Uniquely Android: Plug In Launcher

• Raveesh Bhalla
• 12 years ago

During my short tenure as a weekend blogger at Phandroid, I’ve looked to start series featuring various apps, striving to ensure that these posts weren’t your regular “apps of the week” stuff. I started with the “Apps I uninstalled this week“, and then moved on to the “Rookie Review” which unfortunately didn’t catch on.

Now, I want to celebrate those apps that really make Android special, that take advantage of the unique capabilities of the platform and provide an experience that you wouldn’t find in most other phones. Some of these apps may be eyesores from a design perspective, and might have a really small feature set. But what they do really makes Android special. And Unique.

In the first post, I’m going to write about Plug In Launcher. A nifty little app that has both a free and a $1 Pro version, the app allows you to set up actions to be performed when either the USB, headset or power cord are connected, and (in the pro version only) also for bluetooth and WiFi connections.

I use it for launching UberMusic whenever I plug-in my headset, and for launching the Alarm app when I put it on charge. Other use cases that I can think of include launching Maps when you’re connected to your bluetooth headset, or launching a file manager when connected to another device.

Most of these actions are small stuff, typically replacing what would have taken a click or two if they didn’t exist. But once you start using them you get so used to it that you begin to wonder why these capabilities don’t exist in a phone straight out-of-the-box.