New apps need lovin’ too, right? Every day there are thousands of additions to the Google Play store, but many go unnoticed and never receive the attention they deserve. We’ve shown in the past that this community can discover great apps and propel them to new heights. Our weekly Fresh Meat column highlights new apps with fewer than 100,000 installs. Browse our new Android app picks below and let us know which ones you enjoy.

WhatsStats

Description: WhatsStats is helper application for WhatsApp friend stats. WhatsStats is gives you an overview of the changes from the selected contact for Whatsapp.

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2knock

Description: 2knock – Application, which extends capabilities of managing your phone with Android Wear watch. You can perform various actions with your phone even without touching it: hear a list of missed calls and unread SMS, hear SMS text and make calls to sender. market package=”ru.astrosoft.twoknocks.publish”]

Guides by Lonely Planet

Description:  Take Lonely Planet with you on your mobile device and get straight to the heart of where you’re going. Our city guides are the ultimate travel companion containing the best of our world-renowned expertise.

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Image Gallery for Reddit

Description: Enjoy thousands of images shared by Reddit community with this unofficial Reddit client app. This app is currently in early stage of development in beta mode only.

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Price Statistics For eBay

Description: Find price statistics for active, and completed items. Line graph of sold price over time. Links to buy items.

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Gala launcher for Gear VR

Description: Instead of scrolling in Oculus Home to find the game you want to start while wearing Gear VR, now you can find the game in Gala first, then plug your Galaxy in Gear VR, the game will start running automatically, super fast, no hassle.

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Ewok Watch Face

Description: Dress your Android Wear with completely new Ewoks. Six watch faces designed and animated with a single tap on the watch 🙂 They automaticaly change during the time, customisable from the watch.

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H&R Block – Income Tax App

Description: H&R Block, the largest consumer tax filing company in India and the largest tax filer in the world, has developed an application which allows you to not just file your tax return but save taxes as well.

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Flyperlink

Description: Flyperlink is a revolutionary web browser optimized for multitasking on mobile devices. Features:Link – Click on a link and select Flyperlink to open a floating web browser which shows its content, Share – Use share button of other apps to open its content also in the floating browser, Minimize – Move the bubble or use navigation keys to close content but keep it minimized in the bubble.

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All In One Social Media “Fast”

Description: Need a roommate? Roomi makes it easy to find and connect with compatible roommates in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego (and more cities coming soon!).

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There are plenty of carrier options out there, but sometimes the smaller carriers don’t get as much coverage. That’s an unfortunate coincidence, because depending on how you use your wireless service, you could stand to save a great deal of money by using one of these smaller carriers. One of the more well-known prepaid carriers is Virgin Mobile, an MVNO owned by Sprint.

Virgin Mobile is known for offering inexpensive plans for customers interested in going the prepaid route. Today, the carrier has introduced three new plans that include “unlimited” data, talk and text, and start at just $30/month. We include the quotes around unlimited because Virgin Mobile, much like T-Mobile, will throttle your data speeds after you’ve exceed your allotment of high-speed data.

The base plan is $30/month and offers users 500MB of high-speed data in addition to unlimited talk and text. For $40/month, users can get 4GB of high-speed data and for $50/month, users can get 6GB of high-speed data. Virgin Mobile is primarily pushing the $40/month plan, with the other two plans serving as options for those who use more or less data than 4GB/month. If you do decide that you need more data added to your plan for just the month, you can purchase individual data packs that cost $5 for 1GB of high-speed data and $10 for 2GB of high-speed data.

These plans are, of course, compatible with Virgin Mobile’s data-free music streaming options, which include Pandora, Slacker, iHeartRadio, 8tracks and Milk Music.

For more info, check out Sprint’s official announcement at the source link.

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Have you ever been to a site and noticed those ads that pretend to be your system, or the site itself? They could be asking you to update some plugin, or act as fake download buttons that are mixed in with a site’s real download button. Those types of attacks are called social engineering attacks, and Google aims to stop them.

Google’s Safe Browsing will now protect you from such ads with a warning that the page is using such tactics. This will put up such a warning on a lot of sites, which in the end is a good thing. Too many sites allow such dangerous ads to show up, and hopefully this will force them to ban such ads.

What do you think of this new warning system? Have you been affected by such ads? Let us know in the comments!

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While Android Wear and, to a lesser degree, Samsung’s Tizen OS, get the bulk of our attention in the smartwatch world, Pebble, the company that arguably kicked off the current consumer interest in smartwatches, continues to update its platform to stay relevant.

Pebble retains its big advantage in battery life thanks to its unique e-ink screen and, while both Android and Tizen retain the feature advantage over Pebble, it is slowly closing the gap in some critical areas.

This latest update focuses on messaging and Pebble Health, while also bringing new low battery warnings as well as updates to Watch-Only Mode that reduces the Pebble to simply a watch to prevent you from ending up with a blank screen on your wrist.

iOS users with Pebble devices are just now gaining some of the custom messaging capabilities that Android users already enjoyed, and Android users are now able to reply to incoming calls with an SMS. You can send a text, voice note or emoji response. The new Send Text app will even let you initiate SMS conversations from Pebble rather than simply responding.

Pebble Health is the other major focus for this update. A big part of that is the new API that will allow developers to bake Pebble Health stats into their apps and watchfaces. Look for these in the Pebble App Store soon. Developers can read about the nitty gritty details on the Pebble Developer page. Pebble Health is now tracking your activities more accurately, as well, and includes an option to view your distance in kilometers, although honestly who wants to do that. (Just kidding, virtually everyone not in the U.S.)

If you own a Pebble, hit the link below to make sure you have the latest update and let us know what you think.

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LG is teasing the announcement of the LG G5 flagship both on its own site and Twitter. On its own site, you see the strange image above with no other details. The LG Twitter profile took a different approach, posting three photos of the number five.

The date lines up with LG’s press conference on February 21, right in time for the Mobile World Congress crowd. So we know the device will be unveiled there, but not much else. Unfortunately, we didn’t even get a sneak peek of the G5.

Rumor has it that the G5 will have dual cameras on the rear alongside a fingerprint reader. An early prototype in a dummy box was leaked with some interesting details, but of course nothing is confirmed. It’s only a few more weeks until we get to see the official announcement. Are any of you excited for the next LG flagship? Leave a comment!

#LGG5, February 21st. #MWC16 http://pic.twitter.com/yvQU3FZ2kq

— LG USA Mobile (@LGUSAMobile) February 3, 2016

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OnePlus is celebrating Valentine’s Day with a deal. Well, most companies are, to be fair. If you buy a OnePlus X through oneplus.net, you can use coupon code XOXO to get a free Rosewood case.

The deal is only available while supplies last, so jump on it if you were planning on buying a OnePlus X anyway. The device is now available without an invite, so you can finally freely buy it. Who’s jumping on this deal?

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The first gen Moto 360 was the first smartwatch a lot of people were genuinely in love with. The thin metal body, the round display, and the sheer elegance of it (for a smartwatch anyway) won a lot of people over even when the specs were borderline disappointing. Unfortunately, the Google Store has finally killed it off, along with the Sony Smartwatch 3.

It’s entirely expected for these older devices to be removed from the Google Store. The second generation Moto 360 has long been up for sale and is a worthy upgrade over the aging first gen. Plus, you can get the first gen for a lower price elsewhere. The Sony Smartwatch 3 never got a successor though, so it’s a shame to see it go.

Via: Android Police
Source: Moto 360, Sony Smartwatch 3

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The Google OnHub router duo is Google’s entry into the home network game, and it’s a good one. The routers are expensive but a joy to use, with no complicated menus and setup. The actual hardware is great too. It’s missing a lot of advanced features, but it’s constantly being updated.

The latest update comes with support for guest WiFi networks, along with customizable device sharing. You can now create a guest WiFi network, making it easier for your guests to get online, and even allow some devices to be available to those on the guest network. For example, you can make your Chromecast visible to guests without having to give them your main network password.

OnHub routers are constantly getting updated with new features, so it’s always a good time to buy one. I’m very much enjoying mine.

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Alto’s Adventure was one of those games that you couldn’t escape hearing about from iOS friends when it launched last year, and almost precisely one year later, it will finally be available on Android. We’ve known it was coming since September, but the developers announced via Twitter, that the game will finally hit Google Play next Thursday, February 11th.

Alto’s Adventure is launching on Android on February 11th https://t.co/alu8G9XHoD http://pic.twitter.com/myIZv3zYeS

— Alto’s Adventure (@altosadventure) February 3, 2016

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For those that did somehow escape the Alto adulation, it is an endless runner-style game, but you are on a snowboard and trying to escape some apparently disgruntled llamas. You need to gather coins and power-ups while avoiding obstacles and doing flips and grinds as you speed your way down the mountain. There is a renewing set of challenges for you to attempt on each run and new characters with varying skills to unlock.

There’s one main difference between the Android version of the game and the iOS version, and that is the $2.99 upfront cost on iOS. The developer has opted to go free-to-play for Android as they feel it is a better match for the platform. The game will be monetized with opt-in video ads as well as an available in-app purchase that will double the value of the coins you collect in the game. The higher piracy rates on Android are one stated concern, but the developer also simply indicated that they felt this was where things are going generally for mobile gaming.

The gameplay remains identical between the iOS and Android versions of the game, so you aren’t going to be seeing banner ads flying across the screen or any monetization tactics that interfere with play. The developer also remains open to trying new things should this strategy not prove effective, including an in-app purchase that simply makes it a paid game with no opt-in ads.

If you enjoy endless runner-style games, I would highly recommend downloading Alto’s Adventure when it hits Google Play next week. I spent a fair amount of time with it last year, and while it isn’t a complex game, it is beautifully executed, and at the low price of free, you can definitely afford to give it a shot.

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Well, it would seem that when Bill Simmons let slip yesterday that podcasts would be hitting Google Play Music soon, he hadn’t jumped the gun by much. Some users are now seeing the podcast integration in Play Music, but as is so often the case with Google, this is happening server side and isn’t simply part of a Play Music update.

Sadly, I find myself in the familiar position of not being one of the chosen few in the early test group, so we need to rely on screenshots from others. The folks over at Android Police were tipped to a number of screenshots shared by Curtis Bond on his LogiKBoard blog. We’ll include a few screenshots here, but hit the source link to see them all.

As you can see, things are pretty bare bones at the moment. Basic search and subscription functionality are there and the artwork displays nicely. Adding a new podcast will ask you whether you would also like to download the five most recent episodes and receive notifications when new episodes arrive.

The options for playback are one of the major areas where the app falls down compared to competition like Pocket Casts. You can simply jump forward or back 30 seconds, but there is no ability to change playback speed, optimize volume or eliminate silences.

As I said yesterday, I’m happy to see Google get back into the podcasting space, as it is far too significant a category for them to not have a solution available by default on Android. I’m sure existing podcast app makers have to be somewhat concerned that this will cost them some purchases, but from the current state of things, it is going to be a while until Google’s solution is on par with any of the top contenders.

Have any of you seen podcasts make an appearance in Play Music yet? And since many of you said yesterday you wouldn’t be switching unless Google was offering comparable functionality to your current podcast app of choice, I’d love to hear what you use right now and what made you choose it.

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