Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.
Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.
Featured App
AccuBattery
Today's roundup is presented by AccuBattery from Digibites. Barring any accidents, the battery is the part of your phone that generally wears out the fastest, so it pays to keep an eye on its health. AccuBattery tests your battery's effective capacity in milliamp-hours to see if it's deteriorated, including tools for live reporting and battery life projections. The Battery Alarm feature tells users when to stop charging to make the usable life of your phone even longer.
AccuBattery protects battery health, displays battery usage information, and measures battery capacity (mAh) based on science. Batteries have a limited lifespan. Every time you charge your device, it wears out the battery, lowering its total capacity. Scientific research shows that battery lifespan can be extended up to 200%, when you charge your device to only 80%. AccuBattery measures the actual battery usage using information from the battery charge controller. Battery usage per app is determined by combining these measurements with information on which app is in the foreground. Android calculates battery usage using pre-baked profiles that device manufacturers provide, like how much power the CPU uses. In practice however, these numbers tend to be highly inaccurate.
- Measure real battery capacity (in mAh).
- Use the charge alarm to prolong battery lifespan.
- See how much wear your battery sustains with each charge session.
- Look up the discharge speed and battery consumption per app.
- Remaining charge time - know how long it takes before your battery is charged.
- Remaining use time - know when you will run out of battery.
- Screen on or screen off estimations.
- Check the percentage of deep sleep, when the device is in standby mode.
- Ongoing notification for real time battery statistics at a glance.
- Real time CPU and battery usage overlay for spotting battery draining processes.
- Access to historical data of more than 1 day.
- Detailed battery statistics in notification
Apps
Screens - Multi Window Manager
Android Police coverage: Screens lets you create shortcuts to launch apps in split-screen mode
Android 7.0 includes a super-neat dual window function for apps, but just like on the desktop, it works better for some programs than for others. Screens is a tool that allows users to set shortcuts for specific combinations of multi-window apps, like YouTube on top for music videos and Chrome below for lyrics. Shortcuts can be used in any launcher. Of course, users will need to have a phone or tablet running Nougat to install the app.
Screens allows you to quickly enter splitscreen mode with pre selected apps. It creates shortcuts that can be opened from any launcher. This might be good for productivity or having SeriesGuide and Kore at the same time.
Inkitt – Free Books & Novels
Android Police coverage: Indie book publishing and reading service Inkitt brings its app to the Play Store
Inkitt is a collection of freely-distributed books, novelas, and short stories on an independent platform. That being the case, the Android app is sort of like Amazon's Kindle, except that you don't have to pay for any of the content. The app includes a reading system with font and background adjustment, reading lists and offline downloads, and a personalized recommendation system.
Find thousands of new fiction books on the Inkitt App and read them for free. Fantasy books, scifi and thriller novels, horror stories, mystery, romance and more. Discover hand-picked novels from all genres and join us on our mission to support aspiring authors taking their first steps towards publication.
• Discover and read upcoming fiction books by indie authors for free (all in English)
• Download fiction books and read them offline
• Personalized reading recommendations based on your favorite fiction genres
• Customizable background colors and fonts to meet your preferences
• When reading a story, tap & hold to autoscroll
SystemPanel 2
Android Police coverage: SystemPanel 2 now in public beta, mostly a visual makeover
The original SystemPanel, a reporting tool that put all of the data points of your phone and tablet into one unified app, was popular with hardware junkies. The follow-up includes a much better Material Design interface with more natural organization, plus app data to allow users to find resource and data hogs. It works without root, but advanced users can unlock some extra functionality with root permissions if they want. At the moment the app is in a public beta, so don't be surprised if there are a few kinks left to work out.
This is an early access/development release of SystemPanel 2. Please report any bugs or suggestions you have to android@nextapp.com. SystemPanel 2 is a re-imagining of SystemPanel from the ground up. The UI has been entirely redesigned, with the main screen now providing an overview of your device's recent behavior/activity. More detailed information is available from the left slide out panel, or by tapping on items on the overview page. Material Design is used throughout.
Walmart Scan & Go
Android Police coverage: Walmart finally rolls out its Scan & Go app to Android
Waiting in line at Walmart sucks. Everyone agrees on this point... apparently even Walmart. This Android app allows users to scan items as they add them to their basket, then pay with a debit or credit card on the phone and walk out the door, never having to look a checkout person in the eye ever again. Keep in mind that you might need to have your purchase verified at the door... and also that at the moment it's only available in one Walmart. In Arkansas. Bummer.
Scan products while shop, pay from your phone, and go – that’s it. Save time by scanning your items when you add them to your shopping cart. Then check out and pay with the app, and your receipt appears on your phone. Show the receipt to the exit greeter and you just skipped any long checkout lines.
1. While you are in a Walmart store, open the app and scan each item’s barcode. No barcode? You can look up an item quickly.
2. As you shop, you’ll see the running total of the items in your cart.
3. Check out and pay in the app.
4. Show the receipt from your phone on the way out.
Toontastic 3D
Android Police coverage: Google releases Toontastic 3D, a digital puppet theater for kids to create and animate their own stories [APK Download]
Google's latest app for kids is sort of like Baby's First Flash Animator. Toontastic 3D lets kids modify or create characters, set them against backgrounds, and set up basic scripts for animation and sound effects. The tools are all simple enough for kids while allowing a little flexibility when they're ready to stretch those creative muscles. A photo import tool allows them to put their faces onto characters, and created videos can be exported for sharing.
3… 2… 1… ACTION. With Toontastic 3D you can draw, animate, and narrate your own cartoons. It’s as easy as play. Just move your characters around onscreen, tell your story, and Toontastic records your voice and animations and stores it on your device as a 3D video. Toontastic is a powerful and playful way to create interstellar adventures, breaking news reports, video game designs, family photo albums, or anything else you might imagine.
Stringify
Android Police coverage: Powerful home automation app Stringify comes to Android and adds IFTTT integration
Stringify is a more powerful alternative to IFTTT, which connects different smart home and "Internet of Things" gadgets together and helps you build automated complex flows between them. It's in beta at the moment, but the "flower" interface for building causal relationships between physical electronics and web services is already promising. At the moment it's working with most of the standardized automated home systems on the market as well as IFTTT for compatibility with more gadgets.
The award winning Stringify app connects all your physical and digital Things together in one place so you can take better care of your self, your family, your home or just get more done. Easily create and add powerful Flows that automate your life. For example:
+ Secure your home and save money when you go to bed by automatically locking your front door, closing your garage, turning down your temperature and turning off the lights.
+ Automatically jumpstart every morning with the traffic report playing over your connected speaker, your lights fading on and thermostat set to just the right temperature.
+ Get gentle reminders to stay fit, like the blinking of lights and a message over your connected speaker.
Weather Wiz: Forecast & Widget
There's no shortage of weather apps on the Play Store, but this one is attractive and themable, and it comes with a collection of widgets (not always a given these days). Local forecasts stretch from one hour to ten days, and colors and widget transparency can be altered to suit your phone's current look. The usual collection of weather data is included, and it supports imperial measurements (for God-fearing Americans) or metric (for everyone else on the planet).
Weather Wiz provides accurate weather forecasts based on your current location or any other place in the world. The real time local weather forecast as well as the hourly forecasts and 10-day weather condition forecast can be found in this free weather app. Is the weather data reliable? Well, we use the IBM weather data as the weather station source to deliver precise local forecasts, and you can trust the real-time weather conditions and make plans based on the weather condition.
EZ Web Video Cast | Chromecast
This app is a connecting point between unlocked video streams on the open web (like the ones you plug into VLC on the desktop) and your Chromecast, which normally can't host them directly. Once users put in the stream and connect to their TVs, the phone app works as a remote control. It's a handy little tool if you like to use open streams for regular events... say, every Sunday when your out-of-market team is playing. The app includes a mini-browser with search, bookmarks, and an ad blocker.
EZ Web Video Cast is the best browser app that allows you to stream videos of online movies, TV shows and other media from internet websites to your Chromecast. While you are browsing web videos on the internet, EZ Web Cast automatically grabs the video URLs inside the web page and let you quickly send them to your Chromecast device. As a result, videos from the internet will be played directly on your TV.
Manufacturer And Tie-In Apps
BHIM
Android Police coverage: India launches BHIM app to replace cash with digital transactions
This app is an official production of the Indian government, meant to offer a unified point of interaction for mobile digital payments (and hopefully help out with the country's currency crisis). It's off to a good start - dozens of Indian banks are already onboard - but transaction limits and a verification system based on QR codes mean there's a lot of room for improvement.
Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) is an initiative to enable fast, secure, reliable cashless payments through your mobile phone. BHIM is interoperable with other Unified Payment Interface (UPI) applications, and bank accounts. BHIM is developed by the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). BHIM is made in India and dedicated to the service of the nation.
Microsoft StaffHub
Android Police coverage: Microsoft StaffHub is a workplace shift management app for Office 365 subscribers
StaffHub is Microsoft's answer to Slack, a sort of all-in-one office team tool for chats, file sharing, calendar collaboration, and even timesheet management. The Android app mirrors the web interface, as is the case for most similar applications. In order for teams to use the tool, all users need to be on an active Office 365 subscription.
Microsoft StaffHub is a cloud-based platform that slips work (and the tools to manage it) into everyone’s back pocket. With Microsoft StaffHub, staff workers can view schedules, swap shifts, and request time off. Managers can create schedules, approve requests, and share information. On mobile or web, it’s the one-stop app for scheduling, sharing, and communicating. Microsoft StaffHub gives everyone the freedom to manage work. And get on with life.
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.