New Android phone? Download these apps first

Summary

As a platform, Android is teeming with applications that span across any and all genres.
Whenever I set up a new Android device, I always download these particular apps almost immediately, and without fail.
These six apps are well-crafted, and they offer useful tool sets and access to information that I find to be invaluable.

I’ve been an avid Android user for a number of years now, and over time I’ve stumbled across a great variety of excellent apps for the platform. The Android OS boosts support for an incredibly vast and rich assortment of software apps, which makes it difficult to single out favorites.

After much consideration, I’ve managed to distill my list of all-time greats down to a few in particular. These six apps are some of my current favorites, and they’re among the very first I download whenever I set up a brand-new Android phone or tablet.

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1 Pinnit

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Pinnit

Pinnit makes it easy to save reminders or any other blocks of text directly onto your Android’s notification shade interface.

Pinnit is an Android app with a simple premise: what if you could pin reminders and other text entries directly onto your notification panel, alongside your other phone alerts? Once downloaded, you’ll be greeted with a gorgeous user interface which focuses on minimalism. It’s easy to arrange all your pins, schedule upcoming notifications, and more. Best of all, the experience is a reliable one — I’ve come to depend on its functionality to keep me organized each and every day.

…what if you could pin reminders and other text entries directly onto your notification panel, alongside your other phone alerts?

Pinnit offers a 14-day free trial period out of the box. To continue using the app indefinitely, the developer offers a single-time payment option which is well worth the price in my opinion.

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Tooly – Tiny Tools Collection

Tooly is an Android app which provides access to a collection of useful functions, such as calculation tools, text cases, unit conversions, and more.

Tooly is a cute little Android app that packs a punch. It serves as a sort of Swiss army knife in terms of providing access to useful utilities. I’ve come to rely on Tooly thanks to its centralization of helpful functions — these include unit conversions, color blending, image resizing, and much more.

I’m also fond of Tooly’s design language. Its white-and-yellow aesthetic is up my alley, and its thin iconography and pleasant UI font are both nice touches. The app is free to download and provides access to all tools by default. Ads can be removed via an optional one-time purchase, as well.

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3 Lemuroid

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Lemuroid

Lemuroid is a video game emulation front-end that makes it easy to play games from a number of retro consoles, all in one central location.

Lemuroid isn’t your typical Android emulator — rather than being geared towards a single retro console, the app acts as a front-end for other ‘cores’ or emulator systems. What Lemuroid excels at is offering an attractive interface, as well as a centralized location for playing all your favorite old-school gaming titles.

Lemuroid itself is completely free, though similar to other emulation solutions, it comes without any game ROMs by default. Retro game emulation is a gray area, legally speaking, but it’s possible to dump your old game cartridges onto a PC and partake in the nostalgia without having to jump through all that many hoops.

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4 LocalSend

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LocalSend: Transfer Files

LocalSend is a cross-platform application that makes it easy to wirelessly send files from one device to another.

LocalSend solves the age-old problem of wireless transfer protocols being incompatible with one another. Apple’s AirDrop, Google’s Quick Share, and Microsoft’s Nearby Sharing features are all locked into their respective ecosystems, which makes life difficult for those of us living platform-agnostic tech lives.

As a wireless file transfer tool, it works reliably and is entirely operating system-agnostic.

There are a number of solutions available to solve this problem, but I’m particularly fond of LocalSend. This free app is simple to get the hang of, while being immensely useful in the process. As a wireless file transfer tool, it works reliably and is entirely operating system-agnostic. The app is also open source, which is another plus in my books.

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5 Device Info HW

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Device Info HW

Device Info HW is an app that makes it easy to view all the specificiations and device metrics of whichever Android device you’re currently using.

As mentioned, I find myself switching between devices on a regular basis. I love being able to quickly pull up device specifications and other useful stats on the fly, and Device Info HW is my go-to solution. The app is free to download, and it offers a wide selection of useful data points to sift through.

The app provides deep insights into everything from your phone’s processor, its display, its RAM, its battery pack, and much more. Other popular solutions such as CPU-Z also exist, but I prefer Device Info HW’s sharp user interface considerations, which take advantage of Google’s Material Design guidelines.

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6 F-Droid

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F-Droid

F-Droid is an alternative Android app store that offers a wide selection of free and open-source software applications to download.

Google’s Play Store, formerly known as the Android Market, has long been the de facto digital marketplace for downloading and installing third-party Android software. Owing to the relative openness of Google’s mobile operating system, a number of alternative app stores also exist for the platform.

F-Droid is perhaps the most well-known of these alternative app ecosystems, and it’s a pretty wonderful app store through and through. The app’s entire catalog consists of free and open-source software (FOSS), which stands in contrast to much of the closed-source and paid content found within the Play Store.

A number of excellent apps are only available via F-Droid.

A number of excellent apps are only available via F-Droid, though you’ll need to side load the app onto your phone in order to get started. Thankfully, doing so is cost-free and only requires a few (relatively simple) steps.