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Top 10 Applications

Advanced Task Manager remains the most popular paid application and it shows no signs of slowing down. The developer Arron La recently updated his app to support Android 1.6 and is promising a “major update” in the next release. I personally love the app and consider it a must have for all Android users.

Documents to Go continues to climb the charts. They recently updated their app to version 2.0 which added support for Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe PDF files. Their latest update also reduced the application size by 25% and now supports eight languages. Dataviz offers a free version of Documents to go which allows users the ability to view Word and Excel files.

Bluex dropped three spots because the application does not support Android 1.6. Developers need to be ahead of the curve if they want to remain at the top of the best selling list.

Power Manager has fallen hard the last couple of months and I expect it will be off the charts next time. The latest Android 1.6 update adds several enhancements to improve battery life. The new Battery Use report in Android 1.6 displays exactly which applications and functions are eating up battery.

Finally, one trend I have noticed among the top selling apps is the ability to purchase the app from a source other than Android Market. Some developers have chosen alternative markets like SlideME and others are offering direct purchase from their website. Many countries still lack the ability to purchase paid applications from the Android Market so it is important to provide other payment options.

Top 10 Games

If a developer wants to remain at the top, they need to release regular updates and Lupis Labs has done this with Robo Defense. Lupis Labs recently pushed out a new version of Robo Defense which included bug fixes and added a new boss character. Robo Defense remains a popular game among its fans maintaining a 4.93 out of 5 rating.

HeroCraft released their first Android title early in September and it debuted at number seven. Farm Frenzy is a farming simulator that allows you to look after chickens, sheep and cows and produce cakes, wool, butter and cheese. It appears HeroCraft has a large library of games for other phone platforms so hopefully they will port more titles to Android.

Google just released the Android 1.6 NDK which includes enhanced support for OpenGL ES 1.1 so hopefully developers will take advantage of this in upcoming titles. We are finally starting to see true 3D games like Speed Forge 3D and I hope this is a sign more games are on the way. It really is amazing that so few developers have been able to take full advantage of the powerful hardware found inside the current Android phones.

Nielsen has reported that CNN is the number one mobile news provider. That’s why it makes perfect sense that CNN would have their own iPhone application. The app provides a new experience that is multimedia centered including articles with photos and video. For those amateur journalists the application even includes the ability to upload reports to iReport.com which features user-generated content.

The app includes live breaking news video, push notification, localization, and personalization tools. “My CNN” gives users the ability to access local news, weather, and traffic based on a user’s actual location or through a user selected location. Other personalization tools include the ability to follow a story or topic with push updates to the device.

If you don’t have access to the Internet, the CNN iPhone app will allow you to save content so you can access the text of a story even when you are offline. Of course, CNN was also smart enough to include social networking features within the application. This allows iPhone users to share stories via SMS, Twitter, or Facebook. The app also takes advantage of navigation features by allowing articles to be flipped through quickly when the iPhone is placed horizontally.

The CNN iPhone app is available via the iTunes App Store and will retail for US$1.99.

Read more at the CNN press release and the CNN iPhone website

Brian’s Opinion

It’s nice to see a news organization actually takes the time to put out an iPhone app that takes advantage of the iPhone’s features. I love the fact that articles can be scrolled through horizontally like you can do with music albums. Also, it was smart of CNN to lean on the popularity of social networking by allowing articles to be shared via Facebook and Twitter. That’s not a bad way to market CNN’s news reports.

Another thing I like about the application is that the application is very visually appealing. Text is great for reading the content of a story, but it’s videos and photos which really draw readers in. Breaking news video is also enticing to draw viewers into CNN’s content.

Probably the best feature of the application is the ability to upload user content to iReport.com. CNN has really given users the tools they need to drive the user-generated content of the website

Today I’ll be taking a look at the top 10 Facebook applications that are all about play. These apps are all about fun, and will probably waste time when you should be working. But, hey, we all need to to have a little fun. This is a completely subjective list, so not everyone will agree with our picks and I encourage you to debate them in the comments.

Games

I had one main requirement for a flash gaming app: Desktop Tower Defense. Of the various game apps — and there are many – Games from RockYou! meets that requirement, and also integrates with Facebook better than most flash game apps. Flash games + Facebook = very little work getting done.

Matches

Matches is about secret admirers. If you have a crush on someone, list them as a match, and they won’t find out unless they also express interest in you. Of course, there is a slight flaw in this app. The app tells users when someone has expressed interest in them, and because Facebook lists which of your friends use each app, unless most of yours have Matches installed it should be pretty easy to figure out who has that crush.

Bookshelf

There are enough Facebook apps for rating and reviewing your book collection that they could fill out their own top 10 list. Bookshelf is neither the oldest nor the largest, but in my opinion its the best, even though it is a bit rough around the edges (I got some error messages, and some people have had some trouble importing from outside services, like LibraryThing). Bookshelf supports books, DVDs, games, and music, and lets you browse not only your friends collections, but also those within your network. Bookshelf also makes pretty accurate suggestions based on your Facebook profile before you’ve even added an item. The developers were smart to include an invite form as part of the install process, which should help spread the app faster.

BandTracker

BandTracker, an app from classifieds site Oodle, lets users track over 200,000 different bands and find out when they’re coming to play in their area. The app also lets you see who your friends are tracking so you can find new music, or hook up with buddies to go to shows with.

Food Fight!

Food Fight! is one of the more silly apps on Facebook, but so far has already attracted nearly 1.8 million users. The premise is simple, each day you earn money with which you can purchase food to toss at your friends. The creators of the app have cleverly sprinkled ads for their other Facebook properties all around the Food Fight! applications, which has led to them owning a handful of the more popular apps on the platform.

Quizzes

Quizzes is an app that lets you create a quiz about yourself to find out how well your friends really know you. Which of your friends knows your nickname or your favorite pizza topping? Back when I was in high school, there was an app like this for AOL Instant Messenger profiles that spread like wildfire, and Quizzes seems to be doing just that with over 1.7 million users in just a couple of months.

Pets

There are multiple virtual pet apps on Facebook, but the simply named Pets is the only one I could find that adds elements of a role playing game. Pets lets you build up your pet’s strength, buy gear for it, and then battle with other pets. Your friends can even help you out by petting or feeding your virtual pal. You can think of it as something like Pokemon for Facebook. Unfortunately a couple of features are disabled at the moment.

Honesty Box

Of all the requests I get to install applications, I get requests for Honesty Box the most — I wonder what that means people want to say to me. Honesty Box is an app that lets your friends leave anonymous messages for you, both positive and negative. If your friends are too polite to let you know your new haircut makes you look like Herman Munster, then perhaps installing Honesty Box would be a good idea. Unfortunately, because Facebook tells you which of your friends have each app installed, this app suffers from the same flaw as Matches.

Stories

Being a writer, I had to include a collaborative writing application. Stories lets you write stories with your friends tiny bits at a time. There are a few annoying things about this application (like if you don’t fill out all the required fields it erases the ones you have filled out — including whatever you’re trying to add to the story), but in all it is pretty fun, and ideal for silly stream of consciousness collaborations created with friends.

Scrabulous

If you’re like me, you love Scrabble but aren’t too keen on the board set up and random letter tile distribution of Yahoo!’s Literati game. Enter Scrabulous, the companion Facebook app of a web site by the same name. Though likely infringing on any number of Hasbro trademarks, Scrabulous is a faithful reproduction of Scrabble game play that would make any logophile happy. It’s not real-time, but that’s actually not so necessary as Scrabble can be played one turn at a time.