Android's biggest selling point over alternatives like iOS or Windows Phone is the level of customization that it offers. If you don't like something about the UI, you can change it, whether it's as small as an icon set or as big as the entire home screen. Developer Marcel Do ...more
The Google Calendar app hasn't really changed much over the years. As a pre-installed staple on most Android devices, the interface is definitely lacking in some areas. Google knows this, and has plans in the pipeline to completely revamp Calendar's UI alongside Android 5.0's ...more
Android apps check your system locale settings to determine which language they should display. For the most part, it's a seamless experience—except for those times when an app has not been translated into your language of choice, in which case the app will usually default to ...more
I've covered a few multitasking app switchers before, but none of them are as sleek and smooth as the aptly titled Switchr, a new app developed by Mohammad Adib that lets you move from one app to another quickly and smoothly—just like how I switch between my women. Well, not r ...more
Like many other smartphones these days, your Samsung Galaxy S4 is built to handle multitasking like a pro. With a 1.9 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM (specs comparable to laptop computers just a few years ago), this powerhouse of a phone can switch between apps with supreme ease ...more
Apple released the sixth beta for iOS 11.3 on Friday, March 16. It comes as a surprise, considering the company released the fifth beta only four days ago — an unexpectedly short time between updates. This new beta, much like beta 5, appears to bring minor patches and bug fixe ...more
We're getting closer and closer to a final iOS 11.2 release for everyone. Apple just pushed out beta 5 for iOS 11.2 to developers and public testers on Tuesday, Nov. 28, and much like its predecessor from a few weeks ago, there's not much included but bug fixes and security pa ...more
Monitoring your Mac with widgets can be the first step in identifying bandwidth issues, but finding the root of the problem can be a completely different story. Usually you will have to open up Activity Monitor in Mac OS X to look for apps hogging your bandwidth, but with Load ...more
With Google's latest version of their mobile OS, Android L, the most notable aesthetic difference is the newly introduced Material Design concept that will soon be ever-present through the interface. The objective of this bold design is to create "hierarchy, meaning, and focus ...more
DSP Manager, Dolby Atmos, ViPER4Android — how are you supposed to pick just one from the wide variety of Android equalizers? Depending on your OEM, your phone may have come with a stock equalizer, but they're usually not enough. Combine them with a third-party equalizer, and t ...more
Android's main UI is looking so good these days that you hardly ever see developers spend time creating themes anymore. But even with the beauty of Material Design working in our favor now, there's always room for improvement, right? Recently, developer Thunder07 created an X ...more
The Fire TV Stick, as well as the Fire TV, may be limited by Amazon's fight on piracy, but after a quick sideloading of Kodi, the floodgates are back open with the freedom to stream just about any video or song you want. This is a great new feature to have, but with the locke ...more
Lollipop brought a complete visual overhaul to Android, and while the vast majority of changes have been met with praise, some UI tweaks missed their mark. Take system menus for example. Buttons have been shifted to the right rather than taking up all available space, and the ...more
Before Continuity and Handoff were even announced, Pushbullet was already allowing users to quickly send notes, links, and photos between their devices with a few clicks. On smartphones this was all handled via the Pushbullet mobile app for Android and iOS, but on Macs it cou ...more
On Monday, Feb. 4, Apple released the second developer beta for iOS 12.2. The update features bug fixes to users running iOS 12.2 beta 1, as well as four new Animoji for Face ID devices. Developers are strongly encouraged to update their iPhones. It's unclear at this time whet ...more
Figuring out exactly which apps on your phone are eating through resources and battery life can be a difficult task. Though some information can be found in Android's battery menu, the charts and graphs provided here pale in comparison to what's offered by the GSam app. If you ...more
YouTube's main player interface got a pretty big makeover recently, but chances are, the new UI hasn't made it your way just yet. Google has a habit of slowly testing the waters as they roll out new features, so cool tweaks like this can take some time to reach all users. But ...more
I've already covered how you can automatically save Snapchat photos and videos to your Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and how to take screenshots of Snapchats sent to you without the sender knowing, but there's one other thing about Snapchat that could use some softModding. Currently ...more
Driving in your car can cause a pretty spasmodic GPS connection on your Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Making a lot of turns, speeding past large buildings, and going underneath trees and highway underpasses can all disrupt your GPS signal, making it difficult for the satellites (in t ...more
Writing longhand may boost learning and goal achievement, but that doesn't mean squat if you don't have pen and paper on you. For me, I'm usually on the go when I have a note or idea to jot down, and I don't always have writing materials in my pocket. Who does? But what I do ...more
The Galaxy S8's AMOLED display is prone to screen burn-in, particularly with the navigation and status bars. But hiding these bars would make it hard to navigate your phone — that's where Pie Controls come into play. By enabling full-time Immersive Mode, you can hide the on-s ...more
Apple's exclusive chat services, iMessage and FaceTime, force many of us to stay locked into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to communicate with other Apple users, so chatting with Android-using friends means SMS texts, third-party messaging apps, and third-party video chat services. H ...more
In order to increase the security and harden the integrity of an email account and its content, you'll want to use PGP on your Windows, macOS, or Linux computer. This is usually the first thing security analysts do to protect communications with encryption, and everyone else s ...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
Living in this age of smartphones and always being connected can sometimes have us getting carried away with our devices. Whether it's an addiction to our phone or if we just feel like cutting back on some daily screen time, there's a great tool that can help with that — Googl ...more
Normally, it's good to automatically update your apps to the latest version, but sometimes those updates take away features that you've grown to love. Google Maps used to track your bus route and alert you to whenever your stop was approaching, but not anymore. Every Snapchat ...more
One of the main reasons for installing a custom ROM on an Android device is all of the added features. For instance, OmniROM offers a souped-up multitasking mod called OmniSwitch, so instead of the regular app switcher, you get an interface that lets you pin your favorite apps ...more
With EA chief executive Andrew Wilson stating the official mobile version of Apex Legends won't arrive until the 2021 fiscal year, fans have to wait at least another year to enjoy their favorite battle royale game on the go. But for those who can't wait, there are ways to play ...more
Now that all variants of the Galaxy S5 have finally been rooted, we can start exploring all of the tweaks and hacks that Superuser privileges open up to us. In the modern age of root customizations, there's no better tool to start with than the Xposed Framework. Created by Ro ...more
Stadia is a lot like an Xbox or PS4, except there's no console — the games just stream from Google's servers to your phone, computer, or TV. But Stadia is limited to Pixel phones for right now, and when Google does expand support, it will still only be for select phones. Thank ...more
When Android 4.4 was released, the massive changelog led to some awesome new features getting lost in the virtually endless list of new tweaks. One such change was the ability to set a default text messaging app, which streamlined the existing process of installing a third-par ...more
Google's "At A Glance" widget gives you the current weather conditions and upcoming events from your Google Calendar in a handy spot right at the top of your home screen. But on Pixel phones, this widget is permanently embedded into the launcher, so you can't just long-press i ...more
Right before the Labor Day weekend, Apple issued iOS 12 developer beta 12, which comes four days after dev beta 11 and public beta 9, and just one day after announcing the Sept. 12 event. This update primarily fixes a bug where you would be continuously prompted to install a n ...more
Apple released iOS 12 beta 9 to public beta testers on Monday, Aug. 27. The update comes at the same time as the release of dev beta 11. This is surprising, as Apple typically releases developer betas at least a few hours before the public version. Then again, everything Apple ...more
Apple released the eleventh developer beta for iOS 12 to registered software testers on Monday, Aug. 27, only four days after the company unexpectedly released both dev beta 10 and public beta 8. Apple has ramped up its beta release schedule as of late, offering minor updates ...more
Apple released the tenth iOS 12 developer beta unexpectedly Thursday afternoon, Aug. 23. The update comes only three days after the release of iOS 12 developer beta 9, a surprising move for Apple, even with the irregular releases the company has made in recent weeks. Dev beta ...more
Can't say we didn't see this coming — Apple released iOS 12 public beta 7 on Monday, August 20, the same day it seeded the ninth version of the beta to developers. While the two betas may have different names, public beta 7 and dev beta 9 are virtually identical, so public tes ...more
Apple released iOS 12 beta 9 to developers on Monday, August 20. The company seeded the update just five days after releasing dev beta 8 to testers, itself a quick replacement for the problematic beta 7. This update was followed closely by public beta 7, confirming Apple's new ...more
Facebook and HTC's First was a complete disaster. Soon after its release, carriers were literally giving them away with a two-year contract—or just trying to send them back. It was supposed to be the flagship device for Facebook Home, an Android launcher for Facebook fiends. ...more
With so many apps being cloud-based, cached data has started to become a problem. This is particularly true if you're low on storage, so developer Dhi decided to do something about it. You see, apps will download temporary bits of data called cache to help speed things up the ...more
When you're sitting at your desk trying to get some work done, your Android device can be a big distraction. If a text comes in, you have to pick up your phone, unlock it, then respond with the clumsy touch screen keyboard—and by then, you've probably forgotten what you were d ...more
Facebook released a new app in November 2016 that aimed to compete directly with Snapchat, but it was only officially available in Brazil—and still is. The app, called "Flash," is so much like Snapchat that it's not even the slightest bit of a stretch to call it a clone. Even ...more
Apple developers, check your iPhones — Apple released the eighth developer beta for iOS 12 on Wednesday, August 15. This update arrives just two days after the release of dev beta 7, which Apple quickly pulled after complaints of unusual performance and stability issues. Whil ...more
You've been able to install app updates automatically for some time now, but there was no way to install new system updates on your iPhone automatically. To get a new iOS version on your device, you'd go into the settings, then download the update. It would then either install ...more
Android 6.0 introduced a new feature called Direct Share that allows apps to pin a more specific set of targets to Android's share menu. You've probably seen it already—messaging apps will allow you to share a file directly to a specific contact instead of just to the main app ...more
When Android N is officially released sometime later this year, it will bring a lot of cool new features along with it. We've already had the chance to play around with some of these, thanks to a preview build available to Android beta testers, and one change that we like in p ...more
As it stands, Android's notification system is one of its biggest strengths—but that doesn't mean it couldn't use a few tweaks here and there. For one thing, when you receive multiple notifications from the same app, there is no indication as to exactly how many notifications ...more
Android's auto brightness feature was recently updated, and as of version 5.0, a new "Adaptive brightness" feature was added. This allows users to set a preferred overall brightness level, but still have the ambient light sensor adjust the backlight accordingly. For many folk ...more
A new API in Android Lollipop allows apps to color the status bar to match their overall theme. Google billed this as a more immersive user experience that allows app developers to extend their color branding even further. It certainly seems like a win-win on the surface, but ...more
There's no such thing as a perfect Android keyboard. Some, like Swype, have gesture typing down to a science, but lack in predictive technology. SwiftKey, on the other hand, boasts awesome next-word prediction, but less than stellar gesture typing. Many others are optimized fo ...more
I just about always have iTunes running in the background when using my Mac, but switching in and out of the app to change songs and albums can make focusing on my main task difficult. To help keep my mind on track, I have a few extensions enabled to take control of my music p ...more
While it's much quicker in Yosemite, the Calendar app for Mac has never been as fast as I'd like. If my schedule is really full, it can sometimes hang when first opening the Calendar. A faster way to check an upcoming appointment time or meeting is to view it via the Calendar ...more
A picture is worth a thousand words, and depending on what you're taking a picture of, it could be worth a lot more. Our phone's camera can easily capture high quality photos, scan barcodes, and make us Instagram famous. You can compare prices of items and download application ...more
Apple just released the sixth beta release for iOS 12.2 today, Monday, March 18. Just as expected, the update to the developer version dropped just past 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT), and comes with new changes and features from iOS 12.2 beta 5 and beyond, including a new warranty ...more
There's a lot of conflicting information out there when it comes to the best habits for charging a smartphone's battery, so let's clear some of that up right off the bat. Lithium ion batteries (the type used in most modern electronics) start to lose their ability to hold a cha ...more
Starting with iOS 7, the iPhone has had a cool feature that lets you see upcoming calendar events right on your lock screen, and it only got better with iOS 10. Android used to have this feature with its lock screen widget system, but that was removed back in the Lollipop days ...more
Many midrange phones are being manufactured without a gyroscope sensor—the Moto X Play, third-generation Moto G, and several of Samsung's Galaxy Grand models, among others. It's not exactly an essential smartphone sensor, and leaving this out keeps the phone's price point down ...more
Of all the new features in Android 6.0 Marshmallow, an automatic battery-saving function called "Doze" might just be the most interesting. What it all boils down to is that if you set your phone down on a flat surface, the device uses internal sensors to detect that it's motio ...more
Hangouts is a great cross-platform messaging service from Google that works with almost any device, making it one of the few messengers that can be installed on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android gadgets alike. With its many useful features, one of the few debatable downsides is i ...more
If you're an Android fan, you probably made your choice in mobile operating systems based on the insane level of customization options that Google's software offers. Don't like your home screen app? Simply replace it. Not a fan of a particular app's sharing system? No big deal ...more