You are here

Home

Five apps that are better than Android pre-installs

Mark Lyndersay
Published: 
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Bit Depth
The excellent and free Sunrise calendaring app skips the irritating skeuomorphism of Samsung’s SPlanner for a spare, digitally-native interface and welcome added features.

After using an Android mobile phone for the last four years, I’m not afraid to tell anyone thinking of switching to the platform from iOS to prepare themselves for a slimmer selection of software in almost every category.

Given the relative dearth of must-have apps compared to the flourishing iOS platform, it’s constantly surprising to me that more top-shelf apps aren’t bundled with Android phones instead of the crapware that tends to infest them.

Even worse, most of these apps can’t be uninstalled or even moved to an SD card, so when you do find a better product, it’s going to live on the phone alongside software you won’t ever use and probably don’t like very much.

That raises the stakes for a replacement app, but some are absolutely worth considering.

Columnist