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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I’ll throw my opinion for Sync for Lemmy.
Second this
Bitwarden
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.
- Mixplorer Silver - Feature-packed File Manager
- Hermit - Lightweight PWA browser
- Instaddr - creates disposable Email addresses
- Readera - Feature-packed book reader
- Moon+ Reader - Feature-packed book reader
- 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.
- KWGT & KWLP - if you’re into home screen customisation, then these are must haves.
- 1DM - Feature-packed Browser and Download Manager (Direct downloads & torrents)
- 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.
niagara launcher is great!
1DM+ and Hermit are the apps that have been in my constant rotation of use among the apps I bought. SeriesGuide too for tracking tv and movies.
Found I have replaced lot of apps with Foss alternatives over the years, so been buying apps less and less.
Thanks for the shout out for Hermit!
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Didn’t know that, but I can’t seem to find it on fdroid.
oh sorry mistook it for Librera, librera is the one that’s paid (PRO version) but is free on fdroid
FairEmail : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.email
The best email app.
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Isn’t that owned by some Chinese data hoarding company these days?
Yeah, Niagara launcher is better
I’ve been using it for years but I’ve never found a feature worth paying for so I just use the free version. Lol
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.
Absolutely, Business Calendar is my #1 app.
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.
+100 for Niagara!
I used Niagara for years, paid for it since I used it so much as my launcher. I switched to Kvaesitso on F-Droid recently, and haven’t felt the need to switch back!
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.
I dunno. I just wish torque looked a little better. I don’t like the interface at all. But it’s a great app for troubleshooting car problems.
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Ah yeah that one should have been on my list. Been running it for years. Good call.
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.
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.
Honestly, Simple File Manager is a bit better then I remembered. But here are some, in order of how much they matter to me.
- As you said, browsing network shares.
- Fast filtering in addition to recursive search.
- Selective file extracting from archives.
- Checksums in formats aside from md5.
Amaze checks some of these boxes, but I find it kind of buggy.
Those are good features. Thanks, I’ll check it out!
Mixplorer Silver too.
This is a pretty solid app, and I have no regrets purchasing this one.
Is there a reason apps that access file system are getting pushy about having notifications enabled though? I’ve seen it on a few different apps and solid explorer is especially annoying if you don’t enable notifications. It basically gives you 2 prompts urging you to enable notifications every time you move files. The file transfer works perfectly fine without the notifications from what I can see. This has caused me to use a lesser file management app in the meantime. I just don’t understand why a file manager HAS to have notifications I guess.
I sent the dev an email about it, but it got ignored.
From what I gather, Solid needs notifications for file transfers, should you decide to push large chunks of data through it and proceed to different tasks in the meantime.
It shows you notification when the ftp server is running atleast. Haven’t seen sny other notifications.
Not FOSS but, I love TickTick, it’s a great cross-platform reminders app. I’ve tested a ton but TickTick is my fav
Ticktick is great but op said they weren’t looking for subscriptions
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.
I second both!
For online and offline GPS I love OSMAnd+ since it has AndroidAuto support and tons of other features.
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/
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!
You can get it free if you use F-droid!
It is called OSMAnd~ on F-Droid. It does not have support for AndroidAuto. I ended up buying the licensed version for that and to support the devs.
