It’s usually a pretty big deal when releases a new Android app, that’s doubly true this week. lo is the company’s new chat app, which bundles in the brainy Assistant for good measure, while Travel makes it easy to plan for make the most of your next trip without putting in a ton of work.
’s own apps lead our latest look at the ay Store’s hottest new releases, but they’re not alone this week. so worth a look is the charming per anes, which debuted at I/O this year, while Don’t Starve: cket ition brings a popular survival game to Android Dog Sled Saga turns the grueling activity into a fun arcade game management simulation.
lo
Stickers, games, artificial intelligence— yes, chat too.
There’s no shortage of popular chat apps on Android, but that didn’t stop from taking another stab at the concept. Out this week, lo is a mobile-only (Android iOS) chat app that’s tied into your phone number, much like ’s recent video-chat app, Duo. In conversation, it might seem much like any other app, letting you swap text, stickers, photos, more, but there’s an added dose of intelligence thanks to the new Assistant.
The Assistant provides quick reply options at a tap, but it can do a lot more than that too: it can also pull a movie time or sports score from the web, search your images for a particular snapshot, do quick math, play a trivia game, quite a bit more. ’s A.I. should get smarter more useful as it learns your tendencies ( everyone else’s too), we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a web version at some point.
st note that messages aren’t end-to-end encrypted by default. You can turn that option on, but in doing so, you’ll disable the Assistant as it relies on reading your data to function.
Trips
t plan your next big voyage with Trips.
Not content to release just one big app this week, also just debuted Trips— it seems like a potential lifesaver for anyone on the road, especially internationally. Trips works with the reservation emails in your Gmail account to automatically store flight, hotel, other travel details, then acts as a support system once you’re on the ground. You’ll find ample suggestions for sights, eating, transportation, as well as details on local customs, currency, more.
And if you’re in one of the 200 big cities paid extra attention to, you’ll have access to Day ans. Each city has a hful of these mapped-out agendas, which loop you between tourist attractions other hotspots, helping you get a full vacation day without doing any of the research to sort it out. Best of all, every single bit of data can be saved offline with one tap, ensuring you have what you need at all times regardless of connection availability or quality.
per anes
Stamp, fold, send your plane out into the world.
ke many of the Android Experiments, per anes is a small but worthy delight. Shown by at I/O this year, Active ry’s app has you drop a localized stamp onto a sheet of virtual paper, fold it up, then toss it out into the world by motioning with your phone. You can even catch someone else’s plane by scooping it up with a net, dropping your own stamp on the sheet, sending it back out into orbit.
Tracking your planes’ various destinations is fun, per anes smartly sticks with pre-made stamps to keep things clean friendly. at’s especially cool is that you can fire up the website on your computer’s browser see the plane soar from your phone into the global view— you don’t have to register an account or pair devices to make it happen. per anes is a breezy little distraction that warrants a few minutes of your time.
Don’t Starve: cket ition
nching the beehive might have been the wrong move.
ke Minecraft but want something with a little more bite? Don’t Starve: cket ition ($4) can fill that role. After selling millions of copies on , consoles, iOS, the grim survival game has just arrived on the ay Store—albeit in an “Unreleased” beta version that could have some bugs. ke Minecraft, Klei’s game drops you into a romized world tasks you with staying alive amidst the open terrain. However, when you die here, the game ends.
That’s true whether you’ve played for minutes or hours, Don’t Starve doesn’t even have a tutorial to start things off. That gives you a real chance to figure things out for yourself, whether it’s gathering resources, crafting, or defending yourself, the Burton-esque aesthetic is attractive. The cket ition doesn’t have the full feature suite of the larger pricier versions, but there’s still plenty here to enchant fans of tough, open-ended games.
Dog Sled Saga
Throw ‘em a bone out there! (Seriously, they’re starving.)
Real-life dog-sledding seems like it’s both physically mentally exhausting, but Dog Sled Saga ($4) is thankfully just fun, upbeat, charming. Split between arcade-style, side-scrolling races a gradual career progression, this indie game puts you in comm of your own team of pups, who must be fed, trained, properly rested in order to move your way up the rankings become the ultimate sledding champ.
The races aren’t terribly complex: you’ll hold release to fling snacks to your hard-working companions tap as needed to dodge hazards. However, there’s quite a bit to manage between races, including your team makeup positioning, budgets, sponsorships, employees, even breeding the next generation of winners. Slick pixel graphics, great music, amusing dialogue bits give Dog Sled Saga a very chill appeal.
