The first five years of Android’s existence were a special time. It felt like new phones were launching every day, and the pre-Play Store Android Market was exploding with apps. A few of these apps quickly became essential, but they didn’t last forever.
App2SD
When phone storage was at a premium
Nowadays, it’s rare for a phone of any price to have less than 32GB of storage, but early Android phones were lucky to have even 1GB. MicroSD cards were absolutely essential if you wanted to store a bunch of stuff on your phone, and that included apps.
Apps2SD was an aptly named app that allowed people to move apps off the internal storage of their phone and onto an SD card. This made it possible to install more apps and games than you normally would. As internal storage has grown, MicroSD card slots have faded away, and so has the need for this app.
Car Locator
A great idea that Google “borrowed”
When smartphones were a new, novel concept, people had a lot of ideas about what they should do. One of the best early ideas was from an app called Car Locator. The concept was exactly what you would expect: save the location of your parking spot. When it came time to find your car, the app would show your location on a map, or arrows and distance to help you get there. The idea was so good that it’s now built into Google Maps.
Launcher Pro
The first must-have home screen launcher
Home screen launchers were probably the first category of apps that truly showcased how customizable Android could be. The idea of completely replacing the home screen with a third-party app was super cool (it still is!). Launcher Pro was one of the first super-popular launchers.
Compared to launchers nowadays, Launcher Pro really wasn’t that incredible. However, it was a breathe of fresh air compared to other launchers at the time. The app offered multiple pages of icons and widgets, customizable grid size, a five-icon dock, shortcuts, widget resizing, and so much more. It was Nova before Nova.
Quiz
How well do you know classic Android apps?
Trivia Challenge
From the early days of the Play Store to iconic must-haves — how well do you remember Android’s greatest apps?
HistorySocialProductivityGamesAndroid
What was the name of Android’s original app marketplace before it became the Google Play Store?
Correct! The Android Market launched in 2008 alongside the first Android device, the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1). It was rebranded as the Google Play Store in March 2012, merging apps, music, books, and movies into one unified storefront.
Not quite. The original marketplace was called Android Market, which debuted in 2008. Google rebranded it as the Google Play Store in 2012 to unify all of its digital content under one roof.
Which classic Android app was famous for letting users ‘check in’ to physical locations and earn badges?
Correct! Foursquare was a location-based social network that let users check in to restaurants, bars, and landmarks to earn points, badges, and the coveted ‘Mayor’ status. It was enormously popular around 2010–2013 before splitting into Foursquare and Swarm.
Not quite. That was Foursquare, the location-based app where checking in to places earned you badges and the ‘Mayor’ title. It was a cultural phenomenon in the early smartphone era before eventually splitting into two separate apps.
Which mobile game, released in 2009, had players launching birds from a slingshot to destroy pig structures and became one of Android’s first massive hits?
Correct! Angry Birds by Rovio became a global phenomenon after its 2009 launch, eventually spawning movies, merchandise, and dozens of sequels. It was one of the apps that demonstrated the enormous commercial potential of mobile gaming.
Not quite. The answer is Angry Birds, developed by Rovio and released in 2009. It became one of the best-selling mobile games of all time and proved that smartphones could be a dominant gaming platform.
Which messaging app, launched in 2009, was one of the first to offer free cross-platform text and voice messaging over the internet on Android?
Correct! WhatsApp launched in 2009 and quickly became one of the most downloaded Android apps ever, offering free messaging as an alternative to costly SMS. Facebook acquired it in 2014 for approximately $19 billion, one of the largest tech acquisitions in history.
Not quite. WhatsApp, founded in 2009, was the app that pioneered free internet-based messaging on smartphones. Its massive global adoption made it one of the most successful Android apps ever, leading Facebook to acquire it for roughly $19 billion in 2014.
Which note-taking app, with its distinctive elephant logo, was a go-to productivity tool for Android users throughout the early 2010s?
Correct! Evernote and its iconic green elephant logo dominated the note-taking space for years, offering syncing across devices at a time when cloud sync was still a novelty. At its peak, it had over 225 million users before competition from Google Keep and Notion eroded its lead.
Not quite. The answer is Evernote, recognizable by its green elephant logo. It was the king of note-taking apps in the early Android era, offering multi-device cloud sync before that was a common feature, and it amassed hundreds of millions of users worldwide.
Which early Android flashlight app became notorious as one of the most downloaded yet most privacy-controversial apps on the platform?
Correct! Brightest Flashlight Free by GoldenShores Technologies was once the most downloaded flashlight app on Android, but the FTC took action against it in 2013 for secretly collecting and selling users’ location data without clear consent. It became a landmark case in mobile app privacy.
Not quite. Brightest Flashlight Free was the infamous flashlight app that the FTC investigated in 2013 for collecting and selling users’ location data without proper disclosure. It became one of the first high-profile examples of mobile app privacy violations.
Which music streaming app launched its Android version in 2009 and allowed users to stream personalized radio stations based on a single artist or song?
Correct! Pandora brought its Music Genome Project-powered radio to Android in 2009, letting users create stations seeded by an artist or track. It was a revolutionary concept at the time and helped pave the way for the on-demand streaming era that Spotify would later dominate.
Not quite. That was Pandora, which used its Music Genome Project algorithm to generate personalized radio stations on Android starting in 2009. It was a pioneering streaming service that introduced millions of users to internet-based music discovery on mobile.
In the classic Android game Temple Run, which creature chases the player throughout the game?
Correct! Temple Run featured a group of demon monkeys relentlessly chasing the player after they steal a cursed idol from a temple. Released in 2011, the game pioneered the endless runner genre on mobile and was downloaded over 170 million times within its first year.
Not quite. The answer is demon monkeys — terrifying creature enemies that chase you endlessly after you steal their idol in Temple Run. The game launched in 2011 and became one of the defining endless runner games of the early Android era, with hundreds of millions of downloads.
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PdaNet
Tethering when it felt illegal
Part of what made the early days of Android so exciting was the fact that the OS didn’t do much on its own. Long before mobile hotspot became a simple toggle in the Quick Settings, you needed a third-party, slightly hacky app called PdaNet to share your phone’s internet connection.
PdaNet required an app on the Android phone and on the desktop or laptop PC. These apps would communicate with each other, allowing the internet to be shared with the connected PC. It was complicated to set up and very limited, but it worked. Thankfully, we don’t need this app anymore.
Timely Alarm Clock
Still the best alarm clock app ever made
You might not think much about alarm clock apps, but in the early 2010s, people were in love with one such app called Timely. It had a beautiful gradient theme, smooth animations, and an incredibly cool cloud syncing feature that I’ve never seen in an alarm clock app since.
Timely’s cloud sync feature allowed people to control alarms on every device that had Timely installed. Say you forgot to turn off the alarm on your tablet, but it’s in your backpack in another room. You could simply turn off the alarm remotely from Timely on your phone. In 2014, Google acquired the dev team, and the app slowly rotted away.
Why not replace your lock screen, too?
As mentioned with Launcher Pro, people loved replacing their home screen. Naturally, the next frontier was the lock screen. As you can probably guess from the name, WidgetLocker’s big feature was the ability to put widgets on the lock screen—this was before Google added the feature to Android for the first time.
WidgetLocker offered some other cool customization features, but it was never as seamless to replace the lock screen as it was (and still is) the home screen. One interesting fact about WidgetLocker is that it was made by the same guy who developed Nova Launcher.
Bittersweet memories
It’s a strange feeling to look back at some of these apps. On the one hand, it’s nice that Android has integrated things like saving the location of your parked car, mobile hotspot, and widgets on the lock screen. However, there was an excitement and true feeling of discovery that came with finding these apps that extended the functionality of our phones. It’s a bit sad that we’ll probably never have that again.

