, I don’t think design has to be overly complex. A nice feature included in this app lets you bookmark your favorite recipes, and an ad-free version is available at the Amazon app store.   Less

Since my few competitive poker experiences left me cleaned out, and occasionally unhappy with my friends, I can’t comment much on the experience of this app beyond the UI and display. And these are nice. I guess the main appeal of this app is for Facebook users who currently only play this game on their PCs. Zynga Poker for your Android device, though, lets you play by signing in to your Facebook account, or as an unregistered guest. With all the gaming apps that require you to provide personal information like your email address, this is a nice, relaxing change.    Less

I was first alerted to the existence of The Moron Test by some morons… I mean… friends who were visiting me. After learning neither of my friends could get past the third question, I became intrigued, and began wondering, myself, am I a moron? I’d like to think I’m not, but for the purposes of this review, I will go with whatever the app tells me, and judge it accordingly. It’s only fair. Well, this moron got through most of the sections without difficulty, until the trickster nature of this game tripped me up. Oh, well; the app does admit that I am a moderately intelligent mammal (how does it know I’m a mammal?) though I gave up once I had to alphabetize a number of subjectively-named objects. This was a fun game, and best of all, it makes it easy to compare my relatively superior intelligence to that of those around me. So, let me ask you, are you a moron?   Less

I was lucky enough, over the long weekend, to have some good friends visit me. One of them called me on Saturday morning, announcing she had bought five zucchinis at her local farmer’s market, and her conviction that I’d know “what to do with them.” With that aim in mind, I downloaded Conde Nast’s Epicurious app for Android. In the interests of full disclosure, I am long-time member of the epicurious.com website, and was surprised, upon opening the app, that I couldn’t sign into my account, where I have a prodigious library of saved, favorite recipes. However, the app for Android is easy to navigate, and lets you search by recipe type, meal, or do an ingredients keyword search. Once you find one you like (I recommend “My Kids’ Favorite Banana Pancakes”), you can add it to your Favorites, to be accessed from the app’s home page. And like the well-designed website, this app also includes the handy grocery list feature that will generate a list based on ingredients in the recipe you’d like to prepare. As for the zucchinis, some of them ended up in “Sweet Potato and Zucchini Bread,” which is currently being featured in my refrigerator.   Less

While most Android phones have a setting that allows your phone to detect open, available WiFi networks for your use, WiFi Finder for Android has a somewhat more sophisticated interface than an alert appearing on your status bar. For one thing, the app creates a map to help you find open networks that may not be in your immediate area. You can even input an address and find open wireless networks within miles of your location. However, listings for local rural and farther metro areas seemed scant, so I wonder how comprehensive or current this list can be. I also had to force-close the app once after it stopped responding, probably because I had multiple apps running. A nice feature of WiFi Finder is that it does not require a network connection if you have downloaded its World Wide Database.   Less

Although this app does offer seven handy tips to help you optimize your phone’s battery performance, the majority of their tips are simple commonsense (turn off your GPS to save battery life, switch off your WiFi when not using it, put your phone into airplane mode whenever possible), the main way to “optimize” your battery using this app is to allow it to force-close all running applications. Given that this is easily done using your phone’s preloaded Task Manager, or any task killing app, I can’t help feeling this app is extraneous for most Android users. However, opening the app offers a detailed graph showing the amount of battery life you have left, as well as a widget that tells you, at any time, the number of active tasks running on your device.   Less

For tech enthusiasts, APPY Geek for Android lets you customize your tech news alerts, helping you stay ahead of the tech curve. Add an APPY Geek widget to your home screen get updated on your subscribed feeds, or just open the app and view articles on your home page. The layout of this application is busy, but I guess that goes with the territory. Given that technology is so dynamic, it’s not surprising that “smart phone” or “Android Market” feeds have a tendency to fill up during the day. Easily add subject feeds to your list of “favorites,” and filter posts based on keywords. APPY Geek also lets you share articles and other content with your friends through social media, like Facebook, your email or via text message.    Less

Including a surprisingly vast list of quotes by the late, great Jimi Hendrix, Quotes Mania for Android lets you generate quotes by searching a catalog of well-known sayings from your favorite public figures or from a list of categories, with obvious ones like “Death,” and “Love” and some more baffling ones like “Failure,” some of which still manage to be uplifting. There are a few amateurish features of this app- for instance, there are three categories for “Truth & Peace,” “Truth & peace,” and finally, “Truth and Peace,” but overall, this is a fun app that lets quote-seekers find something appropriate for self-edification or to share with friends via email and other share features, and lets you post your favorite quotes directly to your Facebook status. You can also comment on quotes within the app’s social networking forum, but at the moment, the feature seems to be unpopular or at least underused.    Less

I had gotten used to the texting function on my last phone, a Motorola Milestone, when I started using the Samsung Galaxy Ace and realized the text message feature was completely different than what I had gotten used to. For one thing, no matter what my Settings, I could never get the QWERTY keypad on my Ace to go into portrait mode when it was turned horizontally. Downloading this app and setting up the portrait feature in Handcent SMS fixed that problem across the board for me- now I can use a sideways QWERTY keypad when browsing the Internet, while texting, and searching for apps in the Android Market. There is also a nice, large field in which to compose your texts (if you need) and a smaller one for quick messages, that doesn’t have a spellcheck, or a text to speech function. Though I haven’t managed to figure out how to turn off my original Android texting just yet (meaning, I get two alerts for every text I receive) I have every intention of keeping this app, and sending all of my texts with it.   Less

The Angry Birds are back, taking on pigs and protecting their eggs once again. In Angry Birds Seasons, the latest version released to celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, the Angry Birds travel to China to defeat pigs and win mooncakes, a pastry served during this holiday. Play 110 levels and unlock one new level a day for a month. New social media features allow you to send Angry Birds Seasons greeting cards to friends on Facebook.   Less

I was ready to declare this app impossible, but actually it is just a somewhat difficult and time-consuming puzzle game. After ten tries, and new levels, I finally solved one of these in the Beginner’s “Relaxation” mode. While I don’t hate this app quite as much now that I’ve managed to solve the tenth puzzle I tried, I don’t think I will ever play it again even if the concept is interesting. Using your touchscreen, slide vertical blocks up and down, and horizontal blocks from side to and clear a path for a horizontally-moving colored piece to exit through a hole. I suppose this is one of those games that encourages people to conceptualize a multi-step plan ahead of time, thereby improving that important hypothalamus function, but if you like a game with a happier medium between winning and losing, download Tetris instead.    Less

Although I laughed a little at this app developer’s claim that downloading matching wallpaper can rekindle romance with your significant other, Backgrounds for Android does offer a variety of wallpaper options for your device. Set your background to a variety of historical architecture images, landscape photography and more, all in high definition. User reviews in the Android Market back up that this is a good, solid wallpapers app, with periodic updates to add new image categories, and to fix bugs reported by users.   Less

When it comes to spending money, I think we can all agree that less is better. Turn your cell phone into a deal-stealing machine with GeoQpons for Android, and start shopping! The GPS-based app first locates deals in your area, then lists them in an alphabetized results list. Go through and find your favorite retailer, and pull up a variety of coupons codes available for online and in-store shopping, and share them on social media, by SMS, email it yourself to have a printable copy, or open and scan your coupon in-store. Some reviewers claimed that previous versions of the app didn’t allow for easy sharing, but newer versions have corrected that bug.   Less