5 Android Apps You Shouldn’t Miss This Week
Welcome to the 474th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here’s last week’s big news:
- A YouTube video seems to crash on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. 4K and HDR video seems to cause a processing error on the phones and at least partially reboots. Some Pixel 6 owners have also reported it. However, it doesn’t seem to affect all phones, and some devices running the Android 13 developer preview haven’t experienced the issue.
- Google Assistant had a bug this week where it forgot how to control smart home devices. Basically, to such requests, you would say that you don’t understand users. Google has developed a patch so now everything is fine. However, if you’ve noticed any issues with your Assistant and smart home stuff this week, that’s probably why.
- We asked our readers if they used two-factor authentication after Twitter removed SMS two-factor authentication for non-paying users. As it turns out, a good 82% of our readers do, which makes us happy because 2FA is very important for security. We hope the other 18% will consider it, and if they do, we’ve got a list of great 2FA apps for them to try.
- Google unveiled some new Android features at Mobile World Congress. Some of them contain applications. Some of the features include noise cancellation for Google Meet, improved PDF notes in Google Drive, quick pairing for Chromebooks, new Google Keep features, and more. Click the link for more information.
- This week we had several news in the field of artificial intelligence. Snapchat now includes a ChatGPT bot that automatically doesn’t respond when you ask questions that violate Snapchat’s terms of service. Microsoft brought ChatGPT-based Bing and iMessage support to Windows, and our own Rita El Khoury got to try offline AI image generation courtesy of Qualcomm. Click on the links for more information.
Pixel Fantasia is a 2.5D Idle RPG. You send your hero out, they fight as long as they can, then you upgrade their gear and abilities so they can come back and do it for longer. The core gameplay isn’t very unique in this regard, but the developers do a decent job of making it fun. The game also includes online PvP, continuous growth offline, and a gacha element where you can invite friends to help you. The free-to-play elements aren’t the best, and the game has some sync issues at times, but once the bugs are fixed, it’ll be fine.
Soundclub is an event app that focuses on music festivals. The app boasts over 5,000 festivals featuring over 1.2 million artists. Find ticket information, artist lineups, and more. There’s also a social networking aspect where you can connect with other users, share reviews and stuff like that. Not a bad idea for an app. Music festivals are happening all over the place, and with the arrival of warmer weather, festival season will soon be upon us. The app was free during our testing and works well apart from some lag.
Zombie Kingdom
Price: It’s free to play
Zombie Kingdom is a survival AFK game. You fight tons of zombies and then the bosses. Your characters level up and you continue to move through the game. The max level is 9999, so you’ll need to do countless boosts and that’s where you’ll spend most of your time. There aren’t many controls for the player, and you’ll see the game itself more often. Of course, it’s not the strongest entry in the genre, but we didn’t have any technical problems during testing.
Disappearing clock – clock face
Price: Free
Vanishing Hour is a watch face for Wear OS. The watch face has a minimal design and some nice design elements. The clock is displayed in the center of the screen. As the minute hand moves around the clock face, it slowly erases some or all of the hour number. You can set the number to fade out, change to an outline, or disappear entirely. You can also choose between a black or gray background and some hand styles. It’s not the most customizable watch face we’ve ever seen, but the minimal design looks good and is AMOLED-friendly.
Street Fighter: Duel
Price: It’s free to play
Street Fighter: Duel is the next official Street Fighter game for mobile. It features more than 40 characters from the famous fighter franchise. You collect them, form a team and progress through the levels to advance in the game. We have no doubt that long-time fans will be disappointed that this isn’t a fighter but more of a mobile RPG, and we totally understand that. Fortunately, characters aren’t hard to get and the game is pretty decent to play. In fact, it is almost identical to One Punch Man: Road to Hero, so those who have played it will know how this game works. Combat is relatively simple, and players basically just need to tap to perform moves. There are also social elements. It’s not like Street Fighter, but it’s not bad for its genre.
If we missed a big app or game release, let us know in the comments.
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