Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
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Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.
Featured App
Photo Wall FX Live Wallpaper
Today's app roundup is sponsored by the Photo Wall FX live wallpaper by Handy Apps. The idea behind this wallpaper is simple: it uses the local photos on your phone or tablet to make a grid collage, dynamically selecting and cycling photos and sizing them so that there's no space left between them. Double tap on a photo at any time to bring it up in the gallery (great for new parents). The premium version (accessible via a $2 in-app purchase) allows for unlimited photos from separate albums, extra animations and effects, and a dimmer option. Photo Wall FX now supports over 30 new languages!
Showcase an animated collage of your favorite photos on your device's wallpaper with Photo Wall FX - a live wallpaper app that does exactly that while consuming very little battery! Photo Wall FX is a live wallpaper app that showcases your photos in a collage format with several layout styles to choose from. Want to add an entire album, to apply some cool image effects or just double tap on any photo to share it or view it in full screen? This app does them all.
Photo Wall FX has been optimized for both smartphones and tablets that has live wallpaper function with options to choose both portrait and landscape layout styles. Features include:
- Select specific photos from your device to be featured on your live wallpaper photo collage
- Portrait and landscape views have their own customized layout styles
- Double tap on photo on wallpaper to view the specific photo in full screen mode. This effectively turns your wallpaper into your favorite photo gallery!
- Smart Image Correction to keep visibility of object in the picture
- Smart Image Rotation to correct photo orientation
- Customisable animation time interval
- Fast loading time
- Minimum battery consumption
- Create multiple custom photo albums
- Select photos from multiple albums to be included in the photo wall live wallpaper collage
- Choose from more than 10 different image effects offered such as oil painting, black & white photo fx
- Choose your preferred animation style for the photo wall
- Customize the layout style individually for portrait and landscape views
- Set dimming effect on the photo wall live wallpaper
- And last but not least, Photo Wall FX is absolutely free!
Apps
Kodi™
Android Police coverage: Kodi Media Center For Android Is Now Available On The Play Store, No Beta Request Necessary
The open-source Kodi media player, formerly XBMC, has been available in a closed beta on Android for months. Today it's still in beta, but they've gotten rid of the closed bit - you can download it from the Play Store on phones, tablets, and Android TV devices without asking permission. With impressive audio and video management and a huge amount of supported codecs and add-ons, Kodi is the go-to choice for home theater buffs who prefer to roll their own.
Kodi™ media center, formally known as XBMC™ Media Center, is an award-winning free and open source cross-platform software media player and entertainment hub for digital media for HTPCs (Home theater PCs). It uses a 10-foot user interface designed to be a media player for the living-room, using a remote control as the primary input device. Its graphical user interface (GUI) allows the user to easily browse and view videos, photos, podcasts, and music from a harddrive, optical disc, local network, and the internet using only a few buttons.
PBS Video
Android Police coverage: PBS Video For Android Can Now Stream Full Episodes To Your Chromecast
This app is another network streaming app for watching TV on the go. Wait, get back here! This is PBS, the public broadcasting network for the US, so you don't need to have a cable subscription and/or a service provider that doesn't actively resent you for watching video on a non-TV! All of PBS's nationwide shows are available for on-demand streaming, plus some online-only content. And yes, it supports Chromecast!
Watch the most popular programs from PBS, including Nature, NOVA, and Masterpiece. The app features thousands of full-length videos from your favorite PBS programs and local stations; new videos are added daily. Explore a rich and varied selection of hundreds of videos from both new programs and from the PBS archives. Find these top programs and more:
- PBS primetime programs: Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Masterpiece, Nature, Nova, and more.
- PBS NewsHour segments.
- Austin City Limits song performances.
- Original online series, including Nova ScienceNOW’s “Secret Life of Scientists” and “FutureStates” from INDEPENDENT LENS.
Adobe Photoshop Mix
Android Police coverage: Adobe Releases Photoshop Mix, Brush CC, Color CC, And Shape CC On The Play Store
This is Adobe's third Android app with the Photoshop brand, and after the company shuttered Photoshop Touch, it's now the most advanced. A few layer and selection tools make Photoshop Mix a true image editor instead of a photo "enhancer" like Photoshop Express. Color filters and social hooks round out the features. It's still not for serious large-scale editing, and you'll need to sign in with a free Adobe ID account.
Transform your photography with Photoshop Mix. Cut out and combine images, change colors and enhance your photos anytime, anywhere. Share your creations with friends via social media and send them to Photoshop CC on your desktop for advanced photo editing.
• Cut out and remove sections of your images or merge multiple photos.
• Seamlessly combine photos together to create fun or surreal images.
• Adjust colors and contrast or apply preset FX Looks (filters) to your pictures. Enhance the entire image, or just a portion with the touch of your finger.
• Non-destructive editing means your original pics stay pristine and untouched.
• Quickly and easily share your creations on social media.
Kamcord - Game Screen Recorder
Android Police coverage: Screen Recording App 'Kamcord' Now Lets You Share Your Best And Worst Gaming On Android
Twitch is taking its sweet damn time to come to non-NVIDIA hardware, which is leaving a nice gap in the market for other apps to fill. Take Kamcord for example: it's designed almost exclusively for recording and sharing mobile game videos, in a setup that's not so much inspired by Twitch as directly copying it. The app requires Android 5.0 (where the APIs for easy video and audio recording are accessible without root).
Kamcord for Android is the best way to record and share videos of your mobile gameplay sessions. Recording your epic Clash of Clans battles or bragging about your monumental Minecraft creations has never been simpler. Kamcord is the #1 destination for mobile gamers, and players have already shared over 45 million awesome gameplay vids to Kamcord. Join the community, build your following, and become a Kamcord celebrity.
Adobe Shape CC
Android Police coverage: Adobe Releases Photoshop Mix, Brush CC, Color CC, And Shape CC On The Play Store
This is a tool designed to quickly create vector graphics, ideally for importing into Adobe Illustrator. Imagine it as a sort of mobile-only version of the Live Paint function: import a photo, adjust the only parameter, and Shape CC will add a vectorized version to your Creative Cloud account. Naturally it works best with icons, signs, and line drawings, or anything else that uses a single-color design.
Quickly capture and convert images into vector graphics that you can use in Adobe Illustrator CC or Adobe Photoshop CC. Whether symbols on a sign or something in your own sketchbook, it starts with inspiration. Snap a photo with your device’s camera, or use a saved favorite from your gallery or Creative Cloud project files. Use the slide control to add or subtract detail from the shape you want to capture. Crank up the contrast to create fills.
Adobe Brush CC
Android Police coverage: Adobe Releases Photoshop Mix, Brush CC, Color CC, And Shape CC On The Play Store
This tool lets you create brushes for Photoshop and other editing programs from your photos. If that seems a little weird, it is, but professional graphic designers might find it useful, especially for repeating patterns of unique shapes. Information is synced to the Creative Cloud for use on the desktop.
Turn your photos or graphics into high-quality brushes that you can use in Adobe Photoshop CC or Illustrator CC. Beginners can easily create brushes in a guided, exploratory way while experts can refine their brushes with professional precision. Snap a fresh photo with your device’s camera, or use a saved favorite from your gallery or Creative Cloud files. Easily isolate your brush with live color masking.
Adobe Color CC
Android Police coverage: Adobe Releases Photoshop Mix, Brush CC, Color CC, And Shape CC On The Play Store
This app lets you automatically create balanced color palettes from pre-created collections or imported photos. It's nothing you couldn't do in Adobe's Creative Suite on the desktop, but the idea behind the Color app is to work on a palette if you're inspired on the go. Sharing themes and collections to social networks is encouraged, though the only people likely to care are designers.
Sample colors around you to create themes you can use in Adobe desktop apps like Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. Use your screen as a viewfinder. The app will dynamically extract colors from whatever you’re looking at. Tap the screen to freeze on a selection you like. Photos you take with Color will automatically save to your gallery, making it easy to extract multiple themes from the same image.
Pounce – Shop by taking photos
Android Police coverage: Pounce Uses Photos To Instantly ID Products And Find Similar Items You Can Buy
You know how department stores have basically become unwilling showrooms for cheaper and better online retailers? Pounce takes that one step further - now you don't even have to search for a manufacturer or label name, just snap a photo and the app will search the web for that product. It even offers comparison prices! Don't worry about that store manager over there giving you dirty looks.
Pounce is a revolutionary shopping app that lets you take a photo of any item you like and immediately see similar items at your favorite stores, compare prices and instantly buy. Nothing to snap? Hop to the deals section to see what other users are snapping and is currently on sale. How it works? Pounce is built on top of Slyce visual search platform that uses sophisticated technology to identify products in images.
Wire Flow Wireframe Design
A wireframe is a basic outline or proof-of-concept for a website or other user interface. This app helps you create them on Android. That's about it - it's a big deal for UI designers, and in catering for that particular audience, Wire Flow looks like a remarkably complete app. A few basic templates and standard icons are included to move things along. The app is free with no in-app purchases, which is impressive for this kind of specific tool.
We couldn't find any decent wireframing tools on Android, so we made one. Wire Flow is a lightweight tool for designing wireframes on Android. With a Material inspired interface and blazing fast touch controls, Wire Flow allows you to create linear screen flows in seconds and share them with a single tap. We've included a curated selection of minimalist shapes and icons ideal for quick, professional mockups. Just select your shape, long press anywhere on the design grid, and position your content.
Planner 5D - Home Design
There's a pretty wide selection of home layout apps available for desktops and even the web, but this looks like the most complete version made specifically for Android. Everything you'd expect to find is inside: custom layouts, built-in furniture designs that you can customize with exact dimensions, 2D and rendered 3D output. The app is free, but some functions require in-app purchases that go up to a hefty $50.
Planner 5D is a simple to use app which enables anyone to create beautiful and realistic home interior designs easily in 2D and 3D HD modes either ONLINE OR OFFLINE. You can create your dream home in minutes with no training, no special skills and no complicated manuals. You will choose interior items from comprehensive catalogs and will be able to plan and furnish your home, office, country-seat or any other space the way you have always wanted, and see how everything looks like in real.
Machinima
Why does Machinima, an entertainment network focused on videos created either in games or about games, need its own app? After all, every video you might want to see from the brand is already available on YouTube. This app is designed to be more of a meta social network for the service, tying into the various likes, polls, and comment sections. If that's your thing, go hog wild.
Welcome to the official Machinima app, where gamers can watch the best original and gameplay videos across our network. Connect with the Machinima community through videos, photos, polls, and contests. We're really excited to be launching this app for our community and would love for you to be part of it. Come and share your own gaming adventures, leave us ideas on what games we should play, and tell us what video games we should talk about next.
LightBomber
You know those cool images people make by waving glow sticks around and taking a long-exposure photo? This app is designed to help you make those photos on your phone. That's about it - the coolest feature is the "live view" option, which simulates what the finished product might (and I stress, might) look like before you take the shot.
LightBomber is the only lightpainting/long exposure app created by professional lightpainters. With our patented “live view” camera technology, you can watch as lightpainting images are created right before your eyes. And oh yeah, its free. So grab some lights, grab some friends and get to work.
Webmaker Beta
Webmaker is a Mozilla tool designed to let novice users create basic websites, galleries, and other online bric-a-brac. The extremely simple tools limit the output, but it's surprisingly robust as a starting point for the inexperienced to get their feet wet with web design.
Mozilla Webmaker transforms Web users into Web makers. You can build original content like scrapbooks, photo galleries, memes, comic strips and more. The app's unique and flexible design makes telling your story simple and intuitive. Webmaker is free, open-source and independent.
Siz
If you're the kind of person who just doesn't have enough time to sit through a 90-second video to get to the good parts, then Siz is for you. With each video featured in the app (mostly Reddit-grade social media fodder) it also loads up a series of GIFs selected from the "best" part of the video. There's also a Tinder-style curation engine that learns your preferences with left or right swipes.
Siz is an unique way to discover the best videos the Internet has to offer. For each video, we provide a strip of gifs made with the highlights of the video. No more wasted time looking randomly for the interesting parts of the video, they're already at your fingertips. Swipe left to save and like the strip. Swipe right to never see it again. The app learns from your taste. Depending on what you like, you'll get strips that match your interests.
Opera TV Browser
Android Police coverage: Opera Releases Browser For Android TV, But Currently Not Compatible With Nexus Player
Opera wants to be everywhere... and that includes places where web browsers aren't conventionally found. Opera TV Browser is a barebones version of the familiar browser for Android TV. It doesn't work with Flash and it's a bit clunky to use with a remote, but it works well enough for quick accesses to web searches or your bookmarks. Oddly, it's currently incompatible with the Nexus Player.
Get the best browser for Android TV. Opera looks great, loads pages super fast, and renders pages adapted to your TV. Organize your web: Speed Dial keeps the sites you love close at hand. Add your favorites simply by clicking the plus symbol or click the heart icon to add pages directly to Speed Dial while you browse.
Know A Worthy New App? Let Us Know!
If you have an application in mind for the next issue of the roundup, feel free to send us an email and let us know.
Important: there are 2 requirements in order for the app to be considered, listed below.
- the app's launch date has to be no longer than 2 weeks ago
- it has to be original, ground-breaking, well-reviewed, interesting, fun, etc - the cream of the crop
Now, if and only if the above requirements have been satisfied, fire up an email to this address: oh.no.its.the@androidpolice.com.
1 sponsored placement per week is available (your app would be featured at the top and marked as sponsored) - please contact us for details.