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 ❤️
KDE Connect is an app to connect your phone and computer. It works on most OS (windows, Linux, etc.), and it works extremely well (better than the solution developed by Microsoft).
- 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?
Mixplorer - aka MiX, the only file explorer I’ve ever needed. It’s intuitive enough for basic file browsing, but it can do heavy lifting tasks. I exclusively move files on and off my phone by starting an FTP server.
Pulsar - One of the only apps I’ve ever paid for, it’s a music player that does everything I want and nothing I don’t. I’m one of those nuts who still maintains a personal library of thousands of songs rather than using spotify or whatever.
MS Swiftkey Keyboard - I went looking for this when Swype was finally discontinued. Gesture typing wasn’t common yet and I still find google’s stock keyboard absolutely insufferable. Swiftkey lets me adjust the size and layout of the keyboard with far less restriction.
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.
Bitwarden - Allows me to have unique, strong passwords for each of my profiles without worrying about forgetting it.
Aegis - Great open source 2FA app.
Standard Notes - Great note-taking app. I have it installed in all my devices which allows me to seamlessly switch between devices.
TrackerControl - Block all the trackers in the various apps installed in my phone.
Plees Tracker - As someone who has been trying to correct their sleep cycle, this app has been invaluable for me. It is an open source app that allows you track the duration of your sleep daily and then makes charts from it.
