[EnthDriver]

The apps that I use :
1. WhatsApp
2. Telegram
3. Phone link for windows
4. Outlook lite
5. Onedrive
6. Gmail
7.Gmaps
8. Stayfree for screen time and screen time limits
9. Google pay for payments
10. Google authenticator for 2FA
11. Spotify Lite
12. Truecaller (must have on any phone)
13. Bit warden as password manager
14. Google Home for controlling my google home mini
15. Twilight for blue screen filter ( My phone doesn't have a blue light filter feature by default)

Launcher : Nova Launcher Prime (Paid)
Phone : Galaxy J7 Prime 2017 (3GB RAM , 16GB storage)

[zeshhaan]

Apart from the Google ecosystem of apps, I use WhatsApp, Where is my train, UTS, UPI apps, Banking app. but my favourites are

Launcher: Before Launcher
Music player: Oto Music

Both of these apps are developed by indiedevs.

[Mitadru]

Here's my list. Being a student , the apps I need the most are
Google classroom- It contains all the homework and classwork which are given by the school. It also contains the sample question paper which are provided by the school for each of the subjects.
Adobe Scan - After the banning of CamScanner,this is the app I use to scan my homework, or send some pages of a textbook to my friends. It has improved in its functionality over the years, so it's a must have.
Samsung notes/ Google Keep - These are helpful in storing links of a particular website,or just as a digital diary. I mostly use them to store links of some threads on Team BHP, Links for the online tuition classes etc.
RTO app- It stores all the documents of our car. It's very helpful in case you can't find your PUC. Just go my vehicles section, tap on your vehicle, and voila. All the important informations are there.
Adobe Lightroom - Have a hobby of tuning and editing my pictures to get the maximum details out of the picture. Actually started as a necessity, when my primary phone had a camera of 3.2 Megapixels . So had to do serious photoshopping to remove graininess, increase the brightness and stuffs.
WhatsApp - Does it even need a mention ? Everything from chatting with friends to online classes, friend groups all are done here. Even simple messaging is now done on WhatsApp. Anyone hardly sees text messages nowadays.

[Tiago_Boy]

Most of the applications have been covered here. Let me list some if the apps which I didn’t find above.

1. Numbers, Pages (Don’t wish to pay for 365 subscription)

2. Udemy, I am really fond of learnings and I use their pro subscription which gives me access to unlimited courses

3. DebtPayOff - Helps me manage debt and take advantage of snowball effect.

4. Inshorts and ToI - Going through the news is my favorite passtime.

5. Reddit and YouTube music

6. bluSmart and some other electric cab apps. I have stopped using Uber if any electric cab is available. Their services are much better

7. Spinny - I like to explore what is in market and the price point

8. Cctv apps like HikVision and Qubo

9. Fittr to manage my fitness journey and health.

Here is a screenshot of my app screen.

[sunbaj]

The Paid Apps I have on phone in alphabetical order.

1. Acar
2. AccuBattery
3. AGAMA
4. Car Launcher
5. Car Scanner
6. DshCommand
7. KLCK
8. KLWP
9. KWGT
10. NFC Tasks
11. Nova Launcher
12. PI Music
13. Power Amp
14. Torque
15. Tasker with all the addons apps
16. Ulysse Speedometer
17. Urban Bike
18. uTorrent

[Fuldagap]

Quite an interesting thread. After reading posts, I too installed AccuBattery app just to see what purpose it served for me. Will probably remove it in a day or two though.

Here is a screenshot which clearly tells that the app itself consumed a lot of battery.

[Mystic]

m-Aadhaar- to lock and unlock Biometrics frequently because there is a big scam going on now in India if the biometrics are kept unlocked.

UMANG- to track my PF and pension with Government.

Netmeds- the routine prescription medicines for the whole family.

ACT - ISP - to log complaints for outages.

bigbasket- Groceries

Vidal Health- medical insurance claims

McAfee security- paid service to protect all my devises in family

Twitter- X- to track my son as he posts hour by hour updates to his thousands of followers. It is a formal academic account as he is a faculty in an university in USA

Prime Video- Amazon prime to watch one movie a day mostly ONLY Oscars winners and documentaries.

Marriott- using free points. Platinum member.

TTD- Tirupati Balaji Donor- to book free Dharshan and accommodation once in a year for life

WhatsApp- forced to join extended family groups to stay in touch. Necessary evil.

MParivahan- for online DL and RC

Airtel and Vodafone and BSNL- In my 3 storey villa in whitefield, we never know which phone works in the family due to signal strength issues in different parts of the house.

Amazon and Flipkart - enjoy seeing very frequently on how much stuff is out there which we don't require but tempted to buy due to discounts 365 days.

[Aakash118]

Here is my list-
For fitness- Apple health & Pedometer++
One of my main targets everyday is 10k steps and these two apps help in that. I don’t want the hassle of charging a smartwatch in every 2-3 days.
For finance- HDFC MF, Groww, YONO, HDFC Bank. The first two offer great view of my mfs while the later two offer seamless banking.
For brwosing- Safari. Have tried many browsers but nothing beats this Aple browser for me.
For Cricket- Cricbuzz & ESPNCricinfo
For shopping- The obvious Amazon & Flipkart
For medicine requirements- Have both 1mg & netmads but find the 1mg to be much more usable.
For Car Love- CarWale & OLX. Carwale offers me the on road price of any car in a few seconds without showing any ad or asking for my personal details. Olx, I’m a fan of Classic cars & antique mobiles and always keep searching if any old beauty is available in my area.
For news- Google news.
Others- The usual ones like WhatsApp, Phonepe, Youtube, Gmaps, Spotify, Jiosavan & Jiocinema.

[Amrit@wheels]

Most of the popular apps have been already covered so I am not going to repeat them, but here are some fairly unknown apps that I have and find them very useful-
1 - MiXplorer - Top class file manager with many many useful features. Great for power users.
2 - Newpipe - It is an ad-free version of Youtube. And yes, you can keep the videos playing even after locking your phone. Very useful IMHO.
3 - Microsoft Swift keyboard - My favorite keyboard app by a good margin. Many useful features and great typing experience.

[MahiDesai]

Very good thread Indeed.

I am omitting all the standard apps like WhatsApp, Telegram etc.

Here is my list - pls pay attention to 5 Star Apps and you may please check them out --- very useful and unique ones indeed.

(5 Star) CloudBeats - This is a very cool app and you can connect this to any dirve - OneDrive, G Drive or DropBox --- it just does not matter where your music files are stored, including the music stored on your phone or SD Card. Since I also have YouTube Music, this is less used, but for decade old collection of 10GB+ music files (spread across), this is wonderful app

DuckDuckGo --- this browser will effectively ward of all the pesky trackers (including the google ads), but uses bit more power than the other browsers. But its very worth it for secure browsing

(5 Star) SMS Organizer (Microsoft) - One of the best App that does lot of work in categorizing your sms

Copilot (Microsoft) - moved all my google searches to this app, and its one of the best (you have option to select which GPT version to use!)

(5 Star) English Crossword Puzzle (Litera Games) - One of the ultimate best version of crossword puzzle and my daughter loves this app and she has improved her vocabulary now that I need to scratch my head to make a sense out of English words

(5 Star) TRAI DND 3.0 (TRAI) --- Almost Zero SMS Spam - any spam SMS that hits my mobile will be crushed instantly with this app. Did not believe this App has such a power to LOG the Complaint with respective telecom service provides within 2 to 3 clicks! very very effective app in busting the SMS spams

(5 Star) Drive-U -- Amazing app when you want to hire a driver for your car. Whenever you have any need for having a temp driver for few hours to days, this App is a godsend and I've always got very polite drivers and they have a great Chat Service where someone will immediately respond. Thankfully they don't have inefficient and lousy IVR based call center concept.


(5 Star) aTimeLogger (BGCI) -- You can track heaps of measurement units with this App like Sleep, Transport, Eat, Sport, Walk, Read, Work, Study, Taking tablet Reminder and heaps of such things. You can create a custom configuration based on your requirement and different SLA timers run on different topics and very dynamic and beautiful app indeed. Worth getting a paid version at Rs.290 for life time purchase.

Microsoft Launcher --- It transforms your boring Samsung Layout into beautiful layout and heaps of customization and ability to Backup the layout that you'd like to keep.

(4 Star) Stock Trainer: Virtual Trading (A-Life Software, LLC) -- Before you decide to invest in the real world with Zerodha or any other broker, if you want to test the water of a stock, and want to track them before you buy, this is a wonderful App and you can virtually Buy stock and track it (paper trading). Once you know that the stock is moving in the upper trajectory, you can use this app to buy the real stocks. Negative side of this App is it has too many Ads... it really sucks, but one can live with it.

(5 Star) My Funds - Portfolio Tracker (Vijay Gorla) --- Very commendable work by this Indian developer and you can use this App to virtually buy any Mutual Funds and feed information like bought Date (you can chose any past date), NAV (will be picked up automatically based on the date you've selected, Enter Amount and it will compute the Units you'd have got on that date. Then it begins to track the MF Growth across MF Houses. In one stroke you can search through all - search phrase "Balanced Advantage" and you will get the list of every fund house and you can chose as many lists to virtually invest and then track them all parallelly.

(5 Star) JioThings App (Jio Platforms Limited) -- I bought JioMotive Dongle (5K from Amazon) and configured its e-SIM with one of my existing Jio number and connected the Dongle to OBD Port in my car. It now serves the purpose of tracking all vital statistics of the car remotely like Battery %age, RPM, Coolant temp etc.. If someone else is driving my car, I can even track the location of the car in real time, including speed and live location of the car using Google maps. The dongle also works as WiFi Hotspot in the car and anyone carrying laptop & tab (without cellular connection) can connect to this WiFi in the car !! It works flawlessly.

Hope this unique list of Apps helps others as well on the Forum.

Cheers
Mahi

[krackr]

Originally Posted by MahiDesai

Very good thread Indeed.

I am omitting all the standard apps like WhatsApp, Telegram etc.

Here is my list - pls pay attention to 5 Star Apps and you may please check them out --- very useful and unique ones indeed.
...
(5 Star) SMS Organizer (Microsoft) - One of the best App that does lot of work in categorizing your sms

Copilot (Microsoft) - moved all my google searches to this app, and its one of the best (you have option to select which GPT version to use!)
...
(5 Star) TRAI DND 3.0 (TRAI) --- Almost Zero SMS Spam - any spam SMS that hits my mobile will be crushed instantly with this app. Did not believe this App has such a power to LOG the Complaint with respective telecom service provides within 2 to 3 clicks! very very effective app in busting the SMS spams

(5 Star) Drive-U -- Amazing app when you want to hire a driver for your car. Whenever you have any need for having a temp driver for few hours to days, this App is a godsend and I've always got very polite drivers and they have a great Chat Service where someone will immediately respond. Thankfully they don't have inefficient and lousy IVR based call center concept.
...
...
Hope this unique list of Apps helps others as well on the Forum.

Cheers
Mahi

I use the first three above and absolutely agree on their usefulness.

SMS Organiser gives a neat statement of your transactions, reminders for your bills, train information. Everything based on the SMS and all happening offline.

Have you found Copilot to be slower when using GPT4?

DND is a surprise. For 80% of the unsolicited calls that I complained about, I have received a remediation message within 3 to 4 days of the complaint being raised. The telemarketers were either given a limit of 20 SMS and calls per month, or a warning. While Truecaller in my view results in a short term benefit, DND should prove useful if more people use it as it's from TRAI. For spam calls, I switch on the Bixby call to text feature. Drives them nuts. And then one single tap to block that number. Followed by reporting it via DND.

Is Drive-U available in Mumbai?

Outside of these, I heavily rely upon a combination of Samsung Routines, Tasker (paid and totally worth it), Nova Launcher and Samsung GoodLock that I use to customize the keyboard, multiple one handed actions and accessibility features. This combo goes a long away in automating daily workflows. I've got rules and gestures for actions ranging from switching on the hotspot while connected to car Bluetooth, single swipes to open home and work commute routes to show me the traffic, open specific apps. One time setup to turn Extra Dim mode at night, process SMS to record in Financisto (personal finance ledger), single tap magnify when I don't have my reading glasses nearby.

Memento Database (free ad supported version)
Microsoft 365 subscription with Onedrive (good pricing, bad UI)
Obsidian Notes (future proof note taking) in combination with Tasker and GoodLock mentioned above. Syncthing to sync it to the desktop version. Very steep learning curve - worth it.
Samsung Notes for quick handwriting
GPS Logger.
Google Maps (love the Timeline feature)
Native screenshot feature which I tag immediately for auto organization
Brave, Samsung Internet and Duckduckgo browsers. Prefer web shortcuts rather than apps (Eg for Twitter)
Lumafusion video editor on Android (which I haven't used for a long time)
Samsung Reminders, Calendar. That integrate well with Samsung Notes.
The S-Pen that integrates well with the Samsung apps above, and again in combination with Samsung Routines. Also for annotations on the fly.
WhatsApp and Telegram most used.

What I am not able to find is a keyboard app for that matches the iPad auto correct feature. Gboard comes close to it but not a match. This for the Samsung Tab S7+. I'm happy with the Samsung keyboard app on the phone.

[streetfighter]

Apart from the regular ones mentioned here, I'd like to mention 2-3 apps which I use extensively related to my car and travel.

1. Fuelio - This is an excellent app to keep track of your fuel expenses, mileage of the car, and gives some interesting statistics. Please see some screenshots below.

First page when you open the app, gives an overview.


Each time you refuel, you need to add the data manually in this "Mileage Log". You can even upload the fuel reciept image in this log.


Shows interesting stats about you


Shows the damages of owning a car


Some more stats


2. Tidal - Another app which I used for music is Tidal. Tidal provides Hi-Fi music streaming and is a must if you are an audiophile. It is a paid subscription based service and is not officially available in India, but there is hack to get this going. You do get Indian/Bollywood tracks too, though the choice may be limited.

3. Google Maps - well most of us use it, I use it too (I like Waze more comparatively). Keeping privacy concerna aside, I have provided access to the app to track of me when I go on trips. It provides me nice insight about my trip, the places I visit, it tracks my eateries too. This also helps a great deal to remember and share the travelogue and itinerary at a later date. With photos uploaded to Google Photos, the overall trip shows up in Maps in a nice way.

[Vikash Kumawat]

I am a heavy user of Google Keep and Calendar which always reminds me of all my tasks, if there was no Google keep I would forget most of my works 😝

[contentedbloke]

Guys, do you know why our phone cameras take up so much of space when video is recorded? A 2 hr movie on Netflix or Amazon can be downloaded at less than 1 GB but a 15 minute video recording takes 1.5 GB on the iPhone.

Why doesn’t the iPhone and android phones offer an inbuilt compression setting so that as and when the video is recorded, it can be compressed and stored?

Now I need to search amongst the sea of apps claiming to compress video - I have no clue about compression settings, h.265 etc and don’t want to get into all that. Just want decent quality which I can share easily on WhatsApp.

Please suggest a good app / solution to compress phone camera videos easily.

NOTE TO MODS: Apologies if this is the wrong forum, please move / merge this at the appropriate forum.

[itspatra]

Originally Posted by contentedbloke

Guys, do you know why our phone cameras take up so much of space when video is recorded? A 2 hr movie on Netflix or Amazon can be downloaded at less than 1 GB but a 15 minute video recording takes 1.5 GB on the iPhone.

Why doesn’t the iPhone and android phones offer an inbuilt compression setting so that as and when the video is recorded, it can be compressed and stored?

That is because the Netflix movie is only downloaded in 720p or 1080p. It costs these streaming companies money to stream and store data. They use very efficient codecs to store them. Coming to your case, you can simply record in 1080p if storage is a concern. For me however I am a huge data Hoarder and always record at the highest resolution/framerate.

Anyways here are my Apps






My favorite among this is WifiMan. It is a very handy app to keep all the time for quick internet diagnostics. You can check ping for custom websites you can set. See devices connected in the network. Interference of channels and a 3D map of Signals