[App Roundup] Our Top Seven Picks For The Best New Apps Of March 2015

Attention: the following roundup contains absolutely no mention of the new release of Google Reader... because that happened in April. But it does have some great picks for new apps from March, including our top seven and a handful of honorable mentions. News readers, social tools, and root-only apps are covered, plus some diagnostic tools for tech heads. And if customization is your thing, check out the honorable mentions section for cool icons and live wallpapers.

Corgi for Feedly

Android Police coverage: Corgi For Feedly Puts RSS Feeds On Your Android Lock Screen

Corgi is a replacement lockscreen that lets you know about all the items in your Feedly feed. I don't know why it's named after a small dog. The actionable Material Design interface is pretty good, and makes a decent argument for using this app over, say, a standard lockscreen widget (on Android 4.4 or lower). The usual social sharing options are included.

Corgi for Feedly is the fastest way to read your news on a phone. With Corgi, you won’t miss out on anything that matters to you. No need to do the extra steps to get the information that you need now. Just wake up your phone to access the stories that matter to you.

• All news subscriptions are synced with Feedly - if you are already a Feedly user, all of your existing subscriptions will be automatically available on your lock screen.

• Choose your own news resources - .Read the stories that you wan’t, by subscribing to the resources that matter to you. We offer International Search Support.

• Material Design ready - the lock screen has been created following Google's Material Design language

• Read Later - In a rush and don’t have time to read the article? Save it and read it later. Works with Pocket and Evernote.

Nuzzel: News From Your Friends

Android Police coverage: Nuzzel Builds A News Feed Out Of What Your Friends Read, Has Just Released An Android App

Show of hands: who's tired of wading through the various Buzzfeed links and other crappy stories on their Facebook page? Nuzzel aims to blend a traditional newsreader with stories recommended from your social contacts, and yes, you can pick who shows up and who doesn't. It imports from Facebook and Twitter, and it includes the usual share functions to send stories right back out to your friends. The interface is surprisingly clean as well.

Nuzzel is the super-easy way to see news from your friends. Discover the top news stories shared by your friends on Facebook and Twitter, without being overwhelmed or missing anything. No setup or configuration is required, just login with Twitter or Facebook and see interesting news stories in seconds. You can also use Nuzzel to share interesting stories with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, email, or SMS. Nuzzel can even send you customized news alerts when breaking news is shared by many of your friends.

Flyp - Multiple Phone Numbers

Android Police coverage: Flyp Lets You Use Up To Six Phone Numbers On A Single Phone

For those of you who still use your phone as, well, a phone, you have a few options like Google Voice and Skype for alternate numbers. But what if you want to juggle more than two? Flyp gives you one extra number for free, for life, plus up to five more for a reasonable $2.99 each. Use one for work and one for home, plus one for that annoying person who hits on you at the bar (so you can have the pleasure of not answering).

Flyp gives you multiple numbers on your phone. Instantly get more phone numbers for each part of your life - work, friends, family, and more. With Flyp, you can connect to what matters most. With Flyp you get:

Additional phone numbers in seconds
A dedicated number for each part of your life
Seamless calling, texting, and voicemail
Same awesome call quality as your current number
Custom voicemail greetings for each Flyp number
Custom area codes for each Flyp number
Easily share your new number
Import all your current contacts
Personalized text-to-voice Quick Reply messages
Do Not Disturb for each individual Flyp number

Recently

Android Police coverage: Chainfire's New App 'Recently' Tells The Never-Ending List Of Recent Apps In Lollipop To Take A Hike [Root Only]

Are you bothered by the fact that Android Lollipop keeps an almost unlimited number of cards in the fancy new Recents list, unlike the old way of doing things? Wow, that's a really strange thing to be bothered by. But don't worry, veteran developer Chainfire is here with an app that can keep it much tidier, at least if you have root. A $1 in-app purchase allows it to run at boot, and more features are promised soon.

With Android 5.0 Lollipop's release, the recents view (multitask button) became overview, and instead of showing you only actually running apps, it also shows you apps that have ran in the past. Over time, this screen ends up listing pretty much every app you have ever run, becomes completely useless, and wastes a perfectly good (soft-)button. Recently aims to restore sanity, by limiting which apps are shown. In its most aggressive configuration, it will show you only apps that are actually running right now.

drupe – Contacts. Your way.

Android Police coverage: Drupe Gives Boring Phone Contacts A Contextual Gesture-Based Makeover

Drupe is an interesting app that aims to place your contacts and a collection of applicable app actions at your fingertips. Activate the app by tapping the floating button, then slide one of your favorite or recently-used contacts onto an app icon on the opposite side. The relevant app will open with a new email, text message, Facebook message, or what have you to the contact you selected. Plenty of operational and visual options are included for tinkerers.

WOW your Android with an app like no other. We bring your contacts and communication apps together in one place, that’s accessible from all your screens. Want to contact someone? Just swipe the contact to the right app and get in touch. Simple. Using drupe, you can reach anyone on your contact list, using your preferred communication app, with just one swipe. Yes, drupe is within your reach whenever you need it. Don’t worry, we made sure it’s not annoying.

3DMark Sling Shot Benchmark

Android Police coverage: Futuremark Releases Alternative 3DMark 'Sling Shot' Benchmark For Android To Make Your Brand New Phone Cry

Futuremark already has a 3DMark benchmark app available on the Play Store, so this one is more or less an alternate version. The "Sling Shot" technical demo is intense, far more so than those available in the original app - even newer mobile chipsets will struggle to get FPS scores in the teens. This benchmark will likely be one of the better ways to test high-power hardware available in the near future.

3DMark Sling Shot is an advanced 3D graphics benchmark for smartphones and tablets that support OpenGL ES 3.1 or ES 3.0. Test the performance of your device then compare it with the latest models with this visually stunning and easy to use benchmark app. Run the Sling Shot test in OpenGL ES 3.1 mode to compare flagship Android devices from HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony, Xiaomi, and other leading manufacturers.

AIDA64

Android Police coverage: System Information Tool AIDA64 Comes To Android

Tech heads and stat nerds, this one's for you. AIDA64 is a popular system information tool originally designed for PCs, now ported to Android. It lets you know just about every single possible piece of information about your hardware, going far beyond what most benchmark and info apps will tell you. And yes, it's also compatible with Android Wear. Check the app description and screenshots for an exhaustive list of the things that AIDA can do.

Hardware and software information utility for Android based devices. Based on the extensive hardware knowledge of the AIDA64 for Windows application, AIDA64 for Android is capable of showing various diagnostic information for phones, tablets, smartwatches and TVs, including:

CPU detection, real-time core clock measurement
Screen dimensions, pixel density and camera information
Battery level and temperature monitoring
WiFi and cellular network information
Android OS and Dalvik properties
SoC and device model identification
Memory and storage utilization
OpenGL ES GPU details, real-time GPU clock measurement
PCI, USB, CUDA, OpenCL device listing
Listing of installed apps, codecs and system directories
Android Wear module: native app for watches

Honorable Mentions

That's all for March. Remember to check out our bi-weekly app roundups if you're too busy to keep an eye on daily coverage, and if you're looking for Android Wear apps, Ryan Whitwam has you covered with his own roundup for watch apps.