Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Welcome to the 456th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from last week.
- India fined Google about $162 million for anti-competitive practices. This is very similar to the EU fine in 2018. Google uses its dominance to force OEMs to pre-install apps preventing people from looking for alternatives. We love Android around this part, but it’s hard to hold on when it comes to stuff like this. Hit the link for more details.
- Samsung’s phone cameras have gotten a little better this week. The first is that Samsung introduced a multiple exposure mode and an astrophotography mode. It was introduced in Samsung’s Expert RAW app. The second is the new Good Lock module, Camera Assistant, which lets you customize the default camera app. The two links will tell you more about each.
- Apart from that, Samsung also announced that it will bring more emojis to the company’s smartphones. The Android 13 One UI 5 update coming to phones finally brings support for Unicode 14, which will add 138 new emojis to Samsung phones. Hit the link to learn more.
- An Apple executive spoke about iMessage on Android this week. He called it a one-shot effort that would stifle innovation. In essence, he claims Apple will not be able to present a good product if it has to support Android. We still think it’s because fewer people are going to be iPhones, but they are.
- Material You has been out for about a year now, and we’re seeing how the developer fares. It’s a little slow, and a lot slower than when Material Design first came out. However, we were surprised to see some apps, like Spotify, adopt some of the features. You can hit the link to learn more.
Rent Please
Price: Free to play
Rent Please is a landlord simulator. You play the role of a landlord and do the things landlords do. That includes getting to know your tenants, repairing your property, and collecting rent. You maintain this circle until you get everything you want. There are several strategies involved. For example, you have to find out how much utilities are going to cost, but still keep your tenants happy. It’s a decent simulator overall, even with microtransactions.
There
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Yonder is a web comic reader. You can download and read comics of various genres. It even has some exclusive items. Usability-wise, it feels like most comic readers. You download the comic, open it and read it. It has a system where you can unlock free stuff occasionally. However, you buy coins to quickly unlock the items you want. It has a few bugs, like most new apps, but otherwise, it’s not bad.
Walk everywhere
Price: Free to play
Path to Nowhere is a strategy RPG with some tower defense elements. You play through the game to unlock its story. Simply put, you play the role of a cop in a crime-ridden city. There is a gacha element. You summon characters to help you defeat the bad guys. Combat is a mix between strategy RPG and tower defense. Enemies move along designated paths, and you must defeat them before they leave. Arknights fans may also enjoy this one, as many of the basic elements are similar.
Google Family Link
Price: Free
Google continues to redesign with new versions of Family Link. The first major difference is the UI. It’s a bit more organized than outgoing design. Three tab design. One tab shows your child’s usage, a second shows control limits, and a third for GPS location.
The redesign is mostly in the UI, as most of the underlying functionality is the same as before. There are several new features, such as Today’s Limit, where parents can manually set screen time limits without disrupting their daily routine. We think the redesign is great overall and should make Google Family Link easier to use.
Saga Girl
Price: Free to play
Panilla Saga is a gacha RPG. It focuses heavily on gacha elements, and new players get an insane amount of pulls just for logging in for the first time. The fare is decent. The rest of the game is pretty easy to play. The fight isn’t anything special. You send five characters, and they battle against the enemy to see who wins. We reached the mill wall earlier than expected so get your milling faces ready as you will need them earlier. Otherwise, the game looks and feels pretty good. It should scratch the gacha itch, but there are better RPGs out there.
If we missed any major Android app or game news, let us know in the comments.
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