Last week I bought a new phone, a Google Pixel 6a, from Officeworks. This is the most expensive purchase I’ve ever made after surgery fees for my wisdom tooth removal - because I feel like I need a phone that doesn’t take 15 seconds to load every app or to take a picture, and sub-$200 phones don’t make the cut for that criteria.

Also, financial life pro tip, use Price Beat to the max - whether at Officeworks, Bunnings, Chemist Warehouse, JB Hi Fi. If you’re Price Beating an online store, you’re getting the device from a probably more reputable seller, and you don’t need to worry about delivery woes. For electronic devices, I found out from the staff member that they have to match the Part Number and send the Price Beat off to Head Office. They also apply an extra 5% off which is very handy.

Anyway, I decided to write a list of all the apps I downloaded onto my new phone, so that if I ever get a new phone I can just refer to this list to reduce the admin hassle.

Apps to download

Pre-installed apps that I use

  • Google Chrome
  • Google Photos
  • Google Maps
  • Google Drive
  • Google Docs
  • Google One
  • Gmail
  • Keep Notes
  • Recorder
  • Translate
  • Wallet
  • Google Pay
  • Wallet
  • YouTube

Tools

  • Google Lens
  • BOM

Social Media and messenging services

  • Facebook
  • Messenger
  • Discord
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Instagram
  • Bereal
  • Twitter

Other interests / pseudo social media

  • Bible
  • Spotify
  • Duolingo
  • Goodreads
  • Strava
  • Fitbit
  • Donate Blood

Recreational

  • Presently
  • Chess.com
  • Lichess
  • The Age
  • NY Times

Streaming

  • Stan
  • ABC Iview

Music

  • GuitarTab
  • GuitarTuna
  • Shazam
  • Soundcorset

Financial [redacted]

Food

  • MyMacca’s

Transport

  • PTV
  • Cellopark

Work and volunteering

  • Zoom
  • Slack
  • Dayforce

University

  • my.monash
  • Monash Study
  • Okta Verify
  • Pebblepocket
  • Ankidroid

Document and cloud storage apps

  • Notion
  • Onedrive
  • Dropbox
  • Google Sheets, Google Slides
  • Microsoft Word, Microsoft OneNote

Notifications

Notifications settings I like implementing on my phone

  • notifications that don’t pop out
  • notifications for emails and messages / socials
  • notifications for The Age news alerts
  • notifications for Calendar Events I generally like turning everything else to reduce clutter.

Porting to new phone

I don’t like using the data I’ve backked up to Google One - I’d rather start afresh. All my data is already comprehensively synced to the cloud - using mostly Google Drive (but also OneDrive, Dropbox for certain specific folders) and Google Photos (for all Photos, Videos and Screenshots). These are linked to my Google account. However, there are some important data that needs to be backked up manually.

  • WhatsApp messages and media need to be linked to Google Drive account and Synced before using WhatsApp on new device
  • Call Logs and SMS messages, I used SMS Backup & Restore where the data is backked up to Google Drive. Then, it can be restored on the new device. Then, I like using the Google Messages App as the default for SMS.
  • Okta verify for university