10 more cool Android apps to check out. Some of these might also be available on iOS, but not all of them. And many of these aren't even that well known, so hopefully you'll all find something new.
1.Adobe Scan
2.Prisma
3.Next Lock Screen
4.WiFi Mapper
5.DuoLingo
6.Manything
7.Twilight
8.Volume Notification
9.Rocker Locker
10.Navbar Apps
Moving on, we have an app for those of you who roam a lot, called WiFi Mapper. The idea is simple, you open the app, and it shows your location, and any open WiFi hotspots that are close by even if they're not in range. This way if you need WiFi, you can just walk to the closest one. But as I've said before, open WiFi hotspots are usually risky, so you should always use a VPN if you connect to one. The way it maps the hotspots is it just uses the data from all the other people who use the app. When you open the app, it notes all the hotspots around you, and puts them on the map for anyone else nearby in the future.
If you don't have a security camera already, I'd check this out. Number 7, "Twilight". This is one I think really everyone should have. What it does is changes the screen color and brightness at night automatically so it's a lot less harsh on the eyes. I've talked about this kind of stuff many times before, like Flux, Night Shift on iOS, and others. When you reduce the blue light produced by screens, the less it will disrupt your sleep schedule, which is a big problem these days. And while Android N does have a similar feature built in, the effect is not nearly as strong as I think it should be. Twilight allows you to choose how strong you want the effect, so it makes the screen look almost completely red, or maybe not changed much at all depending on what you want. And you can have it set to go from specific times, or change automatically at sunrise and sunset. The only downside is the way this app works isn't the best method for reducing blue light, but because the way Android works, it's all you can do without rooting your phone. Instead of adjusting the color profile directly like you would with flux on your computer, this just kind of overlays a red filter over the screen. So it works, but makes everything look more red, instead of just removing the blue light. Not ideal, but it's all we have to work with unless Google allows better functionality in the future.
Onto Number 8, we have "Volume Notification". This is probably one of those apps you didn't realize you needed until you see it. What it does is adds a little menu bar when you swipe down for notifications, that lets you directly adjust the different volumes for music, the ringer, alarms, and others. As you might know, normally if you want to adjust media volume, you have to press one of the volume keys, and hope it adjusts the media volume instead of the ringer. If it doesn't, you have to go click the drop down, and then change it. Really a pain. With this, you just swipe down, click on what you want to change, and it brings up the volume bar for it right there.
finally we have number 10, an app called "Navbar Apps". This one allows you to customize the way your navigation bar at the bottom of your screen looks. Usually your phone might have a couple settings to choose between white, black, or clear. But with this the sky's the limit. You can choose from a bunch of different images, or add your own, or just use a solid color. It even lets you add emojis for some reason. But one really cool one is you can have the navigation bar act as a bettery meter. So the more battery you have left, the more it's filled up with one color, and gets smaller as the battery drains. These customizations don't seem to work in every app, and for some reason it seems to disappear when I'm at the home screen, but it does show up in most of the apps I use. So this is a pretty fun one I think.
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2.Prisma
3.Next Lock Screen
4.WiFi Mapper
5.DuoLingo
6.Manything
7.Twilight
8.Volume Notification
9.Rocker Locker
10.Navbar Apps
Adobe Scan
we have a quite useful app, "Adobe Scan". I've mentioned other scanning apps in the past, but this one is a bit different, and potentially much easier to use than all the others. Because with this how it works, is you hover the camera over what you want to scan, and it will automatically detect the document, scan it, crop it, and adjust the perspective. So you don't have to even press the shutter button, it does everything automatically. And if you have multiple pages, you just hold the camera up to each page as it snaps the photos to scan them. I've found it to be a lot faster and easier than other scanning apps. Now the one thing I will say is while it's faster, I think this is best suited for documents where scan quality is not a top priority. Because you can't choose when it will take the photo, it might snap the picture at a weird angle, or when you're moving the phone a bit, so it won't look as good as if you were to perfectly center the phone above the document, holding the phone as steady as possible. But at least this way you have something you can use if you're in a hurry.Prisma
Next up, number 2, is a cool photo editing app that actually is pretty popular called Prisma. The idea is kind of similar to instagram, in that it applies filters to photos you have or take. But these filters are a lot more sophisticated than just adjusting the colors. The idea is you take a regular photo and turn it into a kind of "art". And these filters are all actually pretty sweet. Plus, you don't have to use the full strength of the filter. So maybe if you want to give your instagram photos a little extra flair, this is a great way to do it. All these filters look really cool and there is a ton of them.Next Lock Screen
Alright, number 3 is an app that was created by Microsoft, ironically. It's the "Next Lock Screen", and like the name suggests, it's a lock screen replacement for Android. I don't necessarily have a problem with the default lock screen, but this one actually looks really nice, and has a lot of customization options you normally wouldn't get. For example, you can have the photo background be the Bing photo of the day, which are usually pretty good. You can also choose to have quick launch shortcuts of your favorite apps at the bottom, or swipe up to see them. And of course when you do that you'll also see shortcuts like flashlight, wifi toggle, and battery saver mode. The only downside is it can add a bit of delay when unlocking the phone. Because it sort of runs "on top" of the default lock screen. You can disable this, but I wouldn't because then you'd lose some security from disabling the system fingerprint lock or whatever. Still worth checking out if you want something that looks a little bit nicer.WiFi Mapper
Moving on, we have an app for those of you who roam a lot, called WiFi Mapper. The idea is simple, you open the app, and it shows your location, and any open WiFi hotspots that are close by even if they're not in range. This way if you need WiFi, you can just walk to the closest one. But as I've said before, open WiFi hotspots are usually risky, so you should always use a VPN if you connect to one. The way it maps the hotspots is it just uses the data from all the other people who use the app. When you open the app, it notes all the hotspots around you, and puts them on the map for anyone else nearby in the future.
DuoLingo
Next number 5, is another one probably a lot have heard of, DuoLingo. The point of this one is to teach you a new language in your free time. They have a ton of languages to choose from, and it uses a bunch of different activities to teach you words in the new language. One example might be matching up the word with an image, or matching up the equivalent word in your language. You aren't supposed to know all of them at first obviously, so it's fine if you get some wrong. The point is it's not just going to have you memorize vocabulary terms, but rather give some context to the words you're learning so you can remember them better. Pretty cool idea, and a lot of people seem to like it, so it's worth checking out.Manything
Now onto number 6, this one is really interesting and clever. It's called "Manything", and the idea is that it can turn your old android phones into security cameras for your home.I'm sure many of us have old phones lying around that still work, but you just don't have a use for them anymore. Until now! This is especially great for people who have been thinking about getting a camera like Nest or something, but don't want to spend the money on it. This obviously isn't as ideal as a dedicated camera, but it's better than nothing. You just open up the app, set the phone as a camera, and then view it. There are settings for resolution, motion detection, alerts, and a bunch of other stuff. If it detects movement, it can upload the video to the cloud to watch later. This one has both free and paid plans, depending on whether you want cloud storage for the videos, but otherwise it's free to use. And assuming the phone would be connected to your WiFi, it's not like this would use up any cell bandwidth either.Twilight
If you don't have a security camera already, I'd check this out. Number 7, "Twilight". This is one I think really everyone should have. What it does is changes the screen color and brightness at night automatically so it's a lot less harsh on the eyes. I've talked about this kind of stuff many times before, like Flux, Night Shift on iOS, and others. When you reduce the blue light produced by screens, the less it will disrupt your sleep schedule, which is a big problem these days. And while Android N does have a similar feature built in, the effect is not nearly as strong as I think it should be. Twilight allows you to choose how strong you want the effect, so it makes the screen look almost completely red, or maybe not changed much at all depending on what you want. And you can have it set to go from specific times, or change automatically at sunrise and sunset. The only downside is the way this app works isn't the best method for reducing blue light, but because the way Android works, it's all you can do without rooting your phone. Instead of adjusting the color profile directly like you would with flux on your computer, this just kind of overlays a red filter over the screen. So it works, but makes everything look more red, instead of just removing the blue light. Not ideal, but it's all we have to work with unless Google allows better functionality in the future.
Volume Notification
Onto Number 8, we have "Volume Notification". This is probably one of those apps you didn't realize you needed until you see it. What it does is adds a little menu bar when you swipe down for notifications, that lets you directly adjust the different volumes for music, the ringer, alarms, and others. As you might know, normally if you want to adjust media volume, you have to press one of the volume keys, and hope it adjusts the media volume instead of the ringer. If it doesn't, you have to go click the drop down, and then change it. Really a pain. With this, you just swipe down, click on what you want to change, and it brings up the volume bar for it right there.