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The Nexus 7 is a great little device, and you can read our comprehensive Google Nexus 7 review now.
We loved it, but it does have its limitations, namely limited storage space (with no microSD card slot to expand it) and no 3G connection. That seems to pint logically to streamed content, but with a 7in screen and weighing just 340g, it’s an ideal size for carrying about with you day-to-day.
All this means you’ll want apps that can cache content to the internal memory, so you don’t need a wireless connection while you’re on the move, but without overloading its limited capacity. Here’s our top ten picks, click on the title of each to go straight to Google Play, from where you can push the app straight onto your Nexus 7.
Whether or not you agree with the political stance of the Guardian newspaper, you can still appreciate its wealth of content covering subjects such as technology, books, film, TV, property, travel etc etc.
It’s the ability to control exactly what content you do or don’t want that makes this so useful
One great thing about the Guardian is that it practices what it preaches when it comes to the freedom of data online. The entire website is accessible to anyone who wants to write a tool to access it, which is how Guardian Anywhere is possible.
You can set the app to download all the news stories and associated pictures overnight. Plus you can subscribe to a wide range of subjects, or practically any subject tag that appears under a story you’ve read. You can also subscribe to specific columnists, such as Charlie Brooker or David Mitchell. It’s a brilliant resource of news and entertainment for the morning commute.
9. YOUTUBE
YouTube TV The latest version of Google’s own YouTube app now lets you pre-load videos ready for offline playback. You have the choice to save either all the videos from your subscribed channels, or just the ones you add to your “watch later” queue. To enable offline pre-loading, load the YouTube app and bring up the menu using the three-dot icon in the top right corner. Select settings, then pre-loading and tick the boxes for the option you prefer. Naturally this uses up storage space, so make sure you have enough for other apps before you fill it with videos.
Now Tom can watch Street Fighter videos even without a Wi-Fi connection
Trip Advisor’s city guide are useful mainly because they download everything you need to your phone over Wi-Fi before you leave home. You get a map of the city you’re visiting, all the up-to-date listings for hotels, restaurants, attractions and even some suggested itineraries.
They are only available for major cities, capitals and big tourist destinations, so London, Edinburgh, Prague and Barcelona are in, but Birmingham is out.
London is on many people’s itinerary this summer, something to do with sport
7. OSMAND
OsmAnd (OpenStreetMap Android) is a client for the OpenStreetMap project’s free offline maps. You preload maps to the device over your Wi-Fi, and they’re available whether you have a network connection or not.
Maps are available for the entire world, but the amount of detail in each map is dependent on how active OpenStreetMap’s volunteers have been in a particular location.
However, if you find a certain place isn’t covered, you can always use Google Maps’ offline mode, which lets you cache a certain number of map tiles when you still have a network connection.
Lost abroad? Not with OsmAnd you won’t be
The cheaper version of the Galaxy Nexus has a paltry 8GB of storage and no way of expanding it. It may sound like quite a bit when you start out, but it’ll soon fill up with miscellaneous junk. One way to keep the clutter at bay is with a file manager like Astro. This way you can quickly find the biggest files and clear space for fresh, exciting stuff.
With limited storage space a file manager will be easily worth its weight in KBs
5. Shazam
Shazam, the tool that records a snippet of whatever music you can hear and then compares it to its online database to help you name that tune actually works offline – an essential feature for anyone who spends a lot of time in basement bars or who owns a tablet that’s dependent on Wi-Fi rather than HSDPA.
Just open Shazam and run it as normal. It’ll record a sequence but then tell you that your device can’t connect but that your tag will be stored. When you next have a net connection, just go to “My Tags” and tap any that haven’t been submitted to check them against the Shazam database.
Shazam’s error message doesn’t look pretty, but it’s saving everything you need for later
4. Spotify
Even most people who have a device with mobile broadband don’t allow music service Spotify to stream content to them unless they have a Wi-Fi connection at the time, simply because of the vast amount of bandwidth required by high-quality audio streams. Using Spotify’s offline mode, you can download your playlists for future listening. You only need to connect to the actual service once every 30 days to keep them working. You’ll need to subscribe to Spotify Premium to use the service on a mobile device, but if you’re a music fan it’s well worth the money.
Spotify’s helpful Android app prompts you to download your favourite playlists for listening anywhere
3. Google Drive
Google Drive lets you make anything of the documents you’ve put in Google’s cloud storage or created in Google Docs available offline. It can open any Google Docs you have files itself, but you’ll need a relevant file viewer for other file types you’ve uploaded, such as DOC or RTF files.
Configure the documents you need for offline access by ticking a box
If you use RSS feeds anywhere near as much as we do, you’ll love Minimal Reader. It can automatically pull a set number of RSS stories every time you connect to Wi-Fi, meaning you’re always up to date with the latest news even if you aren’t online. It comes with a customisable homescreen widget, and it looks gorgeous too, even if you opt for the free version rather than splash out 69p for Pro.
1. INSTAPAPER
If you’ve ever been reading a long article online wish you could save it to read it properly later, Instapaper is the app for you. From Chrome for Android’s menu, you can select Share, Instapaper to mark an article for offline reading.
Instapaper strips out everything bar the text and graphics, giving articles you’re interested in a magazine feel. All articles you mark as favourite are synced with the Instapaper online account, but you can store up to 500 articles directly on your device, and even organise them into folders.
It costs £1.93 for the full app, but given the extra content it can give you for reading offline it’s an essential for a device like the Google Nexus 7.
Instapaper strips out everything from a web page, except the text and graphics, making it easier to read articles
