5 must-have Android apps this week – Android Apps Weekly

Welcome to the 490th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the headlines from the last week:

• Stitcher will shut down its podcasting service effective August 29. The app was once considered one of the best podcast apps out there, but it has slipped in recent years. SiriusXM, owner of Stitchers, is expected to move the service to its subscription service to attract more people to get it. Stitcher has been around for 25 years, so it’s a little sad to see it go.
• Facebook will let people download Android apps and games directly from advertisements. This is probably a terrible idea, but it’s something Facebook wants to try. Meta intends to launch a pilot program with select developers later this year. Press the link to find out more.
• YouTube is implementing a three-hit test for its ad blocker. Basically, it will notify you when you show up on the site with an active ad blocker. Once enough warnings have been received, the service intends to temporarily stop playback. It will be interesting and we think a lot of people will get angry. On the other hand, it helps pay creators that people watch, which is good for producing more content to watch.
• Microsoft brings new shopping AI tools to Bing and Edge. The tools generate things like buyer’s guides, review summaries, and price matches. Buyers’ guides and review summaries are available starting this week. The final feature, price matching, is slated to launch later this year.
• The Reddit protests have actually taken a toll on Reddit trafficking. Traffic to the site is estimated to have dropped by 16% in the two days the protests took place. That’s a lot of traffic, and reports indicate that it hurt the site’s advertiser engagement as well. However, traffic returned to normal after 48 hours, indicating that people are, in fact, returning to it right away. Well, let’s see how that plays out in the long run.

Nexus War: Civilization

Price: Free to play

Nexus War: Civilization is a game with a few different mechanics. The main mechanic is a city builder where you place buildings, upgrade them and reap the rewards. Secondly, there is a fighting mode where you collect heroes and perform fights against enemies. The two marry quite well and the player isn’t often left wanting things to do. That said, it gets repetitive like most free games, so it’s something to watch out for. The graphics are decent, the controls are relatively simple, and it’s not a particularly difficult game to play.

Posture correction exercises

Price: Free / $9.99 a year / $10.99 once

Posture Correction Exercises is a newest app recommended by Google Play in its June Apps Likes segment. It’s kind of a lightweight yoga app. It asks you about your weight and age along with a few other metrics. The app then sets you up with a series of exercises to help you improve your fitness. There are a variety of exercises to perform and none of them are particularly high impact. This makes this a great beginner app for this type of exercise. There is a subscription tied to it, but honestly, if you like the app, we recommend using the $10.99 Lifetime license over the yearly subscription.

Chrome Valley Customs

Price: Free to play

Chrome Valley Customs is a mechanic simulator where you restore old cars. Despite its fairly typical look, the game is actually quite good. Rebuild old cars to make them run again. There are some light customizations and a match-3 puzzle element to help you get things done. Honestly reminiscent of the old PC games where you did this sort of thing with some modern mobile casual games mixed in. Of course, those looking for a deeper game may need to look elsewhere. As a relaxing game, this one is good.

AvenEzer is an app to archive your memories. Basically, whenever something of some importance happens to you, you write it down in this app. Later, you can refer to this app and remember what you were doing and how you felt. It uses the same underlying features as a mood diary. You write down the event, tell the app how you felt, and then remember it later. However, it doesn’t position itself as a journal app though it sure could. This is another app on Google Play apps that they liked in June, and we think it’s nice too.

Harry Potter; Magic Awakened

Price: Free to play

Harry Potter: Magic Awakened is a CCG, or card collecting game mixed with some RPG elements. It houses the same kind of perks as most of the Harry Potter games, such as cameos from famous characters and the game’s setting at Hogwarts. Collect cards, build a deck, and then use the cards to cast spells in combat. You can also customize your character. It has a lot of promise, but the game had a number of optimization issues. We are sure that the developers will fix the issue with time, but until then you may run into some weird stuff.

If we missed any great releases of Android apps or games, tell us about them in the comments.