The Best Android Apps of 2026!

0:00 Check this out. This is my brand new Pixel 11 Pro Fold. And whenever I get a new WhatsApp message, this highlight on the back here shows me this super neat wavy green animation. Or if I get an SMS, I get this pulsing blue indicator. And then anytime I get a phone call, the light will show me this super sleek rainbow animation. And this is all thanks to a brand new app called Highlight Studio, which takes Google's brand new, but far too undercooked, highlight feature and makes it genuinely really useful. There are literally customizations galore, and you can set it up to show different colors and different animation styles for any app that you have installed. So, hands down a must-have for anyone picking up one of the new Pixel 11 Pro devices. And that is just the first of 15 incredible apps,

0:46 all of which I'm officially titling the best Android apps of 2026. And you guys know that I don't make monthly Android app videos like this one anymore, but I have been slowly bringing back semi-regular Android app videos this year. And if we can get this video to 10,000 likes, then I'll keep them coming. Now, if you're like me and you use both an Android phone and a Mac computer, then you need to stop what you're doing right now and try out what is close to the Yap of the Year for me. It's called Link My Mac. And as the name so helpfully implies, it links your Android phone to your Mac computer, unlocking a powerful cross device experience in the process. Once you follow the pairing process, which you only need to do once per phone, from then onwards, anytime the two devices are awake and [music] connected to the

1:31 same Wi-Fi network, they'll be connected via Link My Mac. And here's a list of just some of the amazing features that it unlocks. You [music] can use your Android phone as a webcam for your Mac computer. You can mirror your Android screen on your Mac in real time. It syncs notifications from your phone and lets you reply to them directly from your Mac. You can transfer files back and forth with just a few [music] taps. And my all-time favorite feature is that it unlocks real time clipboard sharing. Now, yes, the Mac version of the app isn't the cheapest going around. But honestly, I use it literally every single day, several times a day, in fact. So, for me, it is money well spent, and I can personally highly recommend it. Then, we've got an app called Obsidian Music. And this is a beautifully designed audio player app that packs in a slew of impressive

2:18 features to go with. And I mean, first things first, just look at how gorgeous this app looks. Whether you're browsing through the endless library of tracks or controlling your media via this mini player interface or this [music] full screen interface or using the real-time synced lyrics feature. I mean, as you can see, it is a seriously beautifully designed app. But then on top of its A design, the app also includes basically all of the features and more that you'd want out of a music player app. So, you've got a sleep timer. You can [music] change the default audio quality, including setting it to lossless DAC if you're so inclined. You can also import playlists from Spotify. And there's also some nifty UI customization tweaks that you can make use of as well. But then, let's say you really love looking at a song's lyrics whenever you have music playing. Well, then Lyric Glow is an app that you'll

3:04 want to check out. As you can see, this app activates whenever you're listening to music and you lock your phone's display. And it basically acts as this really slick always on display replacement, showing you real-time lyrics synced to whatever track you're listening to. You can also control your media via this interface, too. Plus, basically every little UI element is customizable via the app settings. [music] All right, from there, as some of you might know, prior to using the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, I was using the Oppo Find N6, which runs Color OS. And after months of using it, I genuinely fell in love with that version of Android, even going as far as calling it my favorite version of Android. And believe it or not, its dynamic island inspired live alerts feature was actually one of those key features that I seriously missed when I switched to the Pixel Fault. So

3:49 naturally, I went looking for a third party app to emulate the feature. And folks, there are hundreds of these dynamic island style apps available both on and off the Play Store, most of which are trash, some of which are good. But there's only one that to me is truly great, which is this one here called Material Capsule. And I think what makes this version so great is that it doesn't aim to completely replicate the design of iOS's dynamic island, but instead hones into a more material expressive design, which I think absolutely works in its favor. But in terms of functionality, it offers basically every feature in the book. So, it has a bunch of these mini capsule events that show a subtle capsule based on system events like your phone charging or when it connects or disconnects from Wi-Fi or when you connect to Bluetooth headphones or change your phone sound profile and

4:35 so on and so forth. Then you've got these dynamic cards that show not only a mini capsule, but they also allow you to tap them to open up an expanded card. So, there's this charging status one, there's a music player card with media playback controls, there's a timer card and a torch slider. Plus, there's a handful more as well. And that's not to mention that you can also set up gestures and also notifications. And as you can see, they all look and feel really, really slick. So much so that to me, it almost feels as though it's a system level feature that Google have implemented themselves almost. Then check this out. If I simply long press my phone selfie camera here, I can then draw the letter C. And just like that, my phone's camera app will launch. Or again, if I long press the selfie camera and this time draw the letter S, the

5:21 settings app gets launched. And this is actually thanks to two apps. One called Smart Action Notch, which is what unlocks that selfie camera shortcut. But then the main app in question, which is what unlocks that drawing gesture functionality, is this one here called Glyph. With the app open, you just tap add app, give it a name. So let's type in my go-to reminder app of choice, Remy. Then you tap launch app. Search for the app that you're after. So again, Remy reminders for me. Then you select it. From there, you simply tap here to open the draw gesture interface. Then just draw whatever gesture that you like. So let's do a tick like so. Then you hit done and then save. And that's it. Now when I come home, long press my selfie camera and draw that matching gesture. Boom. My reminder app immediately opens.

6:06 All right. Next up, we have an app called Glass Widgets. And I'll be honest, I did not have switching away from KWGT on my 2026 Bingo card, but lo and behold, thanks to Glass Widgets, I officially have. So, just for reference, this is the new and improved home screen setup that I've been rocking on my Pixel 11 Pro Fold. And first things first, I've actually been using Smart Launcher as my default home screen launcher, which honestly works surprisingly well. So, hats off to Google and the Smart Launcher team for their efforts in keeping third party launchers alive. But then, as you can see, I have these two really clean and modern looking widgets on my home screen. Both of which were created using the Glass Widgets app. And those are just two of the 350 plus widgets available within the app. All of which have this lovely frosted glass

6:52 design language. And I tested a heap of these glass style widget apps when I was first toying with this home screen setup. And as far as I'm concerned, none came even close to the polish and finished look offered by the glass widgets app. Then we've got a fairly fresh off the press live wallpaper app called Weatherland. And I'm not usually that big on live wallpaper apps, but this one is so beautifully implemented that it absolutely deserved a mention. As you can see, Weatherland replaces your phone's wallpaper with this incredibly highquality animated one that emulates what the weather is doing in your current location. And that's kind of it. But you can also add a really neat depth effect clock and date to the wallpaper if you like. You can also change the scene manually via the app settings if you prefer a certain style. Plus, there are a bunch of little settings and tweaks that you can

7:37 customize to your liking as well. Okay, halfway down the list and next up, we have an app called Fravia. And if you saw Google's new Rambler feature exclusive to Google Pixel phones and you wish that your phone had it too, well then you are seriously going to love this app. It's basically the exact same thing as Google's Rambler, but where Rambler is limited to just Google Pixel phones, Fravia not only works on any Android phone, but it also works on Windows devices. And there's a Mac version in the pipeline, too. As a very quick overview, Fravia will show you a little microphone icon whenever your phone's keyboard is active. And when you tap it, you can then speak freely for as long as you like, and Fra will capture the entire thing. You can even make mistakes and correct yourself or verbally dictate punctuation or emojis.

8:24 But then once complete, you tap the microphone icon again and within mere moments, Fraia will insert a cleaned up version of your spoken text. And just to show you how useful this is, here's a sideby-side comparison up against Google's own Rambler. This is me doing a very simple um voicetoext transcript demo. And uh as you can see, I'm intentionally adding in a few ums and rs uh throughout just so you can see um how the cleanup feature compares. So yeah, without question, it is right up there in terms of how it compares to Google's Rambler feature. Plus, it is way more customizable, too. From there, we have an app called File Pipe. And if you're anything like me, then there's a very, very good chance that the

9:09 downloads folder on your phone looks something like this. Well, with Filepipe, you can make it look like this instead, and it takes less than a minute to set up. As you can see, I've already created a couple of rules, but to create a new one, you just tap the plus button here. Then, you can either set up your rule completely from scratch if you like, or I like using this use template option as my go-to starting point. From here, I'll select this installables option, and you can add in any additional file extensions if need be. But then, you just need to tap on pick folders and navigate to the folder that you want the app to search in. So, I'll navigate to my downloads folder. Then tap use this folder. Then, we want to select the destination folder, which I'm going to set to this APK's folder that I previously created in my downloads folder. And again, I'll tap use this folder. Then, down here, you can tweak

9:56 the operation settings if you like, but I'm going to leave these as is. Then, I'll tap on add schedule and save the default configuration. But once you're happy, you hit save, and that's it. Your brand new rule will run automatically in the background according to your schedule. or you can also manually initiate it by pressing the play button here. Speaking of APKs, next up is a super handy app that I've just started using called APK Converter. This app is a clean utility app that does exactly what it says on the tin. Converts various app files into standard APK files, making them much simpler to install directly on your phone without needing to use any additional workarounds. As you can see, it has the option to convert basically all the popular app format configurations, including files, XAPPK and APKM files, plus a few

10:43 more. And so, if you're like me and you download and install a bunch of non-play store apps, then as far as I'm concerned, APK Converter is a must-have going forward. Okay, from there, we've got two fitness related applications. And 2026 has been the year for me where I finally decided to put a real effort into my training, fitness, and diet. And after a couple of months of using Chat GPT to help build me a suitable weightlifting program, I decided that there had to be a better way to track my workouts. So, a couple of months ago, I went down a very deep rabbit hole to try and find an app that A looked good, b was free to use, at least for the most part, and that c allowed me to input my own training programs. And after quite a lot of digging around the Google Play Store, I finally discovered what I genuinely

11:30 think is the best weightlifting app available right now, which is this one here called Gravel. As you can see, it's got a very slick interface and design. So, it gets a tick there. It also lets you input your own training programs, there's another tick. But then, even better yet, if you only use it for manually inputed training programs, then it's completely free to use. Boom. All three ticks. Hence why I love using this app so much. Now, to be fair, there is a paid version of the app that allows you to make use of their AI created workouts. It also gives you access to premium support from Gravel Coaches, but here's the thing. I'd actually already built a very solid training program with the help of ChatJBT. So, all I had to do was just take the time to manually set up those workouts in Gravel once. And as a result, the app has been completely free for me to use. And what I love

12:15 about using the app is that when I open up one of my saved workouts, Gravel will automatically adapt all of my numbers based on how I scored the previous time that I completed a workout. That means I'm not having to calculate weight increases or rep changes on my own or with the help of chat GPT anymore cuz Gravel handles all of it automatically. I also love that it has a workout timer built in that tells you how long you should rest for and notifies you when you should start your next set of reps. So again, for me, this app has been a serious gamecher and has taken a good amount of the mental workload out of going to the gym. Then the next way that I've been improving my overall fitness these past few months is through increasing my daily step count. So that's where our next fitness related app comes in, which is this one here called Stride. This is an open-source app that's available to download via

13:01 GitHub. And as you can see, it is a beautifully designed step counter application that makes [music] tracking your steps each and every day just a really lovely experience. You've got this beautiful main page interface here with a large step counter up the top and various details below that. You've got this super fluid bottom bar for navigating to the history and awards tabs. And there's also a heap of customization tweaks found under the settings tab, including two really unique theme options if you want to give the app a completely different look. Although, keep in mind, these do need to be unlocked via upgrading to the premium version. The only feature that I really wish the app allowed for is connecting directly to fitness tracker devices so that you could get a real-time step count. But even without that feature, it's still an incredible app that I can see myself using quite a bit going forward.

13:47 [music] Okay, second to last. And if you're someone who uses a nothing phone, then this next app is one that you're definitely going to want to check out. It's called Essential Remapper. And as the name so helpfully implies, this app lets you remap the essential key on any supported nothing phone so that you can launch basically any action that you like from it. Now, this was technically already possible through the use of a couple of separate apps, which I actually demoed how to do in this video here, but Essential Remapper consolidates every step into the one app. And not only that, it actually adds in this beautifully designed custom UI to go with, which honestly makes it feel like a system level feature rather than a third party one. In fact, it's actually so well implemented that I could very well see nothing just buying this app from the developer at some point in the future. Anyhow, as you can see, the app lets you remap a single

14:34 press, a double press, and a long press separately. And you can remap all three button gestures with almost any action that you can think of. Plus, the app also lets you choose between the default nothing UI style, which is my personal favorite, or this more stock Android style, which honestly is equally just as nice. So, it's totally down to personal preference. Now, I will say the app does cost slightly more than you might expect, which may put some people off from even trying it in the first place, but for me, it is well worth the price of entry just because of how flawless the execution is. And so, last but absolutely not least, we have an app that I am almost positive will save you some money before the end of the year, and it's called Dropler. So, let's say you've got your eye on a product that you've been saving up for. So, as an example, I've got my eye on this 85mm f1.8 TT Artisan lens, which is currently

15:20 sitting at about $150 Australian, but I'm positive that I've seen it cheaper at some point in the past. So, all I need to do is grab the link, paste it in like so, then hit continue. Then you simply select the price from this drop-own list here. Then hit continue. Then tweak [music] any of these settings as you like. Then you hit save. Now anytime the price for that lens drops, I'll get notified. The free version of the app lets you watch up to five different products at the one time, but you can upgrade if you want to remove that restriction. But there you have it. 15 incredible apps, all of which, as I said, I'm officially dubbing as the best of 2026. If you enjoyed the video and downloaded even just one of the apps featured, then do me a favor by liking the video and hitting subscribe cuz that will tell YouTube to send it out into the algorithm. And as I said, let's see

16:07 if we can get this video to 10,000 likes cuz that would be amazing. Aside from that, thank you all very much for watching and I will catch you