App developers are pushing the envelope on a daily basis trying to improve and enhance our smartphone and tablet experiences. In fact, so many Android apps come out every day that it’s difficult to keep track of them all. It’s difficult to usurp the best of the best but if you’re getting bored with what you’ve got and want to try something new, check out the best new Android apps from the last month! You can check out our selections for the best new Android apps from 2020 in the video above!
The best NEW Android apps from April 2021:
- EKA2L1
- FCC Speed Test
- Microsoft Whiteboard
- News in Bullets
- Phocus II
- Stack
- Stores Now
- SwirlWalls
- Untrack
- Wateria
EKA2L1
Price: Free
EKA2L1 is a Symbian emulator and one of only a couple in the Play Store. It supports a few different versions of Symbian, including S60v1, S60v3, and S60v5. This gives it the ability to emulate a long of things, including the old N-Gage console. The emulator also comes with functions like keymapping if you want to play games along with things like frame rate adjustment. It’s a free app so N-Gage fans can enjoy this on the cheap.
Get it on Google Play
FCC Speed Test
Price: Free
The FCC launched its own speed test app this month. It works like most speed tests. You hit go and the app checks things like your download and upload speeds, latency, jitter, and packet loss. It also runs in the background to periodically test your network connection. This gives the FCC a better idea how good or bad the Internet is in your area. We particularly like the inclusion of packet loss, a unique function in this space and important for troubleshooting. You can set the app to not run in the background if you want to preserve your mobile data.
Get it on Google Play
Microsoft Whiteboard
Price: Free (but limited access)
Microsoft Whiteboard is an app that is popular with Microsoft Teams subscribers. This is its first full mobile release. It’s a bit basic compared to other platforms, but it is a work in progress. It lets you draw out ideas, take notes, and collaborate with other people. The app is only available to work and school accounts right now. It should get better and more widely available as time goes.
Get it on Google Play
News in Bullets
Price: Free
News in Bullets is a news reader app. The app’s main function is summarizing an article’s contents for easy and quick digestion. It supports thousands of publications, hundreds of topics, and a pretty decent search function. The news is a more complex machine than it’s ever been and this helps simplify it a little bit. News in Bullets is a free app with ads.
Get it on Google Play
Phocus II
Price: Free / $1.99 per month / $2.99 per year
Phocus II is a blur and portrait mode editor. You basically import an image and it helps you add things like bokeh along with other style edits. There are also things like portrait mode lighting, a tool to change the background color, and various other adjustments you can make. The app is a tad pricey for what it does, but people who take selfies a lot may find the yearly price easy to swallow for what this app can do.
Get it on Google Play
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Stack
Price: Free
Stack is the latest app from Area 120 by Google. It’s a basic PDF scanner with an OCR element. You scan in documents like receipts or other such things. The app parses the information and saves a PDF to your Google Drive. This is obviously a niche app that everyone won’t need. However, it’s actually pretty good for folks who do things like save receipts for tax season. Plus, PDFs are small so you can store a ton of them in your Google Drive. This app works surprisingly well and it’s also free to download and use.
Get it on Google Play
Stories Now
Price: Free
Stories Now is another RSS news reader. This one is a little more traditional than News in Bullets. It supports RSS and ATOM. Some other features include categories, a dark theme, and more. The big feature that sets it apart is the story presentation. It shows you news stories from your sources in the form of Instagram Stories. You hit the bubble and see an Instagram Story style post with the headline. It’s easy to click through and read the article from there. It’s a little basic, but we like the idea and direction.
Get it on Google Play
SwirlWalls
Price: $4.99
SwirlWalls is a live, interactive wallpaper. The app features very colorful wallpapers along with various customizations to make it look more like how you want. Every pattern is a swirl pattern of some sort with varying effects. Some other features 140 swirl wallpapers, full dark theme support, and you can flick your phone like a Wii controller to change the background. It has an upfront price of $4.99, but you get everything in the app up front with no in-app purchases or ads.
Get it on Google Play
Untrack
Price: $1.99
Untrack is a privacy app. It removes the extra nonsense at the end of website URLs. The extra junk is usually used to track you. This is usually not a big deal to most folks, but this app is a nice idea now that people are starting to take privacy seriously. Basically, you make this app your default browser and then assign your actual default browser inside the app. Then, when you click links, the app removes all link tracking from it and launches the base link in your actual default browser. It’s barely noticeable in practice. The app runs for $1.99 with no in-app purchases or ads.
Get it on Google Play
Wateria
Price: Free
Wateria is an app for plant care and watering. The base function of the app is a watering reminder app. You simply input your plants and the watering schedule and it reminds you to water them. The app also gives you tips on growing your plants, and even Google Lens support (on devices with the appropriate versions of Android). It’s niche for sure, but it worked well in our testing.
Get it on Google Play
Thank you for reading! Check these apps out too:
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- 15 best Android launchers of all time
If we missed any great new Android apps, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists!