this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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What non-game paid apps do you use that are worthwhile and still relevant in 2023?

For context, I have a decent amount of Google Play credit thanks to Opinion Rewards and a gift card. I'm not looking to start a book or movie collection there, nor sign up for subscription services. But I'm happy to buy the paid/pro version of useful apps.

I'm excluding games just because that's a whole topic on its own.

Here are some one-time paid apps I've been happy with:

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[–] CaptPretentious 49 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'll throw my opinion for Sync for Lemmy.

[–] thimantha 6 points 10 months ago

Second this

[–] antik 31 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (9 children)

I have to admit I haven't been buying a lot of new apps the last few years. I don't play games on my phone and most of the apps I use daily are basically the same ones for a few years already.

  • FX file explorer An excellent file manager that I have been using since forever. There are other good ones, such as Solid Explorer, but FX is my favorite.

  • Tasker I used to play around with this so much, the things you can do with this app are endless. But I have been using it less lately, switched to Google home since it has better/easier integration with other devices in the house.

  • Nova Launcher I think most of you will be familiar with this launcher. I have probably been using this one since it came out. It's perfect!

  • JuiceSSH Pro To be honest I don't even know what features are unlocked by purchasing the pro edition without looking because it has been so long since I bought it. It's an SSH cliënt and one of my most-used apps.

  • Sync for Lemmy There are plenty of Lemmy apps that are good but I was using Sync for Reddit since forever so I jumped on the hype-train when it came out. I paid for Ultra monthly because 2€ per month for something I use daily is a no-brainer.

Besides these there are some Google Wear watch faces I purchased. There had been other apps that I bought years ago like sdmaid or some other tools from when I used to install custom roms but I don't really use those anymore - too much hassle for marginal improvements. And the question was about apps that are still relevant.

[–] AWittyUsername 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I prefer Niagara launcher. I was using Nova for years, it got a bit stagnant, and they've been purchased by a data mining company.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Looks at the paid apps on my phone..... The fuck. Right down to the SDmaid and using roms years ago. Like identical... seriously it's a small community of popular apps that run in these communities sometimes.

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[–] 4lan 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My gestures keep breaking on Nova, even on the beta v8. This is on OneUI

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago
[–] applejacks 21 points 10 months ago

Any app you regularly use.

iOS users have no qualms paying for apps, so that's where high quality devs work.

Take Boost for Reddit for example.

Many people used that app every day for many, many years, but would balk at paying anything at all, or even $5.

Think about what you get in return for paying $30 for a nice dinner.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)
  1. Mixplorer Silver - Feature-packed File Manager
  2. Hermit - Lightweight PWA browser
  3. Instaddr - creates disposable Email addresses
  4. Readera - Feature-packed book reader
  5. Moon+ Reader - Feature-packed book reader
  6. Balance - for Meditation. They have been offering a one year free trial for some time now. It has been really helpful for me. Their programs are highly customised to achieve your goals. Give it a try.
  7. KWGT & KWLP - if you're into home screen customisation, then these are must haves.
  8. 1DM - Feature-packed Browser and Download Manager (Direct downloads & torrents)
  9. Niagara Launcher - Lightweight, minimalist, with solid, fluid animations. One-hand friendly. Free version has ZERO ADS. I've been using the free version for a couple of years now. I'm hooked to it. I don't think I can go back to a normal App Drawer drawer style launcher now. They offer one time purchase as well for the pro version. I felt no need for the pro features, though i'd definitely buy the pro to support the dev.

Some of these have decent free alternatives. Mixplorer is free to use officially through XDA. KWGT & KWLP have free ad supported versions available through their official website. Regardless, these have been installed on all my phones for years now.

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[–] Olivares 18 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Business Calendar (by Appgenix Software)

I have multiple Google calendars to keep track of pretty much everything; birthdays, anniversaries, bills, when school is in session (I have kids), scheduled days off, various appointments, etc. I've been using this since 2011/2012 with their first version, and moved over to the 2nd version after that came out. It gives me more control over how my calendar looks on my phone, I can easily toggle calendars and tasks on or off...

Honestly, I can't use another calendar app now. I love my color coded (you can change calendar colors in the app to any color you want) month at a glance calendar.

And I also can't recommend KWGT enough for widget making. I originally got Zooper to try to emulate Conky (from Linux), but Zooper stopped being developed. I have a lot of fun trying to get my widgets just the way I like them - even if my code is a mess.

[–] Condalmo 6 points 10 months ago

Absolutely, Business Calendar is my #1 app.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The only app I've paid for is Torque Pro. If you deal with cars a lot it's worth the 5 bucks. The free version is also pretty handy.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Niagara Launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bitpit.launcher

It's georgous and I've grown to love the list view for apps. As phones are really tall, it makes more sense to lay out apps vertically instead of horizontally. It's search function is great too.

My work uses google workspaces, the agenda widget is so useful for quickly seeing a list of calendar events and weather.

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[–] jesterraiin 11 points 10 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What do you like about it that can't be done with e.g. Simple File Manager?

I will say the Cloud storage integration looks nice.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

I don't have many paid apps, but one I do like is Peakfinder. It's not something I use all the time but it does become rather handy when you've climbed up a hill to a viewpoint and now want to figure out which other hills you're looking at.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

For online and offline GPS I love OSMAnd+ since it has AndroidAuto support and tons of other features.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think it's one of those apps where the full version is free on F-Droid https://f-droid.org/packages/net.osmand.plus/

[–] 8uurg 5 points 10 months ago

For those taking this route: do note that the map data is downloaded from their servers. So don't forget to make a small donation to offset the server costs if you are able to!

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[–] Exusia 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

For mobile- Poweramp - let's me view and play music by Folder. Google and Samsungs built in player suuuucks. You can't build a Playlist with Poweramp, but if you have lots of your "own music" .mp3s, I highly recommend it.

And SimpleGallery. Infinitely better than whatever the fuck "Google photos" puts together. It lets you sort and view by, you guessed it, FOLDER NAME rather than "most recent" always at the top. It also let's you Hide folders too for all those cute cat photos. Also allows Excluding folders, so that game thumbnail folder doesn't show up too.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Not FOSS but, I love TickTick, it’s a great cross-platform reminders app. I’ve tested a ton but TickTick is my fav

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[–] Deftdrummer 8 points 10 months ago

Sync for lemmy.

[–] Ogygus 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Titanium backup doesn't work anymore on latest version of android..

Last time I tried it, the restored applications would just crash, and the ones that did work don't have the external data backed up

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)
  • Automate. it's just 2 bucks.
  • Sync for reddit was worth it, Sync for lemmy is absurdly expensive.
  • HiPER calculator.
  • FX file explorer (it's kinda dead though and doesn't work well with modern android)
  • Kustom apps
[–] sfgifz 11 points 10 months ago

Check the price for Sync for Lemmy again, maybe you get lucky - they are tweaking it regionally now - the price for me changed to 1/10th of the original ask.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I paid for Tilla, it's a great app to manage subscriptions. I get notifications when the next payment is due. Pretty simple UI but that's what I like about it. You can check how much you spend per week/month/year.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

KLWP and KWGT are amazing for customization. KLWP is for making live wallpapers, KWGT is for making your own widgets. They're both extremely powerful apps that allow you to completely customize phone home screen to your exact liking. There's a slight learning curve to them, but once you have the basics down you can do some pretty amazing things with them.

Add Tasker into the mix and you got a stew going!

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[–] eruchitanda 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

If you have root access, instead of Titanium, you can use instead oandbackup.

It's free and open-source.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Sleep as Android. I don't even use 75% of the features, but it's the best alarm clock I've ever had. Never slept through work since I got it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Slice & Dice is probably the best android phone game ever made, and if you buy the itch.io version you get both the PC and Android versions.

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[–] Artranjunk 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Moonreader - ebook reader

Onkyo HF Player - High Fidelity Music Player

CDisplayX - Comic Book Reader

Listen Audiobook Player

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