Seven great Android apps of 2016

Here is a list of top apps that can make your smartphone shine.

The Google Play store has exploded in recent years, with a proliferation of apps that can cater to your every need. The problem is: there are just too many of them, even with editor’s picks, featured and best selling, top paid and top free categories there to help. And that’s why this list can help you. Even if you invest some cash for one of these apps, these make for a worthwhile purchase.

PixelPhone Dialer & Contact
Free
It is one of the most customisable and feature-packed phone apps around. PixelPhone comes with various themes to change the appearance, the ability to adjust font, dial pad and photo sizes, customisable shortcuts and gesture controls, the option to block calls, built in caller ID and more. All of that comes for free, but stump up for the $2.99 pro-version and you will also be able to record calls.

Pearltrees
Free
Unlike other file managers, Pearltrees allows you to create ‘collections’ which can include photos, web pages, files and notes. You can create collections of specific file types or specific themes or whatever other sorting method works for you and they are laid out in a colourful and easy to navigate manner.

Zinio
Free
Some say print is dead, but with Zinio it can live on in a digital world. The app gives you access to both the latest and back issues of thousands of magazines from around the world, letting you buy single issues or subscribe to your favourites. You can download the magazines to your mobile device, and with pinch and swipe controls, you can navigate a magazine even on smaller screens.

Dango
Free
If a picture’s worth a thousand words then Dango’s worth a million, as it puts a massive library of GIFs, emojis and stickers at your fingertips. The trouble then could potentially be finding relevant ones, but Dango solves that by analysing any message you send or receive from any app and suggesting an emoji or GIF to suit it.

Sleep as Android
Free + IAP for all features
Sleep as Android proves that there’s a lot more an alarm clock can do than just wake someone up. You can set it to wake you up after just 15 or 30 minutes if you want a short nap, record any noise so you’ll know if you snore or talk in your sleep, drift of f to soothing sounds, have a voice remind you that you’re sleeping to potentially allow lucid dreaming, make sure you get up on time by having to solve a problem to turn off the alarm and a lot more.

Bux
Free
If you find the idea of trading on the stock market slight ly intimidating, Bux eases you in and alleviates that fear by turning the whole thing into a game. Rather than trading real money you can start out by using ‘FunBux’ — an in-game currency, you start with 1,000 of and can use in place of real money to trade and invest in real stocks, currencies and indices. Bux isn’t the only stocks app to offer virtual currency, but it simplifies the whole process, with a slick interface and explanation for every screen, so you can easily learn the stock market basics.

Pushbullet
Free
Pushbullet is all about saving time and not having to dig out your phone every five minutes. Need to get a file or link from your phone to your computer or viceversa? Pushbullet can do that in a couple of taps. It’s one of those apps that we wonder how we ever did without now we’ve got it.