The current crop of Honeycomb apps is scant in comparison to some markets, but is growing at a swift pace to meet the demands of a tablet-wielding populous hungry to play catch-up with iPad users and, in many cases, show them how it’s really done. Here’s a list of must-have apps for the new Honeycomb owner, optimized for tablet use and organized to suit a variety of daily needs.


CNBC Real-Time (Free)
This is an all-in-one app fully optimized for the tablet user whose primary purpose, as indicated by its default stock ticker screen, is for the real-time monitoring of stock market prices. The app delivers quotes before, during, and after-market hours, sourced directly from the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. If this were simply a stock ticker app, it would be well worth the download bandwidth, but the fact is that it’s much more than that.

CNBC Real-Time also gives you access to financial news headlines and related stories, in addition to high quality, full screen video. The app is also customizable to your specific stock preferences in an easy to use and intuitive interface, and even allows you to customize the scrolling ticker at the bottom of the tablet screen. Breaking financial news is pushed, leaving no need to constantly update to stay on top of trends. Ideal for the investor constantly on the go, and optimized usability for tablet screens.






Movies by Flixster (Free)



It’s one thing to be able to check out local movie times to see what’s playing by checking your phone, and another thing entirely to do it on your Honeycomb tablet. Movies by Flixster uses your GPS position to populate a list of local theaters, what’s playing, and at what time. But beyond this, you can also view full length movie trailers (which naturally look far better on a Honeycomb tablet screen than they do on a tiny Android phone), read the movie’s synopsis, scan through user-submitted reviews, and even find restaurants close to the theater of your choice through the app’s integration with Yelp. Bonus: You’re not only limited to what’s currently playing – the app also provides information on new and upcoming DVD releases (including trailers) and its linkability to Netflix lets you add and manage your queue remotely.


FlightBoard ($3.99)
Some apps are wonderful time killers, others are educational tools. Then there are some apps that, by their very nature, are precisely the reason that mobile technology was invented. One such application that falls into the latter category is "FlightBoard", which turns your tablet into an arrival and departure announcement board for any airport in the world.



The old school look of the interface is designed after the flight board at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, and is optimized for tablet screens with smooth scrolling and easy to operate airport selection. Apart from the simple informational nature of the app, it’s also optimized for social media and email. By clicking on the desired flight, you can share the information via Bluetooth, Facebook, email or TweetComb, and your recipient receives all information: departure and arrival times, assigned gates and terminals, and also the flight’s current status (as in en route, delayed, etc.).


TweetComb (Free)
Interestingly enough, "TweetComb", which is an application designed specifically for Honeycomb tablets that lets you sign into your Twitter account and tweet to your heart’s content, has a much more user friendly and attractive interface than the desktop version of Twitter you’re probably used to using. Whether that’s saying something positive about the design of TweetComb or something negative about the befuddling layout of Twitter itself (or both) depends on the user, but as a result, you may find yourself using TweetComb more frequently.



In TweetComb, your tablet screen automatically displays your Twitter Timeline, Mentions, and Direct Messages in three side-by-side frames that are independently accessible, but can be easily customized in preferences. Clicking hyperlinks opens a convenient browser window within the application itself, but you’re also given the option to launch a hyperlink in your tablet’s preferred browser. TweetComb also gives you access to TwitLonger, which as you can imagine allows you to tweet messages in excess of 140 characters – something that seems to fly in the face of logic when using a Twitter in the first place, but to each their own.


Qello (Free)
"Qello" is something of a dream come true app for live music lovers in that it claims to hold the biggest catalog of live HD concert videos in the world. Whether that claim will remain true for long – Qello currently has “thousands” of concerts in its database – will be determined by the passage of time, but for now, it stands as the preeminent Honeycomb tablet application of its kind.

Qello has a simple, handsome interface that makes YouTube look like it was designed by a novice web design student. Its overall look borrows from the best of YouTube and Netflix 'Watch Now', and in many ways the app is an amalgam of the two. The only “catch” is that you can only preview the full length concert videos in the Qello database. After about five minutes, you’re given the option of replaying the same footage or renting the full concert for 30 days on your tablet for $4.99. Regardless of whether you decide to browse or buy, this is still an app that essentially contains limitless entertainment value – and with its stutter free HD video quality, it becomes a must-have for the live music-loving Honeycomb owner.




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