Android By Ryan Whitwam Dec. 28, 2015 10:15 am
New apps and games stream into the Play Store non-stop, which is both good and bad. There’s plenty of content, but it can be hard to find things that are worth your time. You could through the glut of mediocre free-to-play games and keyboard skins all day and never find the really great stuff. Luckily, we’re here to find the coolest apps and games so you’ll know what’s worth your time and money. So, here are the best new apps and games on Android right now. Make sure to hit the gallery above for images of each pick.
Chromer
Android has supported a feature called webview for a long time, allowing developers to load webpages in their apps without booting you to a full browser. It gets the job done, but the experience is extremely slimmed down. Google recently deployed a new way to render content outside of the browser called Chrome custom tabs. These are faster and more powerful than webview, but you have to wait for developers to adopt them… unless you use Chromer. This app basically replaces your standard browser for all URLs. When you tap a link, it’ll open in a Chrome custom tab courtesy of Chromer instead of going to the full Chrome browser. So, why would you want to do this? A custom tab doesn’t load up all the features and resources a full browser needs, so it’s incredibly fast. Because it’s using the standard Chrome Blink engine, the rendering is also very accurate. Chrome custom tabs also have the added bonus of supporting form fills and login info from the full Chrome browser. Chromer itself doesn’t have many settings. Just a few animation and UI options. It’s simply a shortcut to getting Chrome custom tabs everywhere. There’s a menu in the Chrome tab that lets you open a link in the main Chrome browser if that’s something you decide to do.
Crimsonland
Dual-stick shooters are nothing new — you’ve probably played dozens of them on Android. However, Crimsonland is one of the best I’ve played on any platform. There are two different game modes, but the campaign is where you want to go first. Battling through level after level of top-down action will unlock powers and weapons that can be employed in the endless survival modes. You begin most levels in Crimsonland with a wussy pistol. Better weapons (once unlocked) will be dropped by monsters as you take them out. The weapons are highly varied and run the gamut between fairly mundane shotguns and sci-fi plasma cannons. There are also powerups that can slow time, super-charge your weapon, and more. Unlike a lot of games, the survival mode is really worth playing. The way perks stack up as your character levels up can fundamentally change the gameplay. Crimsonland doesn’t have especially flashy graphics, but it’s clean and very responsive. It’s a little expensive at $10, but there tr no in-app purchases and I think you’ll get your money’s worth.
Custom Quick Settings
Android 6.0 Marshmallow added a lot of cool user-facing features, but one of the coolest is only accessible if you know the trick to enable it. Long-pressing on the settings shortcut will unlock the system UI tuner, which allows you to change icons in the status bad and quick settings. Custom Quick Settings lets you take advantage of that to create new items in the quick settings, rather than just rearrange the ones that are already there. It takes a few steps to add a new tile via this app, but keep in mind this is an experimental feature. it’s not likely to be easy, but the app does walk you through the whole process. Just create a new “broadcast tile” and give it the indicated name. From there, you can use Custom Quick Settings to add a link to a website, app, or even a Tasker action. The basic functionality is free, but if you want to remove the ads and gain access to the tasker stuff (which really massively increases what you can do), you’ll have to pay about $1.50 via na in-app purchase. Remember, this is only for Android 6.0, but you can also use it on Android 5.x with root.