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Click the image above to watch the video on YouTube!
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Android Apps you shouldn't miss this week
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Dan the Man
Dan the Man is the latest platformer out of Halfbrick Studios, makers of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride.
Download from Google Play
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Burly Men at Sea
Burly Men at Sea is an adventure game with branching story lines and told as though it were a story book.
Download from Google Play
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Giphy Cam
Giphy Cam is a gif camera that lets you take short videos, turn them into GIFs, and customize them as you please.
Download from Google Play
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Legend of the Skyfish
Legend of the Skyfish is a puzzle adventure game that features hand-painted graphics, 45 levels, game pad support, and a fairly decent soundtrack. It's also a pay-once game with no in-app purchases.
Download from Google Play
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Headlines this week
- Samsung is looking to re-enter the digital assistant space with their acquisition of Viv Labs. For those who don't know, Viv Labs is a startup that specializes in digital assistants and the creators were among those who helped create Siri. We're not certain exactly how Samsung is going to use their new acquisition, but the popular opinion is that they'll compete with Siri and Google Assistant in the years to come. Here's hoping it does better than S Voice did.
- Along with all the new hardware, Google also announced Actions on Google this week, which will give third party developers the chance to integrate their apps with Google Assistant. There are two types of actions which are called Direct and Conversational. Direct actions are simple, one-phrase commands. Conversational actions are interactions that require more than one command or additional input from the user. The platform There are some big names like Netflix and IFTTT on board already and we can't wait to see how that will work.
- The Google Play Store is apparently rolling out a new feature that lets you stream games before you buy them. It's a very limited release and it's only available to a few users on a few devices, but it should be rolling out slowly over the coming weeks. The premise is that you get a 10 minute window to play the game before you buy it so you can see what it's like first. It's a bit buggy according to reports. It's a neat little feature that may help people buy more games.
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App Updates and Announcements this week
- The once-popular driver game Carmageddon released an update this week that made it completely free. The caveat there is that every version of the game has advertising, even if players previously bought the game to avoid ads. The ads that show now are for Carmageddon: Max Damage which is their latest Xbox One and PS4 title. It's made some players mad which is understandable, but the advertising could be much, much worse.
- Word on the digital street is that the Google Cast app is about to undergo yet another evolution. Starting soon, the app will go by the name of Google Home and it'll be an app that helps you connect with your Chromecasts and with your Google Home device. At least, that's what we're assuming since it kind of brings all of their streaming devices under one umbrella. Keep an eye out for the update which should be rolling out sooner or later.
- Pokemon Go is receiving a large update soon that will give you rewards for capturing Pokemon. Previously, players received medals for catching various types of Pokemon. Now, those medals will give you bonuses when catching those types of Pokemon. This should make it easier to catch basic Pokemon and give you a bonus when the rare ones finally pop up. It should be rolling out soon..
- The latest WhatsApp beta was released this week and it featured the ability to actually send GIFs. This feature had been requested a bunch over the years and it'll soon be gracing the standard app. They also published an update to the regular app that brings new camera features that make it work kind of like Snapchat.
- In a rare event, there are some debit and credit cards that will actually lose support for Android Pay on October 14th. We don't know the exact list yet but if you're among them, you'll get a notification to let you know.
- Facebook is entering into the e-commerce space with its new Marketplace feature. It's built right into the main Facebook app and you can access it by using the store icon along the top bar (with all the other icons).
- SwiftKey Beta received an update this week that allows you to run up to five languages concurrently within the keyboard. This is great for multi-lingual people who frequently type in multiple languages.
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App Deals and Additional Releases
- Square Enix is releasing five new games for the Nvidia Shield GeForce Now platform. They include Hitman Absolution, Theif, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Tomb Raider Legend, and Mini Ninjas. These are the full PC versions of the game that will be available on the platform which you'll be able to play on the Nvidia Shield Tablet, Shield Console, etc.
- To go along with its Facebook Lite for emerging markets, Facebook has also released Facebook Messenger Lite. You can't get it unless you live in certain countries, but it's essentially a super scaled down version of the app that uses less data.
- Also following that trend is Shazam with their latest app, Shazam Lite. This app is scaled down version of Shazam that will let you identify songs. It is less than 1MB in size and it works well, but it's only available in emerging markets.
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