Easy to Make Spy Gadgets

Starting in Android 4.3, Google added some code to AOSP that tagged your internet traffic when you were running a mobile hotspot, which made it incredibly easy for carriers to block tethering if you didn't have it included in your plan. But as of Android 6.0, this "tether_dun_ ...more

Android's copy/paste menu and text selection options have traditionally been downright terrible, but things are starting to get better with some recent improvements made in Marshmallow. That being said, there's still a lot left to be desired, and there's always plenty of room ...more

The Creative Lab at Samsung, also known as their C Lab, is trying to make wearable fitness devices more inconspicuous with its wearable smart belt, the WELT, but that might not be all. Another of the works in progress the company demonstrated at CES 2016, the TipTalk, could h ...more

Smartphones have been a hot button issue around school campuses for several years now—some schools allow them, others confiscate them on sight. But the fact of the matter is, when used correctly, a smartphone can be just as much of a learning tool as a textbook or school-issue ...more

The volume buttons on the side of most Android devices—also known as the volume rocker—make it easy to adjust sound output without having to dig around in any settings menus. But the trouble is, they control notification and ringtone volume by default, and will only adjust med ...more

The stock Camera and Photos apps are great for taking basic pictures and doing some quick edits, but if you're serious about making your iPhone photos the best they can be, you can't stop there. The iOS App Store is filled with tons of great third-party alternatives with adva ...more

Apple makes it easy to access your favorite and most recently used applications and documents in Mac OS X. You can simply add your favorite apps and folders to the dock, and you can always visit the Apple menu from the menu bar to see a list of your most recently used apps and ...more

Starting a few months back, you might have noticed that some text messages you received from certain friends or family members had blank or missing characters. This was because Apple included all of the new Unicode 8.0 emojis in an update to their iPhones, but Android devices ...more

Smartphone cameras are so good nowadays that there's almost no reason to own a point and shoot. Once the megapixel spec race was finally settled (hint: more isn't always better), manufacturers started focusing on the quality of their camera sensors, which has led to a huge jum ...more

The notification light on phones and tablets is slowly disappearing. The once staple feature is now only found on a few devices, and a bevy of other notification systems have sought to fill the gap. The most popular of these systems is Ambient Display, which has grown in popul ...more

I had the chance to play around with an iPhone 6s this past weekend, and I have to say, I found the new 3D Touch feature to be pretty intriguing. It's still only partially implemented, but when it does work, it works quite well—you simply press a bit harder on certain elements ...more

When anyone brings up Tasker, the first topic that always gets discussed is how powerful the Android automation app can be. But all of that power can be overwhelming for some people, so even if you're a Tasker pro, it's hard to share your awesome creations with friends that do ...more

Making sure you have the best gallery app available for your Android device used to be as easy as just installing QuickPic. But late last year, Android's top photo-viewing app was sold to a company who is notorious for permission spamming, so QuickPic quickly lost everyone's a ...more

When there's a crappy stock app you want to hide, the easiest thing to do is just bury it in the back of a miscellaneous folder. But what if there's an app you want to hide on your home screen that you actually use? For instance, what if you don't want everybody in eyeshot to ...more

With every version bump, Android gets a new Easter egg that can be accessed by tapping the "Android version" entry in Settings. For the most part, these have generally been little animations or live wallpapers that depict the Android code name, but starting with version 5.0 Lo ...more

A growing trend for many artists (most recently Kanye West) is to offer exclusive or experimental tracks on music streaming sites like SoundCloud or YouTube before releasing them anywhere else. On rare occasions, some of these great songs never make their way onto an official ...more

After a few months, I get so fed up with hearing the same ringtone go off alongside each new notification that I'm forced to switch things up—only to end up repeating this whole process when the new one gets played out. And I'm sure people around me are equally sick of listeni ...more

In 1987, two brothers, Thomas and John Kroll, began work on an image editing software, which was eventually acquired in 1988 and released to the world in 1990 by Adobe. That software was Photoshop 1.0, initially exclusive for the Macintosh platform. Over the years, Photoshop b ...more

At this point, it'd be surprising if an iPhone release wasn't coupled with some sort of new scandal or controversy; it's gradually becoming Apple's new modus operandi. First, there was antennagate with the iPhone 4. Then it was scuffgate with the iPhone 5. Last year, it was be ...more

Scanners are much too cumbersome to fit in a pocket, but with the use of just one application, you can replace all that bulky hardware with your Android smartphone and take it with you wherever you go. All you need to do is find the scanning app that fulfills your needs. Here ...more

Ideas can be a fleeting thought, just like a shooting star that appears and disappears within a brief moment. So when you're inspired and have an awesome idea, it's important to jot it down as soon as possible, otherwise it may vanish from your memory for good. This is why th ...more

If your iPhone can't last a full day without being recharged multiple times, something's wrong—but it might just be working harder than it needs to. So before you take a trip down to the Genius Bar, try some of the tricks out first to conserve your battery power throughout th ...more

There are many reasons to keep adult websites off your iOS device. They can pop up accidentally at the least opportune moments, can give your device malware, and are not welcome in a kid-friendly home. Plus, there's a chance that your porn viewing habits could become public o ...more

If you want to watch a movie on Netflix with a friend, family member, or significant other, but can't meet up in the same living room, the next best thing is doing it remotely from the comfort of your own homes. Xbox LIVE used to have a feature called Party mode that made it ...more

When most people think of "gaming computers," they're probably thinking of Windows-based PCs. They offer a huge variety of devices with better equipped software and hardware for a cheaper price, and there are more available games than there are for OS X-based systems. But tha ...more

If you're having a "Netflix and chill" night, the last thing you want to worry about is finding something to watch—after all, you have better things planned for the night. With so much streaming content now available for cord cutters, settling on just one title to watch can b ...more

While most of your iPhone's features are intuitive or well-covered across the web, there are some features hidden deep within iOS that you probably never even knew about. (These could also apply to an iPad or iPod touch.) Some of these secret tricks take advantage of function ...more

In the U.S., smartphone users spend more time on Facebook and Instagram than on any other app. If this sounds surprising for any reason, it shouldn't. Anyone that's browsed Instagram in a moment of boredom knows that a few minutes can quickly turn into an hour down a rabbit ho ...more

Whether you're just getting your first Android, or are already on your fifth annual cycle of picking up the latest flagship, there is always the question of what to do after booting up your device for the first time. You can go the route of keeping your device the way the man ...more

In most cases, when the free trial of software is over, that's it—you're left to either pay for it or find an alternative. But what happens if the trial wasn't long enough to sell you on the product? It'd be nice if there was a way to test it out again without having to whip o ...more

One of the highest rated posts on Spotify's own community forum is titled "Add support for Google Chromecast," a clear indicator of not only how much this feature is desired, but also of Spotify's lack of care for it. Remaining consistent with statements made in the past, Spot ...more

Saying that I was obsessed with Pokémon as a child would be a serious understatement, and even though I'm not the Pokémon fanatic I once was doesn't mean I don't love playing still. However, I do often find myself dumbfounded by all of the new features and characters in each g ...more

The telecommunications industry has come a long way since Ma Bell opened the first telephone exchange in the late 1800s. With the advent of fiber optics and wireless broadband technology, we no longer have a need for a dedicated phone connection, as today's data networks can c ...more

As it stands, Firefox OS isn't a very popular third-party operating system for Android devices, especially when compared to others like CyanogenMod, but Mozilla developer Fabrice Desré is attempting to change that. With the introduction of his new application called B2GDroid, ...more

I've been a diehard Chrome user since its inception, and even more so since Android was released. The ability to sync bookmarks, passwords, and web history across all of my devices made the switch a no-brainer, but what really made me fall in love was the amount of extensions ...more

Android M, the successor to Lollipop, is almost here. If you have a Nexus, you can install a preview of Android M using either the Fastboot method or Nexus Root Toolkit. For those of you without a Nexus, you can still get a piece of M on your device right now by installing the ...more

When Lollipop was released, Android's lock screen got a huge makeover. But most of the changes were made for aesthetic purposes rather than functionality. In fact, one of KitKat's best lock screen features was removed altogether—the ability to add custom widgets. We've since ...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

Is your Mac starting to feel messy and sluggish after using iOS 8 on your iPhone every day? Even with all of the iOS-friendly features built in to Mac OS X Yosemite, your Mac can still feel kind of "old" in comparison to an iOS device—but it doesn't have to. Using the tips and ...more

Both the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge have had root methods available to them before the phones were even released, but the problem with these existing root methods is that they would trip the KNOX counter on your device. Why Tripping KNOX Is Bad for Your Phone To give you a bit of ...more

The Google Play Store may have fewer restrictions that its iOS counterpart, but that doesn't mean that all apps make the cut. Ad blockers and Xposed modules that bypass paywalls have never had a place on the Google Play Store, which makes tracking their app-updates a painful p ...more

We have all seen videos of people walking off of platforms and into street signs because they were too distracted by their phones to pay attention. This has become such a problem that cities have even considered fining pedestrians for texting and walking. Even though I find t ...more

With audible alerts and subtle vibrations, the Apple Watch makes it difficult to miss incoming notifications. But soon enough you'll realize that not every notification is worth receiving on your Watch and can ultimately render the experience annoying under particular circumst ...more

Smartphones generally have limited storage, but counter this issue with an always-on internet connection. This led to the proliferation of cloud storage services, which allow us to store and access our large media libraries remotely. The problem here is that most cloud storag ...more

Customization helps your device stand out from the rest, and that sentiment is no different when it comes to the Apple Watch. Unlike every other Apple device before it, the Watch allows you to customize the information that appears on the UI—without the need for any jailbreaki ...more

As you're probably well aware by now, the Apple Watch isn't just for sending text messages and checking Instagram—you can also use it as your wallet. With Apple Pay compatibility, you can use your Watch to make purchases at any retailer that accepts the payment service. Lucki ...more

If you have a smartphone, chances are you have something on it you don't want others seeing. Whether it be photos, videos, or documents, some things are best left private. Not everyone is a saint, after all. On a Samsung Galaxy S6, you can lock down specific apps using your f ...more

The buttons on most Android devices are laid out (from left to right) in a Back, Home, Recent Apps format. Samsung is the lone exception to this rule, which flip-flops them, so this can make for an inconsistent experience if you own multiple Android devices. But thanks to a f ...more

No one is perfect, and this goes double for software developers. All of the quality assurance testing in the world does nothing when you put a new OS in the hands of everyday users, since we all use our devices in different places and for different reasons. Recently, Cyanogen ...more

For some strange reason, not all variants of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge have a menu option for changing the backlight timeout for their capacitive keys. According to user reports, only the AT&T variant of these phones has such an option. But thanks to an app from devel ...more

Smartphones are great at keeping us busy with games, social media, and messaging apps, but there has been a recent push for them to also help keep us safe (and I'm not talking about from hackers, though that is equally important). A while back I covered an app that sent out a ...more

One of the many additions that appear on Android 5.0 Lollipop is a handy menu that lets users correct for or simulate different types of color blindness. While Google didn't flip the switch on this new feature until Lollipop was released, it turns out they had been working on ...more

Believe it or not, there was a time when smartphones weren't the primary tool for taking photos. People actually walked around with bulky film-based cameras on their necks, and some even used cheap disposables. While photography wasn't introduced to the world when smartphones ...more

Bringing lunch to work or school is a win-win situation. You save money, you eat better, and you create less waste. But while the virtues of brown-bagging it are undeniable, it also gets kind of boring after a while. How many times can you shove a container of salad or noodles ...more

When ringtones and vibration alerts miss the mark and fail to grab your attention, causing you to miss an important call or text, LED flash alerts are a great backup plan. While we already showed how to activate this on Samsung devices, the apps shown below make this feature e ...more

Resources for finding new music are at our disposal in all corners of the internet; the only problem is deciding which one is the best for you. Spotify, Pandora, and Rdio all have options to discover new music on your smartphone, but they tend to expose mostly established arti ...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

Instagram recently rolled out their new Layout app that helps users build photo collages more easily, and it's quick and easy to use with great results. Unfortunately, only those with an iOS device can enjoy Layout at the moment, with the Android version slated for release "in ...more

Netflix was my proverbial gateway drug to cord-cutting, as I'm sure it was for many others. Yet as much as I truly love Netflix and its service, there are some annoyances I have with the interface of the desktop web version. Yes, finding movies and TV shows is easy, but my ma ...more

Most of us enjoy taking photos with our iPhones and sharing them with friends and family, but it's adding that extra touch or funny caption that turns an ordinary picture into something unforgettable or downright hilarious. With Inkboard, you can use your imagination to draw a ...more