Best Everything: Best Free Android Apps 2016

All free apps aren't bad! Here are some of the best free apps available in the Google Play Store this year. I feel every app on this list is worth trying.

Android Pay

Android Pay, with its availability on most NFC-enabled Android phones, could soon become more popular with its introduction in more markets.

Currently available across the US and the UK, it's also simple to use. Just install the app, add details of cards and start spending at any location has contactless terminals, by tapping your phone against the card reader.

Download via Google Play Store

Best File Manager

Solid Explorer

Availability: Free

Like you'd expect from a file manager, Solid Explorer is easy to use offers quick access to frequently used files like photos, music, videos, and even apps. It also allows custom bookmarks to be set for specific locations. So, if you keep accessing the same locations repeatedly, this is a blessing.

There are two versions of Solid Explorer available in the Play Store: one is the Solid Explorer File Manager and another is the Solid Explorer File Manager Classic. The Classic version is just left around for its early users, as they preferred this design over the newer version. I personally prefer the newer application, but it's just based on your preference.

Solid Explorer File Manager: Download via Google Play Store

Solid Explorer Classic: Download via Google Play Store

Best Music Player

Pi Music Player

Availability: Free

With a stylish, simple Material Design look, topped up with three different themes, and easy navigation the Pi Music Player is anything but a simple player, as it includes a 5-band equaliser, a sleep timer, gesture controls, widgets and a tool to help you cut down tracks into ringtones. Along with all the basics, such as lock screen controls, playlists and album artwork. And guess what it's completely free, with no adverts.

Download via Google Play Store

Best Antivirus

Bitdefender Antivirus Free

Availability: Free

Bitdefender Antivirus Free is one of the lightest, the most inconspicuous option on this list. It only has two features which are scanning and cleaning your device and it also offers real-time antivirus protection. 

The real-time protection keeps an eye on what the installed apps are doing. This is a by-product of the Bitdefender’s antivirus suite, but I that this option requires zero configuration and also lightweight, which could be its advantage. 

Download via Google Play Store

Best Photo Scanning App

PhotoScan

Availability: Free

I think it's probably that time of the year where you need to clear up your attic and go through that heap of old photos albums that you know won't last forever. Well, you could make those photos last forever by digitising it maybe. Google's PhotoScan app lets you turn your photos into high-quality digital images in just a couple of minutes.

If you're thinking, this isn't your regular photo scanning app. PhotoScan has you capture a snapshot of the whole photo, then it places four points near each corner of the image, which you need to hover over each of the corners, and then it captures image data. The app then slices up the image into segments and puts them back together as a digital image, barring the glare and distortion. Well, you guessed it right, it then automatically backs up the photos to Google Photos. 

Download via Google Play Store

Best Browser

Apus

Availability: Free

Apus is everything its described as, a lightweight and powerful browser that's just right for daily browsing. Apus Web browser is aimed to provide the smooth and fluid browsing experience even on slower internet speeds. 

At 2MB it not only provides a great browsing experience but also includes add-ons such as AdBlock, Flash Player, Speed Mode, Full Screen Mode, Incognito Mode, No Image Mode and also the ability to save the web page offline for viewing it later.

Download via Google Play Store

Best Google Maps-Alternative

MapFactor GPS Navigation Maps

Availability: Free

Google Maps is probably the best GPS navigation you could get on the Google Play Store. But you may be a rebel, and wouldn't mind trying out some alternatives. So here's a Google-Maps alternative I would recommend. The MapFactor GPS Navigation Maps is the classic turn-by-turn navigation app that installs and downloads the map files to your SD card so you can use it offline if you need to. 

It uses map data from OffStreetMap which supports several countries around the world with the list being updated every day. It’s may not be as polished as Google Maps but it is effective and enjoyable to use.

Download via Google Play Store

Best Photo Filter App

Prisma

Availability: Free

Prisma is an app you probably may have used by now. But it's surely good at what it does. Prisma is basically a photo filter app, which with each of its filters completely reinvents your photo into one of dozen of art styles it features.

It essentially changes your boring photos into interesting ones and eye-catching ones into masterpieces. 

Download via Google Play Store

Best Video Player

MX Player

Availability: Free

MX Player is one of the top choices when it comes to Video Player on Android. Well, surely will be all thanks to its wide range of features such as multi-core decoding, CPU optimisations, child lock, and ability to play almost any type of video with subtitles. The player also allows you to control the playback with simple gestures, like swiping up/down for volume adjustments or swiping left/right for rewind/forward.

Download via Google Play Store 

Best Photo-Editing App

Photoshop Mix

Availability: Free

So Adobe announced an update to its Photoshop Mix app earlier at the Adobe Max 2016 keynote, and it isn't bad when you consider it for photo-editing. Adobe's Photoshop Mix doesn't quite provide you with the full Photoshop experience, but it is a smooth photo editing app designed for fast and intuitive use on a smartphone. You can quickly use it to crop and merge images, adjust the colours, add filters and do more fine-tuned editing of a specific segment of a picture.

Download via Google Play Store

Best Wallpaper App

Wally

Wally features a collection of full HD, QHD and 4K wallpapers available for easy downloads. You can search by tags, resolution quality, aspect ratio, and category. The wallpaper app is open source and totally free to use. The collections are updated every day and are CC0 photos available for free use.

Download via Google Play Store

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Uber Weddings arrives in India; Lets You Provide Hassle-Free Rides to Guests

Wedding season has arrived and due to the recent demonetisation announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, people associated with weddings are facing many issues related to the shortage of paper cash. If you were concerned about the travelling needs of your relatives and wedding guests during the current cash crunch, Uber has a good news for you. The company has come up with features dedicated to weddings to ensure that going cashless becomes easier for those involved in the wedding.

The latest feature by the taxi-aggregator, Uber Weddings, allows users to purchase promo codes in advance to make Uber rides free for their family and guests. The feature will be available in 12 cities including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, New Delhi, Pune, and Udaipur. Uber Weddings will be available till February next year and also comes with the facility of customised promo codes as per the user's requirement.

Uber has tied up with wedding planning website WedMeGood for the feature and will provide on-demand services for various pre-wedding functions like bachelor/bachelorette parties, dinners etc.
Prior to the wedding, the users are required to purchase a "specific number of Uber rides of set denominations (promo code based) on a specifically dedicated page on the WedMeGood website," the company said in its release. They can then share these codes with their guests and family for rides.

"The promo codes can also be customised with the host's name or their wedding hashtag which will be printed by Uber and made available within 3 working days of the purchase request," Uber India said in a press release.

Uber Weddings feature is already available in Washington DC, San Francisco, New York, Boston and LA, the company said.

"...UberWEDDINGS provides an easy way for hosts to ensure that all wedding-related travel in the city is managed through cashless pre-generated promo codes. So whether it is about hopping between markets, finding the perfect outfit, or getting guests to the venue, Uber will make it happen in a pre-decided budget, at a push of a button. All our users need to focus on is the wedding," Uber India's Delhi & NCR General Manager Prabhjeet Singh was quoted as saying in company's release.

Source: WedMeGood

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Google launches PhotoScan, a new app powered by Google Photos to scan old photos

Google has announced the launch of a new product, PhotoScan to help you scan and digitise old photographs. The new product is powered by Google Photos and ensures that the old photos scanned by PhotoScan will be clear and glare-free which usually happens when we try taking images of old photographs using the smartphone.

The app can detect edges, straighten the orientation, straighten and rotate the picture to scan them as properly as possible. The app uses augmented reality to create four points near the frame of the photo and uses the four photos to create an image composite without glare. The setup of the app is simple as it gives instructions on how to use the app properly. After you capture the image and the app creates a composite, you can adjust the corners and rotate the picture to your satisfaction.

The image is saved in the app, and you can save multiple apps at the same time to the phone storage after you are done. The scanned images can be saved to Google Photos for secure digital backup in hight quality. Google has launched the app for both Android and iOS users. Users can then open the saved photo in Google Photos to auto enhance, apply styles or edit light and colour in the pictures.

PhotoScan is being released as part of a broader update to Google Photos today that also includes new editing tools and automatically generated movies. The core Google Photos app now has a new "auto-enhance" feature that the company says does a better job in enhancing your photos with one tap. It also now has a series of filters, called "looks," that make different adjustments depending on the content of the photo. Photos with faces might get one treatment; landscapes will get another. You can also make fine-grained adjustments to your photos using new sliders under the existing "light," "color," and "pop" tools.

Google Photos is also expanding the number of automatically generated movies it will make on your behalf depending on the photos you have in your library. The movies, which made their debut in September, will soon have three more kinds of movies in their collection: one for the first few months of a newborn’s life; one for formal occasions like weddings; and one called "through the years" that offers a slideshow of photos from annual events like Thanksgiving and Christmas. New movies should start popping up in users’ Google Photos accounts over the next few weeks and months, the company said.

Download for Android
Download for iOS

Source: Google Blog

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Google kills Map Maker; To Integrate it with Google Maps

Google Map Maker is the latest Google product to be discontinued. Before you begin grieving, the good news here is that it'll be integrated with Google Maps, which means that just the standalone Map Maker tool will be discontinued. In a blog post, Google said this change will be carried out in March 2017.

If you don't know, Map Maker is Google's tool that lets you edit data in Google Maps. This is what allowed Google's community to update Google Maps much faster than any one entity can manage. Google's blog post reads: "Starting today, edits made on Google Maps will no longer be available for moderation on Map Maker. This will allow us to streamline our efforts, speeding up the time for an edit to get published."

The move intends to consolidate all maps data under one product and the Map Maker tool appears to have endured its usefulness for Google. "This update will enable us to focus on providing the best editing and moderation experience within Google Maps on both desktops and on mobile. We'll continue to roll out new features to make sure you're able to do most of the things you've grown accustomed to doing in Map Maker - like edit roads - leading up to March 2017 and after," the blog post adds.

If you want to continue to help improve Google Maps, Google says you should join the Local Guides program.

Source: Google Product Forums

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IRCTC, MobiKwik Partner on E-Cash Payments for Tatkal Bookings

It was just last year that IRCTC made MobiKwik wallet as the first payment option on IRCTC's Connect Android App. IRCTC also partnered with Paytm in September this year to allow users to book train tickets through the payment app and website. It had even tied up with Paytm last year to enable e-catering payments.

Now, in a bid to tackle the tatkal rush, payments app MobiKwik and IRCTC have joined hands to offer an alternative payment solution while booking tickets. Now, apart from paying via net banking, credit cards, and other wallets, users can now opt to pay directly from their MobiKwik wallet while booking tatkal tickets.

MobiKwik claims that users can pay with the wallet within 2 seconds, whereas other modes of payment usually take 10 to 20 minutes. This new e-cash payment introduction will annihilate the need to fill in card details, and wait for the bank to approve the transaction through authentication. Instead, IRCTC will instantly deduct the amount from your MobiKwik wallet without any authentication as a necessity.

Of course, for this to work, the user must have installed the app and have money in the wallet for seamless and fast payment. For those unaware, tatkal is a service provided by the Indian Railway to book emergency confirmed tickets one-day prior to travel. MobiKwik claims that over 15 percent daily ticket bookings for Indian Railways happen under tatkal, and the e-cash payment option helps in giving the user an added leverage to beat the rush.

This facility is available on the IRCTC website, and users can book their tickets using MobiKwik between 8am-12pm IST daily. Upasana Taku, Co-founder at MobiKwik said in a statement, "MobiKwik collaborated with Indian Railways to digitize payments on the IRCTC app and IRCTC FoodOnTrack app this year, and now we are powering payments for tatkal online, that will help users book tickets almost instantly. We are proud to support the largest rail network in Asia in their endeavor to digitize payments and provide the best payments experience to their users."

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Is 'Go Insta!' feature Instagram's take on Live Videos?

Facebook is apparently in the developing a live video feature for Instagram. It was reported by a Russian news site T Journal. Facebook is all-in on live video. It should come as no surprise that it brings the live video feature to one of its most valued acquisitions, Instagram.

According to the report, Instagram is testing live video in its 'Stories' feature. The service allows users to post images and video as part of a story, which then disappears after 24 hours similar to Snapchat. You can find it in the final version appearing at the top of the page with a 'LIVE' banner signifying that the user is broadcasting.

To go live, users just need to click a large red button titled 'Go Insta!' that will start the broadcast. I don't have the full details yet, but these live videos will probably be archived on Instagram, or at least in Stories for a 24 hour period. It seems scheduled live broadcasts will also be possible, judging by the screenshots.

Facebook has slowly but steadily become a go-to platform for experiencing video. More and more of the user's News Feed is composed of short news videos, friends' uploads and segments from Facebook Live. The Verge smartly notes:

"Facebook believes that fully immersive live experiences are the future — it's one of the reasons the company is investing so heavily in virtual reality — and it sees live video as a bridge to get there."

Live video on Instagram at the moment seems to be limited to Russian users, but it wouldn’t be too late for you to experience it in India.

Source: T Journal

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Chrome 54 for Android Adds Background Media Playback, Article Suggestions, and More

Google's Chrome browser has been updated for Android and the latest update to the browser adds features like background media playback to the app. Chrome 54, as its called, also carries certain performance improvements and bug fixes with itself. It is expected to roll out in the next few weeks.

With the addition of support for background media playback, users will be able to pause and play content from the notification itself. The update has further brought changes to the New Tab page which now includes suggested articles instead of bookmarks and recent tabs at the bottom of the page. Now, users will also be able to update their saved passwords when they change or reset it.

The update also brings some improvements for developers. Developers will now have an API that will allow their websites to switch to full-screen mode when the device is being used in landscape mode, without the requirement of pressing any button.

Further, the update brings along support for the Broadcast Channel API, which allows communication between different windows or tabs, iframes, and workers as long as they are on the same domain.

Source: Chrome Releases

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Instagram Finally Arrives on Windows 10 Desktops, Tablets

Instagram has finally arrived to the Windows 10 desktop and tablet. To recollect, Instagram first made its way to Windows 10 Mobile platform although it was limited to just the mobile users. Users can now download Instagram for Windows 10 PCs from the company's Windows App Store.

Similar to the mobile version of the app, Instagram for Windows 10 tablets will allow users to capture, edit, and share directly from the device. However, the Windows 10 devices should pack a camera to click images.

"Keep in mind that other devices running Windows 10 may not support certain features, like the ability to capture and upload photos and videos," the Windows App Store listing of Instagram notes. The app also includes all of the popular features including Instagram Stories, Direct, and Explore.

Back in April, Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram apps arrived together on the Windows platform. Instagram arrived for Windows 10 Mobile in April and is finally making its way to the Windows 10 desktop and tablets. Unfortunately, Instagram is still not "tailored" for iPads and users have to download a tweaked version of iPhone app.

"Today [Thursday], we're excited to expand to more of the Windows community by bringing Instagram to tablets running Windows 10," the Instagram team said in a blog post while announcing the availability for Windows 10 desktops and tablets.

Instagram in August crossed 1 billion downloads on Google Play and was the nineteenth app to do so on the Android platform. The app joined the likes of other popular apps from Facebook such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger. The image sharing platform already has a user base of 500 million monthly users.

Source: Instagram Blog

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Facebook Launches Workplace; to take on Slack for Intra-Office Communication

Facebook launched a workplace version of its mobile app and website on Monday, marking the social networking company's entry into the competitive and crowded enterprise software arena.

The product, they are calling Workplace by Facebook, had been in its testing phase for more than a year and will now be available to all businesses. It is designed for workplace communication and collaboration, putting Facebook in direct competition with the ever-increasing startup Slack and Skype Teams.

So basically, Workplace is a subscription product, with businesses paying $1 to $3 per user. And those who don't know Slack's least expensive business plan charges about $7 per user.

Workplace is the latest move by Facebook to take on competitors in all areas of social networking and mobile communications. Over the past several months it also has rolled out products to challenge the fast-growing photo-sharing app Snapchat.

The company is trying its best to overcome the fact that Facebook is not really viewed as a work tool and is often called a distraction in offices. Workplace does not require people to sign in with their personal accounts and limits the News Feed to company announcements, memos, and communications.

Facebook is building a direct sales force for Workplace and also working with professional services firms to get businesses signed up. "We want to replace a lot of old technologies like internal emails, mailing lists, newsletters," said Julien Codorniou, Facebook's global head of Workplace. "These are things that people want to get rid of."

Although its biggest markets for Workplace include the United States and the United Kingdom, Facebook is aggressively targeting businesses in emerging markets, including Africa and Asia, where some employees primarily rely on mobile phones.

It also is going after businesses with non-traditional desk workers where employees spend the majority or all of their time outside of offices. Facebook has more than 1,000 businesses signed up, the company said, with India as its biggest market.

Source: Facebook Newsroom

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Facebook Open Sources Its Object Recognition Machine Vision Software

Facebook has decided to make its set of vision software tools, used for object recognition in images, available to everyone by open sourcing the project. The set of tools, DeepMask, SharpMask, and MultiPathNet, were developed by the Facebook AI Research team and essentially work towards a process called segmentation to recognise objects by their shapes in images.

The research team has decided to share their research papers and demos along with the code for the tools with everyone in expectation "that they'll help rapidly advance the field of machine vision," it said in its blog on Thursday. The team further said that it will continue to publish its latest results and will update the open source tools we make available to the community.

All three of the research team's tools work in collaboration in order to distinguish objects and identify their type. In its blog, Facebook AI Research team said that the advancement in visual recognition technology helps visually challenged people in recognising the content of images that have no captions associated with them, without needing external help. The company rolled out this feature to its iPhone app in April.

Going ahead, the company says its goal is to "enable even more immersive experiences that allow users to 'see' a photo by swiping their finger across an image and having the system describe the content they're touching," it said in its blog.

Interestingly, the team is working towards applying these recognition techniques to videos as well.

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