The 5 best Android apps in the Play Store from week 47 – 2020

The Play Store never stops. New apps are popping up all the time, but most of them aren’t worth downloading. The editors part every Sunday Android Planet therefore the chaff of the wheat. In our opinion, these are the best Android apps, updates, and games from last week.

1. Twitter

Do you have twitter? Then you will undoubtedly have noticed all the commotion surrounding the fleets introduced last week. Fleets are tweets that are online for 24 hours. Then the messages disappear to the eternal hunting grounds. Does this look familiar? That may add up, as it is quite similar to Instagram’s Story feature (which has it again from Snapchat).

Opinions on fleets are quite divided. Some find it a nice way to post slightly more daring messages; after all, they disappear anyway. The other is especially annoyed by the bar that is now at the top of your Twitter timeline. Speaking of which, there is no way to block the fleets.

2. The First Tree

In The First Tree you follow not one, but two storylines. At some point, these intersect, but we’ll leave it at that. After all, you want to experience the denouement yourself. We can say that the first story revolves around a fox trying to find her missing family. The other story is about a boy who is on the trail of his father in Alaska.

The game mainly stands out thanks to its visual style. The First Tree is beautifully designed and is characterized by beautiful light effects and bright colors. The gameplay mainly consists of climbing, scrambling and solving puzzles. Unlike most games, you don’t have to defeat opponents in The First Tree: the game is all about the story.

3. Google Pay

It may have taken a while, but Google Pay is finally available in the Netherlands. That is, if you are a customer of Bunq, N26 or Revolut. With Google’s payment service, you can, among other things, pay wirelessly with your smartphone in shops. You do, however, need a device with an NFC chip, the same technology used by competitor Apple Pay.

The Google Pay app is not released ‘separately’ in the Netherlands. Instead, you have to activate the feature in the Bunq, N26 or Revolut apps. You can put Google Pay on your smartphone via a detour, although it does not fully work in the Netherlands. For this you have to get started with apk files, a way to download apps outside of the Google Play Store.

4. Stocard

Even more payment news in Android land. Stocard, the popular app to manage store loyalty cards, now also has a payment option: Stocard Pay. That way, you can pay wirelessly in shops, for example, by holding your smartphone up to the pin machine. You do have to add your payment card to the app once.

A unique asset of Stocard Pay is that you can pay abroad with your ‘digital debit card’ without having to pay exchange rates. Moreover, you do not have to manually transfer money from your checking account to Stocard every time, because the app can top up itself up to a certain amount.

5. Swipe Jump 2D

The makers of Maciek are back with a new game. In Swipe Jump 2D you have to make sure that a bouncing ball reaches the finish line. That sounds pretty simple, but appearances can be deceiving. The ball can only move between platforms of the same color. As if that wasn’t confusing enough, the platforms change color continuously.

Swipe Jump 2D is typically such a game that may seem very simple at first, but in reality is quite challenging. Moreover, you have a lot of game hours ahead of you, because the game contains more than 100 levels. The game is free, but with a one-time payment of 1.09 euros you buy off the ads.