I’m not giving up my iPhone entirely, it just made sense to have an android for a bit until I can afford a new iPhone. In the meantime what apps are most celebrated? Have not used android since probably 2018-19.
YouTube Revanced - add free youtube
HDO, Onstream, Film+ - free Netflix, Disney, Amazon etc.
Nova launcher
SwiftKey, Gboard - alternative keyboards
BuzzKill gives you complete control over your Android notifications. It lets you filter out unwanted notifications and customize how you receive the important ones.
There will be a lot of answers here about which apps are great on Android. I’m here to tell you which apps suck on Android (most of the important native apps), and how to get replacements that might help your transition.
Nova Launcher — beats the hell out of the native Android home screen.
The native Contacts app in Android is a convoluted disaster. Right Contacts is donationware that looks and feels a lot more like the iOS contacts app, and is 100x more user-friendly.
The native Calendar app in Android is…a convoluted disaster. DigiCal is my favorite replacement for many reasons — a combination Month + Agenda view (like Fantastical or Calendar 366 on iOS) with a super clean and intutive UI, the ability to show empty days in the agenda, the ability to set 0-minute durations (I just need to know when things start), lots of customization, etc.
The native texting app is…a convoluted disaster. The cleanest, most intuitive replacements are Wize SMS and Textra. Both have a few minor shortcomings — for example, I use Wize because Textra has no “mark unread” and no archive. But I keep both, hoping Textra might add those features someday (even though users have been requesting them for ages).
The native phone app…is also convoluted compared to iOS. Unfortunately, there’s no good alternative that has built-in visual voicemail. But if you don’t mind going elsewhere for your VVM, Right Dialer is from the same team as Right Contacts, and similarly designed to behave more like iOS than Android.
Google Photos is — you guessed it — a convoluted train wreck. I use the open-source Simple Gallery,* but it’s recently been bought by a company that eats up small developers and riddles their apps with ads and tracking cookies, so I expect it will start to suck soon. Other good alternatives include Right Gallery (yep, same guys again, and yep, emulates iOS style), Gallery Elite, F-Stop, and Aves Gallery.
- 2024-07 update: I’ve switched to Fossify Gallery — a free, open-source, identical fork of Simple Gallery from before Simple Gallery was sold and ruined.
Aqua Mail is the most powerful, deeply customizable mobile email app out there. Best feature: split the screen with mailboxes on top, message list/reading pane on the bottom — no need for a sidebar. Been using it for over 10 years.
Via is my favorite Android browser. Open source, incredibly lightweight (9MB, whereas Chrome is 30MB, and many others are even bigger), but still has built-in adblock, a customizable UI, and the best tab handling of any mobile browser I’ve used.
Tell Me is an app that lets you create text-to-speech sound files. I mention this because, unlike in iOS, you can create your own notification sounds in Android, so I have all my apps just speak their names, and I don’t have to memorize which ding-bing-pling-plink-plonk-boing goes with which app.
Floating Notes is a nifty app that lets you float “post-it” notes along the edge of your screen. Great for persistent reminders of things you need to do.
The following are cross-platform.
Weawow is far and away the best weather app. Very intuitive UI, with deep-dives available into forecasts, and not only multiple sources, but those sources are displayed in a way that allows you to compare them side-by-side. (Available on iOS too, BTW.)
Diarium for long-form journaliing.
Daylio is incredible for bullet-journaling, and wildly customizable (I use it for time management, partner uses it for medical tracking).
You can’t beat MultiTimer for timers of any kind.
UpNote is, hands down, the best note-taking app on every platform (unless you need collaboration).
TickTick is a really powerful to-do app — rather convoluted, so if you just need the basics look at something simple like HabitNow.
Enpass has been my password manager of choice for years because you choose your own storage instead of having to trust the vendor (among other reasons). (Full disclosure: I work for them now, but used the app a long time before the job.)
SpotTube is a kick-ass music-streaming app that uses your Spotify library to find and stream your music ad-free from elsewhere.
And just for fun, a few best-in-class games — all very small, clean, and basic, without bloat, but do what they say on the tin:
Welcome to the freedom of Android. Enjoy the unwalled garden.
/Devoted Mac guy who left iOS for Android several years ago and never looked back
What stuff do you usually use?
For a gallery app: Stock apps are good, Photos or gallery go is also pretty decent
For media playing : VLC
For podcasts : Pocket Casts
For file explorer: Solid explorer
Launcher : Nova, Niagara , Microsoft. Google has made launchers suck because of their gesture implementation but you can still try these. Nova is my personal favourite.
If windows user: Link to windows app and /or Intel unison. Depending on the brand of Android link to windows can be amazing. It has automatic clipboard sync for some brands , and for those that don’t you can use swiftkey
Niagra launcher. Value your mental health and get yourself a nice aesthetic. You’ll thank me later.
FDroid— Alt Store For Free And Open-source applications
Seal— Download videos/audio from YouTube
Proton VPN— Free VPN that doesn’t suck
Kiwi Browser— Get all chrome extensions on mobile
Antenna Pod— Podcast Listening Application (FOSS)
OSS Document Scanner— FOSS Docu Scanner
Perplexity— Google on steroids
AdGuard first thing 
Ankidroid : to learn EVERTHING through flashcard you make or download (free on Android)
Mull browser (Firefox-based) : top-notch browser focused on security and compatible with FF extension
Tasks.org : foss and privacy-friendly to-do lists & reminders for Android
Taskers : to automate everything on your phone
Aurora & F-droid or Obtinium : to download and update your apps
Aves Libre (foss) or F-stop : galleries that deals greatly with tags
MiXplorer : files manager
Showly OSS : to track your tv shows
Aegis : OTP authentificator
Those are free (except for f-stop) and mainly open-source.
Honestly if you are new to Android start with the basics: a good keyboard (GBoard), a solid browser (Firefox or Chrome), Mail app (Gmail or Spark) and maybe a podcast player (AnthenaPod or Pocket Cast).
If you want to play around and feel the freedom that Android can give you try a launcher (Smart, Nova or Niagra) and maybe peek into the FOSS world of open source and free apps on F-Droid
Tiktok revanced. Ad free tiktok with a handful of new features.
Reddit Revanced Extended. Basically Reddit premium with no ads and extra features. No pesky notification requests when you join a subreddit. Etc.
WARNING: You might not want an iPhone afterwards.
Tasker, Swiftly Switch pro, Click2chat, Bitwarden, Localsend, youtube vanced, Pocket, Cromite, Shortcut Maker
MacroDroid - powerful (but user-friendly) automations
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.arlosoft.macrodroid
I recently switched from iOS to Android, Here are the list of apps I use :
- YouTube Revanced
- Infinity for Reddit
- Localsend (Best for sending files to multiple devices)
- IFTTT ( Automation)
What phone are you switching to?
Gboard. I switched from android to iOS and Gboard has to be the app I miss the most.
It might help if you listed some of your must-have apps on iOS. Or some things you want to do on Android that weren’t on iOS.
Most popular apps are on both platforms.
Just wanna know, why are you switching from iphone to android?
Namida for Music and Droid-ify for FOSS apps.
Google rewards, wavelet, web video caster