We are presenting a roundup of less known but certainly very useful Android applications in everyday life.
In our list, you will not find names like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Chrome, Firefox, Gmail, Outlook, Keep, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Drive, Waze, Duo, Skype, Google Home, LocalCast, TripAdvisor, Office Lens, Spotify, Whooming, Tunnelbear, OpenVPN, Barcode Scanner , all applications we have repeatedly reviewed or otherwise mentioned in the pages of Teknologya.
The list published below is intended as a starting point to try out some new tools, useful for solving small or big problems.
Launcher
Android launchers developed by third parties are the best tools to “renew” your smartphone. To configure them, just proceed with their installation, press the Home button and set the new launcher as the default:
– Nova To date there is nothing that Nova Launcher does not allow to do.
– Action Launcher An interesting and well-designed launcher: it is not rich in features like Nova, but it is cleaner for what concerns the interface.
– Apex Launcher Excellent and complete launcher of the fork of Launcher2.
– Evie Launcher A launcher that makes its strengths of simplicity and completeness in terms of functionality.
SMS management
Every Android smartphone presents by default a system application for sending and receiving SMS. However, it is often impractical to use and can easily be replaced by one of the following Suggestions.
– Android Messages Made by Google greatly simplifies SMS management.
– Textra Rich of accessory features and widely customizable.
– Pulse SMS App complete with everything, practical to use and with a developer always attentive to user requests.
– YAATA – SMS / MMS messaging The strength of this application is certainly its lightness.
Automation
Some Android apps available on the Play Store let you put your smartphone to work. These are apps that can be called to perform recurring operations and checks by reacting to specific events based on the user’s location, the use of the NFC chip, the type of network to which it is connected and so on.
– Tasker The “queen” of the apps in its category. It offers everything you can ask for the need to automate tasks. It is paid.
– MacroDroid Does not have the same feature set as Tasker but is much simpler to use.
– IFTTT IFTTT allows all major cloud services to communicate with each other and with smart devices.
– Trigger Automates operations from a trigger event.
– Automate In this case the automation of the procedures takes place by setting up real flow diagrams.
– AutomateIt Very simple approach: just choose an event and then specify an action.
Multitasking and usability
The apps that we offer below make it possible to speed up the management of the smartphone and add advanced features for multitasking.
– Swiftly Switch With a swiping operation from the corner of the screen, you can quickly start the app of interest.
– Unique Controls Activate a series of additional controls on the Android device to speed up the management of installed apps.
– Flynx Save URLs as “bubbles” allowing quick recovery at a later time.
– Taskbar Displays a Windows-style application bar at the bottom of every Android screen.
Keyboards
Android allows configuration and use, of alternative keyboards compared to the one installed by default through the Language and input settings section.
The most advanced keyboards recognize the gestures, allow you to write long sentences without ever lifting the fingertips from the display and consist of a system that can predict the words that the user intends to insert.
– Gboard It is the smart keyboard of Google, certainly the best known and one of the most used Google Keyboard.
– SwiftKey Another very famous keyboard with artificial intelligence for the “understanding” of the sentences that the user is writing (useful for providing pertinent suggestions). SwiftKey was purchased in 2016 by Microsoft and its technology is now being introduced also in Windows.
– Fleksy Excellent smart keyboard that also allows the use of special extensions.
Management of the photo gallery
A selection of the best Android apps to manage your shots, organize and search for your images.
– Google Photo App that we recommend to always install on your Android devices to better manage the images and never lose any data.
– Focus Go Excellent application for the management of the photo gallery created by a well known and extremely skilled developer. There is also a more complete version of Focus Go is available at this link.
– F-Stop Gallery Really remarkable app that facilitates the quick detection of the photos you are looking for.
– Piktures Application that aims to improve the user experience: gestures are essential for browsing the gallery and the layout with which the albums are presented is excellent.
File manager
The best apps to manage local files, modify system files (after acquiring root permissions), access shared resources on the local network and synchronize data with the main cloud storage services.
– FX File Explorer One of the best file managers ever for Android. It represents an excellent combination of functionality and ease of use.
– Solid Explorer One of the file managers we prefer: it was also the subject of one of our articles in the past .
– Amaze File manager for Android fast and complete, distinguished by good design and considerable ease of use.
Widgets
The widgets, you know, allow you to always have an eye on some information of interest without having to open any application, simply by unlocking the phone.
– Event Flow Calendar A beautiful calendar that can be freely customized by choosing from a variety of layouts.
– Contextual App Folder Application that presents a selection of useful apps only when, for example, you reach a certain place, connect a device via Bluetooth or connect the earphones.