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Welcome to the 455th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the last week.
- YouTube is increasing its Premium family plan subscription by 23% next month. The price is going from $17.99 to $22.99 per month. It starts next month, although some long-term subscribers may get a few months before it kicks in. It’s a pretty hefty price hike; you can read more about it at the link. On a positive note, at least YouTube isn’t locking its 4K videos behind the paywall.
- We asked our readers if they’d pay for Netflix’s new $6.99 per month ad-supported plan. Most of them said they would not pay for it. The biggest issue among our readers is the part where they’re paying money but still seeing the advertising. We get it and wouldn’t want to pay for something and still see ads.
- Google attempted to throw some shade at Tim Cook on Twitter. However, the social media person working for Google uses an iPhone. Thus, the age-old Twitter for iPhone post was called out, and Google reposted it from the web. It’s a funny little gaff 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. Details came out during court proceedings. Sony is trying to block Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard, and one of the documents in the case had the information. Apparently, Microsoft wants to build a game store that works across platforms, including mobile. Hit the link to learn more about what’s going on there.
- While we’re talking about Microsoft, it’s also upgrading its Android support on Windows 11. The company is updating its Windows Subsystem for Android to support Android 13 along with all of its new APIs and features. The update will also bring file transfers and shortcuts. We don’t know when the update is coming, but it is on its way.
Sigma Theory
Price: $6.99
Sigma Theory is a turn-based strategy game that takes place in the future. It’s from the same developers as Out There, one of the best and most brutal survival games. Players are put in charge of their faction’s Sigma division to try and harness powers capable of winning the futuristic cold war you’re stuck in. In terms of gameplay, it’s a pretty good take on strategy. You use special agents to blackmail people and sabotage your opponents. It’s not graphically intensive, but the gameplay mechanics are interesting enough to where it doesn’t matter much. It’s a premium game as well so there are no in-app purchases to mess things up.
Substack Reader
Price: Free
Substack Reader is an interesting sort of news app. It lets you subscribe to individual writers and newsletters. It then notifies you when those writers or newsletters publish a new thing. The UI is minimal and clean. It’s a basic feed that you scroll through. Articles are read in the app with the same minimal and basic feel as the feed itself. The only gripe we’ve seen is some users aren’t big fans of some of the controls. However, the reader worked fine in our testing, and having an author-centric focus is definitely different.
MomentoMori
Price: Free to play
MementoMori is a new RPG with some AFK elements. On the RPG side, you battle against bad guys, level up, advance the story, and do quests. For the AFK side, you basically just auto-battle all the time. There are gacha elements where you create a party of characters to lead into battle. Each one has their own backstory, and it seems the developers put some work into crafting those backstories. Add in pleasing graphics and a decent soundtrack, and the game executes itself pretty well. We can see this one getting pretty popular in its genre.
Google Home (full redesign)
Price: Free
Google Home underwent a sizable redesign. Most of the features are the same, but there are some UI changes along with some new features. For starters, there is now Wear OS support, and you can now download the app on 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 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 other games. Players play the game, pull cards, create decks, and duel with other players. Most games take around three minutes. We like that the game doesn’t have any 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 variants), and the developers claim they’ll update the game consistently. It’s not perfect, but you get a lot of free stuff, and we enjoy how fast the battles take place.
If we missed any big Android apps or games releases, tell us about them in the comments.
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