App Spotlight, Episode 7 - Pushbullet

There are many utility apps in the Play Store, but Pushbullet is easily one of the best apps you can have on your device. Simply put, it acts as a bridge between your mobile device(s) and your computer(s), allowing you to perform several tasks between them. Initially it was just used to easily send data between all your connected devices like links and files, but the devs are amazing at adding new functionality. The app has grown to be much more than just a tool to send files between your devices. You can also receive your phone's notifications on your computer, send SMSes from your computer, have one clipboard for all your devices, and it even has an RSS-like feature called Channels. If you want to find a way to productively connect all your devices together, this is definitely an app to checkout.

Send files or links between devices
Pushbullet all started as a way to easily send files between your computer and your mobile device. Sure you could use cloud storage or e-mail as a delivery mechanism to do so, but uploading and downloading files would take some time. And once you got your file, you'd probably delete it from your cloud or e-mail. With Pushbullet, there's no "middle-man" which stores the file. You just push it from one device to another. Like if you found a wallpaper while browsing the web on your PC which you want to use on your phone, you can push the image from your PC to your phone using Pushbullet. And it doesn't just work with files either, it works with links as well. If you're browsing the web on your PC, and want to share the link with a friend via WhatsApp, you would push the link to your phone, where it will appear as a notification, and from there you can immediately share it. You can also push files and links to your friend's device directly using Pushbullet, as long as they too are using it.

Sending files between your devices is easy with Pushbullet.

Universal copy and paste
One of the newest features in Pushbullet, which is also one of the best, is universal copy and paste. It's essentially one clipboard for all of your devices. So you can copy text on one device and paste it on the other (PC to mobile or vice versa). This works great and is amazingly simple. All you do is enable the setting in your app and the browser extension, and you're good to go. With a little help from another app called ShortPaste, copying and pasting links that are automatically shortened between devices is a piece of cake.

Enable the setting on the app and extension, and you're good to go.

Notification mirroring
Another incredibly useful feature of Pushbullet is notification mirroring. As the name suggests, notifications from your phone are mirrored on your PC, so as you are using your PC you will be able to see your notifications as they come in without having to pick up your phone. You can disable apps that you don't want notifications to be mirrored from, and if you miss a notification as it came in you can always view them from the Pushbullet browser extension.

Keeping an eye on your phone's notifications on your PC.

Compose and reply text messages
You can also compose and reply to SMSes directly from your computer, regardless of what app you use for text messaging on your phone. When you receive an SMS, there will be a reply button in the notification you receive on your PC. Clicking it will bring up a popup window for you to reply the SMS. To compose a new message, just click on the browser extension on your computer, enter the recipient's phone number or select the recipient from your contacts list (which is directly accessible from the extension, so you don't need to look for the recipient's number on your phone), type your message and hit send. That's it.

Composing an SMS directly from your PC.

Channels
Channels is an RSS-like feature, where you can subscribe to certain topics that interest you and receive push notifications on your phone whenever the channel owner pushes new content. Some featured channels include one by Android Police where you will receive a notification each time a new APK is posted, there's a channel by Google's Android team so you will get notified of major Android news directly from Google, and even a Steam channel with daily deals so you'll never miss a great deal on your favourite games.

With all this amazing and really useful functionality, you would think that you'd have to pay to get this app. Surprisingly, this app is 100% free, which makes it even better. Most free apps are either restricted in their functionality, or made by major corporations that have other sources of revenue. But Pushbullet as far as I can tell is made by three guys who work full time on the app, living off their savings (for now), which makes me respect this dev team and their app immensely. If ever they decide to open up to donations, or release a paid version of the app, I won't hesitate to give them my money. They certainly deserve it.