Android Pay

Android has a brand new mobile payments system, and it's rolling out to most devices as we speak. Android Pay, as it's called, will replace the existing Google Wallet app as an update, and it brings some awesome new functionality such as tokenization and the ability to tap-and ...more

In response to the success of Apple Pay and an attempt to stave off the appealing Samsung Pay service, Google is completely revamping Android's mobile payments system. Instead of just using Google Wallet as an app to make payments with your phone, a new service called Android ...more

Google's monthly Android security updates are generally welcome—at the very least, they provide a feeling of security that our device is now somewhat safer than it was 30 days ago. Vulnerability patches, slight enhancements to performance, and overall bug fixes are generally i ...more

Google announced today that it's offering rewards to Android Pay users, and taking advantage of these deals could land you a free 2nd Generation Chromecast, among other prizes. The Tap 10 promotion is pretty self-explanatory: Tap to use Android Pay 10 times before February 29, ...more

If you tend to go over your data allotment each month, or are constantly afraid you will, Verizon Wireless is giving you chance to relax a little bit with up to 2 GB free data for two months. The promotion, in partnership with Google, requires you to use Android Pay for in-st ...more

Everyone feels a little safer with Android's security updates, which are welcome and often necessary protective measures. But what happens when the update that's supposed to safeguard your phone actually ends up wreaking havoc with its security system? Well, that's exactly wh ...more

When you think of an online music service nowadays, Spotify is probably near the first that come to mind, and for good reason. Being able to create, share, and take all of your playlists anywhere, across all of your devices, is something that I couldn't live without. Unfortuna ...more

Apple Pay is ready for use at over 220,000 outlets across the United States. By using your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, all you have to do is point your device at any NFC-enabled point-of-sale system compatible with Apple Pay, press your fingerprint on the home button, and voilà—you've ...more

Google is widely renowned for its mastery in using data to tailor specific search results and ads. Their Android and iOS search apps put this ability to use in finding the most relevant pages for your query, and their desktop site is the most-used search engine on the web as a ...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

Word games can expand your vocabulary skills in all sorts of exciting and creative ways. Because of this, both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store are awash with word games, making it hard to differentiate between good and bad titles. This is especially troublesome if ...more

Last year, Apple debuted a feature that allows families to share iTunes and App Store purchases across their various accounts. Us Android users, on the other hand, have to buy separate copies of apps for each of our accounts—well, at least from an official standpoint. Truth b ...more

Whether it's delivery drones or getting the U.S. Postal Service to ship packages on Sundays, Amazon continues to remain innovative and ahead of the game, as further evidenced with their mobile app, Amazon Underground. While the app can potentially replace both the Amazon Shop ...more

With the release of the Pixel 2 XL and the iPhone X, smartphones have hit a new high not just in price, but also raw processing power. These new flagships not only cost more than twice as much as an Xbox One or PlayStation 4, they have also become almost as powerful as far as ...more

To celebrate the season, the Amazon Appstore has a fantastic "Free App of the Day Bundle" promotion, with 40 paid-apps available for gratis. Some of these apps are a steal, like Root Explorer (normally $3.99), Fleksy Keyboard (normally $1.99), and Plex (normally $4.99). You ca ...more

Let's say you're flush with Google Opinion Rewards credits, or you just got a Google Play gift card for your birthday. This is a perfect opportunity to remove ads and unlock new features by upgrading some of your free apps to their paid counterparts, or to finally purchase tha ...more

Puzzle games are great at giving your brain a workout while keeping things fun and killing time. They stimulate your noggin as you strategize and plan your next move, whether it's to keep your character from getting killed, or to get that special item to finally complete your ...more

Trivia games are among the most entertaining ways to learn factoids and interesting info you may have never known about before. They're also the perfect genre to enjoy with friends and family, as they're particularly great at breaking the ice to make for a more memorable time ...more

Hitman Sniper topped our roundup for the best premium shooting games, and it's easy to see why. Straightforward yet intense story. Awesome visuals. Stealthy action. Strategic gameplay. Hitman Sniper is easily the best sniper game available for your smartphone, and it's current ...more

Nexus owners in the United States are eligible to grab an easy $20 e-gift card from Best Buy this holiday season. All you have to do is install the Android Pay app and use it to make a purchase at one of the million-plus participating merchants through December 31st, 2015. Yo ...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

Google has done it again—they've pushed another broken OTA update for the Nexus 6. Except this time, it almost completely softbricks your Nexus 6 instead of just screwing up Android Pay and SafetyNet. Apps are force-stopping left and right, making the phone practically unusabl ...more

There are so many apps out there that it can be hard to decide which ones you should keep on your phone, especially if you're working with limited storage capacity. Sure, you can install and uninstall apps depending on when you need them, but that can be a little tedious. Tha ...more

So, you want to install the Oreo beta on your Galaxy Note 8 but you're not sure if it's stable enough. It is a beta, of course, so waiting until others have tried it out sounds safer. Well, over the past five days, I've used the T-Mobile version as my daily driver and there ar ...more

Near Field Communication, or NFC for short, is a feature that allows our smartphones to wirelessly communicate with other devices over a short distance while using almost no power at all. Think of it like a slimmed-down version of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth that can send a small burst ...more

It just keeps getting harder to enjoy all of the benefits of root without sacrificing features. Thanks to SafetyNet, we've lost the ability to use Android Pay, Pokémon GO, and even Snapchat to an extent. But the most recent news on this front is perhaps worst of all: Netflix h ...more

Both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 have Oreo beta software available in the wild at this point. We devoted a number of articles to covering what's new in Oreo and went into detail about the bugs and hiccups on both the S8 and the Note 8. Still, many people are left wondering ...more

Put yourself in Google's shoes: You know that business is becoming increasingly mobile, but the mobile operating system you maintain is wide open by design, and it's garnered legions of loyal fans that love to explore and exploit every aspect of it. There's a clear conflict of ...more

Year in and year out, OnePlus flagships top our list of the best phones for rooting. Why? Primarily because rooting does not void your warranty, and OnePlus goes out of their way to make the whole process as easy as possible. If you're new to rooting, it might seem like more ...more

As we reported first here on Gadget Hacks, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL have unlockable bootloaders, with the exception of models purchased from Verizon. This means that once the TWRP custom recovery is installed, you can flash ZIPs and even root your device in a few taps—as ...more

Google has begun the testing phase for its new Hands Free app that lets you pay at participating locations without having to even take your phone out of your pocket. Video: . Right now, the only participating locations are in South Bay, south of San Francisco, CA, where Google ...more

Despite its rocky start, the Essential PH-1 has a lot going for it. Not only does it get consistent security patches and system updates hours after the Pixels, but like the Google-developed lineup, it's also great for rooting. Not only is your warranty not void with rooting, b ...more

Google's Pixel phones claimed the top spot in our ranking of the best phones for rooting, but they do have one drawback from a modder's perspective: Because of their A/B partition layout for seamless updates, the devices don't have official support for Magisk. Thankfully, thou ...more

We've got some new information about the upcoming OnePlus 3, thanks once again to leaker Evan Blass (@evleaks). According to him, the phone will sport a 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 820 SoC, 64 GB of internal storage, and a 16-megapixel rear camera. Also, for th ...more

This year, Google released two Nexus phones to glowing reviews, and as we've grown to expect, the Android community wasted no time in coming up with a root method for both. In fact, legendary root developer Chainfire even devised an entirely new "systemless" method for rooting ...more

The latest Google Play Services update has somehow broken major functionality in both Titanium Backup and Substratum. Titanium Backup has suddenly become stuck at zero percent while restoring, and Substratum simply fails to apply themes anymore. Both of these apps do require r ...more

Traditional root ad-blockers like AdAway and AdBlock Plus have no effect on YouTube anymore. Until now, if you wanted to get rid of the commercials that play before your favorite videos, there have only been two ways—either by paying for a YouTube Red subscription, or by using ...more

If you're completely new to Android, you're in for a treat with all of the software tweaks and customization options that your smartphone or tablet offers out of the box. But if you really want to take things to the next level, the ability to mod your device expands exponentia ...more

With the recent launch of the OnePlus 6T, the company continues to impress us with some of the best phones when it comes to the rooting and modding. OnePlus has made it easy enough to get up and running with the rooting process as fast as possible. The OnePlus devices follow t ...more

You can easily deck out your favorite phone with great wallpapers, ringtones, and icons, but what about fonts? Not all Android skins let you change the system font, and even when they do, the options are often limited to a few choices. Certain root apps can open up the system ...more

When it comes to modding an Android device, a custom kernel can take you farther than almost anything else. Most offer the ability to overclock your processor for performance gains, change your CPU governor, or even under-volt to increase battery life, among other features. O ...more

There were some new hurdles to clear, and then there were a few more, but legendary root developer Chainfire has created a fully-functional root method for Google's Pixel and Pixel XL flagships. Like past devices, this method relies on the SuperSU ZIP, but now, there's an addi ...more

Amazon is running a pre-sale deal on a few unlocked smartphones by BLU and Motorola, which will be released on July 12, 2016. The 8 GB BLU R1 HD is on sale for just $49.99, and the 16 GB version is available for $59.99, for a savings of $50 off either phone. You can also grab ...more

Your email inbox is a treasure trove of personal data. The people you contact, your writing style, which messages you flag as spam — all of this information and more can be used to paint a clear picture of you. Google knows this as well as anybody, so they use this data to con ...more

Rooting usually means sacrifice. With most root methods, you lose access to apps like Netflix and Android Pay when SafetyNet gets tripped. More importantly, you lose the ability to accept OTA updates, forcing you to manually flash new Android versions. But there's a way around ...more

After months of waiting, it looks like HMD has finally answered the call. Nokia's parent company is finally releasing a true flagship phone — one that isn't just an enhanced version of a previous phone and actually brings something new to the table. That phone is the Nokia 9 P ...more

Despite concerns with SafetyNet, Google actually cares about root. Every phone they sell has an unlockable bootloader, so you can toggle a setting and send a Fastboot command, then start flashing custom firmware right away. The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL continue this tradition, a ...more

Mobile gaming has exploded in recent years, with experts predicting 2.4 billion global mobile players by the end of 2019. It already accounts for 47% of the worldwide gaming market, besting console and PC. No wonder we've seen the rise of gaming smartphones, a class of phones ...more

Smartphones are now indispensable when traveling. Domestic and overseas travel alike require food, navigation, translation, and so much more to make work or vacation successful. Gone are the days of lugging multiple tourist books around with you everywhere you go — you need to ...more

Android comprises an entire ecosystem of apps, games, functions, and features, so it would only make sense that it has its own lexicon. Words, phrases, and acronyms that didn't exist ten years ago are now used in an off-the-cuff style by developers and support technicians acro ...more

Last week Amazon set their sights on the mobile app market, launching their Appstore for Android. This week they're attacking Android devices once again, but that's not all—they're getting into the online storage biz. On Monday, they launched Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Clo ...more

On its quest for online domination, Amazon.com continues to expand past its basic web marketplace to fulfill the needs of everyone and anyone with a little cash to spend. First, they battled the likes of Barnes & Noble and Borders Books with their online Kindle eBook shop. Ne ...more

Thanks to online music services like eMusic and iTunes, compact discs are becoming a far distant memory, turning local music shops around the country into desolate wastelands. The once mighty movie rental store Blockbuster is now bankrupt because of online streaming services l ...more

It's that time of year again when pizza boxes line the room and buffalo wings stain the couch. When cases of beer sit in the cooler and the big screen TVs are fired up and properly calibrated. When two of the best football teams vie for the championship title and the Vince Lom ...more

It's December 11th. Only 14 days left until Christmas. But today is something more than just a countdown date for the quintessential holiday—it's Angry Birds Day, which marks the one-year anniversary of the popular mobile video game. Today, Angry Birds fans around the world w ...more

Thanks to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, video games are constantly evolving to higher degrees of sophistication, with complex graphics, lifelike resemblances and storylines that create exciting experiences that relieve the tediousness of our everyday lives. It's a little di ...more

Nowadays, there's a mobile app for just about everything—but that doesn't mean it should be on your smartphone. Not diggin' what SPB Shell 3D did to your home screen? Accidentally purchased Angry Sperms instead of Angry Birds? Want to try out the upcoming Smuggle Truck without ...more