Here it is, ladies and gentlemen. The crème de la crème. These are the Android apps that stand alone at the top of an ever-growing pantheon. These apps have become ubiquitous with Android, and if you’re looking for the good stuff, it’s assumed that you’ve used some of these apps already. There are a ton of amazing Android apps out there. However, there are a few that stand out above the rest. These apps are useful to just about everyone, no matter what their use case may be. Without further delay, here are the best Android apps currently available.
1Weather
Price: Free / $1.99
1Weather is arguably the best weather app out there. It features a simple, paginated design that shows you the current weather, forecast for up to 12 weeks, a radar, and other fun stats. Along with that, you’ll get a fairly decent set of lightly customizable widgets and the standard stuff like severe weather notifications and a radar so you can see the storms approaching. There is also a video element with two or three-minute weather updates for your region. The UI is logical and reasonably easy to navigate as well. The radar occasionally hangs while loading, but it’s usually not too big of a deal.
The free version has every feature with some mild, inoffensive advertising. The single $1.99 in-app purchase removes advertising. Most will also likely enjoy the range of weather fun facts as well when you open the app. We have a list of the best weather apps and widgets if you want more options.
Google Drive
Price: Free / $1.99-$299.99 per month
Google Drive is a cloud storage solution available on Android where all new users get 15GB for free permanently upon signing up. You can, of course, buy more if needed. What makes Google Drive so special is the suite of Android apps that are attached to it. They include Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Photos, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Keep. It just covers so many bases, and it’s so cheap that it’s impossible not to recommend it to just about anybody.
Some of the features of these apps include live collaboration, deep sharing features, and compatibility with Microsoft Office documents. It’s easy to use, you get 15GB of free storage for your documents, and the cross-platform support is pretty good. You can find more cloud storage apps here and more office apps here if you want something different.
Google Maps and Waze
Price: Free
If you add to that the Waze experience, which includes tons of its own features, and you won’t need another navigation app. Ever. Google also owns and operates Waze so we list them together. Both navigation apps work on Android Auto and usually, they work better than car navigation systems. Of course, we have more GPS apps options as well here if you need them.
Google Search / Assistant / Feed
Price: Free
There is also a second Google Assistant app for those who want a quick launch icon on the home screen. The hardware stuff costs money, but Google Assistant is free. There are other decent personal assistants like Amazon Alexa, and you can check them out here.
LastPass
Price: Free / $12 per year
LastPass is one of those must-have Android apps. It’s a password manager that lets you save your login credentials safely and securely. On top of that, it can help generate nearly impossible passwords for you to use on your accounts. It’s all controlled with a master password. It has cross-platform support (premium version only) so you can use it on computers, mobile devices, tablets, or whatever.
There are others, but LastPass seems to be one step ahead most of the time. Additionally, the premium version is reasonably inexpensive. You can also grab LastPass Authenticator to go along with it for added security. There are other options for great password managers here and some free LastPass alternatives if the new, more restricted free version isn’t doing it for you. LastPass also has an authenticator app for additional security.
Microsoft SwiftKey
Price: Free
Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard is one of the most powerful and customizable third-party keyboards available. It hit the market several years ago with a predictive engine unlike anything any other keyboard had and the app has grown a lot over the years. It’s a free download with free themes so you don’t have to pay a dime.
Other features include a dedicated number row, SwiftKey Flow which allows for gesture typing, multiple language support, cross-device syncing of your library, and much more. It’s about as good as it gets in the keyboard space. It’s true that Microsoft now owns SwiftKey, but so far they have managed not to mess it up. Gboard, Google’s keyboard app, is also exceptionally good and the only reason it’s not on the list is to avoid having three consecutive Google apps here. There are some other great Android keyboards here as well.
Nova Launcher
Price: Free / $4.99
Initially, we weren’t going to put any launchers on this list. Nova Launcher seems to be extending beyond what normal launchers are. It’s been around for years, it’s been consistently updated, and thus it’s always been a great launcher replacement option. It comes with a host of features, including the ability to backup and restore your home screen set-ups, icon theming for all of your Android apps, tons of customization elements for the home screen and app drawer, and more. It was purchased by an analytics company, but so far no bad changes have been made.
You can even make it look like the Pixel Launcher if you want to. If you go premium, you can tack on gesture controls, unread count badges for apps, and icon swipe actions. Those looking for something simpler may want to try Lawnchair Launcher or Hyperion Launcher. Of course, we have a list of the best Android launchers with even more options as well. We also have a tutorial specifically for Nova Launcher if you want to learn more.
Pocket Casts
Price: Free / $0.99 per month / $9.99 per year
Pocket Casts is one of the most popular podcast apps. It received some ire years ago for moving to a subscription model. However, changes since then have made the app more or less usable by anyone, even without a subscription. The app houses a ton of podcasts, good sharing options, and you can set things like auto download and playback speed. The UI is clean, easy to read, and easy to navigate. There isn’t much Pocket Casts does wrong.
The subscription is mostly optional and includes cross-platform support, more themes, 10GB of cloud storage to store podcasts, and more. We used to be quite against subscriptions, but since most podcast players now do it, but I’m able to use this without the subscription without much issue. Podcast Addict and CastBox are other excellent options in this space, and we have a list of even more great podcast apps here.
Poweramp
Price: Free trial / $4.99
There are other great music apps here, but the top slot arguably Poweramp’s title to lose. Poweramp also has an equalizer app (Google Play link) if you want a better equalizer app.
Solid Explorer
Price: Free trial / $2.99
File browsing is something everyone inevitably has (or wants) to do, so you might as well do it with a capable, fantastic file browser. Solid Explorer is pretty much as good as it gets in the file explorer apps realm. It features Material Design, archiving support, support for the most popular cloud services, and even some more power-user stuff like FTP, SFPT, WebDav, and SMB/CIFS support.
It looks great, is incredibly stable, and just works well. There is a 14-day free trial with a $2.99 price tag at the end of it. Other file browsers have more features, but few blend together looks, ease of use, and features like Solid Explorer does. If this doesn’t work for you, here are some other outstanding file browsers
Tasker and IFTTT
Price: $2.99 and Free, respectively
Tasker and IFTTT are two of the most powerful Android apps. They are automation apps where you can create various triggers to perform actions when specific things happen. For instance, you can use IFTTT or Tasker to automatically turn your Philips Hue lights on at night and off in the morning. Generally speaking, Tasker is the power-user option and has a much steeper learning curve than IFTTT. IFTTT is not only easier to use, but there is a boatload of fun things you can do with it.
Tasker is free on Google Play Pass. IFTT is free for most stuff but there is a subscription if you want a few extras. There are some other great Android tools and utility apps, but none of them can step up to Tasker and IFTTT.
Textra
Price: Free / $4.49
Messages by Google (Google Play) is another great option and it even has the ability to stream your texts to your computer (via web browser). We have a full list of excellent SMS apps here as well if these don’t work for you.
TickTick
Price: Free / $27.99 per year
You get all of the features for free, albeit in a somewhat limited capacity, such as two reminders per task (premium makes that infinite). Our only major gripe is the lack of Wear OS support, which we hope to see the developers add eventually. Some other excellent options in the space include Todoist and Microsoft To-Do. Yes, we also have a full list of the best to-do list apps too.
YouTube and YouTube Music
Price: Free / $12.99+
That one-two punch is right up there with the Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ bundle for $12.99 per month as one of the best deals for video and audio streaming. Other music streaming services are usually better, but ad-free YouTube without the need for sideloading is excellent. Audiophiles may want to check out Hi-Fi options like Tidal or Deezer even if those services come at a premium or one of these music streaming apps as well.
Zedge
Price: Free / $0.99 per month / $4.99 per year
Last, but certainly not least on our list is Zedge. This is a wallpaper, ringtones, notification tones, and alarm tones app that gives you an unbelievable number of options to customize the most basic parts of your device. On top of having an exhaustive collection of things, Zedge also promotes various items during holiday seasons making it easy to theme your phone up for Christmas, Halloween, and other holidays.
It’s not 100% perfect. It does have the occasional bug and some of the worst advertising practices of any mobile app. Zedge Premium is a new initiative to provide premium content at a reasonable price. You watch ads or fill out surveys to earn Zedge credits as well. There are other great ringtone apps and great wallpaper apps. However, Zedge is the only one that reliably does both well and its library is massive.
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