App developers are pushing the envelope on a daily basis trying to improve and enhance our smartphone and tablet experiences. In fact, so many Android apps come out every day that it’s difficult to keep track of them all. It’s difficult to usurp the best of the best but if you’re getting bored with what you’ve got and want to try something new, check out the best new Android apps from the last month! You can watch the videos from past months by clicking here! You can check out our selections for the best new Android apps from 2018 in the video above.
- Automatic Dark Theme for Android 10
- BET+
- Energy Ring for Note 10
- Free Basics by Facebook
- John NESS and John GBAC
- Music Zen
- Shudder
- Threads from Instagram
- TIME Immersive
- Volume Panel Pro
Automatic Dark Theme for Android 10
Price: Free
Automatic Dark Theme for Android 10 is what the name says. It helps automatically enable dark mode in certain situations. This one is a power user app and requires a bit of ADB knowledge to get working. Otherwise, it seems like it works fairly well. You can set it to automatically start at sunset and disable at sunrise. Some people complain that it helps cause the Call Screen issue with Pixel 3 devices, so be weary if you try it and have one of those.
BET+
Price: Free trial / $9.99 per month
BET+ was from late September so we’re putting it here. It’s the official Android app of BET+ and includes all of the features of the service. Some of those feature include over 1,000 hours of programming, including many episodes from popular TV series. Additionally, you get the usual video streaming stuff like a queue and other such things. Some people don’t like the lack of programming for such a high price, but we’re sure BET is adding more content sooner rather than later.
Energy Ring
Price: Free / $2.49
Energy Ring is a newer app for the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and 10+. It puts a battery monitor indicator around the front facing camera cutout. It looks surprisingly slick and comes with a variety of customization options. For instance, you can change both the thickness and color of the ring. The app also only updates the indicator when it detects a battery change so it shouldn’t eat up a lot of battery life.
Free Basics by Facebook
Price: Free
Free Basics by Facebook is kind of a complicated thing. It offers free Internet to people but only for certain websites. Some of those websites include Facebook itself, AccuWeather, BBC News, Dictionary.com, ESPN, UNICEF, and others. The full list varies by country. This is the app version of Facebook’s Internet.org initiative to provide Internet to as many people as possible. There are some ethical concerns here. Additionally, it doesn’t work for any of my devices so I couldn’t personally test it. You can click here to see where this app is available.
John GBAC and John NESS
Price: Free / $4.49 each
These two apps launched a while ago and we totally missed it so we’re covering it now. John NESS is a Nintendo SNES and Nintendo NES combo emulator while John GBAC is a Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance combo emulator. They both work exceedingly well and include support for a lot of stuff, including fast forward, slow motion, save and load states, cheats, hardware controller support, and more. John Emulators has individual emulators for all of these consoles, but these two new apps kind of combine them all together. They are both excellent at what they do. Most of the negative ratings stem from prior customers angry about purchasing an app again.
Music Zen
Price: Free / $4.99 per month / $49.99 per year
Music Zen is a new sound effects app. It has a bunch of sound effects, including things like slicing noises, bubble wrap pops, and your more traditional sounds like fireplace. There are also some ambient sounds like aquarium noises and other such things. It’s a great white noise app for those who need something to help them sleep. The sound effects are of a reasonably high quality as well. We’re not so sure about charging a subscription for this one, but at least the free version gives you some stuff to play with.
Shudder
Price: Free / $6.99
Shudder is another new video streaming service by AMC Networks. This one is dedicated solely to horror movies. You log in, browse around, and watch something spooky. The app features you usual video streaming fare, including a queue and a somewhat powerful search. Additionally, there are curated collections from various actors and some other discovery features. However, there is no Chromecast support and we hate that. Additionally, the collection has a lot of stuff we’ve never heard of. Otherwise, it’s a decent little service. The app comes with a free seven day trial. After that, you pay the monthly price.
Threads from Instagram
Price: Free
Threads from Instagram is a neat idea in theory. It works like Instagram normally does. However, this one has a much larger emphasis on interpersonal connections. Think of it like a group chat, but with Instagram’s UI. Thus, the point isn’t to accumulate followers and likes, but to actually talk to people you know. It’s a far from perfect experience and does require you to get your friends onto yet another social media app. However, we like where this one is going and, with some improvements, it could be legitimately good.
TIME Immersive
Price: Free
TIME Immersive is an AR and VR application from TIME Magazine. You can search for various things around the world and experience them in virtual or augmented reality. Some such experiences like the heart of the Amazon rain forest, the moon, and more. Of course, it’s TIME, so there are some journalistic elements to the app as well. It uses Google’s ARCore technology so you need a supported device in order to use it. A lot of people are complaining about a bug about the app not noticing when ARCore is installed. Hopefully TIME Magazine gets that one ironed out sooner rather than later.
Volume Panel Pro
Price: $0.99
Volume Panel Pro is a neat little customization app. The app intercepts your volume keys and shows you a completely different volume layout from your device. The part we like is the part where it shows you every single volume meter for your phone instead of just one or two. Thus, you can change your media volume or notification volume at the same time. The app is customizable for both looks and functionality. Additionally, you can blacklist it in certain apps so it doesn’t work there. It’s inexpensive and worked fine in our testing.
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