What Are Your Favorite Hidden Gem Android Apps?

PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 273 points –

I'm sure there are countless apps out there that are incredibly cool, interesting, or useful, but just haven't hit the mainstream yet. Maybe it's a productivity tool that's boosted your efficiency, a unique game that's kept you entertained for hours, or a niche app that's catered perfectly to one of your hobbies or interests.

What are some Android hidden gem apps that you've used a bunch or think it's really cool/interesting/useful?

Please share your recommendations, and if possible, a brief description of what the app does and why you find it so valuable.

Looking forward to uncovering some hidden treasures in the Android app world. Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

183

Droid-ify is a much nicer client for F-Droid.

Obtanium for downloading apps from various other sources.

Aurora Store for anonymously downloading apps from the Play Store without a Google account

LibreTube or NewPipe for watching YouTube videos without ads or tracking.

Seal for downloading YouTube videos.

Retro Music Player - probably the best looking music app for Android.

Pano Scrobbler - a FOSS app for Last.fm, Libre.fm and Listenbrainz. (I recommend Obtanium to download it from GitHub.)

Murglar for downloading Music in full quality from Deezer.

Molly - a better Signal client. (You can use Obtanium to download it from GitHub, you can add their F-Droid repo or download it using Accressent, a new experimental app store that seeks to replace F-Droid.)

Gallery - a simple gallery app that looks good and respects your Material You theme.

Element X is a much better Matrix client than the standard Element app. (I recommend downloading it from GitHub using Obtanium.)

LinkSheet - a small app that restores the old Android URL link chooser. It has many great features like the ability to remove tracking parameters from URLs or using FastForward to annoying bypass URL shorteners.

UntrackMe - a tool that can redirect YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc. links to privacy-friendly alternative frontends like Invidious or Piped for YouTube, Nitter for Twitter and LibReddit or Teddit for Reddit

Thunder, the best Lemmy client I ever used.

Most of the apps I mentioned are free and open source and many of them are available on F-Droid. They don't collect or sell any of your data.

The last one is not an app, but an entire OS that can replace the spyware-infested ROM that's preinstalled by your phones' manufacturer. I'm talking about GrapheneOS. No ads, no tracking, no proprietary Google services. Just free and open source software with maximum privacy and security. It's so great!

Some alternatives and corrections to your list:

  • You can already download YT videos in LibreTube and NewPipe, speaking about NewPipe, I would suggest using NewPipeSponsosblock for blocking in video sponsors from creators. Aves Libre is a better advanced Gallery alternative with EXIF editing.
  • Aimp is a good alternative to Retro.
  • Spotiflyer is an alternative Murglar.
  • Schildi Chat is a better alternative to Element X, its based on Element but is a lot faster and has a lot more options.

Ps: I've been seeing a lot of posts and comments by you in the communities that I follow, just want to tell you thx for contrubuting to them xD.

Thanks for participating in the discussion. I have to disagree on some of your point though.

You can already download YT videos in LibreTube and NewPipe, speaking about NewPipe, I would suggest using NewPipeSponsosblock for blocking in video sponsors from creators.

I have found the download features in both LibreTube and NewPipe to be pretty unreliable. Seal always works. NewPipe x SponsorBlock is great, I use LibreTube which also has SponsorBlock built in, I just included NewPipe in the list because LibreTube breaks sometimes. But yes, NewPipe x SponsorBlock is better than standard NewPipe. BraveNewPipe is even better.

Aves Libre is a better advanced Gallery alternative with EXIF editing

Aves is a good option, it's also available on Accrescent. Personally though, I dislike the design of the app and prefer Gallery in combination with Image Toolbox for image editing.

Aimp is a good alternative to Retro.

It's not open-source and thus not available on F-Droid.

Spotiflyer is an alternative Murglar.

In my experience Spotiflyer has been pretty unreliable. It either pulls low quality shit from YouTube or it tries to download from Spotify and fails. So far, Murglar has worked like a dream. Just like deemix on desktop btw. You can use Deezer Premium ARLs from this guide to log in and download genuine 320kbps MP3s or even FLACs. Never had any issues.

Schildi Chat is a better alternative to Element X, its based on Element but is a lot faster and has a lot more options.

I tried it out, personally, I didn't really like it. Element has been pretty slow for me, but I never had these issues with Element X.

Thx for the feedback. I agree with pretty much all your points. It just goes down to personnal preference and some feautures.

Great list overall. Obtainium looks like it could be life-changing. :-)

I try to get most of my apps from F-Droid (through Droid-ify) or Accrescent, but if they are not available, I turn to Obtanium to either download an APK from a website or from GitHub. It also has the ability to update your apps from your custom sources.

I installed it and it is working beautifully. Thank you for the suggestion!

Oh no‽

Seems like FastForward has been put on ice/abandoned by the developers/maintainers (read the project GitHub header).

Any viable/preferred alternative?

Hi, have you switched to using Accressent? Do you like it more than Droid-ify?

It's in a very early stage of development, it currently only offers 11 apps. I really hope it succeeds though, it has better security than F-Droid so I would love to switch to it once it supports more apps.

Libretube and Newpipe, can you cast videos to like a Chromecast with these?

If you need Chromecast support, check out SkyTube. It's very important that you download SkyTube Extra, not SkyTube FOSS because it doesn't support casting. You can use Obtanium to automatically grab the latest APK from GitHub. It's also available in the IzzyOnDroid repository on F-Droid.

LinkSheet](https://github.com/1fexd/LinkSheet)

I'm sorry, why do we need this one?

I have Android 13 and when I tap on a link it asks me what app to open, also you can set this within the settings app per app basis.

Is this like Better Open With?

I have Android 13 and when I tap on a link it asks me what app to open, also you can set this within the settings app per app basis.

On many occasions, Android nowadays uses "Verified links" to figure out what app to open instead of prompting the user LinkSheet also provides other cool features that I already described in my previous comment:

It has many great features like the ability to remove tracking parameters from URLs or using FastForward to annoying bypass URL shorteners

Is this like Better Open With?

Yes

I missed the bypassing URL shorteners, heck, that would have been so helpful to me back in the day when I was sailing the seas for some "obscure" content.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles

Several puzzles in one app, no ads, completely free.

Wow thanks! I play these on desktop all the time. I tried playing them from my phone browser and it wasn't the same. Didn't know there was an app! Thank you!

Physics Toolbox Suite.

Most phones today contain a powerful array of sensors, and almost all of them are locked from easy access by the user. Physics Toolbox has functions that allow you to get the raw data from almost every sensor in your phone. It's the only "tool" app that I can honestly say I've used as a tool. It has a sound intensity functions which I have used to determine if hearing protections is needed, and I've used that feature to diag a bad mic pickup due to an ambient white noise machine. It can give you the signal loss for a WiFi connection, very handy for troubleshooitng wireless access points.

Other features, magnetic field detection, tone generator, color matcher, g-force and rotation output, raw GPS view and more. All of these are available on the free version, but I actually use this app so much that I sent the 2 or 5 bucks to the dev mainly just to support them. The paid version also lets you export the sensor logs to a .csv file so you can view that data on a computer.

It really turns your phone from a glorified Lemmy portal into the cool future tool it was meant to be.

Phyphox is similar, not sure if it has all the same capabilities though.

Games:

Survivor.io - even though the name screams cheap shitty ad app, it's pretty limited in ads (if any) and the game is a rogue like zombie killer. Each game plays out for about up to 15 minutes. One of my favorites.

Rebuild - a turn based strategy game about surviving the cities full of zombies.

Pawnbarian - a chess rogue like where you control a piece that has unique abilities. I believe they let you play part of the game as a demo.

Lifeline - a game you can get where you text some random dude who is lost in space. The game progresses over a few weeks and unfolds but you can only message him after he contacts you through notification.

Apps:

Nova Launcher - I have used nova launcher for probably like 10 years. I love the customizable options given and the ability to set gestures on icons.

Doctor on Demand - OK HEAR ME OUT. First, I live in America. Medical care is stupid. Also, I have children. Going to the doctors is like upwards of a hundred dollars per visit (if not more). Doctor on demand (through my insurance) is free. Even if you don't have insurance, I think it's only lope $50-$75 per visit. So.. I recommend this for American users who need to see a doctor but may not be covered effectively.

Offline Survival Manual - haven't needed to use it but good to have I'm thinking. You can print it all out through the app.

Survivor.io seems to be a crappy copy of Vampire Survivors which the base game is free on the play store and a lot better imo.

Vampire survivors released on Dec 2nd, 2022

Survivor.io released Aug 9th, 2022

Regardless, in the world of games (mobile games specifically, sometimes innovation is a leap frog off of someone else's creativity.

Yea so it was released on Steam on Oct 20, 2022 so only a month after survivor.io released. Pretty crazy how similar they are. I can imagine that they were in development at the same time, I wonder if they took inspiration from the same source and put their own spin on it.

My understanding is that Magic Survival is the original source of inspiration for VS. Released in 2019, no less.

NeverTooManyBooks.

I have several books cases and shelves where I store books, this has helped me a lot to have a catalogue of them.

I just scan the book code, the app gets book info, and I assign it to a place where it is physically stored, like, bookcase 1 in office room, shelf 3 on main room, etc.

I have it installed from Droid-ify which is like an app to have more sources for f-Droid.

https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.hardbacknutter.nevertoomanybooks

Doing inventory of your physical stuff seems like a chore, but a very rewarding one for sure.

This is a pretty neat idea to be honest, I wonder if it exists for other kinds of media?

Strangely enough I find a bit of joy in doing things like that. I've got several books of paperwork I've been gradually scanning and organising in a paperless ngx setup. It's a big hassle that ultimately doesn't help me much at all (95% of the things in there are random things I could just get rid of and would never miss), but yet I do it anyway, and enjoy doing it

Yeah, I have actually thought about using paperless as well, but just the idea of beginning keeps me away lol.

I also think it is a chore because inventory used to be one of my work functions in a former job.

Ooh, saving this for later. I'm gradually reclaiming all our books from storage and this sounds very handy. Thanks for the tip!

This is incredible. I've been looking for something exactly like this. Thank you!!

URLCheck

Checks URLs for nasties like tracking links. Can also be used to open links in specific apps (where they don't always want to)

Available on both f-droid and the play store.

https://www.f-droid.org/packages/com.trianguloy.urlchecker/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy.urlchecker

also great bc u always have the option to choose which app to open with, and acts as a confirmation if you accidently click a link

Atomas is a lovely little game about atoms.

I came to this thread looking for new games to kill time. Apparently I'm too stupid to make it past tutorial :(

It's not you, my daughter had to show me how it's played.

X-plore file manager. I've been using it since UIQ days.

If you are not streaming music, but play your local library - PowerAmp.

Accubattery

Blackplayer > PowerAmp

Fight me.

Shuttle > all of them fight me

I'm in a fighting mood. I wanna beat up both of you.

Winamp. Everybody line up so I can just run down the row while holding my fist at face hight.

Winamp will bring the llama to whip all your asses!

Gonemad Classic is unbeatable imho, and I tried them all.

blackplayer used to be my favorite but it's not as actively developed as it once was.

X-Plore is amazing. Especially the FTP server is so useful, there simply is no easier way of moving files between devices.

And they provide a native SmartTV app you can control with the remote, it's excellent.

I've been using Ghost Commander, but I might give that a whirl

I feel like poweramp has a mind of its own on whether or not it wants to actually shuffle your music. Whenever I put my music on shuffle, it'll shuffle the songs, but then it'll just play an entire album in order.

There are separate options for shuffling songs and categories (albums, artists, folders, genre, etc) and you can toggle them independently of each other.

Minimalist Phone has changed my life. For anyone looking to either spend less time on social media or get rid of the digital clutter constantly bombarding you, this app is amazing.

It Filters my notifications so I can check them on my own time, it sets time limits on all social media and game apps and kicks you out when time is up, and it has a simple black background with no app icons, only the names of the apps you choose in white letters. Perfect for my over-stimulated adhd brain.

Brooooo I'm upgrading my phone and I'm definitely going to give this a go! Thank you!

Simple Text Editor

FOSS text editor for when you just literally wanna write something down without any weird bloat and without having to deal with Google. Available on F-Droid.

Also, OpenBoard for a FOSS keyboard with swipe typing. Also available on F-Droid

You know what, I think F-Droid is actually my hidden gem app. I'm sure most Lemmy users use it, but I don't think I know anyone else IRL who does, so hidden gem might not be accurate depending on perspective.

Oh my god thank you!! I've been out of luck looking for an open swipe keyboard, I'm so excited you found one and shared it!!! WOOT!

On second thought... Seems they haven't finished their glide type function for release yet, though it's planned! Are you on a beta version or something to get the swipe function? Or were you talkin the backspace & spacebar swipe gestures? 🙂

Really? I don't think I'm using a beta release and I'm glide typing this message. I might have gotten the apk off of Github rather than F-Droid but I honestly don't remember, been using this keyboard for a few months now.

r ur notes available on every device u log into?

Nope, just a simple app for writing text files. If you want you can save those files to the cloud but for myself, there's a lot if times where I just want to draft something quick on my phone and it's my go to

1 more...

I'm not so up on what's new and such, and I've really enjoyed a few games I've downloaded:

(Obligatory apology for any link or format issues. On mobile and first time posting.)

Scalak. You rotate and move blocks and pieces around to try to match up edges. Hard to explain. Kind of like the baby's "put the square in the square hole" toy except for adults. It's got really nice, calming music, so it's nice to play before bed or offline on the plane.

MultiSudoku. Off-line sudoku that has five sudoku squares (?) attached together.

Word Hero. I love word games and this has been my favourite. It's basically Boggle and after each game, it ranks the scores from everyone around the world who played the same game as you. Been playing this for years. Unfortunately online only.

Burnable Garbage Day. Earth has completely filled with rubbish, and a cleaning robot has woken up from a deep slumber to find out why the planet has become this way. Originally a Japanese game so the translations are a bit dodgy, but it's a really fun play. I think it can be played offline. It's been a while since I've played this.

Mahjong 13 Tiles. The only actual mahjong game I could find that isn't like the old Windows tile matching game. This is the gambling version where there is no money bets, but you can play against bots. It's been ages since I've played this so I can't remember if it's online or offline or if you can play against real people.

Dingbats. Guessing famous idioms from drawings. Can be played offline.

Quell Reflect. Moving a bubble around to capture all the gems. The puzzles get harder as you progress. Can be played offline.

Influence. You start with one cell (think Chinese checkers) and you keep spreading your influence to conquer the other players. Can be played off-line.

What the Forecast. Obnoxious, rude weather app.

Whicons. Minimalist white icon pack for Android.

BirdNET. Identifies birds by their call. I've used this in Canada and Australia.

Plant Net. Same thing as BirdNET but photos of plants. Also can confirm it works in Canada and Australia.

Edit: Forgot one game, Slitherlink. I set it to easy and listen to podcasts in the background to wind down at the end of the night. Each hexagon (or whichever shape you choose) has a number, and each number represents the max number of sides that can be selected. Eventually the entire board is connected via one line. You'll have to read the description, it's the best description I can give, albeit not a very good one.

Edit edit: This is what happens when I haven't had my coffee yet. Kakuro is another numbers game like sudoku.

Skalak sounds like someone got tired of solving the eternity II puzzle.

This calculator app maybe I use it for nostalgia's sake but I've had it on every android for the past 10+ years. It works great, launches instantly, and the ads were never more than a small banner at the top. I did buy the ad free version but it's $2, no subscription or any bullshit, just a straight and honest scientific calculator.

Maybe not underrated because everyone should already be using it but KDE connect is a life changing app. So much functionality packed into a lightweight package. Just having a shared clipboard between my phone and laptop has been such a time saver every single day. If you don't already have it, you should.

Leafsnap - an excellent plant identification app. Can id from a photo of a flower, leaf or bark.

I like the inaturalist seek app better

Looks interesting. I'll check it out.

How easily/quickly are plants identified on it? Leafsnap usually only takes a minute or so and has id'ed around 90% of what I've thrown at it.

But I do like the idea of tracking more than just plants and contributing to data gathering for science.

Edit: yep iNaturalist is much better. The search is about the same but its prioritizing results based on location is a good feature.

Thanks! Inaturalist looks way better and doesn't require a subscription. Got a plant right away, and I like how it gets more and more precise as you move around the plant.

Merlin is similar but for birds. Also feeds all of the data you give it back to Cornell's ornithology lab, which I'd normally be against, but in this case it's for a great cause.

You can also troll various bird species by playing their calls back to them. Most will at least come in for a closer look, some will straight up strafe your ass depending on the season.

-Organic maps

Beautifully designed open source navigation alternative. It's not perfect, because I still have to do some auxiliary searching occasionally, but I'm really enjoying using it instead of Google

-Quickweather

Another beautifully designed app. Not perfect, but just really nice to look at because of how well it was done. I still use myradar as my main driver, admittedly.

-ViMusic

Again, one of the most beautifully designed apps I've ever seen. It has a few bugs, but I really enjoy using this one. It uses YouTube music as the back end.

-Newpipe and freetube

Either of these work pretty good as a better way to watch YouTube videos. I'm glad people are fighting back against Google's bullshit...

-Eternity

This is currently my favorite Lemmy front end. I've tried many so far and this one seems to have the best functionality and customization too.

Wow, organic maps is beautiful! Thanks!

I'm really happy to share that one! The only other alternative that I've come across that looked (kind of) promising was osmand, but organicmaps puts that one to shame as far as looks go. It functions really well too, I think it's just a better app in general actually.

ArityCalc is really neat, does graphing and a few other things

JRPN 16C is a take on the HP 16C , it's both fun to mess around with and a great help when working with raw memory

μMath+ is great for working with complex problems

I use a NewPipe fork called PipePipe that is a bit more stable from my experience

Aurora Store is great

Markor is my go-to notes app, lets you write notes in markdown among other things

Trail Sense is neat both for its intended purpose as a general hiking toolkit, but also as a way to check phone sensors

Total Commander, because of course

Organic Maps is an offline maps app based on OpenStreetMap data, it's great

Niagara is by far my favorite launcher these days

I use it with Frequaw as the only widget to launch the apps I use the most

I rue the day Identiconizer falls behind on API versions and I won't be able to install it on new phones anymore. Having identicons for contacts I don't have photos for is just so much nicer than the plain letters.

Living Worlds has gorgeous low-power animated wallpapers

AlmostTI stops me from needing to learn how to use a newer calculator than the TI-84

I keep hearing good things about Niagara, but it seems like such a shift from what I'm used to

It's very different but it's so much faster to access the drawer and Frequaw covers 95% of what I used my home screen for

Frequaw looks great! I'm going to give it a try.

Dope Wars Classic. The best modern recreation of the TI Calculator/Palm Pilot game Drugwar.

Still awesome to play to this day.

Joplin https://joplinapp.org/ It is a free an open source note taking app similar to Evernote. You can keep your data on a cloud service (such as Dropbox) to keep your notes in sync between Android, Windows, Linux and IOS or you can pay for Joplin Cloud storage.

Why has every note app gone into the cloud.

Like its hard to find a note app that doesn't try to get me to sign up and subscribe to features. I just want to take notes like I'm a PI investigating people at my local mall

You can use Joplin without any cloud sync at all and the notes just stay on your one device.

You can also use Syncthing to keep your notes synchronized across multiple devices. Syncthing is an app that does just that (keep files synchronized in the background).

Qownnotes

It's a desktop app, but can sync with self-hosted cloud servers. It's also literally just text/markdown files.

Spotiflyer <- Give a link to a song/playlist from various platforms and it will download it for you.

Feeder <- Great all around RSS feeder that can help you read your feeds on the go.

Metro player <- FOSS music player with great customizable UI. Has tons of features.

Probably more that I can't think of at the moment.

My favorite music player Musicolet

Edit: link

Oh, I haven't heard of that one before. Is it any good? (I already have mutiple music players but testing out another isn't a bad idea)

It's pretty good. I like that it also have Android auto support. I mainly listen to music in my car.

Spotiflyer <- Give a link to a song/playlist from various platforms and it will download it for you.

Soundbound now

I am disappointed he didn't put it on fdroid. I assume Shabinder had his reasons.

Oh it got an update? Nice thanks for mentioning it.

Gravity Screen.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.plexnor.gravityscreenofffree

Screen turns off when you put your phone into your pocket. No more pocket dials etc.

Might not work on newest devices.

I did this with automate, it checks the proximity sensor, then it checks device orientation against set values (so it knows its upside down)

It's just fun for me to make this logic myself in automate, no real reason to do it this way unless you just WANT to.

Nice.

Yes, automate is good.

My Realme phone will probably kill such an app though. It kills tasker even when told not to.

1 more...

yeah this app is not compatible with this device

I remember that one! I used it for quite a while on one of my old devices

Did you replace it with something? Or maybe newer devices are a bit smarter and it's not necessary.

Yeah that's mainly the reason. Most new phones (I think for at least 5 years now?) Have the function to detect being in a pocket. Mainly through the brightness sensor.

No, I don't think I replaced it. If I remember correctly, I think I ended up having some small nitpick with it, so I uninstalled it or did something different. I still remember it fondly, however.

1 more...

Not sure how hidden it is, but I've been using Librera FD for the PDF of the textbook I needed for one of my classes. I only really ever use it for the PDF reading function and the search for certain words function, but it works great for what I need.

I also don't know how hidden it is, but I also like Anuto TD (Another Ugly Tower Defense for Android) has been something I just got back into. It's simple and fun enough to play since it doesn't require too much thought.

KISS launcher, I can't imagine using a phone without it.

Interesting concept, but I just can't stand the animations that are not from the stock launcher.

Kiss is exactly what I want in a launcher. I use it but it seems to crash a lot and/or fail to run the search properly or render my icons.

Have you noticed that at all? It's happened across 2 phones for me but I may be unlucky or doing something wrong.

I'm using it for years on 2 phones and it works well. It crashed here and ther, but I'd say it's about as stable as original one overall. I used to have problem with arcticons, butanual restart helped it. It's sad you encounter problems.

Funny you mentioned articons. I have actually had a lot fewer stability problems when I switched away from articons.

But they look good and are very minimalistic. Do you know something similar to replace them?

I switched to Delta Icons, also open source also on F-Droid. They aren't as minimalist but they're neat and flat and pastel.

I'll give it a try. Although I must admit I'm pretty used to my monochrome setup right now. Will se how it goes.

//EDIT: I tried them and I quite like the pastel idea, but I don't like how inconsistent the theme is as a whole. One icon is round, other one is square and third one is just symbol with no background whatsoever.

Localsend - it's like airdrop but for android, linux, windows, and mac.

The built-in Nearby Share has a desktop client from Google now if you have a phone that supports it

FX File Explorer. Super fast, feature-rich, and customizable, free with no ads and tracking.

Forkyz let's you download and solve crossword puzzles.

It comes with an inbuilt list of sources for different languages but you can also manually add new ones. Many newspapers publish crosswords daily or weekly for free so there's plenty of options.

Mixplorer, a file explorer that does everything. Want to share a file between android devices on your home network over WiFi because Bluetooth will take a million years ? Start a server via mixplorer, send from mixplorer on the other device. The other day I was looking for an app to browse a simple nas storage. I searched for "nas" in F-droid and found nothing. Then I remembered good old mixplorer. Yup there it was, add smb. And I think I barely use 10% of its capacity. Batch processing, queued actions, regex renaming... Many add ons. Edit:free on xda

Is newpipe a hidden gem? It was to me until 6 months ago.

Been using it for 5 years, back when everybody was hyped up about vanced. Newpipe (especially the fork with sponsorblock) was always superior imho.

There is a sponsor block version O.O dope. Thanks

until 6 months ago.

It depends, how long have you been a Lemmy user?

EDIT: huh, according to this profile, about 5 months 🤔

Essentials: DiskUsage, Total Commander

Music Folder Player - just a good music player that plays files in a folder instead of scraping all audio files from wherever as many players seem to do nowadays

Syncthing - to sync files with other devices

Fit Notes - simple lifting progress app that i've been using for years. On play store.

Kvaesitso - launcher on fdroid. Has become my favorite launcher.

Mobilism for pirating the apps in question

You can just search for APKs on androids. You wouldn't believe what's already out there.

I put Trek: Total Interface and Total Launcher on my phone to replace the normal Android interface and for the first time in fifteen years I like hearing my phone make noise!

They work really well on my pixel 3 and respond much faster.

Some foss music apps i like:

Seeker - for downloads

Metro - for playing downloaded music

Vimusic, blackhole, innertune or spotube - for streaming

I've mostly been using Spotube, its awesome!

I don't know how hidden it is because most people into making electronic music at all know about it, but Koala sampler is a fantastic value at $5 for an intuitive and fun way to make some silly loops.

Tidy panel 3 for hiding un-dismissable notifications from notification panel (for my Samsung phone). Icon pack studio for generating custom icon packs.

I have a Samsung and it's not a problem anymore but in the Note 4 days I would get 50+ notifications a day to give access to Samsung calendar and then when I force removed the app it held a notification there about a calendar issue.

I keep my phone on dnd 24/7 and for some reason in Samsung there will be an un-dismissable notification for that which would also show up in the top of my phone. I found this super annoying so tidy panel 3 is great for hiding this. This wasn't a problem on my old stock android phone.

I gotta shout out cloudstream, a streaming alternate. Foss, great app available on f droid.

While i'm on that i'll add showly there too.

Both are excellent recommendations, add up Aniyomi too to that list 😆

Sadly it's not on the playstore anymore, but I've had a free Tetris clone app on my phone for years that has served as a good time killer or a distraction from awkward silence. It's called Tetra Classic. I think you can still find the APK somewhere, hopefully in reputable sources.

Falling Lightblocks, available on his own website or GitHub.

Underhand

Free game, no ads, no internet, no info access, no update.

Small minus, you have to download it from play store.

Small caveat, not available on latest version of Android

SDR++ https://github.com/AlexandreRouma/SDRPlusPlus
Though you'll need additional hardware.

The best general-use SDR program available on Android. The other apps are just very limited mobile apps, but this gives a full desktop experience. It does support less devices than on desktop, but that's fine. You can run it as server on desktop, and connect to the SDR++ server on your phone.
Here's a screenshot:

In the screenshot, it's connected to SDR++ server running on my laptop, to which I have connected RSP1. I couldn't use the RSP1 with SDR++ on Android directly, as it requires proprietary API. But I could for example use RTL-SDR, the most popular SDR. Or maybe Airspy, Airspy HF+, HackRF or Hermes. It can also connect (network) to PlutoSDR, RFspace, RTL-TCP, SDR++ and SpyServer.

But there's more awesome SDR programs available for Android:

  • SatDump for satellite data processing

  • SDRAngel which tries to do as much as possible in single program (there's no scaling settings, so prepare a stylus or mouse)

  • Welle.io for receiving DAB/DAB+ radio

  • RTL-SDR driver allows you to run RTL-TCP server on the phone. It's also used as a driver by many other apps.

Haha, an old friend of mine created SDR'++

I've been using Seeker to get hi def flacs for my music library since I decided Spotify sucks a little while back!

Since I've flipped to offline music, it's been a dream to return to the forever glorious Poweramp music player. Gorgeous & compatible with a buncha skins from the play store, but best of all, you can setup profile based EQs that'll trigger based on song, album, Bluetooth device, genre... It's wild

For podcasts I use Feeder on my RSS feeds & AudioAnchor as my player. Straightforward & operable from my pocket, which is all I need!

Keepass2android is a great password manager that does biometric auth & slick password generation. File based tho, be sure to sync it somewhere.

Arity, the perfect calculator. I know that it is just a calculator app but it lightweight, open-source, has 2D and 3D graphing (!) and of course can do calculations.

-Andor's Trail

a free game on f-droid, a roguelike with a plot and very pretty

-Currency

an open source app to quickly see exchange rates between different currencies, lightning fast

-Invizible Pro

TOR access that I use on public wifi for protection

-Gadgetbridge

Lightweight and good app for use with smartwatches/bands

-Lolisnatcher

Great booruapp that supports everything I threw at it.

-Newpipe Sponsorblock

A fork of the popular youtube alternative that supports the sponsorblock extension since the original devs are against it.