5 Android apps you can’t miss this week – Android Apps Weekly

Welcome to the 455th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the headlines from the past week.

• YouTube is increasing its Premium family plan subscription by 23% next month. The price goes from $17.99 to $22.99 per month. It starts next month, although some long-term subscribers may have a few months before it starts. That’s a pretty hefty price hike; you can read more on the link. On a positive note, at least YouTube doesn’t lock its 4K videos behind the paywall.
• We asked our readers if they would pay for Netflix’s new $6.99 per month ad-supported plan. Most of them said they wouldn’t pay for it. The biggest issue among our readers is the part where they pay money but still see the ad. We understand and wouldn’t want to pay for something and keep seeing ads.
• Google tried to throw shade at Tim Cook on Twitter. However, the person working on social media for Google uses an iPhone. So Twitter’s age-old post for iPhone was called and Google reposted it from the web. It’s a funny little blunder we’ve seen before, and we’re sure we’ll see it again. Mark Zuckerberg also threw some shade at iMessage for being less secure than WhatsApp.
• Microsoft is apparently building a game store. The details came out during the court proceedings. Sony is trying to stop Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard, and one of the documents in the case contained the information. Apparently, Microsoft wants to create a game store that works on all platforms, including mobile. Click the link to learn more about what’s going on there.
• While we are talking about Microsoft, it is also upgrading its Android support to Windows 11. The company is updating its Windows Subsystem for Android to support Android 13 along with all its new APIs and features. The update will also bring file transfers and shortcuts. We don’t know when the update will arrive, but it’s on the way.

Sigma theory

Price: $6.99

Sigma Theory is a turn-based strategy game set in the future. It comes from the same developers as Out There, one of the best and most brutal survival games. Players are tasked with their faction’s Sigma Division to try and harness powers that can win the futuristic Cold War you’re stuck in. In terms of gameplay, it’s a very good strategy. You use special agents to blackmail people and sabotage your opponents. It’s not graphically intensive, but the game mechanics are interesting enough that it doesn’t matter much. It’s also a premium game, so there are no in-app purchases to spoil things.

Sub-stack reader

Price: Free

Substack Reader is a kind of interesting news application. It allows you to subscribe to individual editors and newsletters. It then notifies you when those writers or newsletters publish something new. The user interface is minimal and clean. It’s a basic flow that you scroll through. Articles are read in the app with the same minimal, basic feel as the stream itself. The only gripe we’ve seen is that some users aren’t big fans of certain controls. However, the reader performed well in our testing, and having an author-centric focus is definitely different.

Momento Mori

Price: free to play

MementoMori is a new RPG with some AFK elements. On the RPG side, you fight against bad guys, level up, advance the story, and do quests. For the AFK side, you basically fight all the time. There are gacha elements where you create a group of characters to lead into battle. Each has its own backstory, and it looks like the developers have been working on creating those backstory. Throw in some nice graphics and a decent soundtrack, and the game runs pretty well. We can see this one becoming quite popular in its genre.

Google Home (complete overhaul)

Price: Free

Google Home has undergone a major overhaul. Most of the functionality is the same, but there are some UI changes as well as some new features. For starters, Wear OS is now supported and you can now download the app to your Wear OS watch. It’s also coming to the web as part of the redesign. Google is also integrating Matter, the new smart home connectivity standard.

Some of the new in-app features include Favorites, a camera view fix for Nest cameras, and more automation and sensor support. There’s a lot of good stuff, but the best part is the Wear OS support. We guess Google needed its own smartwatch before it started taking the platform seriously.

MARVEL Snap

Price: free to play

MARVEL Snap is a card dueling game. It features most of the same card dueling elements as the other games. Players play the game, draw cards, create decks, and duel with other players. Most games last about three minutes. We love that the game doesn’t have super long, fancy animations, so you can just play the game. There are 50 different arenas, hundreds of heroes and villains to collect (in multiple variations), and the developers claim that they will update the game consistently. It’s not perfect, but you get a lot of free stuff, and we like how fast battles go.

If we missed any great Android apps or game releases, tell us about them in the comments.
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