Most newer phones come with a grayscale mode that you can activate when you want to save some battery life. The way it works is simple: If your graphics chip only has to render elements in black and white instead of full 32-bit color, it won't consume as much power. But Googl ...more
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Mining obsidian is not only time consuming, but dangerous. Looking for caves with obsidian and risking death by creeper, zombie, or lava just isn't worth it sometimes. Luckily, obsi ...more
When your iPhone is being sluggish, one thing you can do to get performance back up to snuff is clear the device's random access memory. It's not a publicized feature from Apple, but it's there nonetheless. And while it's easy enough to utilize on iPhones with Home buttons, th ...more
The dreaded moment you hope never happens—someone has stolen your laptop. You could have private information, pictures, or even private information belonging to the company you work for, all lost forever. It can cause you pain, money, or even a job. There are paid services th ...more
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. So you have a deep mine, an epic home, a bountiful farm, and mob traps galore, but have you ever considered linking them together into one cohesive unit? With the use of a minecart ...more
WhatsApp is one of the most well-known and most utilized cross-platform chat applications available today. It's free for one year, and only $0.99 a year after, which is chump change when you realize there are no hidden costs like international charges. Basically, it creates an ...more
Apple's already gone through iOS 13.0, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, and 13.5 betas, and now it's time for iOS 13.6. If you want to try out new features on your iPhone before the masses, install either the developer or public beta. The iOS 13.6 beta first appeared as an iOS 13.5.5 ...more
No matter your reasons, you might need a second phone number that's a little more disposable than your primary number — a "burner" number, so to speak. If you create this burner number using Google Voice, you'll get new functionality like call forwarding and voicemail transcri ...more
One of the best things about the Samsung Galaxy S3 is the ability to modify the device in countless ways, as with any other Android device. A recent guide on adding softkeys to the GS3 from mod Faisal inspired me to share some information on how to edit build.prop, which is y ...more
Navigating through the darkness—literal darkness, not the existential variety—is always a difficult task on its own, and my Android doesn't necessarily make it any easier. Many manufacturers offer quick access to a flashlight or torch feature, but my Galaxy S4 doesn't have an ...more
Using Siri to perform tasks on your Google Home device was never possible until Apple released Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12. Actually, it wasn't possible until Google added support for Siri Shortcuts for Google Assistant in Nov. 2018. No matter the timing, the important thing here ...more
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play with us on our free server. As of the 1.0 release, Minecraft has an end. That is to say, The End and the The End has Dragons. This guide is for those of who are want to visit The End and kill an Ender ...more
As the holidays draw closer and closer, stores are getting more and more crowded, and of course, many have put off their Christmas shopping until the very last minute. Why not avoid the mall rush this holiday season and make a personalized do-it-yourself snow globe to gift to ...more
Apple's iOS 13 has been available for beta testing since June, and the stable release pushed out to everyone on Thursday, Sept. 19. To help you make the most out of iOS 13 for iPhone, we've rounded up everything you'll want to know, whether a colossal feature, small settings c ...more
Between the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the revelation that Facebook logs your calls and text history on Android, many are considering joining the #DeleteFacebook movement. But it can be difficult to leave the site, because so much of its content is only available to activ ...more
Apple added the option to install custom fonts and use them in different apps on iOS 13. The rollout has been a bit confusing, with Apple announcing partnerships with vendors such as Adobe, but also limiting the feature to work with only certain apps. Nonetheless, you can now ...more
HTC's Sense 6 has been out for over a month now with the One M8, and most of you have probably played around with its better known features, like the new Camera app and Harman Kardon audio. As great as those features are, there is still much more to be found underneath the su ...more
Probably one of the most sought after features of the LG G2 is its "Knock Knock" capabilities. Rather than dealing with that pesky power button, you simply double-tap portions of the screen to either sleep or wake your device. The G2 is the Nexus 5's bigger brother of sorts, ...more
When Google added new security measures to Android Marshmallow, it had a lasting impact on the entire process of rooting. These measures prevent the the Superuser daemon (the process that handles requests for root access) from getting the permissions it needs to do its job at ...more
Third-party ROMs like CyanogenMod are the ultimate form of customization for softModders. Hard-working developers offer us alternate Android experiences to replace our often bloatware-riddled stock ROMs. Installing custom ROMs is performed with a special type of software call ...more
While Snapchat's latest update brought messaging and video chatting, it also ruined something for us softModders—KeepChat. With KeepChat, we were able to save pictures and videos sent to us without the other person being notified. It was pretty slick, and I was beginning to mi ...more
The Calculator app is probably one of Apple's most-used iPhone apps, yet I always meet people who don't know all the little tricks there are to using it more efficiently. You may know most of them, but there's a chance you don't or at least forget about some of them. What a " ...more
When ringtones and vibration alerts miss the mark and fail to grab your attention, causing you to miss an important call or text, LED flash alerts are a great backup plan. While we already showed how to activate this on Samsung devices, the apps shown below make this feature e ...more
The default screen timeout on most Android devices is 30 seconds. This usually offers a good balance of usability and battery savings, but sometimes, you need the screen to stay on longer. For instance, practically every time I try to show something on my phone to someone else ...more
There are a surprising number of hidden features in your iPhone's Phone app, from secret dialer codes that provide info or perform actions to special characters that dial extensions automatically. However, there's one little-known trick every iPhone owner should know when usin ...more
One of the biggest features of Android Oreo is a picture-in-picture mode that lets you watch videos in a floating window while you're using other apps. Honestly, it's fantastic and intuitive, but there are a few ground rules you'll need to learn to master the new feature. Cur ...more
Many of us rely on our smartphones for all our media needs. Now more than ever, we're using Bluetooth connections to play audio over speakers, headphones, car sound systems — the list goes on. If you own a Samsung smartphone like the Galaxy S9, there are a number of Bluetooth ...more
Surely you've heard of the wildly-popular custom ROM CyanogenMod, right? As the longest-tenured third-party firmware for Android devices, CM has been able to maintain its popularity by supporting a wide array of devices and offering many customization options. One such custom ...more
To play Minecraft with mods you will need to install Forge. Most people think this is hard to do, not so. It is very simple and in less than 5 minutes you can be playing Modded Minecraft. Just watch the video below or follow the steps listed below. Video: . Step 1: Download F ...more
One of the many perks of being a Nexus user is that Google bakes in all sorts of goodies for use on its dessert-themed OS. From an easily unlocked bootloader, to a smooth and well-crafted "stock" UI experience, to being one of the first devices to receive updates straight from ...more
Many Android games use large, storage-heavy OBB files to store supplemental data. Generally, games with high-end graphics download these extra files when you install them from the Google Play Store. Most OBB files take up more than a gigabyte of space on your internal storage ...more
Welcome back, rookie hackers! We recently began an exploration of ways to hack using the Bluetooth protocol. As you know, Bluetooth is a protocol that connects near field devices such as headsets, speakers, and keyboards. Its minimum range is a 10-meter radius (~33 feet) and ...more
Update (February 2019): The methods below will help on older Android versions, but we've recently revisited this topic. So if you have a newer Android phone and you want to get rid of Google, head here. It seems like every week there is a new exposé revealing all of the backr ...more
Despite what some in the tech-world would like you to believe, iOS isn't totally locked down, free from user customization. Take your home screen, for example. Not only can you change your app icons and move them wherever you'd like, you can actually choose to hide them all. I ...more
Apple's "Reachability" feature made its debut with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, to compensate for larger screen sizes, allowing users to reach screen items at the top while using one hand. It has since become a staple feature of all iPhones (except the original iPhone SE), but how ...more
Extremely important calls have a way of coming at the most inopportune moments: when you're in class during an important lecture, at a big business meeting for work, or even when you're just enjoying a day at the movies. If you're doing it right, your phone is either on silen ...more
HTC's Sense UI is generally regarded as one of the best manufacturer-skinned versions of Android. This is mainly due to the subtle and classy styling of the interface, as well as some unique features that are added in here and there. One of the most central features of Sense ...more
With much of the hype centered around its powerful cameras, it's easy to overlook the equally impressive audio capabilities of the Galaxy S9. After all, the S9 and S9+ are the first Samsung flagships to feature AKG-tuned stereo speakers, and that's not even mentioning all the ...more
Windows has always had an "Administrator" account that allowed you to install programs and manage system files with elevated privileges. The difference between this account and a regular user account with administrator access was that you never got bothered by annoying User Ac ...more
The battery icon in your iPhone's status bar gives you a visual idea of how much power is left, and there's a battery percentage option you can switch to or view in the Control Center, depending on your model. But what you may not know is that there's a way to view the battery ...more
Since the iPhone X has no Home button, the Side button has some heavy lifting to do. So not only is the Side button responsible for all of its usual duties, like sleeping and waking the device, it has to do everything the Home button did too. That's a lot of work for one butto ...more
If you pay close attention, you might notice that the screen on your Android begins to flicker or pulsate when you lower the brightness past a certain point. This is a result of the AMOLED technology Samsung, among other manufacturers, use in their displays, and the way that t ...more
Mac OS X has finally added a way to use two apps side by side in full screen mode, à la Microsoft's Windows Snap. But since it's only available in 10.11 El Capitan right now, those of us with older systems will have to wait until the El Capitan Public Preview or final build is ...more
RFID chips are everywhere. They're in passports, credit cards, and tons of items you've bought in the last 5 years or so. Big retailers like Walmart started using tracking products with RFID as early as 2004, and today, they're used in everything from mobile payments to hospit ...more
I have Verizon, America's largest 4G LTE network, as my cell service provider, but there are times when I find myself with a pretty shitty signal, rendering my upload and download speeds substantially slower than usual. One of those times are when I'm in my bedroom, and altho ...more
Imagine if you combined Tasker with your favorite live wallpaper—that's roughly the gist of a new app from developer feedK. With this one installed, your home screen background will finally be aware of its surroundings. Don't Miss: Top 8 Free Wallpaper Apps for Android Afte ...more
Samsung uses their own SamsungOne font for their Galaxy lineup. But if you're coming from an iPhone or another Android device, you might not love it. With the help of this mod, however, you're sure to find a font that's right for you. Samsung's Galaxy Store has fonts that you ...more
These days, everyone's snapping selfies, taking pics of their latest meals, or sharing pet trick videos on Instagram for the whole world to see. It's not only fun to shoot photos and videos for Instagram, it's inspiring to look at everyone else's creativeness in your feed. On ...more
I once had a collection of over 300 different wallpapers for my MacBook, set to randomly change every 30 minutes. Needless to say, my desktop never got boring. Wallpapers can facilitate a mood, imply a political stance, or just add aesthetic appeal, so having to manually chang ...more
If you want to use your iPhone with another carrier, all you have to do is contact the original carrier to request an unlock, which is usually granted in a few days. Unfortunately, you need to meet specific criteria to officially carrier-unlock your iPhone, like paying off the ...more
One major problem in previous iOS versions is that there was no way to keep messages in sync between an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Mac. If you deleted a message in the Mac app, it would not be deleted on your iPhone, and vice versa. Apple finally fixed this issue in iOS 11. ...more
Android clearly wasn't made with bilingual users in mind. When you set a default system locale, every app on your phone uses that region's language—and there's no granular control here. This really becomes an issue if you use social media or news apps that are primarily in a d ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Continuing with my Wi-Fi hacking series, this article will focus on creating an invisible rogue access point, which is an access point that's not authorized by the information technology staff and may be a significant security vulnerability ...more
Normally, you have to hold down the on-screen button to record videos on Snapchat, but if you want to go hands-free for some more creative video selfies or less shaky landscapes, there's a workaround on iPhones that lets you do just that. In your iPhone's Accessibility menu, ...more
Typing on a mobile device has come a long way since the days of flip phones. Today, there are awesome keyboard apps like Gboard, which integrates Google search features and makes typing a breeze. But the whole experience still stands to improve if you take some time to learn a ...more
Welcome back, my newbie hackers! We've already saved the world from nuclear annihilation and covered our tracks afterwards, but the world is still threatened by a malicious, megalomaniacal dictator with missiles and nuclear weapons. We need to keep a close eye on him, so in ...more
Google's Pixel phones have a feature that lets you swipe down on the fingerprint scanner to open your notification shade and Quick Settings panel. It's one of those features that make you wonder why it wasn't there in the first place, since it gives you another way to interact ...more
If you're a self-described multitasker, Samsung has a feature that's perfect for you called Multi-Window, which lets you display two apps on your Galaxy S4's screen simultaneously. You can browse the day's news while doing a sudoku, take notes while watching a YouTube video, ...more
Signal is one of the best end-to-end encrypted messengers on the market. It offers robust security, keeps minimal information about its users, and is free to use. Switching to it as your main messenger can be a bit daunting, so to help, we created a guide to walk you through t ...more
Apple's iOS 16.6 software update for iPhone was released on July 24, with iOS 16.7 following on September 21. While Apple is currently focused on improving iOS 17, we may see iOS 16.8 pop up. When it does, you can try out all the upcoming new features as long as you're OK with ...more