Holiday Guide: Give the gift of better apps for Android

1 day

Alan Henry , Lifehacker

The gift of a good app can turn a phone someone's frustrated with into a device that they'll fall in love with again. A great mobile app can be a lifesaver, fill a real need in your life, and be well worth a little cash. Here are our favorite (and your favorite) paid apps worth giving to the Android owner (or Android?owner-to-be) on your gift list.

Many of these apps also have free versions that you or the Android?fan on your list may or may not be used to working with, but when it comes down to it, they're all apps where you can get great additional features if you're willing to lay down a few bucks for the pro versions or unlock keys.

TWEAKING AND CUSTOMIZATION

Nova Launcher Prime

Reader In_Sweden?recommended Nova Launcher Prime, and we agree: it's?one of your favorite Android launchers, and it turns your Ice Cream Sandwich device into a brand new device. It supports themes from ADW Launcher, another popular Android launcher, is flexible with how many home screens you configure, supports beautiful animations and gestures, and?comes packed with widgets.?With Nova Launcher Prime, you even get unread message and notification counts for email, voicemail and more. If the Android user in your life is frustrated with a carrier's crappy UI, this is a great gift for them.

Tasker
The ultimate Android tweaking utility, and definitely not for everyone, Tasker gives you total control over your device. If you've ever thought "I wish that would happen when this happens," Tasker is the app to do it. If you have an Android lover on your list and they're ready to get their hands dirty customizing their device, Tasker is a great gift. To get them started, hook them up with our?Tasker tips?and tricks. Then, tell them to install the Tasker App Factory and export some of their profiles so you can enjoy your gift too!

SwiftKey 3
Android's stock keyboard is pretty good, but offering users options is what Android is all about, and SwiftKey is a fantastic keyboard option for beginner and advanced users alike. It's our favorite keyboard, and its word prediction and auto-correction are unmatched among its many competitors. Plus, with SwiftKey Flow on the way, it'll be even more versatile and customizable, so it's worth getting in on the ground floor. SwiftKey comes in phone and tablet versions, so even your friend with a Nexus 7 in the gift pile this year can get some use out of it. Trust us, once you've used a keyboard that's smart enough to scan the apps you use to learn the way you write, you'll never go back.

MEDIA AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Doggcatcher
If the Android user on your list this year loves to listen to or watch podcasts, give them the gift of portability with our favorite podcast manager for Android. It's come a long way since our first recommendation, and while it's still not perfect, it's more than worth the $5 you'll put down on it. It's fast, flexible, supports audio, video and RSS, and lets you create "virtual" feeds???or playlists mixed up of your favorite podcasts so you can watch new downloads in any order you choose. You can tell it to download new episodes only?when you want (at night, over Wi-Fi, etc.), and the app offers variable-speed playback, for those people who prefer to listen at two?or?three times regular speed. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the developer is super-responsive to user inquiries.

Camera ZOOM FX
We think Camera ZOOM FX is the best camera app for Android, and recent updates have only made it better. The app gives you control over your photos that most stock camera apps don't, like white balance, burst shooting, geotagging, and 1-tap uploads to Flickr, Instagram, Picasa or any other service you use. Recent updates have brought in tap-to-focus (a highly requested feature) and editing tools so you can crop or apply photo filters to your shots immediately after taking them. The app even lets you clap to take a photo, or use the stable-shot timer to snap a photo right when you're holding your phone still.

NewsRob
If there's a voracious reader on your list, or just someone who loves their blogs and can't get enough of their RSS feeds, NewsRob is still one of the best Android feed readers around. The free version is probably already on their phone (or should be,) and syncs with Google Reader so they don't have to sift through feeds on their desktop that they already read on their phone or tablet. The Pro version here drops the ads, opens up some filtering options, lets you save articles for offline reading, and more.

Plex
Going mobile doesn't mean that you???or the Android user in your life???has to be without all of the music and movies they have at home. We've shown you how to take your media on the go with Plex in the past, and the app's real strong suit is that it transcodes on the fly and plays virtually anything you throw at it on any supported device. Plus, the app is only getting better, even if you don't have a huge media center set up at home.

PRODUCTIVITY

Astrid Power Pack
Astrid is your favorite to-do app, and for good reason. It's fast, flexible, cross-platform, and just keeps updating with new features and improvements that leave its competition behind. If you're shopping for someone who could use a little organization, Astrid is a great app suggestion, but buying them the Astrid Power Pack ensures they'll get the most out of the service. The Power Pack offers up home screen widgets so they can always see their to-dos without having to open the app, and most importantly it lets them talk to their phone add and manage to-dos with their voice. The Power Pack also includes voice reminders when something is due, so they can't just ignore it.

QuickOffice Pro
Don't let anyone tell you that you can't be productive on an Android phone or tablet. With QuickOffice Pro, the Android user on your holiday shopping list can turn their device from a casual emailing and entertainment machine into something they can get real work done on. QuickOffice Pro supports Microsoft Office documents, including spreadsheets, opens them, edits them, saves them and exports them easily. The app has a built-in file manager to grab email attachments, and even supports reading and annotating PDF documents. Plus, the tablet version isn't just a port of the phone version??it's much larger and well suited to real productivity.

Splashtop Remote Desktop
Sometimes you can't do everything you want to do from your Android device and really need to get to a desktop. For those times, Splashtop Remote Desktop is the answer, and if you're shopping for an IT professional or someone who just loves their Android phone or tablet more than they love their laptop or desktop (especially after hours), do them a favor and give them this app. Splashtop Remote Desktop streams WIndows and Mac desktops to your Android phone or tablet and gives you complete control over them so you can manage them or stream files, music, photos, or movies via Wi-Fi or 3G/4G.

MailDroid Pro
If the only email accounts you use with your Android phone are Gmail accounts, you may not need an additional app, but if you have multiple POP, IMAP, or Exchange accounts you want to use your phone with, you'll need a better mail app than the stock one. MailDroid Pro is a great alternative, and while we pooh-poohed it when compared to our favorite Android mail app, K-9 Mail, the app has come a long way and gotten a complete rewrite and overhaul since we looked at it last. It's still pricey, but that's what makes it a good gift, as reader Philip Pratt?notes. Plus it supports custom rules, enterprise calendars, signatures, customizable alerts for different accounts, Dropbox and more. There's a free version to try first, and once your Android lover wants the ads gone and the pro features, that's when you can give them their gift.

OTHER USEFUL UTILITIES

Sleep As Android
If there's someone on your list that's having a little trouble sleeping, Sleep as Android makes a perfect gift. The app tracks sleep patterns and stages over the course of a night, making sure you wake up gently at the right stage of your sleep cycle so you're refreshed for the day ahead. We've mentioned the app before, and how it can show you your sleep patterns over weeks or months, sleep recordings, and more. The free version keeps a two-week limit on some of the advanced features, while the pro unlock key opens up natural sound alarms, graph history, and more. What better gift to give a friend or loved one than the gift of a good night's sleep?

Titanium Backup Pro Key
Why not give the gift of data security this holiday season? Titanium Backup for root users is free and does a great job of keeping all of your data safe in case your phone dies or needs to be replaced. If you pick up the Pro Key for the Android user on your list, they can automate their backups, and even sync them to Dropbox. Better than that though, they'll never have to worry that the important data on their phone will be lost if their device is stolen, wiped, or damaged.

A special thanks goes out to everyone who provided suggestions! It made putting together these guides a lot easier, and a better fit for you.

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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/give-gift-better-apps-android-1C7360771

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