With Great Tech Toys Comes... More Great Tech Toys!

There's been a recent explosion of new gadgetry (both software and hardware) for the Android OS over the past couple of months. Here are some of my favorite discoveries:

ShapeWriter and Swype. Why type when you can swipe a message many times faster and more accurately? As of this writing, I have both installed for free, but I understand that Swype will be exiting beta soon and may have a price tag afterwards. ShapeWriter is also now off the market for free and will be signing licensing deals with individual carriers/phones (up to 50 this year). As long as the price is right (hopefully free!), I'm stickign with this technology. It is light years ahead of other input methods for mobile devices.

RockPlayerBase. Play all kinds of video on your Android device. Excellent app.

Apps Organizer. Forget folders. Tagging/Labeling your apps and then creating shortcuts to the labels is THE best way to organize apps on Android!

Google Voice on Android

In anticipation of my HTC Incredible (shipping next week), I had a friend of mine invite me to Google Voice. I had heard you could do free SMS messaging over the service, but I had no idea how truly powerful it actually is. I will be switching my phone number to take full advantage of the features, but it's well worth it. The best part? Most of the services are available through ANY phone I add to the account! Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile take note. This is what mobile phones SHOULD be capable of with nothing more than a phone connection.

• transcribed voicemail as e-mail and/or text message to multiple locations
• block individual numbers
• free text messaging (if you have a smartphone, you can cancel anything you currently use, this is much better)
• cheap international calling
• custom voicemail greetings based on GMail/GVoice contact lists
• conference calling
• recording calls
• receive calls on multiple phones from one number

Here's a full list of features for the service and for the phone app.