by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: September 23, 2010

Smartphones get their best work done with applications and the smart phone market for I-phones or Androids has plenty of free versions. The free versions may come with limited features, advertising or even be ploys to collect your calling, SD card and other data, so read the warnings carefully!

As another warning, downloading free apps from websites that are not affiliated with your carrier or the smartphone company bypasses the security and other protections that the I-phone and Android marketplaces provide, so use caution when doing web downloads.

With so many applications that are specific to each user's preferences, needs and understanding, it is not easy to come up with a truly comprehensive "bests" list. But good categories are systems management tools, entertainment, reference, emergency, lifestyle, shopping, getting around and photos.

For systems management tools:

 There are two options: putting widgets for the phone's main menu selections on a home screen. This is easy to do. That way, a home screen can have easily accessible widgets for battery usage and temperature, applications management, minutes and data usage levels and systems settings, such as light level, sound modes and phone mode. And this is all without downloading anything, since these features come with the phone!

The second option is to get a good "Swiss army knife" style applications that collect the phone's data and present information in friendly and nice graphic form. Simply search the market and read the ratings and comments to find out what users think of the various free "Systems" or "Systems Management" apps.

A good security software, such as "Lookout" is a must have, too.

For entertainment:

There are various radio apps in the marketplaces. Pandora and Slacker Radio are great for music. There are a host of streaming radio stations and even police scanners.  But be warned that if your service plan has limited data, radio will bust the budget! Both Pandors and Slacker allow highly customized music and can be set up from the PC's larger screen.

YouTube is already loaded on most phones, and the full videos will play.

For E-mail and banking:

Yahoo, G-Mail and Hotmail have mobile formats that are great to have. So do Well Fargo, Bank of America, USAA and other banks.

For finding places:

There is Geodelic and Yelp. Both will find your location if the GPS is turned on and will give up everything, from restaurants to movie theatres that is within a few miles.

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