Welcome to the 451st edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the biggest headlines from last week:
- Android OEMs are considering adding a Dynamic Island-style feature. Namely, Realme surveys users whether people would be interested in such a function. Such a move may encourage some app developers to integrate it with their apps. However, without full Android integration, we don’t see Dynamic Island clones being too useful overall.
- Google Reminders is changing. Google is moving Google Assistant reminders and calendar reminders to Google Tasks. Users can then convert all their reminders into tasks for which they receive notifications. The move makes sense. To-do list apps are often better than reminders when it comes to certain things. That said, we don’t think things like birthdays should necessarily become a chore. In any case, click the link to learn more.
- Turns out YouTube’s Dislike button does next to nothing. Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, conducted a study that shows that the “Dislike” button has almost no effect on user recommendations. They figured a better solution was to tell YouTube to stop recommending the channel, but even then that wasn’t a good solution.
- Google Chrome is introducing a new feature. It allows you to lock your private browsing sessions with your fingerprint. Basically, you’ll be able to lock incognito mode so snoopers won’t see any tabs you leave open. The rollout is quite slow, but click the link to learn how to enable it right away.
- Android 13 may finally bring seamless updates to all Android phone brands, including Samsung. Google does this by requiring all Android 13 phones to use virtual partition A/B support, which is necessary for seamless updates. Click the link to learn more.
Center Stage presents itself as a visual trading card finder. It includes a feature where you point the camera at the card and it shows you how much the card is worth. It is useful for card collectors who want to negotiate a sale or delay for their cards. Plus, it’s fun to browse through your collection to see if you have any gems. Currently, the app supports baseball, football, basketball, F1 racing and hockey. Future updates will add Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering games. It is new but has few competitors.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Cross duel
Price: Free game
Yu-Gi-Oh! Cross Duel is a card dueling game centered around the Yu-Gi-Oh universe. It plays like most games in this space. You collect cards, build a deck and duel with other players. There are many characters in the TV show and you work to improve your bond with each of them. There are several different gameplay modes, decent graphics, and an improved dueling system from previous Yu-Gi-Oh mobile games. The animations can slow down the gameplay a bit, and as a free game, whales will appear to ruin people’s good times. Otherwise, it’s not bad.
Justune is a simple guitar tuning app. It works with some popular stringed instruments including guitar, bass guitar and ukulele. This one works well because it’s very simple. You open it, select an instrument and tune it. That’s all the app does. The app automatically recognizes which strings you are trying to tune. Over 1000 tunings are also available. Not much else to say about it. The price is $0.99 with no additional purchases. It is very good if you play guitar, bass or ukulele.
Soccer Manager 2023
Price: Free / $5.49-$28.49 with in-app purchases
Soccer Manager 2023 is a continuation of the relatively successful version from 2022. Players create a team, assemble it and compete for the best team. It gives you a decent amount of control, including the ability to buy and sell players, pitch tactics and training. Many parts of the 2023 version are better than the 2022 version, but many players believe that it has taken a step back in terms of graphics and gameplay.
The game has premium options along with in-app purchases. The cheapest option gets you an ad-free experience, one game save slot and 1325 bonus credits. If you go for the highest tier, you get an ad-free experience, 12,000 credits, ten game save slots and more. You can choose according to what you want.
DynamicSpot is an app that emulates Apple’s new Dynamic Island. It can do quite a few things, including showing notifications, checking music controls, adding a timer, and more. In some ways, it’s even better than Apple’s version. It’s mostly a proof of concept for now, though it works surprisingly well for something so new. We hope that the development in this area will continue because it is actually very fun to use.
If we’ve missed any major updates or releases of Android apps and games, let us know in the comments.
Thanks for reading. Also try these:
https://www.androidauthority.com/android-apps-weekly-451-3212403/