Welcome to the 349th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the past week:
- Google has renamed its G Suite package to Google Workspace. It's functionally the same stuff. Google plans to add more collaboration features in the future, which apparently justified a name change. In addition, Google has increased prices for small and large businesses, as well as some other changes. Here's everything you need to know about it.
- Google is adding some clearer notifications about account alerts in some of its apps this week in the near future. The purpose is to communicate better with people when something is really wrong than when something is just kind of wrong. The warnings are being improved in a variety of Google apps. Click the link to learn more.
- The App Store and Google Play debacle continued in two separate stories this week. The first was a House report in the US that said Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon and other companies have monopoly power and should be separated a little to prevent actual monopolies. We highly recommend clicking the link above to learn more about it as there is a lot of information out there. Additionally, Google has decided to postpone its mandatory 30% commission in India for the time being due to retaliation from Indian startups.
- Nvidia would like to resolve some video calling issues. A new developer platform was launched this week with Nvidia Maxine to support this. The platform helps with things like eye correction, face alignment, and other little things to make video chatting a little better. It can also upscale 360p videos to 720p fairly reliably, add virtual backgrounds, filter out background noise, and even translate speech in real time. For video chat apps and services, this could be a big deal.
- The Google Assistant had some big announcements this week. The first is that Google Assistant works better with smart displays by having people buying things from them directly and some other nice features. In addition, Google announced deeper integration with third-party apps and launched partnerships with 30 apps, including popular apps like Discord and Walmart. Click on the various links to find out more.
9. Dawn III
Price: $ 9.99
9th Dawn III is a new open world role-playing game. It's a pretty big game, with a range of content including over 1,400 items to collect, 270 unique enemies, and tons of locations to explore. For the most part, you'll crawl around the dungeon, collect equipment, adjust it, and then head straight back on the adventure. The game adds a few things like fishing, cooking, gem collecting, and fyued (a card game) to make the experience complete. The mechanics are easy to understand for most people, and the game has a lot more depth than the graphics suggest. It's a bit pricey at $ 9.99, but you'll easily get your money's worth by the time you quit it.
Project cheat codes
Price: Free / $ 1.99
Project Cheat Codes is different for gamers. It's supposed to be a one-stop shop for cheat codes for video games. The developer has two main goals. The first is to keep the installation size as small as possible, and the app leaves out any flashy graphics specifically for this purpose. The other is to use as many cheat codes as you can on as many games. It's obviously a daunting effort, but the app already has a decent and rapidly growing collection of games to offer. This could be a pretty excellent gaming tool if the developer sticks to it. The premium version is $ 1.99 and we think that's fair.
Sword master story
Price: Play for free
Sword Master Story was pre-registered this week and has already had a number of downloads. It's a hack-and-slash action RPG with some gacha mechanics. Players collect characters, improve them and use them to fight villains. At its core, it's not that different from most other gachas. There are a set number of characters and the upgrade paths are pretty similar to most of the others in the genre. However, some people seem to enjoy the mechanics and story, even if the translations are a bit crude. The game has a few bugs here and there, but it looks promising if the developers keep up.
InstaMocks
Price: Free
InstaMocks is a nice little app for screenshot enthusiasts. You can take screenshots and then emulate them in a device. People can use it to embellish their screenshots a bit. The app is mainly intended for developers, subjects, bloggers and similar types to take great looking screenshots for viewing on social media or the Play Store. Nevertheless, anyone can use the tool. It has more than 40 devices, a built-in text editor and you can work with up to 10 screenshots at the same time. It's also a free tool.
Masketeers: Idle has fallen
Price: Play for free
Masketeers: Idle Has Fallen is the newest idle game in a genre that will be overcrowded by 2020. This one seems pretty good. Players collect masks to give them strength and defeat bad guys. As you progress, your team can kill bad guys faster and earn more things faster. The fighting part of this is pretty neat, even when surrounded by familiar idle game ideas. Even so, it feels a bit better and deeper than your normal idle experience. This is another one that has a lot of potential as long as the developers keep up with it.
Thank you for reading! Try these out too:If we've missed any major Android app or game releases, let us know in the comments.