Welcome to the 286th edition of Android Apps Weekly! Here are the big headlines from the last week:
- DoorDash had a data breach this last week. The company confirmed leaked data for about 4.7 million customers, merchants, and other partners. The stolen info included the last four digits of account numbers but not whole credit card numbers or the CVV number on the back of the card. Additionally, the breach included over 100,000 driver’s license numbers, physical addresses, order histories. and passwords.
- The new Google Shopping launched this week. It’s available on both desktop and mobile. The experience includes a new UI, the ability to re-order commonly purchased items, and a new Google guarantee for customer support. Google also has Google Lens integration as well. Finally, the new service lets you buy things from various retailers similarly to how Amazon lets you choose your item’s seller. Hit the link to learn more.
- Minecraft Earth has a new Adventures mode. We took a hands-on look and you can check it out at the link. In our hands-on, we found an underground cave with a bunch of random stuff to explore. Our writer Sam Moore even dropped a stick of dynamite into the hole and set everything on fire. It seems like a legitimately neat little extra mode for the already fun Minecraft Earth.
- Google is super proud of its new Soli technology on the Pixel 4. The company even partnered with The Pokemon Company to create a demo game for the technology. The demo game serves as a demo for the Soli tech and as sort of an advertisement for Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield. Soli lets users interact with their devices via hand motions similar to the LG G8.
- The Huawei Mate 30 doesn’t have Google Play and that sucks for a lot of people. Installing Google apps on the phone got harder this week as well. An app, LZPlay, helped users install Google Play Services and the Play Store on the phone. It was revealed that the app used an undocumented API in the Huawei Mate 30. There was postulation that Huawei did this on purpose and worked with LZPlay to get Google services on its phone. However, LZPlay has since gone down and Huawei denies any involvement at all. Hit the link to learn more details.
Walk Master
Price: Free / Up to $4.99
Walk Master is an arcade game similar to titles like QWOP and Daddy Long Legs. Players use a series of taps to walk a character through various levels. The walking mechanic is more difficult than it seems and it’s fairly easy to lose one’s balance. The game features 26 playable characters and a decent number of levels with more on the way. It’s a clean game with a family friendly feel to it. However, it is harder to play than it looks.
John GBAC and John NESS
Price: Free / $4.49 each
John GBAC and John NESS are two relatively newer emulators. Both launched a while back but we still want to talk about them. John GBAC is an emulator for both Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color and John NESS is an emulator for SNES and NES. Thus, you get four emulators in two apps. Both apps feature the kinds of stuff one would want in an emulator. The features include save and load states, fast forward and slow motion modes, cheat code support, hardware controller support, and cloud storage support. These two apps replaced four other emulators by the same developer and both emulators are top notch work.
League of Wonderland
Price: Free to play
League of Wonderland is a new game from SEGA. It’s a card dueling style game. Players use decks with eight cards and battle other players online. Battles are surprisingly quick and take place in about two minutes. Additionally, there are a variety of cards to collect and special abilities to help sway the battle in your direction. The game also has a Viewer Mode in case you would rather watch others play. It’s a free to play title so expect those usual pitfalls. Most of the complaints are with some early release issues such as low frame rates and the occasional crash bug.
Energy Ring – Note 10 edition
Price: Free / Up to $27.99
There are two versions of Energy Ring. The first is for the Samsung Galaxy S10 series of devices. It lets you use the punch hole camera as a battery indicator. The Galaxy Note 10 variant does the same thing but for Galaxy Note 10 series devices. You can configure it as you need by increasing the thickness and color of the ring around the camera. It also boasts almost 0% CPU usage and only wakes up to change the battery level. It’s free to use with optional donations, hence the higher than average price tag. Now if we could only get Hidey Hole and a notification light app, the Note 10 would be ready to go.
Call of Duty: Mobile
Price: Free to play
Call of Duty: Mobile is one of the biggest shooter releases this year. It borrows from a ton of mobile game genres. Its a mobile shooter with similar mechanics to games like PUBG Mobile and Modern Combat 5. However, it also includes gacha elements with character and loot collection. The game includes a few different PvP modes along with some other stuff to do. There are some early launch bugs, including app crashes and slow downs. However, people seem to really like this one and it shows how far mobile shooters have come.
Thank you for reading! Check these out too!
Thank you for reading! Check these out too!
If we missed any big Android apps or games news, tell us about it in the comments!