Jon Gilbert is a technology journalist with five years of experience covering mobile technology. He's covered smartwatches, tablets, smartphones, and Android accessories. He's attended CES to explore unique hardware like the Pebble Round 2 or Mudita Kompakt. His daily mobile tech life revolves around Pixel devices, which he has used since the Pixel 2 XL. Jon loves exploring the latest Android features, but is highly sceptical of anything related AI.
Despite the cluttered landing page and sponsored apps, the Google Play Store is packed with useful apps for all purposes. Its charts are especially useful for finding the best apps launched in the past few years.
However, it's not so good for discovering brand-new apps. The Play Store's algorithm misses many fantastic apps, so they end up living in obscurity.
However, I love trawling the internet for brand-new apps, so here's how I find the gems without ever touching the Play Store.
Reddit is a great first stop, but beware of AI slop
However, you can score limited-time promotions and giveaways
The first place I check for new Android apps is the r/droidappshowcase subreddit.
This subreddit was created in January 2026 to combat developers drowning out app discussions in r/androidapps with self-promotion.
Now, r/androidapps is the home for app discussions and help requests, while r/droidappshowcase is where developers post about brand-new apps or notable updates.
It's where I found gems like Ikigai launcher and Lvma camera. Neither app has picked up much traction on the Play Store yet (100 and 500 downloads, respectively), but Ikigai is my favorite minimalist launcher, and Lvma is the perfect Snapseed alternative.
However, the subreddit is full of AI slop. From apps that copy others to ones that seem entirely vibe-coded, I skip most posts because of some AI issue.
It's tough to find developers who don't use some sort of AI tool in their app, but most posts include a disclaimer about how they use it.
Apps on r/droidappshowcase tend to heavily feature launchers. In my experience, many of these are extremely buggy (likely due to heavy use of AI coding), but there are always a few gems like Ikigai.
This subreddit is also where app developers offer free subscriptions, keys, or credits, so it's worth checking back often to take advantage of these offers.
Dedicated app finders have pros and cons
It's no secret that the Play Store's search function is terrible. While its categories group apps neatly, you can't search with filters.
While I use r/droidappshowcase to get an idea of what's launched recently, App Finder is a more comprehensive way to find new apps.
However, the catch is that App Finder does none of the work for you. Without carefully setting up the filters, it will return apps that you couldn't pay me to use.
While I've occasionally unearthed brilliant new apps from App Finder, it's best for filtering through older apps. When I have a rough idea of what I want, and I don't care when it launched, I use App Finder to find it.
A better alternative is the Shelf app published by tech YouTuber Sam Beckman. This app features handpicked app recommendations, so the quality is higher.
It also filters out most "mainstream" apps like YouTube or Slack. It's for discovering new apps that Google's algorithm hasn't picked up, not for finding the most popular apps.
The downside is that Shelf doesn't catch everything. For example, the two apps that I mentioned earlier, Ikigai and Lvma, aren't featured.
When I'm searching for new apps, I normally give Shelf a quick scroll, but I don't rely on it.
The Ultimate Collection on XDA Forums
It's a great source of quality apps, but not worth checking daily
XDA Forums is a great place to explore new Android apps, but it can be tricky to filter through all the posts quickly.
I still search through the Apps & Games topic frequently, but for a comprehensive summary, I turn to the Android Ultimate Collection & Guides thread.
This thread, created by senior XDA Forums member Retrial, is a regularly updated, curated collection of Android applications.
It isn't updated frequently (think every few months rather than every few days), but it's another brilliantly curated source of apps, especially since it excludes AI-created apps.
In the same thread, users propose new additions that the official list also includes.
Overall, it's a fantastic source of Android apps that I scroll through at least once a month. It's especially good for finding open source apps.
The Play Store is woefully inadequate for finding new apps
Unfortunately, I haven't found a single website, app, or forum thread that gives me all the features I need to find new Android apps.
However, that's for the best, since each source offers a unique angle on which new Android apps to feature.
But if there's one service I never bother with, it's the "New" filter on the Play Store; it pushes quantity over quality and wastes my time.