The writers and editors of PhoneCan come across a lot of applications and games.  Many of them are basic and unusable.  But not this one.

Apparatus is a physics and design game where you create simple machinery to accomplish the goal of moving a marble to it’s destination.

Swype is a downloadable keyboard that allows you to “type” on the screen without having to lift your fingers for each letter.  You touch the first letter, then slide your finger to the next, until you get to the end of your word.  The app will predict your word, usually getting it right on the first shot, but if it questions the keys you swiped, it will let you confirm the word.  Words with double letters have no need for finger lift or sliding off the key - it figures that out for you.  So, you spell the word “looking” as if it were “loking” and it will come up correctly as “looking.”

Swype ran as a beta test on Android for most of this year, but it currently closed.  There is no indication of when the app will be made available officially.  As such, the app has become quite the sought-after gem.  But, if you’re good at digging around online (like we are), you can download the beta test now and try it on your phone.   Follow the instructions below to download and install Swype Beta for Android.

Google hasn’t released any official press releases on this.  In fact, I wouldn’t expect to see one.  It will probably be dropped into a casual conversation by some Google higher-up in the next few days.  But the Android development team has dropped a semi-official statement on their Twitter page about it.

This brings the Android Market much closer to the Apple App Store, which is nearing the 300,000 app mark.

To some, this is an important accomplishment.  The Android Market just about a year ago had about 10% of today’s number of apps, or less, growing at a faster rate than Apple’s App Store.  Still, Android Market has a long way to go, both in the number of apps as well as the quality of apps.

After the “what is root and how do I do it” question, the next question I hear is often “What task killer should I install?”  The short answer to this?None of them.

Task killers are an odd animal because it’s something that most reps will offer to install for you, and if you install it you WILL notice an increase in battery life.  But those same results can be had without installing a task killer, and task killers often cause more problems than they solve, especially for the average consumer.

@Rhymo worked out great too (once servers recovered) 1M+ downloads first day - RovioMobile, via Twitter

And with that, Rovio Mobile announced it had over one million downloads of Angry Birds for Android in it’s first day.

Today, I’ve been trying to find a method of importing a QR code into a post.  If you’re not familiar with QR codes, they look like miniature crossword puzzles.  With many current phones, you simply need to take a picture of this code, and the phone will take you to an application, web page, or contact.

As we posted earlier, application prices will now properly display in local currency. This is great news for those of us who use Android because it removes one of the many confusing things about the market.

This is an extremely positive development for the market, and coupled with the 30+ new countries that finally support paid applications. The Android Market has come a long way since it first launched, but it still has a lot further to go before it’s the product that it should be.

I’m a fan of Android. I own a Droid phone, and I’ve gotten friends and family alike to adopt the platform. It’s improved significantly in just the year I’ve owned my phone, but when it comes to the market, there haven’t been many improvements, and my frustrations with it shouldn’t exist because they’re not hard to implement.

A little over a year ago, Verizon announced their intention to create a multi-platform app store for devices running on their network.  This was met with a decidedly Chilly response because customers and commenter’s feared that Verizon would supplant native app stores to push their own.

Fast foreward to today.  Verizon sucessfully launched their app store on Blackberry, with those devices still shipping with the native Blackberry App World installed, and now they want to do the same thing to Android.  And no, this isn’t the end of the world (At least, it doesn’t have to be).