10. Air Call-Accept
Cool little apps like this are why we love Android so much. With Air Call-Accept, you can answer an incoming call with a wave gesture over the proximity sensor or just put it to your ear. This is actually a great implementation of such a thing and while it’s nothing revolutionary, it might be useful to you. It’s simple and easy to set-up so, what are you waiting for?
09. Office for Mobile
Aside from writing about Pandas, Microsoft’s latest app for Android is yet another key property bought into the Android fold. As good a quality app this is, it can’t be place higher up on this list because it requires an Office 365 subscription. Let’s face it, how many Android users have an Office 365 subscription? If you do, then great – go for it. If not, this might not be the app for you. This isn’t yet another Office app you can just go ahead and download, which is a real shame. If you absolutely need to get 100% MS Office compatibility then go ahead and subscribe to Office 365.
08. Samsung Wallet
While this might look somewhat familiar to Apple’s passbook, Samsung are understandably quite proud of their latest advancement in helping us in our daily lives. Available for a select amount of Galaxy devices, this digital wallet from Samsung can store all sorts of digital data for you. From coupons to card info, this does a lot of the remembering for you. It’s just getting off of the ground but, expect this to have more features in the near future.
07. Homestyler
Our smartphones and tablets are capable of many things but, thanks to Autodesk we can now dream of perfect decor. With the ability to create your own rooms and place real-life 3D renders of furniture in these rooms to get an idea of how it looks, Homestyler is a decorator’s dream. It’s great for that time in your life when a room suddenly feels “wrong” and the only thing left to do is to completely redesign it. With Homestyler, you’ll be able to get a feel of the “Feng Shui” of a room before you spend the cash on your purchases.
06. Klyph for Facebook
It’s not a good sign when third-party apps are better than your own, is it? While we wouldn’t call Klyph “better” than the official Facebook app, it certainly fits in with Android much better. Built using the Android Design Guidelines, Klyph is a fresh, new app that’s still find its feet in the Play Store. While it’s certainly off to a good start, there are certain limitations of the app, apparently imposed by Facebook themselves. It’s a great-looking app and for those looking for something to spice up the monotony that can be Facebook, this could be the ticket.
05. CallHeads
It’s ironic but, it seems like one of the best things to come from Facebook Home didn’t have much to do with Facebook but, was more of a UI thing. Chatheads has been assimilated into many things already, so one more can’t hurt. CallHeads does exactly what you think it does and it aims to make incoming calls a little less obtrusive, which is certainly nice if you have family and friends that haven’t embraced the SMS message yet. It’s a decent app and works well.
04. CheapCast
CheapCast is one of those apps that you can see becoming something much larger in the future. It’s essentially an emulation of Chromecast. It turns one Android device into the target and allows the other device to cast things to it. Not too much is working right now but, it’s fun to play with and if you’re willing to go around the houses, there is some use to this app as well.
03. ActiveNotifications
This might have been pretty unashamedly taken from the Moto X but, it’s still a neat little app. Annoyingly, it’s only really good for devices with Super AMOLED displays and Android 4.3. However, the dev is constantly updating things and making sure things are always on the move. It now works with devices below Android 4.3 but, it’s best on AMOLED displays. Essentially, this gives you the same sort of look at notifications as the Moto X.
02. Twisty Launcher
Another app that’s lifted from the Moto X, Twisty Launcher has more of a universal use case than Active Notifications. For one thing, you can choose whatever you want to launch with the app – in the paid version – and it’s pretty nifty being able to launch certain apps with a flip of your wrist. It’s pretty cool to think that you can wave your hand around to bring up the dialer app, for instance. This isn’t going to be for everyone but, this is a cool and fun way of launching certain apps on the go.
01. Timely
I know what you’re thinking – an Alarm Clock, really? You won’t be thinking that when you install the app and give it a go. For one thing, it was thought impossible to make an alarm clock app look good but this, well this is just stunning. You can tailor it to your liking as well, which is always great to see. Sure, there’s not much going on here, and that’s sort of the point. It syncs your alarm info across devices as well, which for those of you that have tablets and phones on the nightstand might be a great way of making sure you actually get up in the morning. With a good use of tablet screen space as well as smartphones, it’s a great-looking app that has done the unthinkable: make an alarm clock interesting.