Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen i'm joe heady the android authority app guy and welcome back to google play weekly this week google updated a few of their applications microsoft is trying more to suck less and there's a new home a bundle in town along with a lot more news so let's get started google typically likes to update their applications in droves and this week google keep google play movies as well as Google Play newsstand all got updates Google Play newsstand got updated with some UI tweaks that lets you swipe through categories more easily so you can get to news faster it also finally unified the my magazines and my news segments into a single entity and that was a long time coming play movies got some UI enhancements more information cards and multi-account supports meanwhile Google keep got itself a tweaked interface with a new action bar searchable images some settings menu tweaks and your trash hangs around just a little bit longer than it used to so last week we got to talk about Microsoft Office and how they made office free for all android users this week we learned that Microsoft is turning out a new microsoft outlook for Android as has been the pattern over the last month or so Microsoft is making a bigger effort to not suck on Android and that means a proper outlook application is in the works to replace the blatantly mediocre offering that's there now some of the features include a redesigned interface automatic onedrive syncing for attachments and integration with microsoft group there is a new system called the clutter system that helps you organize your emails and do things that are clutter and things that are not so you can get the more important stuff faster if it is an obvious by now Microsoft is going after Google where they live with onedrive in office they've begun their fight to create a Google Drive competitor and with the new outlook application having integration with all of those things it's pretty clear that Microsoft is also going after gmail Microsoft still has a long way to go to undo the blunders of the Balmer era but with these latest moves and making their net and C sharp compilers open source it's hard not to say that they're finally moving in the right direction you know what rocks humble bundles humble bundles rock the latest humble bundle is for PC and Android and includes broken sword to bridge constructor typewriter and Raven sword Shadowlands if you pay more than the average which is about three dollars and sixty cents at the time of this video you'll also get Kingdom rush and nights pen and paper let's face it three dollars and sixty cents is but a small price to pay for six games the best part of this humble bundle are that all the games are for both PC and Android so if there's one you'd rather play on your computer you have that option if you so choose I always urge people to toss down a few bucks on a humble bundle because it helps support indie developers and various charities and if there are two organizations that need money it is indie developers and various charities since the Android SDK has been released we've seen a noticeable increase of applications with chromecast support this week you can add crackle voodoo and Rdio to that list these are a few really good applications to get chromecast support crackle and voodoo both stream movies and TV shows and as everyone knows our do is a music streaming service this helps beefed up the bottom line of applications that do these things with the chromecast and if you use any of these applications then buying a chromecast just started to make a lot more sense that said there have been a few complaints people have had a little trouble streaming from the applications but the updates just happened a few days ago so we've no doubt that the issues will be fixed eventually if it's working for you great and if not just hang in there they'll fix it soon enough all three apps are pretty awesome and just got a little more awesome with chromecast support you've probably seen it before it's called spritz and it lets you read things stupid fast and now we finally have a timetable on when it's going to be released for android okay so what's going on as sprint's of shipping its SDK out to developers who signed up for it a few months ago this means that in the coming weeks we will begin to see more and more applications that use the spreads technology I've given it a shot and it's actually really awesome it is to reading what swipe was detecting on a smartphone obviously we'll see the technology on smartphones but another great use for it that a lot of people have talked about already is used on smartwatches being able to read long text messages emails etc on a watch without squeezing all of those words on that small display is going to make smartwatches dramatically more useful but let's face it we've seen the demos and a lot of people have been talking about it for so long that at this point I'm ready for some apps to just start including it who wants to see some trending applications as usual if you want to check any of these applications out you can find the links in the briton companion which is in the video description below first up this week is a very minimal launcher called Crescent launcher with this launcher you can do all the things you normally do but you don't have any of the complicated home screens to customize or worry about this probably won't ring a useful app to most people but for those upgrading their feature phones to Android for the first time or for those of the techno phobic senior citizen demographic this could help make smartphones more enjoyable to use for a lot of people it's free to try with a premium version available as an in-app purchase if you so choose next up is themer beta this last week a rather large update came up for the popular launcher that includes various fixes and performance improvements along with icon supports so if you have a favorite icon pack and have been avoiding using theme or beta because of it you can now go back to using theme or beta themer has been growing increasingly popular and even though it's still in beta many people swear by it you can pick it up right now for free in the google play store if you want to the popular cut the rope series got continued this last week with the release of cut the rope 2 despite being plagued with what users are calling ridiculous in-app purchases the game still apparently manages to rock a 4.5 rating in the Google Play Store so it can't be all that bad it features the same basic gameplay elements as the first series with some new characters new powers and some minigames it's also free to play so there's no harm in at least trying it out the time pop is a fun little application that shows you what you were doing on various social media sites a year ago each day you can check your time hop to see what you posted on facebook instagram and twitter as well as seeing where you went on foursquare it doesn't support Google+ yet which sucks a little bit but if you use those other social networks it can be a lot of fun to see what your life was like a year ago also it's free so enough said nitro nation is a new racing game from the makers of the popular game called drag racing drag racing was a great game but the graphics left a lot to be desired in nitro nation there are no such problems it's a beautiful game with a lot of detail and a lot of racing there are in app purchases but so far people don't seem to be complaining about them so they seem to be okay it's all about drag racing so it's mostly just hitting the gas and shifting gears in terms of gameplay it's also free to play so if you're interesting you should probably check it out once again I'm Joe Hindy the android authority app guy don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to follow android authority myself or the rest of the awesome video team you can find our social media links in the video description below if you're here to chill for a minute we have a couple of awesome app videos for you to watch right over there including my review of microsoft office as well as my review of news beats finally don't forget to check out the written companion in the video description below as always thank you for watching and have a wonderful day