If you’re an Android smart phone user then you’re probably already using a range of free and open source apps. If so, then many of the following will already be familiar. But if you’re new to Android and/or Open Source then you might want to take a look at this selection of 10 essential free and open source Android applications. Each one was selected for practical use in daily life.

From communication and organisation tools to social media and vlogging apps, this small selection of software covers a range of activities and interests. If you’re an iPhone user, check out my selection of open source iPhone apps and if you’re an iPad or Blackberry user then watch this space for more excellent apps coming soon.

ANDTWEET: AndTweet is a light-weight open Twitter alternative for Android. It is optimized for fast operation allowing the user to quickly navigate tweets and respond to them in an instant. Get this app »

VIDIOM: Vidiom captures MP4 video and allows you to publish your takes to a range of video hosting services. The app can also import previously recorded videos on your phone’s SD card and publish them. It integrates with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Videobin, and more. Get this app »

ANNOUNCIFY: Announcify reads out loud various kinds of information, like events or whole documents, for you.
It means that you don’t haveto take your phone out of your pocket anymore everytime someone sends you a message. Get this app »

MILEAGE: Mileage is a neat little app that helps you track car mileage, gas costs, etc. It allows you to import and export data in various formats making it easy to sync with your existing logs. Get this app »

SHUFFLE: Shuffle is a personal organizational tool, styled around the Getting Things Done methodology. It is a dumping ground for ideas and tasks. It lets you rapidly create and organize your actions and helps alleviate the stress of a busy schedule. Get this app »

FEEDGOAL: FeedGoal is an Open Source RSS/Atom feed reader for Android devices. It is an Android Library that allows you to build easily and quickly your personal news mobile app. Get this app »

COLLECTIONISTA: is an app to keep track of your collections. Not only of collectibles but also of more plain day-to-day items, such as a “wardrobe” of clothes. Each collection has some special functions to handle its items. Get this app »

ANDNAV: AndNav is a fully featured turn-by-turn navigation app that supports Location-Lookup, POIs, Text-2-Speech Instructions, Traffic-Feeds, Contact-Search, 4-day Weather Forecast, Via-Points, Avoid-Areas and more. Get this app »

DROID SAFE: Droid Safe is an easy to use anti-theft software for android. You can provide it with a phone number of a close friend or a relative along with a message, Droid Safe will send this message in the event of your SIM being replaced. Get this app »

YAAIC: Yaaic (Yet Another Android IRC Client) is a free and open source Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client for Android devices. Get this app »