Welcome to the 458th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from last week:
- WhatsApp announced a new Community feature earlier this year. This week, the company announced a global launch for it. Rollout was slow, so it would be a few months before everyone got their hands on it. That said, the process is underway, and all is good and official. Hit the link to learn more.
- The new Google Home app is getting a major overhaul. You can now sign up for the public preview if you want to check it out. It is available for Android and iOS users. The overhaul includes a number of UI changes and new features.
- Disney Plus officially announced a price increase this week. The basic plan without ads is $11 per month or $110 per year, which isn’t too bad. There is also a new ad-supported plan. It goes live on December 8th, and costs $8 per month or $80 per year.
- Google Stadia has officially rolled out refunds. People get refunds for a lot of things. However, there appears to be no refunds for Power Support Claw and Stadia Pro subscriptions. Some games also allow porting Stadia players to save data to other platforms. Hit the link to read more.
- Twitter has apparently rolled out two different checkmarks. One of them is the official tag, and it’s for people who had the legal blue tick before the change. Everything else is the usual blue tick that you get for paying for it. Twitter rolled back the changes a few hours later, so it’s currently inactive. The drama continues on Twitter.
28 is a sports app designed for women. This serves a dual purpose. The first is a menstrual cycle tracker that helps you determine when your cycle will occur. The second is a workout app that helps you plan fitness workouts according to your cycle. It uses helpful facts, such as your cycle has four stages, to help keep track of the various changes your body goes through during an average month. With that knowledge, you can formulate exercises that really suit you.
Now, for obvious reasons, I can’t test every feature in this app. All I can say is that the UI is clean and colorful. The features seem to work well, workout videos load without drama, and cross-platform support seems to be in order. We didn’t see any price tag on the app, so it’s free, at least for now.
Charlotte’s table
Price: Free to play
Charlotte’s Table is a match-three mixed with a restaurant simulator. The core gameplay is quite simple. You play through match-three levels. Doing so earns you a prize which you then use to decorate your little restaurant. The game also includes power-ups and other things to help you along the way. There’s also a story to play through which isn’t very deep, but cute and fun. We’ve only tried a few levels, so we’re sure there will be points where the game will get more difficult, but at least at first, it’s not bad for a match-three game.
Widget Notes
Price: Free
Noteit Widget is an app for couples and friends. This is a simple little widget. You put it on your home screen and then connect with your friends or loved ones. Once done, whatever you write on the widget will appear on their widget and vice versa. It’s definitely not going to replace traditional messaging or even things like Snapchat, but it can be a fun way to communicate with your partner. It’s free, and performed well in our tests.
Summoner Wars: Chronicles
Price: Free to play
Summoners War: Chronicles is the latest game in the Summoners War series. This one is an action RPG where you explore the world, defeat bad guys and do other things. By other things we mean fishing, PvP play, co-op play and more. It maintains the gacha nature of the series, with over 350 monsters to summon. They fight alongside you while you do your job. The game worked well when we played it, but it’s possible that there are some bugs lurking here and there. It’s a good experience for the most part, but we’re not sure how bad the microtransactions will be in endgame content.
Diary
Price: Free / $2.99
Daily Diary technically launched earlier this year, and we’re just catching up. This is a clean diary app with colorful graphics and great functionality. It works as you would expect for a diary app. You can record your feelings and experiences every day. Each log can have an emotion attached to it, so you know if you’re happy or sad. We also liked the lack of ads, password protection, and integration with Google Drive for backing up your diaries. It’s also free, at least for now. Not much to complain about with this one.
If we missed any major Android app or game news, let us know in the comments.
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