The last couple of years have brought increased scrutiny on Google Play's power over Android developers, especially in the wake of its lawsuit with Epic. The company followed Apple's lead back in March, lowering its fees to 15% for the first $1 million in revenue. A newly unsealed consumer lawsuit involving Google has revealed some new facts about how the Play Store is managed behind the scenes, including a secret deal made with Netflix.
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With Wear OS 3, it seems like Android-friendly wearables might finally be on the right track. Though there's no sign when non-Samsung watches will hit store shelves, Google has attempted to rectify this by bringing certain features to older watches. With an OS upgrade not happening until the second half of 2022, we've been expecting Wear OS 2 devices to stay actively maintained for the foreseeable future. Third-party apps might be a different story, however, as one popular fitness service has already discontinued support for Google's legacy watch OS.
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SwiftKey remains one of the best third-party keyboard alternatives on Android — especially if you're a dedicated Microsoft fan. With its latest beta update, the app is gaining a much-needed feature for managing logins, passwords, and smart replies.
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Amazon is kind of a big deal: while building a gigantic retail sales empire, it managed to compete with Google on multiple fronts (Android devices, cloud services, online advertising). But that retail empire thing is still the company's bread and butter, which is why the official Amazon shopping app is its first to pass 500 million downloads on the Play Store.
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Welcome to Monday, everyone. It's been a busy weekend, and so we have a plump list of sales for the start of the week, including a few standouts. First up is a sale for Bridge Constructor Portal, an enjoyable mashup of bridge construction and Valve's Portal mechanics. Next, I have a solid discount on Dungeon Warfare, an older but enthralling tower defense game. Last but not least is a sale for Heroes of Steel RPG Elite, an excellent turn-based strategy game from the Trese Brothers. As always, I've highlighted all of the interesting titles in bold in order to make discovery easier.
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Google's Assistant has become an essential tool for anyone deep within Google's ecosystem. You can ask it to control your smart home devices, control your music, find information online, run timers and reminders, play content on a Chromecast, call and text people, and more. But one thing it was lacking was in the automation part. Google Assistant has Routines, which you can use to set a custom prompt to make the Google Assistant do multiple tasks at once. Now, Google is taking it one step further with a new feature called "Daylong Routines."
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Magisk is one of the most powerful Android mod tools around, and a godsend to users who buy a phone without a strong custom ROM community. But ever since its creator John Wu was hired by Google itself in May, its future has been somewhat fuzzy. Earlier today Wu updated his Medium site for the Magisk project, stating that the open source tool will continue development ... but with some notable changes.
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Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so. Today I have a slick app for checking common foods against specific dietary requirements or allergies, a new release that can turn your old phone into a webcam for macOS/PC, and an app that can install Wear apps to your watch remotely. So without further ado, here are all of the new and notable Android apps released on the Play Store in the last week.
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Signal's been enjoying a massive uptick in users in 2021. This was, in part, thanks to WhatsApp's not-so-slightly invasive new privacy policy, which users rallied against in anticipation of it going into effect. Signal is an amazing option if your priorities are privacy and security, and support for end-to-end encryption as well as the backing of a non-profit foundation help keep users feeling that their information is safe and sound within the platform. Now it's taking a page from Telegram with a new feature: broadcast groups.
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Ever since Google opened up third-party API options for Android Auto apps, we've seen plenty of new experiences come to in-dash displays. Specialized navigation tools may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're planning on going off-road any time soon, it can be a game-changer. If you own an electric car, you know how important it is to locate nearby charging stations. ChargePoint added Android Auto support to its app a few months ago, and with this week's update, it's Electrify America's turn.
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