TOP ANDROID APPS. Those that I tend to use and rely on.. And their alternatives.

NEWS , CONTENT & TRAVEL

FLIPBOARD

Reading news is made really easy through apps like flipboard.. Provides search, topics, rss, news feeds, favorites, and sharing into social networks.. Flipboard stands out for its UI /UX, ability to create own magazines based on articles read, predict based on usage… have detailed 3 among many alternatives.

Provides feeds based on custom search keywords, has its own syndication engine.. Very good browsing features and ability to store offline and sharing are very good.

Currents , now replaced by newstand, is googles own news reader.. This app is more like a news RSS aggregator, where user can collect news locations based on topics like business etc.. The downside is it burns significant amout of local storage, while UX is very nice..

This was one of the first apps to aggregate news, lost steam to flipboard and other such apps. Users can give it a try.. No stand out features in comparison to the apps shown here.

Taptu Google Newstand Pulse

Read News – Top Activity! ] Search News ] Create Own Mags

Alternatives

FASTNEWS

A simple option for news are RSS aggregators like fast News, provide pre-built set of news sites and provides fast and light stream of developing news on those sites based on RSS. A user can pick and re-arrange news sources. It feels like a twitter feed, , low on data and fast updates.. My Compulsory morning news read.. Oth alternatives Circa, News republic.

News hunt is a india focused app that has worked with news-papers to present their digital versions using RSS.. Continuously adds news papers and ensures good formatting..

News Hog and other Google news readers are another twist to news reading, context, local, preference all driven by google news, provide keyword and custom search based news.. Very powerful

Zite, news-republic, Circa are the new kids on the block on providing news to users using features seen in flipboard, pulse and other early leaders..

newsHunt News Hog Zite

Read News ] RSS Feeds ] Search News

Alternatives

MAPS

Google maps is one of the primary reasons to own an Android smartphone. Helps in many ways, local search, directions, GPS and navigation, etc.. add to that offline maps, smart search including hotel prices and continuous improvement etc.. Make this a key app for travelers.

!! type okay maps in search to download offline map

Maps with me is a offline maps alternative, very useful on travel when you need complete country maps.. This app allows ~ 10 downloads for the free version , have Ind and a couple of US States.

OSMAnd is based openstreetmap and is a FOSS project allowing multiple downloads again downloads complete coutnries, I have India, UK and a couple of Us States on this.

Another great alternative is tripadvisor and their city guides, very useful for the traveler where all key things are provided as a offline base while visiting a city. ~75 cities supported wolrdwide..

Maps with me - lite Osmand TripAdvisor

Travel Direction ] Navigation ] Local Search Custom maps ]

Alternatives

UC BROWSER

Ensure you have a good browser, browsers are a big part of internet and content access.. Browser apps overcome the default app limitations with features like gestures, pre-built home pages based on location, favorites and 1-click browing, add-ons like password management and many more features.

Create your own gestures.. In dolphin.

The big thing about chrome is syncing the state and the bookmarks of browsing between devices.. It lacks other browsers on speed, lag, memory management.. Most other features like gestures are provided by other browsers.

Opera mini which I prefer has a very small footprint on storage and memory , shrinks data on transit.. A low light is that on select text while browsing it does not allow share, only copy / cut!

This browser from go- launcher is very light and fast. Provides 1-click pages

Alternatives

Chrome Opera mini Next

Internet Browsing ] Office Mobile Apps ] Extensions

MYTRACKS

CardioTrainer helps running, cycling, hiking, activities. Its highlights include racing mode, voice output, real-time GPS tracking and many analysis features.

These apps help track trails in walking, running, cycling and provide interesting sumary stats of your activities along with map-traces

Newly discovered thanks to a friend, uses GPS to run in the background and auto detect, walking, cycling and running giving summary stats on these activities.. Great fitness tool

Cardio Trainer Every Trail / Endomondo Moves

Mytracks is a google app, uses GPS to log trips.. Needs a good a-GPS.. Helps while I go cycling, driving abroad to track certain trips, and trailing.. Provides upload to google custom maps for future reference .. I integrate trips into custom maps that I create during travels.. Provides speed, slope, distance etc. there are 100s of alternatives have listed a few I have used.

You can play out mytrack trips if you download google earth, awesome experience. ..

Alternatives

Fitness ] Outdoor Trails ] Performance ] Sharing .

IMOBILE

Very useful app while traveling for quick reference of currency rates of favorite currency + a calculator to convert amounts and display

Track stocks markets through apps like yahoo and google finance.. There are a lot of them out there.

….

Forex Equity …

The smarphone helps bring the ATM onto ones hands.. Including financial information like Forex, Equity etc.. Most Banks have their apps, I use ICICIBank’s iMobile.. Where I can transfer funds, view balance, and other trasactions typical of an ATM. I also use forex and equity apps .. As listed below.

Create your own gestures.. Alternatives

ATM on Hand ] Transfer ] Equity ] Forex

MESSAGING & SOCIAL

VONAGE

Using data for voice is a great strategy on smart phones, vonage helps me access numbers back home in india and for free US / CAN and very cheaply other countries, a great app to have.. It registers based on your cell numbers and auto detects users based on your contacts

With MSFT buying out skype, times could be exciting .. This is a default app with a great fan following.. Key issue with skype is that it was slow, but a recent referesh has made the app very user friendly.

Have not used this service much but this app comes on top on many lists and has a good following, combines vonage with whats app features.

Googles own hangouts a replacement to talk is the new kid on the block with a lot of drawbacks in the app.. Belief is that eventually it would grow stronger given google parenting!

Skype viber hangouts

!! Vonage provides pree calling to phone numbers in US / CAN / UK.. This is a key feature in this space. Alternatives

Data Calling ] ILD ] Video Chats ]

WHATSAPP

Great messaging alternative, sniffs contacts and builds a ntwork around that.. On messaging supports, groups, attaching media like pictures , audio and video.. Extremely useful..

!! Use this for remote shopping with wife.. Send her snaps @ the store and she responds yes or no

Chinese tencent based app.. Very useful, the base in india population is less penetrated, there not all your contacts would be on the wechat.. They have done extensive adverts in india.

Israeil innovation and alternative that pretty much provides the same features, don’t know what is the differentiating factor? Some people are moving to this for security issues with whatsapp and wechat.

Finally one more messaging alternative.. That is big on google play.

Alternatives

wechat viber LINE

Beyond SMS ] Phone contacts ] ShoppingGroups ] New Social

EMOZE

Accessing office email is a big thing.. Emoze ensures that when outlook access is not directly available, can help the user through ews webmail access. It syns email, calendar, and contacts.. Still does not support GAL.. Is FREE!.. Big negative is that emoze channels all connects through their server in israel! Spooky!

Emoze syncs calendar to the native app! Big WIN!

Another Free alternative that supports ews to sync outlook webail does not support Gal and Calendar and interface very basic.. But useful as it does direct conect.

OSMAnd is based openstreetmap and is a FOSS project allowing multiple downloads again downloads complete coutnries, I have India, UK and a couple of Us States on this.

Waze is a interesting social based maps, israel based, provides information based on user data aggregation.. Recently acquired by google, making this a very interesting combination

maildroid touchdown K9-email

Alternatives

Corporate Emails ] Calendar ] Contacts

JIFT

Sharing social status, reads and notes, and quickly viewing the status of multiple social networks is a very useful utility in ones had.. JIFT does a great job of both.. It integrates, T, FB, G+ but does not do linkedin currently.. While posting it gives a clear stat on word count and a nice interface

All good apps, but after the hack on buffer, it has issues posting into FB. + To share into evernote add@myen on the share.

Buffer is a decent sharing app provides connects to all dominant networks t,fb,g+ and linedin.. Disused as after a recent website hack into buffer, the connects to FB and T not working reliably

Another great feed and share integrator like buffer, JIFT is a freemium app with more features opened on pay-up

Have not tried this much but is a topper in terms of social integration.. Should possibly do both feeds and shares..

buffer Hootsuite seesmic

Alternatives

Social feeds ] Status – Sharing

PRODUCTIVITY

EVERNOTE

Keep is another great app from google, syncs into google/drive, provides instant access across tab, phone and chrome ]provides reminds and also integrates into google now.. Use this for all TODO..

Gnotes is another innovation with notes sync into a notes folder into Gmail.. Can do To-dos, has folders and is a simple alternative

There are many free hand noting tools, I have found freenote very convenient, works like a charm provides keyboard and free hand options.. Has custom icons and fields that can be added fast.. Like timestamp

Keep Gnotes Freenote

Notes form a critical part of our existence, missing out on taking a note could be a big loss later in time.. Notes also help in retrieving data. Evernote is the primary notes app across platforms.. Provides great storage, search and view.. Other alternatives among the many apps include google/ keep, gnotes, .

Freenote is a freehand tool, can add custom icons and custom fields… Alternatives

Meeting Notes ] TODO ] SYNC ] Reference

QUICKOFFICE

Adobe pdf reader, provides many of the power features of the desktop tool into the tablet / smartphone interface..

Provides essential office apps and documents reading and editing.. Comes default in many android phones

Duo-lingo is an awesome language learning tool, takes the user through a lesson plan that can be covered a few per day to learn a lnaguage very fast

Adobe/PDF OfficeSuite Duolingo

Looking at documents, editing office documents like DOC, XLS, PPT could be handy in the move, these apps like Quick office, Office suite help do just that. Also I have included the app Duo-Lingo to quick language learning .. Very useful

Integrate to cloud share like drive, Alternatives

Documents ] PDF ] Spread-sheets

ALDIKO

Kindle is the smartphone interface for all kindle books.. Does not have ability to read local files , but provides a powerful highlights extraction feature on the web. Has DRM..

Very flexibly app needs some more improvement, provides all ebook features including reading local files..

Open source project for users who would want a back up in terms of commercial closed apps.

kindle Google books Fbreader

Reading ebooks is a big feature of having smartphones / tablets , expecially 7” Nexus like tablets that are very handy.. Most of these apps provide annotation, highlighting, share reading status across devices ..

Kindle provides web html version of all highlights and annotations for noting.. Alternatives

Read Books ] Annotate ] highlight ] Share..

SHOPPING & UTILITIES

JUSTDIAL

The big thing about chrome is syncing the state and the bookmarks of browsing between devices.. It lacks other browsers on speed, lag, memory management.. Most other features like gestures are provided by other browsers.

Opera mini which I prefer has a very small footprint on storage and memory , shrinks data on transit.. A low light is that on select text while browsing it does not allow share, only copy / cut!

Have heard a bit about this browser, whichhas a big fan following in Google. Play.

Fancy Goby Google Maps

Smartphone is a handy mobile device, having the ability to find local services becomes a critical value add, apps like just dial, Google Maps local, Goby and Fancy help find such services.. There are many this is just a short listing of whats there in play-store.. One can find services like restaurants, home utilities and connect with these service providers,

Create your own gestures.. Alternatives

Shopping ] Yellow pages ] Local Search

TOUCHPAL

Slide-it is a good alternative, but does not compare with touchpal on smoothness or swype and response.. Key feature of slied-it is it provides acronym expansion …

This is an exciting keyboard that emulates the s-pen in samsung phones providing a scripting approach to testing / key input

For a price, this comes with a reputation in google/play.. Have paid and tried and have disused it in favor of touchpal..

Slide-it Myscript Beta SwiftKey

Swype keyboards eliminate need for hard keys and overcome small form factor issues. Touchpal is one of the best in the business. Provides very smooth swipe, custom dictionaries, multiple languages, themes short cuts for emails, symbols, and wave that predicts next words. Others Google Keyboard + Swype original game changer from nuance which comes for a price

Create own custom words and acronyms in slide-it. Alternatives

Swype Key ] Scripting ] Custom Dictionary Nxt Word prediction ]

FLASHLIGHT

Multiple apps available that leverage the inbuilt compass to provide

Multiple apps available for surface level checking , they use the accelerometer to achieve this.

Wifi finder helps find Open Wifi Signals while traveling and the direction of the signal.. Similarly Sensor sense is a comprehensive sensor analysis tool.. I have also found GPS Test to be very useful in locking into satellites.

Compass Clinometer Wifi Finder

Flash-light is a critical need in any emergency, LED Flashlight provides many features like strobing, morse, colors, symbols etc.. To be beamed from camera led and front screen.. Other utilities include calculators <separate item>, compass, conversion, measurement.

Create your own gestures.. Alternatives

Using hardware sensors ] Light ] Compass Surface Level ] many more..

REALCALC

Goes beyond the calculator, providing results to equation as graphs and answers to math questions

Is a single place for all metrics conversions.. For e.g. Gallon to liter is a useful output that we seek..

Wolfram-alpha Convertpad

As an engineer, a calculator is a habit.. I have liked realcalc that mimics the classic casio engineering calculators of past.. And provides all the features + some more for a small fee.. Other custom calculators are also recommended as below. Better than the default calculator provided in Android ..

Try out Myscript Calc Alternatives

Sci-Calculator ] Math reference ] Unit Conversion

Script to do calculations, very intuitive.. Amazing recent discovery ..

Myscript calc

SWIPEPAD

Innovative transitions, lot of custom icon sets, also custom gestures

Provides the metro tile interface of windows phones.. Creative innovation ..

Go Launcher Launcher7

Launchers are a big feature of android, one can customize UI, change icons, and also add floating meta-launchers for instant action from within apps

Create your own gestures.. Alternatives

Launcher ] Custom UI ] Floating Actions ] Gestures

FILE EXPERT

File management differentiates android from iOS, file managers help move mange and sync files with the PC.. FE additionally has ftp based wifi access provided to connect to the pc without cable. <airdroid like feature> other featues include cache and memory management. Network file access in dropbox, drive is also very useful.

!! Try out share my contents without fail!

Another great file manager that I use in sync with FE.. ES3 provides, SD Card analysis for storage management, multiple select and

Es3 file Explorer

File Explorer ] Task manager ] Transfer Files ] Tools

Alternatives

Helps manage memory, kill apps, this in addition to developer tools in system settings can be used to optimize the performance of the device.

…Android Task Mgr

…

MEDIA & GAMES

GOOGLE PLAY MUSIC

Mixing is a great audio player, is free, provides auto search and discover, has a folder based play feature which makes it very powerful.. Also light on memory, fast

I watch a lot of youtube, many of the videos have more listening and less viewing like standup, some discourses and speeches, where ulisten and mixerbox come. They play only audio and play in the background..

Mixing Shazam Ulisten / MixerBox

Ensure you have a good browser, browsers are a big part of internet and content access.. Browser apps overcome the default app limitations with features like gestures, pre-built home pages based on location, favorites and 1-click browing, add-ons like password management and many more features.

Create your own gestures.. Alternatives

Audio ] music ] Discover ] playlists

This unique audio player, can help you discuover songs by listenng to the songs or singing them out… that is the USP

STITCHER

Beyond pod and ippodcast players are alternatives.. IPPOdcast player specific also adds the unique feature of connecting into the itunes podcast data-base..

Easy to find podcast, is a paid app, now has a light version to try out

BeyondPod Dogg-catcher

While music playout is useful, one can use the phone to search and listen to a lot of podcasts, apps like sticher which call itself internet radio, beyond pod and ippodcast are great such alternatives. All the apps allow download and playout from local store for offline listening ..

Alternatives

Podcast ] playlists ] search ] Itunes

PICSART

Cymera brings a vast set of transform tools and can also work as the primary camera app.. The downside is it can get slow on low config phones.. And drain battery

Does everything, highlight is it is not part of FB and there is deep integration in sharing and social

cymera instagram

Camera is a critical part of the smartphone, apps like Picsart, cymera and instagram, help bring creativity into pictures through effect, overlays and annotation and making the pictures unique.

Alternatives

PICTURE ART ] EFFECTS ] SHARE ..