The best apps download superpowers to your smartphone. The Verge covers the new and noteworthy Android apps, iPhone apps, and games, highlighting great design, impressive utility, and novel features. If it belongs on your phone, you’ll find it on The Verge.
Spotify has also made changes to its music recommendation system to highlight songs from human artists.
When the mobile app detects closed eyes in a photo it will present users with a new Open Eyes Quick Action tool.
The app, which says it helps renters by splitting up their payments (while tacking on extra fees and interest), is now turning utility, insurance, car payments, and internet bills into buy now, pay later payments, with all of the associated issues and a $5.99 monthly fee on top of other charges.
Update: Added additional information about Flex and associated fees.
Yelp’s new “Check for Me” feature is starting to roll out on iOS as part of Yelp’s fall product release. The launch also includes updates to Yelp AI’s assistant, including more personalized recommendations and the ability for it to book reservations on OpenTable.
The Android laptops shipped with the tracking app, but it was quickly removed. Now Google has told Android Authority why, blaming laptop sleep settings. It sounds like a better optimized version might come in the future. Mind fixing any other apps while you’re at it?
Because the majority of laptop tracking occurs when the device is closed and asleep, we determined that a standard mobile app installation does not yet deliver the optimized, form-fitting experience we demand for Googlebook users.
Toggling on the new “Surveillance” switch in the Map Options on MapQuest adds eyeball icons showing the locations of “known license plate readers” and outdoor surveillance cameras, similar to DeFlock’s ALPR mapping project.
A Reddit user spotted the fake “Chrome” app as a sponsored suggestion above the real version. As Android Authority reports, the app was originally added to the Play Store as a “Ball Bounce” game before the developer reskinned it as a Chrome dupe.
Meta’s Muse app has topped the iOS App Store chart in the US since it launched in early September, but now it’s lost that position to an unexpected tender contender: Dave’s Hot Chicken. It presumably has little to do with AI capabilities, and more the extremely popular free slider promotional offer than ran yesterday, but lets see how long Dave’s can keep the top spot.
Alongside its big Argon 4 launch, Google has announced that it’s embedding Antigravity’s agentic coding interface directly into the Gemini app. Antigravity is only available in the Gemini app with an AI Ultra subscription.
Firefox Enterprise combines the browser with a management console for IT admins with advanced security controls. The pitch is that it’s one of the few browsers that doesn’t run on an engine developed by Google or Apple. It’s rolling out in Europe first, and a Thunderbird Enterprise email client is also in the works.
[The Mozilla Blog]
Users who sideloaded outdated builds of the Fitbit app to avoid being forced to switch to Google Health have found it no longer works. Android Authority reports that a new prompt is appearing for some users that can’t be bypassed without updating the Fitbit app, which forces moving to Google Health anyway.
Gone are the days of starting your Goodreads reviews with “more like a 3.75, but rounding up.” The site has finally added fractions of a star to its rating system, which many of its competitors, like StoryGraph, have supported for quite some time.
[Good e-Reader]
Gems will appear on posts and replies “based on the conversation” they create, rather than on views or how many followers someone has, according to a support page.
If you’re tired of the Spotify desktop app gobbling up a big chunk of your computer’s RAM, Spotifast for Linux, macOS, and Windows takes a leaner approach and typically needs just 100 to 250MB. A Spotify Premium account is required to actually stream music instead of just browsing, and if you need another reason to switch, Spotifast includes a Mini Player that supports Winamp 2 skins.
You can ask Anthropic’s AI chatbot to incorporate motion into its output, allowing it to create a 30-second video explainer, add animation to a chart, or make a product walkthrough. The animation will play like a short video, which you can download as an MP4 file.
Anthropic is also rolling out live dashboards that update based on your company’s data, and is launching Docs, Slides, and Design out of beta.
The app gives you a bunch of tools to tinker and tweak your carousel if you want to spruce it up. Check out how the editor works in the below video from Meta.
The carousel-editing tool is launching first on iOS with Android “coming soon.”
The server privacy bot says hackers copied about 12GB of data, including Discord usernames and user IDs, IP addresses, location data, and email addresses. The attackers also took control of the bot’s Discord token, posted links “in about 50 large servers,” and “used a stolen payment key to commit financial fraud on a separate account.”
[Double Counter]
The feature is rolling out to Spotify Premium subscribers, presenting you with questions about music trivia, album cover art, and audio track previews. You can find a music quiz by scrolling down on the “Now Playing” view of a participating artist’s song.
Spotify is launching the feature in 11 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, and Australia, with more than 2,000 supported artists.
The revamped Marvel Comics app will include archived and current comic books, with new issues arriving as soon as 30 days after their print release. It’s replacing Marvel Unlimited, which will shut down on December 28th, but Marvel says you’ll be able to transfer your library to the new app after it launches.
You can invite two or more friends to your group and match with other friend groups based on your interests, which starts a new group chat. Group Hangouts are rolling out starting today in the US. Bloomberg says Tinder’s also working on a “group planning tool” to help groups set up in-person gatherings.
The company says the new topic labels in its dedicated app for Facebook groups will help you find more conversations about that topic, highlighting things like “solo travel” or “Korean food” as examples.
Meta is also testing improvements to the “Ask” AI chatbot feature that help you compare information related to what you asked about.
A major update for Final Cut Camera is now available that introduces a redesign with customizable overlays and easier access to popular settings like shutter angle, white balance, and the iPhone 18 Pro’s new variable aperture. Apple Creator Studio has also been updated with new template collections and advanced selections for Pixelmator Pro plus trigonometry, statistics, and logic functions for Numbers spreadsheets.
An issue in Firebase’s analytics led some iOS apps that use the Google service to crash on launch, a problem which persisted for hours even after Google’s fix. That’s one more thing to worry about after internet outages and rogue AI attacks.
[Android Authority]
Along with an updated homepage, the Arts & Culture app has a new AI-powered search feature that allows you to ask questions using natural language. The app also adds two new AI experiments, including Chrono Look for virtually trying on historical attire, and Dial an Artist, which lets you “call” an AI chatbot modeled after a historical artist.
That revamped Trump admin app (now offering access to Trump TV) apparently bounced up to the top of the News list this week.
You might think that securing access to the Strait of Hormuz or really anything else would be the federal government’s focus, but hey, it had the number one app in a category, and as David Pierce wrote in February, the very best thing about that is “being able to tell people you were number one.” The app has since slipped to #2 in news behind X, and to #96 overall.
Google is rolling out the feature to all Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US, India, and Brazil. It scans your photos to build a digital wardrobe of your clothes, allowing you to view separate pieces and try on new outfits virtually.
You’ll also be able to unlock your account with the YouTube mobile app. Read all the details in this YouTube support post. This is a smart feature!
