Bypass a Locked Phone

Oh, LifeHacker, we love you. You've brought us so many handy HowTo's: Hack Wireless Internet, Bypass Blocked Websites, Convert a Laptop Into a Projector, Watch TV & Movies on the Web For Free, 10 Must-Know Google Privacy Settings, and more. And now, another great one: LifeHac ...more

Many people all around the world have been using Korean Anycall Galaxy S (SHW-m110s), because the price is reasonable and easy to used. But after they buy this phone they always saw two clocks in the front screen while the phone locked, one is Local clock and the second is Seo ...more

When a Houston mom got tired of her kids seemingly refusing to return her calls, she decided that she'd take action. Sharon Standifird's vision was to create an app that would somehow force children to get into contact with their parents. Having no experience with app developm ...more

A motion-based lock screen app called GestureLock was among the winner's at 2106's Android Experiments I/O Challenge, and it lets you set a specific motion (gesture) that you use to gain access to your locked phone. Don't Miss: Google's Experimental Launcher for Android Feels ...more

Before you go out to protest, understand what you are facing. Sometimes these demonstrations become infected with looters and rioters, which could mean interaction with law enforcement and potentially arrest. And if your phone is on you, it can be used as a tool against you. ...more

Hello friends. This is actually my first how to. In this tutorial I'll be teaching how to simply copy someone's WhatsApp pictures gallery into your computer, in an automated way. It is just an example of how easy is to steal data from someone's smartphone. I am covering Whats ...more

Erasing everything off of your phone and starting anew is a pretty drastic step to take for a little glitch. For most people, system restoring is a last resort option, but there are a few reasons to want or need to restore your device to factory settings. Many people have tri ...more

We've all been there. Rushing to find an outlet because your smartphone's battery is about to die and you're in the middle of uploading a picture on Instagram or something else of dire importance. Android's operating system shuts down automatically when ever there is 1% left ...more

Starbucks' app is the most used mobile payment app in the U.S. because it's well-designed and convenient. But if you use the iOS version on your iPhone, your username, email address, password and location data could be compromised because the app stores them in plain text. UP ...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

Unlike traditional backlit LCD technology, OLED screens don't use any power to display black pixels. Many manufacturers have taken advantage of this by implementing an always-on display, which only lights up a few pixels here and there to show relevant info when your phone is ...more

With voice commands becoming conventional on most new smartphones, it's only ideal that their abilities increase as well. Thanks to Apple's Siri, you can do things like update your Twitter account and look up who the president of Costa Rica is. Siri has strongly commandeered ...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

The transition from an iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 or other Android device can be a tough one. A vastly different operating system and the ability to customize anything and everything might be too much for some people. Taking in all that new, while having to let go of th ...more

Millions depend on Google Maps for directions, and it's easy to see why. The app comes with tons of features like offline navigation, location sharing, and more. Google is far from done, however, and continually improves upon its navigation app to make it even more efficient a ...more

Texting can be difficult sometimes. When you're browsing the web or playing a game on your iPhone and need to respond to text message real quick, you have to exit your current app to do so. Not exactly efficient, especially if a quick "K" is all you need to say. However, if y ...more

In a letter dated February 16th, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded to the FBI's demand that Apple create a "backdoor" to bypass the encryption on an iPhone used by one of the perpetrators of last year's terrorist attack in San Bernardino, CA. Cook began the letter by stating that A ...more

Due to weaknesses in the way Wi-Fi works, it's extremely easy to disrupt most Wi-Fi networks using tools that forge deauthentication packets. The ease with which these common tools can jam networks is only matched by how simple they are to detect for anyone listening for them. ...more

The OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a new Zen Mode feature to help increase your concentration and reduce distractions. It takes things a step further than Google's Digital Wellbeing by disabling your device and stopping sounds. But even if you don't have a OnePlus, you can now get t ...more

If you hold your phone upright while taking a video, you've surely seen the horrific end results. When you try to play the video back on any other display, roughly 70 percent of the screen is occupied by black bars. I normally scold people for this behavior, as it makes for t ...more

While most are still fighting through a somewhat ridiculous invite system, OnePlus is starting to ship out a decent number of their One flagship devices to those who were able to obtain one. We all know that the price is the phone's biggest selling point, but there's still mu ...more

Unlocking your Samsung Galaxy S4 so you can use a different SIM card isn't the easiest thing in the world. In the states, unlocking cell phones was actually illegal, despite the White House's disapproval, though, a recent bill has making its way to the House floor and has made ...more

We go to such great lengths to secure our smartphones. We put passwords on our lock screens, encrypt our data, and install anti-theft programs, but it's never enough—someone, somewhere, will find a way around any protective measure you use, no matter how sophisticated. Unfort ...more

The Pixel 3 runs stock Android, so you might think that since you've used an Android device before, you should know your way around the new phone by default. But Google has actually added several great Pixel-exclusive software features to its flagships, and not all of them are ...more

There's never an Apple announcement without some good ol' anger and backlash. To be fair, Apple received some really positive feedback from parts of the iOS 11 presentation at WWDC back in June. Fans had been waiting for years to customize the Control Center, as well as for n ...more

Keeping data private is vital in the days of smartphones and the free-floating information they carry. Justin wrote a guide on many of the deeply hidden and sometimes concerning privacy settings in iOS 7. Now we're back to cover some of the new (and old) privacy settings in iO ...more

On Android, there is a vulnerability that Google doesn't seem to want to fix — anyone can open the Quick Settings panel on your lock screen. GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, all toggles accessible in this menu, are vital tools for locating your phone in case it is ever stolen. But t ...more

If your current cellular provider costs too much, has poor reception in your area, or doesn't support features you'd like to use, switching to another carrier is the obvious move. But can you bring your current iPhone or Android phone? In most cases, your current smartphone w ...more

The iPhone has a setting that will obfuscate the content of notifications on its lock screen until you're recognized by Face ID. Google implemented this same feature in its Pixel phones, but many Android devices have no such option. At least, not by default. If you use Androi ...more

Many of our online accounts now come with an added two-factor authentication (2FA) functionality to help keep our data safe. This essentially means no one would be able to access the account until a specific set of requirements were met. It could be a combination of a password ...more

From personal photos and videos to online banking passwords saved in your web browser, your phone has all kinds of sensitive data that needs to be protected. One of the best things you can do for your Samsung Galaxy S4's data is have a lock screen with a hard-to-guess PIN or p ...more

Face ID is possibly the iPhone X's make-it-or-break-it feature. Apple is asking previous iPhone owners to put a lot of faith into their home button replacement, and so far, the results seem pretty good. That is until CNN tested the security feature with identical twins. It's ...more

Google dropped new features for its Pixel lineup of phones, and there's something here for everyone. With the launch of Android 12, Google gave its smartphones (Pixel 3 and newer) a handful of exclusive features that Android phones from other manufacturers don't have. Example ...more

You probably already know what you want to do when you grab your phone. More than likely, you're either going to make a call, send a text, or open an app. So why can't you just do that right from your Samsung Galaxy S3's lock screen? Instead of entering in your passcode or pa ...more

Every year, Apple adds some old technology to the iPhone and gives it a catchy marketing name, then like clockwork, it becomes the next big thing. Google, on the other hand, creates some truly innovative features, doesn't really bother naming them, then lets them languish in o ...more

With certain apps and games, it's all about the settings. In order to get your money's worth with one of these, you simply have to take the time to tweak and adjust various options, which is something a lot of users don't necessarily want to do. Take GravityBox for example—th ...more

According to a study done by Kaspersky, 7.6% of Android users root their phones. That may not sound like a lot, but with over 2 billion Android devices out there, the math works out to over 150 million rooted phones — more than the total population of Russia, Mexico, or Japan ...more

Buying an unlocked phone is usually the correct move. By doing so, you bypass a lot of bloat that carriers put on your phone, and you can also use that phone with another carrier should you decide to switch to a new one. However, a lot of carriers won't give unlocked devices a ...more

In this era of smartphones, we all know very well how easily we can get addicted to our devices. Spending hours each day doing the endless scroll through Facebook and other social media sites just because we feel like we'll miss something if we don't. Both Google and Apple are ...more

You can feel it in your bones. You may die if you don't get this phone. There's just one problem — the price. Suddenly, you come across what seems like manna from heaven. That very device, at a deeply discounted rate, can be yours. The only thing that makes you pause is that ...more

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

Nearly two years ago, Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, confirmed that the company would no longer be locking bootloaders. Whether or not they've actually lived up to this claim is debatable. Any phone bought from a wireless carrier comes locked. Only the new HTC One Developer Edition s ...more

Carriers like to distinguish their Android phones from the competition by making small changes to the interface here and there. This practice is so common that Android now has a built-in system for managing these small tweaks. A series of XML files known as CSC (customer soft ...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

Canary tokens are customizable tracking links useful for learning about who is clicking on a link and where it's being shared. Thanks to the way many apps fetch a URL preview for links shared in private chats, canary tokens can even phone home when someone checks a private cha ...more

Google's latest Nexus device is big, bold, and beautiful—and now it's got root. Thanks to some quick work by legendary Android developer Chainfire, the Nexus 6 already had a clear-cut root method before most stores even had it in stock. CF Auto Root is a wonderful tool that h ...more

Cycling accidents are more common than you think. In the past month, two men have been hit and killed while cycling in New York City. I even saw a cycling accident occur yesterday morning here in NYC. It's dangerous enough to be cycling in populated areas, it's made worse by p ...more

Since we wouldn't have Android without Google, everyone has come to realize that the Pixel smartphones are a prime example of what an Android smartphone should be. With so many unique software related features, no wonder people want that Pixel experience. OnePlus offers its O ...more

My friends can be pretty shitty sometimes, but they're my friends nonetheless. On various occasions, they've secretly taken my device and made me look foolish by posting crude and embarrassing posts to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. With friends like these, who needs enemies ...more

Whenever you're on an audio call in the Phone or FaceTime app and accidentally press your iPhone's Side button, the call ends immediately. It's a helpful feature for those who like to terminate calls that way, but it's flat-out annoying for everyone else who inadvertently ends ...more

You might think that you have your microwave all figured out, but chances are you don't know all of its secrets. Some microwave tricks are truly hidden; obscure information nowhere to be seen in the user manuals. Other tricks are hiding in plain sight, often overlooked or toss ...more

T-Mobile's "Uncarrier" initiative has done wonders for my wallet and my data usage. Before I had to deal with being throttled down to 2G speeds after passing my data limit, but thanks to their unlimited data plans, I'm free to use as much LTE data as I possibly can. The only d ...more

Google recently rolled out a new Smart Lock option labeled "On-body detection" for Android Lollipop via an update to Google Play Services. As I'm sure you can gather from the name, this new function keeps your phone or tablet unlocked using the built-in accelerometer to determ ...more

Since its introduction in iOS 11, the Screen Recording tool has been a great way to show less tech-savvy users how to use their iPhones better. It's never been easier to show your grandmother how to disable Live Photos or lower screen brightness. However, banner notifications ...more

As great as passcode and biometric security features like Face ID are for preventing unwanted access, they aren't needed 100% of the time. When you're at home with a locked door between you and anyone you wouldn't trust with your phone, they really only serve to slow you down. ...more

Your smartphone stays with you everywhere you go, so it's only a matter of time before you spill coffee all over it or drop it on the ground. For some of you, it has already happened, perhaps even multiple times. That's why we thought it was important to find out which flagshi ...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

Who likes security? I like security. I lock my doors at night, and so should you! That's why it's exciting to me that Samsung has just announced its May security update. It's like getting a brand new, top-of-the-line lock for free, but for your phone. Where do I signup? Here ...more

LG, like many other OEMs, usually locks down their bootloaders with an airtight seal. There are a few good reasons for this, the big one being that an unlocked bootloader technically compromises some device security measures. LG would also argue that unlocking your bootloader ...more