Now on Tap

Brace yourselves, because Siri has a trick up its sleeve that iPhone users have wanted for some time. Yep, that's right, I'm talking about the ability to use Siri without having to talk out loud for the whole world to hear. It's great for privacy, Siri-ing on the down-low when ...more

The idea of squeezing your phone might have sounded a bit out there when it was new, but it's now a hallmark feature on Pixel devices. As useful as it is for summoning the Google Assistant, however, it certainly would be nice to be able pick and choose what action is triggered ...more

Android's permissions system is simple, transparent, and straightforward. When installing an app, you get a chance to review all of the permissions that the app has requested. These can range from accessing your location data to holding a "wakelock" in order to prevent your ph ...more

Instagram can be pretty exact when it comes to where you are located. That's why, sometimes, it's best never to geotag your precise location, but a broader area where you are less likely to get, well, um ... stalked? So yeah. A good thing to do, especially if you are posting ...more

Around the end of each year, Spotify offers a year-in-review service so its users can see what they listened to the past year and share their listening histories in fun infographics. Apple Music does not have such a feature, unfortunately, but there is a way to curb that FOMO ...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

It has not been a good year for Apple, as far as software scandals are concerned. From autocorrect nuisances to secret slowdowns of aging iPhones, Apple has had a lot to answer for. iOS users now have another issue to worry about — it's being called "chaiOS," and it's wrecking ...more

From its introduction and all the way through iOS 11, FaceTime has been restricted to one-on-one calls. Apple will be changing that in a future iOS 12 update with Group FaceTime, which adds support for up to 32 people total in group audio and video calls. But that's not all we ...more

I'm a notification minimalist. When I get alerts, I want to deal with them ASAP. If the time is not right and I want to reference the notification later, snoozing was always the best course of action. But in Android 10, Google tucked away snoozing, so here's how to get it back ...more

On April 3, 2018, Snapchat announced that the phone and video calling feature that's long been a feature of one-on-one calls would be coming to group chats. Well, late on Monday, April 17, the feature was finally pushed out to everyone for Snapchat groups on Android and iPhone ...more

Google Photos is a fantastic service, giving you unlimited storage on either your Android or iPhone. With all this free space, some pictures can get lost in the shuffle. Fortunately, Google will now let users "Favorite" pictures — whereupon they're automatically put in their o ...more

Venmo makes it incredibly convenient to send money to friends and family, and it all happens instantly from the comfort of your smartphone. Even better, if you have an iPhone, Venmo lets you conduct transactions straight from the default Messages app, giving you more flexibili ...more

Apple's Mail app has always been a stylish yet simple way to check and send emails. Third-party apps up the ante with powerful tools and features to help keep junk and spam mail out of your eyesight. But with iOS 13, you don't need them since Apple gave the Mail app some much- ...more

Let's face it, the stock YouTube app for Android kinda sucks. It has limited capabilities, at-time wavering connectivity, and the pop-up player it comes with is just not very good. If you want to enhance your mobile YouTube experience to how it should be, the answer lies withi ...more

One of the first orders of business after purchasing a new smartphone is to load up your shiny new toy with phone numbers, email addresses, and general contact information for all the important people in your life. Don't Miss: Android Basics: Get Started with Your New Smartph ...more

Gingerbread almost always requires eggs. Gingerbread cookies, on the other hand, aren't as dependent on them. But when dealing with the sophisticated recipe for Android 2.3 Gingerbread, it couldn't be completely baked without an egg or two. More specifically— an Easter egg. G ...more

With smartphone makers ditching the headphone jack in the hopes of a truly wireless future, we're having to rely on Bluetooth devices like earbuds and headphones more and more. But the downside here is that these devices aren't physically connected to your phone in any way, wh ...more

Coinbase has become the most popular mobile wallet app due in large part to its user-friendliness. The app takes the hassle out of buying and selling Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC), letting Android and iPhone users alike trade their favor ...more

Smartphone displays are getting bigger every year, and Samsung devices are at the forefront of that trend. But, from a software standpoint, the icons, buttons, and other on-screen elements seem to stay at the same scale. So while phones are getting bigger, their interfaces are ...more

The Google Chrome browser does mostly everything well and integrates nicely with other Google services, but it's not exactly renowned for speed. With a rooted device and the aid of an app called Kernel Adiutor, however, you can make Chrome as nimble as some of the fastest brow ...more

Removing unwanted apps from your iPhone is a straightforward affair — long-press an app's icon, then hit the delete button once it appears. Unfortunately, the same can't be said when it comes to uninstalling tweaks from a jailbroken iPhone. Many tweaks aren't very polished, a ...more

As a root user, you have a lot of responsibilities to make sure your phone stays secure. Expectedly, some things may slip through the cracks. Remembering to check which apps have been granted root access is extremely important. All it takes is one bad app, so it's good to lear ...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 Pie has finally made its way to signature Galaxy devices like the Note 9, S9 and S8. As you all know, Samsung Experience got a major makeover and has been renamed to One UI, featuring significant aesthetic changes to many of its native apps. The Phone app, in particul ...more

If you're like me, then you've got an incredibly complicated Wi-Fi password with uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. When friends or family come over, it can be really hard to relay the password correctly. Repeating it out loud is usually hit or ...more

Apple just rolled out the of iOS 14.5 to developers and beta testers, and one of the headlining features is the ability to keep your iPhone unlocked when your Apple Watch is nearby. As these things tend to go, Android has actually had this same feature for years, though it isn ...more

Bookmarks and favorites are handy options for saving interesting websites you come across while surfing the web on Android but are far from ideal when it comes to instant access. Thankfully, Google Chrome gives you the added ability to save webpages and progressive web apps di ...more

TWRP is a name many are familiar with since it allows your Android device to install any custom file of your choosing. You can create a NANDroid backup to keep your data safe or even use Magisk to achieve full root access. In fact, TWRP is often seen as the gateway to modding ...more

For a built-in app, Notes works pretty well and can stack up against some of the best third-party note-taking tools. Apple continues to update it with each iteration of iOS, adding new features and improving existing ones to make jotting down your daily thoughts a smooth and e ...more

There's a feature hiding in your iPhone's Mail app you may have missed but should definitely know about. It gives you quick access to something you'd typically have to dig around in folders to find. What is this something? The drafts for all your email accounts. When you nee ...more

Google Keep now has a dark mode. If your device is running Android 10, it kicks in automatically when you turn on the system-wide dark theme. If your device is not running Android 10, you will have to manually switch on dark mode for each app, including Keep. The benefits of d ...more

Unlike many browsers, Firefox gives a lot of control to the user. By default, Firefox does a great job of balancing security and performance. However, within the app's settings, you can modify options to shift this balance in one direction or another. For those looking to shif ...more

Swipe actions are an integral multitasking feature of any good email client, and Outlook is no exception. The application allows for two swipe actions at a time, but offers seven total options for those actions. We'll show you how to choose which actions go with which swipes t ...more

Since its humble beginnings on the iPhone 4S, Siri has come a long way. While each iteration of iOS sees new features for the iPhone assistant, iOS 12 offers users some of the best advancements in Siri we've seen in a long time, not the least of which is support for Shortcuts, ...more

If you're still using a third-party task manager on your iPhone, you might want to check out Apple's updated Reminders app. With each new update, Reminders gets more powerful yet remains one of the simplest task managers to use, and iOS 17's new to-do list features reinforce t ...more

Safari's massive upgrade in Apple's latest iPhone software update includes new features you won't find in any other web browsers on iOS, from better ways to stay organized to enhanced security and further privacy protections. Apple's latest Safari improvements make web browsi ...more

One of the biggest hurdles for making touchscreen text input easy on the user has been finding a simple way to move the cursor around. With all the advancements in mobile technology, we're still left fumbling around with tiny arrow indicators or magnifying glasses when we need ...more

If you're new to MyFitnessPal, it might seem daunting. The app is way more than just a calorie counter, but that's because getting fit is just as much about changing your lifestyle as it is about watching what you eat. So don't let it overwhelm you — there are just a handful o ...more

Thanks to live-streaming video and social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, we're all on camera nowadays. Unfortunately, though, we don't have a script to work with when we're shooting selfie videos, so it's hard to come off as perfectly eloquent when you're j ...more

I'm a textaholic, as I've said many times before, but even textaholics forget to respond sometimes. When I'm watching a YouTube clip or devouring delicious snacks in Candy Crush Saga, I'll often ignore incoming texts and forget to respond later. Some of this forgetfulness cou ...more

Bitmoji are personalized emoji that look like you and can be used to make funny memes or snappy replies. Normally, you have to find one of these reaction emojis in the Bitmoji app, then use Android's share menu to send it to the app where you ultimately want to post it, but th ...more

There's no shortage of reasons to love the One, yet a feature curiously omitted from the device, much to the chagrin of power users, is a multitasking button. Most Android devices, in addition to 'home' and 'back' keys, have a 'multitasking' key which opens a task switcher an ...more

One of the best things about Android is being able to control everything you want, from your wallpaper down to the default apps you use for every action. Changing the default SMS app from the one that came with your device can drastically alter your messaging experience. Many ...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

If you've read or watched anything Harry Potter before, you know friendship and teamwork are huge parts of the story. The same goes for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, with its "Wizarding Challenges." Here, you can tackle Fortresses full of Foes alone, but why do that when you ca ...more

Over a billion people use WhatsApp, which makes it the most popular standalone messaging service out there. But if you're one of the many people whose group of friends relies on WhatsApp for all communication, chances are, you have several years-long messaging threads with all ...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

Update: HBO discontinued this service. Your best bet for transferring your data from one account to another is to save a record of your watch list. That way, you can add your titles back manually with your new account. Now that you can add an HBO Now subscription to your Hulu ...more

Life is all about spending time together with loved ones, experiencing new places together to enjoy and create memorable moments. Luckily, Google has made it easier for us to rendezvous with friends and family at specific places by letting us broadcast our locations using Goog ...more

The default Camera app on your iPhone can take some pretty incredible photos during the day. Newer iPhone models can even make nighttime shots look good. But you can't just point and shoot if you want to capture some pretty spectacular fireworks photos on July 4th, New Year's ...more

YouTube may have started out as a video-sharing site, but these days a lot of people use it as a source for music. When I'm browsing the internet on my desktop, I usually have a YouTube tab open in the background playing some music. Unfortunately this isn't something you can ...more

One of the best parts of being an Android user is the countless awesome features. Many of these features are well-known and user-facing, like custom icon packs and launchers, but some get lost in the shuffle. Back at Google I/O 2016, Android Instant Apps were introduced to dev ...more

This week, Apple announced the beta version of its new wireless, cloud-based service, iCloud. I wrote a summary of it here. The iCloud service includes some new features in the latest version of the iTunes Store, which allows you to access all your iTunes songs, mobile apps, a ...more

By default, when there's a new event in Samsung's Calendar app, it pops up with an obnoxious full-screen window to let you know. Thankfully, there's a way to turn these into regular notifications. You could always disable the Samsung Calendar app and use a different app inste ...more

What can be said about Spotify that most of us don't already know? It's the most popular digital music streaming service out there, giving you access to millions of songs on your computer. However, the mobile service was once an exclusive feature for paid subscribers. Not anym ...more

Creating interesting photographs used to be more fun, before we all collectively decided that color filters and rotations qualified as "unique" smartphone pics. Scrolling through my Instagram feed only confirms that these supposedly special, filter-laden photos are actually th ...more

When you're flashing a custom ROM with TWRP recovery, it's almost never just one ZIP. Instead, you have to flash the ROM file, the Gapps, a custom kernel, and maybe even Xposed or Magisk, which results in a lot of back-and-forth. Thankfully, it doesn't have to be this way. If ...more