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Monday, October 12, 2020

Cool or Useful Phone Apps

"Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish for them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you." - Epictetus

Recently I was forced to replace the old Android phone, and I have been going through the new one,  force-stopping the pre-loaded bloatware.  I'm pretty sure it's now impossible to get root access to a modern phone and delete the bloatware from it. While I was deleting their apps and adding my preferred ones, I thought it would be a good idea to share ideas for cool apps.  Please suggest good ones or favorites in the comments!

 First of all, I'm still lamenting the loss of my beloved NEXT 3D Launcher.  Below are screenshots taken from the previous phone, the Droid Turbo.  Gorgeous interface.  The most-often used apps are on these screen shots.

The background galaxy wallpaper is live - the galaxy slowly rotates.  You can adjust both the distance and the speed of rotation.  Unfortunately I can't replace the hexagonal 3D interface.  Sadly ,that app is gone.  The other apps from the above screenshots are also now on the new phone.  

There were several apps on that phone that I didn't keep on the home screens, because I don't use them often, but they are still either useful or very cool.  

Some of those other apps are below, mainly handy database stuff for electronics.

Below is a screenshot from the Spectroid app in the above picture.  The red line is the peak sound level at each frequency.  The yellow line is the real-time sound level for each frequency, and the bottom is a downward-moving waterfall that displays a few seconds of previous sounds.  A sharp noise will display as a horizontal line across the lower waterfall part.  It's not needed, but it's cool!

Below are screenshots of some more practical and useful apps.  I've used the one below several times.

Below: A unit converter.  Very handy.
Below:  Going to be handy at some point.
Below:  No I don't do much welding.  That's why I have this.
Level gauge and inclinometer.  Handy for figuring out how tall something is if you have a tape measure and can do a little trigonometry.  Important stuff like: Is this tree tall enough that it will land on my house if it falls the wrong way?  You can also use it to level out your RV when you set up camp!
Below:  Day Light app.  Tells you how many hours of day and night you get.  Also how far away you are from each solstice, and how long the day and night of each solstice last.  Pretty useful if you live in a northern latitude.

This bottom one is really neat, but it requires geo-location to be turned on.  I set the phone to only allow geo-location when the app is in use.  It's called Stellarium, and it's $3.50 on Google Play.  Kinda handy when you see a bright object in the sky and aren't sure which planet or star it is.  Also useful for picking out comets if you aren't sure which constellation you are looking at.  Google Sky Map is free, but I found it to be very jittery.

Like I said, comment below and let me know what cool apps you use!

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