Welcome to the 496th version of Android Apps Weekly. Listed here are the large headlines from the final week:
- Google is disabling all hyperlinks in YouTube Shorts. The reason being to do away with hyperlink spam. YouTube is including a brand new technique so as to add hyperlinks in September of 2023, so that is extra of a short lived factor quite than a everlasting ban on hyperlinks. You’ll see be capable to see hyperlinks in feedback, movies, and descriptions, however you gained’t be capable to click on on them.
- Gboard could allow you to use generative AI for proofreading and emojis quickly. The newest beta features a few generative AI options. Essentially the most prevalent of which is proofreading. Primarily, Google will retailer the textual content you write on Google servers for 60 days as a way to present proofreading options. That’s a bit a lot, but when that’s one thing you need, it might come to the common model of Gboard quickly.
- Android 14 is including some new safety features that introduce two new adjustments. The primary is stopping the telephone from dropping to a 2G connection. The opposite is defending voice and SMS site visitors if the service doesn’t encrypt them mechanically. It advantages finish customers as a result of 2G networks specifically are pretty frequent for stealing info, and most carriers have deserted 2G anyway. You possibly can learn extra on the hyperlink.
- Google Messages now encrypts all RCS chats mechanically and by default. That features group RCS chats. That is excellent news as a result of one of many advantages of utilizing RCS is its means to be end-to-end encrypted, and now everybody will get it with no need to dig into the settings. General, although, it’s a minor change that many individuals could not discover.
- WhatsApp is rolling out its screen-sharing characteristic to extra customers this week. The rollout is affecting Android, iOS, and Home windows customers who’ve the newest secure launch of WhatsApp. That is a part of WhatsApp’s push to be extra helpful for work environments, much like Google Meet and Microsoft Groups. Hit the hyperlink to study extra.
Dawnlands
Value: Free to play
Dawnlands is an open-world survival and crafting sport. It performs equally to different video games within the style. You wander round an open world the place you acquire sources, craft objects, and survive towards unhealthy guys. This one additionally comes with multiplayer with as much as 4 gamers in addition to a wide range of different issues to do within the sport world. It focuses loads much less on pure survival than another survival video games however makes up for it in different methods. It’s harking back to Genshin Impression and different, related video games in the case of mechanics as nicely. The sport had a little bit of a tough launch, however with some optimizations, this one might be fairly good sooner or later.
Winlater is an open-source app that allows you to play PC apps and video games in your Android telephone. It’s solely obtainable on GitHub for proper now, and it does require a few additional steps out of your typical APK set up, so we advocate you learn the set up information on the GitHub web page when you determine to attempt it out. It’s a really spectacular proof-of-concept app, nevertheless it does have its pitfalls. For instance, you may play PC video games, however they often run at pretty low FPS, and utilizing mouse controls is a little bit of a battle. Nonetheless, we like the place that is going, and we hope it will get higher over time.
Beginner Life
Value: Free to play
Beginner Life is a brand new idle RPG from Com2uS, builders of Summoners Struggle, and several other different common titles. The sport is fairly straightforward to play. You assemble a group of summoned characters and ship them out into battle. Fight takes place roughly mechanically. You primarily equip your group, degree them up, ship them out, and watch them go. That’s the gameplay loop. The sport additionally options a couple of completely different sport modes, a rating system, and a light-weight story for gamers to comply with. It’s nicely achieved so far as idle RPGs go however the sport suffered from connection points at launch, therefore its decrease Google Play ranking.
Contact the Notch
Value: Free / $0.99
Contact the Notch is a brand new app that allows you to map shortcuts to your telephone’s notch or pinhole digital camera. You’ll merely faucet the digital camera and the prescribed command will get issued. You possibly can have it do any variety of issues, together with opening the digital camera, taking a screenshot, turning on the flashlight, and much more. You may as well entry these shortcuts in a couple of other ways so you are able to do a couple of shortcut if you wish to. It has a couple of bugs, as most new apps do, nevertheless it’s a neat concept. It’s like a simplified model of the Dynamic Island characteristic that a variety of builders delivered to Android in app kind final 12 months.
Omniheroes
Value: Free to play
Omniheroes is a reasonably typical cellular RPG with gacha parts. You already know the place that is going. The sport enables you to summon a wide range of heroes. You improve them after which use them to progress by means of the sport’s story. Fight is automated, which brings an idle element to the sport as nicely. Not like many video games on this style, the themes are extra adult-oriented so put together your self for that mentally while you obtain the sport. You possibly can see what we imply within the character designs. General, it’s not unhealthy when it comes to mechanics. The remainder relies on your preferences.
If we missed any Android apps or video games information or releases, inform us about them within the feedback.