AAW Ria Rabbit screenshot
Welcome to the 358th Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the last week:

Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority

  • Google Street View received a new feature this week. The app lets people submit images to the service straight from their devices. There is a caveat, though. The device needs ARCore compatibility in order to use the feature. Google already did most of the work. The idea is to improve some parts of it through crowd sourcing. Hit the link to learn more.
  • A new leak pointed to a new Spotify feature this week. The feature lets people play their local audio files straight from Spotify. It would negate the need for a second audio player for folks who have both local content and also stream. It’s just a leak so take it with a grain of salt. Spotify lets you do this now, but the workaround is obnoxious to say the least.
  • Some people experienced SMS and MMS problems this week. It turned out the culprit was a faulty Google Carrier Services update. The November 23rd update broke SMS support on a wide variety of phones. Some people couldn’t send SMS at all and many more had long waits. It’s no longer a problem as of the time of this writing.
  • League of Legends: Wild Rift soft launched this week. It’s available to players in Asia and Europe. It’s in beta right now and it definitely needs a little polish before it launches worldwide. The game apparently a whole new game in the series and not just a mobile port of the popular MOBA. Hit the link to learn more details and get it from the Play Store if you can.
  • Google Play Music is in the final stages of its shut down. The app no longer lets people access content. Instead, it tells people to transfer their content to YouTube Music. The web portal is also now inaccessible. We knew it was coming for months now. It doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier.

Bobble Heads

Price: Free

Bobble Heads is a live wallpaper with a simple premise. It puts bobble heads on your home screen and they proceed to bobble as expected. It features five bobble heads right now. They’re all comic book heroes so this is more for some people than others. You can customize the background behind the bobble heads. Additionally, you can control the speed and timing of the bobbles. It’s a fun little live wallpaper. It’s also free with no in-app purchases or ads.

Crazy Night: Idle Casino Tycoon

Price: Free to play

Crazy Night: Idle Casino Tycoon is a tycoon style idle tap game. Players start small with a little club and work their way up to a whole casino. The game features simple game play, plenty of decisions for players to make, and more. It’s a fairly simple game and it gets rather repetitive like most idle tap games. There are also some bugs in the game. We hope the developers take care of those sooner rather than later. Otherwise, it’s a decent little time killer for idle fans.

Ria Rabbit

Price: Free

Ria Rabbit is an educational app for kids. It helps teach kids ages 0 to 8 how to read through storytelling. The app includes animated videos, audio stories, and picture books along with some activities to challenge kids to learn how to read. With how fast kids mature these days, they may start to get bored with this app around the 8 year mark, but it’s definitely good for younger kids. The app is free with no in-app purchases or advertising. That’s always a plus when it comes to kid stuff.

Oceans Board Game

Price: Free / $0.99

Oceans Board Game is a digital recreation of the popular board game. It’s a mix with a card game as well. Players draw cards and use the abilities to buff their sea creatures. The abilities are intentionally powerful to represent the threats of the deepest parts of the ocean. Players start with a fish and give it traits from the cards. The rules are fairly simple once you get used to them. The free version of the game comes with part of the game. You pay the in-app purchase price to unlock the rest.

Google Health Studies

Price: Free

Google Health Studies is a Google research app. It lets you contribute to health research studies with various institutions from your device. You can self-report symptoms, volunteer for multiple studies, and track your information from the app. Your information is kept secure. Researchers only see aggregated data from Google and not specific data from you. It has a bug here and there according to some reviews but it worked perfectly fine when we tested it.

Google Health Studies screenshot

Credit: Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Thank you for reading! Try these out as well:

If we missed any great Android app or game releases this week, tell us about them in the comments!