oking for some new apps to help make your everyday phone use even more efficient? Or do you just want to have a bit of fun on your phone this weekend? ’ve got you covered on both fronts with our latest Five to Try column, which spotlights some new updated Android options in the ay Store.

Evie is an interesting pick, as it shakes up the usual Android launcher approach by building the interface around an intelligent universal search bar, while go is designed to get you the contextual emoji GIFs you need during conversations. Meanwhile, Minecraft: cket ition got a huge update this week with dedicated servers wider cross-platform play, while _ISM is an alluring puzzler Toca fe: Vacation is a perfect pick for the kids.

Evie

Tired of hunting around your phone for the right app or service to complete a task? Evie could help: it’s a new home screen launcher built around a search bar. Start typing in a query, such as the name of an app, restaurant, movie, or nearby hotspot, it’ll serve up options not only from your device but also the web, Yelp, other services. 

And from there, it’s even more useful. You can tap on a restaurant listing, for example, have one-tap access to the correct app for placing a delivery order, as well as the ability to make a reservation or beckon an Uber or ft driver (with a cost estimate to boot). Search can often be siloed to just point you at apps or search within a single app, but Evie seems to bridge the gap impresses as an all-in-one option for varying needs. If you spend far too much time digging through menus, it’s worth a look.

Minecraft: cket ition

This week’s E3 gaming convention might have been mostly about big console games, but even the years-old Minecraft took center stage for some big news of its own: cket ition on Android now has cross-platform multiplayer that lets players link up over Xbox ve to play with iOS, ndows 10, Gear VR players. And there’s another big feature in this week’s update—dubbed “The Friendly Update”—as the game now has support for dedicated servers. 

nt to play online with one friend—or up to 10? Mojang’s Realms feature lets you pay a monthly fee for access to a server that continues on even when you’re not there, letting you create persistent worlds to share with friends. It’s $4/month for two total players or $8/month for up to 10 in the same space, although there’s a free month-long trial available for the larger plan.

go

ke Evie up top, go is an app designed to speed up everyday use of your phone… albeit in a very different way. See, go is an artificially intelligent app built to help pull up the emoji, animated GIFs, stickers you need at any given moment. Once installed, it puts a little pink face in any chat or messaging above the keyboard; as you type, it reads the context of your message suggests an ideal emoji to fit your note.

Tap the pink icon you’ll see a wider range of suggestions, including several emoji, pop culture GIFs based on mood, more. Better yet, go doesn’t just suggest images based on your in-progress messages, but also the ones sent your way, gaining context from conversation. If you’re a heavy GIF emoji user, it could save precious seconds with every single missive.

Toca fe: Vacation

Toca Boca is one of the premier developers for ad-free, kid-friendly apps, its latest offering is perfectly primed for the summer school break. Released this week, Toca fe: Vacation ($3) drops you onto a tropical isl resort, letting you choose from an array of characters interact all around the locale, including at the hotel, beach, even the airport.

Your cartoonish avatar can leap on the bed, x-ray a suitcase, fly an airplane, wer the boardwalk, take on all sorts of other appropriately-themed activities. Toca fe: Vacation isn’t heavy on complex interactions, nor are there extensive games to play; rather, it’s a colorful kid-centric way to have a little tropical fun wherever you are, hopefully spur a little creativity in the process. 

_ISM

Thanks to their multitouch screens, phones tablets are ideal for the kind of puzzle games where you must push, pull, rotate, otherwise manipulate objects. That’s why The Room trilogy has been so successful, also why ­_ISM ($3) might turn your head this week. It doesn’t have the spooky atmosphere or narrative threads of the former series, instead putting a mystical, serene spin on the act of solving these faux-physical brainteasers.

You’ll draw slide glyphs into place, rotate shift icons, hunt around each geometric shape to find the next input needed to exp the puzzle to its full size, with a mysterious colorful aesthetic throughout. _ISM isn’t terribly long, promising about an hour’s worth of gameplay on average, but it’s well-designed, nicely presented, should be a treat for fans of brainy-yet-tactile challenges.