Android Priority Mode

North American users get a raw deal when it comes to Sony devices. For some reason, the critically-acclaimed Xperia lineup of smartphones is hardly ever available here, whereas in Europe, the Sony Xperia Z series is one of the most popular flagship devices around. But now, th ...more

Before iOS 10 existed, you were stuck with every single app Apple shoved down your digital throat. While you could hide a few of them with some trickery, you couldn't remove any of them. Now, you can remove almost any Apple app you want from your home screen — for good — just ...more

If you're standing in a foreign city, surrounded by signage in a language you don't understand, you won't suddenly be able to read it. But with a clever feature in Google's Translate app, your smartphone can. The app began as Word Lens, an augmented reality (AR) project by Qu ...more

Reddit announced this morning, April 7th, that it has finally released an official mobile app. You can get it on Android and iOS. Here's what Reddit looks like with "card view.". And this is "compact view.". There are already plenty of third-party Reddit apps, and this offici ...more

As one of the most popular home screen apps on Android, the Google Now Launcher is used by millions of people across the world. The two main reasons behind this success are its integrated Google Now home page and an elegant, easy-to-use design. But as simple and straightforwa ...more

Android's personal assistant is more than just a sassy backtalker—it's a full-on suite of all the information you could need at a given time. Google Now, as it's called, uses data from various sources to predict what you'll want to know before you even search for it, and it's ...more

Ever been in an argument, only to have the other person cop out by saying "I never said that," when you know full well they did? Or how about one of those times when you're sitting in the lecture hall, half dozing off to your professor's monotone ramblings, when your ears perk ...more

In the wake of Apple Music making its debut on Android devices, Google has finally released its highly anticipated YouTube Music app. With these two tech heavyweights throwing their hats into the ring, the streaming music world is about to get rocked. This new standalone YouT ...more

Apple just sent out a new update to their iPhones, and while that normally wouldn't have any impact on Android users, the fact that they included 184 new emojis means that the text messages you receive from friends and family members with iOS devices might come across with bla ...more

You'll have to forgive me if I sound a little overexcited about this, but in my opinion, Google's "Now on Tap" is one of the most innovative™ smartphone features that I've seen in years. Sure, Microsoft heard about the feature being in the works and rushed out a similar Androi ...more

ADB and Fastboot are probably the most essential tools for any Android aficionado. They can do everything from backing up your device to unlocking your bootloader with a few simple steps. This paves the way for many new tweaks and customizations that weren't possible before. T ...more

Having websites coded for mobile browsing is great for small screens, but if you have a Plus model iPhone or even the iPhone X, desktop versions of websites might show you more of what you want. Plus, there's the case of poorly designed mobile websites, where the desktop view ...more

With all the stress that goes into booking flights and lodging, packing (and not forgetting) everything you'll need, finding pet sitters, and everything else that goes with a trip overseas, there's the added stress of staying connected while abroad. Don't Miss: 11 Tips to Mak ...more

AMOLED display panels like the one found in most Samsung Galaxy devices, including the Galaxy S6 models, are known for their deep blacks and vivid colors. The downside here is that the colors tend to be over-saturated and not very realistic. Samsung countered this issue by of ...more

The Galaxy S6 Edge comes with a very nice pair of earbuds, which might possibly be the best set I've ever owned. They're quite comfortable, and they provide clear and robust sound, but they could still use just a little boost in volume. If you've found that your Galaxy S6 Edg ...more

With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat available for anyone to take advantage of, I'm all about differentiating from the mundane and repetitive images we see on social media everyday. Admittedly, even I can fall victim to the occasional selfie or food porn, but ...more

Beginning with KitKat, I've been used to customizing every aspect of my Android phone, but with the release of Lollipop, there is quite a bit of catching up that developers need to do. Most customization features, like quick settings rearrangement and theme support have alread ...more

Those of us with girlfriends understand that in order for the relationship to run smoothly, you have to keep your woman happy and let her know that you're thinking of her—even when you're not. While hanging out with your bros, it can be easy to let your priorities, or your gi ...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

OnePlus changed the way we think about high-end phones. Their "Never Settle" motto led me to ditch my high-cost smartphone for their flagship One, which not only packs some pretty impressive hardware, but won't break the bank. Now that OnePlus has made a name for themselves wi ...more

If you've ever taken apart an electronic device that uses physical buttons, you already know why these types of input methods are destined to fail. The rubberized contacts used in physical press-and-release buttons like those of a gamepad or keyboard are incredibly frail and c ...more

While I do enjoy the vanilla Android Lollipop experience that comes with the Google Play Edition HTC One, I do miss the sweet camera that ships with Sense. Luckily, the people behind Liberty ROMs found a way to port that camera over and now we can enjoy the best of both worlds ...more

The vague 90-day release window for CyanogenMod 12 has done nothing to stop my craving for Lollipop on my OnePlus One. Luckily, there are other "unofficial" means of getting my hands on it. Since CyanogenMod still gives users a way of building their own variants of their ROM, ...more

With hundreds of pictures accumulating on my device, it's a daunting task to devote time to sorting through which are worth keeping and which I should discard. Not all of the images on my device are winners, so the losers not only take up space, they make it difficult to find ...more

On most Android devices, the various volume levels are comprised of either 7 or 15 steps between minimum and maximum. For voice-call volume, alarms, and notifications alike, 7 presses of a volume button will bring you all the way from silent to full-blast. With media controls, ...more

How many times have you witnessed a beautiful moment that you would have loved to capture on film, only to watch it slip away as you struggled to unlock your phone and open your camera app? Developer Jam Works decided he'd experienced this letdown far too many times, and crea ...more

Screen mirroring was a long-awaited feature for the Chromecast, now available for select devices (and even more with root). While great news for those who couldn't wait to play games, watch movies, and browse pictures on a big screen, it did mean that you had to keep your devi ...more

Even with the highest-tiered data plan available, there are times that your phone or your carrier might downgrade your connection to 3G or even lower. This usually occurs when you've made a phone call, or you've switched cell towers while traveling. And after that downgrade o ...more

The level of customization that Android has to offer is insane. You can replace the stock keyboard and home screen with any third-party app of your choosing, allowing core experiences to be tailored to fit your needs. Another system-level feature that can easily be replaced i ...more

We got a fairly extensive look at the newest version of Android at Google I/O yesterday. The "L" version, which we're betting stands for "Lollipop", brings Google's new design philosophy to Android, and one of the main aspects of that design are new "heads up" notifications. A ...more

Replacing your wallpaper is one of the easiest and quickest things you can do to keep your device from going stale, but it goes way beyond just picking an image from your gallery. If you use the Google Camera, you can create some really awesome 3D lens blur backgrounds, but wh ...more

LG has really made their new G3 handset something to drool over. The hardware and software behind it can be considered as good, or even better than most flagships out there, and it has left me second guessing my decision to stick with the M8. Just kidding, I love this thing, ...more

Android has come a long way in a very short period of time. One of its largest leaps, at least in terms of aesthetic value, was a design pattern called Holo UI. Originally debuting in Android 4.0, many of these design elements are still in place today. With the release of Kit ...more

Google's new camera app has a highly innovative and unique feature dubbed Lens Blur, and the most interesting thing about it is not necessarily what it does, so much as how it does it. You take a picture, then slide your phone in an upward motion, and the app creates 2 new pi ...more

It seems that Apple is taking a page from Google's book with their new "Hey, Siri" voice activation feature in iOS 8. This feature mimics the one found in Google Now, the voice-activated intelligent personal assistant available to just about all Android users. Apple's version ...more

If you have Android KitKat, you're fortunate enough to be able to use the new Google Camera, which has tons of great features, including Photo Sphere, Tiny Planet, Panorama, and Fisheye. With so many photo options and no additional hardware needed, it's hard to not to like thi ...more

When it comes to smartphones, we can sometimes get a little carried away with the "smart" aspect of it all. Things like apps, games, and softMods take center stage, and we can almost forget that the device also functions as a phone. So, we're here today to give some overdue l ...more

As Nexus owners, we love our device's operating system, and it's probably the reason we went for a pure Google experience in the first place. But that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement in Android, especially when the OS has so many freely available softMods to tink ...more

Notifications, while certainly helpful, can at times be overbearing. There are banners plastered every which way on your smartphone for almost every application. While many of the notifications can simply be swept away or turned off, the same can't be said of persistent notifi ...more

Recently, I offered a guide detailing how to run two separate windows on a Nexus 7 tablets for better multitasking. While extremely useful, that mod was limited to only two windows, and you also needed root access to use it. Today, I'll be highlighting a non-root Android app ...more

Efficiency is one integral attribute that I need from my Android device. I want to be able to multitask like a maniac and do things on the fly. While multitasking itself is nothing new, actually being able to watch Netflix while scrolling through IMDB at the same damn time was ...more

There are plenty of ways to customize your stock HTC One (or any Android device), from playing retro games to adding rotating live wallpapers. But to get the most out of your device, you need root access. After rooting, the floodgates open and you have free reign over the dev ...more

Apple hates game emulators. Go ahead, look around in the iOS App Store, you won't find any. But who needs 'em anyway? Anyone with a jailbroken iPad or iPhone can install emulators for practically any classic gaming console they want. Hell, you can even do it without jailbreak ...more

When you enter the softModder realm by rooting your Nexus 5, you open up an exciting world of possibilities and deep customizations for your device. Among other things, it gives you the ability to flash custom ROMs which, individually, act as entirely different operating syste ...more

Keeping unwanted clowns off on my Samsung Galaxy S3 is priority number one. I've shown you how to snag a picture of people opening your apps and how to lock your screen for whenever you hand off your phone, allowing them to access only the page you left open. Well, with App L ...more

You have an abundance (or scarcity) of alcohol, liqueurs, and chasers, but don't know how to combine or mix them together to produce some kind of enjoyable concoction for friends. What do you do? Mix things you think will taste good together? They probably won't. There's rules ...more

I've said it before, but there are few things quite as annoying (or embarrassing) as having your smartphone go off at a time where it just shouldn't happen. Imagine a nice, intimate evening with your significant other; you dim the lights, snuggle up, and "this classic" comes o ...more

Snapchat was created for the sole purpose of removing evidence from your mobile that a photo or video ever existed. That way, snoopers can't find any of these questionable selfies in your photo gallery. Of course, there are plenty of ways around this safeguard, but it's still ...more

Phone interruptions are commonplace, as is evident by my historically epic missed phone call list, ranging from annoying sales people to my mom checking in every five minutes to see if I'm still alive. While I can usually put my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 on vibrate and silence al ...more

The Nexus 7 is a huge jump in screen size when coming from a phone, but obviously this tablet is still smaller than some of the major players such as the Nexus 10, Galaxy Tab, etc. One way to squeeze out a little more space is to eliminate the navigation and status bars. Nels ...more

Ringing and vibrating alerts on your smartphone can be a bit distracting when you're at work or school, but silent alerts can be a little too subtle if you want to know when you get a notification. Even the tiny LED alerts can be easily missed. So, is there's something in-betw ...more

If you turned on your HTC One for the first time and wondered what that weird icon that looks like an N is, it indicates that NFC is on. It seems strange to me that HTC wanted to waste Status bar space on an NFC indicator, but sometimes we just have to deal with it. However, i ...more

On the new Moto X smartphone, the only thing you have to do to activate the virtual assistant is say "Okay, Google Now." That's it. You don't have to press a button or tap on the display at all. It's always ready for your voice commands via its "Active Listening" feature, maki ...more

The new Moto X is still a couple of weeks from being released here in the United States, but that doesn't mean we can't play around with a few of its cool features. I've already shown how to get Active Display-like notifications on the GS4's lock screen, and Osas recently cov ...more

If you're always on the go, the Nexus 7 is a godsend for having everything you need at the tip of your fingers—music, videos, text documents, photos, and more. Unfortunately, as good as that is, it also means one hell of a messy tablet. Whether I like to admit it or not, I’m ...more

Arcades, Nintendo, Sega, and 16-bit graphics ushered in a new level of gaming that was leaps and bounds ahead of the early Pong days. I remember loading quarters into the machines and playing 2D fighting games until all my money ran out. When I wasn’t in school, you could usua ...more

If the Nexus 7 wasn't your first Android tablet, you may have noticed something different with the user interface when compared to other Jelly Bean tablets. You may not know exactly what it is off the top of your head, but it's there. Phone mode. Yep, your Nexus 7 utilizes t ...more

Something went wrong and your Nexus 7 is freaking out on you. Maybe you flashed a bad ROM or ZIP file, or maybe it's just bugging, and it's time to restore your tablet back to a working condition. Thankfully, you've already made a backup of your Nexus 7! Note: If you don't ha ...more

I check my email every morning as part of my daily routine (usually while I'm brushing my teeth, if you really want to know). As a result, there have been many, many times where I've read an email on my phone or computer and forgotten to respond in a timely fashion. To solve ...more

When it comes to our smartphones and tablets, we're always on the lookout for ways to beat the oh so common rapid battery depletion problem that affects practically every mobile device. We'll do anything and everything to keep our battery life at an optimum, from turning off c ...more