If you've ever rooted an Android device in the past or installed a custom recovery, you're surely familiar with the term "unlocked bootloader." But if all of this sounds like gibberish to you, some major changes in Android have made it to where you should definitely get famili ...more
One of the coolest features in modern smartphones is their Bluetooth connectivity. This is how two digital devices can communicate with one another—sending data like your phone call audio or your favorite song—all while using up minimal battery life. Don't Miss: Android Basic ...more
Android version 5.0 Lollipop introduced a ton of changes to the OS—and of course with new features, there's always a new set of bugs. One of the biggest bugs of all was a massive memory leak caused by the new screen-off animation, which loaded its assets into memory but never ...more
With the new version of Android due out very soon, Android 5.0 "Lollipop" has received a ton of press lately. It's all well-deserved, of course, because the new "Material Design" interface is absolutely beautiful. While we've covered methods on how to get a little bit of that ...more
There are tons of good reasons that you might want to use Android on your desktop. Perhaps your favorite game is only available on Android, or maybe you use a messaging service that doesn't have a Windows companion app. Whatever the reason, if you've ever found yourself wishi ...more
The Android App Market is flooded with tons of new mobile applications each day. But there can't be that many developers out there familiar with the Android OS, so where are all of these apps coming from? People like you. People like me. All of which don't have the slightest ...more
Google has been slowly rolling out a new update for the Android Market in the United States, which gives mobile users a new interface and some additional content for their Android-powered smartphones and tablets. The update started a couple weeks ago, taking the Android Market ...more
One of the biggest advantages iOS has over Android as a mobile platform is how readily and fully it has embraced mobile gaming. There are over 200,000 games available in the Apple store, compared to approximately 100,000 in the Android Marketplace. As an Android-using gamer, t ...more
Blizzard's Hearthstone was a rousing success with more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store. Not taking things lying down, Bethesda, the creator of The Elder Scrolls, has come up with a card game based off its popular fantasy franchise. The Elder Scrolls: Legends ...more
Android Nougat came with a lot of new features, including a futuristic and sleek circle animation. When this article was originally published, it was rumored that the circular design would be used as the new boot animation in Android 7.0—but as it turns out, you'll only see th ...more
Starting in Android 4.3, Google added some code to AOSP that tagged your internet traffic when you were running a mobile hotspot, which made it incredibly easy for carriers to block tethering if you didn't have it included in your plan. But as of Android 6.0, this "tether_dun_ ...more
Android M doesn't even have an official name yet, but that doesn't mean you can't test out of some of its new features today. If you're the lucky owner of the right Nexus device, you can install the new operating system right now using either Fastboot or the Nexus Root Toolki ...more
Android M, the successor to Lollipop, is almost here. If you have a Nexus, you can install a preview of Android M using either the Fastboot method or Nexus Root Toolkit. For those of you without a Nexus, you can still get a piece of M on your device right now by installing the ...more
Amid rumors of a 6-inch phablet Nexus and the impending release of Android "L", Google posted—then quickly removed—a trio of ads for their industry-leading mobile OS. Video: . Boasting a new slogan of be together. not the same, the Mountain View tech giant looks to be touting ...more
Unless you've been living under a rock with no internet connection, it's safe to say that you've heard of the Heartbleed flaw that allows practically anyone with the right knowledge to steal your personal information, such as passwords, credit card numbers, and e-mail addresse ...more
Android 9.0 Pie has officially rolled out, but for the time being, it's only available to Google's own Pixel phones and a select few others. Thankfully, you can get a taste of the Android Pie experience on any phone right now. Android Pie comes with a slew of new ringtones, n ...more
In the music world, it's safe to say electric instruments are more versatile, but they lack the portability of their acoustic counterparts. However, with the aid of your smartphone plus an audio interface, you can play your electric instrument anywhere — with all the pedal eff ...more
Google released its "Android Security: 2016 Year in Review" report last month, and to no one's surprise, included its own flagship phones. However, one surprise on the list was the BlackBerry PRIV, which Google named one of the best Android devices for privacy. The PRIV was B ...more
We've seen all of the signs, but now we have some concrete evidence—Android Nougat will make its debut very soon. Canadian telecom company Telus recently posted an update schedule for its Android devices, and one date in particular stands out. According to the schedule, the Ne ...more
Android phones may soon be able to send and receive iMessages thanks to a new open-source app called PieMessage. You can check out the work-in-progress app in action in the video below. It was created by iOS/Android app developer Eric Chee, who has the source code for PieMess ...more
Whether it's the new iPad Killer or not, one thing's for sure—the Motorola XOOM is hackable. Just hours after its release last week, Verizon's new Android-based tablet (running Honeycomb) was rooted by hacker Koushik Dutta, which seems easy enough. "Since it’s another Google ...more
These days, it seems new phones get announced every other week. We've grown accustomed to glossing over the specs, looking at some press renders, then moving on to check out the next phone. If you had done this in September 2008, you might have overlooked what would become one ...more
You may have seen news reports over the last two days detailing a major security flaw in virtually all smartphones. The devices that are at risk are not limited to either iPhone or Android — all of us are affected. If you want to make sure your smartphone and its data stay sec ...more
Greetings my fellow aspiring hackers, Android Development like other programming languages requires the use of some basic essential components, programs and configurations to get started. Android Development requires a little bit of knowledge of the Java language which means ...more
Android users who have been itching for Instagram have finally got their wish. The company seems to have been promising a version for Android since what feels like the beginning of time. Well, Android fans need not stay in the dark, because Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom, state ...more
Where do you get all of those cool apps for you Android mobile device? There's one place to go to find all of the latest apps for your mobile phone, so what is it? Best Buy has answers. The Best Buy Mobile team explains how simple it is to add a contact to your Android enabled ...more
This video tutorial is about Android, and no it's not a robotic creature, it's a software platform and operating system form mobile phones and PDAs. The Android system is based on Linux and was developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. Code is managed in the Java lang ...more
OnePlus has now officially upgraded both the 5 and 5T to Android 8.1 Oreo. As implied by the version number, this isn't a huge update from Android 8.0 Oreo. However, OnePlus has included a few of their own features as well. Android 8.1 Oreo acts more as a revision to Android ...more
There's a new secret settings menu hiding in Android 9.0 Pie that offers Chrome-style "flags" to the overall operating system. Since it's currently the first Developer Preview and Public Beta versions, it's possible that this menu could disappear entirely when the stable versi ...more
DC's highly anticipated new Justice League movie is opening tonight, and Google just pushed out a nice treat for Android fans heading out to the movie. Over on the official Android Twitter account, we found a few exclusive "Android x Justice League" wallpapers featuring our fa ...more
Android 7.1.1 stock images for the Nexus 6P were released last week on December 5, 2016. However, Verizon users seem to have been excluded from the update. Google's factory image page states "All carriers except Verizon" next to version number NMF26F. This doesn't seem fair, e ...more
A few months ago, LlabTooFeR leaked a full system dump from Google's then-unreleased Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones. That may not seem like a big deal at first glance, but the system dump contained all of the preinstalled apps and services from Google's new flagships—including ...more
Counter-Strike is one of the most popular first-person shooters of all time, and deservedly so. What originally started out as a third-party Half-Life mod garnered such a cult following that Valve had to hire the developers and purchase the intellectual property to make it an ...more
One of Android's biggest strengths is its ability to interact with other operating systems. When you plug your phone into your Windows PC, you instantly see all of the files it holds—and all it takes is a simple syncing app to do the same with Mac. To top that off, apps like P ...more
Remember that feeling when you first took your smartphone out of the box, powered it on, then proceeded to futz around with it for the rest of the day non-stop? If you've owned your device for more than a year, chances are, that scenario is a distant memory by this point. So ...more
If you're experiencing issues with an app or custom ROM and would like to report your problem to the developer, there's no better way to do it than by capturing a logcat. Android keeps track of all the commands that have been executed by various apps and services, which means ...more
When it comes to getting your computer and smartphone to work well together, there's no service more robust and capable than AirDroid. For years, it's been the go-to tool for users looking to transfer files between their devices or access contact lists and call logs from their ...more
Android 12 was released to the Google Pixel devices on Oct. 19, 2021, so anyone with a Pixel 3 or newer model can install the new operating system with an over-the-air update. The AOSP version of Android 12 was released a few weeks earlier on Oct. 4, so OEMs could use or modif ...more
Auto rotation is generally useful, but it gets annoying when you trigger it accidentally. In past Android versions, you could lock rotation into portrait mode as a workaround, but you'd have to disable this every time you wanted to put your phone in landscape mode. Luckily, An ...more
It took a few months, but several major phones are finally receiving updates to Android Oreo. At this point, we've spent significant time talking about Oreo on the Galaxy S8, Galaxy Note 8, and Essential Phone. While an update to the latest OS is always great, there is one big ...more
While it's easy enough to take a screenshot of an end-to-end encrypted Telegram chat thread using an iPhone, it's an entirely different story on Android phones. Telegram disables screenshots for Secret Chats by default on Android, and not everyone can turn it on. Sometime in ...more
The latest iteration of the gaming classic, The Sims, has arrived as a soft launch for both iOS and Android in Brazil. Aptly named The Sims Mobile, this free-to-play game seems to be very faithful to the PC-based version that won it so much acclaim. There are plenty of things ...more
Many Android utilities use Android Debug Bridge, or ADB for short, to send commands from a computer over to your phone or tablet. This enables such utilities to run terminal commands that, in some cases, wouldn't be possible on Android without root access. Before getting star ...more
With our internet-connected devices growing in number by the year, it would be nice if they could somehow all be interconnected. This is becoming commonplace for our tablets, smartphones, and laptops, but our media streaming boxes still seem to be isolated in their own little ...more
You can find a plethora of tennis games on the Google Play Store, but if you're a true tennis fan and gaming enthusiast, you should check out Tennis Racketeering by Core Aplikacije. The game lets you use an additional Android device as a racket, giving you Wii-like abilities w ...more
Blizzard Entertainment, the wildly successful video game developer that brought us World of Warcraft and StarCraft, has finally released their popular trading card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft to the Android platform. If you've never heard of it, Hearthstone is an off ...more
While installing the new Android 9.0 Developer Preview is fairly easy if you're using a Windows machine, it's a little trickier if you want to use macOS instead. To help you get the latest Android OS on your Google Pixel phone, we'll break down the whole process so using your ...more
Thanks to ever more powerful smartphones — the iPhone X with its advanced A11 processor and the Galaxy Note 8 powered by Snapdragon's 835 come to mind — the mobile industry is fast closing in on consoles and PCs with regards to gaming. Game developers have been aware of this f ...more
Android has several features built into the platform that improve user experience but require extra attention to prevent a security breach. By modifying these settings, you can drastically reduce the possibility of someone exploiting your device or intercepting information. B ...more
For a newbie, getting around your Android cell phone could be a tad confusing, but with the help of Google and this video tip, you'll learn how to navigate your Android home screen like a pro. Learn how to take advantage of the home screen's features on your Android-powered ph ...more
Access accessibility features on an Android 2.0+ smartphone. One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of settings to tweak ...more
Looking for an easy way to launch your favorite Android apps? One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of settings to tweak ...more
Enable Bluetooth on your Android smartphone. One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of settings to tweak and advanced fea ...more
Is your Android phone's home screen a mess? One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of settings to tweak and advanced feat ...more
You can change how the date appears on your Android phone. One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of settings to tweak an ...more
Set your Android smartphone's ringer volume while leaving other volume settings untouched. One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinit ...more
Want to know how to easily manage Bluetooth devices on your Android smartphone? One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of ...more
Never get lost again with location based-GPS on your Google Android phone. One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of sett ...more
You can use PdaNet to tether your Android phone easily! One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of settings to tweak and a ...more
Want to print from your Android smartphone? One of the salient advantages of a Google Android smartphone over, say, an Apple iPhone, is the inherent extendibility of the open-source Android mobile OS. There are a seemingly infinite number of settings to tweak and advanced feat ...more