Mobile Apps for Cross-Cultural Outreach: Android (Part 2)

Picking up where we left off in part 1, here’s the next few sections of a list of helpful Android apps for cross-cultural outreach. We started this series with Nokia S40 feature phone apps (part 1, part 2). This list of apps is provided courtesy of Mobile Advance.

eBook/Document Readers

Aldiko (free) Aldiko is a highly popular eBook app that allows you to both shop for and read eBooks in ePub, PDF, and encrypted Adobe DRM formatted books, as well as check out books from local libraries. iBooks takes care of this need for iOS devices, but for Android users, this is a helpful app for reading non-Kindle formatted (.mobi) books. It also has a localized interface for several languages – great if English is not your first language. I don’t use this much because most of my books are in Kindle format, but it is a good app to have on hand

Cool Reader (free): Cool Reader is sort of a Swiss-army knife for eBooks and documents. It handles a huge variety of file formats – ePub (non-DRM), fb2, doc, txt, rtf, html, chm, tcr, pdb, prc, mobi (non-DRM), pml – and includes advanced featues like text-to-speech (TTS), making it a useful tool to have on hand. I’ve not used it much, but it’s free and helpful to have. Like Aldiko, it cannot read protected books for Kindle or Nook, so it is really a compliment to Kindle & Nook apps.

Kindle (free) The Kindle app puts over a million books at your fingertips. It’s the app for every reader, whether you’re a book reader, magazine reader, or newspaper reader—and you don’t need to own a Kindle to use it. Choose from over a million Kindle books from the Kindle Store or enjoy popular magazines like The Economist and Reader’s Digest with high-resolution color images.

File/Media Management & Sharing

AirStash+ (free) This is a companion app to the AirStash mobile Wi-Fi device. This app makes it quick & easy to connect to an AirStash device, browse the contents, copy or stream media to your mobile device. The AirStash is a great little device, and this is a very helpful app if you use it.

ASTRO File/Cloud Manager (free) Organize and manage your files and content such as pictures, music, videos or documents on your phone, tablet, PC (via networking) or on cloud services like Facebook Photo Albums, Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive or Box. It’s like Windows Explorer or Mac’s Finder with connections to the most popular clouds.

Box (free) With 5GB free, Box makes it easy to access and edit your files, share content and stay connected with your team from anywhere on any device. Share important files with your coworkers. Have your presentation at your fingertips. Comment on documents on the go. View updates to your spreadsheet instantly. May be somewhat more secure than Dropbox.

Bump (free) Use Bump™ to share contact information, photos, videos, and files by simply bumping two phones together. Just open Bump, hold your phones, and gently bump your hands together — Bump will magically do all the rest. Sync with your computer. Share photos and videos with friends and family. Share files or documents stored on your device. Move contacts, photos, and files between your devices. Share app recommendations.

Dropbox (free) Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your Android device, and even the Dropbox website! With the Dropbox app, you can take everything that matters to you on the go.

ES File Explorer (free) ES File Explorer is a free, full-featured file and application manager. It functions as all of these apps in one: file manager, application manager, task killer, cloud storage client (compatible with Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Box.net, Sugarsync, Yandex, Amazon S3, and Ubuntu One), FTP client, and LAN Samba client. It provides access to pictures, music, video, documents, and other files on both your Android devices and your computers.

Estante (free) This incredible app from MAF’s Learning Technologies team is designed to help you easily collect, organize and share ministry related media including eBooks, documents, audio files, photos, videos, and even eLearning courses. Media can be tagged making it easier to find exactly what you’re looking for, and you can easily share content with others via email, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct, and other ways. Still in beta but due to be released in Summer 2013.

Security/Privacy

Gibberbot (free) Chat securely with anyone, anywhere. Free unlimited messaging with your friends over Facebook Chat, Google Chat & more! Works with Android, iPhone, Mac, Linux or PC. Available in over 20 languages.

History Eraser (free) It’s a history eraser for android device, and it can clean history of apps by only one tap. It’s similar to the “ccleaner” on PC. It can help you to protect your privacy, and it can also help you to free up the internal storage. No root premission required!

Hotspot Shield VPN (free) VPN for Wi-Fi security, privacy, save data and unblock sites with over 120 Million downloads worldwide! Browse privately & anonymously; at school, cafe, or abroad. Access blocked websites and apps anywhere. Protect yourself from identity theft. Avoid 3rd party tracking.

KeepSafe (free) Show only what you want seen. Hiding pictures and videos with KeepSafe on Android gives you control of who sees what. Selected pictures vanish from your photo gallery, and stay locked behind an easy-to-use PIN pad. Potentially a lifesaver for new believers in resistant areas.

Lookout Security & Antivirus (free) Lookout offers essential protection against all the bad stuff that can happen to your phone or tablet, like malware & viruses, loss, and theft. Lookout’s security features are FREE, but for complete protection, upgrade to Lookout Premium.

NoteCipher (free) All notes created and stored by this app are saved fully secured using industry standard 256-bit AES encryption. They are never stored in an unencrypted state on the disk, only in memory.

ObscuraCam (free) In a world of viral videos and facial recognition, ObscuraCam helps you share photos and videos while protecting the privacy of you and those you care about. With ObscuraCam you can blur and disguise faces in your photos and videos. Information that could identify you as the cameraperson is removed from the files for added security.

Orbot (free) Orbot is a free proxy app that empowers other apps to use the internet more securely. Orbot uses Tor to encrypt your Internet traffic and then hides it by bouncing through a series of computers around the world. Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.

Orweb (free) Orweb is the most private and anonymous web browser on Android for visiting any website, even if it’s normally censored, monitored, or on the hidden web. Orweb evades tracking and censorship by bouncing your encrypted traffic several times through computers around the world, instead of connecting you directly like VPNs and proxies. This process takes a little longer, but the strongest privacy and identity protection available is worth the wait.

Vault- Hide SMS, Pics & Video (free) Let’s face it— we all have stuff on our phones we’d like to keep to ourselves, like contacts, pics, videos, SMS and even Facebook messages, but how can we protect them when someone attempts to access and read our phones? Vault makes it easy to fully control over your privacy. Download NQ Mobile Vault today and stop worrying about your private content falling into the wrong hands.

Where’s My Droid (free) A find-your-phone app. Now it is easier then ever to track down your missing phone. Find phone by making it ring/vibrate. Find phone using GPS location. Passcode protection to prevent unauthorized app changes. Stealth Mode hides incoming text with attention word. Extra Features In Pro: Take pictures with the devices camera. Remotely lock device. Remotely wipe SD card. Remotely wipe phone data. Use a landline to activate the app.

Stay tuned next time for more helpful Android apps for cross-cultural outreach, including social media & messaging, web browsers, and file viewing & downloading apps.