Android is the most widely used smartphone platform in the world. It is used by more than 78 percent of all smartphones. Along with the surge of Android smartphones is the increase in terms of apps released for the platform.
Currently, there are more than 1.5 million apps available in Google Play and the number increases by the day. However, not all Android apps can be downloaded straight from Google Play. There are some that are hosted outside of Android's official app store.
Here are three of the most interesting apps that cannot be downloaded on the Android App Store.
TubeMate
This app has been in the Android market for quite some time already but Google has yet to approve it to be officially added on Google Play. TubeMate, once installed on a supported smartphone, allows user to download YouTube videos on their local storage drive. These videos can be downloaded in various formats with support for 1080p HD resolution.
TV Portal
This app provides links for streaming popular TV shows as well as movies online. The developer of TV Portal insists that its service and site policy does not violate any regulation of the DMCA or Digital Millennium Copyright Act, according to Android Pit.
Using the app is relatively easy. Users only need to look for the show or movie they want to watch, a search button was provided to make this easy to perform. Once the show or movie was found, the user will simply tap it and TV Portal will provide different sites hosting the video.
MIUI Music
MIUI Music is the default music app pre-installed on all Xiaomi smartphones. While the app is popular in China and Asia, it is not that well-known in other regions. The app allow users to download music for free and save it to their phone's local storage drive where it can be accessed even offline. The service is similar to Spotify Premium, the only difference is that MIUI Music is free, according to Phone Arena.