Soda Dungeon 2, Clash of Beasts, Super Fowlst 2, and more
Welcome to the roundup of the new Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so. Today I have the sequel to the idle RPG Soda Dungeon, a generic gacha game from Ubisoft, and the sequel to the popular platformer Super Fowlst 2. So without further ado, here are the new and notable Android games released during the week of May 25th, 2020.
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Emulating games isn't exactly a new thing, but emulating on your smartphone has caused the hobby to enter something of a renaissance in recent years. With many of us sitting around at home (and not wanting to break the bank on Hot New Games), there's never been a better time to crack into the mountain of classic (or not-so-classic) games available online. Getting started with emulating video game consoles on Android can be a bit dizzying, so we're going to break down the tools and resources you'll need to get up and running, be it with some old school Mario or a relaxing afternoon of Pokémon in the backyard.
What are the differences, which one is the best for you, and which subscription is more interesting?
I've been a loyal Spotify user since what feels like the year the service launched, and a premium subscriber since 2014. Spotify premium has tons of great extra features, and I absolutely think it's worth the money if you're considering a paid music streaming subscription. But as I've been spending a lot more time at home of late, I've started watching a lot more YouTube, and the various pre-roll and mid-roll ads were starting to grate on me.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so. Today I have the arrival of the painting and drawing app Krita, an accessibility app from Google, and a dialer app from Facebook. So without further ado, here are all of the new and notable Android apps released on the Play Store in the last week.
Back in May, we highlighted a rumor that League of Legends might come to Android courtesy of Tencent, a company that just so happens to own Riot Games, the developer of LoL. It has now been revealed that Riot has been very busy having recently announcedthree new games for mobile themed around the LoL franchise.
Chrome 83 was released last week with quite a few improvements, like cookie blocking in Incognito Mode and new Microsoft-made form controls. Chrome 84 has now graduated to the beta channel, and it's one of the largest browser updates we've seen in a while.
Google's cloud gaming service, Stadia, begins trialing on November 19 — you'll need to buy a $130 Founder's Edition kit to get access — and is expected to expand to the general audience sometime in 2020. So far, 30 games have been announced for the early roster and we expect more of them to pop up as we go along this year. It can be a little hard to keep track of things, so we've got you covered with a handy list of all the titles that have been announced for Stadia.
A good-faith effort to list all the apps you can get for free on Play Pass
Google Play Pass, a program that gives subscribers no-charge, ad-free access to premium apps and apps with premium features, launched last year with over 350 titles on its roster. Thing is, though, Google doesn't make it easy to suss out all of the apps participating in the program, whether through the Play Store or external documentation on associated Google sites. Great. Well, guess what? We're gonna give it a try and list as many apps participating in Play Pass as we can.
Don't miss out on the sales for Reckless Racing 3, Space Marshals, and Despotism 3k
Welcome to Friday, everyone. It's finally the end of the week, and of course, I have some quality sales to share today. First and foremost, Team 17's entire catalog is on sale for the next six days. On top of that, Reckless Racing 3, Space Marshals, and Despotism 3k are quality pickups worthwhile of an extended gaming session this weekend. As always, I've highlighted all of the interesting titles in bold to make discovery easier.
Hinting at how many users have tried Android TV over the years
Unlike the mobile Android operating system, Android TV isn't a subject Google often gloats about. Every year or so, we get a small hint about the platform's popularity, but no monthly active users or total sales units have been shared recently, or ever. This lack of marketing has lead many to think Android TV is close to abandoned, when in fact Google has been actively pushing the platform to vendors more than end users.
Team 17 recently announced that it's running a publisher sale on Steam, and luckily it would appear that this sale has carried over to the Play Store. For the next six days, you can pick up all seven of Team 17's premium Android gamesat a drastic discount. So if you're a fan of the Worms series, or have yet to play through Sheltered, Flockers, Penarium, or the studio's two The Escapists titles, this publisher sale signals the perfect time to pick them up.
There are third-party extensions like Scener that allow us to watch content from Netflix, HBO, and other services together while staying apart during these times of coronavirus-induced social distancing orders, but Plex is ready to up this with a native solution. It has announced a new Plex Labs experiment that allows you to watch shows, movies, and videos from your library together with others, perfectly synced up for everyone.
The feature is called Watch Together and currently in beta.
Twitter is making it easier to manage your tweets and replies before you're ready to send them out. The company has announced that its web app now supports saving drafts and scheduling tweets for a later time, something that's only been available through third-party services or Twitter for Business earlier.
Not quite ready to send that Tweet? Now on https://t.co/fuPJa36kt0 you can save it as a draft or schedule it to send at a specific time –– all from the Tweet composer!
Signal is one of the best choices for a communication app that's focused on privacy and isn't owned by Facebook, which is why it has attracted a large and dedicated user base. Earlier this year, the app got a fresh spark to the tune of a $50 million dollar investment from a co-founder of WhatsApp. But lately there's been a bit of negative chatter in response to the app introducing a system for backing up data based on PIN codes, and many users are filling online forums with complaints.
I watch YouTube videos in two distinct ways: If it's a song I like or creator I enjoy, I'll watch the whole thing; but if I was searching for a tutorial or more info about a topic, I usually just fast-forward or skip through it to get to the parts that matter. Google is now preparing a cool improvement to help is with that second kind of situation: video chapters.
Google Voice has long been one of Google's most confusing and most useful products, and since becoming part of G Suite in 2018, it has started receiving a bit more love when it comes to updates. It gained a dark theme and support for VoIP calling last year. Now the service is prepping the ability to transfer ongoing calls to other numbers and contacts.
We all know Google's speech transcription technology is really, really, really good. Not only is it the best in the industry, it's doing it without a data connection: Pixels have been transcribing audio on-device for some time now, and that's been owed to Google's extremely impressive transcription algorithms that utilize machine learning hardware on its smartphones. But accuracy isn't everything when it comes to transcription, even if it the single most important feature—speed matters too.
It comes with the promise of new features in the future, but at what cost?
Signal is one of the best choices for a communication app that's focused on privacy and isn't owned by Facebook, which is why it has attracted a large and dedicated user base. Earlier this year, the app got a fresh spark to the tune of a $50 million dollar investment from a co-founder of WhatsApp. But lately there's been a bit of negative chatter in response to the app introducing a system for backing up data based on PIN codes, and many users are filling online forums with complaints.
Douglas Adams wrote in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move." The same is true for notification prompts in web browsers — what was once used sparingly for email clients and other web applications turned into yet another thing to close when attempting to read almost any site on the internet.
During these uncertain times, we’re humbled by the many developers around the world who are finding ways to keep doing what they do best—create amazing apps for Android. Whether you’re working from your kitchen table on a laptop or from a home office, you need tools that keep up with you. Android Studio 4.0 is the result of our drive to bring you new and improved tools for coding smarter, building faster, and designing the apps your users depend on, and it’s now available on the stable channel.
Some highlights of Android Studio 4.0 include a new Motion Editor to help bring your apps to life, a Build Analyzer to investigate causes for slower build times, and Java 8 language APIs you can use regardless of your app’s minimum API level. Based on your feedback, we’ve also overhauled the CPU Profiler user interface to provide a more intuitive workflow and easier side-by-side analysis of thread activity. And the improved Layout Inspector now provides live data of your app’s UI, so you can easily debug exactly what’s being shown on the device.
As always, this release wouldn’t be possible without the early feedback from our Preview users. So read on or watch below for further highlights and new features you can find in this stable version. If you’re ready to jump in and see for yourself, head over to the official website to download Android Studio 4.0 now.
Design
Motion Editor
The MotionLayout API extends the rich capabilities of ConstraintLayout to help Android developers manage complex motion and widget animation in their apps. In Android Studio 4.0, using this API is made easier with the new Motion Editor—a powerful interface for creating, editing, and previewing MotionLayout animations. You no longer have to create and modify complex XML files; the Motion Editor generates them for you, with support for editing constraint sets, transitions, keyframes, and view attributes. And if you do want to see the code the editor creates, it is one click away. And just as conveniently, for developers already using ConstraintLayout, the IDE can easily convert those to MotionLayout. Learn more
Create, edit, and preview animations in the Motion Editor
Upgraded Layout Inspector
Have you ever wanted to investigate where a value for a particular attribute came from? Or see a live 3D representation of nested views to more easily inspect your view hierarchy? With the new Layout Inspector, debugging your UI is much more intuitive by giving you access to data that stays updated with your running app and providing insights on how resources are being resolved.
Debug your app’s UI in real-time with Live Layout Inspector
Use the live Layout Inspector by selecting View > Tool Windows > Layout Inspector from the main menu. If you are deploying to a device running API 29 level or higher, you have access to additional features, such as a dynamic layout hierarchy that updates as views change, detailed view attributes that also help you determine how resource values are resolved, and a live 3D model of your running app’s UI. Navigate, animate, and transition between views on your running app while always having the ability to debug your UI to pixel perfection. Learn more
Layout Validation
Compare your UI across multiple screens with Layout Validation
When you’re developing for multiple form-factors, screen sizes, and resolutions, you need to verify that changes you make to your UI look great on every screen you support. With the Layout Validation window, you can preview layouts on different screens and configurations simultaneously, so you can easily ensure your app looks great across a range of devices. To get started, click on the Layout Validation tab in the top-right corner of the IDE.
Develop & Profile
CPU Profiler UI Upgrades
The improved UI of the CPU Profiler
The CPU profiler is designed to provide a rich amount of information about your app’s thread activity and trace recordings. So, when you provided us feedback about how we can make the UI even more intuitive to navigate and the data easier to understand, we listened. In Android Studio 4.0, CPU recordings are now separated from the main profiler timeline and organized in groups to allow for easier analysis. You can move groups up and down, or drag-and-drop individual items within a group for additional customization.
Easier side-by-side analysis of thread activity
For easier side-by-side analysis, you can now view all thread activity in the Thread Activity timeline (including methods, functions, and events) and try new navigation shortcuts to easily move around the data—such as using W, A, S, and D keys for fine-grained zooming and panning. We’ve also redesigned the System Trace UI so Events are uniquely colored for better visual distinction, threads are sorted to surface the busier ones first, and you can now focus on seeing data for only the threads you select. Finally, we invested in the quality of the CPU profiler, and consequently we’ve seen a significant decrease in the user-reported error rates of recordings since Android Studio 3.6. There are even more improvements to try, so learn more.
Smart editor features when writing rules for code shrinking
Smart editor feature when writing rules for R8
R8 was introduced in Android Gradle plugin 3.4.0 to combine desugaring, shrinking, obfuscating, optimizing, and dexing all in one step—resulting in noticeable build performance improvements. When creating rules files for R8, Android Studio now provides smart editor features, such as syntax highlighting, completion, and error checking. The editor also integrates with your Android project to provide full symbol completion for all classes, methods, and fields, and includes quick navigation and refactoring.
IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 platform update
The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 and 2019.3.3 releases. These improvements largely focus on quality and performance improvements across the IDE.
Kotlin Android live templates
Live templates is a convenient IntelliJ feature that allows you to insert common constructs into your code by typing simple keywords. Android Studio now includes Android-specific live templates for your Kotlin code. For example, simply type toast and press the Tab key to quickly insert boilerplate code for a Toast. For a full list of available live templates, navigate to Editor > Live Templates in the Settings (or Preferences) dialog.
Clangd support for C++
For developers writing C++, we have switched to clangd as the primary language analysis engine for code navigation, completion, inspection, and showing code errors and warnings. We also now bundle clang-tidy with Android Studio. To configure Clangd or Clang-Tidy behavior, go to the IDE Settings (or Preferences) dialog, navigate to Languages & Frameworks > C/C++ > Clangd or Clang-Tidy, and configure the options.
Build
Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 includes support for Android Studio’s Build Analyzer by using Java 8 language APIs (regardless of your app’s minimum API level), and creating feature-on-feature dependencies between Dynamic Feature modules. For a full list of updates, read the Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 release notes.
Build Analyzer
Address bottlenecks in your build performance with Build Analyzer
Android Developers rely on a variety of Gradle plugins and custom build logic to tailor the build system for their app. However, outdated or misconfigured tasks can cause longer build times that lead to frustration and lost productivity. The Build Analyzer helps you understand and address bottlenecks in your build by highlighting the plugins and tasks that are most responsible for your overall build time and by suggesting steps to mitigate regressions. Learn more
Java 8 Language library desugaring in D8 and R8
Previous versions of the Android Gradle plugin supported a variety of Java 8 language features for all API levels, such as lambda expressions and method references, through a process called desugaring. In Android Studio 4.0, the desugaring engine has been extended to support Java language APIs, regardless of your app’s minSdkVersion. This means that you can now use standard language APIs, which were previously available in only recent Android releases (such as java.util.stream, java.util.function and java.time). Learn more
Feature-on-feature dependencies
Feature-on-feature dependencies
When using Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 and higher, you can now specify that a Dynamic Feature module depends on another feature module. Being able to define this relationship ensures that your app has the required modules to unlock additional functionality, resulting in fewer requests and easier modularization of your app. For example, a :video feature can depend on the :camera feature. If a user wants to unlock the ability to record videos, your app automatically downloads the required :camera module when it requests :video. Learn more
New options to enable or disable build features
The Android Gradle plugin has built-in support for modern libraries, such as data binding and view binding, and build features, such as auto-generated BuildConfig classes. However, you might not need these libraries and features for every project. In version 4.0.0 of the plugin, you can now disable discrete build features, as shown below, which can help optimize build performance for larger projects. For the DSL and full list of features you can control, see the release notes.
android {
// The default value for each feature is shown below.
// You can change the value to override the default behavior.
buildFeatures {
// Determines whether to support View Binding.
// Note that the viewBinding.enabled property is now deprecated.
viewBinding = false
// Determines whether to support Data Binding.
// Note that the dataBinding.enabled property is now deprecated.
dataBinding = false
...
}
}
Android Gradle plugin DSL for enabling or disabling build features
Essential support for Kotlin DSL script files
Android Studio 4.0 now has built-in support for Kotlin DSL build script files (*.kts), which means that Kotlin build scripts offer a full suite of quick fixes and are supported by the Project Structure dialog. While we are excited about the potential for using Kotlin to configure your build, we will continue to refine the Android Gradle Plugin’s DSL API throughout the next year, which may result in breaking API changes for Kotlin script users. Long term, these fixes will make for a more idiomatic, easy-to-use DSL for Kotlin script users.
Dependencies metadata
When building your app using Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 and higher, the plugin includes metadata that describes the library dependencies that are compiled into your app. When uploading your app, the Play Console inspects this metadata to provide alerts for known issues with SDKs and dependencies your app uses, and, in some cases, provide actionable feedback to resolve those issues.
The data is compressed, encrypted by a Google Play signing key, and stored in the signing block of your release app. If you’d rather not share this information, you can easily opt-out by including the following in your module’s build.gradle file:
android {
dependenciesInfo {
// Disables dependency metadata when building APKs.
includeInApk = false
// Disables dependency metadata when building Android App Bundles.
includeInBundle = false
}
}
Disable dependency metadata for your APKs, app bundle, or both
To recap, Android Studio 4.0 includes these new enhancements & features:
Design
Motion Editor: a simple interface for creating, editing, and previewing MotionLayout animations
Upgraded Layout Inspector: a real-time & more intuitive debugging experience
Layout Validation: compare your UI across multiple screen dimensions
Develop & Profile
CPU Profiler update: improvements to make the UI more intuitive to navigate and the data easier to understand
R8 rules update: smart editor features for your code shrinker rules, such as syntax highlighting, completion, and error checking
IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 platform update with performance and quality improvements
Live Template update: Android-specific live templates for your Kotlin code
Clangd support: Clangd and Clang-Tidy turned on by default
Build
Build Analyzer: understand and address bottlenecks in your build
Java 8 language support update: APIs you can use regardless of your app’s minimum API level
Feature-on-feature dependencies: define dependencies between Dynamic Feature modules
buildFeatures DSL: enable or disable discrete build features, such as Data Binding
Kotlin DSL: essential support for Kotlin DSL script files
For a full list of changes, read the official release notes.
Getting Started
Download
Download Android Studio 4.0 from the download page. If you are using a previous release of Android Studio, you can simply update to the latest version of Android Studio.
As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, please file an issue. Follow us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium.
In fall 2018, Google made its interest in gaming known with Project Stream, a beta that let users play the high-end Assassin's Creed Odyssey from a humble Chrome tab. The following spring, it announced Stadia, a full-fat gaming platform that would leverage the company's computing and networking prowess to provide users access to games with no dedicated gaming hardware required.
The streaming service Quibi launched last month after months of buildup and advertising, and while it wasn't exactly dead on arrival, it hasn't caught on with most viewers. The service is currently revamping its slate of shows, while also attempting to address some of its core complaints — like the complete inability to watch content on large screens.
Right now, Quibi is only watchable from the iOS and Android apps — there is no desktop web player, no TV apps, and so on.
A handful of minor tweaks to G Suite's Android apps and Google Docs for the web have landed in recent days. None are game-changing improvements, but you can look forward to seeing a new document status indicator the next time you fire up Google Docs in your browser, and the Sheets, Docs, and Slides Android apps have picked up search bars and account switchers that match the redesigned look otherGoogleapps have been getting recently.
Sharing your physical location should be easy, right? But that doesn’t work out when your home doesn’t have a clearly defined address like it’s the case in many Asian countries. Google proposed using short ‘Plus Codes’ to tackle this unaddressed problem about five years back, but the feature didn’t really take off as it all felt a bit cumbersome. To fix that, Google Maps is bringing an easier way to share your current location as a Plus Code and without having to rely on your traditional mailing address.
Who doesn't want to play a generic gacha game from Ubisoft?
You may not have heard of it, but Ubisoft has a new mobile game in the works called Clash of Beasts, and it's an uninspired gacha game where you'll collect giant monster in order to wreak havoc on villages that are for some reason filled with towers. There's a base-building mechanic, on top of the tower-offense gameplay and hero collection system, because why release a mobile game if you can't shove every popular mechanic into the title that's possible.
Microsoft Office Lens is the best tool we've found so far, here's how to use it
PDFs are, unfortunately, a necessary evil in many of our personal and professional lives. But with modern smartphones and AI, there's no need to bust out a scanner to digitize your various documents into Adobe's much-loathed (and again, often highly necessary) Protected Document Format. Android apps now exist that accomplish this once annoying task with shocking technical competence and very little hassle, whether you're working with the document right in front of you or a photo of one you previously snapped and no longer have access to.
Afro-Ninja Productions and Armor Games have teamed up once again to bring a sequel to their successful idle RPG Soda Dungeon to a host of platforms on July 9th. Better yet, the publisher and developer duo have released Soda Dungeon 2 in early access on the Google Play Store ahead of its official launch, leaving PC and iOS in the dust. Much like the original, this sequel is a free-to-play release, which means eager fans can check out the game right now without spending a dime.
Earlier in 2020, YouTube began testing new filters in the Subscriptions tab of its iOS app to help you sift through the noise of all your followed channels. These filters are now widely rolling out to users on Android.
The filters will seem familiar to everyone, even if they're new for most of us in the Subscriptions tab. We've seen similar ones on YouTube's home page and in the Up Next queue, but those were topic-based.
Many iterative improvements made the excellent platform even better over the years
Five years ago today, Google separated its Photos service from Google+ and launched it as a standalone platform, complete with a redesign and a slew of new features. While the app did get a few facelifts over the years, it's become one of the most stable experiences at Google. The company never fundamentally changed the winning formula and has only ever iteratively improved Photos.
TikTok was hit by a swarm of negative reviews in India following a dispute between local YouTube creators and TikTok influencers, which brought down the app's Play Store rating to an average of only 1.2 stars. Since these reviews aren't representative or related to the quality of the application itself, Google decided to remove the vast majority, bumping the social network back up to 4.4 stars.
In total, it looks like Google removed far more than eight million individual reviews to bring the app closer to the average 4.5-star rating it had before the backlash in India hit it in full force.
Progressive Web Apps might not be able to replace every kind of native application, but they can be viable replacements for some apps written with the Electron web wrapper technology. The desktop app for Google's business-focused Chat app was previously written in Electron, but now the company has replaced it with a shiny PWA.
"We’ve launched a new Google Chat standalone app," Google wrote on the G Suite Updates Blog. "The app is a Progressive Web Application (PWA), which provides a fast, reliable, and engaging way to use Chat on any desktop device with the Google Chrome web browser." It's compatible with any operating system running Chrome 73 or higher — even though one of the main advantages of PWAs is that they are supposed to work on any browser, Google says it is "working to address" the incompatibility.
Netflix has been around for a long time, and as such, it offers once of the best feature sets of any streaming service. Netflix has allowed users to download select shows and movies since 2016, but it seems to be working on a major improvement to this feature. As spotted by XDA during an app teardown, we may soon be able to start watching downloaded shows before the download is complete.
In just under a week, we’ll kick off #Android11: The Beta Launch Show, your opportunity to find out what’s new in Android from the people who build Android. Join us on June 3, 11AM ET (8AM PT, 4PM BST, 8:30PM IST) as we unveil new features packed inside the next release, Android 11, as well as updates to help developers get the most out of modern Android development. You’ll be able to watch the show live on YouTube (don’t forget to set a reminder) or Twitter, and can sign-up for updates here.
Get your #AskAndroid questions answered live
Got a burning question? We’ve got experts ready to answer your #AskAndroid questions, and we’ll be wrapping up the show with a live Q&A session. All you have to do is share your question on Twitter using #AskAndroid, and we’ll be selecting questions for Android engineering and product leads Dave Burke and Stephanie Cuthbertson to answer live on-the-air.
Check out the list of talks
Also on June 3, we’ll be sharing 12 talks on a range of topics from Jetpack to Android Studio and Google Play–talks that we had originally planned for Google I/O–to help you take advantage of the latest in Android development. We just posted the full list of talks on the event page.
Sketchnote with us
We want to see your take on the show, so grab your best pens, markers, and paper, download the template, and get ready to show off your sketchnote skills during The Beta Launch Show. Don’t forget to share your work using the hashtag #Android11 for a chance to be featured.
We can’t wait to share with you the latest we’ve been working on with you in just over a week at #Android11: The Beta Launch Show!
