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Apple has seemingly always made it a priority to show how much it cares about user security and privacy — enough that it has a page dedicated to it, proclaiming that "privacy is a fundamental human right." It's true that there are few issues more important than user privacy wh ...more

Your HTC EVO 4G LTE has been lying to you. It will tell you when you're connected to a 4G network, but it will say 3G even if you're connected on 1X, which is a 2G CDMA network! This issue is just one of the many things you can fix after rooting, which allows you to take full ...more

When it comes to paying with Apple Pay, showing your rewards number or coupon at a store, or paying for your coffee with a digital gift card, Apple Wallet is as convenient as it gets. But one issue you'll probably experience at least once on your iPhone is a persistent notific ...more

In a departure from Apple's newer iPhone models with Face ID technology, the 2020 iPhone SE goes back to the old days where the Home button ruled, and Touch ID was the biometrics method. But if you've never owned an older iPhone with a Home button, something as simple as shutt ...more

Google has finally announced the newest flavor of its mobile OS, Android L (Lollipop?), and I couldn't be more excited. While we won't see its official release until the fall, there are still some features we can get our hands on right now. Most of the Google Apps require you ...more

By far, one of the biggest advantages to having a jailbroken iPhone is being able to apply custom themes to Apple's user interface and truly set your device apart from the rest of the crowd. And if you want to change your iPhone's app icons from rounded squares to circles for ...more

Like insurance, it's always better to have a computer mouse and not need it than to need it and not have it. Honestly, I don't want to carry around a clunky mouse with my laptop, so I don't. I do something else, something more convenient. I use my Nexus 7. If you want to give ...more

Samsung has made curved displays a signature element of their flagship phones, but the Edge Screen, as it's called, has proven to be a magnet for accidental touches. Fortunately, Samsung has developed a little known app to help prevent this problem. The app — aptly named Edge ...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

Group chats in WhatsApp are great for communicating with multiple people at once, but that can be a blessing and a curse — any message you send will be seen by everyone, and that's not always ideal. Thankfully, there's a new feature that lets you respond to group messages priv ...more

CarPlay is no doubt the best way to use your iPhone when behind the wheel since you can safely drive without too many distractions. It gets even better with all the music and podcasting apps available, as well as third-party navigation apps such as Google Maps and Waze. With m ...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

Everyone from first responders to hotel cleaning staff use radios operating in the sub-megahertz range to communicate, often without even encoding the transmission. While encoding and encryption are increasingly used in radio communication, an RTL-SDR adapter and smartphone ar ...more

The Xposed Framework offers many great customization options for your Galaxy S5. S Health, with its ability to read your heart rate through a built-in monitor, is one of the main selling points of the GS5. Trouble is, the two don't seem to play nice together. Many users (myse ...more

Facebook is really good at two things: connecting people all over the world and force-feeding changes to its users (ahem...Facebook Messenger). Now, its most recent "feature" adds the ability to auto-enhance all photos uploaded from its mobile app. So, if you think you are gr ...more

When WhatsApp first came out in 2010, it quickly gained notoriety as a great way to meet new people all over the world thanks to group chats, which allow multiple admins for each group that can all add participants from their own contacts lists. As a repair tech, I would buy ...more

I never want to bump into my ex-girlfriend while out in the city (talk about a buzz kill), so if I could get an alert telling me that she's at Shortstops down the street, I'll avoid that area completely. This is where the new, interesting app Cloak - Incognito Mode for Real Li ...more

Google's been using their "Material Design" look in Android for years now, but a change is coming up with "Material Design 2," their updated version focusing on new colors, icons, and spacing. Whether it'll be called "Material Design 2" or not remains to be seen, but you can t ...more

One of the downsides of living in an unprecedented age of connectivity is the near-constant bombardment of information. WhatsApp, the go-to messaging app for people the world over, is just as susceptible to buildup of useless media files, thanks to awesome features that allow ...more

Not too long after getting a new device, you probably start installing any and all apps that seem fun and interesting. But after having used the device for a considerable period of time, those extraneous apps begin to take their toll. These could be apps you've used once or t ...more

With Android 5.0, Google introduced a new "Heads Up" notification system for incoming calls and messages. While the new incoming call interface seems to be a rousing success, the rest of the Heads Up system has been met with much less enthusiasm from users. For one, the notif ...more

If your job revolves around prospective clients and customers, you may frequently receive iMessages from unknown numbers. Although this isn't necessarily a bad thing, being bombarded with messages from strangers can create disarray in your inbox if you're not careful. Luckily, ...more

When you open Safari for the first time after updating to iOS 15, you'll instantly notice its search bar is now at the bottom, and its Page Settings menu has moved with it. For tabs, moving between them is as easy as swiping on the Tab Bar or selecting one from the new grid vi ...more

Want to make your own glass drinking cups? You don't need to be a glassworker to get creative. Just recycle some of your old beer, soda, or wine bottles into stylish toothbrush holders or glass cups. You can tie a loop of string that was dipped in nail polish remover around a ...more

The YouTube app for Android doesn't exactly offer the greatest user experience. For one thing, it opens to an arbitrary "Home" tab instead of your subscriptions, so you see a list of what YouTube thinks you want to watch instead of your favorite channels. In addition to that, ...more

The iPhone has a handy feature called AssistiveTouch that lets you quickly adjust volume, lock your screen, rotate your display, and even navigate through the phone's interface using a virtual home button. In a way, it's a lot like the on-screen navigation bar that you'll find ...more

Apple's new iOS 16 software update is finally here, and there are over 350 new features and changes for you to enjoy on your iPhone. There are major lock screen and home screen improvements, a pleasant surprise for the Contacts app, and tons of new upgrades to Safari, Mail, Me ...more

Alright, I'll admit it, iOS can be quite nice. Android loyalist that I may be, I'm not so stubborn that I can't recognize a good thing when I see it. Apple's iOS has a lot of strengths, and our Nexus 4s, god bless 'em, are growing a little long in the tooth. But the Android p ...more

Samsung has had a rich screenshot editor in TouchWiz for years, and Apple even added a similar feature to iOS 11. Until now, stock Android has lagged behind in this area, but that's finally fixed in Android 9.0 Pie. Screenshot editing in Android Pie is actually rather intuiti ...more

So you spent all day customizing your phone. You tinkered with all the settings, searched the web high and low for the perfect wallpaper, and found an ideal icon pack to complement the color scheme. You go to sleep, proud of the work you accomplished when the unspeakable happe ...more

With the recent launch of the developer preview for Android 9.0 Pie, many are clamoring to get their hands on some of the new features. Unfortunately for most Android users, Android Pie will not arrive on their device until 2019. The good news is you can add one of Android Pie ...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

Playlists are a vital feature for any music streaming service. For many, the ability to add and organize songs into the perfect order is a deciding factor in which streaming service to choose. The folks at Tidal (including owner Jay-Z) certainly recognize this, as they've prov ...more

While certainly faster than writing by hand, manually typing passages from a book or document can be slow and frustrating. But thanks to Google Assistant, this is no longer the case. Whether you need to quote text for an essay or need to win an online argument, all you need to ...more

All across the world, Nexus 7s have been secretly living a double life. The clean, simple look of the stock Holo user interface is nice if minimalism is your thing, but to softModders like me, Holo is bare, lacking style, overly blue, and an eyesore. It gets the job done, but ...more

I was skeptical when I first heard about GifWidget, an Android widget that lets you place GIFs on your home screen. As much as I love GIFs, did I really need to see this, this, this, or this, or even this, forever repeating on my phone? But then I tried out GifWidget, and sud ...more

With every flagship device they release, Samsung makes sure to add in at least a few little software goodies. Last year's Galaxy Note5 was no exception, because among other things, Samsung included a revamped version of their useful utility called Air Command that gave users q ...more

Whether you use VSCO to take all of your photos or you use it primarily to edit photos you take with others apps on your iOS or Android phone, you're at some point going to want your VSCO pics to end up in your Camera Roll or Gallery. VSCO doesn't add them there by default, bu ...more

A VPN service is almost an essential these days. Good ones can block ads, prevent tracking cookies, encrypt your internet traffic for better security, and even spoof your device's location to bypass geo-restrictions — all things you should be concerned about in the age of NSA ...more

We all know Google keeps a history of everything we do on our phones unless we say otherwise. However, you might not realize just how detailed it is until you check it for yourself — even the actions you do in each app are tracked by default. Even if you aren't trying to hide ...more

So, you're on the way back from a restaurant and realize you left your iPhone there, but you're late for a meeting and can't go back yet. You may as well kiss that iPhone goodbye, right? Not yet, as long as the right person gets their hands on it first. But that potential do-g ...more

The Google Phone app is one of the best dialers for Android today, especially with all of the unique and exciting features it brings to the table. Unfortunately, without owning a Pixel phone, you are unable to officially download the app, making a modified version your only op ...more

Google's new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL have a new camera mode called "Motion Photos." As the name implies, it's quite similar to Apple's Live Photos feature or HTC's Zoe before it. For every picture you take, a few seconds of video footage from before and after the shot was taken ...more

TouchWiz might not be the Android skin of choice for hardcore aficionados, but the Galaxy's OS still has a ton of great features up its sleeve that help provide one of the most enjoyable smartphone experiences out there. Many of these are relatively hidden and overlooked featu ...more

On Android, you can connect your PayPal account to Google Pay so that you can use that as a payment option when checking out with Google's digital wallet platform. It even works across Google services like the Play Store, Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Store. If you have an iP ...more

If you have a Chromecast or Android TV, you can mirror your phone's display to the big screen. It's helpful for showing off something you found interesting without having to pass your phone around the living room, but the actual process of casting your screen is a bit clunky. ...more

It's easier than ever to toggle your iPhone's flashlight (or torch) on and off. From your lock screen, home screen, or from within any app, most iPhone models will let you enable or disable the flashlight from the Control Center, via the Notification Center, or with Siri. But ...more

The OnePlus 6 is finally in customers' hands along with its top-of-the-line specs — and yes, a notch. But you can start getting some of their stock apps as early as today, thanks to XDA user erayrafet, who ported this Weather app directly from the source. The stock OnePlus We ...more

An app can request a wakelock to prevent your Android device from entering sleep mode so that it can sync data in the background. This obviously drains your battery, because instead of running in low-power sleep mode, your processor is fully activated while it performs its tas ...more

You can double-tap most maps on your iPhone to zoom in, and tap once with two fingers to zoom out. And I'm sure you're more than familiar with the pinch gesture for zooming. But there's an even better way to zoom in and out on maps, and you can do it with one hand tied behind ...more

Android Beam is one of those features that makes you look at technology in awe, wondering how exactly something like that works. From a user's standpoint, you simply bring two devices together back to back, and what you're seeing on one screen almost immediately appears on th ...more

Some phones have a feature that turns your screen white for a second when you're taking a selfie in dim lighting. This does a great job of illuminating your face in a pinch, but there are two problems with it: First, not all phones have the feature, and second, it doesn't work ...more

Smartphone hardware surpassed the most popular portable game devices long ago in all but one category — control. Your iPhone is more than capable of running impressive, fully-realized games, but touch controls only go so far. That's why it's so exciting that Apple has added su ...more

While it may be impolite to play around on a smartphone at dinner, having it consume my attention while I'm on a deadline or trying to study can prove disastrous. With Netflix and social media just a tap away, it's a dangerous game of wills, one that the phone usually wins. F ...more

The OnePlus 5 doesn't have too many weak spots, at least not when you consider the price. But you might feel that the company with the slogan, "Never Settle," might have actually settled a bit with its camera. The OnePlus 5 and 5T don't have bad imaging specs, but they could u ...more

Unless you own a Samsung device, your Android's navigation buttons have probably always been in this order (from left to right): "Back," "Home," "Recent Apps." But depending on which hand you use to hold your phone, this may not be the most ergonomic layout for you. So the le ...more

There's no shortage of cool customizations for my Samsung Galaxy S3, except when it comes to the launcher. Sure, there a ton of Android launchers out there, like Nova Launcher or Apex Launcher, that allow you to customize app placement, app grouping, infinite scrolling, etc. T ...more

MLB.TV is a great service that lets you watch most Major League Baseball games in North America, as long as you're a subscriber, of course. While I personally love it, blackouts can ruin the ability to watch my favorite teams. Fortunately, MLB At Bat Android users have an easy ...more

Your computer has a lot of physical keys. Your iPhone has, at most, four hardware buttons, none of which are used for typing. That means the software has to power the same typing tools you'd find on your Mac or PC, only on a touchscreen. As such, some features, such as the ind ...more