Want to access your desktop PC from your tablet, touch-type on the screen or protect
your device fromviruses? This selection of useful utilities lets you do all that and more
ezPDF Reader
Price: £2.50
The large screens found on tablets make them
ideal for reading books and magazines, but
they’re also great for perusing PDF documents.
ezPDF Reader is a compact app that supports
note-taking, text highlighting and embedded
video. Unlike its rivals, it’s fast and boasts a
visually pleasing “page flipping” effect. All of
your PDFs are laid out on a rather fetching
imitation bookshelf, and the cherry on top is its
text-to-speech feature, which means you can
listen to your PDFs as well as read them. A “lite”
version is also available to try before you buy.
File Manager HD
Price:Free
It’s amazing that many Android
tablets don’t come with a file
manager by default, but you
can rectify this oversight by
installing this feature-rich app.
Cloud support is included,
and you can even access files
over FTP services. File Manager
HD makes good use of HD
displays, giving you full
control over your device’s
cavernous internal memory. It’s
ad supported, but you can remove
these by making an in-app
purchase.
Dashl ane Password Manager
Price:Free
Passwords are required for
practically every activity you
indulge in online, and web
security experts recommend you
never use the same one twice.
Remembering all those passwords
is impossible unless you’re a
genius, so for everyone else there’s
Dashlane, an app that allows you
to store multiple login details
and secure them with a master
password. Dashlane auto-fills
password fields on sites, taking
the pain out of logging in.
Swift Key Keyboard
Price: £2.99
Android’s support for custom keyboards
has given rise to a flood of alternatives, and
SwiftKey is surely the best. It uses a prediction
engine that learns how you type and eventually
becomes so adept that it can guess your next
word with uncanny accuracy. Trace-to-type has
been added, and if you have SwiftKey on your
phone, too, you can use the cloud storage
service to share the keyboard’s knowledge base
across multiple devices, meaning that every
piece of Android tech you own can be blessed
with super-fast text input
AirDroid
Price:Free
Cloud services such as Google
Drive and Dropbox may have
removed the need to plug
your Android tablet into your
PC, but every now and then
you may find yourself
reaching for that USB cable
in order to shift files around.
AirDroid aims to zap that cable
once and for all, as it allows you
to manage your device over a
Wi-Fi network. You can also
stream video from your tablet’s
camera, effectively turning it
into a webcam.
Googl e Drive
Price:Free
Google’s answer to Dropbox has
gone from strength to strength
in the past 12 months, offering
robust and deep-rooted
connectivity with the Android
operating system. You can
store practically anything, and
Drive’s thumbnail views make
it easy to sift through your
treasured files, photos and
videos. Since it’s built on the
foundation of Google Docs,
Drive makes it easy to share and
collaborate with friends and
work colleagues.
