It’s now been a little over two weeks since I installed LineageOS on my Samsung A5 phone.
During that time I’ve installed, removed, replaced and set defaults and permissions for the apps I use. I thought it may be useful for posterity to describe what apps I am using (and why).
First off, I didn’t install the so-called Gapps (Google Apps) package on my phone so I don’t have the Play store directly available. The benefit of that is that i don’t need to let Google know what apps I use, or when, or where, or how! But I do need to be able to install apps aside from the stock apps on my phone. I opted for F-Droid for that. I needed to access that site through my browser then download and install the F-Droid apk file.
Once F-Droid has been installed, the Aurora store app can be installed through F-Droid. This app accesses the Google Play store and allows you to install apps from the Play store without needing an account registered with Google. Whilst I would prefer to not use Google-provided services at all, my reality is that some apps I use are only available through Play and not other apk catalogue services.
Having F-Droid and Aurora store installed allow me to install a wide range of apps. Here’s what’s been installed from F-Droid:
- Aurora Store - to install apps only available on Google Play without needing a registered account.
- Open Camera - to replace the poor stock Lineage camera in which the image captured isn’t the same as what was seen on the screen.
- And Bible - an Android Bible application that allows you to use/view multiple Bible texts, commentaries, dictionaries and other resources offline.
- Maps - an offline reader for OpenStreetMap maps. There was/is a bug that precluded automatic downloading of maps so I needed to manually sideload the maps onto my phone.
- K-9 mail - somewhat outdated look and feel, but it can retrieve and send mail. The stock email client doesn’t provide ‘share by email’ functionality.
- Book Reader - for, err, reading books.
- Flite TTS Engine - a text-to-speech synthesizer for use with the Maps app.
- OwnCloud - to access my OwnCloud files.
- Pedometer - stepcounter and widget.
- Forecastie - a weather app with widget.
And here’s what has been installed through Aurora:
- AldiMobile - information on my phone account usage/balance.
- Bitwarden - my password vault of choice.
- Brave - a replacement for the stock browser which doesn’t seem to handle multiple tabs neatly.
- SMS Backup & Restore - to backup and restore SMS and call logs.
My phone makes and receives calls, sends and receives texts, can access email and the web, can take reasonable photos, and has map functionality so I can find my way around.