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Hidden Gems: Unveiling Apps That Could Have Enhanced Your Experience Sooner?

There are a few noteworthy ones that have significantly enhanced my digital experience. Let me share them with you:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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 ❤️

ludw ,
  • Spectroid: what’s that sound? Do I hear that faint but annoying sound or just imagine it? With spectroid you can see the sound spectrum over time.
  • Nova launcher: Lets you cutomize the home screen of your phone and make it just right. I like my apps a bit closer together in five columns instead of four. Nova launcher let’s me do this.
  • Business calendar: it’s just so much better than the default calendar, especially if you have lots of meetings and need an information dense view.
sharkfeek ,

I second nova launcher and business calendar. They’ve been staples on my phones for the past 5+ years

Rhiannax3 , (edited )
@Rhiannax3@kbin.social avatar

Love Nova Launcher! It offers so many customisation options, particularly in terms of home screen and app drawer layout, icons and fonts.

I remember a few years back when my phone was stolen (I accidentally left it in the back of an Uber) and I was forced to buy a new one. The relief I felt when I started up the new phone, signed into Google and straightaway saw my familiar home screen, courtesy of Nova Launcher.

I guess I was surprised so much was still there given I didn't do a formal backup / transfer between old and new phones, but that's the beauty of the cloud! :)

Edit: Also @distantlight, agree with Cube ACR - I have been immensely grateful having an easy way to record calls. It has a button to allow you to start and stop recording in the middle of a call so for me, it was piece of mind, especially during legal scrapes! But as another commenter has said, I feel like it stopped working at some point so no longer have it installed..

midnight ,
@midnight@lemmy.one avatar

I recently found out Nova was purchased by an analytics company. I don’t have any proof or solid reason to think they’re up to no good necessarily. But I have zero desire to use something as integral as a launcher that’s owned by a company like that.

I moved to Neo Launcher and it’s been 95% as good as Nova. The knock is just some fine tunings that Nova had, but I’m not having any issues with Neo.

GetsThruBuckner ,
@GetsThruBuckner@lemmy.world avatar

Was not aware of this. Thank you!.. :(

Iamdanno ,

I use Business Calendar daily. It’s very customizable, easy to use, and has been awesome for years.

zxo ,
  • 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.

Iamdanno ,

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?

nakal ,
@nakal@kbin.social avatar

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.

sketched ,

I also really like fairemail for it's privacy focused approach but often the formatting in emails looks weird.. e. g. Paypal is especially bad :(

ayyndrew ,
@ayyndrew@lemmy.world avatar

Isn’t dynamic rotation built in to Android these days?

SeeJayEmm ,
@SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org avatar

Think the point is it asks instead of just doing it.

aaaggglll ,

On my phone at least, when I have autorotate off and tilt the screen, an icon appears next to my back button that will rotate the screen. Which sounds to me like the goal of this app.

SeeJayEmm ,
@SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org avatar

There’s an accessibility option that can do this but it’s inconsistent at best for me.

midorikusa ,

I don’t know about other brands but Samsung does have a small icon in the bottom corner prompting this when I rotate my phone yeah. Ignore it if not needed. Very useful.

Argurotoxus ,
@Argurotoxus@lemmy.world avatar

TIL about this and it’s a freaking lifesaver. Thank you!

EddieTee77 ,

It is built into Android proper meaning most phones should be able to do it

SpermKiller ,

Yes but I think many people don't know it exists and how to use it. For those who don't know : rotate your phone and a little rotating phone will appear next to your "go back" button. Just click it.

Karsten ,

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).

Satou ,

I can’t count how many times I used this. It’s been a huge timesaver for me

jonne ,

Yep, the shared clipboard and file sharing options are things I can’t live without now. No more sending stuff to yourself using messenger apps or stupid workarounds like that.

MakeItCount ,

How does it compare compared to Join by JoaoApps ?

GlitzyArmrest ,
@GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world avatar

Does it work over LAN if I lose internet?

russjr08 ,
@russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net avatar

Yes, in fact it only communicates over LAN - so if you go away from home it will stop mirroring, unless they’ve changed that in the last few months.

GlitzyArmrest ,
@GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world avatar

Perfect, thanks!

idle ,
@idle@158436977.xyz avatar

Does it work ok on Windows now? Last I tried it it wasn’t so great, but it was at least a year ago.

lazycouchpotato ,
@lazycouchpotato@lemmy.world avatar

I’m using the version downloaded from the Microsoft Store and it’s a bit spotty. The experience might be a bit better with the exe installer.

lateraltwo ,

In my experience, windows store server apps (like Plex) are sometimes broken if your os updates are due. It causes some interesting headaches. When in doubt exe it from the trusted site

lazycouchpotato ,
@lazycouchpotato@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah I usually prefer directly downloading installers, I just thought I’d give the Store a try and see what the experience is like.

Karsten ,

Yes. I’ve been using almost daily and it’s great! My only issue is that it sometimes (like once every one or two months), it has some trouble connecting back to my phone.

luk ,

Launcher KISS the simplest, cleanest and fastest launcher I have ever used. After few days I got so much used to it that when I get my hands on phone with another launcher I feel lost. My father and my son are also using KISS and they like it.

needthosepylons ,
@needthosepylons@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks a bunch, saving this right now 😊

Tetsuo666 , (edited )

A few of mine :

  • AndOTP : A good app for OTP that actually let’s you backup your keys and move them easily and securely to a new phone
  • Blokada : A system wide adblocker for Android. 4000000 ads blocked so far on my phone
  • YouTube Vanced: Not really a “hidden” gem but a cool app nonetheless. I wish people knew you could get an ad free YouTube experience on mobile. It also includes sponsor block so you really get straight to content. Also let’s you get a YT popup player and shutdown the screen with the video still playing.
  • F-Droid an Android open source app market. Often includes apps that are not allowed on Google market.
Argurotoxus ,
@Argurotoxus@lemmy.world avatar

Strange, I had YouTube Vanced but I remember it outright dying maybe a year ago. Had been using NewPipe for a while before I finally decided I use YouTube so often it’s perfectly reasonable for me to just subscribe.

YouTube Vanced is still up and running?

fiddlesticks ,

The original YouTube vanced is dead, but the new revanced works like a charm

Argurotoxus ,
@Argurotoxus@lemmy.world avatar

Interesting. I’ll have to play around with it at some point.

Historical_General ,
@Historical_General@lemmy.world avatar

Revanced Extended ftw

Granite ,

ReVanced is.

Argurotoxus ,
@Argurotoxus@lemmy.world avatar

Strange, I had YouTube Vanced but I remember it outright dying maybe a year ago. Had been using NewPipe for a while before I finally decided I use YouTube so often it’s perfectly reasonable for me to just subscribe.

YouTube Vanced is still up and running?

weyland-yutani ,
@weyland-yutani@kbin.social avatar

It's not. Check out Revanced on GitHub, it's successor of Vanced.

romano ,
@romano@lemmy.shtuf.eu avatar

AndOTP is no longer maintained. I’d suggest switching to something still supported, like Aegis for example.

dekatron ,

+1 for F-Droid. I always prefer open-source alternatives from there over ad-infested bloatware which the Play Store has a lot of.

zxo ,

Plus, there are some really good F-Droid apps too, like Droid-ify (F-Droid client with smoother UI) and Obtainium (update apps automatically from a GitHub link).

rocket ,
@rocket@wirebase.org avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    zxo ,

    Oh really? I need to add my apps to Obtainium then.

    HeavyRaptor ,

    Vanced is dead, check out Revanced instead. Takes a bit more effort to get going as you need to build the app yourself but it works just as well

    CactusFog ,

    Auto Auto-Rotate - Allows you to pick specific apps to turn on auto-rotate for while turning it off for the others. Works great if you wish to keep it on for media and video apps but not other apps.

    shoobie ,

    I’d nominate AccuBattery, it does a good job determining my phone’s battery health. The pro version is cheap and has a lot of capabilities as well

    Aman9das ,
    @Aman9das@rammy.site avatar

    Is Macrodroid better than Tasker in your opinion?

    My Motorola phone does that dynamic rotation thing already :)

    moreeni ,

    Syncthing, I setup synchronisation between my PC and phone in apps that have bad built-in synchronisation or don’t have it at all, e.g. for PPSSPP: I am able to have my save files for games synchronised and keep playing a videogame on phone just where I left it off on my PC

    Satou ,

    How about the battery drain on the phone? I tried to use it once to sync my notes but it didn’t work out well in terms of battery drain

    MantisWaffle ,

    Did you measure that empirically? Gsam indicates it only accounts around 1% of battery drain.

    AnOrangeBabbler ,

    +1 for sure! I used it to sync my Obsidian Vault between devices, phone included. It’s very useful if you want the same folder in multiple places.

    lazycouchpotato ,
    @lazycouchpotato@lemmy.world avatar
    1. Copy: Allows you to copy text from apps where it usually isn’t possible (eg. Instagram). While certain Pixel phones come with a similar feature in the form of OCR, it does not work with non-English text.
    2. Island: Allows you to run two of the same app on a single device - for example if you have two phone numbers and want to use WhatsApp for both numbers on the same device. Some companies like Samsung and OnePlus have this functionality built-in, but they may restrict it to certain apps. Island works with all apps.
    3. Unit Lab: Well designed unit converter that should honestly be a default app on all operating systems. It allows for simple unit conversion (weight, temperature, currency, length, etc.) while also allowing you mix units in calculations (eg. 5 miles + 10 km + 2650 ft).
    4. RustDesk: An open source alternative to TeamViewer.
    morethanevil ,
    @morethanevil@lmy.mymte.de avatar

    aCalendar+ in combination with nextcloud. Sorted my life completly. Imo the best calender app for Android.

    Image Toolbox the name explains all. Adfree ☝🏻

    Paperless mobile adding documents has never been easier. Scanapp inclusive ☺️

    sv1sjp ,
    @sv1sjp@lemmy.world avatar

    Joplin. Organise your notes into notebooks and you can also write them in markdown. You can also save your notes encrypted and syhcronise them with the cloud to have them in all of your devices. Joplin is available in all Operating Systems. Also supposts Nextcloud so it can be self-hosted!

    Automated_Footprint ,
    @Automated_Footprint@sh.itjust.works avatar

    What do you think about replacing Samsung notes with this? S notes have everything I need but I think the text formattings in it aren’t markdown.

    Swaglordmusclewizard ,

    I’m not a Joplin user, but I use Obsidian which is similar as it’s also in markdown and notes are saved locally or hosted with encryption.

    I’d say either app is better than the stock note-taking apps. I’ve been using Google Keep prior.

    I’m biased since I only use Obsidian but I love it, been a power user for a month now.

    Feel free to check both out! The link below is what I just searched for and learned about Joplin.

    www.mksguide.com/joplin-vs-obsidian/

    RequiredField ,
    @RequiredField@kbin.social avatar

    I set up a Nextcloud server recently and have been looking for a decent note app. I'll try it out today. Thanks!

    sv1sjp ,
    @sv1sjp@lemmy.world avatar

    You should definitely try, I have this setup (VPN) on my server for more than 1 year

    sv1sjp ,
    @sv1sjp@lemmy.world avatar

    You should definitely try, I have this setup (VPN) on my server for more than 1 year

    sv1sjp ,
    @sv1sjp@lemmy.world avatar

    You should definitely try, I have this setup (VPN) on my server for more than 1 year

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