Unless you’re the rich or the lucky one, most probably, you’ll be having an android smartphone. I’m one of those who keeps on looking for new stuff, and try to find quality apps from Play Store.
I’m compiling a list of what I can call my current top 10 Android apps. Being said that, I’m omitting the obvious ones – WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, etc. And, I’m also omitting those which you’ll most probably be knowing : Firefox, Magoosh, PushBullet, VLC, etc.
So, here’s a list of some amazing apps which you might not have heard of:
- Lightning Browser
- Any.do
- #SquareDroid
- ES File Explorer
- iLauncher
- Vocab.com
- SMS Backup & Restore
- Cal
- Greenify
- MusixMatch
Easily the best browser for entry-level (budget) phones with low specs. Hardly consumes RAM, takes only approximate 2mb space on your phone, and works flawlessly! You can access tabs with a swipe, and there’s a *cough* incognito mode too. In case you need it. That said, this lightweight browser desn’t end it there. It has a Ad blocker built in. However, you’ll have to buy the Lightning Browser+ version for that. Flash support is also there, if you have flash installed on your phone.
Oh, and since websites today keep extracting your location details from your devices, there’s also a sweet option to restrict location access in this app.
Link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=acr.browser.barebones&hl=en
Perhaps the best productivity app. You need not remember all shitloads of work you have. It’ll remember for you. It’ll remind you. And, till the point you don’t complete the thing, it’s gonna stay in your status bar, which, of course you pull down a hundred times in a day. Secondly, everyday, it’ll ask to schedule the tasks that are remaining according to time – morning, afternoon, evening. So that, it’ll remind you of the task when time comes. Plus, if you have a tab, and a phone, it remains synced in all your devices. And, if you’re feeling lazy to type, you can put voice notes too.
With all of that functionality, it offers a great minimal design too. Check it out if you haven’t yet.
Link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anydo&hl=en
The odds are pretty high that you’ll be there on Instagram. Okay. If you’re not there, I can at least safely assume that you’re on WhatsApp if you own a smartphone. Now, has it ever happened, that you have an amazing picture which you want to set as your profile picture, but then you gotta crop it to a square resolution. And, that sucks, because it either removes something important from the picture, or the picture just doesn’t look so good.
SquareDroid comes to the rescue and adds a blurry colorful additional borders on two sides(depending upon if image is landscape or portrait), or you can go for the classic black bars. The images above pretty much sum up what I’m saying.
Link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sergeyotro.sharpsquare&hl=en
If you’re using any other file manager on Android, you should be sent to jail. Seriously. It’s almost like a crime not going for ES File Explorer. And, the reason is not just that it performs really good, and you have all the options of file manager easily available and put out in front, but that it eases your life with features such as sending on LAN. If you’re connected to a wifi, and any other device is also connected to the same, tell them to open ES File Explorer and you’ll be able to send any file to them. The app calls it ‘Send by LAN’. The file manager features a music/video player inside it too, in case you don’t have any other one.
It would be enough to say that this is the first app I install if I purchase a new android phone.
link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.estrongs.android.pop&hl=en
If you’re one of those who adore how iOS works and like the concept of having ever app on homescreen rather than having a homescreen with a wallpaper, and a clock and some shortcuts or widgets here and there, then this is the best iPhone or iOs launcher available in Play Store. Mind you, this is a paid app. But, I’ve tried other launchers and noone gets as sleek and smooth as this. It’ll give you similar looking icons and the iOS transitions as well, when you open an app, or dive into a folder.
However, you should know one thing. The developer is kinda lazy. He releases updates very rarely. Once in about 4-5 months! Which is not what should happen with any paid app. However, the launcher is pretty much bugless. So, you can have it as a daily launcher and make your phone look and work like an iPhone.
link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.suckga.ilauncher&hl=en
Let me tell you I tried testing EVERY SINGLE vocabulary builder app that’s there on Play Store. And, this unheard guy wins the battle. Even though it’s a paid app, it would pretty much strengthen anyone’s vocabulary. You’re always asked questions, and given options. You choose one, and if it’s right, good, if it’s wrong, it lets you choose another option. When you finally answer it correctly, you can swipe right to see the actual meaning with an example of where it is used.
Then, there are lists. Lists contain a set of words (pertaining to that field) and hundreds of examples to make you ace those words the next time you see them. There are hundreds of such lists available. There are few other nice features too, and I’ll leave them for you to discover.
link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vocabulary.app&hl=en
The app’s name says it all. It’ll make a sweet backup. So that, you can restore it if you gotta format your phone, or something gets wrong with your phone. I believe, it also lets you restore on some other device. That’s cool, isn’t it?
link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore&hl=en
I dare you to not smile when you first launch this app on installing. This is, hands down, the best calendar available in terms of looks and design. It also links with your social accounts to provide you with birthday details of your friends, so you don’t get in trouble. And, it functions better than the Google Calendar provided with your android phone. Of course, there are more heavy and probably better calendars available out there on Play Store, but its looks will just sweep you by your feet.
You install it once, and I’m sure it’ll cover almost every feature you need, and you’re not gonna uninstall it again.
link : https://lh6.ggpht.com/9NtIDEwYylhKgSqfkNhT_ZRyVOxgUJpfbdd9ra4fs_lacvfR0UGKqEsRwt1Nu9eE49iz=h900
I’ve got this from almost my every friend who’s a delhi girl – “Oye, my phone starts hanging and has gotten slow.” Well, I know why. If you’re gonna install tens of photo editing apps, and hundreds of social networking apps, it ought to get slow. Why? Not because you’ve installed so many, but because they keep on running in the background, and keep on eating your RAM. Even when you don’t need them. This RAM, when starts to stay nearly full all the time, it makes your phone slow down. Remember, even if you swipe away the app from multitasking window, it doesn’t really close these apps. The best example of such memory hogging app is Facebook. It’ll continously take memory ranging from 50mb to 200mb of RAM, depending upon your phone.
Greenify saves your phone and keeps it in a clean state. It ‘hibernates’ these apps. They close down, but you can still recieve notifications from them. This makes this app a must have.
link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.greenify&hl=en
Does your music player offer you lyrics? If yes, does it offer you synced lyrics, like they scroll as the song plays? If yes, does it also offer you to download the missing Album Arts automatically? And, even if the answer to that question is yes, does your music player feature a Karaoke mode? Where only the instrumentals are played for any song, and the lyrics are synced, and you become the singer.
This much is enough to make this music player better than any other out there. However, there’s more. If you’ve used facebook messenger, you know what a chathead is. Here, we have something similar, but inside the chathead, you get lyrics of the song playing in the background. So, no matter whatever work you’re doing, you can do that and take a glimpse on lyrics whenever you want.
And, not only it’s features, but its design also striked bulls eye. Check it out.
link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.musixmatch.android.lyrify&hl=en
If you think I’ve missed something which should make it to this list, make sure to comment below and let me know!
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