OK, so the Android Market is more akin to Lidl or Asda than the iPhone's enormous, indulgent Selfridges-at-Christmas time approach, but the open source nature of Google's OS means there's plenty of innovation to be found on its budget shelves.
UPDATE: More great apps at Top 90 best Android apps
And best of all, most of the good stuff on Android is free, thanks to the work of developers who do it for love alone. These 30 free Android apps should be any Android owner's Day One installs...
1. Seesmic
There are many Twitter apps on Android - and Twitter itself shook up the scene with the launch of its own-brand app recently - but we're sticking with Seesmic. Offering support for multiple accounts, a home page widget showing latest tweets and an incredibly slick and professional design, it's one of the finest examples of app development out there today.
2. Facebook for Android
The app is lacking in features compared to Facebook itself, but a recent update added Inbox support to the Android app, finally allowing its users to communicate in almost real-time. The app's fast and stable, with a simplicity that reminds you of the old days when using Facebook used to be bearable.
3. ASTRO File Manager
ASTRO is nothing more than a Windows-style file explorer, but if you're into tinkering and directly installing Android APK files yourself, it's essential to stick something like this on your phone. Makes your phone feel like a computer, and makes you feel like you're in charge of it.
4. Job Centre Plus
Hey, times are hard and you've got to pay for your oppressive monthly mobile phone contract somehow. Offering a fully searchable database of current UK job vacancies, it's a slightly cumbersome but useful tool. Some of the spelling's a bit off and the presentation could be better, but you can't argue with the chance to browse low-level admin jobs in Plymouth from the comfort of bed.
5. AppBrain Market Sync
You iPhone users won't believe this, but there's no official way to install Android apps from a PC. Seriously. You'd think Google of all companies would've sorted that out, but no. Which is where the unofficial Appbrain app comes in. Letting users queue up Market downloads via PC and have them sent to mobile, you're also able to generate an embeddable code that displays your currently installed apps on a web site.
6. Google Sky Map
A stunning app that renders Patrick Moore obsolete, by using your phone's orientation tools to give you an accurate representation of the stars and planets on your screen. Point phone at sky, then learn what constellations are visible and if that's a UFO or just Venus. Even works indoors, if you're not keen on getting cold.
7. Layar
The stunning augmented reality app has recently gone commercial, adding an online shop that allows users to buy AR content, like travel guides, local house price apps and much more. But you're still able to use the numerous free Layers to pop data up over real-world locations, delivering a satisfying futuristic experience.
8. Foursquare
The social media darling is represented in fine form on Android, with the Google app offering easy one-click check-ins, integrated Google Maps for a seamless Google-branded experience and home page shortcut options to all your favourite places.
9. WordPress for Android
The app started out as independent creation wpToGo, before WordPress decided it liked it so much it bought it up - hiring the maker to develop it in-house. It's very feature-packed, with the latest version offering full integration with other apps, letting you spin content and send it direct to the app for easy updating. Could do with more image insertion tools, though.
10. Google Goggles
A bit of a novelty, in that it lets you take photos and have Google analyse them and come back with a search results page for what it thinks you're looking at. However, the app's main use is as a QR code reader, which lets you scan barcodes for quick access to apps and whatever data people choose to embed in the odd little data squares.
11. AppMonster
The act of monitoring and uninstalling apps on Android is a bit of a clumsy process, to be honest, with numerous sub-screens to navigate - and yet more yes/no/are-you-sure dialogue boxes to get through once you've found the 'bin it' page. So get a decent app manager. Like AppMonster, which also offers one-click backup of all your apps to SD card, if you're the type who worries about having copies of everything.
12. AppSaver
The forthcoming Android 2.2 update known as "FroYo" will let users save their Android Market purchases to their phone's SD card, freeing up valuable in-phone memory. But until then, an app like AppSaver does at least let you save your app install files to the SD card.
13. Skyfire 2.0
The USP of the Skyfire browser is that it supports Flash content, popping up a little window when it detects something like an embedded YouTube video. The actual Flash business is handled by Skyfire's server, which does all the computery stuff - then sends the file to your handset. A bit clunky on slower Android phones, but works like a dream on models with faster processors.
14. Task Manager
If you come from a bit of a hardcore PC background, you'll find Android's lack of a blue X to close apps a bit of a worry, what with the OS handling app closures itself. Which is why you need a good manual override tool to shut any persistent apps. It may help you save battery life, but most important is the feeling of control and empowerment you get from one-click closing apps.
15. RAC Traffic
An official production of the motoring organisation, the app is dead simple - it guesstimates your location via the mobile signal, then pops up the current traffic alerts for your area. Much better than having to listen to the radio for the odd update about arterial blockages.
16. Swype
The odd line-drawing alternate keyboard is a love-it or hate-it kind of thing, with the significant amount of re-learning required to make the most of it quite offputting to some users. Once you're familiar with the idea, though, it's genius - with advanced prediction options further speeding your line-typing. Swype is not available through the Android Market - the only way to install is is via a direct download from the maker.
17. Evernote
After the Android version of Dropbox, the next best solution for keeping all your 'business' in one place is Evernote - which lets you stash and sync all your text notes, voice memos and files on phone and access them through a desktop computer.
18. beebPlayer
Does one thing - lets you access the BBC's famed iPlayer on your Android phone. You need to be connected via Wi-Fi for best performance, as our mobile networks can't really handle live-streaming the new Doctor Who through the ether, but for in-bed TV it's a great solution.
NB - The developer of beebPlayer has recently removed the app from Android Market and ceased further development.
19. Last.fm
If you're too tight to pay out for a Spotify subscription, the free thrills of Last.fm open up a world of streaming music on your mobile. You have to 'buy in' to the odd Last.fm way of organising things and suggesting new music, but if you're easily led and not restricted by bandwidth it's a superb free music tool.
20. Google Maps Navigation
An absolute must-get. As long as you have Android 1.6 or above, the latest update to Google Maps introduces turn-by-turn voice navigation, simultaneously devastating the satnav industry while boosting the in-car dashboard dock/charger accessory scene. Route calculations are done at the outset of your trip, minimising data transfer en route and keeping you on target even when the GPS signal drops. It's amazing, it works, and it's free.
21. 3banana Notes
A simple note-taking tool that lets you sync those disjointed, late night thoughts you have together into one huge, incoherent database. If you have a Snaptic account you're able to sync the Android app with that too - or you can simply sign-in with your Google details for instant mobile jotting. Once written, notes may also be pinned to the Home screen, creating a little post-it note-style reminder icon.
22. gvSIG Mini Maps
An incredibly comprehensive mapping tool which combines many major online maps like Google, Bing, Open Street Map and more, which will win UK fans for one huge reason alone - it supports the official and recently open-sourced Ordnance Survey data. This means you're never more than a post code search away from seeing where you are in OS-level detail, which offers much more in the way of accurate local data than other map tools provide.
23. Astrid Task / Todo list
Describes itself as an "open source" task list, which includes syncing support with www.rememberthemilk.com for the ultimate in minutiae management. You set a list of tasks and are then able to order them in importance - also setting off a timer to see precisely how long you've wasted on Twitter instead of doing the job in hand. It's basically the world's most complex and in-depth personal todo list, which, if used correctly, will consume more time than the tasks themselves. Ideal for expert-level procrastinators.
24. Shareprice.co.uk
Uses your login from financial site www.iii.co.uk to offer live share price updates on your Android phone. Watch your nest-egg lose 50 percent in value every three weeks during the latest trans-global financial crisis, live! It's ideal for users with share values so low they have to be checked in private, to ensure the wife or girlfriend doesn't see exactly how much money has disappeared into some notional financial black hole.
25. Train Times UK
A searchable database of UK train journeys, which lets you set up shortcuts to favourite trip searches and shuffle through live departure timetables for all UK national rail operators. It has a slightly shabby text-based look, but if that's what's required to ensure it works on a patchy 3G network when you're whooshing along the line toward your worringly complex interchange, then so be it. The most recent update adds widget support, so you're now able to watch train departures live from your Home screen.
26. Dropbox
The Android version of the insanely popular stuff-syncing app has arrived, and while it's a little lacking in the sort of fancy auto-syncing options many were hoping for, it still works as expected. Files have to be specifically downloaded to your phone to be edited or shared, which is not quite the automated dream offered by the desktop tools, but it's still Dropbox on Android. Six months ago that was a distant, crazy fantasy.
27. London Tube Status
Reduce the misery of being told you've just missed a train and it's a 14-minute wait until the next one with this app, which combines travel status updates and live departure times. It also includes a Home screen widget that shows your favourite (or at least your most used) platform departures, making it easy to check how much you've just missed the next one by while tearing down the escalators.
28. Google Places Directory
An automatically updating list of local businesses and entertainments, that pulls in your location data to tell you where the nearest capitalist enterprises are based. Obviously there are a few holes in its review data - which is aggregated from popular review sites like Qype and Trip Advisor - but most popular cinematic and coffee-purchase bases ought to be covered in a consumerist emergency.
29. Meebo IM
If you like to pass the time exchanging smiley faces and abbreviations with your friends through instant-messaging apps, you ought to get a copy of Meebo IM. It's an instant-messaging aggregator, incorporating AIM, MSN, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook, good old ICQ and more, serving everything up in one convenient interface. Typing in all your logins and passwords for everything is the only, very temporary, inconvenience.
30. Beelicious
If you're into the slightly last-generation social networking site Delicious, you ought to get yourself organised with one of the many third-party Android apps out there that support the bookmarking tool. Like Beelicious, which, once you've got through the slightly cumbersome initial setup process, lets you simply send web site links to your Delicious account via the Android browser's 'Share Page' sub menu.
