I've been an Android user for a while, lots of apps have come an gone off my phone over that time. So I thought it was about time I composed a list of the apps that I consider to be some of the best available… And because I'm cheap, they are also my top five free Android apps!
One: Google Chrome
There is very little wrong with the built in browser with Android. However when I can have my bookmarks nicely synced and send pages directly from my desktop to my mobile it just seems a no-brainer! The original beta for Android was a little bit buggy, however they have worked most of the issues out and Chrome for Android is a really nice bit of kit
Two: Everyday notes // Do it tomorrow
Okay, I'm sneakily bundling two apps into one entry, but they are are very similar! Made by Adylitica these apps are like having Moleskine notebooks on your phone. Do it tomorrow is a 'getting things done' app with a simple idea; things can either be done today or tomorrow. Anything that you put off till tomorrow moves to today as the clock strikes midnight. Very clever.
Everyday notes has been on iOS for a while and has just made the jump across to Android. It is designed as a notebook with entries for each day. You can use it as a to do, as a diary, as notebook, as a whatever. It lacks some of the features of the iOS app such as calendar sync, however I'm sure they will appear soon enough.
Normally I don't buy into skeuomorphic designs within apps, I think that Apple's address book and calendar looks awful, however these apps by Adylitica both look great and I'm enjoying using them daily.
Everyday notes on Google Play | Do it tomorrow on Google Play
Three: ESV Bible
There are hundreds of Bible apps on the Play store, the majority are a little bit bloated with hundreds of features. The ESV does the Bible simply and clearly, with great navigation and no bloat. As long as you don't want to be able to jump from translation to translation (check out the YouVersion app for that) the ESV app does a great job.
Four: National rail enquiries
I don't have much to say about this app, it is one of my most used apps simply because I use the great British rail service so often. It has nice features such as geolocating the nearest train station to you and a big 'get me home' button. Handy.
National rail enquiries on Google Play
Five: Tweet lanes
I have to confess that I've only been using Tweet lanes for an afternoon… however I'm pretty convinced that I'll be ditching the official Twitter app for it. It has a nice Holo user interface which just gives a great consistent experience and a really clever conversation view. I really like this app.
Some honourable mentions:
Instagram - I'm sure I don't have to explain this one…
SMS Backup+ - Great method of backing up all text messages to GMail
Trello - Wonderful app enabling access to the project management tool Trello
Dropbox - Quick access to the files held in your Dropbox
Do you think I've missed any? Share them in the comments…
Post changelog
- 2023-01-21 – Reformat old post
- 2020-05-17 – Remove old insecure image references, hotlinks, etc
- 2020-05-17 – Decouple gulp from SCSS generation
- 2018-12-24 – Generate (but not use yet) RWD images
- 2018-09-01 – Importing all the old blog posts
