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Topic: Android

Top apps for the Nexus 7: Early 2013 edition

Summary: The Nexus 7 is one of the best tablets on the market. It's even better with these apps installed.

James Kendrick

By for Mobile News |

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AirCalc and HD Widgets

AirCalc

There are so many calculator apps for Android that there is a good one no matter what your needs might be. They all have one major problem, though, they take up the whole screen blocking what you are doing.

In steps AirCalc to address this. It is a floating calculator that lets you do your math without blocking the screen. It pops up when called and gets out of the way when you're done. It's my favorite utility on the Nexus 7.

Free

HD Widgets

Widgets make Android a thing of useful beauty, and HD Widgets is as good as any. It is configurable to make it as big and useful as the user might want. It has the standard clock and weather modules that can be sized to fit the home screen as desired. All modules are high resolution taking full advantage of the Nexus 7 display.

$1.99

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Topics: Android, Apps, Tablets

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18 comments
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  • How the nexus running

    James, has your nexus 7 smoothed out? I was less than happy with JB 4.2 (although runs great on the galaxy nexus), as you had mentioned, and finally had an excuse to flash a custom ROM - CM10 which is 4.1 based. Its back to its former self and some nice enhancements like being able to read USB sticks.
    DrWong
    Reply Vote

    • Running smooth now

      It's snappy, don't remember if there was a recent update or not.
      JamesKendrick
      Reply Vote

  • Chrome

    Chrome is such a great browser there's really no need to use any other, which is a shame since there are many great browsers on Android (Firefox and Opera were my faves, back when I owned a tablet taht couldn't run Chrome).
    dsf3g
    Reply Vote

    • What's great about it?

      You can't even export your passwords. Google is using the same old Microsoft tactics to tie you to their products.
      martin sydney
      Reply Vote

      • What???

        That is in sync between devices.

        as for doing the same thing as MS, nope... Not exporting passwords is a security thing.
        slickjim
        Reply Vote

    • There is one way FF on Nexus beats Chrome.

      With the current FF Beta, you can install the last available Flash software APK, and then FF can run Flash. Flash websites still exist, and in fact a number of arts" related sites depend on Flash utterly. And it isn't that uncommon to see where the interface experience needs to be tightly controlled.
      rberman
      Reply Vote

      • There is one way Chrome beats FF on Android

        According to my research, Chrome is the only major browser on Android with "private browsing" or "incognito" mode (not counting sketchy small-developer privacy-dedicated browsers)
        Geedavey
        Reply Vote

  • personally I find firefox to be much better than chrome on android

    in my experience it's faster, renders desktop pages better, and flash works with it, unlike chrome (how on earth could Google leave that out?)
    add to this the wide range of extensions available and IMO it's the clear choice (the only one which I really use is adblock pro- but this alone is a reason to use firefox over android)
    theoilman
    Reply Vote

    • WHY Flash is not supported in Chrome, and is not recommended

      The reason Flash is not supported on Apple products, and not in Chrome (for Android) AND is generally not recommended for future uses, is that Macromedia have created a security black hole. Flash is pretty much both an invitation and a wide open door into your computer. Macromedia have never been able to make a dent in the massive security flaw that is Flash.

      Any security adviser will tell you to uninstall Flash and never use it, on any system that you wish to secure from attack. That's because there is no way to secure Flash. It just can't be done.

      Hopefully that answers your "how on earth" question.
      rberman
      Reply Vote

  • Half these are already installed

    Half of these are already installed when first opening the Nexus, all Google apps are already there (Gmail, Google+, Chrome), no need to install them.

    Also for those with Microsoft ties, I recommend OneNote and SkyDrive apps. OneNote saves the notebook on your SkyDrive and is then accessible from anywhere through OneNote or the OneNote webapp (on the PC).

    I love Evernote, but it's still have some missing features compare to its desktop counterpart (not all text formatting are supported) as well as some bugs, like when a URL was pasted from the desktop app into a note the Android version would have the & symbol in the URL encoded in HTML (as & therefore breaking the link), is it a problem with the desktop version as pasting the URL from Android doesn't do this.

    Still better than the Windows 8/RT (Metro) and Windows Phone 8 versions in which there are absolutely no text formatting options (Bold, Italic, etc).

    As for browsers, if you side-load Flash (as it cannot be installed from Google Play on Jelly Bean, the apk file can be found on Adobe site) you need another browser than Chrome to use it like Firefox, Dolphin or Opera (Dolphin seems to support Flash the best).
    lepoete73
    Reply 1 Vote

    • one thing I love about evernote though

      is the skitch app. skitch is the perfect app to annotate pictures, and they're all automatically uploaded into your evernote account. my wife & I both use this feature constantly.
      theoilman
      Reply Vote

  • Why Pay?

    Why pay $15 for QuickOffice when you can get Kingsoft Office for free? Easy to use and powerful, KO can also open password-protected office files. I wished I had come across Kingsoft before I shelled out $15 for my Documents to Go.
    ReadandShare
    Reply 4 Votes

    • I agree

      Kingsoft Office rocks and it gets more updates than any app I have seen to date!
      slickjim
      Reply Vote

  • Chameleon

    Have you actually used it?! Unless there had been a major change made within the last 2 weeks, I have to strongly disagree. I was excited by the idea and was one of the original contributors. What I got from it was a half baked idea that it appeared the developers abandoned it around late November. In our thread on xda (which I note have to check fit a possible update
    jamerican413
    Reply Vote

  • Chameleon (hard to type on a phone!)

    On the xda thread for Chameleon, there is largely disappointment - and that's from people who paid $3 instead of $10. For the longest time, there were no widgets. The ones we have seen were very limited and don't work as well add other third party or native widgets. It takes forever to load an environment and overall, I just don't find it any more useful than using the tablet pure stock. If things have changed (I just deleted it a few days ago), great. I just want anyone who is intrigued by the idea to know what they're possibly not getting.
    jamerican413
    Reply Vote

  • G+ is better than the desktop version!

    Surfing G+ using the mobile version is more efficient -- and fun -- than the desktop version. Really cool. I also like "Eye in the Sky" weather app.
    zaine_ridling
    Reply Vote

    • Not exactly...

      Using it for viewing circles is a pain on the mobile devices.
      slickjim
      Reply Vote

  • Article Format

    ZD Net only had one important New Year's Resolution this year. '"No Slide Show Articles with out a prominent 'View-as-one-page' link." How's that working out for you so far?
    Leo Regulus
    Reply Vote
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