There are a few noteworthy ones that have significantly enhanced my digital experience. Let me share them with you:
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Musicolet: It’s a fantastic music player with a user-friendly interface. The best part is, it doesn’t bombard you with pesky ads like the default music player does.
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Cube Acr: If you ever need to record calls, this app is a game-changer. It’s the best free call recorder I’ve tried so far.
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Macrodroid: This app lets you automate almost anything you can think of. Personally, I love how it allows me to easily turn on the WiFi hotspot with just a few taps. I couldn’t find any other app on the Play Store that offered this feature without requiring root access.
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Auto redial: You know those moments when you keep calling a restaurant repeatedly until they finally answer? This app saves you from that frustration. It automatically redials the number for you, making your life much easier.
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Dynamic rotation: Auto-rotate can be a bit annoying, right? But sometimes, you do want your screen to rotate. That’s where Dynamic Rotation comes in. It prompts you to rotate the app whenever you rotate your screen, giving you more control.
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Folder sync: It’s surprising that popular cloud apps like Mega don’t offer a way to sync folders. Fortunately, Folder Sync fills that gap. You can keep selected folders always in sync without any hassle.
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Volume booster: We all come across situations where the audio is too low. This app comes to the rescue by boosting the volume, allowing you to hear even the faintest sounds clearly.
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Always on AMOLED by Tomer Rosenfeld: Recently, I dropped my phone in water, and since then, the screen has been acting up, moving randomly. However, I noticed that if I use this app for a while, it stabilizes the screen. It’s been a lifesaver for me.
These hidden gems have definitely made a significant difference for me. It’s fascinating to think about the missed opportunities had I known about them earlier. But hey, now that we know, we can make the most out of these fantastic apps, feel free to add your list below as well ❤️
Any “Simple Mobile Tools” application. They are simple (obviously) and do their job well.
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Spectroid: what’s that sound? Do I hear that faint but annoying sound or just imagine it? With spectroid you can see the sound spectrum over time.
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Nova launcher: Lets you cutomize the home screen of your phone and make it just right. I like my apps a bit closer together in five columns instead of four. Nova launcher let’s me do this.
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Business calendar: it’s just so much better than the default calendar, especially if you have lots of meetings and need an information dense view.
I recently found out Nova was purchased by an analytics company. I don’t have any proof or solid reason to think they’re up to no good necessarily. But I have zero desire to use something as integral as a launcher that’s owned by a company like that.
I moved to Neo Launcher and it’s been 95% as good as Nova. The knock is just some fine tunings that Nova had, but I’m not having any issues with Neo.
Was not aware of this. Thank you!.. :(
I second nova launcher and business calendar. They’ve been staples on my phones for the past 5+ years
I use Business Calendar daily. It’s very customizable, easy to use, and has been awesome for years.
Love Nova Launcher! It offers so many customisation options, particularly in terms of home screen and app drawer layout, icons and fonts.
I remember a few years back when my phone was stolen (I accidentally left it in the back of an Uber) and I was forced to buy a new one. The relief I felt when I started up the new phone, signed into Google and straightaway saw my familiar home screen, courtesy of Nova Launcher.
I guess I was surprised so much was still there given I didn’t do a formal backup / transfer between old and new phones, but that’s the beauty of the cloud! :)
Edit: Also @distantlight, agree with Cube ACR - I have been immensely grateful having an easy way to record calls. It has a button to allow you to start and stop recording in the middle of a call so for me, it was piece of mind, especially during legal scrapes! But as another commenter has said, I feel like it stopped working at some point so no longer have it installed…
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I just want to share my positive experience with Folder Sync.
I use Obsidian for journaling and note-taking, and unless you use the paid plan it doesn’t have native sync across multiple devices. I have the root folder of my notes stored in Google Drive and use Folder Sync to sync my PC/laptop with my mobile. Very useful as I’m out in the field often and like to jot down quick notes on my phone.
10/10 it just works.
Folder Sync is great. Have been using it since 2017 to auto backup my phone to a home server I have setup. This means that if I replace my phone or it gets stolen, nothing is lost. Granted, nowadays I am finding less and less use for it with most apps backing up their data to the cloud but for photos/videos, it is great to have a local backup
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Oh my god I never considered doing this, I’ve been very tediously syncing them using git
RadarScope. I work a very weather-dependent job.
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Isn’t dynamic rotation built in to Android these days?
Think the point is it asks instead of just doing it.
On my phone at least, when I have autorotate off and tilt the screen, an icon appears next to my back button that will rotate the screen. Which sounds to me like the goal of this app.
There’s an accessibility option that can do this but it’s inconsistent at best for me.
Yes but I think many people don’t know it exists and how to use it. For those who don’t know : rotate your phone and a little rotating phone will appear next to your “go back” button. Just click it.
I don’t know about other brands but Samsung does have a small icon in the bottom corner prompting this when I rotate my phone yeah. Ignore it if not needed. Very useful.
It is built into Android proper meaning most phones should be able to do it
TIL about this and it’s a freaking lifesaver. Thank you!
- NewPipe has made my YouTube watching experience way better; it’s a standalone app with features like ad blocking, subscriptions, and downloading.
- F-Droid (particularly the Droid-ify client) is an open-source app store that generally provides quality apps.
- Obtanium has helped me stay up to date with some of my more obscure apps, which are released only on Github. Obtanium can auto-update apps from a GitHub link or similar, which makes the process way easier.
- Auxio is a pretty good music player, it’s quite lightweight but it also looks good.
All of these are available on F-Droid, I find that many F-Droid apps provide a better or cleaner experience than Google Play apps.
Last time I used NewPipe, it downloaded fine, and I could play back the downloads from the app, but there was no way to move the downloads to a non-system folder, so they were effectively locked into the app. Has that changed?
Ok, saved lul
FairEmail: I hated reading email on my phone, till I found it. I was so happy that I already paid for it 3 times (optional!) just to give something back to the dev.
Waze: it belongs to Google now, but I like it much better because it’s like a social network for navigation and maps. You can also edit the maps by yourself. Another advantage is that it shows speed limits and warns you about police while driving.
I also really like fairemail for it’s privacy focused approach but often the formatting in emails looks weird… e. g. Paypal is especially bad :(
Aegis: 2fa. Free, open source.
Auto Auto-rotate: per app rotation settings. Free, open source.
Missed notifications reminder: adds a repeating sound or vibration if a watched app has an active notification. Ie, you got an email when you were away from your phone so every few minutes your phone makes a beep or whatever so you don’t need to check the screen constantly. Free, open source.
MJ PDF: simple, fast PDF reader. Free, open source.
Snap drop: web based instant file transfer between devices. Free, open source.
X-Plore: the only file manager that ever clicked for me. Dual pane that’s really intuitive. Absolutely packed with features (connects with local network, cloud providers, ftp, ssh, dlna, has file sync)
Auto Auto-Rotate - Allows you to pick specific apps to turn on auto-rotate for while turning it off for the others. Works great if you wish to keep it on for media and video apps but not other apps.
Launcher KISS the simplest, cleanest and fastest launcher I have ever used. After few days I got so much used to it that when I get my hands on phone with another launcher I feel lost. My father and my son are also using KISS and they like it.
- CPU-Z summarizes literally everything about your mobile phone. What model you have, what SoC you have, what your clock speeds and thermals are, which update you’re on, etc. Super useful and you never have to wonder anything about your specs.
- Notebloc is the best camscanner app. The ads are a lot but you can get an ad-free version for pretty cheap. The black and white scan has great clarity that makes it look legit like it’s scanned.
- PlainApp is a new open-source Airdroid alternative. Easily transfer files and images from your mobile to PC over wi-fi. It’s super useful.
- Niagara Launcher - literally changed the way I use my phone. Every single app is at most two taps away. And I really like the simple aesthetic.
- Taskito - just a tasks / todo app but for some reason I like it much more than most of the popular apps.
Thanks a bunch, saving this right now 😊
