AppBrain is one of the most useful Android tools around. It’s kind of everything the Google Android Market is not. You can use the Appbrain desktop web interface to search for apps, browser by category, read reviews, or see what apps you have installed on your phone or what other users are installing.
If you install the Fast Web Installer tool on your phone, you can even install apps on your phone simply by pressing a button from the web interface.
This week Appbrain launched an updated version of its Android app which is both more attractive and more social.
The new app is organized into 4 sections. You can manage existing apps and sync your app list with the cloud, view list of recommended apps based on those you’ve already installed, browser for apps by category, or explore users.
The browse by category and search features are much cleaner and easier to use than before, but the biggest change is that it’s now easy to see what other users have installed on their Android devices using the mobile device. You could always do this using the web interface, but it’s a new feature for the mobile app.
Under the Explore Users tab you can find users by searching your Facebook contacts or viewing a list of popular users. Unfortunately there’s still no way to search for users by name or email address, but the new app is off to a pretty good start. Oh, and if you’re curious you can see a list of apps I currently have installed on my Nexus One on my AppBrain page.
