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

Welcome back to Android Apps Weekly! This week we talk about Telltale's Marvel game, Taiwan's hate for Uber, some awesome games, and more Android apps news!
By
November 20, 2016
Android Apps Weekly

Welcome to the 166th edition of Android Apps Weekly! Here are the headlines from the last week:

  • The developers of Critical Ops announced this week that their game has over ten million downloads and 300,000 active players. For those who don’t know, Critical Ops is a first person shooter that’s been in a perpetual beta since its release. Even so, it’s a solid game with decent graphics and mechanics. It’s a free download in the Play Store if you want to try it out. It’s a worthy competitor to more popular shooters like Modern Combat 5.
  • A new study done this week shows that Android users are more than twice as likely to uninstall apps and games than iOS users. The study indicates that 43% of games and 21% of app downloads eventually get uninstalled on Android. On iOS, those numbers are 13% and 9%, respectively. Whether Android users simply try more things or are more particular about their apps is up for discussion. Either way, it’s interesting.
  • Word around the digital grapevine is that Telltale’s upcoming 2017 Marvel game will be based around Guardians of the Galaxy. The information comes from a supposed leak originally covered by ComicBookMovie.com. Along with that, the leak also allegedly lists The Walking Dead Season 3 as a game that’s happening. We hope all of these leaks are true because that would be awesome.
  • Taiwan is currently trying to have Uber banned from every app store in its country. Here’s what happened. In Taiwan, transportation services pay a different set of taxes from technology platforms. Uber classified itself as a technology platform while the Taiwanese government is well aware that it’s essentially a transportation service. We’ll have to see how this turns out in the long run, but it’s not the first time Uber has been in hot water.
  • Facebook and Google are making some moves to help prevent the circulation of fake news. Facebook will simply stop allowing those stories to trend on its site while Google removes their AdSense money. We don’t know what this will mean for the satire community, but it’s actually kind of sad that we have the culmination of human knowledge at our fingertips via the Internet and this is still somehow a problem.

For even more Android apps and games news, releases, updates, and more, check out this week’s newsletter by clicking here! There you’ll find a ton of information that we didn’t have time for here. You can use the form below to sign up for the newsletter and we’ll send it out every week if you’d like us to. Also don’t forget to check out the Android Authority app!


snipback Android Apps Weekly
SnipBack

[Price: Free]
SnipBack is a voice recorder app that lets you record yourself. It does the standard recording stuff pretty well. You’ll be able to record yourself doing whatever and then export those files to your internal storage, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Another feature is the ability to let SnipBack run as a service that can temporarily record audio all the time and then let you recover it if you want to. We don’t recommend leaving it on all the time, but it’s a nifty little thing to have.


haunted rooms Android Apps Weekly
Haunted Rooms

[Price: Free]
Haunted Rooms is a VR puzzle game that was released this week. It’s an escape game which means you’ll spent most of your time solving puzzles to get out of wherever you are. It boasts decent graphics, a short story line, and a spooky ambiance. The developers have also stated that they’d like to add more episodes to the adventure over time. It was made for Google Cardboard so it should work with almost any similar VR headset. It’s also a free download.


fingerprint gestures Android Apps Weekly
Fingerprint Gestures

[Price: Free / Varies]
Fingerprint Gestures is an app that allows you to use your fingerprint scanner as a gesture pad. The way it works is you assign actions to an activity. For instance, you can set “Recent Apps” to a single tap of your fingerprint scanner. When you perform the activity, it performs the action. It’s a little rough around the edges and it doesn’t work with every device. You’ll also need a device that’s running Android Marshmallow in order to use it.

fingerprint gestures Android Apps Weekly

jade empire Android Apps Weekly
Jade Empire: Special Edition

[Price: $9.99]
Jade Empire began life as an action RPG on the original Xbox back in the mid 2000s. It was eventually ported to PC and now, Android. The game takes place in a land inspired by ancient China and the characters were as well. It’s a Bioware title so fans of their games know what kind of experience they’ll get with this one. It’s a tad expensive at $9.99, but it comes with full controller support, on-screen controls, and additional content that wasn’t in the original release.


photoscan Android Apps Weekly
PhotoScan by Google

[Price: Free]
PhotoScan by Google is an app that helps you digitize your photographs. You use it to kind of scan your real life photos which are then added to your gallery. It also has a few tools to help things along. For instance, you can use the crop tool to get rid of any frame or background. It doesn’t take long to learn how to use and it only really does this one thing. Anyone who’s been meaning to get digital copies of their old photographs, you should definitely try this.

photoscan Android Apps Weekly

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If we missed any big Android apps or games news, tell us about them in the comments! To see our complete list of best app lists, click here.