The Five Apps You Must Try This Week (July 25)

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Apps are at the front and center of any smartphone experience, and with over a million apps on the Google Play Store and new apps being submitted to our forums every day, staying up to date on the latest apps and games can be a hassle. At XDA we don’t discriminate apps – if it’s interesting, innovative, original or useful, we mention them. The XDA Portal Team loves apps too, and here are our top picks for this week.

Isometric is a simple and minimal icon pack with over 300 icons designed with a cubic motif. The pack combines the simplicity and color scheme of material design with some very inventive ideas that give you icons ranging from Minecraft-like to more clever conceptualizations. These icons might not match all home screens, but you can build some really good-looking launcher configurations with it if you put your mind to it and think outside the box. You can also use a built-in icon-request feature in case a particular app of yours is not themed. If you are looking for a refresh, this is an original alternative to keep in mind.

If you want to see the first product launch in VR, you will need this app. Alternatively, if you want to see the launch event of the OnePlus 2, you will need this app as well. While the app is rather useless at the moment, be sure to download it ahead of Monday, July 27 at 7:00pm PST, as OnePlus will begin streaming the unveiling of their new phone. If you want to learn more about the OnePlus 2 ahead of Monday’s event, be sure to check out our coverage to get up to date on what to expect from what already looks to be an interesting (with plenty of good and bad) device release.

For those of you who love streaming movies or watching TV shows online through multiple services, JustWatch will prove useful. This application allows you to find out where to watch the movie or TV show you search for, making it easier to browse through all of your streaming providers at once to find out where you can watch what you want, when you want it. The app currently supports listing offers from Netflix, HBO NOW, Amazon Prime Instant Video, Hulu, Crackle, iTunes, Vudu, Xbox, Playstation and more. Once you find your movie, you can jump straight into the app to stream it.

Formerly known as XBMC Media Center, Kodi is an open-source, cross-platform software media player and hub for all your digital media. Now, Kodi 15.0 Final is out and ready. Kodi is primarily intended to be used with big screens, and it brings 4K support for your viewing pleasure. This media player can manage virtually any media file you would likely throw at it, and there is support for plenty of third-party plugins. If you can get your screen on a good TV, this media player will most certainly please you. Read more about its features here!

Pocket Time is a simple but useful tool: it allows you to program a vibrator watch that lets you know the time without looking at the clock (nor phone). You get notifications every quarter, which you can configure, and enable speech notifications. If you want, you can pick activation and deactivation times so that it is not always on, you can customize the intervals and beeps/vibes and you can also keep the timer alive over reboots. If you can find a good use for this app, you will find that it is an inventive commodity for the odd contextual annoyance.

Notable Updates:

Youtube for Android now sports a new and redesigned interface, it allows for vertical videos on Android, and has improved download dialogues.

for Android now sports a new and redesigned interface, it allows for vertical videos on Android, and has improved download dialogues. Transcriptions for Google Voice voicemail are now more accurate and intelligible, as Google has cut transcriptions errors by 49%.

voicemail are now more accurate and intelligible, as Google has cut transcriptions errors by 49%. Google+ Photos is shutting down on August 1st to make room for further Google Photos promotion and integration. Don’t worry, though – your photos will still be available via http://photos.google.com/

is shutting down on August 1st to make room for further Google Photos promotion and integration. Don’t worry, though – your photos will still be available via http://photos.google.com/ Popular Moonshine Icon Pack is now open source.

is now open source. Maps now features improved location history with a personal timeline as well as custom location names.

Whatsapp now features custom contact and group notifications, “mark as unread”. and a low data usage option for voice calls.

That is it for this week. We hope that you might have found some of these apps as interesting, useful or entertaining as we did. Whether you are a student, a developer, a designer or a gamer, Android has you covered. We will try to reflect that each week with a variety of picks to spark your interest, and if you see (or publish!) any new apps that you think are worthy of a feature, be sure to send us a tip and we’ll give it a look. Until next time!