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

This week, we talk about one of the first games with Vulkan API, the official death of Sunrise, YouTube's Community tab, and more Android apps news!
By
September 18, 2016
android apps weekly

Welcome to the 158th edition of Android Apps Weekly! Here are your headlines from the last week:

  • Ouya has officially quit the hardware business and is now a publishing company. So far, they have published three games, all of them exclusive to the NVIDIA Shield Console. None of them are overly amazing or anything and they tend to feature retro graphics and rock steady game play. Still, it’ll be interesting to see what Ouya comes out with. Many of us still miss Android’s first really good gaming console.
  • Sunrise Calendar closed its doors for good this week. We knew it was coming after they announced as much months ago, but now it is officially dead and gone. The good news, though, is that many of the more unique features are currently being added to Microsoft’s Outlook. It’s obviously not the same thing, but the memory of Sunrise will live on in another app. You can expect these new features to hit Outlook sooner or later.
  • The new Nexus Launcher that was going around a week or two ago is now called the Pixel Launcher. On top of essentially confirming what we already knew about the Nexus name change, the app now appears to work slightly better than before. The calendar icon now shows the actual date and it seems to be a bit smoother. It’s downloadable now if you want it.
  • Jide has released a new Android emulator called Jide Remix OS player. The basic concept is that you run the Jide Remix OS on Microsoft Windows and then use it to run Android apps. It works similarly to most Android emulators, except these guys seem to have a history of doing things the right way. It’s about the only emulator that uses Android Marshmallow and it’s completely free to use.
  • YouTube is apparently preparing to enter the social media space. A blog post from Google indicated that content creators will be able to post things like text-only content, gifs, live video, and other types of content that you normally don’t see on YouTube. The idea is to give creators a better method to communicate with subscribers without requiring them to go to other sites like Facebook and Twitter. It’s only available to a few people now to test it out.

For even more Android apps and games news, check out this week’s newsletter by clicking here! You’ll find the latest releases, deals, news, and updates that we didn’t have time for here. To sign up for the newsletter, you can fill out the form below. We send out the newsletter every Sunday! You can also check out the latest news using the Android Authority app!

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muviz android apps weekly
Muviz Nav Bar Audio Visualizer

[Price: Free / $1.99]
Muviz is a nav bar audio visualizer app that shows a visualizer in your nav bar. The visualizer does react to music that you play on your device and it’s a pretty fun little thing to look at. It features the ability to customize the visualizer to your specifications and it should also work over things like video apps like YouTube. There are even options to have it work on apps that hide the nav bar. It’s free to download with the pro version going for $1.99. Muviz isn’t necessarily useful but it looks really awesome.

muviz android apps weekly

vg vulkan beta android apps weekly
VG Vulkan Beta

[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
VG Vulkan Beta is actually just the popular MOBA Vainglory but with some Vulkan baked in. As many of you know, Vulkan API is a new addition into Android Nougat and the VG Vulkan Beta may very well be the first game to use it. It’s exactly the same as the MOBA we all know and love already so the game play experience and mechanics don’t change at all. It’s had some compatibility issues with devices that are supposed to have Vulkan support, but otherwise it works pretty well.


Google Cast best tv remote apps for android
Google Cast Preview

[Price: Free]
Google Cast Preview is kind of like a beta, except that it’s meant to be more stable. It essentially gives people the opportunity to try new features in Google’s Chromecast platform before they’re available to everyone else. To activate it, you simply need to allow for the preview email in the notification settings and then follow the instructions in the email. It should be relatively bug free since it’s not meant as a beta release. In any case, it’s completely free to use.


animation throwdown android apps weekly
Animation Throwdown: TQFC

[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Animation Throwdown is a card collecting game. In this title, you’ll be able to collect cards that feature many popular cartoon characters and then you duel it out against other players for supremacy. The game manages to keep the quirky humor from each series intact and there are some mechanics that allow you to combine cards for stronger attacks. It’s essentially a massive amount of fan service for fans of these TV shows, but it’s free to download and has a ton of things to do. It’s worth a shot.


deskdock android apps weekly
DeskDock

[Price: Free / $5.49]
DeskDock is one of the more unique Android apps we’ve seen released this year. You’ll be able to use this app to share your mouse between your PC and your Android device. The setup is relatively easy and you should have it up and running in just a few minutes. Once it’s all set up, it’ll be like your Android device is just another monitor in your setup. It’s compatible with devices running Android 4.1 and up and there is no root required. The pro version goes for $5.49 and it contains extra features.