Gadgetory

there's no shortage of productivity applications for mobile platforms which ones are the best I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and these are the top five productivity applications for Android while not every application is beautiful and polished on Android there are some diamonds in the rough and some applications which put Android in a League entirely of its own what better way to showcase that phenomenon than with the top five productivity applications for Android Android has cloud storage apps document editors word processors and PDF viewers those are about the same on every platform Evernote Dropbox copy mega quick office and so on but unlike iOS or Windows Phone Android is far more flexible which allows you to do some very interesting and helpful things the best example of that is AirDroid like many of you I spend a large portion of my day sitting at a desk behind a computer while I reach for my phone a lot there are times I'd rather just use the 27-inch monitor in front of me instead of grabbing my phone essentially that's what AirDroid does it gives you a preview of your phone status from your desktop or laptop through a web portal it shows you the available storage battery percentage contacts photos videos and other files stored on your Android device and it makes it rather simple to send or pull files to and from your device without plugging it up or even touching it pick a file or URL drag or paste into a box within the browser tab and click send one of the coolest features if you have root access on your device is the ability to capture screenshots from your computer the AirDroid app and the service are free of charge but you can upgrade to a premium account which includes benefits for remote use for a dollar ninety-nine for a month or $19.99 for an entire year pushbullet is sort of in the same vein except rather than controlling your device remotely it specializes in transferring information between multiple devices namely your computer and Android device download the free app and install the free Chrome or Firefox extension sign in from both ends and begin sending information back and forth between your devices to send a file link or note from within the Android application press the bullet icon in the upper right corner select the type of data you want to send and choose the destination press send and the file will appear in a matter of seconds on the desk and device depending upon network speed of course to send from Chrome or Firefox to a mobile device the process looks a little different but is effectively identical best of all your notifications are displayed and growl like form on your connected computer so you don't have to reach from your phone each time at Buzz's so far it's the quickest and easiest way to send information back and forth between your computer and mobile devices switching gears a bit Tasker is easily one of the most unique items you can find in Google Play you've probably heard of it before but what is it exactly it's all about device automation you start by creating a new profile I named mine headset connected and chose the headset connected state I then created a task called launch pocket casts and paired it with the headset connected profile if I plug in any headphones on my Moto X pocket casts launches immediately but I also have the task set to perform two more things set the media volume to ten as to not destroy my eardrums and send an intent to pebble which launches the music bolts application I've created several similar profiles which launched music boss on my pebble and certain audio applications like SoundCloud or play music or launched and this is only the tip of the iceberg there are virtually endless possibilities for automating tasks on your device another example I have is when I plugged my device into charge at night the brightness is set to zero Wi-Fi is turned off silent mode is enabled an alarm volume is set to max there is a learning curve associated with Tasker but if you're willing to put in the time to figure it out it's well worth the effort and the $2.99 price tag I'm always downloading files onto my Android devices and unlike iOS or Windows Phone accessing the internal file system is quite easy some phones even ship with file explorer is built-in if you want to get a little more in depth with your file management you can get an application like root explorer which as the name suggests requires root access but will allow you to ULTRA files within the root directory it's a very helpful tool I use very frequently similarly I use Nexus media importer and conjunction with my microSD card reader to move files between a microSD card and my Moto X or Nexus 7 finally LastPass is an application I absolutely cannot go without every password for every online account I have stored in LastPass and I don't even know the vast majority of those passwords they're generated based on my criteria I set saved and I rarely ever see them it makes setting up a new device and logging in to all the services a bit of a hurdle but the extra security and ease of not having to remember every password is great the LastPass application is free to download but it won't work with a free LastPass account LastPass premium is just $12 per year and it's available for Chrome Firefox Safari Opera Internet Explorer Mac PC Linux Android Windows Phone iOS and Blackberry folks that's going to do it if you enjoyed the video and want to help us out be sure to click the thumbs up button below and leave a comment if we missed any of your favorite productivity applications for Android stay tuned for the iOS productivity applications video which should go live tomorrow and don't forget to subscribe to the channel follow us in all the usual places twitter facebook and google+ at pocket now I'm Taylor Martin and I will see you next time you