The first part of this article can be found here.
7. AlarmPad Pro
I never thought I would spend money on an alarm clock application until I came across AlarmPad Pro. It is my favourite alarm clock app at the moment. It takes the place of Circle Alarm, a free app that is the best until you meet AlarmPad. Since it is no longer 2011 and Holo-Yolo is no longer a thing, the Material Design layers of Alarm Pad will leave you blown away. It has a few extras like an account so that you can sync the alarms and the ability to make it hard to hit the snooze button if you have difficulty getting up every morning. You can set a puzzle to jog your mind at the earliest opportunity.
I like Snap Me Up and its selfie craze but AlarmPad just does it for me. Also, the dark people amongst us will have problems taking selfies in the wee hours of the morning unless of course they have one of those smartphones with front-facing LED flash.
8. Telegram
Slack is great and all. Yeah, it just clocked 1.1 million users and is a darling of those of us in tech media but you’ll be shocked that here at Techweez we actually prefer Telegram for our internal communication. I know, we are bunch of weirdos. We are slaves of Telegram. Our Slack is pretty much idle. It may not have the good search functionality of paid up Slack but it at least helps us keep things sane around here. You know, we are able to keep tabs with whatever Eric is working on before he turns this great website into a modern day cemetery of grammatical errors as well as chiming in with great suggestions on how he can improve his lackluster photography skills or help him improve his odds of getting a Tinder match as young as he is (these millenials and chasing after elderly women!). I can go on and on about Telegram but I already did that before here.
9. Nova Launcher
Why Nova? Because there’s no place like home.I try out very many launchers but always get back to Nova. Hexy? Back to Nova. Google Now Launcher? Back to Nova. Terrain? Back to Nova. Ugly Touchwiz? Back to Nova. Heck, installing Nova transformed the laggard Tecno Boom J7‘s home screen from being a 70s era VW Beetle to an underclocked Nissan Skyline GTR.
Nova has been updated over the years to keep up with the times. From pre-Gingerbread days to when it got its Holo accents to the current Material Design implementation. Add to that its support for a wide variety of icon packs and how it plays nice with just about anything you throw at it and you have a keeper.
10. Internet Speed Meter
Android does a good job telling you which applications are using what bandwidth but you can always get something more. Like constantly being in the know about your uplink and downlink speeds and how much data you’ve managed to use on the company’s hotspot. Internet Speed Meter is good at doing just that. There’s the likes of veterans like 3G Watchdog Pro or the more versatile Onavo but ISM is a tiny app that sets to do what its developers say it will do. Nothing more, nothing less.
11. Lastpass
These are not its best days. Lastpass users are just starting to get used to the new password combinations they mastered last week after the reported security breach but I believe they all appreciate the role it plays in keeping us all sane. It is hard to have a different and complex password for all your accounts online. Why not let someone do it for you instead? Lastpass will auto-generate secure passwords and keep them for you. There are competitors like DashLane and 1Password but Lastpass is my cup of tea.
12. Weather Timeline
It is one of the coolest Material Design applications on the Play Store. It is has a very nice interface and with multiple weather sources, it is accurate in its forecasts most of the time. It is what keeps the office cool kid sane most of the time. You know, just in case he got home only to find the flat sailed away in the crazy Nairobi floods.
13. Tapet
For some really nice Material Design wallpapers. It employs a Tinder approach to MD wallpapers and has quite an extensive range.
14. F-Stop Media Gallery
I have a very reliable photo gallery application in QuickPic. Yeah, almost all the photo gallery applications bundled on Android smartphones suck. I’ve had QuickPic since 2011 and I like every bit of it. So if I like QuickPic then why did I bother spending some hard-earned $$$ on F-Stop Media Gallery? Because like every other paid app on this list, it is totally worth it.
If you’re like me then you’ve gathered quite a number of snaps in your gallery folder going all the way back to your first smartphone purchase. While I let Google Photos take care of that for throwback moments on Instagram, I turn to F-Stop when I want to view photos I took not long ago. Why? Tags! I can write metadata directly to the shots I take and this comes in very handy several months or years later. For instance searching for “DXB” on F-Stop will immediately bring to fore the precious “groufies” I took while sipping Costa coffee with some new friends from West Africa at Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 3 two months ago.
15. Moon+ Reader Pro
You’ll need this when George R. R. Martin drops Winds of Winter or when you have to catch up with the latest from the busy European football transfer season from FourFourTom. There are other equally good eBook readers on the Play Store like Aldiko, Manatano and Kobo but this is what I prefer.
Bonus
Flash Share
You won’t find it on the Google Play Store since it is a preserve of Tecno (and such like mobile brands) devices but it can be easily sideloaded on just about any other Android smartphone and it works like a charm. It is, in simple terms, an efficient offline version of Pushbullet. I know that the makers of Pushbullet have their own version of this (a la SunBeam) but trust me, Flash Share just works! It took a junior back in college to introduce me to Flash Share since I couldn’t get off my high horse to try it but I’ve been hooked ever since.
What are your favourite Android applications?
