Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Welcome to the 422nd edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the main news from last week:
- Members of the Android Authority team sat down this week and talked about some of their favorite things about Android 13. Some of the things we really liked included guest-mode app installs, Material You improvements, a QR code scanner toggle, and the ability to tap to transfer media. Hit the link to read all of them.
- AT&T is pirating RCS support on phones and people don’t like it. Basically, AT&T’s solution overrides other solutions and forces AT&T customers to use plain SMS when contacting non-AT&T customers. So far, the support response hasn’t been very convincing and this could be bad for RCS fans on AT&T.
- Rumors circulated this week about Signal Private Messenger being hacked. Thankfully, the rumors turned out to be untrue. Signal notes that it saw increased use in Eastern Europe just as Russia declared war and believes the rumors are intended as a misinformation campaign to encourage people to use less secure alternatives. Hit the link to learn more.
- Last year, Crunchyroll and Funimation became part of the same company. Starting this week, Crunchyroll is absorbing Funimation, Wakanim, and VRV content to become one big streaming service in its own right. Overall, Crunchyroll is getting around 80% of Funimation’s library before the end of March 2022. This is big and great news for anime fans as they can now see almost everything under one roof.
- Samsung is in trouble this week. The company seems to limit the performance of thousands of apps across multiple device generations. It uses the Game Optimization Service to do so, and we found that on phones as new as the S22 lineup. Samsung allegedly started an internal investigation to stop this. We’ll tell you more about it as more happens.
Hyde and Seek
Price: Free / Up to $20.99
Hyde and Seek is a narrative game that plays similarly to a mobile board game. It revolves around Kate, a woman who disguises herself as a man to escape a group of gangsters. Now it’s up to him to uncover the secret. Players are involved in the story, make decisions and shape the outcome of the game. There are combat elements as well as card-based movement mechanics as well. It’s a decent overall game for the most part. The only problem is the ticket style energy system. It takes too long to regenerate, leaving players waiting a long time unless they pay real money.
Zenforms is a new application from Zenkit. This app works similarly to Google Forms. You create a form, share it, and people fill it out. You get data records obtained from forms which you can do as you please. The app is GDPR compliant and integrates into the existing Zenkit suite in the same way as Google Forms integration to Google Drive. It’s definitely not the most exciting release. However, it’s nice to see some competition in the form creation space as most people stick to Google Forms.
Puzzle Quest 3
Price: Free to play
Puzzle Quest 3 is the latest release in the ever popular game series. It was one of those original games that used match-three mechanics as the battle mechanics in RPG style games. This one switches on the premise with more refined mechanics. You match three shapes and your hero attacks the enemy. You progress through the game by defeating enemies. There is also a PvP element as well as various rewards for completing items. Unfortunately, the developers opened with a rather aggressive monetization strategy mixed with slow progress. We hope the developers eventually fix things up, because this game is solid for its genre.
F-Secure free password generator
Price: Free
Lots of people have bad passwords and F-Secure is one of many companies trying to help fix them. One way is with this new web-based tool that generates random passwords for you. You can choose a password of up to 32 characters with a mix of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols. You don’t need an account to use it, and it should work fine in whatever password management you use. Of course, F-Secure uses the page to promote its own service, but you don’t have to use it to use a password generator.
Hitman Sniper: Shadow
Price: Free to play
Hitman Sniper: The Shadows is the next game in one of the best mobile shooter franchises of the past. Players perch on sniper stands and shoot at targets based on mission parameters. Players have a choice between multiple snipers, multiple viewpoints, and multiple missions on the same map. It has to go down as one of the better strategy shooters in recent years. However, Square Enix shipped the game with a few major bugs they needed to fix. Keep an eye on this one for the next few weeks to see if the fix comes sooner rather than later.
If we missed a major Android app or game release, let us know in the comments.
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