I’m back! This is a continuation of my series on platform-specific hidden gem apps that you have discovered that are the best in their class for your usecase.
We’ve done iOS+MacOS so far so lets get universal and share our Android hidden gems.
For mine, I would say NewPipe for YouTube… Lets do it!
Edit: Please try to avoid apps that cannot be purchased (subscription apps) since it is important that the creator cannot cut you off once you’ve taken time/effort/money to integrate it into your workflow and dependance. No Apollos, which have that fatal flaw + relying on an external API that they additionally cannot gurantee
Tachiyomi is a brilliant manga reader and tracker. Or you can get its fork, Aniyomi which has anime support and sources as well, not just manga.
Genius Scan. A shameful exception in my otherwise fully FOSS phone.
It scans multi-page documents with the camera, OCRs them, then uploads them automatically to Nextcloud (or manually to any other app, like Paperless).
Been really impressed with the open-source spending tracking app Cashew
Oto Music (Play Store link) has been my mp3/offline music player of choice for years now. Stable, pretty, performant, and has tag editing features built in. Still gets updates at least once or twice a year, which is all ya really need for an offline player.
Megalodon (Play Store link) is my Mastodon client of choice, tons of little ease-of-use improvements over the official client. Some people might already be familiar with this if they’re on Lemmy, but maybe someone looking for a better Masto client will get something from this.
Ever work on electronics?
I use an apk called “Electrodoc” and it identifies and helps you figure out what all you need for all sorts of transistors and capacitors and smd’s and inductors and all that sorts of crap. Has loads of info and pictures and calculations you can punch in for stuff. Super handy.
thx, just downloaded
Cool. Really gives good info repairing boards.
Phonograph plus if you are a local music nut like me and obtainium if you prefer to not use fdroid to manage your foss app updates
Voice - Audio book player: Minimalistic audio book player that supports folders with “.nomedia”. Great if you want to keep your audio books and music library separated.
Syncthing.
Allows you to use a laptop and sync your phone to it. No iCloud or Google drive needed. All syncs locally.
Read You, probably the best RSS reader available on Android. The bad: still in beta and no sync with Feedly (yet).
Sync for Lemmy, also the best client for Lemmy in Android by far. Design and user experience are delightful. Bad: ads with an expensive subscription. Good: with adguard DNS ads disappear.
What do you think about Voyager?
Great app but maybe too similar to the rest of Lemmy apps.
I mean, they’re kinda all based on or inspired by Apollo, the 3rd party Reddit app. That was arguably the biggest most violent stcking point for many new Lemmy users
Voyager is the closest carbon-copy and therefore many’s fave (certainly mine ;)
Smart tube for Android TV.
KDE Connect (FREE, open source) is definitely a gem. I love using my phone as a remote mouse and keyboard for my HTPC, and syncing clipboard, files, links, and notifications with the other devices I’ve paired with. (BTW, despite the name, you don’t need KDE - or Linux even - to use it. It works on Windows and Android too.)
URLCheck (FREE, open source) is fantastic. It’s a little pop-up that appears when you click a link, showing you the full URL and letting you modify it before you open with your browser/associated app (e.g., to remove tracking parameters):
URLCheck acts as an amazingly customizable and powerful intermediary when opening url links, allowing, among other things: to remove trackers, affiliate links, unnecessary elements, check Hosts, facilitating link holding and sharing, protecting against certain phishing techniques and many more…
KISS Launcher. Fast and flexible homescreen replacement that puts quick search first, letting you optionally scroll through an app list.
Aegis is a FOSS, local only 2 factor TOTP generator. Essentially a Google authenticator without the Google.
Local to the Device? Google already did that to me. Then my phone died and I had the world’s worst time trying to convince some of my vendors that I really was me. Like, I had to get my ID notarized in person and sent that paperwork off by international post in one example.
I wouldn’t want to go through that drama again. I moved to Authy, they keep my tokens encrypted on a cloud service. I could potentially be convinced to move to something self hosted, but never local-only again.
That’s why you back up your shit.
Leon, the URL cleaner. Use it to remove tracking links either before opening them or before sharing them.
Very good file explorer and server
