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With the economy in continuing decline, keeping tight control over your money is no longer just for obsessives. These financial apps for Google Android help you count every penny.

Personal Budget Droid is a simple budget- and bills-tracker that lets you create multiple monthly budgets for groceries, housing costs, and so on. You enter every budget name and transaction by hand, but the app keeps a transaction history and calculates how much you have left for each category.

The more sophisticated FireWallet works with budgets inside various accounts and protects your information behind a four-digit pin you change from the all-zero default. It's a bit trickier to navigate, but also shoehorns in more options. In addition to a more refined interface, FireWallet has graphs and charts to help visualize your spending, and a rudimentary tool to alert you of upcoming bills. Both it and Personal Budget Droid are missing templates and more powerful features to optionally suck in real-time data from your checking, savings, and stock portfolios. Time for a mobile version of Mint?

Flick to either side for a calc that rounds up; up or down gets you a breakdown of numbers to pass around.

(Credit: TouchTip)

TouchTip is our current favorite tip calculator for Google Android. Flick a finger left or right to slide between a simple tip calculator that rounds up to the nearest dollar or ten dollars, and one featuring a ten-digit keypad. Both views use the bill total, tax, and number of diners to calculate your total payment. Flicking up or down produces a breakdown of what you owe that you can pass around the table to friends.

Personal Tip Jar hails from the same developer as Personal Budget Droid, and shares a few visual characteristics, including a useless "news" tab. Yet Tip Jar is a great niche nod to those whose incomes are built substantially on tips. While a fuller budgeting app could easily accommodate gains from tipping, this application provides a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly summary at a glance.

Stock apps on Android are extremely mediocre, but the simply named Stock App is better than other skeletal tickers. This one opens with Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500, Yahoo, and Google presets. You can add your own by pressing the menu key, and can browse frequently traded stocks. Stock App displays the value and percentage change up front; double-tap an entry to see more stats. While it's functional, Android is sorely missing the completeness of a stock-tracker like Bloomberg for iPhone. Get to it, developers.

Quickpedia isn't the only Wikipedia-scouring app for Google Android, but it's the best we've seen so far.

The free application makes it easy to search and browse Wikipedia for articles, throwing in a few tiny twists along the way to make navigating, reading, and learning interesting tidbits a breeze.

You can see it all unfold in this First Look video.

Veveo, a company that aims to provide "video anywhere" solutions through its Vtap online video service, announced Thursday that it has launched a free app called WikiTap for the iPhone and for Android-based devices that's intended to help users quickly find the most relevant Wikipedia search results.

At first glance, having another Wikipedia app doesn't sound too thrilling, but WikiTap goes beyond accessing the popular online encyclopedia. According to the company, WikiTap will allow users to use improve the experience already offered by other Wikipedia iPhone apps by uploading photos and videos to the article. That ability makes WikiTap the first app of its kind on the iPhone and Android that allows users to not only read articles, but contribute multimedia while on-the-go. All the uploaded media will also be searchable by others using WikiTap.

"Built on vtap technology, which delivers over 250 million media search queries per month, the iPhone and Android community now have the ability to easily search through millions of Wikipedia documents, and micro-contribute by uploading videos on any topic, from anywhere, making it an even more powerful knowledgebase for other users," Murali Aravamudan, CEO of Veveo, said in a statement.

In order to upload relevant videos to Wikipedia, WikiTap will automatically "mash in" relevant videos from Vtap's video search index and allow users to rate its relevance to the article through a "Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down" voting mechanism.

Veveo's WikiTap application is available now in the Android Store and on the iTunes App Store.

Meebo for Google Android is not a terrible instant-messaging application. But it isn't a very good representation of what IM clients for the Android platform can do, or even a good representation of what Meebo itself can do.

In this first release, the free Meebo mobile application lets you chat with friends on the major IM networks--Yahoo, Windows Live Messenger, AOL, ICQ, Jabber, and Google Talk. It also runs in the background while you work on other applications and scrolls message notifications across the status tray. So far, so good.

However, that about plays out Meebo's feature set on Google Android--a disappointment for a product making its world debut of a native application and a disappointment for a company that has recruited 40 million unique users into its Web-messaging niche.

(Credit: Meebo)

Is it fair for me to hold Meebo to loftier standards? Absolutely. There are certain features common to competitive chat applications on any platform. Having an IM application save your log-in information is a must, and that goes double for a chat app that otherwise asks you to sign into six services every time you talk.

Notifications, simultaneous chats, emoticon support, and options are also must-haves. Of these, Meebo for Google Android has only notifications, and they're easily missed if you glance away from the screen. Though also limited, Meebo's iPhone-optimized site saves log-ins, supports some emoticons, and makes it easy to flip back to the buddy list.

Specific to this Androidized Meebo, I'd like to pick whether I get a buzz, a ding, or a text scroll to signal an incoming message. The organization of the buddy list should also be customizable, so I don't have to wear off the pad of my thumb scrolling through online and offline buddies from each service.

Meebo's team says the Android platform isn't holding back these features. They're just not ready yet. Of course, Meebo says, emoticons and log-in recall are coming 'round the bend. The company just wanted to get the application into users' hands quickly.

Meebo should have waited until there was more to offer.

As it is now, Meebo IM serves a purpose, but it isn't the only multinetwork IM application in the Android Market. Also free is IM+ All-in-One Instant Messenger, which provides a better multinetwork chatting experience on all counts--remembered log-ins, emoticon support, and incoming IM text that appears on the chat window.

Some users have complained about getting forced out of IM+ All-in-One Messenger, though that defect didn't plague my tests. Meebo's next attempt will hopefully bring it in line with this more competitive player.

CompareEverywhere can map retail stores nearby.

(Credit: CompareEverywhere)

ShopSavvy, Barcode Scanner (by the ZXing team), and CompareEverywhere (an Android Challenge winner) are three free shopping applications for Google Android poised to help you find the best deals in town and online.

At their core, they're nearly identical, using the phone's camera to auto-focus on a barcode. That barcode is then matched to a product using an open source decoding library, ZXing, that was developed by Google engineers last year. (You can also search by product name.)

While these shopping apps share a back end, the front ends are distinct. Unfortunately, they all produced varying results that inconsistently found retail and online stores stocking common products like hand lotion, gum, and breakfast cereal.

Barcode Scanner doesn't even try to compare prices by seller, but instead lets you search Google for product listings. All three applications were best at finding books, CDs, and DVDs, but were weak at tracking down brick-and-mortar stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. For example, CompareEverywhere plotted Barnes & Noble stores on a map, but failed to find the Borders down the street, which also listed the books I scanned in their online store.

Of the three applications, Barcode Scanner best integrates Google technology by linking book searches to Google's Book Search arm. That, by extension, gives you access to all those searching, buying, and library-hunting services, albeit through a Web interface. We'd rather see those tools pulled into an easily-read UI.

By contrast, CompareEverywhere has the best community spirit and default discretion. If it can't find your barcode in the UPCDatabase it uses, it asks if you want to add your product. Its confirmation--a low buzz compared to the other two apps' shrill beeps--is also the least conspicuous if you're laying low while comparing DVD prices from a physical store. As I mentioned, CompareEverywhere also maps retail stores on its radar and can e-mail links to your gift ideas, shopping list, and wish list to whomever you choose.

Of the three, ShopSavvy has the best-looking interface that lets you easily scan barcodes with the camera or enter them by hand if the barcode is smudged. Like CompareEverywhere, you can add products to a wish list and read reviews. You can't yet share lists, but you can send yourself an alert when prices drop below a certain point. If only ShopSavvy pulled up more online and retail stores for the everyday products thrown at it. I was disappointed it didn't find a source for my favorite brand-name cereal anywhere.

CompareEverywhere has the most useful features and had the best success rate in my tests, though all three apps will have something to offer when and if they're able to fill in sparse retail databases for online and especially brick-and-mortar shops. It's a daunting task, but instrumental if the apps are expected to help a wide swatch of people nail down deals.

(Credit: Google)

WikiMobile Encyclopedia has been around for awhile for the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile Pocket PC, so it's no surprise to see it formatted for the Google Android G1 phone.

Just as advertised, WikiMobile Encyclopedia crawls Wikipedia.com for articles, offering up predictive search queries as you type your term. You can also search Wikipedia for a random article or browse what's popular, especially if you have a few minutes to kill or are looking for a factoid to impress people at a dinner party.

Interestingly, instead of scrolling or flicking the results page vertically, the app slices the text into pages. You click "next" or flick the screen to the left to advance. It's too bad there isn't an option for those who prefer consuming their articles in one gulp instead of being force-fed bites.

Much of the program's functionality hides out in the center menu button where you can view just the article's pictures, a table of contents, and, where available, a bunch of quick facts. It's useful being able to bookmark pages for reference; e-mailing them to a friend is the next natural progression. It's a good app for playing information fetch, but we'd like to see it take advantage of more of the G1's features.

Get more of CNET's news and reviews on the T-Mobile G1 and Google Android apps.

Shazam, the mobile music discovery provider made popular on the iPhone, announced Tuesday the launch of its mobile application for the Android platform.

Android users will be able to "discover" a song and connect to Amazon's MP3 store to buy it or network with the artist through MySpace.

Shazam is one of the most popular applications in Apple's App Store. After downloading Shazam onto the iPhone, people can hold their device toward an unknown song while the application is running. In just a few seconds, the Shazam technology will recognize the song and provide information about the track, artist, and album. On the iPhone, people can download the songs on iTunes. But considering that Android-based phones won't run Apple's platform, Shazam opted for Amazon's MP3 store instead.

MySpace will also be an integral component in the experience created by Shazam on the Android platform. According to the company, people can connect to their MySpace page in the application and "friend" the artist they just discovered, as long as they have a profile on the social network.

"Shazam aims to help users to create and share unique music moments and long-lasting experiences, and the Android application combined with our link to the Amazon MP3 store and MySpace enables us to deliver on this vision," said Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam.

So far, Shazam has been quite successful doing just that. According to its internal figures, its iPhone app has been downloaded by 1.5 million users since its release.

Music service Imeem has released its first mobile application--and it's not for the iPhone. The application is designed for Google's Android operating system, first launching on T-Mobile USA's G1 handset.

The free app, which will be available through the Android Market, doesn't let users stream music on-demand. But they can create customized radio stations, check out recommendations, and buy music from Amazon.com's MP3 service. Because the application is connected to PC-based Imeem accounts, users can see mobile changes they've made, such as marking an artist as a "favorite," reflected on their Web-based profile. Right now, the only revenue stream is from affiliate sales with Amazon MP3, but executives say that will change eventually.

Pick your favorites on the G1 handset's Imeem app.

(Credit: Imeem)

"It's the first time we've ever had a mobile version of Imeem, which is pretty exciting for us," Matt Graves, vice president of marketing, told CNET News. "It opens up an entirely new market for us, a new demographic, and a new market of people who may not have been exposed to Imeem before."

He said there wasn't a particular reason why Imeem chose the Android Market over Apple's App Store, currently the hot spot for mobile applications.

"I don't think it was Android over the iPhone. We are interested in reaching mobile consumers," Graves said. "It seemed like a good opportunity for us and a good platform."

While Imeem has "nothing to announce just yet" about an iPhone app, Graves wouldn't rule out the possibility of developing one.

Here's the other news from Imeem: it is not jumping on the Silicon Valley layoff bandwagon, or at least that's what Graves said.

"We started being conservative before it was apparent in the market that you had to be," he explained, adding that the company will have "no layoffs."

That's good news for Imeem, considering that some other companies in the digital-music space are suffering. Cash-strapped Web radio start-up Pandora, which has blamed the royalty fees for online streaming, let go of 20 employees on Friday.

"I can't really speak to Pandora's business," Graves said, "(but) the DMCA radio rates are reasonable, I think. I think that we've got a pretty varied set of revenue streams."

Just because Google so obviously loves the idea of cloud computing, don't think the company doesn't care about what happens at the other end of the network connection, too.

As former President Bill Clinton used to say, there's a third way: Google wants to improve technology on both the server in the cloud and on the client running a Web browser. The search giant will detail its approach to at least 2,800 developers paying to attend the first Google I/O conference this week in San Francisco.

Vic Gundotra, head of developer evangelism and open-source projects at Google

(Credit: Google)

There's been a long-running tension among computing companies about where the brains of the computing operation reside. In early years, central servers did all the work and people connected through "dumb terminals" that did nothing but display text. Then the personal computer revolution took off, and companies such as Microsoft whose software ran on these "clients" prospered. Now it's the Internet era, and Google wants a little of both.

"We are going to make the cloud more accessible. And we're going to make the browser more capable," said Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering in charge of developer evangelism and open-source software.

Clouds and clients and connections, oh my
Google isn't showing its Google I/O cards beforehand, but here's my translation of Gundotra's opening keynote themes--"Client, Connectivity, and the Cloud"--into some specific projects under way at Google. For client, think Google Gears for running Web applications even when offline. For cloud, think Google App Engine, a site to house Web applications. And for connectivity, think Android, the mobile phone software package.

The Android software itself is under development at Google, with help from a number of partners in the Open Handset Alliance. To make that project successful--in particular its promise as an open foundation with a vibrant programming community--there needs to be software for Android, too.

Google has been trying to jump-start the Android developer program. It launched a developer contest that drew 1,788 submissions. I'm guessing Google will announce the winner from the top 50 finalists (and click here for a PDF of the top 50 Android apps in slideware form).

A sample Android application, AndroidGlobalTime

(Credit: Google)

More newsworthy, though, is the likelihood of a second software development kit (SDK) for Android. "We are working on those things in the next day or so," Gundotra said of the SDK last week. "Android is a big portion of how we make pervasive connectivity useful."

Google vs. Microsoft
We in the media are doubtless too susceptible to narratives that pit one company against another, but in Google's case, there really is a big rivalry with Microsoft. The search giant is trying to make into reality the fear Microsoft had in the 1990s about Netscape, that the Web browser would supplant the operating system as the way people used their computers.

Gundotra has seen it from both sides. Before joining Google in 2007, he was general manager for platform evangelism at Microsoft, the culmination of a 15-year stint at the company.

But does Google want to dominate the Web platform the way Microsoft has with the operating system platform? Emphatically not, said Gundotra, who took pains to note that the I/O in Google I/O stands for "innovation in the open."

"Today, the most interesting and dominant platform is not the closed, proprietary platforms of the past, but the open Web...It's the platform adopted by all of us because it isn't controlled by any of us," Gundotra said. "Google's motivation is to move the Internet forward as fast as we can."

That's not to say Google isn't interested in bringing home the bacon. But its Web platform work has only an indirect connection to Google's revenue and profits.

Gundotra repeated what's become a familiar refrain to me as I've asked various Google executives about how their initiatives make money: "We have an economic reason to move (the Web) forward. As it gets richer, better apps, it gets more users. More users using more apps leads to more Google searches, and that leads to more revenue for us," he said.

Android is another target aimed at Microsoft. It will become freely available open-source software--or at least 8.6 million of its 11 million lines of code will be--with the specific intent of providing an alternative to Microsoft's mobile version of Windows. Wind River Systems wants to profit from it directly by helping phone companies build it into their products, but Google thus far has voiced no such ambition.

Lighting a fire under Web 2.0
App Engine and Gears together are centerpieces of Google's attempt to bring the Web alive, and we can expect some action there at the conference, too.

But developers are likely to be disappointed in hearing about one area in which they're hungry for news: support for other programming languages besides Python in App Engine. Java, Ruby, PHP, and Perl support are the top four requests in the App Engine issue tracker, and JavaScript, C#, and ColdFusion Markup Language are in the top 25.

"You can assume from that ranking what we're working on, but not what we'll announce next week," Gundotra said. And he wouldn't offer a specific time frame. "We're actively working on it. It's difficult for us to know until development gets further along."

The company is pleased with the progress so far. It's granted App Engine access to 60,000 developers so far, said Tom Stocky, director of product management for developer products.

Gundotra promises that App Engine isn't a lock-in strategy to lure application developers irreversibly to Google's part of the cloud.

"It is hosting the same open LAMP stack people are used to," he said, referring to the combination of the Linux operating system, Apache Web server software, MySQL database software, and Perl, Python, and PHP programming languages to run Web applications themselves. "If you decide you don't want to use it, you could easily revert back to using your own data center."

Well, maybe not easily. App Engine ties into the Google-only BigTable service for housing data. But the company is working on an export ability for data, and there's an open-source implementation of BigTable, Stocky said.

Giving Gears
The company claims to be equally giving with Google Gears, an open-source project that Google released in beta version to enable richer Internet applications. Specifically, it lets browsers store data better in a local database, work offline, synchronize once they're online again, and run JavaScript more efficiently.

It's hard to find Google Gears used beyond Google Docs, Zoho's competing online office applications, and Google Reader. Gundotra is happy to declare the project a success in another way, though: its influence on version 5 of HTML. Indeed, a draft of the HTML 5 specification includes interfaces for handling database storage and offline work.

"You're right on the cusp of seeing a slew of apps come out that use the HTML 5 and Gears features that redefine what a Web app can do," Gundotra said. "We're working to drive that innovation, and also to drive that back into standards...We think we contributed to the evolution of the Web."