Productivity
Any.DO is has always been one of my favorite to-do apps, and it comes
with some really useful features. While it's not my pick for the best,
Any.DO offers some great features and a sharp design that will help you
stay on top of your to-do list, and feel good about doing it in the
process. It's fast, beautiful, and easy to use.
Boomerang is one of our favorite tools to keep your Gmail under control,
and its newly launched Android app hooks into your Gmail or Google Apps
accounts to help you compose and schedule messages, automatically hide
messages for a set period of time, and overall help you keep your inbox
tidy and focused so you only see the items you need to work on.
Agenda Calendar offers a clean, minimalist view of even the most cluttered calendars,
and makes keeping on top of a busy schedule full of appointments and
events a breeze. Multiple calendar views help you see your schedule from
any angle, whether you're walking between meetings and need a
one-handed way to browse your appointments, or you're knee deep in your
calendar trying to find time to squeeze in a lunch meeting. Of course,
the built-in Google Calendar app is completely free and Agenda Calendar
is $2, but if you live and die by your calendar, Agenda can make it
easier to manage.
Google
Voice is still one of the best utilities you can install on your
Android phone for seamless, free SMS, call screening, and customizable
visual voicemail. It's completely free, and regardless of whether you think its future may be in doubt,
it's still one of the first things you should install and set up on a
new Android device, whether you've been using it for years, or you're
just getting started. Of course, you could go all the way and import
your number and manage it through Voice, but even if you don't, it still
has tons of features to offer, and at the very least can make sure
you're never bothered by telemarketers and spam callers again—and it can
make the people who do actually call you to talk feel welcome.
SwiftKey has come a long way even since the last time we included it in
the Android App Pack. It's picked up a number of significant updates,
including SwiftKey "Flow," or Swiftkey's take on gesture-typing. Draw
out the word you want on the keyboard and SwiftKey will type it out for
you. Additionally, SwiftKey has improved its word prediction in recent
updates, and even though you can connect the keyboard to your email,
Facebook, Twitter, and other social accounts so it can quickly learn the
words you use most often, you don't have to in order for it to quickly
learn your personal language and suggest words to you that make sense
(and make typing easier). It's skinnable in a dozen different colors and
styles, and it works on just about any Android device. It's $4, but if
you want to try it for free, you can. There's a reason its our favorite
Android keyboard.
Google Keep is probably one of Google's most underrated, but most powerful products.
It's an incredible tool for staying organized, clipping quick notes,
getting your thoughts down quickly, and organizing checklists both on
the desktop and on mobile devices. On Android it really shines, and
offers useful home screen widgets and lightning-fast note taking that
synchronizes with your Google account. It's worth installing if for no
other reason than to have a stickies app for Android, but once you start
using it you'll quickly reveal its true power.
DashClock Widget, even though it's only available for Android 4.2+
devices, is an incredibly powerful tool to supercharge your lock screen
with useful information, notifications, and mini-applications. Aside
from showing you basic things like the weather, battery status, incoming
notifications, and more without you having to even unlock your device,
it's also incredibly flexible and can tie into a number of popular
applications to offer even more useful at-a-glance information.
Essentially, DashClock's add-ons (and the add-ons offered by other app
developers) make your lock screen just as functional as a home screen,
just more streamlined.
SwipePad
is a quick launcher for your favorite Android apps and settings. Sure,
you can add items to your home screen and open them that way, but
SwipePad gives you a kind of "speed dial" launcher for your favorite
apps and settings that's just a gesture away, whether you're on your
home screen or already in an application. It's not the only app switcher like this,
but it's definitely one of the best, and the fact that it's so easy to
use and set up means you'll never have to go back to the home screen or
dig through the app drawer to get to one of your favorite apps again.
Pocket
and Readability are both tools that make it easy to clip articles from
the web that you want to read later, save them, share them, and then
read them whenever or wherever you want to—all without annoying site ads
or busy and cluttered layouts. Each service has its own benefits and drawbacks,
so you should definitely pick the one that works the best for you, but
they're both worth looking at if you're looking for a quick way to clip
articles for future reference or reading.
Internet and Communications
Chrome isn't just your favorite web browser for Android,
it's one of the best. If you're running Android 4.0 or higher, it's a
fast, flexible browser that can sync bookmarks, tabs, and passwords with
Chrome on the desktop, on your tablet, or even on iOS. If you're not
running Android 4.0 or higher, or you want an alternative, Dolphin
Browser is still our pick as the best for Android
because it's just as fast, offers syncing with the desktop through
plug-ins, offer voice-assisted and gesture browsing, and is extendable
with tons of add-ons that make the browser even better.
Falcon Pro is the best Twitter client for Android, hands down, and even
though its wrapped up in drama with Twitter because of its popularity,
there is a way around all of that
that will let you use the app now that it's been pulled from Google
Play. We think the hack is worth it. For your trouble, you get a
feature-packed in-app browser and image viewer, support for in-app
video, a great gesture-based interface, and tons more options that we
don't have room to go into here. If you're looking for a similar option
that's a little less hassle, try
Twicca, our old pick for the best, or
Carbon, another great gesture-powered Twitter client that recently picked up even more features.
Google's Hangouts may replace Google Talk, but it does more than Talk ever did.
Chats, video chats, shared photos, and more are all in the same app and
interface, saved and easy for you to download and back up, no matter
how many people were involved with the conversation. Group chats and
conversations are easy, and switching from chat to video chat is simple
and easy. Hangouts also is the new home for Gmail calling, and Google Voice users can answer calls in Hangouts,
making Hangouts feature rich whether you're using on the desktop or on
your Android phone. You probably have Hangouts already, but if you're
not using it, give it a try.
The
Kindle app for Android has been around for a long time, but if you have a
lot of Kindle books, ebooks in general, or PDF documents, it's still
one of the best readers for all three. It's free, it's fast, and it
gives you access to everything available in the Kindle store. You also
get access to your Kindle account, and any documents you have stored in
the cloud with
Amazon, which makes it perfect for ebooks you've downloaded elsewhere.
Press is one of the best newsreaders for Android,
and while it started its life as a simple Google Reader client, its
evolved since the death of Google Reader to support Feedly, Feed
Wrangler, and Feedbin, so you can still get your feed reading on using
its gorgeous interface. It's fast, flexible, and while it's $2, think of
it as the Reeder of Android—which is a big compliment. If you'd rather
not spend the money and you're already a Feedly user, you can grab the
Feedly app for Android and go right to the source.
Hideman is a free VPN service
for Android, OS X, and Windows. The Android app is easy to install and
easy to use, and runs quietly in the background while you surf. As we've
mentioned in some of our VPN coverage in the past,
a free VPN service is only as good as how much the provider logs your
activities and how much they're willing to give you for free. Hideman
wins on both counts: The service keeps no logs on paid users and minimal
logs on free ones (and even purges those after 14 days), and free users
can use the service for four hours per week completely free. If you
need a mobile VPN for those quick work sessions at the coffee shop or
the library, Hideman is worth a look. If you want a completely free
(ad-supported) option that's also privacy focused, try
Hotspot Shield.
Location Aware
Google Now recently earned our pick as the best virtual assistant for Android
,
and for good reason. No other tool we've seen proactively offers the
wealth of relevant and useful information that Google Now does that
specific to your current location. If you're traveling, Google Now will
show you the weather in your location before you get off the plane, open
up a translation card so you can make sense of the local language, and
show you directions to the hotel you booked a room in, all within
moments of you arriving at your destination, without you having to do
anything. Even if you're not traveling, Google Now will proactively tell
you when you need to leave to get to an appointment on your calendar,
how long the commute home will be before you leave work, and more.
After a major update (if not a little controversial) recently, Google
Maps for Android now has the same new, refreshed look that we previewed
at Google I/O
earlier this year. It sports a cleaner, more organized layout, better
driving directions, more options to explore local businesses and
destinations, live traffic reports and accident rerouting, and more.
Even without the latest feature additions, Google Navigation is by far
the best turn-by-turn navigation service for Android, and Google Maps is
the best maps app for Android as well.
1Weather is one of the most attractive and feature packed weather apps we've ever seen,
and it's only been updated since we first looked at it. Even if you
don't think you need another weather app on your Android phone, 1Weather
may convert you. The app offers real-time weather and forecasts for any
location you set, the option to set multiple locations or have the app
follow you around via GPS, extended forecast info, animated radar and
cloud cover maps, alerts and advance warnings of weather conditions
(including push notifications for National Weather Service alerts), a
beautiful home screen widget, and more, and its completely free.
Nothing is worse than forgetting where you parked your car, and Valet is
an Android app that will help you remember, even if you forget to open
the app
and mark where your car is currently located. The app works best when
you mark where your car is parked before you leave it, but if you don't,
it'll watch the Bluetooth connection to your car stereo (if you have
one) and when it drops off, it'll mark your car's location. It's $4, but
if you want a free option, you can check out previously mentioned
Park Me Right.
Lookout
combines antivirus and antimalware tools for Android with lost phone
tracking in case your phone is lost or stolen. It's one of the few
Android security tools that's actually remarkably powerful and does what it promises.
Lookout will keep your phone safe, help you find it when it's lost,
back up your data, and protect your personal information from mobile
threats, phishing sites, malware, and more.
Music, Photos, and Video
You could choose your favorite of these three or keep them all installed
if you have accounts with each. They all bring something different to
the table.
Pandora offers deep and rich song library and taste-based matching.
Spotify sports a massive library of music you can play at any time.
Google Play Music features a cloud-based repository of your own tunes
and its newly launched
Google Play Music All Access Service.
Google Play Music has the benefit of being a great music store as well
as a cloud locker for all of the music you buy from them (although
Amazon MP3
shouldn't be overlooked if that's what you're looking for).They're all
great portable music services, run well on almost any Android device,
and bring great music to you on the go.
If
you're trying to get into shape, or you just want some music to liven
up your workout routine, FitRadio can deliver in droves. All of their
stations and playlists are engineered to help you keep the energy up
while you exercise so you're motivated to push harder and get through
your workout. The app is free and some of the music is free, but if you
want more playlists and more music, you'll have to pony up for a
subscription. It's not much, and it definitely beats assembling your own
workout playlists if you're short on time, or listening to the same
songs over and over again every time you go for a run or hit the
stationary bike.
Instagram
may be an odd inclusion in the App Pack, but the app made such a huge
splash when it arrived on Android that its worth highlighting. Also, now
that Instagram features 15-second video clips,
it's an excellent way to not just share your photos with your friends,
but also to share short video clips with them or keep them on your own
for posterity. There are other great alternatives out there, but Instagram is definitely the heavyweight.
If
you're a real photo fan and love tweaking and editing your photos before
you share them, or just want a better photo management app for your
Android phone or tablet, Google's own Snapseed is worth a download.
Sure, you can apply those photo filters that you'll find in other photo
sharing apps, but you can also crop, edit, sharpen, auto-correct, tune,
and make your photo look better before you share it. It's
completely free, and probably the most comprehensive yet still
easy-to-use photo editing tool for Android.
Where
Snapseed is great at photo editing, Camera ZOOM FX is stellar at helping
you take great photos in the first place. We think it's the best camera app for Android, and it's picked up a number of updates
that make it even better than it was when it earned the title. It's
still worth your $3, if only for the extensive burst shooting options,
timer features, steady-shot helper, controls for ISO, brightness,
exposure, and light metering, and grid overlays that help you line up
the perfect shot. When you're finished, you can apply photo filters,
text, graphics, or effects before saving the photo to your library or
sharing it with the world.
Plex
brings all of your music, movies, videos, and everything else in your
computer's media library right to the small screen so you can enjoy all
of it when you're on the go. You'll need the desktop app on your home
media machine or HTPC, but it's not hard to set up.With a little effort,
you'll stream music and movies to your phone,
watch them on the small screen, pick up where you left off on the big
screen, and you'll be able to do all of it without worrying about file
formats or video codecs.
Utilities
Greenify can help you maximize the battery life of your Android phone by automatically hibernating apps in the background
so they don't spawn additional processes or keep running when you're
not using them. You can customize which apps get hibernated and which
apps can run unchecked, and if you drop $3 to support the developer, you
get
the "donation version" that can hibernate system apps
as well as user-installed ones. It's not a task killer—it's much better
than that, and it can add hours of life to your ailing battery.
Titanium Backup is still the king of Android backup utilities, and it's
the easiest way to backup your data and move to a new phone or make
automated, hassle-free backups of your Android phone. There's been some
recent competition,
it's still the most complete, feature-rich backup option. The Pro key
will set you back $7, but making sure your data is backed up is worth
the price.
Dropbox and Google Drive are two of the best cloud storage providers
on the market, and both offer a ton of features that make them worth
installing on your Android phone. Dropbox alone makes the process of
getting files on and off your phone simple, and it makes sideloading
APKs a snap. Dropbox's auto-upload feature also makes backing up all of
the photos you shoot with your Android phone seamless, and can even
share them with the world if you want it to. Google Drive features OCR
and character recognition using your Android device's camera, and
tightly integrates with Google Docs, Presentations, Spreadsheets, and
more—as well as giving you access to cloud storage space for files and
photos.
Cloud storage providers give out space like candy these days, and CloudCube is the app that lets you manage it all from one app.
Dropbox, Google Drive, Ubuntu One, Cubby, Box, SkyDrive, Copy,
SugarSync, and more are all supported, and you can see how much space
you have in each at a glance. CloudCube makes moving files across cloud
storage services easy, lets you synchronize any folders on your Android
device with whichever cloud service you choose, and lets you browse and
download files from any of the services you use.
Tasker
is the ultimate automation and tweaking app for Android. If you've ever
wondered how to make your phone do "x" when "y" happened, Tasker can
automate it. Recent updates have made the app easier to use, and you
don't have to look far to see some of the incredible things you can do
with the app, from controlling your car with your voice to automating
every room in your house. Tasker can be tricky to get started with, but
once you've set up a few actions, it's off and away.
ES File Explorer is our favorite file management tool for Android,
and for good reason. You get complete access to your phone's file
system in an intuitive interface, access to cloud storage services for
quick downloads and APK installs, advanced tools to manage, install, and
uninstall, applications, a gallery for your photos and image folders, a
built-in FTP client, the ability to transfer files over Bluetooth, and
more. Best of all, it's completely free. All of that power will cost you
nothing, and it runs smoothly on virtually any version of Android.
If
you let your phone charge while you work at your computer but don't
like the idea of having to pick it up every time a new SMS message comes
in or a notification pops up on your phone, AirDroid lets you manage your Android phone from your web browser.
Whether your phone is on the same network as your computer or not, you
get complete control over it, and can respond to text messages, update
applications, manage your phone's storage, download and share photos,
and even find your device if it's lost.
Food and Entertainment
Sure,
Yelp can help you find something tasty to eat in your neighborhood, or
give you the lowdown on that new restaurant that opened across town, but
it's useful for much more than that. People review just about
everything on Yelp, from libraries to apartment communities, and if the
reviews aren't enough, you can use it to learn about nearby events,
venues, or happenings around town. If you are reading about a new
restaurant or looking up the menu of a place you've been meaning to try,
you can use Yelp to make reservations.
IMDB
puts the internet's largest database of information about movies, TV
shows, actors and actresses, and more right in the palm of your hand.
Searching for your favorite movie, performer, or TV show takes a couple
of seconds. You can even look up movie trivia, find out when that movie
you and your friends are talking about nostalgically actually came out,
and now you can even buy movie tickets within the app for that blockbuster you've been planning to see.
If
you've cut the cable or just enjoy streaming video from the web, one or
both of these are probably already installed on your Android phone. If
not, they're worth a look depending on the ones you use most heavily.
They can be resource drains especially on smaller and older devices, but
they all give you a gateway to thousands of movies, TV shows, and video
clips. Pick your favorite, or download the client for the service
you're already paying for streaming video.
The Extended Pack
Part
package tracking tool and part shopping organizer, Slice hooks into your
email account and watches for order confirmation emails from online
stores you shop with. It processes those order confirmations for you,
keeps track of how much you're spending where, and notifies you on your
phone when your items ship, are out for delivery, or are delivered to
your home or office. You can track your packages at any time, review
past orders, or get a single view of all of the online shopping you've
done at multiple retailers in one secure view, which is great if you buy
almost everything online (or it's the holiday season).
If
your phone came with a bunch of carrier crapware or a bloated, laggy
application launcher like TouchWiz or MotoBlur (or even Sense), you'll
want a new, slimmer, trimmer launcher that can get you closer to the
stock Android experience. Nova Launcher is our pick as the best launcher for Android,
but it's exceptionally similar to Apex Launcher, and we know they're
pretty close feature-wise. They both offer free versions, so you can try
them both to see which one works best for you. Both of them allow you
to customize your Android experience as much or as little as you want—if
you want a bare, stock-like experience, you can go with the default
setup. If you like animated transitions, scrolling docks, widgets in
folders and folders on the dock, spring-launched shortcuts, and more,
you can have that too.
There's
nothing worse than missing a text message because you're at home and
left your phone on silent so you weren't disturbed at work, or getting
to the office only to have a phone call blare your favorite jam across
the office. Silence automatically adjusts your sound and wireless settings
based on the time of day, or based on what's on your Google Calendar.
If you block off "work" for every weekday from 9am to 6pm, Silence will
set your phone to vibrate and turn Wi-Fi on so you're not sucking down
data when your office has free Wi-Fi. Then, after hours, it'll crank up
the ringer and turn Wi-Fi off so you hear it when your friend texts you
for dinner, and keeps your phone from draining its battery searching for
Wi-Fi networks when you leave the office.
We don't just use our Android devices for productivity and work, we use
them for play too, and RetroArch can emulate just about any classic
gaming console on your Android phone. We've shown you how to turn your
phone into a portable arcade,
and this emulator is the one to get if you're planning on doing it—or
turning an older Android phone into a portable gaming device.
If you
need a little help working out, or want guided circuit training workouts
that can help you get the best possible workout in the shortest
possible time, Sworkit is the app to get. The app comes packed with a
variety of exercises and workout routines to help you stay motivated and
engaged without getting bored, and it tracks your progress so you can
see how well you're doing sticking to your exercise goals. The app even
randomizes workouts so you don't do the same routines over and over
again. Pick up
the pro version
for $1 to have the app speak the exercise names to you, help you track
your progress even longer, set daily and weekly goals, and get bonus
workouts if you're ready for a challenge.
Servers Ultimate transforms your Android phone into a fully-featured server,
complete with whatever apps you want to install on it and remote
terminal access. The app has a number of built-in server applications,
including tools to turn your phone into a DLNA streaming media server, a
secure web proxy, an FTP or WebDAV server for file storage, an ad hoc
DNS server, an SMS gateway, and more. The app is definitely for advanced
users, but it's not terribly difficult to use—you just have to know
what you want to do with it. Best of all, it's completely free. There's a
$9
pro version
that lets you run as many servers as you want simultaneously, but try
the free version first before you decide to drop the cash.
This list is hardly exclusive, or even exhaustive. There are plenty of
great apps we didn't have room for here, and some we included last year
that we excluded this year to make room for newcomers. Similarly, you
can always check out the Android App Directory or our Android download
tag page for even more app suggestions.
