Welcome to the 325th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the past week.
- WhatsApp announced some new features this week, although most of them are not really new. Things we already knew, like QR codes, were officially added to the app. Some other things include some bug fixes and animated stickers. The changes should take effect over the next few weeks. Don’t worry if you don’t see them right away.
- A Google decision may prevent photos from being uploaded to Google Photos. Basically, Google stopped folder uploads from various apps, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and others. Google did this intentionally to ease the tension as people are uploading more photos during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can easily reset this in settings to upload your images from all apps if you want. Click the link for the tutorial if you need help.
- YouTube, Reddit and other social media sites are cracking down on extremist views. The crackdown includes some prominent names from the extremist community along with some troublesome subreddits. In general, it’s a good thing, since it’s easy to find those things even for the youngest children. Click on the link above to see the full list of prohibitions along with more details on why social media sites may want to keep you updated to avoid legal hassle.
- Last week we discussed that India could ban dozens of Chinese apps. This week the country went ahead and did it. The ban list includes TikTok, every DU app, every Cheetah Mobile app, Mobile Legends, ES File Explorer and others. We are not sure how India intends to enforce these bans. Russia tried something similar with Telegram and failed miserably. The bans come amid tensions between China and India that have already led to some fighting.
- YouTube TV raised its prices again this week. This is usually not a big problem because live TV services have done it before. This time, however, the price increase is $ 15 per month. However, the service did add some channels, including BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land, and VH1, along with a few others that will follow soon.
Dream decoration
Price: Free to play
Dream Decor is a new mobile game for fans of home decoration. The game is easy to play. Players unlock various pieces of furniture and decorate rooms to achieve scores. You get rewards when you do it right. The game has some out-of-door balance issues and we wish you get a bit more of a reward for doing it right, but otherwise it’s somewhat different than what we normally see in free games. The game rating is also quite low due to a series of loading errors in the first few days of the game, but the rating should recover over time. He is a decent little assassin.
Sharp
Price: Free
Keen is a new experimental application from Google. It works a bit like Pinterest mixed with the Google+ Collections feature. Find things you like and save them for future reference. You can create a new “Keen” whenever you want and then organize various things in that Keen. Therefore, you can track more than one thing at a time. This app is a web container, so it is not a native Android app. You can get more or less the same experience using the service’s official website.
Trivia Royale
Price: Free
Trivia Royale is a new trivia experience that rests between Trivia Crack and HQ Trivia. Players start games in groups of 1,000 and are slowly eliminated as they get wrong answers. It’s an interesting concept, even if you don’t make real money like you do in HQ Trivia. Regardless, the game has a ton of questions on many topics and more are added consistently. Also, the game has a VIP room for people who win the game. You have some issues outside the door, usually with delay or connection issues and we wish you could do things like turn off the music. Otherwise, not bad for a question and answer game.
RainViewer
Price: Free / $ 2.99 per month / $ 19.99 per year
RainViewer is a new weather app with some decent features. It has the usual basic characteristics such as weather forecast, temperature, etc. However, this app’s claim to fame is its track of the rain. You use this almost exclusively to track various types of precipitation. The app features more than 1,000 weather radars worldwide and works in 90 countries. You can track storms up to 48 hours before and up to 90 minutes in the future. In addition, there is a widget and support for 32 languages. You have a subscription and we are not the biggest fans of that, but everything else is pretty good. It should be noted that this is also available in the Huawei app store along with Google Play and iTunes.
SINoALICE
Price: Free to play
SINoALICE is a new mobile role-playing game. It is directed by Yoko Taro (Nier Automata and Drakengard) and composed by Okabe Keiich (also NieR Automata). The game includes mechanics similar to most mobile RPGs. You can get tons of characters, take on the story in a series of missions, and there are some social elements to cooperative play. The story is a bit similar to Final Fantasy Record Keeper, where you enter a library of stories and complete each one. The highlights of the game are its voice acting and music. We hope that the game will evolve more over time.
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