If you listen very carefully, you can hear the sound of the best Android apps of the week approaching. This week’s boisterous quintet is made up of killer games, a surprising social networking update and even a solution to your car-buying needs. In short, there’s something for (almost) everyone, and the best thing is that we’ve tested all of these downloads to destruction to ensure they’re fit for your beloved mobile’s internal storage.
As always, there are two options for grabbing these lovely items. The first involves downloading Barcode Scanner from the Android Market and pointing your phone’s camera at one of the QR codes scattered liberally below. The second is clicking one of the links using your old-fashioned web browser and accessing the goodies that way. Whichever choice you make, you’re certain to gain a must-have download at the end of the process. Enjoy!
Cut (pun absolutely intended) from the same cloth as Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds, Cut the Rope has already gained a sizeable following on the iPhone. This addictive puzzle title is focused around feeding a piece of candy to an adorable little monster by the name of Om Nom. Each level has a sweet suspended by ropes, and slashing these with your finger causes all kinds of physics-related fun. Of course it’s rarely as straightforward as that, and before long you’ll be scratching your head at the fiendish challenges. Elements such as bellows (which blow the candy in a certain direction) and bubbles (which allow the candy to float majestically upwards) are introduced, and these make things a little more complicated. It’s amazingly addictive stuff, and it’s available absolutely free from GetJar. Essential.
With the rising cost of petrol, cars are in danger of becoming something we (and are wallets) could well do without. Sadly, it looks as if we’re stuck with them for the time being at least, and if you’re on the lookout for a new set of wheels then you could do much worse than download this official Auto Trader application for Android. You can browse listings, view detailed descriptions and even contact the seller directly through the app itself. The one thing it can’t guarantee is that the £500 Vauxhall Nova that you’ve got your eye on won’t turn out to be a death-trap rather than the sale of the century, but that’s the risk you take.
Remember Simon from your ill-spent youth? Not the annoying ginger kid from your old primary school who could burp the alphabet from start to finish and smelt of rotten apples, but the battery-powered game with big, friendly buttons that challenged you to remember a sequence of colours. Portable entertainment has thankfully improved a bit since then, but Memory Puzzle Cubo does at least allow you to wallow in nostalgia. The basic premise is the same as Simon, but it’s all dressed up in some gorgeous 3D visuals. iPhone owners have to pay for the privilege of this colourful memory challenge game, but the Android edition is ad-supported and as free as the air you’re breathing right now (unless you’re currently reading this whilst scuba-diving, in which case the air you’re breathing will have cost you actual money).
We’re usually loathe to report on updates for apps like Facebook – after all, everyone has it pre-installed on their phone already, so it’s not like you have to go hunting for it, right? However, it’s equally true that we sometimes just flippantly update core system apps without really knowing what new features are being introduced, so listen up. Facebook 1.60 introduces the ability to upload videos direct from you phone. That’s right – you can now embarrass your friends by making THAT footage from THAT drunken night out available to the public! This addition is enough to make Facebook qualify as one of our Best Android apps of the week, but there’s more – the news stream has been improved, and you can also view Facebook pages from within the app itself. Bet you ‘like’ the sound of that, right? Snigger! Chortle! Humph. Never mind.
Gameloft’s Halo wannabe N.O.V.A. 2 has been dazzling iPhone and Sony Ericsson Xperia Play owners for a while now, but it’s finally available for the rest of the Android multitude. Although the lack of the Play’s great physical controls is an issue, it can’t prevent N.O.V.A. 2 from offering one of the most polished and playable FPS experiences on mobile. The visuals are razor-sharp, the action is hectic and the online multiplayer is so addictive that you’ll wonder where the hours went to. You’ll need a reasonably powerful handset to run it, but then you didn’t expect such quality to come easy, did you?
If you listen very carefully, you can hear the sound of the best Android apps of the week approaching. This week’s boisterous quintet is made up of killer games, a surprising social networking update and even a solution to your car-buying needs. In short, there’s something for (almost) everyone, and the best thing is that we’ve tested all of these downloads to destruction to ensure they’re fit for your beloved mobile’s internal storage.
