21 Best New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (12/16/14 – 12/30/14)

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

Featured App

Expense IQ – Expense Manager

This week’s roundup is brought to you by Expense IQ – Expense Manager from Handy Apps. This amazingly complete expense tracking system has a solid and colorful UI, and just about every possible checkbook, alert, and tracking feature you could want. Everything you input can be saved and exported for personal backup and expense reports, and all your data is synced via Dropbox, making Expense IQ a snap to use across multiple phones or tablets. Bill alerts, a PIN lock, and even a homescreen widget are all included in this app’s bag of additional goodies. The basic version is free, but to get access to advanced functions you’ll need to pay for the full $6.99 version via in-app purchase.

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Expense IQ is the long awaited successor to EasyMoney – the number one money manager app that combines an expense manager, a bill reminder, a checkbook register and a budget planner. Expense IQ – Expense Manager provides a rich, detailed window into your personal finances and daily money management needs. Track and manage daily expenses quickly & easily. Business expenses, personal expenses, travel expenses etc can all be managed rapidly using Expense IQ’s simple and intuitive user interface. Interactive reports & graphs let you analyze income, expenses, cash flow and balance over various date ranges and accounts.

Apps

(root) LiveBoot

Android Police coverage: Chainfire’s LiveBoot, Now On The Play Store, Lets Root Users Watch LogCat Output With A Custom Boot Animation

LiveBoot is technically an Android app, but the point is that it installs a custom boot animation that shows you a visual output of logcat. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, it’s not for you. The free app requires a rooted phone or tablet (obviously) running on Android 4.3 or later. You’ll need the latest version of SuperSU to get everything set up. A $2.49 in-app purchase unlocks transparent mode, which shows your device’s default animation behind the readout.

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LiveBoot is a boot animation that shows you logcat and dmesg outputs on-screen as they happen. Output configuration includes logcat level, buffer and format selection; whether to show dmesg; the amount of lines that should fit on your screen, whether word-wrap should be employed, and if output should be color-coded. Additionally the background can be set to transparent to overlay the existing boot animation, which looks awesome during boot.

 

Shift

Android Police coverage: Shift Brings Its Customizable Unlimited Filters To Android For Free

Remember Instagram? This is like that, only more so. Shift’s impressive selection of filters includes a wide array of customization (us old fogeys used to call it “photo editing”) including applying specific filters and effects to only portions of an image. You can save your customized settings in personal filters. If that’s all too complex for you, just hit the shuffle button and try a random set of filters.

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Until now, photo filters have been limited to what someone else has created for you. Shift lets you create your own personal photo filters with one tap of a button. Shuffle through an endless combination of textures, colors, and blends to produce stylish effects like gritty textures, vintage, light leaks, and high contrast black and whites. You can then dial in the color and intensity using the slider controls, and position the effect using the three touch points on the screen to create the perfect photo filter.

TurboTax Tax Preparation

Android Police coverage: Intuit Releases A New TurboTax App With Modern Looks To Help You Manage This Year’s Taxes

TurboTax’s mobile apps are already pretty good, but they’ve taken the federal government’s lead on tax law and rewritten the whole thing. The new version includes the ability to take a photo of your W-2 and get all your basic filing done. For those with simple tax returns, that’s about all you’ll need  – and it’s free to boot – and you can pay any owed taxes right from the app. Those with more complex taxes, or lots and lots of deductions, might want to stick to the web version.

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Snap. Tap. Done. With the new TurboTax mobile app, get your taxes done right on any device, wherever you are. Start for free – pay when you file*. The new TurboTax app makes it easy for any tax situation. Swipe and tap your way to your maximum tax refund, guaranteed. Snap a photo of your W-2, answer simple questions, and then e-file securely from your phone, tablet or computer. Do your taxes when you want and how you want.

BBC iPlayer Radio for Tablet

Android Police coverage: BBC Releases New iPlayer Radio App Made Specifically For Tablets

Why did it take so long to bring the Beeb’s iPlayer Radio to Android tablets? You tell me, UK readers, you’re the ones who are paying for it.

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Designed especially for your tablet, the new BBC iPlayer Radio app is now available for you to try. After listening to people using our existing app, we’ve built this all-new version from the ground up. New features include:

• Improved live and on-demand listening, with easy-to-access playback controls throughout the app.
• More programme info on schedule pages, making it easier to pick something to listen to.
• Easy-to-navigate category pages, so you can find programmes to suit your mood.
• Improved visual designs mean it works in both portrait and landscape.
• Easier-to-find local radio stations.

 

Stickered for Messenger

Android Police coverage: Facebook Sticks With The Sticker Fad, Brings Stickered For Messenger Into The Play Store

So the sticker thing isn’t going away, huh? Even Facebook is doing it? OK, if you say so.

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Pick as many stickers as you want.
Stick them on before or after you snap a photo.
Decorate photos from your gallery, too.
Drag, pinch, stretch and rotate stickers.
Add captions to complete the scene.
Send your creations to friends with Messenger.

Yelp for Business Owners

Android Police coverage: Yelp Releases New Mobile App Made Just For Business Owners

Yelp extorts small business owners into paying for better reviews, and highlights bad reviews if they refuse. (Allegedly.) If you’re OK with that, or your business is so dependent on exposure from Yelp that you basically have to deal with them, this app will let you manage your profile from your phone. You can respond to customer comments and track traffic and engagement. Just don’t do anything to piss Yelp off, unless you want 1-star reviews from a certain San Francisco office building.

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The Yelp for Business Owners app allows you to view important business analytics and connect with customers, including those who have written reviews for your business. Millions of people turn to Yelp every day to make spending decisions. This app puts the power of Yelp’s tools right in your pocket.

• Track visitor engagement and customer leads from your Yelp Business Page.
• Respond to reviews with a private message or public comment.
• Respond to customer inquiries and messages.
• View reports on ad clicks from Yelp users (advertisers only)

Amazon Prime Now

Android Police coverage: [Updated] Amazon Announces Prime Now, A Service Promising One-Hour Delivery Via Bike Messengers In Select Cities, Starting With New York

New Yorkers, congratulations. In addition to getting just about everything except Google Fiber first, you can now order select products (mostly groceries) from Amazon Prime Now and get them delivered to your door in two hours for free. If that’s just not fast enough to satiate your Pop-Tarts craving, you can pay eight bucks and get it in under an hour. What a time to be alive. In New York City. And nowhere else.

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You have better things to do than go to the store. Skip the trip and shop for tens of thousands of daily essentials and gift items through the Amazon Prime Now app. Choose free two-hour delivery or get one-hour delivery for just $7.99. Prime Now is available from 6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week in select areas of Manhattan.

• An Amazon Prime membership is required to check out (non-Prime members can browse as a guest)
• Streamlined shopping experience, add items to cart directly from search results
• Track your deliveries, and watch as your courier makes their way to you

Nike Golf 360°

Android Police coverage: Nike’s Golf 360 App Comes To Android After Taking Its Sweet Time On iOS

Nike wants to help Android users improve their golf game, and to that end they’ve built a golf scoring app that also includes video advice from the pros. If you’re so inclined, you can also share your score or a photo on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. They left out Google+, which might seem odd, until you find out that Nike took two years to port this app from iOS to Android. So, yeah, nothing new from the “just do it” people.

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The Nike Golf 360 app provides the measurement and motivation you need to improve your golf game. Score your rounds, analyze your performance, track your progress across key stats and see how you stack up. Know your game to better your game with tools and motivation from NG360.

• Keep score for up to four players on more than 26,000 courses around the world in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Germany, Sweden and the UK
• NG360 easily allows you to track your stats and see your progress by analyzing your driving accuracy, greens in regulation and putts-per-round
• Connect and compete with friends and see how your game stacks up on the leaderboard.
• Review Tiger, Rory, and other Nike Golf athletes’ swings frame by frame.

Saucey: Alcohol Delivery

You can buy alcohol sober, but that’s not when you really need it. You need booze when you’re drunk and want more booze… which is exactly when you can’t drive to the store to get the booze. Saucey delivers whatever beer, wine, whiskey and gin (and every glass and bottle they come in)you want to your doorstep for set prices, donating a bit to charity as well. Unfortunately, the service is only available in Los Angeles and San Francisco right now.

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Why you’ll love Saucey: The Alcohol Delivery App? Saucey is the fastest, easiest and most reliable way to order alcohol and have it delivered. Simply pick what beer, wine or spirits you want, checkout with your card on file and your Saucey driver will be there shortly with your alcohol delivery.

• You never have to go to the liquor store again. Saucey: The Alcohol Delivery App does it for you
• Easily order beer, wine and spirits, have it delivered in minutes
• Our delivery drivers are friendly locals, certified by Saucey
• We donate a percentage of sales to Charity Water, so when you get alcohol delivered with Saucey, you’re helping save lives (Yes… drinking just became charitable)
• Perfect for the night in, bbq, dinner, office event, tailgate, pre-party, after-party, gifting or you’d just like a cocktail

Spot

Spot is essentially Tinder for consumer products. (There’s an objectification joke in there that I’m not going to touch.) Swipe through a bunch of quasi-designer stuff, saving the ones you want and ignoring the ones you don’t. Naturally it ties in with Facebook and Twitter, but I’m going to have to knock it a bit for an interface that’s clearly lifted right out of the iPhone version.

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Spot is the best way to discover the newest and coolest products. Easily swipe through product cards that we curate and that your friends spot to let everyone know how you feel about each one:

+ Swipe down if you ‘Want’ it
+ Swipe right if you think it’s ‘Cool’
+ Swipe left if you think it’s ‘Ehhh’

Products are curated from top sites so you don’t have to go to each one and waste your precious time.

mynderMail Free

Here’s an interesting idea: instead of dealing with endless to-do lists or reminder apps, just email yourself like you do anyway. This app is specifically for that oddly circuitous bit of 21st century behavior: open the app, type a little message, and send it to you and only you. It will even remember messages if you’re offline when you type them, uploading them as soon as you’ve got a connection. Neat, and currently in a free beta.

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I got sick of composing a new email every time I wanted to send myself a note. So I wrote this app. This app will let you send an email to yourself as soon as you can type it out. First line of the message will become the subject of the email, and the rest will become the body. Material-ish Design. No ads. This app is currently in beta – let me know if you encounter any issues.

 

Wally+

Wally+ is a budget app that aims to be a little more personal. Once you tie it to your various bank and card accounts it will keep track of your purchases, figuring out the vendor and/or goods based on location, but it will also categorize them automatically and give you reports on your spending habits. It includes a module for a savings target. If your bank’s online tracking system isn’t cutting it, give Wally a try.

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Wally+ is an awesome new way to manage your money. It’s a lifestyle app that treats expenses as experiences. Use Wally+ to consolidate your financial life: balance your income and expenses to set goals and reach them — all your accounts in one place. Wally+ also gives you unprecedented insights, showing you where you stand financially compared to people like you. It tells you where, why, on what, and with who you spend money, so you know exactly where your money goes.

HouseCall

Doctors don’t do house calls anymore, but contractors do. (Because that’s kind of the point.) HouseCall lets you select, schedule, and pay for home repair services right from the app, at least if you live in San Diego, California, Calgary, Canada, or Edmonton, Canada (the service is “coming soon” to the rest of the US). That said, the selection is probably limited to contractors that have signed up for the service, so a little shopping around wouldn’t hurt.

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HouseCall helps you find & book neighborhood recommended professionals for all your home service needs. House Cleaning, Carpet Cleaning, Electricians, Handymen, Plumbers, Painters, Appliance Repair, Auto Detail, Flooring, Garage, HVAC, Interior Design, Junk Removal, Landscaping, Locksmith, Moving, Pest Control, Pool, Window Washing +more.

● All pros are hand-picked & come recommended by your very own neighbors.

● Honest, fair pricing. Know your cost before you book.

● Schedule pros at the push of a button. We can’t make this much easier.

● Get 24/7 emergency service.

Image Searcher

This is a little tool that lets you quickly search for an image using Android’s built-in attachment UI, then quickly insert it into any compatible app. It’s a neat way to add Google Image Search results to a message quickly – perfect for that Futurama reaction GIF in a relevant conversation. You know, all of them.

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Don’t have the right picture for a message or email? Attach a photo and select Image Searcher from the list. Then, search through Google Images’ massive collection and pick what you want. It’s a lot quicker than searching for the image, downloading it, sharing it, and picking the app you were just in before you were interrupted. Works great with Messaging, Hangouts, Gmail, and many others. This app is not affiliated with Google in any way.

Tunity : Hear any muted TV

This is a really cool idea: point your phone at any television and it will figure out which station it’s tuned to. Tunity will then stream the audio from that station directly to your phone, no matter what wireless network you’re on. Neat! Too bad the app compatibility is so oddly restrictive, and none of us at AP could get it to work on the devices it DOES support, or we’d have put it higher on this list.

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Tunity allows you to instantly hear any muted TV right on your mobile device. There is no equipment or set-up required. Scan the TV and let Tunity detect the channel, bring the audio in sync, and stream it right to your Android device in a matter of seconds. Use Tunity at the gym, your favorite sports bar, an airport, any waiting area, or even at home.

 

1U

1U uses your front-facing camera and facial recognition to log into various websites. Considering how well the facial detection on Android’s lock screen is, I doubt anyone will seriously use it as a secure replacement, but it’s an interesting idea. Your account data (but not your facial data) is saved to an online system and usable at “over 1500” websites. You’ll have to pay a rather pricey $8 a month subscription to get in on the action, and rooted phones aren’t invited.

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1U™ is part of the HoyosID® Identity Assertion Platform serving as a replacement for the need for passwords, usernames, pins and tokens, making your digital lives more convenient and secure. It uses your smartphone to acquire and process your biometric (face, periocular, fingerprint and visible iris) data in seconds to authenticate your identity. 1U™ protects your privacy because your biometric data NEVER leaves your mobile device.

Super Bowl Stadium App

Are you going to the Superbowl? Then you can download this app for an allegedly “enhanced” stadium experience, and a seating map in glorious 2D. If you aren’t going, apparently you can watch a liveblog-style stream of updates from the game itself. Instead of just watching it on television. For some reason.

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Going to Super Bowl XLIX? For exclusive in-stadium content and an enhanced gameday experience, download the Super Bowl Stadium App. Super Bowl ticketholders will have access to all of the unique features below.

• Super Bowl commercials
• In-stadium replays
• 2D stadium and seating maps

Manufacturer and Tie-In Apps

Android TV Launcher

Android Police coverage: Google Adds Android TV Launcher To The Play Store

This here is the default launcher for Android TV. Google published it to the Play Store for easy updates without a new OTA ROM. That’s about it: if you have an ADT-1 or Nexus Player, it should already be installed and connected.

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Android TV Launcher is the jumping-off point for starting all activities on your Android TV entertainment device. The Launcher is optimized to put content at the center; from casual movie-watching, to edge-of-seat, immersive gameplay. It’s all about finding and enjoying content with the least amount of friction and providing quick access to all the features Android TV has to offer.

Kevo Beta

Android Police coverage: Kwikset Kevo’s Private Beta Goes Public As The Bluetooth-Enabled Door Lock App Hits The Play Store

This app allows you to unlock your Kevo electronic door lock from your phone. You can also send temporary or permanent keys to your contacts, which is great for house-sitting or kids. Unfortunately the app is only for Android 5.0 right now (and only the N6 and N9 at that) – the hardware and service are still very much in beta.

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Welcome to Kevo Beta for Android 5.0, Lollipop

· Preview the Kevo app for Android Lollipop and try out the Kevo Smart Lock made by Kwikset and Weiser
· Give early feedback: Let us know what you think and help make Kevo for Android Lollipop better
· We truly appreciate your support by participating in the public beta before our full market release
· This version supports Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 devices only

Kris Menace – Virtual Edition

If Tron was a music video, and intended to be played in virtual reality, it would look like this. You’ll need a compatible headset to slide your phone into if you want to check it out, but it looks like the app itself is indiscriminate – Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, whatever you want to use is fine.

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Imagine a world where you can not only hear music and watch videos, but where you can actually step inside a music video and lose yourself in a fantastic audio visual universe. We are happy to present the world’s first virtual reality music video for your mobile. To enjoy the video you need a virtual reality headset (e.g. Google Cardboard).

Tile

Android Police coverage: Tile Comes To Android So That You Never Lose Your Stuff Again

Tile is a little Bluetooth tag that sits on your keys or your wallet and tells you where they are. The Android app records the last known location of the tile (and by extension, your stuff) and helps you find it when it’s lost. Press a button and the tile will emit a tone so you can find it. There’s also a community aspect, but that rather depends on trusting strangers to return your valuables.

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Welcome to Tile, the world’s largest lost and found. This app works with Tile, which can be ordered at http://j.mp/1vqNeqD Small and sleek, Tiles go everywhere you do. Use the app to help you find things quickly and easily. Tile your keys and never be late. Drop one in your purse and you’re good to go. Stick one on your laptop and worry less. Leave one in your car and you’ll always know where you parked it.

Know A Worthy New App? Let Us Know!

If you have an application in mind for the next issue of the roundup, feel free to send us an email and let us know.

Important: there are 2 requirements in order for the app to be considered, listed below.

• the app’s launch date has to be no longer than 2 weeks ago
• it has to be original, ground-breaking, well-reviewed, interesting, fun, etc – the cream of the crop

Now, if and only if the above requirements have been satisfied, fire up an email to this address: [email protected].

1 sponsored placement per week is available (your app would be featured at the top and marked as sponsored) – please contact us for details.