5 great free Android apps that do amazing things the iPhone can’t (June 2014)

Android fans, it’s time for another installment in BGR’s popular series on great Androidapps. But these aren’t just any Android apps, of course. These are fantastic apps that take advantage of Android’s open nature to provide users with awesome features that iPhone users can only dream of.

Looking for more awesome Android apps? Be sure to check out earlier posts in this series.

Apple unveiled iOS 8 earlier this month, and we took an in-depth look at it in our iOS 8 preview. The company did a good job of expanding iOS’s capabilities and adding thousands of new APIs for developers, but there are still a number of areas where Android is far more versatile and flexible than iOS.

We have covered some truly amazing apps in previous installments in this series, and now it’s time to continue with five more great apps that do amazing things the iPhone can’t.

Themer

The ability to truly customize your Android phone in order to make it your own is one of the many great things about the platform that Apple refuses to permit in iOS.

One awesome option that allows users to quickly and easily customize the interface on their handsets is Themer.

Themer launcher has themes with HD wallpaper, icon packs, and pre-configured widgets for any mood or occasion. Flip through our extensive library of free, premium themes. Your phone will instantly look amazing and feel brand new. Just hit “Apply” and everything is set up for you.

Themer also makes your phone smarter with Smart Categories that auto-categorize your apps, making them easier to find and launch. Other features include a completely customizable app drawer (with your choice of a dark or light theme) and full integration of Zooper Widget Pro allowing for the utmost in customizability.

Features:
- All themes are free, more than 10 new themes added per week!
- Full icon pack support.
- Over 325 premium themes to choose from: Card UI, Nature, Space, Minimal, and many more.
- Easily go back to your old homescreen if you want.
- All themes are customizable, or you can use them as they are.
- App icon gestures.
- Themer Actions learn your app preferences. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Pandora or Spotify for music, or WeatherBug or AccuWeather for weather. Themer will learn what you like and always get it right.

Themer is a free download in Google’s Play store.

Download Themer

Battery Defender

Battery life is still one of the biggest barriers standing between us and the ideal smartphone experience. You can spend time thinking about how you might change your habits to conserve battery power, or you can make Android work for you.

1 tap to extend your battery life!

Try this free app if you don’t want to pay for other battery saver or battery doctor apps or night mode.

■ How to use
—————————–
1. Automatically, just enable it.
2. Shows battery percent in the notification bar.
3. Fast wifi/data/bluetooth switch.
4. App white list for streaming apps.

■ How it works
—————————–
1. Automatically disable WiFi and data connection after you turning off your screen(with 15~20 secs latency).
2. Genius Sync, allow app to sync every 15 minutes but save battery.
3. Quiet sleeping. Disable data network and WiFi connections when you are sleeping. Sleeping time can be adjusted as your prefer.
4. Low Battery Policy. When battery is running out, it will disable data network and WiFi when you are not using your phone.

Best of all, the app is free.

Download Battery Defender

Fences

Automate… everything.

Fences by Stinger Solutions is a bit like a simplified version of Tasker, an incredible task automation app we covered in an earlier installment in this series.

The app allows users to build virtual fences around various locations and create various tasks that will be performed automatically when the handset arrives at or leaves each location.

Automate your phone. Let us worry about setting up your phone the way you like it.

Create custom profiles that can perform over a dozen actions when various triggers occur. Create a geofence around all of your favorite movie theaters to silence your phone. Phone about to run out of battery? Create a profile to disable wifi, data, account sync and many more. The possibilities are endless.

A simple user interface allows you to setup the app how you want it to work and forget about it. We will do the rest. Everything we do has your battery level in mind.

Fences is completely free in the Play store.

Download Fences

AcDisplay

Android’s notification system is already the best in the business, but some Android phone users — Moto X users, specifically — can enjoy an even better notification setup on their lock screens.

Now, that great experience is available to everyone.

AcDisplay is a new way of handling notifications in Android.
It will let you know about new notifications by showing a minimal, beautiful screen, allowing you to open them directly from the lock screen. And if you want to see what’s going on, you can simply take your phone out of your pocket to view all the latest notifications, in a similarly pleasing and minimalistic manner.

Features:
- Great design and awesome performance.
- Active mode (uses the device’s sensors to wake your device up when you need it.)
- An ability to use AcDisplay as lockscreen.
- Translated to all most popular languages.
- Incredible level of stability.
- Inactive hours (to save some battery.)
- Enable only while charging.
- Lots of another features such as: Blacklist, Dynamic background, Low-priority notifications and much more.

AcDisplay is a free download.

Download AcDisplay

Mumble!

Mumble! by HyperByte is a very unique app that introduces “intelligent vibrations” to Android phones, giving users complete control over vibrating alerts and adds awesome functionality most people never would have even considered.

The tyrannical dark age of dumb vibrations is over. Welcome to world’s first intelligent vibrations, this is what the future feels like.
(Compatible with most SMS and Instant Message apps)

Please try “Mumble! Basic” first to make sure that it works with your phone/messaging app before upgrading to this FULL version. After upgrading, please uninstall the free version for best results.

* Do you hate being bothered by annoying one word answers?
* Have you ever wanted to know if a message was short and boring, or LONG AND EXCITING!!!!!
* Want to know if someone is asking you a question?
* Want to know if a message is good news, or bad news?
* Having a bad day and only want to look at your phone if you’re getting a happy message?
* Wish your phone wouldn’t vibrate when getting spam?
* Do you wish that you wouldn’t get an annoying second buzzing from your friend fixing a typo they just sent a few seconds ago?
* Do you wish you knew if you were getting a dirty joke from your friends before pulling out your phone in the presence of others?
* Want to ignore all messages about business when you’re away on holidays?
* Want to ignore all messages when you’re sleeping… unless it’s an emergency?

Mumble! is a revolutionary new vibrating notification app for text messages. It’s the first and only app that allows you to have a sense of the emotion, content, length, and importance of the messages you receive before reading them. This innovative idea combined with advanced algorithms makes Mumble! incredibly intelligent in order give you an unparalleled experience.

Mumble! recognizes over 100 emoticons/Emojis AND thousands of key words/acronyms/phrases, and compensates for minor spelling mistakes or excessive letter usage in order to accurately determine the meaning, category (Question, NSFW, Business, etc.), and content of the messages you receive.

Features:
• Smart and Dynamic vibration notifications based each message you receive
• Ignore annoying messages:
- Single word responses
- Typo fixing
- Duplicate messages
- SPAM
• Either ignore or recognize various types of message based on their context:
- Happy / Positive
- Sad / Negative
- Question
- NSFW
- Business / Money
- Emergency / Urgent
• Customized Filters allow you to recognize or ignore your own choice of keywords and phrases
• Smart Sleep Mode allows you to ignore all messages for a set amount of time
- With the option to still be alerted if it’s an emergency or urgent
• Highly customizable
• Very light weight (doesn’t kill your battery or slow down your phone)
• Safe and Private: Message processing is done locally on your phone. Mumble! doesn’t store your messages and it doesn’t send them over the Internet
• Compatible with: Almost every SMS app, WhatsApp, Kik, Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Viber, Line, Telegram, TextSecure, Text Me!, WeChat, More coming soon!
• Also works great alongside other 3rd party notification apps!

Two versions of Mumble! are available, a free basic version and a standard version available for $1.99.

Download Mumble! Basic

Download Mumble!