If you’re looking for the best apps for your smartphone, you’ve come to the right place.
We’ve compiled a list of the most useful apps available today. Whether you’re trying to find a new job or just want a few extra minutes of reading time in the morning, we have an app for you!
Table of Contents
Best Apps For Smartphones
You just got your hands on a new phone. Naturally, your first inclination is to head to the App Store or the Google Play Store to download your favorite apps to your shiny new device. While the Engadget team tries to keep our phones relatively unencumbered, there are some apps we can’t live without because they make our work and daily lives easier. Below you’ll find a dozen of the best we think you should try.
1Password
1Password for iOS1Password
If you only take one piece of advice away from this article, it’s that you should download a password manager. It doesn’t have to be the one we recommend here. However, we like 1Password for a handful of reasons. Not only will it let you generate strong passwords for all your online accounts, but it also has built-in support for two-factor authentication. That means you don’t need to download a separate app like Authy to make your logins as secure as possible. If you have access to a Fastmail account, you can also use 1Password to generate random emails for your logins, giving you another way to protect your privacy. It’s also just a well-designed app that’s a pleasure to use.
FireFox
FirefoxFirefox
If it’s been a few years since you last used Firefox, now is a great time to revisit it. Partway through last year, Mozilla overhauled the Android version of its browser to bring over many of its best desktop features to mobile. That release saw Mozilla add more robust support for third-party add-ons. It also brought over its Enhanced Tracking Protection feature, which stops trackers from misusing your browsing data. Separately, with Apple allowing you to change your default browser since the release of iOS 14, there’s never been a better time for iPhone users to liberate themselves from Safari.
Headspace
HeadspaceHeadspace
I subscribed to Headspace at the start of the pandemic. Since then, it’s become one of the few apps I use every day. Yes, Headspace is a meditation and mindfulness app, but it’s also so much more than that. You’ll find it also has a mix of music designed to help you focus and workouts for unwinding at the end of a long day. Across the board, everything it offers is excellent, and you’ll find yourself turning to it for more than just peace of mind.
Hopper
Hopper appHopper
If you plan to fly somewhere soon, install Hopper on your phone. While it has grown over the years to include a variety of features, at its core, Hopper is one of the best ways to save money on plane tickets. Once you tell the app where and when you want to fly, it’ll tell you whether you should book your flight now or wait. In the latter case, it’ll notify you when it estimates you’ll get the best deal. The beauty of Hopper is it will save you from constantly checking websites like Google Flights and Kayak.
Libby
LibbyLibby
If you want to do more reading in 2022, forget about buying books through Amazon and download Libby instead. If you’re not familiar with the app, it allows you to borrow ebooks, digital magazines and graphic novels from your local library. All you need is a library card, which most systems across the US offer for free. Sometimes you have to wait to borrow the books you want to read most, but you’ll find Libby will dramatically expand your reading list.
Open Table
Open TableOpen Table
With restaurants reopening in cities throughout the US and the rest of the world, there’s a good chance you plan to eat out sometime soon — and so does nearly everyone else. That means you’ll likely need a reservation to dine at some of the most popular spots in your city. In North America, the closest you’ll find to a single platform that nearly every restaurant uses is Open Table. For that reason alone, it’s a must-download if you eat out a lot. It’s also a handy tool for discovering new spots to visit since you can filter by cuisine and area.
Transit
Transit appTransit
There’s nothing worse than waiting for a bus on a cold winter’s day or watching three go by one after another. Avoid both situations with one of the best public transit planning apps on Android and iOS. Transit excels where other apps in the category fail thanks to its clean, easy-to-use interface that highlights all the options near you. It also has one of the better algorithms for predicting departure times, so you’ll know exactly when you need to run out of your house or apartment to catch the next bus, train or streetcar.
Paprika
Paprika recipe appPaprika
Paprika is the best $5 you can spend to make feeding yourself even easier. At its core, it allows you to download recipes from your favorite websites and make them accessible on all your devices. You can also use it to scale the size of the meal you’re about to cook and convert between metric and imperial measurements. Add to that a meal planner, shopping lists and a tool for tracking the ingredients in your pantry, and you have an indispensable app for home cooks.
Pocket Casts
Pocket Casts appPocket Casts
With podcasts becoming ever more popular with each passing year, there’s a good chance you already have a handful of favorite shows you listen to every week. As much as Spotify would like to convince you it has the best podcast app, that distinction goes to Pocket Casts. We like it because it offers a consistently great experience across every system it supports. And if you use a mix of platforms from Apple, Google and Microsoft, you don’t have to worry about syncing, either. It’s also nice to use software that doesn’t feel caught between two worlds in the way that Spotify does. Pocket Casts isn’t trying to be anything more than an app for listening to podcasts. That’s not something you can say of Spotify, and it’s often a source of frustration for those who turn to it for music.
Pocket
Pocket appPocket
Another way to read more in 2022 is to download Pocket. It’s among the most popular read-it-later apps out there, allowing you to save articles you find online. Much like Pocket Casts, what makes this app compelling is that it offers a consistently excellent device-agnostic experience, making it a great option for those who haven’t gone all-in on one ecosystem. Whether you use Chrome, Safari or Edge, you can install a browser extension to save articles you stumble upon. You can then read them later without distractions on your phone or tablet. Just don’t forget to make a dent in your Pocket reading list occasionally.
Telegram / Signal
Telegram appTelegram
We understand, asking your friends and family to install another messaging app on their phone can sometimes feel like a Sisyphean task, but the effort has also never been more worth it. In Telegram and Signal, you’ll find two of the most secure chat apps on the market. We especially like Telegram here at Engadget because of how complete it feels from a feature standpoint. For example, it includes an edit feature that comes in handy when you make a typo, and a Secret Chat tool for when you want messages to disappear. If you do make the switch to Telegram or Signal, you’ll also free yourself of the Meta ecosystem. That might not seem like much, but when Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp went down earlier this year, it left many people without a way to communicate with their friends and loved ones.
Tunnelbear
Tunnelbear for AndroidTunnelbear
After a Password manager, one of the best tools you can use to safeguard your online privacy is a VPN. Again, there are many options out there, but we like TunnelBear for its simplicity and whimsical ursine theme. A VPN isn’t as essential as a password manager, but you’ll want to get one if you frequently find yourself traveling or using the public WiFi at places like cafes and libraries. Using a VPN in those contexts will ensure your connection is protected with encryption so that any information you send over remains safe and private.
Snapseed
SnapseedSnapseed
Most recent phones come with great cameras. Still, even with the latest iPhone, Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel, almost every photo can benefit from an edit before you share it. The options you have for photo editing apps are nearly endless, but if you want something that works well, look no further than Snapseed. It’s an old favorite that offers a comprehensive suite of editing options but never gets bogged down in too many sliders and dials. Best of all, it makes it easy to save edits to your camera roll and upload them to apps like Instagram.
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best free phone apps
1Weather
Price: Free / $1.99
1Weather is about as complete of a weather app as you can find. It comes with all kinds of stuff including current conditions, forecasts, radar, predictions, fun facts about meteorology, graphs, and even a sun and moon tracker. The design is gorgeous as well and the app includes fairly decent and somewhat configurable widgets.
There is a single $1.99 in-app purchase to remove advertising. However, all the features are available in the free version and the ads are inoffensive so it’s largely to buy it. You can also check out our list of the best weather apps if you want an alternative. We also quite like AccuWeather, especially since AccuWeather’s redesign in mid-2020.
Bitwarden Password Manager
Price: Free
Bitwarden Password Manager is one of a few decent free password manager apps. It works like most password managers. You get a vault with all of your usernames and passwords. You can store as many as you want without worry and retrieve them as needed. In addition, the app has 256-bit AES encryption and it is entirely open source.
It hits all of the checkboxes for a good, free password manager. The app saw a spike in popularity after LastPass reduced the features on its free tier. KeePassDroid is another excellent option in this space, but we like Bitwarden’s UI just a bit more. You can also check out our best password manager apps list for more options.
Blue Mail
Price: Free
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Blue Mail screenshot 2021
Blue Mail is one of the best free Android apps for email. It features a simple design that helps you keep your emails in line. Additionally, it comes with support for a ton of email providers, color coding for organization, app theming, Android Wear support, and widgets. There are also a variety of smart features such as blocking notifications during certain times (per account) to help customize your experience.
Really, there aren’t many email apps more customizable than this one. It does a lot of things right and very few things wrong. This is about as good as it gets without a price tag. There are some questions about its privacy policy and we recommend reading it if those things concern you. Here’s a list of more excellent email app options as well.
Cookmate
Price: Free / $20 per year
Cookmate is arguably the best individual cookbook app on mobile. A lot of people have a lot of dietary wants and needs so the use of a personal cookbook app benefits a lot of people. This one is particularly nice to use. You can create custom recipes from scratch, complete with instructions and an ingredients list. Additionally, you can import recipes from virtually any website.
The UI is clean and easy to use plus there is cloud backup, even in the free version. The premium version is a yearly subscription, but all it really does is increase the number of recipes you can sync or you can just use the Dropbox option. Of course, there are many other excellent recipe and cooking apps here if you want to see more.
Credit Karma
Price: Free
Credit Karma screenshot 2022
Credit Karma is a fun little financial app. What it does is let you check your credit score for free. On top of that, the app will notify you when there are major changes to your credit score. The app offers some other things too, such as potential credit cards that you may qualify for based on your credit score. You don’t have to accept those if you don’t want to.
It’s a simple, easy way to check out your credit and start fixing things if needed. It’s one of the more underrated free Android apps. Credit Karma is not 100% accurate, but it gives you a good idea of what’s going on. The notifications also let you know if a new account was opened in your name. NerdWallet is a great alternative to this. Additionally, Intuit (owner of Turbo Tax) purchased Credit Karma for $7.1 billion in early 2020 so there may be some changes to the app moving forward. Check out some budget apps for Android for some other money stuff too.
Want to see more apps? Try these:
15 best Android apps, ever
10 best NEW Android apps (updated monthly)
Gboard
Price: Free
Gboard screenshot 2020
Gboard is Google’s official keyboard app. It’s a simple keyboard that doesn’t have too many frills. It does have gesture typing (swiping), light theming, voice typing, emoji search, GIF support, and more. Its most unique feature is the built-in Google search that lets you search the web without leaving the keyboard or app that you’re in.
It can also sync between devices so your saved words go with you. It’s effective, simple, and 100% free. You’ll want to try this one out if your phone keyboard is giving you fits. It’s one of the best free Android apps for sure. SwiftKey is also great in a different sort of way and there are other great Android keyboards here as well.
Google Drive
Price: Free / $1.99-$299.99 per month
Google Drive screenshot 2020
The Google Drive suite are a group of applications that are all directly integrated into Google Drive. The apps include Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, Google Photos, and Google Keep along with the actual Google Drive app itself.
These apps focus primarily on office use for documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows but also work for note-taking, backing up your photos, and storing whatever file you can think of. The best part is that they’re all free unless you need more than 15GB of storage on Google Drive. Most people don’t. These are all great free Android apps. You can also find more office apps options here if you need more choice.
Google Opinion Rewards
Price: Free
Google Opinion Reward screenshot 2021
Google Opinion Rewards is easily one of the best free Android apps in the Google Play Store. To use this app, you simply download and install it, then open it one time. After that, the app will periodically notify you to ask you some questions about where you go, what you do, and about Google products you use. You’ll get credit for use in the Google Play Store every time you answer a survey. That credit can go toward buying yourself apps or games in Google Play.
It’s a great way to expand your collection without spending real money. At worst, everyone should have this app installed. It is only available in some regions, though, so our International readers may not be able to use this.
Google Maps
Price: Free
Google Maps screenshot 2021
Google Maps and Waze are two navigation apps. Google Maps will give you turn-by-turn directions, let you view businesses (and their reviews), and all kinds of other stuff. Waze is another navigation app. It lets you check out the traffic along your route. Google Maps is definitely the more powerful of the two. Waze is a little bit more fun to use, though. That makes it a good option if you’re looking for something simple. Both apps get heaps of new updates and features all the time. You can’t go wrong either way. You do have more options, though, so here’s our list of the best navigation apps for Android.
Imgur and Giphy
Price: Free
Imgur screenshot 2021 1
Imgur and Giphy are two image databases. They’re great places to find things like funny GIFs, fun images, little facts, and all kinds of other entertainment purposes. Most of those awesome pictures you see on Facebook, Twitter, etc come from here. Imgur also happens to be the image upload service that most people use on Reddit.
Both Giphy and Imgur are completely free to download and use. They have your back whether you want to kill a few minutes slacking off or looking for the perfect reaction GIF for that Twitter or Google+ post. They’re two free Android apps worth having. Plus, you can upload your images to Imgur without limits for sharing to various places. There are other funny apps on Android, but we like these two the best.
Check out more apps here:
10 best file browsers for Android
15 best weather apps and weather widgets for Android
Musicolet
Price: Free
Musicolet is an intriguing option for local music playback. It does all of the basics, including playlists, tag editing, organizational features, file browsing, and embedded lryics (LRC) support. You also get an equalizer, a sleep timer, widgets, lock screen controls, Android Auto support, and more.
It covers basically all standard use cases and it still piles more on top. In addition, it’s entirely free with no in-app purchases and no advertising. We also quite like the simple, effective UI. You can check out other music app options here as well if you need to or here for music streaming apps if you want that instead.
Resilio Sync
Price: Free / Varies
Resilio Sync is one of the best free Android apps
Resilio Sync is a cloud storage solution for people who don’t trust cloud storage. It creates a cloud storage server on your personal computer. The app lets you sync your files, photos, videos, audio, etc from your computer to your phone and back again. Thus, you get the cloud storage experience without having to trust your data to a third party.
The desktop and mobile apps are easy enough to set up and the UI is functional. There is a pro version with some extra features, but the free version does the basics just fine as long as you don’t need anything excessive. There are other great cloud storage services, but Resilio Sync is excellent for people on a budget.
TickTick
Price: Free / $27.99 per year
TickTick screenshot 2022
TickTick is among the best to-do list apps on Android. It works a lot like Wunderlist, actually. You can make lists, share tasks with other people, organize your tasks in various ways, get reminders, set recurring tasks, and more. It’s also highly modular. That helps with organization. The widgets aren’t half bad either.
There is a pro version, but it adds things like calendar support and other additional features. The free version of this is far above what most other to-do list apps offer. It’s also clean, easy to use, and it’s great for small teams or family use. It’s technically not a free app. However, the free version functions better than most free to-do list apps. Don’t worry, you won’t need the premium version except in extreme cases. There are also other great options for to do list apps too.
Zedge
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Zedge is pretty much a one-stop-shop for things like wallpapers, ringtones, notification tones, and alarms. There is a very large selection of all of those things available in a variety of genres including fantasy, mainstream, funny, and pretty much whatever else you can think of. Zedge’s users add most of the content themselves.
Thanks to this, there is quite a bit of variety. There is also a premium option for wallpapers and those are pretty decent. Abstruct, Walli, and Tapet are better options for wallpapers, but the premium content in Zedge isn’t half bad and Zedge is basically the only truly great app left for ringtones. There are other great wallpaper apps and ringtone apps, but Zedge is the only one that can reliably do both.
Zoom
Price: Free / Varies
Zoom was one of the definitive apps of 2020. When the pandemic hit and everybody started working from home, Zoom became the app to beat for video conferencing. It has a fairly robust free version. You can do unlimited one-on-one video chats and 40-minute meetings with up to 100 people. That’s good enough for most use cases.
You can pay to remove many of those restrictions. The app lets you screen share, use a whiteboard to write stuff down, and it even includes things like end-to-end encryption. The app could be better and Zoom took its sweet time adapting to its new popularity. However, it managed to persevere.
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