I have a brand-new smartphone. A Google/LG Nexus 5, to be exact.
I’ve never had a smartphone before. What are some cool/fun/useful things I can do with it? What are the must-have apps? Surprising things a smartphone can do? Besides make calls and send and receive texts, of course.
Get a Kindle app for sure. It’s free.
Get a flashlight app because those things are bright as hell and really help
Get a time-waster app! I like Pinterest, and FML. These are what I look at when I’m in a drive thru line, in the bathroom, at the bank etc.
[ul]
[li]Flashlight[/li][li] WiFi Finder to help locate free wifi connections so you don’t burn through your data allotment[/li][li] A few time-waster games to help pass a few minutes when needed[/li][li] Evernote to store notes, snapshots, voice messages etc. and sync them to your main computer[/li][li] All the public transportation apps and maps for your area and cities you visit[/li][li] Kindle[/li][li] WeatherBug and MyRadar for checking weather (latter is quicker to see radar images)[/li][li] Sports score, news and play-by-play apps for any sport you follow[/li][li] News apps - Google News, AP, NYT, BBC etc.[/li][li] GOOD browser - Dolphin is best, Boat is almost as good and a little more stable, Chrome if you want to be mainstream[/li][/ul]
Then browse the Play Store - stay with free apps until you’ve got a lot of experience. You need very few pay apps these days. DL it, try it out, feel free to uninstall if it doesn’t appeal. You’ll find apps that fit unique niches in your interests and needs.
Go geocaching.
Waze is a pretty good navigation app. It’s a “social app,” so you create a profile (you can use it without a profile if you’re not into the social thing) and you get real-time traffic updates, warnings for speed/red light camera, cops, debris on the road, and other stuff (provided someone using the app has reported them, of course). I have found its ETA times are very accurate.
If you like crosswords, Shortyz is excellent. It downloads games from newspapers and other sources automatically (or you can do it manually if you prefer), and everything is totally free.
Google Now is included in your Nexus 5 and will become [del]the creepy know-it-all in your pocket[/del] your trusted assistant.
Banking app, if you trust them.
Shazam app to play name-that-tune.
Feedly app for convenient blog/RSS browsing.
These days, that’s like saying “I got a new PC. What can I do with it?” It’s almost endless!
The first thing that came to mind is make free phone calls with Google Hangouts:
It can play music, which is what mine does more often than anything else. It certainly has a player already loaded, and you can get one swith slightly better options for $10 or less.
But as an example of interesting things a smartphone can do: guitar tuner. Of course, that might not be useful for you, but there’s probably something to do with your interest or hobby it might be useful for.
Soundhound for name that tune, Songza for general streaming of music.
Droidfish if you like having your phone kick the crap out of you at chess. I have dumbed it down to 32% and still have yet to beat it.
Bubble level, which has been surprisingly useful.
gStrings Guitar tuner, and ChordWheel.
Move! Bike Computer if you ride.
FYI, Android 5 comes with a built in flashlight app, finally. It’s rolling out for the Nexus 5 right now so you might already have it.
[quote=“Amateur_Barbarian, post:4, topic:704619”]
[LIST]
[li] WiFi Finder to help locate free wifi connections so you don’t burn through your data allotment.[/li][/QUOTE]
In regards to this: Make sure you have WiFi turned on by default at all times! If you’re not sure what this means have someone at your cellphone store do it for you or show you how. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere free WiFi will be everywhere! If you have internet thru a cable company (Optimum, Time Warner, Concast etc.) you get to use their free WiFi anyplace it exists (again, ask the cellphone guys).
Lots of great suggestions.
Consider getting a portable cell phone charger/battery for your pocket or purse. Those apps really suck up power…
(Just saw the previous suggestion–having WiFi on also takes power. So be prepared!)
If you are used to a dumb phone (or not-very-smartphone) that went a week on standby with an hour or two of talk time, all smartphones will seem to be power hogs. You HAVE to put them on charge overnight, every night, and it’s wise to keep them on charge while at work or driving if it’s for more than a few minutes.
The truth is that they are far more efficient with their power usage, on a net basis - they are just powering 100X more function and still giving you a day or so of standby with reasonable usage. (I had the original HTC that was a true battery hog, even among competitors. The Samsung S3, S4 and Note II that followed, in my and family hands, have vastly better battery life, like most of the good-quality smartphones.)
Data will cost you power, whether it’s wifi or network. Wifi at least doesn’t cost you on the phone bill; I agree that keeping it on all the time, using a helper tool like Wifi Finder to find open networks and map in the ones you visit frequently, and even keeping phone network data turned off are very smart things to do. You can go to a minimal data plan and save $20-50 a month by only turning on network data when you need it and continuing to live your life without continual YouTube/Pandora streaming. 
Wifi doesn’t eat that much power on new phones - at least, no more than network data, so if it’s one or the other…
I like finding restaurants, I use** Urban Spoon**
Uber for car service in many cities
e-boarding passes with airline apps.
If you like hiking or are just interested in GPS and maps, apps like GPS essentials will give you a bunch of data from your GPS and will also record tracks and waypoints for you. Go wander in the woods and find your way back by following your recorded track.
WiFi uses a fraction of the power 4G uses, especially at work where the 4G connection is terrible. If I lose my WiFi the power drops alarmingly, with it I can go for days.
My number one app is Google maps with traffic information for the commute home. Number two is simple music player with decent shuffle. I move all my music on my memory chip from phone to phone. Good when walking the dog. Next is connecting to work email.
No time for games and stuff like that.
Pet peeve of mine… incomplete info., grrr…
The kindle app lets you read e-books. You download them to your phone’s memory. There are MANY free ones.
A password keeper app.
A calendar / reminder app.
I use multiple note apps; one is a to-do list, one is a list app and one is for notes.
If you drive; GasBuddy works with the GPS in the phone to find the best gas price near you.
The Amazon AppStore App - they have a free app every day. Usually games, but I’ve got a couple I’ve really enjoyed. And I found that once you own one, you can install it on a new phone.
Google ‘best apps of 2014’ and then ‘best free apps of 2014’
Not an app, but a must-have; a bluetooth headset.
Two power tips:
[After echoing Barbarian’s sentiments that you need to adjust your expectations to daily, not weekly, charging]
If you have a desk job, plug a USB charging cable into your computer at work.
If you’re on an airplane, turn it off or put it in airplane mode. When it’s at 30,000 feet trying desperately to find a cell tower to connect to, it runs out of juice very quickly.
I will say that unless you’re streaming music or video constantly there’s really no need to worry about constantly finding a wi-fi spot. Unless you have an extremely low data plan, anyway. I generally barely use 1GB of data in a month, and I don’t connect to wifi anywhere but home or the gym (where I do stream netflix). Since wi-fi is somewhat of a battery hog, my recommendation is to turn it off when possible, actually. I use llama (a simpler, free version of tasker) to detect where I am in the world and turn my wifi on and off appropriately.
Basically, I tell it which cell towers correspond to different locations, and I can tell llama to do something when I enter these cell zones (as well as many other timed and time-sensitive tasks). Two of which being “if connected to home tower, turn on wifi and connect to network” and “if disconnecting from wifi network, delay for 1 minute and then disable wifi if not connected” (those conditions are in case there’s a wifi blip). There’s tons you can do with it (adjust brightness if plugged in, adjust volume when headphones plugged in, adjust ringer volume at bedtime, bring up apps when entering specific locations, disable screen timeout when certain apps are open, turn to vibrate mode only when at work, etc). I very much recommend it if only to easily disable all phone noises so you won’t be disturbed when you’re asleep, and make your phone quiet at work.