In a year, Android's gone from shaky upstart to mobile juggernaut. And nowhere is that more apparent than the apps—the Marketplace is positively bursting, with over 14,000 apps. Here are the ones you need, the essentials.
If you want them all on one page, click here.

Surveying the landscape, a few disconcerting trends do emerge. One, Android apps with an iPhone counterpart tend to be the lesser version. Two, fragmentation is already popping up with some apps only available on Android 1.6 and up—leaving out phones like HTC's Hero—or conversely, not yet fully optimized for Android 2.0 or the Droid's higher res screen. Finally, the best software developer for Android is still, far and away, Google—no other developer is even close. We wonder how all of that's gonna change over the next year, which can only be huger for Android.
If we've missed anything or you've got a superior alternative, let us know in the comments, since you vastly outnumber us. By 'us' I mean me.


</img>
</img>
</img> </img> </img> </img>


More...