What Android apps are worth paying for?
What non-game paid apps do you use that are worthwhile and still relevant in 2023?
For context, I have a decent amount of Google Play credit thanks to Opinion Rewards and a gift card. I'm not looking to start a book or movie collection there, nor sign up for subscription services. But I'm happy to buy the paid/pro version of useful apps.
I'm excluding games just because that's a whole topic on its own.
Here are some one-time paid apps I've been happy with:
I'll throw my opinion for Sync for Lemmy.
Second this
I have to admit I haven't been buying a lot of new apps the last few years. I don't play games on my phone and most of the apps I use daily are basically the same ones for a few years already.
FX file explorer An excellent file manager that I have been using since forever. There are other good ones, such as Solid Explorer, but FX is my favorite.
Tasker I used to play around with this so much, the things you can do with this app are endless. But I have been using it less lately, switched to Google home since it has better/easier integration with other devices in the house.
Nova Launcher I think most of you will be familiar with this launcher. I have probably been using this one since it came out. It's perfect!
JuiceSSH Pro To be honest I don't even know what features are unlocked by purchasing the pro edition without looking because it has been so long since I bought it. It's an SSH cliΓ«nt and one of my most-used apps.
Sync for Lemmy There are plenty of Lemmy apps that are good but I was using Sync for Reddit since forever so I jumped on the hype-train when it came out. I paid for Ultra monthly because 2β¬ per month for something I use daily is a no-brainer.
Besides these there are some Google Wear watch faces I purchased. There had been other apps that I bought years ago like sdmaid or some other tools from when I used to install custom roms but I don't really use those anymore - too much hassle for marginal improvements. And the question was about apps that are still relevant.
I prefer Niagara launcher. I was using Nova for years, it got a bit stagnant, and they've been purchased by a data mining company.
Revoke internet access for Nova, problem solved. Slap nextdns on top of that and you're golden.
Rather just not use something that needs those extras steps
Looks at the paid apps on my phone..... The fuck. Right down to the SDmaid and using roms years ago. Like identical... seriously it's a small community of popular apps that run in these communities sometimes.
My man!
My gestures keep breaking on Nova, even on the beta v8. This is on OneUI
Same since A11 or 12 can't remember, I have paid for Nova before, but I am not using it because the fucked up animations.
For anyone that doesn't want to pay, I use Termux for SSH and it works great.
Tasker is my most useful app, use it every day, can't live without it at this point
What do you do with Tasker? It sounds like an amazing solution to problems I don't have.
Depends on what you use your phone for. I have mine:
If you ever feel like you need something automated, Tasker is the way to go
That's basically it π
Bitwarden
Any app you regularly use.
iOS users have no qualms paying for apps, so that's where high quality devs work.
Take Boost for Reddit for example.
Many people used that app every day for many, many years, but would balk at paying anything at all, or even $5.
Think about what you get in return for paying $30 for a nice dinner.
Mixplorer Silver - Feature-packed File Manager
Hermit - Lightweight PWA browser
Instaddr - creates disposable Email addresses
Readera - Feature-packed book reader
Moon+ Reader - Feature-packed book reader
Balance - for Meditation. They have been offering a one year free trial for some time now. It has been really helpful for me. Their programs are highly customised to achieve your goals. Give it a try.
KWGT & KWLP - if you're into home screen customisation, then these are must haves.
1DM - Feature-packed Browser and Download Manager (Direct downloads & torrents)
Niagara Launcher - Lightweight, minimalist, with solid, fluid animations. One-hand friendly. Free version has ZERO ADS. I've been using the free version for a couple of years now. I'm hooked to it. I don't think I can go back to a normal App Drawer drawer style launcher now. They offer one time purchase as well for the pro version. I felt no need for the pro features, though i'd definitely buy the pro to support the dev.
Some of these have decent free alternatives. Mixplorer is free to use officially through XDA. KWGT & KWLP have free ad supported versions available through their official website. Regardless, these have been installed on all my phones for years now.
1DM+ and Hermit are the apps that have been in my constant rotation of use among the apps I bought. SeriesGuide too for tracking tv and movies.
Found I have replaced lot of apps with Foss alternatives over the years, so been buying apps less and less.
Thanks for the shout out for Hermit!
FairEmail : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.email
The best email app.
Business Calendar (by Appgenix Software)
I have multiple Google calendars to keep track of pretty much everything; birthdays, anniversaries, bills, when school is in session (I have kids), scheduled days off, various appointments, etc. I've been using this since 2011/2012 with their first version, and moved over to the 2nd version after that came out. It gives me more control over how my calendar looks on my phone, I can easily toggle calendars and tasks on or off...
Honestly, I can't use another calendar app now. I love my color coded (you can change calendar colors in the app to any color you want) month at a glance calendar.
And I also can't recommend KWGT enough for widget making. I originally got Zooper to try to emulate Conky (from Linux), but Zooper stopped being developed. I have a lot of fun trying to get my widgets just the way I like them - even if my code is a mess.
Absolutely, Business Calendar is my #1 app.
The only app I've paid for is Torque Pro. If you deal with cars a lot it's worth the 5 bucks. The free version is also pretty handy.
I dunno. I just wish torque looked a little better. I don't like the interface at all. But it's a great app for troubleshooting car problems.
Solid Explorer
What do you like about it that can't be done with e.g. Simple File Manager?
I will say the Cloud storage integration looks nice.
Honestly, Simple File Manager is a bit better then I remembered. But here are some, in order of how much they matter to me.
Amaze checks some of these boxes, but I find it kind of buggy.
Those are good features. Thanks, I'll check it out!
Mixplorer Silver too.
This is a pretty solid app, and I have no regrets purchasing this one.
Is there a reason apps that access file system are getting pushy about having notifications enabled though? I've seen it on a few different apps and solid explorer is especially annoying if you don't enable notifications. It basically gives you 2 prompts urging you to enable notifications every time you move files. The file transfer works perfectly fine without the notifications from what I can see. This has caused me to use a lesser file management app in the meantime. I just don't understand why a file manager HAS to have notifications I guess.
I sent the dev an email about it, but it got ignored.
From what I gather, Solid needs notifications for file transfers, should you decide to push large chunks of data through it and proceed to different tasks in the meantime.
It shows you notification when the ftp server is running atleast. Haven't seen sny other notifications.
Niagara Launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bitpit.launcher
It's georgous and I've grown to love the list view for apps. As phones are really tall, it makes more sense to lay out apps vertically instead of horizontally. It's search function is great too.
My work uses google workspaces, the agenda widget is so useful for quickly seeing a list of calendar events and weather.
+100 for Niagara!
I used Niagara for years, paid for it since I used it so much as my launcher. I switched to Kvaesitso on F-Droid recently, and haven't felt the need to switch back!
I don't have many paid apps, but one I do like is Peakfinder. It's not something I use all the time but it does become rather handy when you've climbed up a hill to a viewpoint and now want to figure out which other hills you're looking at.
Not FOSS but, I love TickTick, itβs a great cross-platform reminders app. Iβve tested a ton but TickTick is my fav
Ticktick is great but op said they weren't looking for subscriptions
For online and offline GPS I love OSMAnd+ since it has AndroidAuto support and tons of other features.
You can get it free if you use F-droid!
It is called OSMAnd~ on F-Droid. It does not have support for AndroidAuto. I ended up buying the licensed version for that and to support the devs.
For mobile- Poweramp - let's me view and play music by Folder. Google and Samsungs built in player suuuucks. You can't build a Playlist with Poweramp, but if you have lots of your "own music" .mp3s, I highly recommend it.
And SimpleGallery. Infinitely better than whatever the fuck "Google photos" puts together. It lets you sort and view by, you guessed it, FOLDER NAME rather than "most recent" always at the top. It also let's you Hide folders too for all those cute cat photos. Also allows Excluding folders, so that game thumbnail folder doesn't show up too.
I second both!
Titanium backup doesn't work anymore on latest version of android..
Last time I tried it, the restored applications would just crash, and the ones that did work don't have the external data backed up
Yeah, Swift backup is the go to now
I switched from Swift Backup to Neo Backup. Don't regret it. Neo is open source (F-Droid) and backups aren't locked to your Google account like Swift.
I paid for Tilla, it's a great app to manage subscriptions. I get notifications when the next payment is due. Pretty simple UI but that's what I like about it. You can check how much you spend per week/month/year.
That's a good suggestion. I don't think I personally have enough subscriptions to need Tilla but I could see it helping a lot of folks.
KLWP and KWGT are amazing for customization. KLWP is for making live wallpapers, KWGT is for making your own widgets. They're both extremely powerful apps that allow you to completely customize phone home screen to your exact liking. There's a slight learning curve to them, but once you have the basics down you can do some pretty amazing things with them.
Add Tasker into the mix and you got a stew going!
I've thought about those but I'm just not sure I'd really use them. I'm generally happy keeping my screen pretty simple with static wallpaper and very few widgets.
Sync for lemmy.
Check the price for Sync for Lemmy again, maybe you get lucky - they are tweaking it regionally now - the price for me changed to 1/10th of the original ask.
Fx explorer is dead? The most recent updates were in april, with fixes for newer android versions. I have not had any issues whatsoever
wait they updated it?
just checked, works on android 13 now!
still no workaround for android/data tho....
Voyager is a good Lemmy app that's worth a look π
If you have root access, instead of Titanium, you can use instead oandbackup.
It's free and open-source.
It's also a beta with no updates since March 2019 apparently :(
Titanium Backup became worthless when split APKs became a thing after it stopped updating. Looks like oandbackup claims to support them, but I see an open issue about some split APK apps not working after a restore (which is what TiBu did)
Edit: So in the spirit of OPs question, an app I gladly paid for was Swift Backup
Moonreader - ebook reader
Onkyo HF Player - High Fidelity Music Player
CDisplayX - Comic Book Reader
Listen Audiobook Player
Moonreader is amazing!
And if you have a folding phone, it splits in half like a book! Totally awesome
I am interpreting "worth paying" as "immensely useful" because I don't recall paying for an app, ever.
Slice & Dice is probably the best android phone game ever made, and if you buy the itch.io version you get both the PC and Android versions.
I absolutely love this game. I wish they would make a #2 or another great game like this
Instead of Titanium Backup (which I paid for long ago and highly recommended back in the day), a more modern and mantained solution that has been rock solid for me is Swift Backup: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.swiftapps.swiftbackup
And for regular folder backups I haven't found a better alternative than Folder Sync Pro: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.tacit.android.foldersync.full (Has a free version if you want to try it)
Folder Sync Pro - if you have a NAS or extra server, you can upload backups from your phone to there for safe offline storage. I use it to hold my photos and Tasker profiles.
SMS Backup and Restore - Likewise, this backs up your SMS and call records, useful if you are needing to preserve records for legal reasons or otherwise. They have an IAP purchase for pro - I think
Solid Explorer File Manager pro - Hands down, this by far for me has been nothing short of awesome. Well worth the $$ for it. They use the Unlock file
(Solid Explorer Classic UnlockSolid Explorer Classic Unlock) for this. Or at least used to - to enable the pro functions.
If you have Android Wear - pretty much any of the watchfaces you desire can be there or even make your own with some of the apps there for it. :)
Sounds like a worse version of Syncthing.
Niche but very valuable for me is: symfonium which is a very complete subsonic client. Prana Breath is a lean but featureful breathing app with a ton of different exercises from beginners to advanced yoga practitioners
Both apps are android only and are miles ahead of anything iphone can offer which is worth being mentioned imo.
Parents should try ChildIDFile. Creates a secure file that will expedite a search for a missing child. No ads. Private
What a disappointment is the BigBag app. Bought it yesterday but I expected a better app (also UI wise). Especially the recipe book part. Maybe the will improve in the future, but I am not going to use it for now.
Really? I only used the recipe book once but it seemed easy to hit the checkboxes and move ingredients over to my grocery list.
Mostly I just use it to sync shopping lists between myself and my partner. For that it has been quite reliable. Yeah I can imagine some UI improvements, but overall I think it's pretty good.
Can you find a better grocery app? I've tried a ton of them and most were horrible. Either they had a hard-to-navigate UI with no dark mode, or they didn't allow syncing with another person, or some major functional problem.
There used to be a grocery app I loved called Cinnamon but the dev stopped maintaining it :(
I use Bring! The shared lists work well, not sure about any other features tbh
Im in the same boat, Ive got every imaginable app thats useful to me but Ive got about $75 in rewards
If you're gonna be boating, Navionics is absolutely worth paying for.
I paid for the Gallery app because it's easier to navigate than Google Photos.
Photopills. If you do any kind of outdoor or landscape photography it's a must.
What does it do?
Shows where the sun and moon is at any given time, along with a bunch of photography aids.
A nice. I have golden hour+, which sounds similar, but I guess it's more focussed on the golden hour
Ah yes, it also has star-related stuff if you do astro, a useful AR overlay (so you can plan for shoots when scouting a location), as well as a bunch of useful calculators. The map feature is useful for planning outdoor shoots if you want to know things like sun angle, as well as shadow cast by objects. Lots of little, useful things!
Hey, me too. I just started to use their new SD MAID SE. Purchase of previous SD Maid Pro doesn't count, though, unfortunately.
none
Apps worth paying:
uTorrent PRO
CCleaner (if pictures consume lots of your storage and would like to compress them with minimum loss)
Any Zombodroid app
Games:
Castlevania: Synphony of the Night
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Real Drift
Any emulator you would like to use
I don't think I could ever trust CCleaner after the self-signed malware incident.
For me, Steam Deck has entirely replaced Android gaming and then some.
Yeah, feel like that killed it off when it came to seeing it recommended.
Utorrent?? Lol
NO. fuck utorrent.
if you need an android Torrent client get something that's not made by that shady-ass company, like LibreTorent (foss) or flud
also fuck CCleaner too.
Libretorrent https://gitlab.com/proninyaroslav/libretorrent is free and open source and isn't anywhere near as shady as uTorrent.
Material Files https://github.com/zhanghai/MaterialFiles is a free and open source file manager that allows decompression, archive viewing and compression of files and folders using 7zip, tar or zip. If you prefer the command line, p7zip CLI can also be installed on Termux, https://github.com/termux/termux-app both free and open source.
I don't edit photos or play many games on android so I don't have any alternatives there but Lemuroid https://github.com/Swordfish90/Lemuroid is a free and open source console emulator with a whole bunch of consoles built in and Dolphin https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin emulates the GameCube and Wii
Adding on to games: bloons td 6