Seven best Android apps, according to Google

By Jillian D'Onfro

Google recently held its inaugural Play Awards at its IO developers’ conference to highlight some of the best apps from around the world.

The company chose one winner in different categories, with the final decision made by a panel of Googlers who paid attention to factors like user experience and high star ratings. In other words, if you have an Android phone you should download these apps:

-Best App: Houzz Houzz, which is like Pinterest for home design, snagged the top award. The app lets you browse through tens of millions of highresolution photos of home interiors, chat with designers, overlay products in your own space using your device’s camera and buy items that really catch your eye. Price: Free

-Best Early Adopter: World Around Me Google honoured World Around Me for its use of augmented reality to help users discover new places and get around, blending features of Yelp and Google Maps with an AR twist.

When you open the app, you’ll see virtual signs through your camera’s image of the real world that will suggest nearby places, like bars, ATMs or bus stops. You can also search for a spot and get ARguided directions. Price: Free

-Best Families App: Thinkrolls 2 Thinkrolls helps kids get smarter by letting them guide little rolling creatures through a series of challenges while exploring concepts of physics like force, acceleration and gravity. The logic-puzzle game says that it’s “moulding the next generation of scientific geniuses.” Price: $2.99

-Best Go Global: Pokemon Shuffle Mobile Google chose Pokemon Shuffle as the app with the best localisation and subject-matter appeal across multiple regions. The game is simple: Users complete puzzles and get sucked in by the allure of collecting or levelling up more characters. Price: Free

-Best Use of Material Design: Robinhood Material design is Google’s colourful and clean visual-design language, and the company is honouring Robinhood, a finance app that lets you trade stocks without paying fees, for the best implementation. Robinhood makes stock trading cheap and intuitive. Price: Free

-Best Standout Indie: Alphabear This word-puzzle game by indie game studio Spry Fox is as adorable as it is addictive. Spell words by selecting letters on a grid and collect the cute bears that appear when you’re successful. Price: Free

-Best Standout Startup: Hopper If you love travelling, you need to download Hopper immediately. The app analyses billions of flight prices daily to predict how they’l l change and will send you push notifications when a desired flight hits its rock-bottom price. For this award, Google picked through a selection of new developers with strong app-install growth. Price: Free