9 outstanding and hidden Android apps that are worth installing on your phone.
Did you discover a really interesting app? This happens to me too, you know? You get used to the same apps and eventually forget that you can get so much more out of your phone's capabilities.
In recent weeks, I've discovered an excellent music player and a browser that, for the first time, provides an entirely new experience. Below, we'll go over these apps and other hidden gems for Android that you should try right away.
- Voicenotes AI Notes & Meetings
Another hidden gem I'd like to tell you about today is the Voicenotes app. All note-taking apps have been pretty much the same for a while now, haven't they? Well, here's the exception that proves the rule.
With this app, you can take voice notes, but even better, it automatically converts them to text. You can also create an AI-powered summary for easy reading later. Or you can turn them into a bulleted list, email, tweet, or blog post. It's also compatible with smartwatches.
The app translates texts with exceptional accuracy, and in my experience, it has proven highly effective. It's free to use, but after a certain period, you'll need to subscribe to the paid version.
If you are someone who has many ideas and needs to write them down, the Voicenotes app will help you organize your thoughts.
- MissingCore Music
Another app that caught my attention is MissingCore, which falls under the category of hidden apps, as it has not exceeded 50,000 downloads.
The main reason is its recent release, but I assure you it's worth trying. It's a local music player with a sleek design inspired by the popular Nothing phone.
At the top, you'll find a menu that lets you organize your music by artist, album, playlists, and individual tracks. Below, you'll find the music player, which you can expand to fill the screen. The design is simple yet incredibly polished, and it's completely free and open source.
- Arc Search – Find it, Faster
Arc Search is a browser that uses artificial intelligence to deliver a unique experience. When searching, instead of just displaying results, Arc shows a list of suggestions and aggregates a unified answer from different web pages.
This system is called "Browse for Me," and after trying it, I was truly impressed. It also has other great features you would expect from a good browser, such as a tracker blocker, automatic archiving of old bookmarks, the ability to import Google Chrome passwords, and a gesture navigation system that makes the user interface smooth.
"The AI-powered summaries are just a great addition, but they are truly excellent. They work perfectly in Arabic, and the answers are longer and more detailed than we expected. Definitely much better than the AI answers currently provided by Google Search."
- Lemuroid
Now, let's enjoy some classic fun. If you're a fan of retro video games, Lemuroid is an Android emulator built on Libreto. It's completely free and open source.
It is compatible with approximately twenty systems, including NES, SNES, GBA, N64, PSP, NDS, PlayStation 1, gaming consoles, and others.
Of course, it also features an autosave to avoid restarting each game from the beginning, as well as improved touch controls, controller support, CRT filters, local multiplayer, and other very useful features.
There are many paid emulators on the Google Play Store, but in this case, the best ones are almost always free, such as the popular Lemuroid or Retroarch.
- Pinnit
Okay, raise your hand if you've seen an important notification on your phone and ignored it out of habit, without even bothering to read it. This can be a real problem, because once you ignore notifications, you can't retrieve them.
Well, the Pinnit app was designed to solve precisely this problem. With this tool, you can restore old notifications and pin them to the notification bar so you can review them at any time.
The app also contains a log section where all your notifications are saved, which is very easy, as you can reread them and know exactly when you received each alert or message.
"In fact, I think it's an essential application, and I would like to take this opportunity to urge Google to seriously consider adding a similar tool to the Android system. How is it possible that this application is not included by default on all phones?"
- Lockscreen Widgets and Drawer
Did you know that you could customize your Android phone's lock screen using various tools? For some reason, this feature was removed ten years ago with the release of Android 5 Lollipop.
With this app, we've brought back this feature, but with a special addition. Instead of just a few tools, a page-divided frame appears at the bottom of the lock screen, where you can customize many different tools.
"Now, it's not that simple: if your phone is running Android 13 or later, you may need to use Shizuku or ADB commands for the app to work efficiently. However, if you want to add more functionality to your phone's lock screen, this app is an indispensable tool for your device."
- Circle to Search
The "circle search" feature is one of the most prominent features Google has launched in recent months. However, it is unique in that it is exclusive to Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones.
With "Circle Search," you can do exactly that, but with the added advantage of being able to install it on any Android device. Take a picture of anything, or circle anything you see on your screen, and the app will search for it online.
This feature is extremely useful for finding out where to buy specific clothing, identifying anything, whether it be a plant or an animal, translating text into another language, or finding out where a particular photo was taken.
"From a practical standpoint, it's a very good version of the original Google app. If my phone weren't compatible, I would definitely try it."
- Shortcut Maker
Another app that should be pre-installed. How many times have you thought about how useful it would be to have a shortcut to a document on your home screen? Or a website, or even a contact? Well, that's exactly what the Shortcut Maker app lets you do.
To create shortcuts just like you would on a computer, but on your phone. You can also use it to create folders and do many other cool things... like opening your browser directly in incognito mode, for example.
- System UI Tuner
This app allows you to modify many of your phone's settings that are hidden or locked by default by the operating system.
For example, you can hide certain icons in the status bar or make the clock display the time with the second hand active. You can also activate the camera using gestures and make various changes to the screen, network settings, apps, and sound system.
Now for the interesting part: you don't need root access to use this application. However, it's not compatible with all manufacturers and requires running certain ADB commands in a terminal window.