Non-game Android Apps Recommendations Catch-All

Nova Launcher Prime, the paid upgrade to Nova Launcher, is on sale for $1. I can't remember the normal price, but I think it's $4-$5. And worth it.

Nova Launcher is the bestest.

Veloxi wrote:

Nova Launcher is the bestest.

It is. It's like the Google launcher, but with some tweakability that gives you more options. So if you don't like brand X's tweaks to Android, this hides most of the changes outside of the settings/menus.

MannishBoy wrote:

Nova Launcher Prime, the paid upgrade to Nova Launcher, is on sale for $1. I can't remember the normal price, but I think it's $4-$5. And worth it.

It's 50 eurocents in the EU.

So my windows phone was stolen last week, and I picked up a galaxy s7. Coming from a different ecosystem (though my wife does have a fire phone and tablet) what are some must-haves? I have Nova Launcher and have played with a few other things. One thing I've been trying to find is a phone app that also handles visual voicemail. Doesn't need to be fancy, I'd just rather have one app rather than 2 in my dock.

Also, what are the benefits and drawbacks of rooting?

edit: also, I'm going to commit heresy based on what I've read in this thread and say I didn't like pocket casts and settled on podcast addict.

stupidhaiku wrote:

Also, what are the benefits and drawbacks of rooting?

I would advise not rooting your phone at least until you become more familiar with Android and its limitations. I'd say for the vast majority of users it isn't something you need to do. Android is already quite customizable without rooting, so figure out what you can and can't do before you decide to root.

Rooting it will let you install custom roms, have make system level changes like button mapping or other hardware things, remove pre-installed apps, and install adblockers.

Rooting your phone will prevent you from using Samsung Pay (which is really awesome). Also, I think it voids your warranty (someone correct me if I am wrong here).

I don't feel there are any true must haves. It depends on what you use. Coming from WP I'd suggest all the Microsoft Apps you want. I have most of them but really need Onenote, Outlook, and OneDrive. The nicest thing about Android is that you can get apps that you couldn't get on WP.

For non MS apps the biggest on for me is Amazon Echo. I wish this was available for WP.

I didn't miss having it but I really like having Samsung Pay (when the damn fingerprint reader works). When fingerprints work quickly it's really nice only needing your phone to pay for groceries, etc. Google and Apple pay are weak by comparison. Samsung pay works with mag stripe readers that haven't been updated to work with tap to pay. In my area that's 90% of the card readers.

The my favorite game is Plants VS Zombies 2. Love that game but now they're putting ads inside of the game (and not just watching a video to get coins but when switching levels, starting the game, etc.)

Cardboard is very cool and a lot of fun. Not a huge amount of great content but it's still really neat.

The rest are nice but I don't see them as essential:
American Express
US Bank
Ratebeer/Beer Advocate
Steam
Samsung Milk Music (if you like college sports you can listen to almost any major game for free)
Techbargains/Slickdeals
Wellmark/Geico insurance cards
File Manager (space disappears for no apparent reason)
A bunch of stuff related to the S Pen (drawing apps, etc)

Stuff for TV/Music
Dish Anywhere
Disney Movies
Amazon Prime
Pandora
Microsoft Groove (though it stinks on Android)

Games:
PVZ2
Amazon Underground
Valiant Hearts
Cribbage Classic
A decent spades game (have yet to find one as nice as Andrew Bares stuff on WP)

Some things that I need to make android work better for me:
Business Calendar and Business Calendar 2
Nova Launcher (needed for my Note 4 but I use samsung's launcher on the N5)

Thanks for the tips. I kindof figured rooting wouldn't be something too worthwhile, as I haven't found anything I want to be able to do that I'm not with just file managers and the like.

My local credit union I use doesn't support any of the phone-magic-pay services :(.

Also if you don't mind Google knowing more about you than they already do you can get Google opinion Rewards. They'll send you quick surveys and give you google play credit for answering them. I use that to fund most of my app purchases.

Signus-X wrote:

Also if you don't mind Google knowing more about you than they already do you can get Google opinion Rewards. They'll send you quick surveys and give you google play credit for answering them. I use that to fund most of my app purchases.

They already know everything about me. Might as well get something out of it.

Nice tip!

Yeah Google already knows more about me than I know myself. If they sent me an email with it I'd probably attain enlightment.

I bought a small pack of NFC tags to play with. Anyone have anything useful or just fun to do with them?

I did a quick look through the last ten pages and didn't see this talked about. Anyone have a shared shopping list app they like? My wife and I currently use a notepad on the counter, but an app that handles it might be nicer. It'd be even better if we could store a template of the basic stuff we get regularly that we can pull off into "this week's list", add the other stuff we need, and that I can cross off in the store as I get it. Also, free is good.

My girlfriend and I use Out of Milk, as it's pretty awesome and can sync across devices, so if she adds something to the Target list, I see it.

My wife and I use Google Keep. We have a shared shopping list with checkboxes. For staples we check off what we get, and uncheck it when we need it again. It's really basic, but works.

We use the amazon echo app. We tell Alexa to put something on our shopping list and there it is. The Echo is worth the cost for that feature alone.

Prior to that we used Wunderlist as it was available for almost every device out there (including Windows Phone).

Chaz wrote:

I did a quick look through the last ten pages and didn't see this talked about. Anyone have a shared shopping list app they like? My wife and I currently use a notepad on the counter, but an app that handles it might be nicer. It'd be even better if we could store a template of the basic stuff we get regularly that we can pull off into "this week's list", add the other stuff we need, and that I can cross off in the store as I get it. Also, free is good.

Simplenote! Cross-platform, with a web client and free!!! It's just a very basic text editor though. It's fantastic.

For a richer experience with lists, reminders, sharing, etc I'll second Wunderlist. It's full-featured and works great.

OneNote works, too.

Chaz wrote:

I did a quick look through the last ten pages and didn't see this talked about. Anyone have a shared shopping list app they like? My wife and I currently use a notepad on the counter, but an app that handles it might be nicer. It'd be even better if we could store a template of the basic stuff we get regularly that we can pull off into "this week's list", add the other stuff we need, and that I can cross off in the store as I get it. Also, free is good.

We use Our Groceries. Can keep lists by Recipe, which can double as "Templates", syncs across multiple users/devices, free, and has cross-off/back on feature.

stupidhaiku wrote:

So my windows phone was stolen last week, and I picked up a galaxy s7. Coming from a different ecosystem (though my wife does have a fire phone and tablet) what are some must-haves? I have Nova Launcher and have played with a few other things. One thing I've been trying to find is a phone app that also handles visual voicemail. Doesn't need to be fancy, I'd just rather have one app rather than 2 in my dock.

Also, what are the benefits and drawbacks of rooting?

edit: also, I'm going to commit heresy based on what I've read in this thread and say I didn't like pocket casts and settled on podcast addict.

I'll chime in on must have apps:

Nova Launcher (Paid)
Tesla Unread notifications - add on to Nova Launcher
Microsoft Next Lock Screen
Drippler (great way to get Android news specific to your phone)
Talon for Twitter (Fenix, Tweetings and the official client are also good)
Textra (Text client - bunch of them out there - I like this one)
Cloudmagic for email
Todoist for task management (lots of them out there) Wunderlist is a good alternate
Add Amazon's Android store client (you'll need to set your phone up for 3rd party apps)
Netflix and any other streaming clients for services you may have including Amazon Prime
Audible for audio books
Kindle of course
Dashlane for password management, but everyone has their own favorite
Weather Timeline for weather although there are some good competitors to it (i like clock and weather widget slightly better)
greader Pro for news feeds if you were a former Google Reader person
If you have an Android Watch as well - Watchmaker is the end all be all in my opinion
Flixster/Fandango for movies
FEMAs app (shameless plug for my employer)
VLC Video Player
PowerAmp for music, but isnt necessary if you use just Spotify and/or Google's Play Music (like I do)
ES File Explorer (file management)
Dropbox
Google Drive
Various apps for getting wallpapers and ringtones (Tapet is cool for pure material design randomly generated walls)
Swiftkey, Swype, or Google's keyboard as a replacement to stock
Find some cool icon sets that you like - I have a ton and tend to change my homescreen every couple of days. You can get some free, but most are around .99C and usually come with a collection of wallpapers.

Oooh, these are fun;

Nova Launcher is fantastic
Swiftkey seems to have focused a bit and brought the RAM requirements way down (finally).
Dropbox (long live Carousel, sharing fotos was never easier)
Falcon Pro for Twitter; I've never found anything as good as the original TweetDeck, this is what comes closest in my opinion.
Got me some ES File Explorer Pro; mostly to support the developer, the free version is great as well
highest of fives for recommending gReader; I'ved loved it forever while everyone else has moved on to feedly.
I really wanted to like Boxer for email, but CloudMagic really blows every other Android client out of the water when it comes to full Exchange integration. CloudMagic feels overall faster, more solid, the interfase is more responsive.
Haven't used Dashlane, but I'm quite happy with LastPass

I love VLC for my PC, but I don't really know if my love extends to Android. I feel like all video players are the same.

Additionally, I recommend IMAGE(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.battlelancer.seriesguide)if you're a cord cutter. It works best when signed in to trakt.
Evernote for note taking.
Fing for messing around with the wireless network at home.
Teamviewer's personal licence lets me access my PC remotely for free.
Medisafe cause I'm hitting 40 and popping more pill than pac man at his point
Metal to use instead of facebook because the facebook app is downright the devil
Pushbullet is great if you have multiple devices
Tapatalk if you visit other forums besides our piece of heaven, aka gwj.com.

I usually recommend Plex as a movie stream solution, but you need to setup your own server.
Lately, I've been giving Kodi a try and it's also pretty good. It's stand alone, which avoids Plex's client-server model entirely. You still need to procure your own content, but creative minds will know how to manage.

For those tinfoil hatters, there's NoRoot Firewall.

For those of you with a nVidia card but have no interest in purchasing a Shield tablet or setupbox, can try Moonlight. There's also a Windows and Linux version on Github. Moonlight is also on Amazon's app store and the Amazon Fire TV has more than enough horse power to stream at 1080p at 30 or even 60fps (ymmv depending on network elements).

And this wouldn't be the Non-game Android App recommendation thread if we didn't give some love to the absolutely best podcast app out there: Pocket Casts.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

Dropbox (long live Carousel, sharing fotos was never easier)

Carousel is actually shutting down today.

Going back to my earlier request for a shared shopping list app, I tried setting up Out of Milk today. I shared a list with my wife, and she's trying to view it on the website. The list shows up, and she can download it as a file, but in the web view, the list is empty. Anyone have any ideas on that? Not a great first experience, and I may wind up trying a different app because of it.

Edit - Never mind, I think I figured it out. Apparently you need to add someone as a friend from both sides to actually view the list, and it doesn't really tell you that.

wanderingtaoist wrote:
Hobbes2099 wrote:

Dropbox (long live Carousel, sharing fotos was never easier)

Carousel is actually shutting down today.

Yeah, that's what I meant; I hate startups that buy smaller startups and then kill the smaller startup because the original startup didn't know how to stay focused.

stoopit dropbox...

Nova Launcher: thirded or fourthed. And I paid full price. I used Apex for the longest time, but recently even on my Pixel C and Nexus 5X there's an unforgivable amount of stuttering and lag. With Nova Launcher, that doesn't happen.

Todoist: I just started using this. Free functionality is limited, but I dig it enough to pay. I have it synced to my Google Calendar, but I'm not sure how to make Google Calendar update so that it reflects completed tasks in a more real-time fashion. Instead, it seems to just permanently list all my Todoist tasks for each day.

Solid Explorer: I prefer Solid Explorer to ES. The layout and design is cleaner but it has plenty of functionality. I used ES for years, but the increasingly kitchen-sink approach to adding features I'll never use turned me off on it. It is a paid app, though, I'm not sure what the free functionality is like.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

ComicRack+Google Drive: I love that Comixology has DRM-free comics now. Comixology's offline functionality seems non-existent, but I save my DRM-free comics to Google Drive, and then download them to my tablet so I can read them with ComicRack.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Astonishing Comic Reader is very well-done, and even has a browser extension and Google Drive functionality... but it has the absurd flaw of not being able to open "large" comics. Maybe if the author fixes that one day, but based on reviews/forum comments, it doesn't seem high on the list.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Is Swiftkey free now? There's so many versions I'm getting confused. I purchased the phone and tablet versions before they merged, and now I honestly can't tell the difference between their offerings. I agree with one of the above comments that it seems less laggy and less of a memory hog now.

Is Pushbullet worth the Premium upgrade? For a $40 a year subscription, they don't seem to have added much in the way of features, especially since they had to nerf the free version to make it more compelling.

Dashlane seems intriguing, but I've been with Lastpass for so long and it's so cheap at $12/year, I haven't felt compelled to switch. Also, Linux.

Helium: A nice backup app for people who want to backup app data (not just the apks) and don't have root. Getting it to work with Android N was several hours of trial and error, but once you get past the initial activation it's easy peasy.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Google Authenticator: a must-have now for my work, so I went ahead and authenticatored everything I can authenticator. I wish there was a secure/easy way to sync it between my phone and tablet though. You can use Titanium backup, but I don't want to root my phone since I need it for work, and my tablet doesn't have a reliable root yet.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Google Play Music: I buy the occasional album that isn't available, but overall the selection and features are great. Especially once you sync all your CDs/MP3s. Samsung Level Overs+Play Music=happy workday.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Simplenote+Google Keep: I use Simplenote for, well, simple notes. Google Keep for checklists (shopping and whatnot). And Todoist for my to-do lists. I could probably just use Google Keep, but the other two do their singular functions so well...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Feedly+Press: I switched to Feedly awhile back for my RSS needs, but Press has a much better layout and interface. Also, it has Readability integration so you can double-tap to have the whole article loaded instead of constantly needing to open a Chrome custom tab like in Feedly. Press is a paid app, however. It also hasn't been updated in a couple years, but as long as it keeps working... I have an IFTTT setup so when I save a Feedly article, it automatically downloads in Instapaper, but it's nice to be able to view a full-article in Press without needing to open another app, especially if I don't necessarily even want to save the article.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

IFTTT: Speaking of IFTTT. I also have IFTTT DO. I got a Lifx smartbulb a few months ago and programmed it to brighten and darken with the sunrise and sunset using IFTTT. Plus some other random things like flashing blue when it's about to rain.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Google Photos: Holy crap this got real good, real fast. And the automated slideshows, albums, and flashbacks are fun, too.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Protonmail: Encrypted email for the rest of us! Thinking about switching more and more of my "real" email over to this, like password resets and whatnot.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Timely: great looking clock/alarm/stopwatch/screensaver/etc. It also lets you sync your alarms to all your devices, and most importantly let's you dismiss the alarm on *any* of them. In other words, you dismiss the alarm on your phone, and your tablet stops beeping as well. The slowly starting/rising tones are much less jarring to wake up to as well.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Stitcher+NPR One+TuneIn: NPR One is great during my workday, but not quite the same as streaming your local NPR station via TuneIn (it repeats itself a lot, especially on weekends). I don't listen to many podcasts, to I just started using Stitcher.

SeriesGuide: I'll sometimes drop out and stop watching TV and completely forget where I left off in series. SeriesGuide is pretty helpful for knowing what I've already watched, and when new seasons start.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Set Orientation: Considering how few Android apps are tablet optimized, the built-in auto-rotation could be better. I hate having to flip portrait just to login to Mint or something. Set Orientation works wonders.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

ccoates wrote:

Set Orientation: Considering how few Android apps are tablet optimized, the built-in auto-rotation could be better. I hate having to flip portrait just to login to Mint or something. Set Orientation works wonders.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

I stay or portrait nearly 95% of the time on my phone, so I don't mind too much to switch manually (false, it bothers me terribly).

Quite the opposite with the Sony's Z4 tablet; because of the keyboard addon, I'm 99% of the time in landscape.

I use Rotation Lock Adaptive.
I like that it presents a rotation icon every time it detects a movement of the internal gyroscope; switching between landscape and portrait is one click away.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

Awesome Icons lets you use icon packs with launchers that don't support custom icons, eg Google Now Launcher. Free, doesn't require root, doesn't have any unreasonable permissions, can uninstall/disable this app and your icon packs after you get your home screen customized to your liking.

Which GPS app do you guys /girls use when offline? I used NavFree (now called Navmii) in the past, but for some reason it keeps crashing after downloading the Benelux map. It's for my parents' in law wifi only tablet.

dejanzie wrote:

Which GPS app do you guys /girls use when offline? I used NavFree (now called Navmii) in the past, but for some reason it keeps crashing after downloading the Benelux map. It's for my parents' in law wifi only tablet.

I haven't used it on Wifi only, but Google Maps allows offline map storage. I have my local area set up for offline.

There's a new RSS reader called Quote:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...

I still prefer Press (for now). But Press hasn't been updated for 2 years, and it stalls or crashes every now and then. Quote gives every indication of being regularly updated with vital (but not kitchen sink level) features.

ccoates wrote:

There's a new RSS reader called Quote:

Thanks for the suggestion. I love Press, but agree that it could use some freshening... gReader isn't doing it for me, but it functions...

I'll give it a go!