A few days ago, I did something incredibly stupid - I tripped, and dropped my phone face-first onto a hard tiled floor. After years of keeping phones free of scratches despite not using cases, I managed to completely slam the phone into the ground. While the screen itself survived the fall - it's amazing what you can accomplish with Gorilla Glass[1] - the display itself wasn't so lucky.
Some internal components were clearly damaged, and the left side of the display started showing a random pattern of colours that vaguely resembled a peacock feather. Funnily enough, even the dead parts of the screen were "working" in that the touchscreen was fine, the only issue was that nothing was being displayed. It was even possible to type (albeit badly) using swipe gestures.
About a quarter of the right side of the display was still working normally and everything else in the phone worked fine. This was a blessing, as it was possible to plug the phone into the computer, and transfer files and back up my files[2]. Of course, there's a lot less to physically back up these days, as between Google Photos, Google Drive, and Gmail Contacts, most of your important data already resides in the cloud.
However, the one issue that came up was backing up SMS messages. The easiest option to back up SMS messages on Android[3] requires installing a third-party application. That's not a problem though, because you can install apps on your Android device using Google Play store on the Web from any device. But once that's done, actually using the app is another matter if only a quarter of the screen is available.
Why you should consider installing an app like...