If you own a smartphone, then I bet you have a slew of apps installed on it. I bet it came with a bunch of preinstalled apps too, like weather, clock, calculator and email. Do you really need all those apps?
Android users have so many apps to choose from it can get confusing. Thankfully, there are tech sites like gadgetgestures.com to help you narrow down your searches and find the most important apps in the Google Play Store.
Below are the five must-have android apps for your phone.
1. Storage Apps
One of the best Android storage apps is Dropbox. Dropbox gives you free cloud storage which you can access from anywhere and any device. Some devices like top-range Huawei smartphones come with Dropbox pre-installed, but you can also download the app from the Google Play Store. It makes for a very secure backup storage and is very convenient when sharing files with other people or if you want to access your files from a different device.
If you want to keep things simple, use Google Drive. It’s integrated into every Android device, can save and share files across platforms (download the desktop app to easily back up and access your files on your computer). It’s comes with free 15 GB and then has a pay scale after that. I pay $1.99 a month for 100 GB of Google Drive storage. It’s cheap and works like a charm for my movies, music, school and work files.
2. Fitness and Health Apps
Google Fit is one of the apps everyone should have on their android phone if they want to monitor their fitness levels and keep their health in check. Google Fit monitors your activity throughout the day and indicates the total amount of calories you have burned. It sets a daily target of 10,000 steps, which is equivalent to 5 miles, and the recommended 30 minutes of exercise daily, which amounts to 150 minutes in a week.
You can purchase the wearable, known as a FitBit or simply download the FitBit app and carry your smartphone with you when you go exercising.
There are other health apps such as Runtastic and Calorie Counter as well.
3. Reading Apps
You no longer have to choose between your phone and a book. Reading is a productive way to spend time using your smartphone. You can download Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes and Noble’s Nook app, or Bookari and enjoy books from your favorite authors right on your phone.
4. Document Readers
You need to be able to create, read and share your documents on the go. For this, you’ll need an office suite such as WPS Office, Polaris Office or Microsoft Office. From these, you can easily work on your text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations (for school, work, etc.). Microsoft Office mobile is actually free (thank god!), and it works great on mobile devices. While I personally use Google Docs for just about everything, if you’re looking for the real word experience, you’re not going to beat free.
For PDFs, the tried and true Adobe Reader comes in handy (even on mobile devices).
5. Antivirus
You may think that your phone is impervious to viruses or malware but it accesses the same internet you do on your desktop or laptop. That means it’s just as vulnerable to downloading a bad cookie, accidentally getting hit by malware or spyware. While we don’t have specific app to recommend, look for McAfee, Norton, and Malware bytes in the Google Play Store.
What are you favorite android apps? Do you have any other apps you’d recommend?
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