We still have a few more weeks before Year 2014 draws to a close but Google has already named the Best Android Apps for the past 12 months. Among the more than one million apps available for download from the Google Play Store, the Internet giant highlighted more than 70 apps from different categories: Productivity, Education, Entertainment, Travel, Social, Personalization, Shopping, Sports & Fitness, Photography, Music & Audio, and News.
We’re not sure what was Google’s criteria for saying these are the best Android apps but perhaps these are the most popular–the ones with most downloads. Or maybe these are the apps that brought Google a lot of money this year? We don’t know.
Here are the best Android apps this 2014 under each category:
Education
• Amazing World Atlas
• Child Mode & Time Education
• Craftsy Classes
• Duolingo
• Kids Coloring Fun
• Lumosity
• Monki Chinese Class
• TED
Entertainment
• 5by
• Comedy Central
• Dailymotion
• Disney Movies Anywhere
• DramaFever
• Hulu
• Netflix
Music & Audio
• Afterlight
• djay 2
• edjing – DJ Music
• Equalizer + MP3 player volume
• iHeartRadio
• Musixmatch Music Player Lyrics
• Pandora
• Shazam
• Soundhound
• Songza
• TuneIn Radio
• Ultimate Guitar
News
• BuzzFeed
• CNN
• New York Times
• The Economist
• Watchup: Your Daily Newscast
• Yahoo News Digest
Personalization
• Link Bubble Browser
• Locket Lock Screen
Photography
• Camera Zoom
• Carousel – Dropbox Photos
• EyeEm: CAmera & Photo Filter
• Facetune
• Over
• Video Collage Maker
Productivity
• IFTTT (If This, Then That)
• Mailbox
• Money Tracker by BillGuard
• Offtime – Life Unplugged
• Rundavoo
• SlideShare Presentations
• Strive
• Sunrise Calendar
• SwiftKey Keyboard
• Todoist: To-Do List, Task List
• Wunderlist: To-Do List & Tasks
Sports & Fitness
• 7 Minute Workout
• Golfshot: Golf GPS
• Google Fit
• Onefootball – Pure Soccer!
• Univision Deportes
Shopping
•Amazon
•Wish
• Groupon
Social
• Bitmoji
• Frontback
• LINK – with people nearby
• Lettrs
• Instagram
• Obscure
• OKCupid
• Kik
• Messenger
• Samba: Videos + Reactions
• Skype Qik: Group Video Chat
• Secret
• Telegram
• Tango Messenger
• Timehop
• Twitter
• Viadeo
Travel
• Anywayanyday
• Expedia
• Maps.ME
• Minube
• Twitter
• Windfinder
• Uber
Tools
• Clean Master
I only know and use a few apps like Uber, Skype, Pandora, Groupon, Google Fit, and Hulu. There’s one app that I think should be included in the list being my current favorite: Monument Valley. I’m surprised Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are not included but maybe Google deliberately excluded those top social network apps to give others that chance to be tagged as the best.
SOURCE: Google Play Store
“I’m surprised Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are not included…”
Facebook isn’t, but Instagram and Twitter are–Twitter twice (in social and travel, of all things).
The facebook app fucking sucks.
I really dont understand why Pushbullet is not listed in tools, or even in social. I often use it to share things (news, pics, links…. whatever) with friends and even more often use it to exchange items between mobile and desktop
Love the proximity of Link Bubble, one of my favorite apps ever, and locket, which would be more appropriate on a worst apps of 2014.