Best Android Apps

WhatsApp starts with a solid messenger and layers on social network-style features like status messages and status photos, all while emphasizing photo capture and sharing. WhatsApp blurs the line between messenger and photo-first social media in an elegant and intuitive way.

This social networking feel doesn’t come at the expense of privacy, though. In settings, you can choose who is allowed to see your status messages and photos. Overall, WhatsApp serves up messaging with a social media twist, topped off with best-in-class encryption.

On this comprehensive video library app, visitors can search -- and find -- virtually anything. YOUTUBE's content is entirely user-generated, so it's important to be attentive to each video's source. Channel owners can also now distribute live content, and can launch livestreams at will, which are governed by YouTube rules. Like Netflix, Instagram and Snapchat, this is one you need on your phone to stay in the know.

There are plenty of GPS options out there. Some, like Waze, are incredibly popular for their crowdsourced traffic features, but if you want the best in automated GPS directions make sure you have Google Maps. Google Maps has a large, easy-to-read interface and some of clearest directions in the GPS world. Updated regularly by Google, Google Maps will get you where you want to, whether you’re taking your car, the subway, or your own two feet.

Amazon is still the king of eBooks, despite the best efforts from other companies like Barnes & Noble. If you’re already tied into the Kindle ecosystem, the Android app is a must have. It allows you to sync your current read between your phone, tablet and Kindle so you can keep all your devices on the same page. If you’re not a Kindle user, there are other great options in the Play Store like Moon+ Reader and Overdrive, which allows you to borrow eBooks from your library.

Google "Books" app is available as a free download in the Android market. With Google Books, the pages and images are very clear and With the standard black text on a white background, the fonts were clear and easily readable.

Simply press the Get Books text that is located on the home page and you are taken to the Google eBook online store. The landing page will show the current best sellers where you can read a book review, download a sample or purchase the ebook. If you, like me, do not have an eReader but do enjoy reading on your smartphone, Google Books is a solid choice that will only become better with the frequent upgrades Google will surely release.​

There are a million note-taking apps in the Google Play store, but Google Keep is the best one, and, it’s free. Its simple interface makes it easy to quickly collect information, make a list, or doodle a note. Google Keep also lets you copy text directly from images and entire web pages to read later. Your notes can be organized by color or tags and, with the app’s handy widget, you can pull out important notes and details without leaving your home screen. Don’t pay for a note-taking service when Google gives you a great one for free.

Notes in Google Keep look like post-it notes, but you can do a lot more with them, including adding sketches, photos, and creating lists. Like most Google apps, everything is stored in the cloud and can be easily accessed from a PC using a web browser.

You can also set reminders, either by time or location, but Keep isn’t fully integrated with other Google apps in a way that truly capitalizes on Keep. For example, integration with Google Maps could allow location reminders to be set to any grocery store, instead of only a single location. What’s even more surprising is Google Assistant can’t be set to take and save notes in Keep.

Keeping yourself on task can be immensely difficult. Any.do is a great way to do so thanks to its ability to sync between all of your devices, including desktop, so you’re always in the know about what’s next on your to-do list. Add in a deep bench of features, like sharing lists and tasks with friends and co-workers, and Any.do becomes a must have.

Todoist is a free Android app to keep track of everything for either personal use or work use, individually or as a group. It helps you to easily organize and prioritize your tasks and projects so you’ll always know exactly what to work on next. You will be able to connect Todoist to various apps like Dropbox, Amazon Alexa, Zapie, and so on.

The app creates one seamless, end-to-end integration of your Todoist lists on all your Android devices.

Apple users have Siri, a digital assistant who will occasionally answer the questions you ask it. Android has Google Assistant, a self-learning hands-free digital assistant. From personalized notifications for you each morning to recommendations for restaurants in the area, Google Assistant aims to make your day flow a little easier. Just say “Ok Google” to activate it and tell Now what you want. “Remind me to call Mom at noon” or “what movies are playing at the Vista?” If you’ve been burned by Siri’s inability to recognize basic words sometimes, Google Assistant is here to tell you everything will be OK—and where the nearest falafel restaurant is.

Google’s own Calendar app is best integrated with Android. If all you need is a basic calendar and task list, it’s a great choice, but it has far fewer features than Outlook, which may be an issue. Calendar has all the basic features you would want from a calendar app, but its greatest strengths are the features you didn’t know you need. Events from Gmail are automatically added to your Calendar, meaning you’ll never forget about an upcoming flight or concert. Goals take To-Do lists to the next level, helping you by automatically schedule time to do things like “work out twice a week” or “make breakfast Monday through Friday.” If you juggle multiple calendars, Google Calendar can connect to almost all of them, including Exchange.

If you're already a Dropbox user, add the mobile app to your Android device. You never know when you're going to need files that are stored in your Dropbox account. It's also useful to learn the ins and outs of the photo upload features, as it's a valuable tool that helps back up your pictures. The Dropbox app remains one of our favorite Android apps, and it's a a clear Educational App Store's Choice.

The Dropbox Android app also gives you the option to view all image files, which is handy when sharing photos. You can do some light photo editing in the Dropbox Android app, too, which is a wonderful feature.

The Android app is free to download, and Dropbox as a service uses a freemium model. A free personal account starts you out with 2GB of space.

Microsoft Office apps for Android are free to download from the Google Play. You can find the Word, Excel and PowerPoint in one app.

If you need to open and edit Word documents on the move, the official Microsoft Word for Android app is the best option. You can edit, view and print documents, presentations and spreadsheets on your Android with these apps for free, but to do so you will need to sign in. Outlook for Android aims to provide a more streamlined Outlook experience than the full PC version. If all you need is email and calendar, and you sync via an Exchange Server, then this will be ideal for you.

Download Word
Download PowerPoint

The Evernote app is an essential component of the excellent note-taking service, because it lets you get at your notes when you don't have a dedicated device at hand. Evernote has long been a leader among note-taking and syncing apps. Evernote Business allows teammates to access, edit, upload, and share notes and files from any device—even if they're offline.

Google Drive and its family of apps are being used more and more in the creation of documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more; they're free to use, come with lots of storage, and are easily shareable.

Google Drive is an online storage service that provides a word processor, presentation, and spreadsheet program, creating a nice alternative to Microsoft Office.

The highlight of Google Drive is that you'll find that the menus and interface are natural to use and everything is saved online automatically.

A Netflix membership plan provides immediate access to thousands of movies and TV shows that can be streamed on any internet-connected device that offers the Netflix app. Compatible devices include smart TVs, game consoles, streaming players, mobile phones, and tablets.

If you want to view media while on the move, learning how to download shows from Netflix on your Android device is the best way to watch movies and shows offline. To download movies from Netflix to an Android device, you need to have an active Netflix subscription and the free Netflix app available at the Google Play Store.

Disney+ is more than just another streaming app. It’s like the history of film, TV, animation, and more all in one giant, instantly accessible warehouse. Disney+ has an unbelievable library of franchise content across multiple genres and it’s constantly producing new hit shows, hit movies, and now original content for Disney+.

Disney has impressive collection of media brands and franchises that includes Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and Fox.

PicsArt is a leading all-in-one image editing app and creative community that makes it easy to take your photos to the next level. With thousands of powerful editing features, you can make amazing images, collages and drawings, and remix photos with friends.

Millions use PicsArt because it packs a selection of premium tools like photo blending, artistic filters, AI-powered photo effects, Photoshop-style layering and drawing tools, cropping, text overlays and more. Discover thousands of free sticker packs, fonts, collage templates, backgrounds and brushes.

Looking to get into moviemaking with your Android? Stop Motion Studio is a photo and video tool that makes creating animations simple and easy. Stop Motion Studio lets you to create their own stop-motion animations using a mobile device. As a creation tool, it's a great platform to share their stories. They can make a stop-motion animation about family vacations or birthday parties or a fantastical reenactment. The design focuses on the creation tools, and some kids may require prompts to get started. The featured videos provide great inspiration for those who need it and may even encourage to create work to share with a broader audience.

Stop Motion Studio comes with dozens of sound effects and music clips for you ready to use in your movie. Bring characters to life by recording a voice over track directly to your movie. Stop Motion Studio has support for new Android pencils and works great on the Samsung devices. Stop Motion Studio is available for Android and you can use an Android device as a remote camera connected via a WI-FI connection.

Yousician will help you learn to play the piano, guitar, bass or ukulele. Yousician is an interactive music app that’s designed to really provide a fully-formed experience for just about everyone to better their instrument playing.

The app is designed to give the player a chance to improve through practice and competition. When you’re starting, you can tackle the standard lesson structure, and as I mentioned, the lessons ramp up at a very comfortable pace.

Flowkey is one of the easy and best way to learn piano. The app allows you to learn piano with the songs you love. The application flowkey is a series of courses to help people from the very beginnings to the more able develop their piano skills.

It is aimed towards any student wanting to develop their understanding and keyboard skills, and covers not only the skills to play the keyboard, but also the theory behind this, development of this as a musician, and a range of songs to work through. The display is very simple to navigate and understand, and the course is really interesting and versatile.

Wallet is an income and expense tracking mobile app that helps you track your spending and save. Like many, it syncs your balance and transactions with your actual bank. It also features account sharing so you can share with your significant other, accountant, or whatever. It also supports multiple currencies, cloud syncing, warranty tracking, templates, shopping lists, and it can export to a variety of file types.

Record all of your lists, keep track of them, and know exactly how much your expense for the month is. Records will be saved and archived with the ability to share with friends or family in an instant.

Splitwise app takes the trouble out of sharing expenses – with friends, with roommates, with anyone. Dividing bills has never been easier. The app allows you to split payments across groups, different categories of events and most importantly manage what you have to pay.

The app tracks borrowing and lending over time. And, until the balance is settled up, each person’s outstanding balance may go up and down. Splitwise sends reminders at the end of the month so everyone can pay what they owe and go into a new month with a fresh start.

Unlike iOS, Android has a few options for mobile payments depending on what device you have. If you’re locked into Samsung’s Galaxy line, using that company’s own payment app is the likely choice. For anyone else, the answer is Android Pay which allows users to add any card from a participating bank (which is most major U.S. banks) and a large number of rewards cards.

Duolingo has long been one of the best language apps on the market, and nothing has changed in 2021. It’s beautifully designed, easy to use and offers real instruction. The app claims that 34 hours of use is equal to a semester of university-level education.

Headspace: Guided Meditations and Mindfulness takes a calm, relaxed approach to bringing calm relaxation into the lives of adults and kids. The app uses common meditation techniques -- such as body scans, becoming aware of environmental sounds, breath awareness, breath counting, and more -- to establish a serene, aware space for the mind to rest.

You can learn the basics of meditation and mindfulness. As you follow the instructions and are reminded by the app to meditate each day, they can develop the habit of making time for personal growth and self-reflection in different situations, such as bedtime and waking up.

TikTok is a free social media app that lets you watch, create, and share videos - often to a soundtrack of the top hits in music - right from your phone. TikTok is a social network for sharing user-generated videos, mostly of people lip-synching to popular songs. It was originally called musical.ly. Users can create and upload their own videos where they lip-synch, sing, dance, or just talk. You can also browse and interact with other users' content, which covers a wide range of topics, songs, and styles. These videos can be grouped by hashtags, which often correspond to challenges or memes.

Twitter is an online social-networking and microblogging platform that lets users communicate through 280-character messages ("tweets"). Millions of people use it to keep up with news, gossip, weather, and more. Once you sign up, you can follow other users, who'll show up in a scrolling list of real-time tweets. Teens can follow specific accounts or hashtags.

Facebook is a popular social-networking site (and app -- our review references key points relevant to both) where users connect with people of their choosing -- either privately or publicly -- and post pictures, text, or videos. Users also can watch videos, post and tag photos, share favorite product information, "like" favorite celebrities and social causes, live-stream video with Facebook Live, connect with goods and services, and live-chat via Messenger, an app that's integrated with Facebook.

Google Stadia is a streaming gaming platform that's currently available for Android devices, as well as Chrome browsers and Chromecast Ultra streaming devices. Unlike game consoles, the platform consists primarily of a controller and a Chromecast Ultra to connect to TVs, as well as an app to pair up devices and make purchasing decisions.

PlayStation App lets you message friends, purchase games and movies, and view trophies, but it's not yet an essential part of the PlayStation 4 experience. Gamers can use PlayStation App to tap the PlayStation Store for game and movie purchases. In fact, app users can purchase their entertainment on the go and have it pushed to the console.

Runtastic app uses GPS to map your fitness activities - running, biking, walking - and track your progress (distance, speed, calories, and more). Be part of a global fitness community that is both fun and motivational.

The Runkeeper app for Android is an app for runners, walkers, and hikers. Like the other top running-based Android apps, RunKeeper uses the GPS features built into Android smartphones. It includes route tracking, a history feature, and personalization features.