10 best customization apps for Android - Android

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10 best customization apps for Android - Android

Android customization is super fun because you can do all sorts of things. Here are the best Android customization apps.

Volume Control Panel Pro best customization apps for Android
Despite more restrictions than years ago, Android is still a vastly more open platform than its competitors. You can still do almost whatever you want within reason. There are a variety of apps that change your experience. You can change your email app or your launcher for different experiences. However, that’s easy stuff. There are a variety of other entertaining ways to customize your Android device. Here are the best customization apps for Android!

Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority


This list focuses heavily on changing or theming UI elements specifically. If you want home screen themes and visual customizations, we recommend checking out our best theming apps list here.

We’d also like to give an honorable mention to OEM tools to change things up. For instance, stock Android lets you choose between navigation buttons and gestures. Samsung has Good Lock and that lets Samsung users do all sorts of crazy things to their devices. It’s worth Googling around a bit to see if your phone OEM has some hidden or extra tools to customize your experience.

  1. Gboard and SwiftKey
  2. Energy Ring
  3. IFTTT
  4. KWGT, KLWP, and KLCK
  5. Reddit

  1. Sharedr
  2. Substratum and Synergy
  3. Tasker
  4. Volume Control Panel Pro
  5. Zedge
  6. Bonus: Basically any Android launcher

Gboard or SwiftKey

Price: Free

Gboard and SwiftKey are arguably the two best keyboard apps on Android. They both feature extensive theming, decent features, gesture typing, and a variety of other features. The experience is a little different between the two. Gboard is a little simpler with more mainstream features while SwiftKey is a little more power user friendly. In any case, you use your keyboard a ton and you can make both of these look basically however you want to. This is a good place to start if customization is your goal. Both apps are entirely free with no advertising. SwiftKey used to charge for themes, but not anymore.

DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY!

Gboard screenshot 2020




Energy Ring and Energy Bar

Price: Free / Up to $24.99

Energy Ring and Energy Bar are two decent Android customization apps. Energy Bar puts a battery gauge along the top of your phone in the form a bar that goes down as your battery does. Meanwhile, the Energy Ring variant turns your punch hole camera into a battery gauge. It’s a neat way to kind of lean into the whole hole punch thing while still giving yourself some functionality. The apps support most modern Samsung devices and the generic Energy Ring app adds several more. Everything else can use Energy Bar. The apps have various customizations to make them your own and they seem to work pretty well without any ridiculous battery drain. The price varies but only because the developer works on an optional donation system.

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IFTTT

Price: Free

IFTTT is an exceptionally powerful app. You use it to automate a variety of tasks. It works almost seamlessly between 600 different apps, including Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. You can have it do a variety of things and there are a ton of IFTTT recipes on the web. This app customizes the stuff that your phone does rather than how it looks. With all of the compatible apps and the thousands of recipes, IFTTT does so probably better than any other app aside from maybe Tasker. It’s also entirely free with no in-app purchases or ads.

DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY!

KWGT, KLWP, KLCK

Price: Free / $5.99 (each)

KWGT, KLWP, and KLCK let you custom make a bunch of stuff for your phone. KWGT is a widget maker that lets you add a bunch of information, skins, and designs. KLWP is a live wallpaper creator that does basically the same thing as KWGT but for wallpapers. Finally, KLCK lets you custom design a lock screen. All three apps have steeper than average learning curves, but you can also find pre-made themes on the Play Store and in other places in case you just want to borrow someone else’s design. You can do a lot of seriously cool things with these apps if you take the time to learn them.

DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY!

Reddit

Price: Free / $3.99 per month / $29.99 per year

Reddit is a decent spot for a lot of Android customization. There are various subreddits dedicated to the task, including ones for popular customization apps like IFTTT and Tasker along with a generic AndroidThemes subreddit with a bunch of neat home screen ideas. Most posts show you or tell you how to achieve a certain affect, which apps to download, and how to set up everything. There are icon packs, KWGT templates, wallpapers, and anything else you can think of. Here is an example of the kind of stuff we mean. It can get a bit confusing and there is a lot of information and a few idiots here and there, but generally it’s a decent overall experience. We’d also like to give an honorable mention to TruePick’s (Google Play link) which does the same thing on a smaller scale.

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Reddit screenshot 2020 2

Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority




Sharedr

Price: Free

Sharedr is one of the more unique customization apps. This one deals with the prompt that comes up whenever you share something. These days, the prompt shows a list of apps along with a random list of your favorite contacts. Sharedr brings order to the chaos. You can customize the prompt to only show the apps you actually want and remove the random contacts entirely if you want to. It takes a little work to set up. However, this app makes sharing stuff a lot easier once you put the time into customizing it to your tastes. It’s also entirely free with no ads or in-app purchases.

DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY!

09/10/2020 09:42 PM