5 Android apps you shouldn't miss this week! - Android Apps Weekly

• LG is entering the payment game in the United States. The company announced its release sometime in the first half of 2018. It should coincide with LG’s next phone release. It should also have similar magnetic strip functionality as Samsung Pay. We’re not sure how successful it can get with Samsung Pay, Android Pay, and Apple Pay. However, we wish LG the best of luck.
• Google is doubling down on Assistant. Some of the announcements at CES include a huge Google Store makeover. It also wants to integrate new features into Assistant. Among them is the ability to purchase various things. The company put a ton of emphasis on the personal assistant in 2017. After a big holiday season, we can’t imagine this would surprise anyone. We can’t wait to see all the big updates coming in the next year! That includes Google Assistant in Android Auto. The company also invested $120 million in eSports this week. It’s been a busy week for Google.
• The Winter Olympics is getting some VR goodness. NBC announced 50 hours of coverage of the event in VR on its app. Some of the events include skiing, ice hockey, figure skating, and others. It’s not the first sporting event in VR and it won’t be the last. It should be quite a bit of fun, though. NBC is partnering with Intel to make all of this happen.
• Xposed Framework got a huge update this week. It now supports Android Oreo, kind of. The beta release that supports Oreo is out now. It has the occasional bug and should receive frequent updates. Thus, it may be best to wait a bit longer if you want something stable. We encourage you to hit the link to learn more about installation.
• Google updated their Android Excellence apps this week. It’s a list of great apps and games with an emphasis on optimization, design, and functionality. Usually these kinds of lists are just dumps for super popular apps. However, Google did a good job of listing a bunch of stuff both popular and obscure. You can hit the link to learn more if you want to see them.

For even more Android apps and games news, check out this week’s newsletter by clicking here! There’s a bunch of info there that we didn’t have space for here. You can also check out the Android Authority app for even faster updates!

If we missed any big Android apps news, releases, or updates, tell us about it in the comments! Check back next week for more!