Welcome to the 430th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from last week:
- A report circulated this week outlines Elon Musk’s alleged ideas for increasing Twitter’s revenue. Among the ideas include making money on tweets, increasing celebrity engagement and cutting back on the salaries of senior executives. It was apparently part of his attempt to buy Twitter. We do not know how feasible many of these things are, but you can click on the link to learn more about it.
- Google gives people more power to remove personally identifiable information from the web. This week, Google allowed people to request that phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses be removed from Google’s search results. Google will process your requests in a few days, and your information should be gone. We like this feature a lot and recommend that people do it.
- Last week, we talked about the shutdown of the disaster, which was CNN Plus. It turns out it was worse than we thought because it actually shut down two days too early. It was supposed to close on April 30, but close on April 28 instead. It is one of the worst launches of streaming services ever and draws some comparison with Quibi.
- Several large technology companies were tricked into providing personal data to hackers. The process is a bit complicated. The short version, however, is that hackers pretended to be a legitimate company and submitted false legal requests. The big tech companies responded and gave data away. Google, Apple, Twitter, Discord and several others were included. Click on the link to learn more.
- The Google Play Store now shows you how apps collect and share your data. It is 100% mandatory for app developers to include this data from July 20, 2022. The information includes what data is collected, how it is used, what third parties they share with and several other data. You should see this roll out in the coming weeks.
phantom
Price: Available
Phantom is a crypto wallet originally for desktop browsers. The company launched its Android and iOS apps a few weeks ago. The app boasts many of the same features as the wallet itself, including fast transactions, low fees and Solana DAPPs for increased functionality. As an app, it’s not terrible, but it certainly still needs some optimizations. It tends to load slowly and sometimes does not respond. A little adjustment here and there, however, and the app should prove to be very useful. People who are already using Phantom should definitely check it out.
Seven Deadly Sins X-Tasy
Price: Free to play
Seven Mortal Sins X-Tasy is a mobile JRPG with the usual gacha elements. You play through the story as you summon and upgrade your devices. Some other game features include voice actors, the story has unique reactions based on the player’s decisions and hidden stories that your characters can unlock and play. The honeymoon phase is pretty free to play friendly, though the gate will eventually catch up with you. It is certainly one of the better options for this genre in recent times.
Mastodon is a decentralized social network similar to Google+ and Twitter mixed together. The service launched its official Android app last week, no doubt in response to Musk buying Twitter. The app is great for being so new. You can join different communities, write your thoughts, send polls, get notifications and more. There are some growing pains. For example, it’s difficult to switch instances without having to log in multiple times, and there are some other UI / UX issues that we hope the developers fix soon.
Echoes of Mana
Price: Available
Echoes of Mana is the latest gacha RPG from Square Enix. This revolves around the existing Mana series. It plays like many Square Enix gachas, where you can summon new and old characters from the Mana series, play through a story and enjoy a bit of nostalgia mixed with a bit of new. This one is a bit more aggressive in terms of microtransactions than most Square Enix gachas, and some of the gameplay is a bit stuttering on lower end devices, but Square Enix will continue to improve in the long run, so keep an eye out for this one.
No Launcher
Price: Available
Nothing, the company, launched Nothing Launcher as an advertising stunt to market its upcoming phone. The starter is what runs on the new device. The launcher is a bit bland. There are some widgets, a unique wallpaper and a few customization options. However, it is very bland and basic, so we do not expect this to take the place of apps like Nova Launcher at some point. Still, we’ve seen OEMs upgrade and develop their launchers before with great success, so we will not count this one out completely yet.
If we missed any great Android app or game news or releases, please let us know in the comments.
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