20 Android Apps for 2020

20. WiFi- AR

How many times have you been about to jump online only to find hang on a second, Where did my Wi-Fi signal go? Well Wi-Fi AR uses augmented reality to show you how strong the signal is in the physical
space around you. And there's a lot more where that came from, So Welcome to my top 20 apps to take into 20-20.

Wi-Fi AR: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ua.com.wifisolutions.wifivr

19. SplitCloud

Number 19 is SplitCloud a music player that lets you play two songs at the same time and the way I see it there are two uses. If you fancy yourself as a bit of a DJ this is a cool way of experimenting with making mashups but what I use it for is when you've got one phone but two people who want to listen to different tracks. If you plug in a pair of earphones it can play one track through one ear and another track through the other.

SplitCloud: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.splitcloud

18. Crayon

I'd go as far as to say that this icon pack called Crayon is in my top 3 released this whole year. Loads of icons flat pastel colors but more importantly, the wallpapers that come with it. Wallpapers can make or break the way icons come across and so it's amazing how many icon packs neglect them. With crayon though it takes about two minutes to make something that looks as good as this, very easy on the eyes.

Crayon Icons (£0.89): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jndapp.cartoon.crayon.iconpack

17. Blob

Speaking of wallpapers we've got Blob and I've got to say the name isn't really doing it much justice. It is an elegant live wallpaper with minimal power draw and whilst you can pay to customize it comes pre-configured in a way that I think will look good on 95% of home screens. The motion is noticeable enough to keep things interesting but not so fast that it becomes distracting, this is what a live wallpaper should be.

Blob live wallpaper: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maxelus.livewallpaper.blob

16. Crono

So here's a situation, most of us get a lot of notifications every day. I've definitely found times when I'm working on my laptop but because my phone is the hub of my notifications I feel like I need to keep checking that too. And that's distracting, so by installing Crono on your phone and the Chrome browser on your computer, you can see and interact with all your phone's notifications while your phone is somewhere else plus it creates a tunnel between your phone and your laptop such that you can quickly send files between them.

Crono: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getcrono

15. MiUi-ify

One of my biggest complaints with the modern-day smartphone is that there's a lot of stretching involved with these massive displays. MiUI–ify helps, it gives you a second notification bar at the bottom of your phone so you can swipe up and then adjust brightness toggle settings and so on without feeling like you're just about to dislocate your thumb. And speaking of thumbs, if yours is near the subscribe button right now a sub would be amazing.

MiUI–ify: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tombayley.miui

14. Overdrop

Next up, we've got a weather application and I get it weather apps are boring but if you were going to use one, Overdrop is my absolute favorite. I'm a big fan of applications that manage to keep sophisticated features while it's also keeping the interface clean and Overdrop is one of the best examples of this. You can get as much or as little info as you need plus the widget pack that comes bundled looks great when paired with a flat style wallpaper.

Overdrop: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=widget.dd.com.overdrop.free

13. ScreenshotGo

Then, we've got ScreenshotGo. We all take screenshots and it just works so we never really think to change our screenshot application. But this thing can solve the problem that I faced. It can extract text from those screenshots which have two implications. It means the app understands the content of your images, so you can search for your screenshots just based on what was written in them and it means that when you've found those screenshots you can copy text directly from them to paste elsewhere even if that screenshot was taken ten years ago.

Firefox ScreenshotGo: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.screenshot.go

12. Post Box

Now, Google is always running experiments. Part of the reason, the company has so many success stories is because they put their hand in everything and they've recently been churning out lots of digital well-being apps. Two of them are pretty good. The first is Post box, which aims to stop you need to continuously check your phone by piling up your notifications and then releasing them all at once are specified times. You can choose to release them one to three or four times per day just to give yourself time to breathe in between.

Post box: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digitalwellbeingexperiments.postbox

11. Desert Island

Google's second is Desert island which is one of those home screen replacements that tries to strip you of everything but what you need. You pick up to seven apps for your home screen and it hides the rest away also removing all of those colorful icons which are built to lure you in. It works and the other thing I like here is that you get reporting. It tells you how many times you've used each of these apps so you've got a figure to aim for.

Desert island: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digitalwellbeingexperiments.desertisland

10. Picnic

I say this as if applications are these universally menacing things but a lot of them can be wonderful tools and one of my favorites from this entire year is Picnic. It allows you to even in real-time edit the lighting in your entire photo. The sky changes, alongside the colors of almost everything else and is the most convincing effect out of all the apps I've tried their offer similar features. It's just fun often times when I've taken a photo I'm really proud of I just find myself thinking I wonder if this could look even better if I played with the lighting effects. Before example, here's a scene I shot in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago and it looks pretty great but I definitely think it's an improvement when I applied the sunset preset. But we can do better still, I then tried snowstorm and truth be told most people I showed the image to didn't even question that it was fake. The responses were mostly "oh wow I didn't realize it snowed in Hawaii".

Picnic: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.estsoft.picnic

9. Tiny Planet

Another example of an app that is not so much useful as it is insanely fun to use is Tiny Planet. It's interesting because it allows you to distort normal photos and see them from a completely new perspective. It makes you think sometimes even in relatively dull scenes if you plan it carefully you can take some intriguing tiny planet photos and the app gives you some extra trippy options to play around with. You can spin rotate and distort to your heart's content.

Tiny Planet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.znstudio.photoeffect.tinyplanet

8. Chroma Lab

The final app in this category of quirky photo editors is Chroma Lab. On the face of it, standard stuff you've got filters you can make fine adjustments but the filters themselves are pretty wacky. Chroma lab can turn a pretty normal looking photo into something straight out of a sci-fi movie poster within 20 seconds. Bold colors with a surprising amount of customization once you get into it.

Chroma Lab: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ilixa.chroma

7. Stupis Screens

So these last three apps pretty extra. So here's something for the minimalists among you. Welcome to a wallpaper app with a difference. Stupis Screens takes clean to a whole new level. You might even say too far, a lot of these looks empty but the hook here is that the app will keep generating a new wallpaper every time you tap this button. It's been programmed with certain rules certain objects it uses and certain colors but even then you're very unlikely to generate the same wallpaper twice.

Stupis Screens: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stupios.stupisscreens

6. Display.land

For people who have a bit of time to spare, we've got Display.land. It allows you to 3D scan objects people or even entire rooms and while its purpose doesn't stretch far beyond just being cool it is very cool. You have to circle round several times for it to get a good reading and even then the result is not super high-resolution but there's something about being able to explore an object from every angle that makes it a more powerful result then just taking a photo.

Display.land: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubiquity6.displayar

5. Motion Stills

So, I mentioned earlier this continuous stream of wacky projects that come out the doors of Google Motion Stills is one of their best. It captures the movement too fast objects so the rain in this case whilst eliminating the movement of slow objects like the trees in the background. The result is that the final clip you get appears to have been taken on a tripod with rock-solid stabilization and the completely frozen backdrop brings more attention to the subject.

Motion Stills: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.motionstills

4. UbikiTouch

UbikiTouch is maybe the most fluid of all third party gesture apps I've used. It creates two translucent bars on either side of your phone and when you swipe in from them you can configure this to a whole number of commands like going back and the difference here is that gestures are programmed more granularly than just swipe right is this and swipe left is that. You can configure what a swipe drag up and hold would do, for example, it's super polished the only caveat is that most of the features are locked until you get the pro version.

UbikiTouch: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.toneiv.ubktouch

3. Wanna Kicks

Okay, easily one of my favorites augmented reality apps is Wanna Kicks. I'm not a massive sneakerhead but as someone who's not particularly knowledgeable in shoes, this is amazing for me. I can pick from a whole suite of real designs and visualize how they would look if I bought them. It's obviously not as good as finding a store and physically putting them on but you might be surprised how much of a feel you do get for something when you see it on your body in the air.

 

Wanna Kicks: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=by.wanna.apps.wsneakers

2. Cometin

Cometin is an app that doesn't really have one particular function, you could call it a toolbox. A sort of compilation of some of the best mods available on Android and allows you to apply them easily and without rooting your device. Things like improved rotation which lets you rotate even in stubborn apps that usually block you and can even let you rotate 180 degrees plus a fully customizable ambient display you can configure what the always-on clock will look like and even the animation when you get a notification.

Cometin: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=host.stjin.cometin

1. Google Go

And finally, an absolute must-try, in my opinion, is Google Go. It's a web browser but uses a number of tricks to save 30 to 40 percent of data whilst sometimes being faster than Google Chrome. Applications like YouTube open in their native apps as opposed to a mobile browser equivalent which for me is ideal and if you're ever reading an article and you want it dictated just tap this button at the bottom and you can even adjust the speed of speech.

 

Google Go: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.searchlite



If you enjoyed this a sub would be amazing and I've got another article all about other applications that impress me but having said my name is Shafiqul Mridha who's the Anoldman and I'll catch you in the next one.