The Hitchhiker's Guide to the G1 Google Phone. Part 3: General Applications

In this Hub, I'll try to cover a range of the most useful applications for the G1 smartphone and other Android phones. For the core applications which enhance the basic functionality of the phone, you should check out Part 2: Core Applications, while for general information about the features of the phone and how to get the most out of them, go to Part 1. And if you're looking to soup up your G1 with some nifty accessories (and you're based in the US), take a look at Part 4.

Barcode Scanner uses the G1's camera to read barcodes on pretty much any product, then run a Google Product search based on the data. This allows you to compare prices on books, music and movies which interest you, or just find out more about them with a quick search.

JotNot uses the G1's camera to take an image of a piece of text you wish to store, then applies some clever processing to render it as clear and clean as possible, essentially turning your phone into a scanner. The image can then be stored or converted to text via an OCR application.

Loot is a very featureful money management program, supporting multiple customisable accounts, transfer between accounts, transactions that are switchable between Budget and Actual, and purging. It updates regularly and is, for my money (sorry) the strongest contender in this category.

A powerful database allowing you to organise all your movies, books, music and other media in one place, My Collection can use Barcode Scanner (if you have it installed) to quickly add items to your list, as well as do intelligent searches and tag items you have loaned out (and who you've loaned them to). Updating regularly.

Already wellknown on other platforms, Shazam identifies tunes heard over the G1's microphone from an online database.

Even if you don't already have an interest in astronomy, Sky Map is a dazzling demonstration of the capabilities of the G1. It uses GPS, the internal compass and accelerometer to display a map of constellations and other celestial bodies depending on which way you are pointing the phone, providing an explorable virtual sky mapped to your real location.

This application was recently acquired by Google, and since their latest release it has become dramatically faster - the old version took a long time to load and align itself to the compass, this one is up and running in seconds. Expect some great updates with Google's development power behind this application.

Translates any word or phrase to or from ten different languages, and with TTS Service installed it can speak the translated phrase aloud.

Wifi Recorder is an excellent wardialer/wifi scanner program, recording the location and details of any wifi nodes in your area and plotting them onto a user-friendly map.

I formerly recommended Wifiscan for this slot, but Wifi Recorder is much easier to use and more effective.

This awesome little program requires you to download and run an application on your PC, but then it gives you full remote control of your PC from your G1 via a wifi connection.

In mode 1, it allows you to play, pause, fastforward and rewind playing video, but even better it allows you to browse your music and movies directly on the G1's screen and load them on the spot.

In mode 2, it acts as a remote touchpad and keyboard for your PC, giving you remote control of the whole interface.

Gmote supports Windows, Mac and Linux, but there are currently some problems with the new Ubuntu release (Jaunty Jackalope) which I'm using - hopefully these will be ironed out soon.

Mark Hewitt is an English writer, foodie, cook, psychologist, techie and shaman. At the start of 2007 he sold or gave away almost all his possessions and hitch-hiked across North America for a year and a quarter, the purpose being (at least in part) to figure out why he would want to do such a thing. You can find more of his work at Silverknife.co.uk