Software : In Depth: 18 best Android apps - paid apps |
| In Depth: 18 best Android apps - paid apps Posted:  18 best Android apps - paid appsWe've already shown you our favourite 60 best free Android apps, but what of the produce from those developers keen to actually make a bit of money from spending all their spare time hunched over a development phone?
It is possible to find free alternatives that offer similar features to most of the below apps, but some of the paid-for app crowd are simply so polished and innovative you feel duty-bound to occasionally throw the maker a couple of quid as a thank you. And don't panic because we're mentioning money here - the average cost of this little lot is around two dollars a pop. In return, you're able to tether, customise, share data and more, all in incredible style, thanks to the work of Team Android's finest people. Read on for our pick of the 10 best paid-for Android apps... 1. EasyTether, £6.47A rather steep asking price on this one, but it's worth paying - that one-off fee lets you use any Android phone as a 3G modem, freeing yourself from the misery of having to use wireless hotspots. The free demo works for causal browsing, but refuses secure (https) connections, rendering half the internet broken. Hence you might want to buy the full app.
2. Beautiful Widgets, £2The maker of this app got into a bit of trouble with HTC for cloning its HTC Sense UI look a little too well, but a few rejigged fonts soon fixed that and got it back on the Android Market. Your micro-transaction gets you a stunning collection of clocks and weather icons, bringing Sense-like style to any boring 'vanilla' Android home screen.
3. Touiteur Premium - £3.73You may well think there's not much room for a paid-for Twitter app on Android, with the likes of Seesmic and the official Twitter client already doing a damn fine job. But for £3.73 the 'Pro' version of Plume (previously known as Touiteur) adds a home screen widget, in-app browser and support for the Twitlonger protocol. For the 'power' user in you.
4. Vignette, £2.99The quite frankly terrible standard Android camera app can be customised too, thank god, with superb tools like Vignette bringing numerous effects and shooting options to all Android handsets. A self-timer and geo-tagging tools are the headline additions, while casual snappers will love the wacky colourisation toys. Make your phone's camera actually useful.
5. More Icons Widget, $1.99A superb little enhancement that really ought to win the creator a job and substantial pay cheque from Google, this manages to miniaturise four app icons and squeeze them into the space usually occupied by one. Looks a bit scruffy around the edges, but if you want everything contained on the one screen, it does the job.
6. Spotify, £9.99 subscriptionThe streaming music service that's taken Europe by storm. You basically get what seems like all the music ever recorded, apart from the newest stuff, for free, in exchange for a £9.99 per month subscription. There's also offline syncing so it doesn't break if you're out of wi-fi range, plus access to all your PC playlists - and multitasking so it doesn't go quiet if you need your phone for something else.
7. DroidBox Pro, $1.99The developer of DroidBox has somehow managed to squeeze more features into his Dropbox-compatible app than are contained within the rather feature-light official Dropbox Android client, with this unofficial enhancement of Dropbox's web interface letting you create folders, force uploads and generally tinker with things as Android users are wont to do.
8. Documents To Go, $14.99If you have a tiresome job that requires constant access to the 'Torture Suite' made up of Excel, PowerPoint and PDF, you can probably put a copy of Documents To Go on expenses, letting you read and edit popular PC file formats on the go. Managing a complex Excel spreadsheet on a HTC Tattoo might be a bit of a chore, but if you're stuck in an airport for 36 hours it could be a lifesaver.
9. Tasker - £3.99Tasker set the trend for mobile automation, letting users control their phones by time, location, battery status and more, creating a whole range of criteria for your telephone to follow, automatically. A few Android hardware makers, most notably Motorola, are copying some of Tasker's finest features, but none go as deep or let you control as much as this great app.
10. SwiftKey X, £1.86The fantastic little alternate Android keyboard takes next-press prediction to the next level, analysing your typing style so it can guess the next word you're about to type. If you get lucky by starting to write a sentence similar to one you've already bashed out before, all you have to do is keep tapping the words that come up. SwiftKey X also provides a tablet version offering a choice of layouts, too.
11. TuneIn Radio Pro, £0.61There's also a free version of TuneIn Radio Pro out there on Google's Play Store, but it's an app that's well worth upgrading to the pro version if you're a big user of internet radio. The paid app unlocks full recording features, along with timeshifting powers, so you can pause streams, or initiate your own "rewinds" of tracks you like, easily recording them to your phone for... legitimate back-up purposes.
12. Paper Camera, £1.19You might think this is some sort of silly, photo-ruining novelty judging it on still images alone, but it's really very clever. Paper Camera's many filters are applied live, completely transforming images into very accurate cartoon drawings, with stacks of other effects available too. The newest version captures images at a higher resolution than it used to, creating pics that are much more interesting than the usual bland image filters.
13. Endomondo Sports Tracker PRO, £2.64If you're one of those annoying people who always need to endlessly boast about it on Twitter after going on a bloody bike ride, Endomondo's the app for you. This paid version of Endomondo offers more in terms of post-exercise analysis, an "audio coach" to help you better a previously recorded workout, plus calorie-counting for those who've got a guilty pub lunch and several lagers to burn off before bed time.
14. Flight Track, £2.99Get that trapped-on-an-aeroplane feeling every day with this, which lets you track flights, live, also pulling in departures and arrivals data via over 16,000 airports around the world. Flight Track is either for heavy travellers or aeroplane nerds, offering delay information, the ability to call up seating plans, or even check the weather along a route, in case you're worried about the possibility of heading into a tropical storm.
15. Instapaper, £1.93The iOS virtual photocopier app Instapaper has now appeared on Android, giving users a stylish and simple way to copy and save web pages for reading later, or when offline. Text is jazzed up a little, too, with the option to change font and colours to make certain things more legible and Kindle-like in presentation, ideal for when you've got a long trip ahead and have a stack of Daily Mail outrage to catch up on.
16. Rail Planner Live, £3.49Using data provided by National Rail Enquiries should ensure you're kept abreast in the very latest snow and leaf based hindrances to travel, plus Rail Planner Live also incorporates a ticket buying system complete with in-app payments, lets you set up SMS alerts for specific routes, and even bring up your nearest station on a map using GPS, should you be very drunk and lost in some unfamiliar borough.
17. London Bus Checker, £1.99Or, if you'd rather bus it, this one's fantastic for residents of the big city. London Bus Checker also pulls in official data, serving up the digital display feeds from actual bus stops on your phone, meaning you can stay in bed for three minutes longer if the number 177's stuck somewhere in roadworks at New Cross Gate. It covers all of London's 20,000 stops and also has full route maps inside.
18. UK Birds, £0.50Or, if you live in the country and are plagued by the constant cheeping sounds that come out of those weird, organic little fluffy things that seem to live in all the trees, this might be of more use. UK Birds contains data on around 600 types of UK bird, so you can learn your tits from your chaffs and finally have something to talk to your granddad about.
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