So I successfully made the switch from Iphone to Android over the weekend. This is the thread where you guys tell me about the apps and other gizmos I need.

I still haven't settled on a music/podcast player (I haven't even tried the one that came with the phone) and I'd like something a bit more iphone-ish in the email department. Otherwise, it's working out well.

which one did you get and what was your motivation to switch

Tmobile mytouch 4G

Top five reasons to switch

1. My iphone 3G had gotten so slow that I was going to need a new phone anyway and my contract was up.
2. I knew (because my brother uses them) that Tmobile's signal is great (HSPA+ or whatever) everywhere I go
3. I could save about a $100/month on the bill and actually have more features
4. Instead of $400 for two new iphones, I paid less than $60
5. I use a lot of Google stuff (especially Voice) that works better on Android.

Also, I've had AT&T 8 of the last 12 years. Something had to give.

The wifi calling on T-Mobile's Androids should be pretty awesome. I bought a used Cliq 2 off ebay. I like their hardware and love having a physical keyboard. You can't beat T-Mobile's pricing. (Coverage when travelling is when things get questionable.)

I've been updating this thread with the apps that I use most.

Gmail unread count Little app that adds unread count to the Gmail icon.
Catch Notetaking app that uses Google login and sync
CallTrack Records call history on your Google Calendar. I'm terrible about remembering when I actually made/took a call, and my phone is clumsy about retrieving it.

Ok these are actually useful.

If you're phone doesn't have a physical keyboard, swype is awesome (It was included with my Droid X, but you may have to pay for it - you just trace your finger from letter to letter rather than type like on a keypad). For web browsing, I use the dolphin browser. I like the Car Home app as a replacement for the stock CarDock. Google Goggles is awesome - point your camera at the bar code of a product box and see what the online price is and read product reviews. Angry Birds is awesome. Ringdroid is great for making ringtones from mp3s.

I tried Winamp, but I find the stock music player to be fine.

Rooting is also pretty easy. Do this if you want to disable the ads displayed in ad-ware, use your phone as a wifi hotspot for free, or do some hacking.

You can customize pretty much everything. I guess you could probably do that with the iPhone, too though.

I love my Droid X.

My top must have apps are:

Utilities:
WidgetLocker - Customize your lock screen with shortcut sliders, widgets, and apps. Total time saver.
Quick Profiles - Lets you customize various volume levels and ringtones with presets. (Like the blackberry's profiles)
Call Confirm - Gives you a popup to confirm you wanted to call someone so you don't have any accidental dials and frantic "end call" tapping episodes.
SysTray Monitor - Shows your exact battery percentage remaining in the status bar.
Easy Reminder - Gives you a polite vibrate or beep if you have an unnoticed notification.
Barcode Scanner - Scan bar codes with the camera when you are out shopping to get reviews and compare prices.
Dropbox - sync files automatically between phone and computers. (Awesome Drop is another great app for dragging and dropping stuff from your computer to your device without a cable.)
TaskControl - Simple task killer.

Apps:
Key Ring Rewards Cards- Input your store loyalty cards so you can scan your phone instead of carrying all those cards around.
Simple Last.fm Scrobbler - Scrobbles tracks to Last.FM when I play them.
KISS Music Player - Keepin' it Simple

Games:
Jewels - Bejeweled clone
NESoid - NES emulator (Find your own game roms on the internet...)
Live Hold'em - Great online poker game
Puzzle Blox Arcade! - sort of like bejewelled / tetris
Alchemy - you start out with 4 basic elements and combine them to make more stuff.
Poke A Mole - Simple enough. The kids love this one.
Wordfeud - Scrabble. You can play against friends or strangers. (They now have Word with Friends for Android, but it is pretty buggy. I'll wait until a newer version comes out to switch.

I use these:

1001 Cocktails (recipes)
advanced task killer
facebook
my tracks (hiking app w/ maps and data on elevation, distance and average speed, etc)
navigation
ny times
open table (restaurant reservations via internet)
places
rei snow report
rss reader
shazam (find out what song is playing - works surprisingly well but there's a limit on free use)
stock quote
tripit (builds custom travel itineraries by forwarding email confirmations)
wavewatch (surf reports via local weather buoy data)
weatherbug
yelp

I loaded but haven't used:

barcode scanner
cab4me
compass
directv
google skymap

Google Googles seems like a cool idea but has never worked for me.

its main competition, soundhound, just went to unlimited usage for its free version. i think the only difference between pay and free versions now is speed.

Yail, not sure if you can see this, but...

http://forums.hipinion.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=111

I can, thanks (damn, hipinion's look has changed a lot, huh?)

The thing about the MT4g is that it has some of you guys' recs preloaded + some of its own stuff (call it wanna be iphone, call it bloatware, whatever) In buying the phone this was sort of a turn off and I almost bought the Nexus S or the G2 because of it but found that both of those phones had bigger turnoffs than just a few programs.

I'm getting the hang of it though and most importantly, my wife is finally happy after basically not wanting to talk to me or use her phone over the weekend--that damn ol' iphone is a hard habit to break.

Protip: Google Goggles does QR Codes, I'm assuming it does traditional barcodes.

Coincidentally, I just got back from getting an HTC Incredible, so I'll be following this thread with interest. I know absolutely NOTHING about smart phones, but figured it was time to get into the 21st century.

Honestly, the first thing I did was load up on apps, and ran out of space. Since I'm not getting Froyo nor willing to root, I keep my phone pretty lean. Novelty apps just took up space. A few more I remembered, a couple crossover from my comment to Bloor on FB.

Astro: It's a file manager. I've had to do a factory reset a couple times, and Astro makes backing up apps and re-installing them very easy.
Opera: People swear by Dolphin, I prefer Opera for my browsing.
Juice Defender: I've noticed better battery life without any performance drains, though once I did have to toggle my wifi/mobile to get a connection.
Handcent SMS: I didn't like the HTC stock SMS program

This is a repeat for Bloor, but if you are on Android, sync that shit with your Google account. Backs up your contacts and shit, but if you search on your PC and get all like, "I've been meaning to try this Vietnamese joint up north" then star it in Google. When you open Navigator, it will show up in your starred places and spit out directions for you, so you don't have to search for it.

And if anyone recommends AppBrain, delete their number and forget their face.

Maybe it works for QR Codes and barcodes. I'm not particularly interested in that. I'd seen it pitched as a general image recognition tool and tried to search based on a picture of a fruit/vegetable I didn't recognize at the farmer's market or a tree or a building I was curious about and other things like that. It's failed every attempt to recognize what I'd taken a pic of. It's probably a lot to expect of it but If I know what I'm looking for info on it seems to be a lot faster to bring up a browser and do a text search.

Google Goggles also does a fair job of scanning in business cards using the camera and importing data as contacts. Editing is almost always required though.

I've had to design some ads and shit with QR codes on them, normally I wouldn't care. What I did find out is that Goggles will read fucking text. Supposedly, it can also translate it between languages.

I wish someone would make a music player for Android that is...wait for it...JUST LIKE THE IPOD APP ON THE IPHONE.

Power Amp is garbage, I can't believe that it's highly rated. The preloaded HTC music player is actually pretty ok so Im using it for now.

Google Listen works really well for streaming podcasts even if that is a bit of a battery drain.

The only other thing I'm using new is Gmail Notifier but only for one account (I have a lot of email accounts)

for all your various off-shore accounts, girlfriends, and shell corporations

Have you tried Doubletwist? I haven't used it, but I've heard comparisons.

It's preloaded on my phone but I haven't fucked around with it yet. I might this weekend if I get some time.

Hear! Hear!

The biggest impediment to my leaving the apple universe is the itunes/ipod functionality. Genius, smart playlists, and playing metadata and playback in the ipod/phone is far far superior to anything in android. In fact, music playback in android is comically bad, and that includes every 3rd party player. All are junky. I'm using winamp. It's not great at all.

btw, the last time i tried doubletwist, it crashed my computer and was a complete FAIL and POS.