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Best apps for the Samsung Galaxy Tab

by Jason Salas

Guam - The demand for native mobile applications has now reached insatiable proportions. This is no small part due to the explosion of the tablet market, which delivers a hybrid of the rich screen size and processing power of a netbook with the hardware goodness of a smartphone.

And with DOCOMO Pacific well-stocked with the powerful Samsung Galaxy Tab and a host of must-have accessories, the demand for portable apps for everything from social services, to-do lists, multimedia, realtime news and sports services, to basically anything your imagination can conjure up, you'll not soon run out of neat and helpful ways to enjoy portable computing.

Personally, here are some of the apps I use the most on my Galaxy Tab here at KUAM. The best thing I enjoy about these apps is that they're not necessarily bound to broadband: each works wonderfully over DOCOMO's 3.5G Max network as well as over Wi-Fi in the office, at home or at one of the many hotspots you'll find around town.

Awesome Drop: I simply can't live without this, and as a web developer, this blows my mind. Awesome Drop lets you copy files from your desktop to your mobile device, completely wirelessly. You drag-and-drop files into Awesome Drop's web interface (no login needed), and the files are copied onto your device. Trust me - you MUST try this out.

Fandango: Being a film buff, I like the convenience of seeing what's playing at any given time, watching trailers and purchasing tickets no matter where I'm at. The GPS integration telling me which theaters are nearest to my location is a real help, too.

Car Home: This is where the Galaxy Tab's 7" Gorilla Glass display really comes in handy. The Spinning Head's take on Google's stock Car Home app throws a new UI twist on the service, and uses instant weather, location and speedometer reports in realtime, which are read back to me while I'm driving just by tapping the screen. It's still in beta and therefore subject to the occasional weirdness, but this is fantastic when on the go.

Google TV Remote: The ability to use my tablet as a TV remote makes the device infinitely more valuable to a couch potato like me. I can synch-up the tab with the wireless set-top box for Google TV and control the integrated television experience or browser for my HDTV, as an alternative to the keyboard or normal TV remote. It's made for 4" screens, but is amazing when run on a tablet's display. Insanely cool.

PhoneMyPC: Being on to go so much, I find myself needing to connect back to my office LAN all the time. PhoneMyPC is a paid app, but worth the shelling out $9.99 because I don't have to worry about port-forwarding configuration on my router, I just install a desktop app and tunnel into any one of my machines anywhere in the world. I have full access and can get work done on the road. It's equally good for tech support, or the occasional "I see you" cyberprank.

Angry Birds: You think I'd go through a review without mentioning the canonical app any mobile user needs to rock? This is the perfect time vampire while standing in line at the bank or being in lengthy managerial meetings. Plus, grab the special update with themed bonus levels for Valentine's Day and go to town.

Again, these apps run great on DOCOMO Pacific's wireless data network. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is available with full 3G connectivity for $399 with MAX Data 2.0. So whether you're on the fence, thinking about whether to join the tablet revolution, or you're a seasoned mobile user, head over to DOCOMO Pacific, grab a tab, and give these apps a spin.

You won't regret it.