-Apex Posted December 25, 2020 Posted December 25, 2020 The best Android apps right now: ready for 2021 The best Android apps for your phone, both free and paid-for The best Android apps are hard to find - if you've just got an Android phone, or want to find a way to reinvogorate an old one, a new app will do the job, but sorting through the thousands out there can be hard. That's where we come in - our experts have been combing the Google Store for years to find the very best Android apps, testing them hard to find out which are truly useful and add that little bit of extra zing to life. We don't just stick to the po[CENSORED]r categories either - we look at Android camera apps, photo editors, health and fitness titles for Android phones and things to just keep your phone safer and more secure than ever. And if you want to personalize your phone too - we've got you covered, with Android apps that canmassively help you change the way your smartphone looks from its original state. These app lists are constantly updated with a mixture of free and paid titles - and all are chosen by our experts so you know that there won't be any hidden surprises and a worthwhile purchase if you're actually spending real money. These are the world's very best Android phones Best new Android app This is the latest Android app we've chosen to feature, refreshed every few weeks. Our choices are usually new apps or apps that have recently received a major update, but occasionally hidden gems and other essentials will also be highlighted. Glitch Lab Glitch Lab is a photo editor packed full of digital glitch effects. You’ve probably seen apps like this before, and the style of effects offered won’t appeal to everyone, but if you like making your pictures look a bit glitchy or retro, this is one of the most capable and versatile ways to do it. There are over 100 effects in this Android app, and many of them are customizable, ensuring that your glitches won’t look like anyone else’s. As if to demonstrate the power, it’s even possible to generate an image from scratch, building it up through a number of effects and tweaks. There’s plenty here even for free, but to get the absolute most out of Glitch Lab you’ll need to grab the Pro IAP for $6.49/£5.99. This, at the time of writing, adds 42 extra effects, 37 new parameters for the free effects, increases the output quality, and more. DoodleLens DoodleLens is perhaps a bit of a gimmick, but it’s a fun one. Simply doodle something, then point your phone’s camera at the doodle from within the app, and you can copy it and paste it on top of the world around you in augmented reality. You can also change the color of the doodle and even make very basic animations by copying multiple doodles and having the app cycle through them. You can then record and save the results. DoodleLens probably isn’t an Android app you’ll use often, and we found it a bit hit and miss at recognizing our doodles, but when it works it raises a smile, which is all you can really ask for at $1.99/£1.89. Pixtica Pixtica is one of many tools hoping to replace your phone’s default camera app. Camera apps vary a lot, and their success largely depends on your phone make and model, but Pixtica is a decent option if you’re looking for something new. It’s packed full of features, including numerous filters, a GIF recorder, panorama, hyperlapse, manual controls, and oddities such as a ‘Planet’ mode, which warps images into a sphere-like shape using Pixtica’s “advanced stereographic projection algorithm”. There are all sorts of other modes too, whether you’re taking photos or shooting video, and the app is laid out intuitively. However, while many of the functions are free, you have to pay to unlock higher resolutions and to remove watermarks when using filters. The payment gets you other things too, but those are the main things that make the purchase close to essential if you plan to use Pixtica. And that would be fine, except the app opts for a subscription fee (of $1.25/£1.25 for one month with discounts for six months or a year) rather than being available as a one-off purchase. We’re not fans of paying a subscription for a camera app, but if any such app is worth it, it’s Pixtica. 1
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