oking to get creative this weekend have fun with friends? Five to Try can help on both counts, as we spotlight the most notable Android apps released this week. Facebook’s new Riff app lets pals easily create themed video chains for the world to see, while Mighty Marvel Heroes lets you take comic book icons online for cooperative action Dual is all about local combat across multiple devices.
For more practical needs, File Transfer by Infinit offers an easy free way to move files of any size between devices, while Microsoft’s Office ns eview lets you capture images have the text automatically turned into Office OneNote-friendly files. Any of these spark your curiosity? Keep reading for more on all five new apps.
Riff
You might know in an instant whether Riff is meant for you, based on its in-your-face design aesthetic.
Square-shaped, socially-shared videos are incredibly common thanks to Vine Instagram, but Facebook’s free Riff app hopes to make them even more social: by letting friends build upon each others’ videos under shared themes. For example, you can take a 20-second video of your cat share it to your Facebook friends, then they can add their own short clips, piggybacking on your work to exp the narrative.
It’s a fun little app that’s boldly presented designed to make it very easy for you to create share clips—although the minimal interface makes navigation a little clumsy. The featured videos are amusing, as well, reminding me of the early days of Vine in which users tried to one-up each other with creative use of the platform. ll Riff be the next big video app? can’t say for sure, but the premise has plenty of amusing potential.
Mighty Marvel Heroes
Mighty Marvel Heroes isn’t much to look at, but at least you can team up with pals in synchronous superhero skirmishes.
Mighty Marvel Heroes brings something unique to the free-to-play space, at least as far as the Marvel Universe is involved: you can hop online play in live cooperative battles with three other players. It’s not asynchronous, nor are you battling the A.I. equivalent of your allies—you’ll actually be fighting alongside them in real-time combat.
ed, the game in question is extremely simplistic. Your hero—the selection includes Spider-Man, Black dow, Iron Man, many other options—fights automatically, so you’ll simply point him/her towards enemies occasionally tap the special move button. so, the missions are only a minute each, so they’re quick in–out showdowns. Marvel Clash of Champions is a slicker more engaging freemium option, but if it’s co-op action you crave, Mighty Marvel Heroes has it.
File Transfer by Infinit
Sign up start sending: Infinit is super simple can accommodate gargantuan files.
all have our own preferred ways of getting files from our phones to other devices, whether it’s email, Drive, Dropbox, or whatever—but here’s another option that might remove headaches for some. Infinit’s File Transfer app just hit Android this week, as the service’s name suggests, there’s no limit to how large of files you can send, or even how many.
Got massive 4K videos on your phone that you want on your computer, or need to send directly to a colleague? You can do so with a couple of taps. On the flip side, do you want a massive 4K video from your on your smartphone? That’s also a breeze, thanks to Infinit apps for ndows Mac. It’s totally free super straightforward, so if you want to get media from one device to another without worrying about data caps or storage costs, Infinit might do the trick.
Dual!
This is what you’ll see; a friend (or foe) will have a second screen, either battling or assisting you in retro-stylized combat.
Online multiplayer games are well good, but what about local competitive action? If you’ve got a nearby friend with an Android device, you should both grab Dual give it a spin. Essentially, both phone/tablet displays make up the complete game screen, with each player firing missiles aimlessly into the other space. Blast your enemy enough times it’s game over.
That’s the base game, it’s fully free playable over local -Fi (Bluetooth support is in the works). But if one player buys the $1.99 in-app purchase, you’ll unlock the meatier Defend mode, which sees you working together to protect the space between your screens from invaders that flood in from below. It’s simple, retro-inspired fare, but the local-only multiplayer design makes it plenty intriguing.
Office ns eview
Snap a photo of something in the world Office ns can grab the text for your Microsoft apps of choice.
Microsoft continues to bring its formerly ndows-exclusive apps over to Android, Office ns is the latest. Office ns uses your phone’s camera to capture an image of a whiteboard or document, automatically crops out what you captured from the full frame. That’s not all: it then uses optical character recognition (OCR) to read the text transfer it into documents that you can open with Office apps or OneNote.
Instantly playing nice with Microsoft’s other apps is the big perk here, since OCR apps are common, although you’ll need a Microsoft account to use Office ns. so, as the title suggests, it’s still in eview right now—but that’s not a huge hassle. Simply join this + community, click the “become a tester” link, you’ll be able to download it from ay. The page says you might need to wait a couple hours for the link to work, but I was up running in three minutes.
