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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 each of 10 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
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- Screenshot / Houzz YouTube
Houzz, which focuses on all things home design, snagged the top award.
The app lets you browse through tens of millions of high-resolution 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 honored 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 stations. You can also search for a spot and get AR-guided 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 “molding the next generation of scientific geniuses.”
Price: $2.99
Best Go Global: Pokemon Shuffle Mobile
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- Pokemon Shuffle
Google chose Pokemon Shuffle as the app with the best localization and subject-matter appeal across multiple regions. Because everyone loves Pokemon.
The game is simple: Users complete puzzles and get sucked in by the allure of collecting or leveling up more characters.
Price: Free
Best Game: Clash Royale
Clash Royale is a spin-off of the insanely popular game Clash of Clans, set in the same world with familiar characters. The real-time, multiplayer-battle game will hook in anyone who’s addicted to the original.
Price: Free
Most Innovative: NYT VR
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- Screenshot / New York Times
The New York Times made a splash last year when it sent Google Cardboard virtual-reality headsets to all its print subscribers.
With its VR app, The New York Times experiments with a beautiful and immersive new way to experience the news and has already created VR stories about the refugee crisis, mourning in the wake of the Paris attacks, and the presidential campaign.
Price: Free
Best Use of Material Design: Robinhood
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- Robinhood
Material design is Google’s colorful and clean visual-design language, and the company is honoring 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
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- Screenshot / 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 Use of Google Play Game Services: Table Tennis Touch
The Google Play team offers a bunch of different tools to make game apps better, and Table Tennis Touch clearly used a lot of them.
The game is visually stunning, intuitive, and sure to entice anyone who loves a little friendly competition.
Price: $2.99
Best Standout Startup: Hopper
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- Hopper
If you love traveling, you need to download Hopper immediately. The app analyzes billions of flight prices daily to predict how they’ll 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
To see the full list of all candidates …
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