Best Android apps from September 2014
Previous Best Apps of the Month
Consider this your wake-up call. September has ended. Summer is now just a memory as the leaves slowly begin to change color and football dominates the weekends. One thing that doesn’t change is the constant stream of new Android apps. September was a little lighter on app releases, but we still had some excellent ones make their debut. Check out the best of the bunch below!
Ask Me Anything
Reddit has finally released an official app, but it’s only for one subreddit. Luckily it’s for one of the most popular and mainstream subreddits on the site: Ask Me Anything. With this app you can beautifully browse and participate in AMA’s. See when someone is actively answering questions, and get notified when popular AMA’s are trending. It’s an awesome app for Redditors.
Bring! Shopping List
There are many, many list apps available for Android. Bring! is a new list app that brings a beautiful UI, automatic sorting, Android Wear support, and list syncing. That last feature is a big focus in this app. Sync lists among your friends and family to keep everyone organized and up to date. Save time and money when it comes groceries.
Chrome APK Packager
Last week we told you how to run Android apps in any Chrome desktop browser. It sounded awesome in theory, but in practice it was difficult. A new app called Chrome APK Packager makes the process infinitely easier. All you have to do is choose an app installed on your phone and it will be packaged for you to install in Chrome. Easy peasy.
Comedy Central
Get the latest episodes of all popular Comedy Central shows with the new Android app. There are hours and hours of funny stuff to watch, assuming Comedy Central is included in your cable package. Get access to The Daily Show, Tosh.0, Key & Peele, Drunk History, Nathan For You, and great stand-up specials, Chappelle’s Show, and full seasons of returning series.
Commute
Did you know MapQuest still exists? They do, and they actually make some really nice apps. The latest is called Commute. This app proactively monitors the road conditions along your route and alerts you to travel times and incidents so you know what to expect on your way to and from work. Commute is a nice option if you’re not a fan of Google Now.
Hangouts Dialer
With Hangouts Dialer you can finally call any phone number in the world from your Hangouts app using your data connection. This app is required to activate phone calling functionality in the Hangouts app. After installation, you can access all phone calling features directly from Hangouts or use Hangouts Dialer for a shortcut to the dialer screen in Hangouts.
HomeTube
YouTube is a great tool for entertaining kids, but there is also a lot of inappropriate content out there. HomeTube allows you to select suitable content for your kids and then let them view it in a child-friendly interface. Kids can switch from watching a Curious George video to a Spider-man cartoon without requiring you to navigate them to the new content yourself. Less help from you is always a good thing.
Horizon
Shooting videos in portrait mode has become a real nuisance to many people in the smartphone age. 99% of video players are in landscape mode, which makes portrait videos look terrible. Not to mention it cuts out a lot of the scene. Horizon lets you record horizontal videos no matter how you hold your device. Hold it upright, sideways or even keep rotating it while capturing. It’s magic.
Noyze
The Android volume control pop-up looks nice, but its placement is not ideal. It’s always right on top of whatever you’re doing. Many root apps allow you to mod the volume pop-up, but if you don’t want to deal with root you can use a new app called Noyze. You can choose from several themes, adjust colors, and even adjust volume for alarms and notifications.
Sup
On the surface this app looks like a cross between Snapchat and Skype, but there’s more to it than that. When you send a “Sup” to someone they have 5 minutes to respond. If they accept the request it will open their camera so you get a live view of whatever they’re doing. You can even use on-screen controls to tell them how to move the camera. It’s free and fun.
WhoSampled
WhoSampled is an award-winning app from iOS now available on Android. With this app you can get answers to the questions “Where was this song sampled? Who covered my favorite artists? What remixes were made for this track?” WhoSampled is the music DNA discovery app that lets you explore the music connections in your music collection.
Android Wear Apps
Android Wear Speed
Android Wear Speed may be the simplest app for your smartwatch. All it does is display your current speed. You could be running, riding a bike, or driving your car. Just choose your units and go.
OneNote for Android Wear
Microsoft released a dedicated Android Wear app for their popular OneNote app. This app works with the “take a note” command, and allows you to add notes to your OneNote account. In order to use this app you will need the main OneNote for Android app. We wish Microsoft would have just added support to the main app.
VimoGolf
For half the price of a bucket of driving-range balls, VimoGolf delivers a golf swing analyzer right on your wrist. Watch your golf swing at up to 200 samples per second, as captured by the built-in motion sensors of your Android Wear watch. Snag the app now for $2 before the price goes up.
Wear Tip Calculator
Not many apps have taken advantage of the Moto 360’s circular display. Until now. Wear Tip Calculator is a beautiful and simple app for finding tip amounts. The UI is made up of a circle that is used to adjust the tip percentage. This is one of the first few apps that look great on the Moto 360.
Previous Best Apps of the Month