First impression: Amazon Free apps are mostly games
 

I have been registered for Amazon's Appstore for about a week or two now. Admittedly, only a small sample but I do not find Amazon's free app of the day to really be all that. I will continue to look and see what they have in case something interesting comes along.

Free Apps offered since I joined:
Aces Traffic Puzzle Pack [game]
Astral plague [game]
Casino Blackjack Pro [game]
Daily Ab Workout [personal development:fitness]
Dominoes [game]
Fantastic 4 in a Row HD [game]
Gravity Burst [game]
Mahjong Artifacts [game]
Multi Reps [personal development: fitness]
My First Tangrams [game]
NoteCalendar [productivity]
Radiant HD [game]
Robo 3: Gears of Love [game]
Shopper's Paradise HD [game]
Vegas Bowling [game]
Whiteboard Pro [productivity]
Wikinvest Ad-Free [wealth management]

You're right that it's mostly crap, but there have been a few gems here and there, most notably the office suites, which are sell for $15+.

Splashtop remote was a very good free app from Amazon

As was SwiftKey X

I think the quality of what they've been offering has gone down significantly from when they first started. I'm not sure when the last time I actually "bought" one of the free apps was, whereas when they started, I was getting a fair number of them.

Picked up Camera Zoom FX for $.25 off the android market. On sale and reduced from $4.99. Really cool App

That's not quite right. The iPhone app uses Google Maps information but the app itself is written by Apple. Apple decides what features to put in it and has to try to keep up with Google's new features. Notoriously they haven't put in the turn by turn navigation, presumably because they have partners who sell such apps in their store.

Am I overlooking a straightforward way to determine if the applications listed in the Android (or Amazon) Market are tablet rather than phone versions?

my favorite app has to be grooveip this app lets you make calls from wifi or 3g/4g off your google voice account using this when i recently visited the uk i was able to call home for free

I was amazed at the negativity from certain iPhone users when Instagram was released for Android.

To be honest, I think there are better apps in Android already, such as pixlr-o-matic, so I don't understand what all the fuzz is about.

Instagram's photo enhancements are average at best.

Must be a hipster thing

I don't really get it either. If you want your photos to look like they're from the 70's, then you need to grow out your sideburns too. Otherwise, it just looks stupid(er).

now everyone thinks they are a photographer with instagram lol

My favorite is TimeClockConnect. Let's me keep track of billable time for clients in a way that has really improved my bottom line.

Two new (to me) apps that have made a big difference.

FoxFi - Turns your phone into a Wifi hotspot, without incurring the extra $20/month charge that Verizon wants for that service. No cable required, plus in theory multiple devices could connect, so this easily replaces PDAnet.

Talkatone - The "holy grail" of smartphones is to find an app that allows you to easily make calls without impacting your regular plan minutes. Basically making calls using data, not minutes. For Android, there used to be a combination of Google Voice, pbxes.org, and CSIPsimple. It was hard to setup, hard to maintain, not completely reliable. Talkatone has simplified things dramatically. No need for a separate SIP app or pbx. Combine Talkatone with a Google Voice number, and you easily can make AND receive calls, and send AND receive text messages. Setup is simple, and it's very stable.

Wifi tethering apps (such as WiFi Tether) have been available previously, but it looks like FoxFi might be one of the few that doesn't require a rooted phone.