Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe Hindy the android authority app guy and this is google play weekly we have a whole bunch of ab news this week so let's get this intro over with first up this week are some application updates from Google Drive and Google Hangouts the hangouts update was simple because it contained pretty much just nothing else but bug fixes Google Drive had by far the more interesting update but sadly not by much there were some UI tweaks like multi user switcher expands in line and not any drop-down menu anymore like it used to and there are doc creation shortcuts on the floating bar on the bottom now again it's not much but those were Google's updates from this last week you may have heard of a popular application called clash of clans well now the developers supercell have come out with a new game called boom beach if you're a fan of clash of clans than the graphics most of the gameplay mechanics and the premise won't be all that new to you if you own an iPad or an iPhone this also may not be new to you because this was released their first the concept is simple you build a base build up an army use that army to raid other players or you can raid the NPC's in campaign mode what's really great is that it's free to play in the google play store right now with some in-app purchases should you choose to buy them what's bad is it super still appears to be becoming a one-trick pony and that's kind of sad if you're a fan of cyanogenmod and are currently running cyanogenmod 11 that our next bit of news is going to be really interesting cyanogenmod has released the theme showcase app what this app does is allow you to manage your themes and apply them at will if you've been using the latest CM 11 nightlies then a lot of this won't be new to you because you have some of this control built right into the theme section in your settings if with this app you can install themes styles icons boot animations and more when you download and install compatible themes of course there are a few problems it's only compatible with cm11 some people are having trouble installing the application and there aren't that many compatible themes just yet eventually these issues will be ironed out and the CM theme engine is going to get a whole lot more fun to use as if the mobile messaging platform wasn't saturated enough Facebook has released another new messaging platform called slingshot why this wasn't directly integrated into facebook Messenger or whatsapp as anyone's guess but with the release of slingshot we now have messaging platforms all from the same parent company and frankly I think it's pretty stupid here's how slingshot works you send photos and videos and the only way the other people can see your photos and videos or if they send you photos and videos in return yes it sounds like something you'd see advertised on a site that pedals pornography but that's pretty much how it works if you want to try it it's free in the google play store right now ok guys so get this the part of nokia that microsoft didn't buy just announced an android launcher it's called z launcher and we don't have all that much information on it yet aside from some demo videos so here's how it works it's another contextual launcher that tries to guess which apps you want much like everything me launcher or a v8 if none of those apps strike your fancy you can use gesture controls to draw a letter and the apps and contacts that start with that letter will appear for you it has the potential to be pretty nifty but it is only in pre beta right now if you're interested we have a link in the written companion where you can go and try it out 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 written companion which is in the video description below first up in trending this week is peak peak was recently updated to version 2 point 0 which brought a lot of new features you can now see the application when you turn your screen on even after the polling time has ended there is also a new algorithm in place to make motion detection better aside from that there have been a number of bug fixes and performance improvements that fix a number of known bugs it's a fun application and you should definitely check it out over the last year or so apps with new functionality have beginning news but apps with nice designs have been getting a whole lot more news in the spirit of that lets say hello to another well designed alarm clock called lifetime alarm clock this app looks really nice and include some features that aren't necessarily new but seem more polished in this application this includes smarts news wake challenges and more to add to the peripheral experience of having an alarm clock Nokia isn't the only huge company coming out with a launcher this week as it turns out samsung had a hand on our next application called terrain home this launcher goes directly after Google now launcher because it does the same sort of sidebar thing that has a bunch of cards that contain information in them and eventually learns which ones you really want this is actually really cool because Google now didn't really have a competitor on Android before this and it's available for non stock Android devices on Google now unfortunately it's only available in North America and it is only a beta release for now which means it will be bugs yo is either the dumbest application ever or one of the smartest here's how it works it attempts to communicate as much as possible with a single word which is always yo this seems really dumb at first but when you look at the use cases it can be a pretty awesome little tool let's say you follow a local sports team they can use the app to send you a yo whenever the team scores you see it to understand the meaning and move on without any extraneous activities there are a lot of uses for an app that communicates quickly with just one word if you happen to be creative it's free in the google play store right now and prepare yourself because you're probably going to hear a whole lot more about this one last up this week is for all of you stock android fans out there the AOSP email app has been released to the google play store in an effort to break as many applications free from the actual rom as possible google has released the email app it's only available to stock Android devices which kind of sucks but if you fall into that category you no longer have to wait for rom updates to get the latest version of the email app it's in the Google Play Store from here on out once again I'm Joe Hindy from android authority canto forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to follow android authority myself or the rest of the video team you can find our social media links in the video description below but wait there's more if you want to watch a couple more awesome android authority videos we have them linked up for you right over there and in the video description below for you people on mobile finally don't forget to check out the written companion which is in the video description below for all of the download links thank you for watching everybody and have a wonderful day