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5 Android apps you shouldn't miss this week - Android Apps Weekly
Welcome to the 405th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the last week:
- Google Photos joined the Material You widget collection this week. The new update to version 5.65 adds six new widgets in a few different shapes. Our writers liked the blob one the best. The widgets rotate images from your collection. You can click the image to see it in full resolution. Hit the link to check out screenshots.
- Netflix is officially launching its games launcher functionality. The launch includes only five games. However, more should appear over time. Users download the games from the Play Store and launch them directly from the Netflix app. Of the five games, two of them are Stranger Things games and then there are three arcade games. A couple of them are even playable offline.
- Facebook and Instagram had a minor outage earlier this week. Both services went down at roughly the same time on the same day. Luckily, the outage was confined to a small percentage of users and resolved relatively quickly.
- An Android 12 bug is causing some mobile games to crash. The bug has something to do with the function of automatic wallpaper switching. When enabled, it seems to cause crashing issues with some mobile games. The solution is rather simple. You can simply turn the feature off and the crashing stops. Google is aware of the solution and is working on it.
- You can apparently install the Google Play Store on Windows 11 PCs. It’s a rather complicated process that involves uninstalling system processes so we recommend proceeding with extreme caution. After the process, you can install Android apps and games like you can on basically any emulator. It’s actually kind of awesome. Of course, there’s another method to use Android apps on Windows 11 here too if you want to try it.
GRID Autosport Custom Edition
Price: Free / Up to $9.99
GRID Autosport Custom Edition is a weird release. The full game is already available on the Google Play Store here. This seems to be a free demo version that lets players play the game a little bit before deciding to buy the parts of the game they want. GRID is one of the best racing games on mobile. It has good graphics, decent controls, and it avoids the free-to-play pitfalls of most mobile racers. The game features various events and tracks to play through along with various cars to unlock and get. This custom edition lets you only buy the cars and tracks you want, so you can get the GRID experience without paying for the full game. Honestly, we recommend getting the full game because it unlocks everything, but if you don’t want to do it that way, this is the option for you.
Scrolling Icons Live Wallpaper
Price: Free / $1.99
Scrolling Icons Live Wallpaper is a fun, minimal live wallpaper. It creates a simple background with icons from your phone’s app drawer. You can customize things like background color, refresh rate, frame rate, and the option to have icons from apps you don’t have installed. The customization options are fairly varied and you can control a lot of the various animations with sliders as you can see in the screenshots above. It’s cheap, good looking, and we didn’t notice any untoward battery drain during our short test period.
FarmVille 3
Price: Free to play
The latest edition of one of the world’s most popular farming simulators is now out. It’s not too much different from the classic FarmVille games you probably already know. You start with a farm and plant crops to generate a profit. The profits are used to expand the farm with animals, buildings, customizations, and other fun things. There are also options to breed your animals, get exotic pets, hire farmhands to help you out, and even play with friends in a co-op mode to complete certain events. It’s a large game that just came out, so we didn’t get too far in testing. However, it’s a free-to-play game so you can expect some pressure to buy stuff with real money eventually.
F1 TV
Price: Free / $26.99-$79.99 per year
F1 TV seems to have launched its Android TV app finally. It does about what you would expect. You can live stream F1, F2, F3, and Porsche Supercup events straight from your TV. The service also includes talk shows, support for six languages, replays, old races, and a lot more. The app also adds some extras and the subscription for the service covers both the Android app and Android TV app. In terms of downloading, the main F1 TV app for mobile is also the link for the Android TV version, so it’s a good all-in-one stop for everything. Plans seem to range up to $79.99 per year, which is honestly not that bad compared to some other sports. The app is far from perfect, but it seems to have made some big strides in recent years.
Slime – Isekai Memories
Price: Free to play
Slime – Isekai Memories is a mobile game release based on the That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime anime. The anime covers season one of the anime where players can relive the memories from a 3D RPG perspective. The game has a lot of elements. The combat style is simple and polarizing. You basically select actions and the characters perform them. It just looks and feels a bit different. There is also a town builder element where you build a town and then walk around it. It’s quite a large game so there are a lot of things to do. It’ll take a while to actually finish. It’s a free-to-play game so you can expect the usual pitfalls, but nothing too serious if you don’t mind a little extra grinding.
If we missed any big Android app or game releases, tell us about it in the comments or email us at contact@androidauthority.com.
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