Having for First Time

If you're a long-time Spark user, you'll know that one of the only drawbacks to the app used to be its lack of rich text-editing tools such as hyperlinking. If you needed to link out to a site in an email, your best bet was to grab a computer to get the job done. Well, close t ...more

When you need to know how to get somewhere, Google Maps is the app to beat, but the king of navigation doesn't want to stop there. Google aims to make its navigation app for more than just directions, as made clear by its recent feature that lets you follow businesses in the a ...more

In late-2017, Instagram rolled out a feature that automatically saves your ephemeral Stories to a private archive. Before that, Stories disappeared into the ether after 24 hours, but not everyone was comfortable losing these precious photos and videos. If you post to Instagram ...more

Any app on your iPhone could potentially listen in on your conversations and use that information to target you with tailored ads. Although most companies, including Facebook and Apple, have come out and vehemently denied these claims of spying on consumers, who's to say they' ...more

Fan favorite Transformer Bumblebee returns to theaters on Friday in a spin-off of the film franchise, so Paramount Pictures is bringing the car-robot back into the homes of fans via augmented reality. On Thursday evening, Snapchat launched a Sponsored World Lens featuring Bum ...more

When you set up your MyFitnessPal account for the first time, it asks for a checklist of personal info to create nutrition and fitness goals for you. Whatever you decide then, it's important to know that the goals provided to you are not fixed. If your doctor or nutritionist r ...more

If you've ever wanted to download YouTube videos directly to your iPhone, there's an easy solution — just update to iOS 12 and install Apple's new Shortcuts app. With the Workflow-replacement app, you can add a shortcut that lets you download any YouTube video you want, withou ...more

UPDATE: The ported APK covered below is now obsolete because Fortnite beta is officially available for all Android devices! Alongside its Galaxy Note 9 announcement at Unpacked this year, Samsung confirmed that Fortnite would initially launch on Android as a Galaxy-exclusive. ...more

While Sony as a company is well-known in the United States, it smartphones are not. For years, Sony has stuck with a boxy design with sharp edges and large bezels — however, they're finally getting with the trends. As a result, the Xperia XZ2 Premium offers a rare combo: A sup ...more

Google Lens is a fantastic addition to Google Photos for Android and iOS that allows your smartphone to identify a number of things in your pictures, like landmarks and contact info. Using this power, you can even find out how to buy almost any product you've taken a photo of ...more

Using Hydra, Ncrack, and other brute-forcing tools to crack passwords for the first time can be frustrating and confusing. To ease into the process, let's discuss automating and optimizing brute-force attacks for potentially vulnerable services such as SMTP, SSH, IMAP, and FTP ...more

When a photo or video is just too sensitive to leave laying around in your Photos app, you'll want to either delete it for good or hide it away in safe, secure location on your iPhone. As for the latter, Apple actually has a few tools available to make photos and videos hidden ...more

Accompanying Snapchat's core features, like editing snaps and applying filters to them, is Bitmojis. These are small avatars that you create in your own likeness and use all throughout Snapchat. Formerly, there were two "styles" that you could pick from to make your Bitmoji: B ...more

BlackBerry's focus on secure software and their new partnership with manufacturer TCL are two of the biggest factors in their recent resurgence. Last year, the company announced two new devices — the KEYone and the BlackBerry Motion. The KEYone has been available for a while, ...more

Google just rolled out a revolutionary feature to its Pixel devices — Google Lens. Previously, Lens had only been available in the Photos app, but now, whenever you want to learn about something in the real world, you can just bring up Google Assistant, turn on the camera, the ...more

The OnePlus 5T was just released, and it's packing several new useful features. While many OnePlus 5 buyers are feeling frustrated with the quick release cycle, lots of fans are still clamoring to buy the new device. Aside from the larger screen, most of the buzz around the 5T ...more

Most Android launchers limit you to three choices: Icons, widgets, and folders. It's better than nothing, but it's still pretty hard to find the best look without overcrowding your home screen. You could fill everything up with icons, but then you'd have an iPhone. You could t ...more

With the new iPhone X, Apple introduced a buttonless design for the first time. But without a home button, navigation within iOS 11 had to change to accommodate the new model. To solve this issue, Apple created gestures to perform the actions that the home button once executed ...more

Snapchat recently updated their Android and iPhone apps with a new feature called Snap Map which lets you share your current location with other Snapchatters, as well as see their current locations. It may sound like an interesting new feature, but sharing your exact location ...more

Many developers, myself included, use Unity for 3D application development as well as making games. There are many that mistakenly believe Unity to be a game engine. And that, of course, is how it started. But we now live in a world where our applications have a new level of d ...more

One of the most exciting features in iOS 11 was the fully revamped Control Center, which improved the overall interface visually, made it one page only, and finally made it possible to customize what controls actually appear within it. Customizable controls was previously only ...more

We may not fully appreciate all the important roles wheat plays in our lives until it's gone—or at least, when it's in very short supply. What would a world be like without bread, cakes, cereal, pasta, or wheat beer? If the dire warnings about an impending stem rust fungus com ...more

If you're grossed out by anything creepy, crawly, and with more than 4 legs... then stop being so close-minded and eat some bugs already, dammit. Or at least, that's what this trend is trying to tell you (in so many words). Don't Miss: The Latest Pairing for Your Cookies: Co ...more

There are two types of Halloween lovers: Those who like culturally-relevant costumes and serving precious ghost cupcakes, and those who live to freak their friends the hell out in the most disgusting way possible. We tend to fall into the latter category. We're talking edibl ...more

Where you lead, Gilmore Girls, I will follow. My lifelong dream to grow up Gilmore was to blame for how I ended up waiting in line outside a Williamsburg coffee shop at 6:30 a.m. on a random Wednesday morning. If I was going to start my day like a Lorelai, I needed to live my ...more

We like to think of ourselves as caprese connoisseurs. When we made our first batch of the iconic tomato salad, we became obsessed with the classic combo of fresh basil, sweet tomatoes, and creamy mozzarella cheese. But after a while, we wanted more than just the basic, layere ...more

Watching the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament without cable used to be easy. As long as you had an internet connection, CBS and Turner (TBS, TNT, and TruTV), which co-broadcast March Madness, let you watch all 67 games online free of charge. Even though restriction ...more

Microsoft did a wonderful thing in 2015: for the first time, it was offering a free upgrade to Windows 10 for all current Windows 7 and 8.1 users. And, if you were lucky, the upgrade process was relatively simple and painless. There were, however, some questions after the ever ...more

Amazon thinks that by simply removing an app from their Appstore, that they will stop users from accessing it. But with Android OS powering their Fire TV Stick and Fire TV, there really isn't anything they can do to prevent us from sideloading an APK onto the streaming media d ...more

One of my favorite things about cocktails is that they're so diverse. They can be sweet or savory, filling or refreshing. And they can take advantage of nearly any ingredient imaginable, including egg whites, smoked ice, flavor cubes, and even beer. As a card-carrying member ...more

Your average Android phone or tablet comes with quite a few apps already installed—even before you turn the device on for the first time. These pre-installed apps are certainly helpful when it comes to getting your feet wet with Android, but in many cases, they're not always t ...more

When the Galaxy S6 hype-train was building momentum ahead of the phone's release, many reports had Samsung cutting back on its much-maligned TouchWiz skin. In the end, these reports were either highly exaggerated or entirely fabricated, because while not as egregious as previo ...more

No offense to water, but if I could survive on coffee alone, I would. I swear I'm not addicted... I just really, really, really love the taste of a cuppa joe, whether it's hot, cold, frothed, milked, flavored, plain, whatever! And while my favorite thing to do with coffee will ...more

On Thursday morning, May 28th, Google announced an upcoming version of Android—and within a few hours, a preview build of this so-called "Android M" release was made available to select Nexus devices. If you're one who likes to stay on the cutting edge, this build offers lots ...more

Due to the way Android works, you normally need to be rooted to uninstall the pre-loaded system apps, aka bloatware, that came with your device. This is because the underlying files for these apps are stored on your system partition, which can only be modified with root-level ...more

Technology has progressed by leaps and bounds and has blessed people in a number of ways, but at the same time, it has troubled them also. Computers are now used in every aspect of life. No matter if you are a businessman, an employee, a student, or even a housewife, a compute ...more

HTC's Sense UI is generally regarded as one of the best manufacturer-skinned versions of Android. This is mainly due to the subtle and classy styling of the interface, as well as some unique features that are added in here and there. One of the most central features of Sense ...more

Google's got a hit on its hands with this one. Android 5.0—AKA "Lollipop"—will be making its official debut next month, but a new preview build has given us a glimpse into the future, which looks brighter than ever. New accents, beautiful animations, and a lighter overall col ...more

Complete silence or a non-stop Pandora playlist? People are often divided on what type of work environment they prefer. Whether you're a frequent loud music listener or you can't stand any kind of background noise, chances are you're pretty set in your ways. No matter your st ...more

There are a ton of great new features in iOS 8, and one of the most interesting (and perplexing) ones is called "Family Sharing." By utilizing this feature, you are creating a continuity among all of the iOS devices in your family, granting members the ability to share apps, ...more

When people first learn that their Android device is capable of dual-booting different operating systems, e.g. Linux, they almost universally respond with, "That's so cool." And for those of us ambitious enough to actually try one out, we are typically filled with glee as we s ...more

Surely you've heard of the wildly-popular custom ROM CyanogenMod, right? As the longest-tenured third-party firmware for Android devices, CM has been able to maintain its popularity by supporting a wide array of devices and offering many customization options. One such custom ...more

Update: After playing around with our new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus over the last couple weeks, it occurred to me to see if my DIY stylus would work with these new devices. I'm happy to report that it does, just as expected. Now, the level of functionality you'll get out of it is d ...more

This year's I/O was all about bringing Android into the future and onto new devices. On top of announcing the upcoming "L" release of its mobile OS, Google showcased Android Wear, Android Auto, and Android TV. With a unified design language and notification mirroring, the var ...more

You've been there. Those precarious few seconds between dropping your expensive smartphone right on its face and reaching down to survey the damage. Or maybe you got thrown in a pool while your device was in your pocket, or you dropped that sucker right into the toilet bowl. H ...more

Pretty soon, every restaurant and store you walk into will know exactly what you're doing. Retail analytics companies like Euclid, ShopperTrak, RetailNext, and Prism Skylabs have penetrated hundreds of food shops and retail stores across the country, installing sensors that tr ...more

The Problem If you are working on a car restoration project, then you are going to faced with rust damage. This problem can’t be overlooked, as the entire project depends on repairing and eliminating rust. This would be like laying down new carpet to a house that was flooded, ...more

Ever since the FBI took down the Silk Road and Dread Pirate Roberts last month, many questions have been raised about whether Tor still provides anonymity or not, and if it's now broken. I'll try to address that question here today succinctly from multiple angles, keeping it a ...more

For new Android users, rooting an Android phone can often be an intimidating process, especially since there are so many different ways to gain root access, depending on your model and firmware version. I've previously covered a way of doing it for the AT&T version of the Sam ...more

Why is transferring contacts from an old smartphone to a new one still insanely difficult? I can check my bank account, upload a picture to Instagram, email someone across the globe, and check the weather forecast on my phone—all in under five minutes. So why does transferrin ...more

If you haven't heard of Korean pop sensation, PSY, then you really have been living under a rock. Or, you've just never run across any other human. Or, this is your first time on the Internet. His absurdly popular music video, Gangnam Style, became the most viewed YouTube vid ...more

The last presidential debate of 2012 is over between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Governor Mitt Romney. Now it's up to you to choose your candidate by election day on November 6th, 2012, and more importantly—VOTE! If you missed any of the live streams, or jus ...more

Apple released the third beta of iOS 12 for developers on Tuesday, July 3. The update comes exactly two weeks after the release of the second developer beta, which introduced a variety of fixes as well as new issues, and just one week after the release of the public beta. Publ ...more

The iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max introduced a new rear camera system to the iOS ecosystem. Each model has a new ultra-wide lens in addition to the wide one, and the Pros have a telephoto lens. Both have improved selfie cams too. With so many lenses, it can be challenging ...more

Google always sets aside a few cool software features to remain exclusive to its Pixel phones. But that's the thing about Android: software features can be ported to other devices. Developer Pranav Pandey, whose work we've covered before, took the Pixel 4a's wallpapers APK an ...more

The OnePlus 3 and 3T are two of the most modder-friendly devices to be released in 2016. Not only that, but they're both extremely solid phones which happen to sport a very reasonable price tag. Among the things that make these devices such a joy for tinkerers is the fact that ...more

Remember the feeling you had the moment you removed your shiny new Nexus device from its packaging and booted it up for the first time? You swiped through the app drawer at lightning speed and thought to yourself, "This is the last Android phone I will ever need, they just are ...more

If you've been following NextReality, you've surely seen me around, or at least have seen my articles. My name is Jason Odom, aka Subere23, and it's about time for a formal introduction. My background primarily falls in the computer game industry, and I have co-owned a small ...more

When you hear people say that Android is more flexible than iOS, it's because of things like Tasker. You can do virtually anything with the venerable automation tool, from saving battery life to controlling your smart home with your fingerprint. But before you get to that, you ...more

If you recently received your new Galaxy S9 or S9+, you're probably excited to try out all of the features the flagship offers. While many of the features are self-explanatory and easy to access, there are a handful of very useful items that Samsung has buried in the settings ...more