Checking recent app changelogs is getting more and more difficult
Google has been trying different things with the Play Store, including changes that have been enabled and reverted so many times we've lost track — hello, account picker and review section. However, not all of these are welcome modifications,...
Moment kills its Android camera app, cites constantly-changing software and hardware (Updated)
The company will still make lenses for Android phones, though
Update 1: 2020/02/28 3:19PM PDT
Additional details
Moment is one of the largest manufacturers of custom lens attachments for smartphones, with its cases (required for mounting the lenses) available for most flagship Android phones....
Serious Sam Collection and Panzer Dragoon: Remake are coming to Stadia (Update: Serious Sam details)
A couple timed-exclusive indie titles, too
Update 1: 2020/02/28 11:14am PST
The folks over at Stadia tweeted on Friday morning that the Serious Sam Collection will be officially released on Google's cloud gaming service on Tuesday, March 3rd. In addition to
Last month, Google announced that...
The best web browsers for Android
You probably don't think much about the web browser on your phone. No matter what browser you've grown accustomed to using, there are plenty of other options that might improve your experience. Unlike Apple, which requires all third-party browsers to use the Safari rendering engine (and doesn't allow...
15 temporarily free and 25 on-sale apps and games for Friday
Don't miss out on the sales for Old Man's Journey, Back to Bed, and ELOH
Welcome to Friday, everyone. The end of the week is here, and so I have a few app and game sales to share with everyone today. While it would appear today is a slower day for sales, there are a few notable games in the list,...
2FA apps like Google Authenticator reportedly vulnerable to malware snooping
The trojan primarily targets banking apps
Using app-generated one-time passcodes (OTPs) is perhaps the easiest and most cost-effective way to add a second authentication layer to all your online accounts and services. They eliminate almost any chances of an unauthorized person accessing your accounts...
Google Contacts can now back up and sync contacts saved to your phone's internal storage
No need to worry about losing contacts stored on your phone anymore
Google Contacts is particularly useful if you want to sync your contacts to your Google account and ensure you never lose them, but until now it hasn't been able to back up information stored on a phone's internal storage. On many...
Pocket Casts lets you automatically skip the unnecessary outros of some podcasts (Updated)
You'll have to manually set the duration per podcast though
Update 1: 2020/02/28 5:16am PST
In stable
Since most podcasts start with a jingle and a small intro, possibly even ads, several podcast players have implemented a skip feature that lets you avoid those. You set up a specific duration...
YouTube Kids now available in 11 more countries
YouTube Kids has proven to be a popular way for parents to give their children access to a limited collection of YouTube content, even if that collection occasionally includes videos depicting suicide and cannibalism (oops!). The service has slowly been expanding its global reach, and now Google has...
Here are 371 apps and games available on Google Play Pass right now (Update: 15 more)
A good-faith effort to list all the apps you can get for free on Play Pass
People have been wondering about the full roster of launch titles featured in Google Play Pass — supposedly, we've got over 350 of them to go through. Here's the thing: Google doesn't make it easy to suss out all of the apps...
TuneIn updates app with rewind/forward buttons in notifications
No support for Android 10's seek bar, though
TuneIn is one of the most-recognized apps for listening to online radio stations and podcasts, especially since it has been available on Android for nearly a decade. A minor update is now going out on the Play Store that updates the playback notification...
Google boots popular anti-spam call service YouMail off the Play Store (Update: It's back)
Google really needs to fix its automated app review process
Update 1: 2020/02/27 11:46am PST
YouMail is back on the Play Store. While the app's official Twitter account didn't clarify what the solution was, at least it can be downloaded again.
Every other month, a legitimate, useful app gets...
Shazam on Android now integrates with Apple Music
Spotify continues to be an option
The Shazam app was Apple-fied with prominent Apple Music tags and links for your identified songs soon after the tech titan completed its acquisition back in 2018. But still, it could only connect to the Spotify app for exchanging your playlists, but not Apple’s own...
Google rolling out new AdSense mobile site ahead of Android app shutdown
Google AdSense is the most popular ad platform on the web, but the Android app was last updated in 2017. There's a reason for that — Google wants to replace both it and the iOS app with a cross-platform web application. Now the new mobile site is here, so business owners (or YouTube vloggers) can...
Pocket Casts beta lets you automatically skip the unnecessary outros of some podcasts
You'll have to manually set the duration per podcast though
Since most podcasts start with a jingle and a small intro, possibly even ads, several podcast players have implemented a skip feature that lets you avoid those. You set up a specific duration per show (anything from a few seconds to a couple...
Asymmetric survival horror game Dead by Daylight is coming to Android (Update: Spring 2020)
Update 1: 2020/02/27 8:01am PST
Dead by Daylight Mobile will be officially released on Android this spring
Behaviour Interactive has announced that its asymmetric survival horror game Dead by Daylight is coming to Android and iOS before the end of 2019. It will be a free release, and the beta...
Almost all Cheetah Mobile apps have mysteriously disappeared from the Play Store
They won’t be missed
Cheetah Mobile has earned a reputation as a dishonest, destructive Android development studio that occasionally buys up successful apps and turns them into data-collecting, IAP-infested cash machines. The company has also clashed with Play Store policies more than once, but it...
Xiaomi’s new Mi Browser can save WhatsApp statuses and natively show your Facebook feed (APK Download)
It’s a Mint Browser doppelganger
Much like Samsung, Xiaomi makes its own alternatives to various Google apps that are usually tied to its notoriously heavy MIUI Android skin. In the past couple of years, the Chinese company has moved apps like Mi Calculator and Mi FileExplorer to the Play Store for...
Microsoft Outlook adds annotation feature for photos and scanned documents
Scribble on your photos without leaving your email app
Outlook is one of the most popular third-party email apps on Android, and it keeps getting better. Only a few months after rolling out dark mode support and POP3 integration, the app has added the ability to annotate photos and documents using...
17 temporarily free and 27 on-sale apps and games for Wednesday
Welcome to Wednesday, everyone. It's the middle of the week, and so this is a slower time for sales, but that doesn't mean I don't have a few standouts to share today. So if you're looking for a solid puzzler, Mirage: Illusions is completely free today, and if you enjoy spooky adventure games, then...
Samsung Sound Assistant gets 2020 update, adds redesigned volume slider
Let's get vertical, vertical
Samsung started updating Good Lock, its one-stop-shop for customization, earlier this month to support Android 10. Notably absent was Sound Assistant, a tool offering in-depth tweaks to the system volume panel, as well as delving into the volume mixer to get things sounding...
LEGO Legacy: Heroes Unboxed is a F2P collect-a-thon RPG, now available on the Play Store (Update)
Update 1: 2020/02/26 8:31am PST
LEGO Legacy: Heroes Unboxed is officially available
For some reason, LEGO has been busy this year lending out its brand to nefarious developers. Last week LEGO Star Wars Battles was announced, and it appears to be a free-to-play Clash Royale clone from Warner...
Plants vs. Zombies 3 leaves pre-alpha testing, enters soft launch in select territories
Nope, EA still hasn't actually released Plants vs. Zombies 3
Electronic Arts recently revealed that Plants vs. Zombies 3 has finally left its pre-alpha testing phase and has now entered into a soft-launch release cycle for select territories, and the Philippines is the first country...
Gmail removed the option to empty spam and trash on Android
Your unwanted email will stick with you for 30 days
While the concept of "inbox zero" is appealing in theory, many of us just fail to achieve it. Instead, we do our best to archive or label messages, mark unwanted email as spam, and delete some threads when we're completely done with them. If you...
Gmail got slightly better at blocking malicious Office documents
Google's new machine-learning algorithm detects 10% more malware
Gmail's spam and malware filters are among the best in the industry and block 99.9% of threats from reaching inboxes, according to Google. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, as 0.1% can scale up to quite a substantial...
Google Contacts for web adds back the ability to create multiple contacts
The feature had disappeared with the website redesign
Last year, Google finished its slow rollout of the newly Material-themed web interface for Contacts. While the visual upgrade was inarguably prettier, it ended up losing a pretty handy feature: the ability to add multiple names and/or email addresses...
Data Encryption on Android with Jetpack Security
Posted by Jon Markoff, Staff Developer Advocate, Android Security
Have you ever tried to encrypt data in your app? As a developer, you want to keep data safe, and in the hands of the party intended to use. But if you’re like most Android developers, you don’t have a dedicated security team to help...
Firefox Lite now has a useless travel-planning feature
Mozilla has several flavors of its Firefox browser for Android, with 'Firefox Lite' serving as the main choice for Indonesia and other Asian countries. Despite its name, the Lite browser has become more and more bloated over the past few months, and now there's a travel feature that isn't very helpful.
A...
Valve's Auto Chess competitor Dota Underlords is coming to Android (Update: Season 1 starts today)
Update 1: 2019/06/20 11:35am PDT
Dota Underlords now available on the Play Store
Update 2: 2020/01/31 10:17am PST
Dota Underlords Season 1 begins February 25th
Update 3: 2020/02/25 10:28am PST
Dota Underlords first season starts today
It would appear that everyone's favorite new...
Stadia Pro subscribers get Grid, SteamWorld Dig 2, and SteamWorld Quest for free in March
Arcade-action indie Spitlings also launches today
Just last week, Google announced that several games in the SteamWorld series were making their way to Stadia — with Dig 2 and Quest being Pro freebies upon launch. Turns out that's happening sooner than expected: SteamWorld Dig 2 and SteamWorld Quest...
Romancing SaGa Re;UniverSe is coming to Android summer 2020, pre-reg now available
Yet another F2P collection-based RPG from Square Enix
Much like Dragon Quest of the Stars (coincidentally released today), Romancing SaGa Re;UniverSe is an older gacha RPG that's coming to the West. You see, Square Enix actually released Romancing SaGa Re;UniverSe in Japan back...
Google Assistant rolls out suggestions for faster keyboard input
Autocomplete, history, and contextual suggestions are part of it
For the times when you don't want to speak to your phone and tell the whole world you're turning on your bathtub or locking your front door, Google Assistant offers a keyboard input method which lets you type your requests instead. Suggestions...
Dragon Quest of the Stars is available for download a day early, but you can't play it yet (Update: Out now)
Pre-download today, play tomorrow
Update 1: 2020/02/25 7:35am PST
Dragon Quest of the Stars is finally playable
Square Enix has revealed this morning that its mobile RPG Dragon Quest of the Stars is officially available on the Google Play Store for pre-download. We last heard about Dragon...
Netflix starts showing top 10 charts of its most popular content
The streaming service is being more transparent about its most viewed movies and series
Netflix has long shown you lists of popular content on its app's home screen, but so far, you could never see how exactly titles in those ranked. The company is looking to change that as it has announced that it's...
OnePlus Gallery update adds scene recognition and face detection (APK Download)
It also adds auto-generated albums to curate your photos
OnePlus regularly updates its gallery app to introduce new features and improvements, even if some of those features have been around in other photo apps for quite a while. The latest release has added facial recognition to group your photos,...
51 temporarily free and 73 on-sale apps and games for Monday
Welcome to Monday, everyone. While it's always tough to face the beginning of the week, I'm glad to report that there are a plethora of sales on offer today, and CalenGoo is easily a standout, along with The House of Da Vinci, Gunslugs 2, and Siege of Dragonspear. Plus, all of 3 Minute Games'...
Android Studio 3.6
Posted by Scott Swarthout, Product Manager
We are excited to announce the stable release of Android Studio 3.6 with a targeted set of features addressing quality in primarily code editing and debugging use cases. This is our first release after the end of Project Marble, which was focused on making...
