What's your favourite paid Android app?

Sunny' 🌻@slrpnk.net to Android@lemmy.world – 108 points –

Personally paid for Niagara launcher as I find that to be the far superior launcher to any other I've tried. My second one is Symfonium, the most feature rich and well developed audio player.

What are yours?

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Boost for Lemmy - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayayo.lemmy

+1 for boost as well here. It's the closest I got to RIF, which was awesome... sucks that the dev went to tildes, with not even half the activity as lemmy.

Boost isn't paid

Yes, but it has ads, for which you have to pay to get rid of. I can't stand ads so I'd pay, and so would most people.

Slay the Spire

Also Balatro

I've been playing it and it's definitely fun but it's not as sticky as StS imo. There's too much randomness and not enough control. At least compared to sts

Give it some time, you might just get there.

The randomness is basically a variable to be controlled for in the same manner that it has to be controlled in Slay the Spire.

Don't tell me this! I have it on my steam deck and it is addictive enough. I had no idea it was available on android. I am going to try and pretend I didn't read this.

It's coming for you... I've already bought it and played it all the way through on pc, switch, and android

I've put 400 hours in on phone alone from public transit commutes.

You are not helping!

It's has been a great game on my steam deck while I have been traveling.

You could also turn your steam version into the mobile version using this. It was created before the official apps but still works and transfers your save data too!

I wonder if it ever goes on sale. I added it to my Google playstore wishlist to keep tabs.

I don't think it goes on sale ever, but $10 is effectively a permanent sale compared to Steam

That game is tons of fun, but I suck at it.

Easy question for me, Tasker. Don't know what I'd do without it. Come to think of it, as someone has already mentioned, Stardew Valley is pretty good too.

I like the idea of Tasker, but can't think of usecases. What's yours?

Some examples of using Tasker:

  • When a specific contact sends a text message, it alerts me using TTS so I can be aware they are trying to reach me. I have an older family member she lives closer to, so having an alert from her is important if anything should happen forbid it does. When I plug my phone in to charge, it auto silences the phone and keeps it silenced until I unplug it, built into the same task, if monitors for phone calls from my contact and a few others and overrides it.

When a specific phone contact or contact calls, it raises the volumes to max. This is useful if you went to an appointment, set your phone on silent or vibrate but forgot to reset it. After the call has been completed, it returns the phone to the original volume you set.

  • When I scan a NFC Tag, i have it send a webhook to my August lock to unlock it. As an apartment dweller, if I go down to the car to unload groceries, the door by default auto locks. This means I have to pull the phone out, unlock it, open the August App, and then tell it to unlock the door and sometimes use the biometric to do so. Having the NFC tag do this means I can put it in my wallet and when I put my phone in the same pocket where the wallet it is, it triggers the door.

  • When connected to my computer only, it keeps the screen on all the time.

  • When I launch certain apps, it keeps the screen on until the app is closed. Very useful when you are at the grocery store working within a strict budget and want to see how much you have put in to the cart!

  • I have a widget on my screen which toggles my Private DNS on/off. This allows me to disable the adblock dns I use if I encounter a public wifi which insists I disable it. (I usually stay away from those, and use my mobile data, but sometimes it's unavoidable when there is so much interference your 5G goes to NONE and you have to be there for a while.)

  • Likewise, I have a widget which toggles my Tailscale connection on/off which comes in handy as well. Again, if the Wifi spot rejects custom DNS's and I'm in the scenario above.

  • If you have a Google Account (Sadly, this is the only way). You can view the list of profiles/tasks which other people have built. It's a growing list. https://taskernet.com/shares/

  • Using third party software such as Wake on LAN, when I come home and connect to my WiFi, it wakes my computer. (Or really any condition I set to trigger it).

I will say that the dev is very responsive and active in releasing updates and new features.

With that said, it has a slight learning curve which he(the developer) is working on to help simplify things and modernize it more. Since taking over the project from the previous owner, it's really grown.

I admit though, I used to have a lot more tasks and profiles, but it seems that Android is starting to bake those functions in so it's not as used on my end. But don't let it it sway you. Your imagination is the only limit with what you can do with Tasker.

Generally, for less than a cup of coffee, it's worth the purchase price. :)

  • When my house guests text "#wifi" to me, they get an auto reply with the WiFi password.

  • NFC tag stuck to my medication pouch. When I boop my phone to it (or tap a shortcut on homescreen), I can select what medication I have taken. The medication and the time gets added to the bottom of a Google sheets spreadsheet, that I, or someone supporting me can check to get an overview of how frequently I've been taking medication (especially useful for spotting high pain chunks of time due to more frequent usage of PRN pain meds).

  • Another aspect of the medication tracking above is that it also can tell me the last time I took medication. For example, if I take ADHD meds at 12pm, then my next dose would be 4pm. If I tap the shortcut at 3pm, it'll tell me I last took meds at 12pm and I'm next due at 4pm. Alarms tend to either startle me or not be noticed, but when I had smart lights and a notification light on my phone, I could make a colour gradient where "you have just taken meds" = red and "you are due to take meds" = blue, and as time progresses, the colour slowly becomes more blue. This works well for me, because I like visual reminders

Personally I use it to

  1. put a slider on the display that controls the flashlight when it is on.
  2. Quick setting tiles for fast charging, mono/stereo audio and adb debugging.
  3. a basic local website, so I can copy text from my phone to PC and vice-versa
  4. toggle settings when specific apps are open i.e. when google wallet is open turn on NFC
  5. request music from Rockbot while at work
  6. change wallpaper every 12h

A couple of favorites that are different from what others already said:

  • I strongly dislike autorotate on my phone so I always keep it off, however it makes perfect sense in apps like YouTube/Twitch. So I have one task that turns it on when opening one of those apps, and off again when closing them
  • When I've got Bluetooth headphones, I can choose to have incoming texts read out to me. Very nice when walking/running outside and not needing to pull my phone out
  • Similarly, I've got a task that will (optionally) read out the name of the song that's playing to Bluetooth

I have a profile that mutes my phone between 21:00 and 08:00 but only if I'm at home. I frequently work late into the night. I have a large number of backdrop images which are randomly changed every three hours, the lockscreen image is changed to match. I also have a desktop button to change it manually. I have profiles to backup various files onto remote servers. I also have a profile to stop my workout app when I get home, in case I forget.

Tasker. Pretty much programming your Android to automate things. Such a powerful app.

I got recommended Macrodroid, so I'm going to try that as well as a comparison for my needs

I have purchased both. I prefer Tasker but not as many things work as in Macrodroid in Android 14. So a big +1 for Macrodroid from me.

NZB360 for managing my *arr services for downloading movies and TV shows

Is this something like the overseerr but for phones?

Not quite... this is like a general manager app for all those sorts of services. You can use it to manage your overseer, as well as all the other *arr apps. I got my app set up with sabnzbd, sonarr, radarr, tautulli, overseer, tachidesk, tdarr, and prowlarr, I use it to monitor my upcoming movies and TV shows with the built in calendar, or see what recently downloaded. I can also manage my imports. Say a tv show requires manual importing, I can check and add it through the app. It's got a really nice interface and allows me to monitor my active downloads, and I can manually add things to download, or delete directly with my services.

WOW I had no idea this existed, but I've been wanting it for a long time. Thank you so much.

My Android paid must haves are: Titanium Backup (for scheduled backups and quick recovery), Threema (Messenger) and airMusic (former AirAudio, stream from mobile to e.g. Sonos).

What makes Threema better than Signal?

I am not aware of any advantage, but my family and friends are using either Threema, Signal or Telegram. So I use all three of them.

ο»Ώο»ΏWhy Threema?

Currently limited to groups chats of 256 participants and group calls of 16 participants

For privacy, freedom, and control, iOS is out. As with Telegram, I advise staying away from the Google variant and highly recommend the Threema Libre implementation for Android. Licenses are not compatible across variants, so stick with the Threema Shop!

The largest criticism levied against Threema:

"While some of the findings presented in the paper may be interesting from a theoretical standpoint, none of them ever had any considerable real-world impact," the post stated. "Most assume extensive and unrealistic prerequisites that would have far greater consequences than the respective finding itself."

Its business model and not requiring a phone number

I think Signal still required phone number for registration, but you no longer have to disclose it to others.

Last time I used Titanium Bckup it was losing compatibility and I moved on to Neo Backup. Did Titanium get updated again ad some point or something?

Titanium has been abandoned for years. Swift backup is what I switched to, or DataBackup on GitHub if you want a free option.

Titanium Backup hasn't been updated in five years, and I think that update was just to meet requirements to stay on the store. Their last changelog entry is adding the menu icon after Android ditched the physical menu button. There are a bunch of settings that are broken or do nothing due to changes to Android over the decades (TB has been around for so long that it supports Android 1.5).

I've been using Swift Backup as a replacement these past few years. It's closed source but was recommended to me, and I haven't run into any problems yet. Is Neo better in some way, aside from being FOSS?

I've heard of Swift Backup but never tried it because I think it was paid or automatic backups were a paid feature or something. But for my simple needs Neo Backup has been perfect.

Yeah, it's twelve bucks to unlock scheduled backups and cloud syncing in Swift Backup, but then again this post is about paid apps. :)

Which is perfectly fair. I just tend to be stingy about paying for apps when there's a free one that does what I need.

Nothing wrong with paying for something that's worth it, though.

Latest version I know is 8.4.0.2 from 2020-05-16 downloaded from here http://www.matrixrewriter.com/android/files/TitaniumBackup_latest.apk.

I use Titanium since Android 4 and had indeed some troubles (related to storage access rights) on Android 11. After solving those, Titanium ran fine like on older versions of Android. Did not yet try Titanium on newer versions than Android 11.

Thank you for the hint and link to Neo Backup, I will give it a try. (Ah, just saw it is an incarnation of OAndBackup, nice.)

Hope it works for you, since other comments also mentioned Titanium having issues and being unmaintained.

This weekend my first scheduled backups were due during the night, and unfortunately I found my phone in recovery next morning. It was now in kind of "boot loop", resetting shortly after logging into the phone.

Could stop this by quickly killing NeoBackup processes after login. Neo tried to again run the scheduled task each time, most likely as they before failed/did not run through.

So in summary it looks like my Lineage 18 device has issues with the scheduled backups of Neo.

Strange thing is that all my manual tests, even the same as configured for the scheduled tasks, worked perfectly fine. Just today's first fully automatic runs seemed to make trouble (maybe cause mobile phone was in standby?)

Can only guess, but will keep Titanium for now on the older devices, and will keep Neo in mind for newer versions of Android, on which Titanium will not work any more :)

Sorry to hear about that. I've been using Neo for a while and never had issues like that. Might be because your Android version is a bit older maybe. Hopefully it works on your future devices then.

Also maybe report the bug to the developer in whichever way they use for this project.

+1 for AirMusic. I use it for my snapcast multi-room streaming setup.

The only paid app that I have is Moon+ Reader Pro.

I read a boatload of ebooks on my device, and this has been my ebook-reader of choice for a while. I found it to be so good that I did the IAP, and stopped using Librera Reader.

For all that matters, I am a huge supporter of FOSS apps (that's the reason I have only one paid app lol) - but Moon+ reader Pro beats Librera in two areas - Librera is pretty slow when it tries to open a huge file, and Librera also can't download book covers like Moon+ does.

it was nova launcher pro till they fucked the dev team down to 1 dev who does everything so I moved to lawn chair because I can't trust that the project is going to stay alive.

Stardew Valley.

The only other app I have paid for that wasn't a game is "iVCam" so I can use my phone's camera as a webcam that isn't limited to some stupidly small resolution or have a watermark, can do more than 30fps, and also works as a source in OBS. I mostly use it for full body tracking in VR with the April tag system. But I wouldn't say it's my favorite.

Android has webcam support in USB mode and has for like 3 versions now, though?

When it asks you what you want your device to do when plugged into a PC you get options like "file transfer (ftp)”, webcam should be on the bottom

Works flawlessly for me in both Linux and Windows for OBS

To be fair, I bought the app years ago when that wasn't a thing. But I also don't see webcam as an available option when plugging it into my PC. I have a carrier branded Pixel 8 rn, so it might not have everything a regular stock android would. :/

I can actually just use some FOSS thing I found on GitHub to basically remote access my phone now via ADB, which is also handy in VR as I can use a VR version of it without taking off the headset.

Buzzkill! Perfect to remove distracting notifications during work hours or to not see some notifications altogether

What does it offer over Android's built-in Focus mode?

You can create rules based on the content of the notification to group different notifications together as one, to delay them, to change the ringtone or to dismiss them all together.

You can also automatically click a button inside of a notification if certain requirements you define are met, you can stop the same app to send many notifications within a set amount of time (like when someone is writing a lot in a WhatsApp group then you only get one notification per minute for that group)

It's way more than just focus mode

Buzzkill is very nice. I'm in a group chat that gets huge bursts of activity (like a hundred messages) and then goes dormant for a bit, so I set buzzkill to only give me at most 1 notification every 30 minutes, and keep the rest of them silent. That way I can still keep up with it without my phone blowing up

FX as an explorer replacement when Xiaomi put pubs in theirs.

You have a free version too, I don't even use the "pro" stuff just wanted to contribute.

Torque Pro. Extra gauges for your car, like oil temp, timing, fuel trim, air-to-fuel ratio, tire pressures, MPG, and so much more. Also you can use it to see if you'll pass emissions before you even go in for testing. (Requires OBD-II Bluetooth dongle.)

Also if you're willing to answer a couple of surveys a month, you can get paid apps for free forever using the Google Opinion Rewards app.

Google Opinion Rewards app.

Unless Google Googles you. I used to use this, but I have apparently been permanently silently banned from it with no explanation and no recourse. I did nothing wrong or disingenuous as far as I can tell; It simply kept asking me -- presumably based on my location -- how my experience was with retailer X, Y, or Z was. Always stores which I had not visited but simply gone near, and I truthfully answered that I did not go to those places and it'd give me thirty cents or whatever, but then one day it just stopped offering me surveys at all, apparently forever.

So I guess this flags the magic Google algorithm that I am worthless as a consumer and the app no just longer does anything on any of my devices anymore. It loads, it displays, but it never presents me any surveys. It squatted there on my phone completely silent for six months, so I uninstalled it. What a crock.

Also, I'm sure they're spying on you all the time through that app. Obviously it tracks your location, and Satan himself only knows what else it reports back to them. I think I'd give it a miss at this point. I'd rather pay $2 of real money for some app versus having Google snooping around behind me all the time just to get something for "free."

But yeah, Torque Pro is worth it. I use it all the time. So is Alpine Quest. Those are the only two paid apps I ever use on my phone.

Google don't need an app if they want to spy on you.

Unless you've switched to a rom without google play services, they can essentially do anything they want on your phone without you knowing.

First time I heard of Google Opinion Rewards. Skimmed through the Terms of Service, and they indeed tell you that they use your location and gather information tied to your Google account.

But hey, at least this time they are paying for selling your privacy!

RealCalc

It's a really nice calculator.

I have this one. It's the best Android calculator I've used.

I love the widget feature. You can add a whole calculator to your home screen, I have it taking up my second page, so whenever I need a calculator I swipe across once and it's there.

Aio launcher... Slick and I just like what it provides.

And before it became the next great yt sponsor... Ground.news . I've had it for like 4 years and it's refreshing ... I do miss the comments section but I also understand it was becoming a mess to moderate with their tiny team

Did anything change after they became a big YouTube sponsor?

I don't think so, but it's everywhere and I know folks tend to dislike that... I'm for their products

Meteogram, super customizable weather app. The subscription or one-time-for-life-payment allows access to all paid weather providers that are currently implemented

I also have a weather app similar to this. Weawow. I loved it so much and it was so well made that I thought it was well worth a donation to the developer.

Super custom widgets though? Without that it's worthless.

The main thing of the app is to create widgets. If you open the app it's just so many settings to tune your widget as you want it. The Dev is also super responsive, so if you miss a specific feature it's worth reaching out

Unified remote. WiFi or Bluetooth control over any win/Linux/Mac machine with many remotes and incredible functionality.

F-Droid image gallery. So many useful features, but I use it mostly for automatic galleries and metadata tagging

RadarScope Pro is the first that came to my mind. I don't live in tornado country anymore, but got plenty of use out of it when I did

Motioncam is an must have if your phone is powerful enough

Poweramp, IMO the UX is excellent and it has tons of powerful features. No other music player I've tried comes close.

Smart Audio Book Player. I listen to a lot of audio books and this one was more than worth the €2.39 I paid. So many features I love it.

The Royal Spanish Academy's dictionary, most likely. While I can easily have conversations in Spanish, the similarities with my mother language every once in a while make me get words confused, specially in conjugation (why does B and V need to sound so similar...). I've had it for a while, and although it was a bit pricey, it has saved me quite a few times from awkward mix ups. Also bonus points for working completely offline (looking at you, Yomiwa dictionary...), and having no problems being sideloaded into vanilla Android systems.

Grayjay. Can't watch YouTube without it.

I bought blackplayer EX a while ago because it was a great music player but now it seems to be abandonded with the last update being a year ago and I have started encountering some issues.

The only paid app I've got is Sound Profile. Puts the phone on quiet (except for family) at night, or silent (with auto resume to normal) in meetings. It's on my & spouse's phones.

Idk about the meeting thing but do not disturb can do this already. Can set up a multiple schedules to auto turn on/off do not disturb and then allow exceptions from favorite (starred) contacts. You can also allow an exception from someone who calls you 3 times back to back in case they're calling you from someone else's phone. And can also allow some apps as exceptions in case you use a 3rd party alarm app or something else that you want to be able to make noise.

Nova launcher. I have yet to find a launcher that surpasses Nova.

Just so you know, in case you haven't heard of it: https://lemmy.ca/post/19914345

Yeah, I know I just won't settle for less.

Have you recently checked out Lawnchair? They had a few big updates, and it massively improved. Even if you aren't satisfied by the experience right now, I'd recommend keeping an eye out for the project. They make lots of progress and big improvements.

How recently are we talking? I did try lawchair maybe a year ago, but it wasn't satisfactory.

I might try it again someday.

Ping Tools Pro, but it may be not actively developed anymore.

Koala sampler with samurai mode.

Nova Launcher Prime

Heads up: Nova launcher got sold out to a shady company - Branch Analytics.

Thanks for the warning, I didn't know about that. That's disappointing news.

Are there any good free software alternatives?

I used Nova forever. It was great.

I switched to Total launcher and now I don't miss nova.

I moved to smart launcher because I needed the gesture based controls. It's mostly similar but has some quirks.

I can't remember if it's free or not but it was at most a 1 time payment.

What are these "paid" android apps you speak of?

What do you mean?

Just being silly. I don't think I have any apps I've paid for.

Used to be the case for me too. But recently discovered that paid apps generally is much better polished, feature rich and ad+tracking free. That at least for me makes it more interesting paying for apps.

Checking in with my regularly scheduled F-Droid superiority post. Free, feature-rich, and no ads/trackers.

In all seriousness though, there are a lot of great FOSS apps on the stock repos and the IzzyOnDroid repos. Auxio (mp3 player) and Breezy Weather are probably my favorites at the moment.