I love “OK Google” (or whatever it’s officially called) on Android. You activate it by saying “OK Google” and then you can tell it to do things like set a timer, set a reminder, have it tell you what song is playing on the radio, find out the weather forecast, etc.
I like** Evernote** for saving general notes and info. Evernote syncs with other devices which is nice.
Gasbuddy is good for checking gas prices
I have an app for my bank which lets me deposit checks by taking photos of them. It’s very handy.
I like the Amazon app because I can scan things at the store and see if they are cheaper on Amazon.
I read a lot and use the Goodreads app for keeping track of my books. It will also scan the ISBN of a book and you can see how highly the book is rated by other Goodreads users.
The ones I find particularly invaluable are Brightest Flashlight Free, Checkbook, Sudoku, Amazon Kindle, and McDonald’s. The ESPN app is good if you’re into sports. Several webcomics have their own app; I personally have the xkcd, Gunnerkrigg Court and The Order of the Stick apps. Soundhound is good for those times when you need to identify music. Checkout 51 and Ibotta provide cash-back rewards for purchasing grocery items. And Angry Birds.
I don’t see that on my phone, an LG Sunset with Lollipop 5.0.1. How do you find it? I know I can turn on the flashlight by saying, “OK, Google,” but if I want a switch, I have to download an app.
One I found recently that is just so darned neat and useful that I’m stunned such a wonderful app exists: Portal.
Portal uses your WiFi to put files on your phone. No need to hook up a USB cable, or email a file to yourself, or any of that old-fashioned rigamarole. Open the Portal app on your phone, go to the web address it tells you (portal.pushbullet.com), and use your phone to scan the QR code. Then, drag the files you want to copy to your phone into the drag-and-drop area of the browser window. BAM. Files are on your phone.
Upgrade to Marshmallow right away. It handles phone volumes much better than Lollipop.
Motorola includes a couple of nice features. Not only is the flashlight included as a basic app, you can turn the flashlight on and off by gesture, a quick chopping motion toggles the light. A quick shake of the phone turns on the camera. Both of these can be done without unlocking the screen of the phone.
I suggest both Player FM and Tunein Radio apps for radio and podcasts.
The calendar app is Google Calendar, it syncs with your Google account so you can add an event on your home computer and it shows up on your phone automatically. You can use Dropbox or Google Drive to share files between your devices easily.
Cheetah Mobile suite of administrative tools is very useful.
Clean Master, to clean up your files and shut down running background apps.
CM Backup, to backup your files.
CM Browser, their own browser, which, admittedly, I don’t use
CM Keyboard, if you want a unique keyboard and one which includes emojis.
CM Launcher to launch apps.
CM Security, to do virus checking
CM Speed Booster, which kills background tasks.
Admittedly, Cheetah Mobile is a Chinese company, so I often worry about using their apps, but they’re an extremely popular app suite.
Ah, probably an LG skin issue. I’m running an HTC One (the original) with a Google Play Edition-based ROM flashed. Open quick settings (swipe down for notifications, swipe down again) and it’s the bottom left icon. The OP’s Moto X Pure is running something very close to stock Android so should be the same. I can’t be held responsible for whatever changes LG has made to the software on your phone.
Not seeing it. There’s no setting for the flashlight in the Quick Settings menu. It probably is an LG issue. That’s all right. I downloaded an app called ClickLight. It puts an icon on the notification bar that lets me tap the light on and off and I can also turn the light on and off when the screen is off by double-pressing the power button.
I knew about notifications but not quick settings until you described it.
Some of the Android info in the youtube videos aren’t on my phone. Like the home button that looks like a house. My phone doesn’t have it. I have a button that looks like a circle that seems to do the same thing. A button with a square shows my open apps and lets me close them. I’m slowly figuring it out.
I’m running my Galaxy S4 Mini on Marshmallow and I would highly recommend it over Jellybean. There are a lot of really cool features and the battery life has been a little better as well.
Blackplayer is what I use for music, and Sygic or Google Maps for navigation. I’ll second Army Knife for Android; it has been very handy. Convertpad is also quite useful for doing any any conversions from km to miles for instance.
I’m enjoying Android a lot. I see a few similarities with Windows and that helps me better understand the concepts.
I installed a couple Apps and subscribed to this thread for later reference. I’ll add more Apps later as needed.
I did buy the kindle book The Ultimate Guide to Using your Android Smart Phone. only 3 bucks. Primarily to learn Android’s techno jargon and features. But I’m catching on pretty quick. I’ll look at setting up a couple widgets next. I may even write my own App in a few months.
thanks again for your App suggestions. Army knife is very cool.
If your phone bothers you in the middle of the night or at work with loud notifications, one app I find very useful is Llama. It allows you to set up different volume profiles, and then you can activate different profiles based on the time of day or even your location (it uses cell tower IDs to figure out where it is.)
And yes, as you determined the power button just turns the screen off unless you hold it and pick “Power off” from the menu. That’s ok though, your phone will know when the screen is off and it conserves power. You should have plenty enough power to last all day without powering off unless you install a lot of apps or apps that use a lot of battery. It’s usually not a problem though.
[ul]
[li]Waze- a crowdsourced traffic/navigation app[/li][li]Yahoo Mail (I have a Yahoo account as my primary email account)[/li][li]Kindle app[/li][li]Facebook[/li][li]Opera browser (very fast and has bandwidth conserving features)[/li][/ul]
On the utility front, I use the Qualcomm BatteryGuru to optimize the Wi-Fi on/off timing and the app refresh intervals for the apps I use.
I also have a GPS Status app that I’ve set up to update the A-GPS info daily, so that I get the fastest possible location fix.
I don’t have Army knife, but I do have a magnifying glass app that I use occasionally.
The biggest single improvement that you’ll notice, above and beyond ANY of the above apps mentioned is a better keyboard app. I’m partial to Swiftkey, but Swype and other ones are good as well.
The built-in Android keyboard also has a swipe-to-type function.
The GMail app lets you check email on other accounts, too. You don’t need separate apps for Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.
Also, not an app suggestion, but you’ll want to pick up a couple of power packs. You can charge them off your PC via USB, then plug them into your phone to extend the battery life. You don’t have to spend much on them. You can pick them up at Wal-Mart for about $5 each.
Many streets in Ann Arbor have an electronic parking meter system. All spots are numbered, and there is maybe one pay station per block, which means you may end up standing in line to pay, and it can take extra time if you (or the guy in front of you) is using a credit card.
Turns out there’s an app for that. If your city has this parking system or a similar one, try googling “<my city> parking app,” and you’ll probably get a hit; then you just go searching for that app on Play. Create an account, add credit card info, and you’re all set: now you can “feed the meter” while still sitting in you car, no waiting in line in crappy weather.
Almost all really useful apps are more or less included with most phones- there IS a media player, a video player, a couple of email clients and a couple of browsers on most phones already (mine comes with the Google and Samsung ones standard)
But the OP asked for “useful”, and I happen to prefer the Yahoo mail client and Swiftkey for my keyboard.
Others probably like the slightly brighter than stock flashlight apps out there- more power to them.
Back to the OP… I don’t know how “useful” it is, but Google Sky Map is pretty damn amazing if you ask me.
Those programs (I should mention that I also use and very much like ES File Explorer) are just for managing files that are already on your device. Portal is a way to transmit files (movies, pictures, APKs, whatever) from your computer to your device, quickly and wirelessly. Even very large files that would take forever on, say, Dropbox (which is another app the OP would find highly useful). The video on the site I linked will probably make it clearer.
