Welcome to the 456th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the last week.

• India fined Google roughly $162 million for anti-competitive practices. It’s very similar to the EU fine back in 2018. Google uses its dominance to force OEMs to preinstall apps that keep people from seeking alternatives. We love Android around these parts, but it’s difficult to defend them when it comes to stuff like this. Hit the link for more details.
• Samsung’s phone cameras got a bit better this week. The first is Samsung introducing a multiple exposure mode and an astrophotography mode. Those were introduced in Samsung’s Expert RAW app. The second is a new Good Lock module, Camera Assistant, which lets you customize the standard camera app. The two links will tell you more about each.
• In addition, Samsung also announced that it was bringing more emojis to the company’s smartphones. The Android 13 One UI 5 update coming to phones is finally providing support for Unicode 14, which will add 138 new emojis to Samsung phones. Hit the link to learn more.
• An Apple executive talked about iMessage on Android this week. He referred to it as a throwaway endeavor that would’ve hindered innovation. In essence, he claimed that Apple wouldn’t be able to deliver a good product if it had to support Android. We still think it’s because fewer people would be iPhones, but it is what it is.
• Material You has been out for about a year now, and we looked to see how developers were faring. It’s been a bit slow, and much slower than when Material Design first came out. However, we are surprised to see some apps, like Spotify, adopting some features. You can hit the link to learn more.

Rent Please

Price: Free to play

Rent Please is a landlord simulator. You play the role of landlord and do the kinds of things that landlords do. That includes getting to know your tenants, improving your property, and collecting rent. You keep this loop up until you get everything you want. There is some strategy involved. For example, you have to figure out how much to charge for utilities, but still keep your tenants happy. It’s a decent simulator overall, even with the microtransactions.

Yonder

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Yonder is a webcomics reader. You can download and read comics from a variety of genres. It even has some exclusive stuff. In terms of usability, it feels like most comic readers. You download the comic, open it, and read it. It has a system where you can unlock free stuff now and then. However, you buy coins to unlock the stuff you want immediately. It has a few bugs, as most new apps do, but otherwise, it’s not bad.

Path to Nowhere

Price: Free to play

Path to Nowhere is a strategy RPG with some tower defense elements. You play through the game to unlock its story. Simply put, you play the role of a cop in a city full of crime. There are gacha elements. You summon characters to help you defeat the bad guys. Combat is a mix between strategy RPG and tower defense. Enemies move along a set path, and you must defeat them before they leave. Fans of Arknights may also enjoy this one, as many of the base elements are similar.

Google Family Link

Price: Free

Google is keeping the redesigns rolling with a new version of Family Link. The first major difference is the UI. It’s a little more organized than the outgoing design. The three-tabbed design. One tab shows your child’s usage, a second shows control limits, and the third for GPS location.

The redesign is mostly in the UI, as most of the underlying functionality is the same as before. There are a few new features, like Today’s Limit, where parents can manually set a screen time limit without messing with their daily routines. We think the redesign is good overall and should make Google Family Link easier to use.

Panilla Saga

Price: Free to play

Panilla Saga is a gacha RPG. It focuses heavily on the gacha elements, and new players get an absurd number of pulls just for logging in for the first time. The rates are pretty decent. The rest of the game is fairly easy to play. Combat isn’t anything special. You send out five characters, and they go to battle against the enemies to see who wins. We hit the grind wall earlier than expected, so get your grind face on because you’ll need it early. Otherwise, the game looks and feels pretty good. It should scratch the gacha itch, but there are better RPGs out there.

If we missed any big Android apps or games news, tell us about it in the comments.
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