App Ops Android

While shortcuts to your Camera and third-party apps like Snapchat are great for capturing fleeting moments, it still takes a few seconds to open them and snap a photo. That means you could potentially miss a great shot if you're not quick enough. But now there's a super-fast w ...more

Let's say you gave your Wi-Fi password to your neighbor a while back, under the assumption that they'd only use it while they were at your house sharing stuff via Chromecast. But now, your connection is slower than it normally should be, and you have this sneaking suspicion th ...more

The new Android 9.0 Pie update is bringing a feature that stock Android has been lacking — screenshot editing. OEM skins like Samsung's TouchWiz have had this for years, and Apple added it to iOS just recently. But now that it's in stock Android, it'll be included with every p ...more

As businesses flocked to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and other video conferencing platforms to bridge the gap, we wondered aloud -- why aren't more companies leaning even more heavily on augmented reality? Arvizio may have the solution to that shortcoming with an upda ...more

While the legality of secretly recording phone calls varies in each country, sometimes it's useful to have audio documentation of conversations you have on your Samsung Galaxy Note 2. There are plenty of reasons you'd want to be able to record phone calls, from important conv ...more

Mobile app publishers are using augmented reality to solve everyday measurement problems from measuring the length or height of items to previewing furniture in the home. Now, it looks like checking luggage dimensions for carry-on eligibility is another volumetric problem inc ...more

With the advent of ARKit, apps that can place virtual furniture in a real room have become nearly a universal practice for furniture retailers, with Pottery Barn being the latest to join the fray. While it might seem as though Pottery Barn is playing catch-up with the likes o ...more

Upon Google's release of ARCore in February, the platform wasn't only playing catch-up with Apple and ARKit in terms of downloads, but it also lagged in capabilities, as Apple already had vertical surface recognition and image recognition on the way with ARKit 1.5 for a March ...more

The new preview build of Android is out, and it looks good. But if you're not quite ready to install Android L on your phone, there's still another way to enjoy some of these new visual elements on your Nexus device. Developer Adhithya Rajagopal has created an Xposed module t ...more

Text input on a touchscreen device is constantly evolving. From early beginnings of pecking out each individual character to today's predictive text and gesture keyboards, we've already come a long way. But text selection is still lacking. If you've ever tried to quote multip ...more

I've covered augmented reality apps for about three years now and the most useful mobile app I've encountered over that time is Google Lens. In brief, Google Lens can recognize and interact with text and identify a wide spectrum of objects, turning your smartphone's camera in ...more

Silencing my phone always gives me mild anxiety; while my Android is muted, my girlfriend or boss may be trying to reach me with some urgent news or task. On the one hand, I want to enjoy some peace and quiet, but on the other, I don't want to come back to a phone with 100 mis ...more

You can't always have your media on the same network as your Chromecast. Say you're at a friend's house or even out of town—it sure would be nice to cast your videos when you're out and about, wouldn't it? Well, worrying about having access to your media is now a thing of the ...more

To celebrate YouTube's 17th birthday, Google has gifted the app with new features, including pinch to zoom, precise seeking, and a darker dark theme. But the highlight is a new cosmetic upgrade called Ambient mode, which makes the viewing experience more immersive. Here's ever ...more

The more impressive demonstrations of the capabilities of augmented reality add another dimension to what we see in the real world. One company, Greta & Starks, is on the verge of launching an augmented reality headset called Starts AR that displays film subtitles for the dea ...more

We've all been in a similar situation before—you set your phone's ringer to silent before heading into class, and when you check your phone hours later, you find that your silenced phone didn't alert you to 8 missed calls and 17 text messages. Well, I don't actually get that ...more

To revise a line from the Blues Brothers, when it comes to ARKit apps, we've got both kinds — home utilities and games. As such, two more candidates for each category have made their way to the app store. In addition, one by one, NFL teams are taking a pass at augmented reali ...more

YouTube Music has been around since late 2015, but it only started becoming a viable music service in 2019. It makes sense for Google to utilize YouTube's existing library of music videos, remixes, and cover songs to create one massive music platform. But one downside is you g ...more

Now that some of the best-known beauty brands are leveraging augmented reality to market and sell products, the rest of the market is beginning to catch up — fast. The latest competitor to add AR to its arsenal is direct sales makeup company Younique. This month, the company ...more

Starting November 1, 2018, Google will require that all new apps and updates to existing apps target Android 8.0 Oreo or higher. This move means the developers behind many of your favorite apps are now scrambling to get their software modernized, while others are considering a ...more

Your childhood "social networking" may have been to go outdoors to the neighbor's — and outdoors is a great place for kids to be. But these days, the terms educational, digital media, entertainment, and toddlers don't have to be mutually exclusive. Like most things in life, it ...more

Having an open-source platform like Android is great, allowing manufacturers and developers the ability to make their own skins and apps to truly customize the end-user experience. The only downside is that when an update comes to vanilla Android, many of us are left in the co ...more

With the list of available mobile apps for moviegoers constantly expanding and improving, seeing a film at your local theater has never been better. With the right apps for your iPhone or Android phone, you can research movies, find out if showings are sold out, reserve seats, ...more

Facebook has a new dark mode for Messenger, and it's a true OLED black theme. It's was hidden away in earlier versions and you needed to either run a root hack or send a moon emoji to activate it — but now, you can enable dark mode by toggling a simple switch in Facebook Messe ...more

After North cut the base price of its Focals smartglasses, Vuzix is now testing the waters of a lower price point for its Blade smartglasses. As part of its "Dads and Grads Summer Spree" promotion, Vuzix is reducing the price of its consumer-grade smartglasses by 30% to $699, ...more

The "Discover" tab in the latest version of the Google Home app has a new tip that says multiple users are now supported. Google Home uses a built-in speaker and microphone combo to give users access to smart search, a personal assistant, and smart home controls. This addition ...more

If you've ever browsed a restaurant menu and wondered what a particular dish looks like, then the augmented reality mobile app from Kabaq was made for you. KabaQ displays highly-realistic 3D models of menu items on the user's view of their table, allowing them to see various ...more

Yellow buses are beginning to trickle into traffic. Retailers are pushing pens, pencils, and notebooks. Grumbling Facebook statuses run rampant through your feed. Surely you recognize the signs—school is starting. For some, it already has. There's some fun stuff about school, ...more

We've all had that moment when we enter into a classroom, meeting, or theater and completely forget to put our cell phones on silent. Nothing is worse than receiving a call in the middle of an intense lecture and having everyone stare at you like you're the dumbest, most inco ...more

Facebook is testing a new feature in India. One that could help you protect your profile photos from being used on sites without your permission. This issue is a lot more common than you'd think. Most of us have seen the MTV show 'Catfish' or at least have heard of it. A pers ...more

A hidden TikTok feature changed how I watch videos in the app, and it's about to transform your TikTok video-watching habits too. The feature is relatively new and extremely easy to miss since it's not visible on the video interface. But before you continue, ensure you've upd ...more

Selfies are on there way out. Not because I said so, but just because I want them to. They're both aberrant and curious. They carefully hobble between the lines of self-exploration and crippling insecurities terribly masked as blatant narcissism. They're like a horrible car a ...more

Trying to explain something difficult over the phone can be pretty frustrating if the other person doesn't understand you. Using text messages can be useless for auditory learners, and a phone call won't do much good for a reading or visual learner. Now there's a way to satis ...more

When Apple recently unveiled iOS 8, many of the newly-added features in their mobile OS seemed eerily familiar to Android users. This is probably because the vast majority of these new features have been available in Android for quite some time. If imitation truly is the sinc ...more

If you use the Google Assistant on your Android device, you can easily send a text message to any one of your contacts. But even though that same Assistant is powering the Google Home, you can't use the smart speaker to accomplish the same task — at least, not without some tin ...more

WhatsApp is the go-to messaging app for millions worldwide and its easy to see why. The app can be considered the Swiss Army Knife of texting thanks to numerous features like Group Chats and Status Stories, in addition to striking a great balance between ease of access and ove ...more

Google's latest mobile operating system, Android 5.0 Lollipop, is coming out very soon for Nexus devices, but it will be some time before any other devices get to experience it. However, there are other ways to get the Lollipop feel on non-Nexus devices right now. Unlike the ...more

Believe it or not, the 2012 Presidential Election is (finally) almost over. While most of us are breathing a collective sigh of relief (no more political ads!), it still seems like it hasn't been that long since the last election results were announced. This time, though, one ...more

If you want the latest in breaking news, a heavy dose of humor, and all things kittens, look no further than reddit. But no matter how great the content and community is, reddit has yet to fully catch up to the mobile world. They currently have no official mobile apps, though ...more

French automaker Renault is tapping into the promotional machine for Solo: A Star Wars Movie by deploying an AR experience through Shazam that's triggered via synergistic advertising. To access the experience, users scan the Shazam code embedded on bus stop advertisements in ...more

We tend to think of Google Play as Android's app store—but there's far more to it than that. Not only does it allow you to purchase apps and games, but you can also buy movies, music, books, and even devices, plus there's always those pesky in-app purchases that it also handle ...more

Google+ doesn't have quite the user base of Facebook or Twitter, but for Android enthusiasts, it's definitely the place to be. All of the major developers—such as Chainfire and Koush—make their social media home on Google+, and the Android app sports one of the nicest interfac ...more

Thanks to HTML5 and dedicated video apps, watching your favorite shows, movies, or video clips on your Samsung Galaxy S4 couldn't be easier. However, there are still times when you'll run into a website that requires Flash to play a video or interact with its content. Although ...more

What's the most installed Android app in the world? Facebook? Gmail? Maps? While those all have well over 100 million installs, the one that takes the cake—and always will—is Google Play. I’ve been an Android user ever since the G1, when Android was unpolished, buggy, and the ...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

David Blaine has made millions off his magic tricks and mind-bending illusions, so why shouldn't we get in on the action, too? Well, your Samsung Galaxy S3 can do all kinds of things, but magic isn't one of them...yet. Thanks to Android developer Badea Bogdan of Binary Buildi ...more

You've probably already figured out that your Nexus 7 doesn't have a rear camera, but that doesn't mean you can't do some awesome things with your tablet's front camera! Sure, the front-facing camera is only 1.2MP, but that doesn't mean it sucks. In fact, there's a cool mod f ...more

The car is arguably one of the worst places to receive a text message. You know you can't resist looking, and when you do, your attention is no longer on driving, it's on reading the latest gossip or whatever. You take your eyes of the road for just a few seconds and you could ...more

Having emerged as one of the leading augmented reality video conferencing apps, Spatial is ready to improve upon the experience. On Thursday, the startup announced that it has closed a $14 million funding round, bringing its total funding to $22 million to date. Don't Miss: ...more

Being organized is a big part of being productive. Keeping your important documents where they need to be is key to an optimized workflow. When using Google Keep, sometimes a note may outgrow its note status and you may want to upgrade it to a full on Google Doc. Thankfully, t ...more

Uber is one of the best ride sharing services out there, allowing you to travel without needing to be tethered to a car of your own. Still, if you're a frequent flyer, you may get tired of entering the same few locations into your app every time you use it. Fortunately, Uber l ...more

In February, the popular Facebook-owned WhatsApp Messenger service jumped on the "stories" bandwagon and replaced their in-app, text-based "About Me" status (you know, those lovely little messages where you can say "Sleeping" or "Not Sleeping" under the tiny nub of your profil ...more

I've been lucky enough to never be a victim of street crime, but I have read and seen too many articles and videos to completely rule it out as a possibility. You can do some things to prevent it, but if your life suddenly turns into a scene from Friday the 13th, you'll want t ...more

Steam is by far the biggest and best service for getting games on your Linux, Mac, or Windows PC. With their catalog containing everything from the biggest blockbusters to indie games created by one-man development teams, it's no easy task to keep track of their best values—un ...more

At some point, we all need to back up our device. Maybe it's time to take it in for repairs or maybe you're just cautious and paranoid. Maybe you're trying out a new ROM on your Nexus 7—then you definitely need to back up. The most secure way would be to use a custom recovery ...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

Update (March 18, 2014): Skype has issued an update to their Android app, and among other things, has "fixed" the runaway camera process issue by creating a workaround...and that's about all we know. No details were provided, but with the considerable uproar over the bug, let ...more

Whether you're on the john or sitting quietly on the bus to work, there's always time for a little video. And thanks to my favorite high school procrastination site, I'm going to be turning that little into a lot. StumbleUpon recently acquired a sleek new Android app that wan ...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

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