Android Apps That Feed My Real Estate Droid

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A lot of the brokers in my office found Droids in their Christmas stockings this past year. We are all working hard to integrate them into our real estate business without getting too sidetracked with our new toys.  We decided to put together a “Droid Users Group” and along with a little pizza and beer we are going to help each other turn these toys into tools. At this next meeting we are all tasked with bringing a list of the top applications that we use to make our life or business better, smoother or more organized. Here is my list in no particular order:

1)      Dropbox: A free service that allows you to set up a folder on each of your computers and your droid. Whenever you save a file in the folder, or update a file that is already in the folder it automatically updates it across all of your devices. This is also a great way to get started with saving/backing up your files “in the cloud”.  Here is a link to set up Dropbox then simply download the Dropbox app from the Android Market on your phone.

2)      Evernote: This is similar to Dropbox, it too is free and allows you to store and easily retrieve information from any of your devices or from any computer that you can log onto the internet with. I do like its ability to allow you to search all of the documents easily. You can also easily send things into your Evernote account via e-mail. Click here for Evernote.

3)      Advanced Task Killer: This program make it easy to shut down applications that might be running in the background on your Droid. The goal here is to make your droid run a little faster and allow your battery to work a little longer. This program is free just go to the Android Market on your phone.

4)      gReader: With all of the information coming at us from so many directions this is a great tool to keep up with news and information in the real estate world (or any topic of your choice). It is easy to set up within your Google account, pick what blogs you want to follow then download this app into your Droid and you are ready to read.

5)      Astrid Task and/or Got To Do: I’m torn between these two. They are both good to do list programs. Got To Do has more features and links with your Toodledo account online. Got To Do is based on the GTD or Getting Things Done program that you may have heard David Allen speak about. Astrid Task seems very straight forward and is a little easier to use.

6)      Gesture Search: This was my first app that I downloaded and makes finding your contacts easier and quicker. Using your finger,  just start drawing out the letters of the name you are looking for and the list auto populates. Beats trying to key in the name on the keyboard.

7)      Wine+….ok, so this has little to do with real estate, and everything to do with quality of life.  This is my most expensive application coming in at $2.99…..yes American. It allows me to take a picture of the wine label or scan the bar code, take notes on the wine and rate it for later reference. There is so much good wine and so little time, this is a wonderful hand held tool that will help me keep track of it all.

8)      Barcode Scanner: This is a handy little tool when you see one of these new fangled QR codes. Scan the code and it will either read for you what it says or direct you to a website. According to the website you can also use this to scan typical bar codes in the store though I’ve not tried it yet. It does work on some of the wines I’ve tried it on.

9)      Meebo IM: This is a neat cross platform IM tool. Regardless of what IM service provider you use or your friends use this will allow you to communicate. I use it when I’m out of the office to communicate with our Support Staff Team. Since Meebo is also a computer based application they can stay logged in all day and send me a question or comment and I can easily respond from my phone.

10)   FaceBook Ap: Can we really go anywhere without it these days?

11)   FX Camera: I find this to be better than the camera software that came with the phone. A few more tools, a little quicker and easier to e-mail.

Everyone has their favorites, I’d love to see yours.