Looking for Android App recommendations. $5 promo codes for favorite recommendations.

Loki008

2[H]4U
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Jan 14, 2001
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First off, If this is not allowed mods please shoot me a PM and I apologize and will withdraw the bounty (I did a real quick scan of the rules and didnt see anything that specifically prohibited this)

Ok, I have an HTC One currently and have a Nexus 7 coming my way. I am looking for some app recommendations. I have the basics (Plex / XBMC for Media playback, AVG for lost phone tracking and wiping, TomTom for offline GPS).

I am looking for some high quality games, as well as any odd or useful apps that I may not necessarily stumble across. For example I came across Sleep as Android. Had i not stumbled across it I likely would have never thought to look for something like that, but it is turning out to be a handy alarm clock and my wife rather enjoys me waking up without hitting snooze 3-4 times in the morning before her.

To try to encourage participation I will be giving out (3) $5 gift codes to the play store.

2 of which will be for recommendations that I find to be killer apps that i likely wouldnt have thought to find, that i just personally find entertaining, or really just put a rather good effort in their recommendation(s). Since that relies on my taste which i am sure isn't the same as everyone else, I will randomly pick a suggestion from this thread and give the 3rd code to that person. I will be giving out the gift cards this weekend so lets say that to be considered you have to post by midnight Friday to ensure that you are considered.

The app recommendations below are a collection from this thread and are not my recommendations or descriptions. All credit goes to those participating in the thread, this list is for ease of reference only. It will be updated periodically. If it looks like I've missed something or the thread is in need of an update, please PM me, I get ADD at times

{2013-10-09: I am just creating this list now, no need to PM me about updates. It will take me a bit to make all the edits}


Utilities

Network
WiFi Manager: Another preferred replacement to the stock application on the phone, also allows for widgets to be made on your home screen to manage network connections.
FoxFi : WiFi tether without needing root.
Fing : Great Network diagnostic tool
WiFi Analyzer : Good tool for analyzing spectrum
Android Firewall - Keep those apps from sending your data out when you don't want them to. Root required for this one.
AirDroid: This app is a must if you don't like searching for your USB cable every time you want to transfer files to/from your phone.

Messaging
Handcent SMS: A good replacement for your stock messaging app, while there are a good handful of apps like this one, it ends up being the one I go back to after trying others.
K-9 Mail: My preferred stock e-mail replacement app, very minimalistic.

User Interface
DashClock - best lockscreen widget and widget in general for quick information in a nice clean minimal interface
Beautiful Widgets Pro: One of the better apps I have found for displaying weather information and other details.
Flash Blink: This use to be an app only available via XDA, but now is available via the play store, great app to have if you like having a visual notification when your phone is muted.
Nova Launcher: Never liked the stock launchers that either come with ROM's or that are native to the device I use, so with that being said I have been rocking Nova for a while, if I am not using this I am using Apex Launcher.

System
Tasker - crazy amount of options to do things based on variables
App Protector: Handy app to have if you let people use your phone but do not want them getting into certain apps like your Facebook/Messaging/Finance/etc apps.
Call Control: Great software for blocking spam phone calls, toll free calls and text messages, etc. while I know there are other apps out there like this one, it is the one I prefer and has worked well for me.
Root Explorer: My go to file manager, I prefer this over ES File Explorer and ASTRO File Manager.
SwiftKey: One of the better stock keyboard replacements I have found, though Swype Keyboard is also a great alternative to the stock keyboards.

Other
Sleep as Android: A tool that functions as a sleep tracker measuring your movement with your phone's accelerometer. Wakes you at the optimal point in your sleep cycle. Features: sleep graph history, sleep deficit and deep sleep statistics.
Alarm Clock by doubleTwist: A simple no frills alarm clock replacement that has some nice features beyond what the stock alarm clock normally has.
Percent Calculator: I am bad at the maths, so this comes in handy when I am wanting to calculate tips and or markup margins for items that I have to price for quotes in the office I work in.

Camera
Camera ZOOM FX: Have never been up much on liking the stock camera apps that come with the devices I use, Camera ZOOM FX has a great feature set and is something I have installed all the time to replace said stock camera app.

GPS / Navigation
Navigon: My preferred offline navigation app, Garmin based.
TomTom: Offline GPS based on the TomTom interface. Includes Free Lifetime map updates



Games
 
Last edited:
I guess the first real question here is are you planning on rooting, alternatively do you plan on ROM'ing your phone?

This will give people a better idea of what to recommend.
 
Tasker - crazy amount of options to do things based on variables - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en

DashClock - best lockscreen widget and widget in general for quick information in a nice clean minimal interface - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nurik.roman.dashclock

Android Firewall - Keep those apps from sending your data out when you don't want them to. Root required for this one. - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jtschohl.androidfirewall

The Respawnables - TF2 on Android, no more needs to be said. I love this game. - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zynga.digitallegends.respawnables

Dots - addicting, mindless, yet fun game - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nerdyoctopus.gamedots&hl=en

Falcon Pro - best Twitter client out there in my opinion. Was so popular the developer hit the API token limit set by Twitter and this was a paid app. Twitter denied his request for more. So he made a work around. Twitter didn't like that so they blocked the users who were using the new token. So he pulled Falcon Pro from the Play Store and released it publicly with a hidden trick. ;)

Download is here: http://getfalcon.pro/

More info on what happened and instructions to activate the trick is here: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...-way-to-blatantly-skirt-twitters-token-limit/
 
I guess the first real question here is are you planning on rooting, alternatively do you plan on ROM'ing your phone?

This will give people a better idea of what to recommend.

Rooted and running Android Revolution HD.

As for recommendations, yes this is partly for me, but its also because I was surprised that an epic "List your favorite Android App" thread doesn't seem to exist (I admittedly only browsed, not searched for one, also same can be said for iOS, but since i dont have any iOS devices I dont care as much :p ) so i figured I would add some incentive to get such a thread going. I'll even be adding my own recommendations shortly (Im at work and cant spend too much time finding the direct links to the play store right this moment).

So while I will be picking favorites myself, I think any app that is a quality must have app probably should be listed as it likely will help others.

If I am motivated I may even collect and organize suggestions.
 
In Alphabetical order, asterisked apps are payware...All these are worth it IMHO

BetterBatteryStats* (on Play, free off XDA)
DashClock is a good extensible clock.
Dropbox has sweet Android integration
ESFileManager best freeware file manager out there, rivals many payware file managers in featureset
FlightTrack
gReader (Pro)* Great RSS reader
PowerAMP* Great audio player
PrinterShare* For printing to network printers from your phone
PSTouch* Photoshop for your phone or tablet.
QuickOffice good now free office suite
RealCalc* Nice scientific calculator
TrackChecker
UCBrowser
WeatherbugElite*


If rooting get yourself Titanium Backup and TiBackup Pro and/or ROM Toolbox Pro
 
In that case I will list what I have on my phone, though the list is small as I hate having a lot of apps on my phone, I will mention what has not been as of the time of my post (listed in alphabetical order):

AirDroid: This app is a must if you don't like searching for your USB cable every time you want to transfer files to/from your phone.
Alarm Clock by doubleTwist: A simple no frills alarm clock replacement that has some nice features beyond what the stock alarm clock normally has.
App Protector: Handy app to have if you let people use your phone but do not want them getting into certain apps like your Facebook/Messaging/Finance/etc apps.
Beautiful Widgets Pro: One of the better apps I have found for displaying weather information and other details.
Call Control: Great software for blocking spam phone calls, toll free calls and text messages, etc. while I know there are other apps out there like this one, it is the one I prefer and has worked well for me.
Camera ZOOM FX: Have never been up much on liking the stock camera apps that come with the devices I use, Camera ZOOM FX has a great feature set and is something I have installed all the time to replace said stock camera app.
Flash Blink: This use to be an app only available via XDA, but now is available via the play store, great app to have if you like having a visual notification when your phone is muted.
Handcent SMS: A good replacement for your stock messaging app, while there are a good handful of apps like this one, it ends up being the one I go back to after trying others.
K-9 Mail: My preferred stock e-mail replacement app, very minimalistic.
Navigon: My preferred offline navigation app, Garmin based.
Nova Launcher: Never liked the stock launchers that either come with ROM's or that are native to the device I use, so with that being said I have been rocking Nova for a while, if I am not using this I am using Apex Launcher.
Percent Calculator: I am bad at the maths, so this comes in handy when I am wanting to calculate tips and or markup margins for items that I have to price for quotes in the office I work in.
Root Explorer: My go to file manager, I prefer this over ES File Explorer and ASTRO File Manager.
SwiftKey: One of the better stock keyboard replacements I have found, though Swype Keyboard is also a great alternative to the stock keyboards.
WiFi Manager: Another preferred replacement to the stock application on the phone, also allows for widgets to be made on your home screen to manage network connections.

So there is my small list of what I keep installed on my phone, I have seen people out there with 100+ apps/games installed, I don't see how people keep that much crap on their devices but hey to each their own, hope this helps.
 
Fresh Network - good when the network keeps dropping you

Used it quite a bit when I was roaming and the network kept booting me off
 
Fing - Great Network diagnostic tool
WiFi Analyzer - Good tool for analyzing spectrum
Feedly - Google Reader replacement
Jetpack Joyride - Good mindless game to pass time
 
Timely - one of the most gorgeously designed apps, and a great alarm clock app. Free or pro.
 
100 Floors - Puzzle Game that has "seasons" like Angry Birds
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tobiapps.android_100fl&hl=en

1W Weather App - My personal favorite of all of them
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.handmark.expressweather&hl=en

AdFree for Android - Get rid of all those pesky in app ad's
http://adfree.bigtincan.com/

Alchemy - Another puzzle game that can be time consuming to finish
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.zed_0xff.android.alchemy&hl=en

Apparatus - Puzzle game with a twist
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bithack.apparatus&hl=en

Chrometo Phone - Somewhat self explanatory
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.chrometophone&hl=en

Fing - Basically Look@LAN for your phone
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.overlook.android.fing&hl=en

Hill Climb Racing - A stupid racing game that is way more addicting than it should be
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fingersoft.hillclimb

Plague, Inc - Try to take over the world, by killing everyone
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miniclip.plagueinc&hl=en

SMS Backup+ - Backup all your SMS's to your gmail account
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zegoggles.smssync&hl=en

Stick Stunt Biker - Fun little motorcycle game
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.djinnworks.stickstuntbikerlite&hl=en

Sugar Sugar - fun game that gets progressively more difficult
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.air.SugarSugar&hl=en
 
I don't have much to add that wasn't already mentioned, but

-PocketCloud for RDP/VNC
-Mixology - my friends and I like to use this to pick a "random" drink when we go to the bar to try in addition to our usual couple of beers
-Apex launcher, similar to Nova, though I'm not sure yet if I'll be using this on my LG G2 when it comes in
-Soundhound seems to identify songs pretty well, and I love music and often hear music that I'd like to look up when I get home.


Anyone know of a good Shoutcast app with AAC+ support? Winamp seems to only support MP3 streams and I bought XiaaLive Pro which is mostly okay except that it doesn't decode HTML encoding in song tags, doesn't seem to align the tags with the songs correctly (it doesn't seem to take the audio buffer length into account), and often times just stops updating them until I stop the stream and restart it (this seems to usually happen after my data connection drops - the audio will reconnect, but sometimes song tags stop). None of this is even remotely acceptable to me. Helping me figure out what I'm listening to is still a basic and important task that any streaming audio player should handle perfectly (and I mean PERFECTLY).
 
Any other suggestions? Tomorrow I give out the play credit, so if you want a shot at it post your suggestions!
 
I would have to attempt in recalling other apps I used previously to add to the list I already made, more people need to post up some shit.
 
Unified remote, free or pro

Control your PC from any android or windows phone. It has widgets which you can setup to do just about anything. For instance I have a bunch of them set to wake on lan any one of my computers at home. Control power point presentations. So no more screwing around with a special remote for powerpoints just use your phone. It even comes with the ability to tell you the notes on your power point so you don't have to awkwardly keep looking back at the projector screen.

It can also act as an xbox controller this is a killer app for an HTPC and recently it now can control IR commands for phones that support IR emitters like the galaxy S4, note 3, htc one etc.....
 
Dunno if it works as well or the same for offline navigation, but I know with google maps you can save large areas of the map if you mostly need navigation in one or a few areas.
 
I decided rather than pick favorites, i put everyone's name who submitted an app onto a piece of paper and drew out of a bowl. Figured with all the great apps this would be easier than picking favorites for my 2 choices.

Congrats to Vermillion, Bone_Enterprise, FiveFig. YGPM with google play redemption links. Please let me know if you have any issues with them.

Thanks everyone and if you have any other suggestions please keep them coming, I will continue to update and organize the list in my free time. Hopefully we can keep this thread alive and useful for those who use android.
 
Declining my code voucher, as mentioned I did not submit suggestions for any monetary gain just trying to add some content to this thread.

Thanks for the offer however, very generous of you.
 
Nobody mentioned Widget Locker? It is the absolute must have to enable your lock screen to have the necessary functions, especially an area where iOS 7 has surpassed Android.
 
CallTrack is a good one. It's simple but useful. Every time you call someone/receive a call/miss a call It makes a calendar entry with the date,time, number, and action (9:45 received call from XXXXXXX , etc)
 
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