So you've been hearing all about apps on smart phones such as the Apple iPhone, Google Android-based phones and the Palm Pre. I've been experimenting with some apps that are popular and unusual. This week, I'll cover some random apps for the Droid phones. The apps I discuss are all free. (Not all apps are free. You can find out prices when you download them.)

Don't expect each app to do a lot, but the best apps do at least one thing very well, often taking advantage of the unique aspects of the particular smart phone operating system.

First things first. A couple days before starting my experimenting, my office lost power, and our building was evacuated. So, with my trip down six flights of stairs fresh in my mind, I decided to start with a flashlight app - one that turns on the backlight for the phone as brightly as can be. My choice was Color Flashlight.

Not only does it allow me to use the phone as a flashlight whenever needed, but it also lets me use it for mood lighting with various color lights displaying at my whim. And it lets me apply effects like strobe and spiral. It also flashes in what it calls emergency mode and police mode. It's easy to use, and works as described.

I also took a look at several location-based apps. There's one that helps you find the nearest Dunkin Donuts (and one for the nearest Starbucks, which I did not try). Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Dunkin Donuts app to work. So I'm still hungry for my favorites (Boston creme and jelly).

I also figured that an app that searches for the nearest bathroom would help in a pinch, so I installed Bathroom Finder from a company named BeTomorrow. It touts 60,000 bathrooms in its database, and allows users to report bathrooms to the system to increase that number.

The good news is that if you have your GPS function turned on, it will find the closest bathrooms to you without you having to know your exact location. The bad news is that it will take a lot more than 60,000 bathrooms to make a universally helpful app. When I turned it on from my home in Mt. Lebanon, it showed me four locations on Pittsburgh's South Side, five miles away, instead of showing me locations a few blocks away in Mt. Lebanon's business district.

I couldn't help but download several quote-a-day type applications, including Life Tips and 501 Inspirational Quotes. The one that struck me as the most interesting is Success Quotes. With it, you can go back and forth between quotes from such notables as Dale Carnegie and Zig Ziglar; and you can send them to friends by text or e-mail.

And I also downloaded the only gragger app I could find to make noise on the Jewish holiday Purim. (A gragger is a noisemaker to obscure the name of the holiday's villain, Haman.)

The most important of all the apps I examined, though, is one that was recommended to me by reps from Verizon Wireless - Task Killer. That one allows you to turn off the apps that get stuck in your Droid's memory, taking up usable space, and often wasting your battery. The more apps you use with your smart phone, the more you'll need it.

I'll continue to look at apps of various types, and share them with you. If you have your favorites, please share them with me so I can pass them on.

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