Welcome to the 481st edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the last week:
Facebook settled a court case regarding the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal this week. The reward is $725 million. Folks who were on Facebook during the scandal may be entitled to compensation. You can follow the link for instructions on how to claim any winnings you may be entitled to.
Netflix plans to charge folks for password sharing as of this summer. We knew this was happening months ago, but Netflix dragged its heels on actually doing so. The company announced it would roll out the feature by June of this year in a shareholder letter. Netflix says it is expecting a loss of subscribers at first but that long-term revenue should go up. It’s going to make a lot of people mad, and we think the anger is justified.
Google is expanding the Google Play Points feature. It’s now usable for DoorDash and Instacart discounts. You can also use it to obtain Google merchandise. The merchandise is just okay. There are some sunglasses, socks, and shirts, along with a water bottle up for grabs. It’s not much, but Google Play Points are kind of a niche feature right now, so it’s good to see more reasons to use them.
Samsung is talking about replacing Google with Bing as its default search engine on Galaxy phones. It can’t because agreements with Google prohibit such behavior, but it was enough to get people talking. It was also enough to add to the various motivators Google has to get AI going in its popular Search. There are various plans in action, including generating images based on Google image searches. Hit both links to learn more.
Google’s messaging apps are at it again. Google began encouraging folks to uninstall the old Google Meet so they could install and start using the new Google Meet. Yeah, it’s confusing, as Google’s messaging ecosystem seems to always be. In short, they want you to uninstall the Google Hangouts Meet app so you can use the new Google Meet app that was formerly Google Duo.
Price: Free to play
