App-tastic!

Everyone knows about apps.  Get this app and you gotta have that app.  Where do you get them?  With Android there are many places!   First of all you can go to the Android Market.  There will be a shortcut already installed on your phone.  You can just tap and launch it and start browsing the thousands of apps available to you.  Searching, browsing, and installing are all very easy to do!

There are also options available right from you computer!  That's right!  Instead of browsing around on your phone you can check out everything through your browser.  You can browse to the market here https://market.android.com/.  Once you find something that you like and purchase it, the app will be sent to your phone where you can install it at your convience.

Some alternative sites are AppBrain found at www.appbrain.com.  This is a nice way to not only find and get the apps that you want but it has a lot of suggestions broken down by category.  It's a good way of discovering some apps that you might overlook or never thought of searching for in the past.

Another source for apps that I found is Appolicious found at http://www.androidapps.com/.  This is very similar to AppBrain with a little different layout.  Both of these sites make use of QR codes too.  A QR code is basically like a bar code that you would find on any normal item that you would purchase in the store except it is more like a squiggly square.  To use this you just need to install a bar code reader app on your phone from any of the markets and scan the code that comes up on your screen that is next to the app that you want.  Once scanned, your phone will pop up a link for you to tap on to download the app!  Easy!

Have you ever heard of Amazon.com?  I bet you have.  Did you know that they have a fully stocked app store too?  One really nice thing that they have is a free paid app every day!  And these aren't just junk apps either.  An Amazon.com account is necessary to get apps from them and you need to install the Amazon App Store app on your phone.  Then purchasing apps if similar to using any of the other services.  Even if you decide not to use Amazon as your primary store, the free app a day should be checked out anyway.

There are many, many other ways to get apps on your phone as well.  Most are legal and some....not so much.  It is great to have the choice on where you can go shop!

These are some of the app markets that I have used.  Where do you go to get your apps?  Are there better places than the ones I brought up here?  Did I miss any big features that everyone should know about?  Help me out.  I enjoy any feed back that I can get.

Have fun and enjoy those apps!
Brian