Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe Hindy the android authority app guy 2013 has been an amazing year for applications the envelopes were pushed and the app ecosystem will never be the same again so which ones were the best the worst and the most controversial in this video we're gonna tell you first up is the best design app of the year which we gave to Osmos HD the game itself is a puzzle game where you must absorb modes that are smaller than you so you can grow and absorb larger modes it's a dollar 99 in the google play store right now so why did we choose it because it's simply beautiful the moats are colorful and vibrant the gameplay is challenging an intense but slow and relaxing at the same time add in the atmospheric music and it's like the nerd gamer equivalent of taking a bubble bath with candles the runner-up in this category was badland our best designed apt choice this year as cal calendar it's a calendar app so you pretty much know what it can do it's free in the Google Play Store and we gave it a pretty favorable review just a few weeks ago at the end of the video will provide a link to the review Cal calendar won this category because it's design actually affects its functionality in a positive manner the calendar itself looks wonderful it's colorful easy to read and modern when adding things to the calendar everything is modular and easy to find and select it has a lot of functionality and it's enjoyable to look at aunty use our runner-up in this category was the official app for the score Google Talk was a pretty decent service but when hangouts came out after Google i/o things got so much better it's free and it's google app but what it does is send SMS and MMS messages and is the official chat service of google plus what else can we say SMS MMS improved video chatting improved group chatting setting moods hundreds of emoticons in a brand new design were among the most important features that were added before the revamp google talk was a respectable chat client since the revamp hangouts has become a must-have application for pretty much everyone with a google account a runner up here was feedly Google keep has been in like four or five of our app lists in 2013 and thus has earned its spot as our most useful app of the year it's a note-taking app that quickly and easily syncs to your Google Drive account it's free in the Google Play Store and it's really quite unique when we first got a hold of Google keep we knew it would be on our best of 2013 somewhere it is fun to use syncs automatically to Google Drive where it is easily accessed by going to drive google.com / keep and the various colors and no types allows you to easily organize your thoughts in a simple interface that's also easy to manage our runner-up in this category was the Android device manager clash of clans started out on iOS and unlike many games made a seamless and successful transition to Android earlier this year it's a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game where players build their village up defended against Raiders complete a campaign and fight against other players simply put this game is all multiplayer the campaign is just there to give you something to do when you're bored the real and constant objective is to raid other people to take their resources and earn trophies so you can make yourself stronger and higher ranked it has a healthy base of players from both Android and iOS all competing against one another constantly it's difficult and it requires thinking and strategy to excel in our runner-up in this category was eternity warriors 2 Lulu is an app unlike any other the premise is women sign into it using their Facebook accounts and then they write men they can say good things or bad things about them but the defining characteristic is that men can't join so what women are saying is completely hidden so they can't see it this app has encouraged negative and brutal commentary from both men and women and you know a woman only app is offensive and terrible when even other women are angry about it men can't opt out of it unless they delete their Facebook accounts and we're so sure that angry jealous ex girlfriends are raiding men objectively men don't like it and women don't like it but it's still popular somehow it's like the Jersey Shore of Android apps our runner-up in this category was the cyanogen mod installer app our reversed game category was truly a difficult category to decide upon we in the media do not usually talk about terrible games because well you really don't want to hear about them so for this we decided to go with the worst possible game that we could find whether it was popular or not and thus the Miley Cyrus puzzle game okay let's take a look at all the things this app does wrong the gameplay is derivative and boring even for children the celebrity cameo is a blatant attempt to cash in on keyword searches it doesn't help that the pictures of miley cyrus are wildly outdated the interface is gross and uninteresting in short this game fails on every conceivable level this game is so bad that it's also our runner-up for this category I had to play it to get footage and I regret every moment of it I wouldn't be surprised if it installed malware also because it's the only other thing it could possibly do wrong market were game dev swing for the fences this game was like bunting a foul ball with two strikes don't download it the worst app category was much easier because there are few apps that bombed as bad as Facebook home did this year for those who may not know Facebook home is a lunch a replacement app with such breakneck features as folders and Facebook integration I could sit here for an hour and discuss all the reasons why this app is terrible it doesn't compete with other third-party launchers on any valuable level in terms of features or functionality the app sucks so bad that it killed a smartphone and somehow made HTC's feature look even bleaker when your product is so bad that it makes other companies look bad that's about as low as you can go for shame Facebook even though it's only been out for a few weeks grand theft auto san andreas is the epitome of what people have been asking for in a game in this game you play as an ex gangbanger named Karl who returns to his old neighborhood to seek revenge on the people who killed his mother it's available in the Google Play Store for 699 it has nearly everything we could have asked for it has dozens of hours of gameplay side quests a big open world for gamers to explore an actual storyline graphics that aren't terrible and a lot more it's not some puzzle game or gag game like Angry Birds or temple run it's a full-blown console level video game that provides a full gaming experience here's hoping we see more games of this caliber and depth in the year 2014 and our runner-up in this category was dead trigger 2 at first we did everything in our power to figure out if there was another app that could go here because we didn't want to mimic the Google Play stores list in any way however we simply couldn't avoid the facts duolingo is an educational game that teaches people new languages by using a combination of voiced in text lessons and it is the best app of the year what we wanted to find were applications that push the envelope further on Android sure there were apps like timely and cal calendar but those apps didn't really bring anything new to the table they simply took what was already there and made it look better duolingo actually changed things never before had an education app garnered as much attention and show that you can have useful successful education apps with mass appeal if any genre needed proof of this it was education it's totally free to use and everyone should speak multiple languages anyway it's good for the brain this app should be on every smartphone period and our runner-up in this category was helium once again I'm Joe Hindy the android authority app guy feel free to subscribe to our YouTube channel and check out our social media links below if you're hanging out for a minute we have a couple awesome video for you to watch right over there also don't forget to check out the briton companion in the video description as always thank you for watching and have a wonderful new year