The fact that this is so much better than the stock video player is a sin. Just how good a player MX Video Player is depends somewhat on the power of your device, but it theoretically allows you to play any video in any format, complete with alternate audio capabilities and subtitles. You never have to bother with converting a video to a format your phone can understand again — just drop it in the phone and press play. It has some other cool capabilities as well, like being able to change the volume and brightness by swiping your finger across the screen, but the really big selling point here is not having to convert files.
It lets you use your camera’s LED flash as a flashlight. This may sound like a stupid little trick, but it can be a lifesaver. I mean literally, it can save your life or at least keep you from stubbing your toe as you are walking back to the bedroom after turning off all the lights.
8. Carr Matey
It’s the eternal question in life — does anyone remember where we parked? With Carr Matey, you don’t have to. With a click, it puts a GPS marker on your location and will guide you to your spot, all with a wacky pirate theme! While it won’t work in places like parking garages, GPS satellites not being able to penetrate multiple layers of concrete and all, it does let you do things like take pictures of your spot and set parking timers, so you’ll never have to pay a ticket again.
9. Tone Picker
While there are other apps that do this, Tone Picker is my preferred app to turn any audio I have on my phone into a ringtone or notification. It doesn’t trim them, but I have other tools I prefer to use for that. Lightweight, simple to use, and hasn’t failed me yet.
10. NPR News
This is less of a political statement and more an expression of my love for the five minute audio newscast updated every hour. The NPR app gives you access to not just all of NPR’s national news, but podcasts and streaming audio from local NPR stations. That’s a lot of brain food for your noggin. The best part by far is the five minute updates. If I want a broad overlook of what is going on in the world, but don’t want to take my eyes off of whatever else I am doing — driving, going to the bathroom, what have you — nothing works better.
Honorable Mention
Rom Manager and Titanium Backup are probably more important than most of the apps on the list, but they require your phone to be rooted. The two of them, used together, give you more control over your phone than anything else, but they also require a certain degree of technical know-how. Also, I didn’t include any social media tools, if only because there are too many, both social media platforms and apps for them. I could do a top 10 list on social media apps alone.
Did I miss any of your favorites? Let me know in the comments!
Don’t forget Astrid for task management and Evernote for note taking. If you’re into podcasts, I’d recommend BeyondPod. And of course you can always add Pandora to the music category.
BeyondPod is paid, though. Have you tried Google Listen? I recently switched all my podcasts over from my ipod to Listen a few weeks ago and have been impressed so far. It’s not perfect (finding the RSS feeds that include full audio is a pain), and I fully expect it to be integrated into Google Music eventually, but it’s a good free solution for now.
Listen used to be my go-to. Great product that Google really needs to go back to developing.
If your Android device doesn’t have Ice Cream Sandwich with its offline web page function Read it Later is a great little addition even though you have to pay for it. You install on browser plug-in on your desktop computer and mark whatever you want to be able to read offline (i.e. anywhere you don’t get the internets). You can also choose the share option on any article on your Android device and choose read it later an it adds it there.
Up until the latest update to Pulse it was my favorite free Rss Reader on either Android or iOS
I would like to second EverNote, and also add two apps. CardStar, free, which will give you a scannable barcode for all those loyalty cards on your key chain or in your wallet. My wallet is much thinner. There are hundreds of merchants, and the ability to customize the language of the barcode, if you know how to manipulate them(why I know how to manipulate barcodes is not so interesting, or useful). Second is GeniusScan, which comes in a paid and a free version($3 gets you no ads). For mobile techs like me, signed paperwork is essential. This app uses your camera to take a picture of something, you can select and massage your photo, and turn it into a PDF. No more paperwork or scanning once I’m home at the end of a day. Plus, it allows you to upload and email to Dropbox, Evernote, google docs, twitter, and other online repositories.
My bad, GeniusScan by Grizzly Labs is iOS only. I should have said CamScanner. They make an iOS app i used to use before moving to GeniusScan, but their Android app is 9+ in my book. Used CamScanner twice only, but that’s twice more than any other android camera-PDF-making app for the platform.