The best Android apps of 2018

From wizard routines in Google Clock alarms to extensive wizard-compatible smart home device extensions, to redesigning visual responses, Google Assistant has been a busy year. It seems like a century ago when Android Auto added Google Assistant, but this simple addition has made millions of drivers safer, especially during those long and frustrating holiday campaigns.

Whether you need to control your lights, smart cards, thermostats or speakers / monitors in the warmth of the bed or in the remotest corners of the world, the new Google Home View Home mode Home makes it easy for you. Being able to add home members to use what you have already set up is a huge step forward in making smart homes more accessible for all skill levels.

Keep your Evernote and Todoist, Google Keep is with me until the end of the line and it is 100% free. Keep is another Google app that is displaying a visual update this year. While I'm still waiting for a dark theme, the 12 extended color options, the addition of subtasks to the checklists and the improved integration of Drive make Keep the only task manager and d & # 39; inspiration. advice that I use.

Light the confetti cannons, the boys; YouTube for Android finally had a dark theme this year, more than 6 months after iOS and years after YouTube.com. This year has also seen the expansion of YouTube Red to YouTube Premium in more than a dozen countries, with a major redesign of YouTube Music, which fully showcases Google's prowess in the field of YouTube. artificial intelligence. Now, show me this Lion King trailer.

This service could be the only reason to actually buy movies. Movies Anywhere is the multi-platform bin that lets you watch your movies on almost any platform. You can use it to check the prices of digital retailers such as Vudu, Google Play, FandangoNow and Amazon Prime Video. If you buy a movie, it's better to be compatible with Movies Anywhere!

It's been years since I'm a third-party lurker, but this year the official Reddit app has exceeded the Relay, Boost and other bounds this year. The new Reddit website has been a source of questionable debates, but I rather appreciated that the new website looks at the ongoing improvements to the Android app. Now, if only / r / Write invitation messages did not absorb all my lunch breaks …

Dark theme! Messages for the web! The Google SMS application has been a great year and, even though the themes of Mood Messenger and Textra I miss, the only third-party SMS application capable of competing Posts for the Web is Pulse's paid SMS synchronization service , compatible with more platforms. and browsers. The theme of the messages may be missing, but the dark theme is a welcome addition.

Android Central has slowed down for years because Slack is one of the best chat apps on the market, both professionally and personally. The threads allow us to go into details without sending spam to the main chat and everyone can download custom slackmoji such as: bader: or: jerrybird: for more style. All he needs now is a dark theme; I do not denigrate my bosses when I ping them at 2 o'clock in the morning. ?

Backing up and sharing photos are two of the most important features of our phones because your camera is the one you use and we use the cameras on our phone. a lot. Free Google Photos backups are always the best way to save, catalog, and share your photos. The integration with Google Assistant and Google Lens also allows you to easily search and identify images.

Microsoft has improved its greatly qualified Android game this year and the Microsoft Launcher Team team ensures that updates and new features arrive faster than any other major launcher on the market today. Granted, it is very focused on Microsoft services – like the recent Cortana integration – but it's a launcher that improves every month.

If at the beginning of the year, you had told me that the launcher that I would use the most this year was Smart Launcher, I would have made fun of you. Then Smart Launcher 5 arrived and I fell in love with me. The drawer of flexible categorized applications is better than ever and with the integration of Icon Pack Studio and a system of widgets without grid, SL5 facilitates the creation and switching of themes .

Big brother of Kustom Widget maker KWGT, the unique theme of Kustom Live Wallpaper has grown tremendously this year. Although SL5's gridless widgets are nice, nothing beats accurate placement, edge-to-edge widget, and placement of elements in KLWP. Formulas and menus can be daunting, but KLWP's strong community, especially on Reddit, helps make any theme possible.

Tasker has somewhat stagnated in previous years, but the new owner João Dias – maker of the AutoApps plug-in suite and Tasker's hottest fan – the automation application has undergone a redesign of the user interface and major updates in the last few months. With TaskerNet and improved export / import, it has never been easier to share, tweak and create incredible profiles and tasks for Android (and beyond). of the).

File managers are one of those "basic" applications that most users take for granted, but an excellent file manager can do much more than help you find your files. The robust integration of cloud storage allows me to easily copy files to and from Google Drive, but what I really like is the streaming media capabilities that I can use to stream Drive videos directly to a video playback app or Chromecast!

Gboard's keyboard continues to dominate the market with an ever increasing number of features on Android, iOS and soon on Chromebooks! Some additions this year, such as creating your own emoji pack or gifs, may seem trivial, but Gboard has also added support for dozens of new languages, as well as the new floating keyboard mode that simplifies filling. forms.