Welcome to the 362nd edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the past week:
- In 2021, Netflix brought some new things after The Office left. Cobra Kai Season 3 will air January 1st. The story of swear words began on January 5th. Some other upcoming shows include Pieces of a Woman (January 7th), Outside the Wire (January 15th), and many others. You can find the entire list at the link above.
- Telegram's location division raised some eyebrows this week. The People Nearby feature allows people to view your general whereabouts. However, with some tools, it isn't too difficult to find your actual location and place of residence. According to the telegram, the function works as intended and no corrections are made. The feature is not enforced so you can turn it off if you don't want to use it.
- WhatsApp updated its privacy policy this week. The new policy explains in more detail how the app shares your data with Facebook. According to Facebook, this is mainly for security and better integration with other Facebook services. There are also sections on abuse, spam, and other negative elements. Click the link for more information.
- Minecraft Earth is closing its doors this year. The date is June 2021. Unfortunately, the unique idea never caught on with gamers and the pandemic has kept a lot of potential gamblers in the house. Pokemon Go overcame the pandemic with more features for those stuck at home, an accomplishment Minecraft Earth couldn't emulate. Goodbye Minecraft Earth, you were cool.
- Discovery Plus officially launched earlier this week. The new streaming service includes content from The Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network and TLC, along with some other content. It offers a collection of 55,000 TV episodes for $ 4.99. Another streaming service isn't good news for consumers because it costs more money. However, many of these things were not yet available for other services anyway. Click here for a closer look.
OnePlus health
Price: Free
OnePlus Health is the companion app for the OnePlus fitness band. The band isn't out yet, but the app is. It offers many of the same features as Fitbit. It records your health, exercise, heart rate and sleep data. In addition, it has functions that enable, for example, the synchronization of notifications. We haven't been able to try it out because the fitness band is unavailable and there are no devices available to download. However, it is here when the band comes out.
Asdivine saga
Price: $ 6.99 for in-app purchases
Asdivine Saga is the newest game in Kemco's longstanding Asdivine series. This follows the story of Vyse as he tries to find out the evil that lurks behind the scenes of the world. The game mechanics are simple and very similar to the JRPGs in the 90s. There is a world map, turn-based combat mechanics, and various dungeons and cities to explore. Elements from other Asdivine games are also reused. From all we can say, you shouldn't have to play any of the previous games to enjoy this one. So it's a great way to introduce yourself to the series. The $ 6.99 price tag gives you the game with no ads and in-game currency. You can buy more money for stuff if you want, but this isn't a free style game.
iProVPN
Price: Free Trial / $ 34.95 per year
iProVPN is a new VPN and it seems like a decent one. It contains many of the keywords that one would want in a VPN. Some of the features include no logging policy, servers in over 20 countries (150 total), AES 256-bit encryption, and a number of other features. There's no free version, but you can try it for free for a month before paying for anything. The prices aren't half bad either. It's pretty new and we haven't read the entire privacy policy. So be careful, but it seems like a solid option.
Stella Arcana
Price: Free
Stella Arcana is a new MMORPG. It has many of the usual and desirable things like a big open world, lots of things to do, and the ability to play with other players in a variety of ways. Some of its highlights include a better crafted story than many of its competitors, the ability to keep pets and your own house, and decent combat mechanics. So far, most issues have been delayed and we expect updates to fix them at some point. This could be a really good MMORPG if the developers keep up with it.
AirMusic
Price: Free
AirMusic is a very useful application. You can stream your local media to anything, including Apple AirPlay devices, a rarity on Android. It also supports Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, Heos, SONOS, and even DLNA and UPnP. The app also works with music streaming. It works by capturing the audio and then streaming it to the device of your choice. Unfortunately, this means you need Android 10 or higher to use it, or you need root. This is one of the few ways to use AirPlay on an Android device. From then on it is also free.
Thank you for reading! Try these too: If we missed any big news or releases about any Android app or game, let us know in the comments!
