Root Apps

Maybe it was the years of concerts with deafening speakers blasting music into my ears, but I always listen to my tunes as loud as the volume allows me. So, it's pretty annoying when I get a "high volume" warning every time I listen to music on my OnePlus One with my headphone ...more

Whenever a picture is sent via MMS, a certain amount of compression needs to be done in order for a carrier's network to send it. That compression is meant to ease strain on the network, but in the end it leads to heavy downsizing and increased graininess in pictures. Hangout ...more

Jotting down notes is something we all do, and with the convenience of Google Keep, it is easier than ever to have them synced across all your devices. The only downside is that they can become a huge cluster of duplicates and uselessness after a while. You could always delet ...more

As reported by Android Geeks, the Verizon variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 will finally see its update to Android 4.4 KitKat. Based on the leaked image of an internal Verizon document, the update (OTA) will be released on May 2nd. This comes about two months after all other U. ...more

If you pre-ordered your Samsung Galaxy S4, it might very well be possible that you're reading this on your brand spanking new Android device. As is commonplace with the release of popular smartphones, rooting instructions are usually released simultaneously. I mean, what's the ...more

Your Mac's Finder is an essential tool to doing all kinds of useful things, but as all the other functions on OS X get more and more complex, it seems like the Finder pretty much stays the same. It does have a simple, intuitive interface, but many users wish it could do more. ...more

As if Samsung's Galaxy series isn't already ruling the smartphone and tablet world, they've now moved on to digital point-and-shoots with their new Samsung Galaxy Camera. The smartphone/tablet/camera hybrid comes equipped with a 16-megapixel image sensor and a touchscreen equi ...more

If you are like me and you have a old iPhone and you don't want to buy a new one, you can fake your ios version by fallowing this tutorial. Just to be safe i am not responsible for what you do with this or if you mess up and wreck your phone. Plus ios and iPhone all belong to ...more

Apps can learn a lot about you just by reading information about your smartphone. They can easily track what device model you have, your phone number, and in some cases, your hardware MAC addresses. Many third-party apps will only track your device values for advertising purpo ...more

If you're using a VPN app to block ads or secure your Galaxy's internet connection, Samsung has decided you need yet another non-dismissible notification from One UI to tell you about it. Not just a status bar indicator like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but a full-size alert that can't ...more

With the files on our devices getting more important as the years go by, the need to keep things organized continues to rise. The longer you have a device, the messier the internal storage might become. Having a file manager would be extremely useful in this situation. You cou ...more

OxygenOS is often described as one of the best skins for Android on the market. It's fast, clean, and has a ton of useful features that appeal to just about everyone. However, it's also faced a significant issue for the longest time — overly aggressive battery optimizations th ...more

The OnePlus 7 Pro is definitely a beast on paper. With a specs page that ticks virtually every box and a price point that undercuts the competition by hundreds of dollars, it's hard to overlook this phone. But before you get too excited, know that OnePlus has repeatedly shown ...more

Random vibrations, ghost buzzing — whatever you call it, when your phone goes off for seemingly no reason, it's pretty frustrating. Finding the source of a phantom vibration can be almost impossible if there's no associated notification, especially given the myriad apps and sy ...more

If you aren't convinced that mobile augmented reality apps need occlusion (or you don't know what the word even means), you really need to watch the latest video from AR cloud startup 6D.ai. The 6D.ai video is titled "What is Occlusion in AR, and Why Does it Matter?" For the ...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

Customizing the lock screen, status bar, and other aspects of your Galaxy's UI usually requires root. Thankfully, Samsung has reintroduced a well-regarded app that gives you the freedom to tailor parts of your Galaxy's interface in just a few simple steps. Galaxy fans raved a ...more

Nokia's calling card used to be camera quality, a small bright spot compared to the black hole that was Windows Mobile. Since Microsoft discontinued the rarely-used operating system, Nokia phones began to run Android — and now, they're getting back to their camera-driven roots ...more

The Android version of Google Chrome only shows a home button on some devices. Unfortunately, this feature isn't available to all Android phones due to several factors. But thanks to a simple workaround, you can now enable this button and set a home page regardless of what dev ...more

It looks like Google's feud with Amazon won't end anytime soon. A war has been brewing ever since Amazon pulled Chromecast, Apple TV, and other competing devices from their store in 2015, but the latest exchange is a huge blow to people using Amazon Fire tablets and streaming ...more

Google updates the Play Store periodically, but the changes are usually subtle. A recent server-side update, however, is shaking things up quite a bit. In past versions, app installation pages have had images or videos at the top of the page to give app developers a chance to ...more

Every now and then, an iPhone will freeze up and become unresponsive due to a software glitch. It can be a buggy app that somehow interferes with iOS or a software update that somehow didn't install properly. Whatever the cause, it's safe to say that no iPhone is immune to thi ...more

One of the best things about Android is the ability to customize your phone to your liking. From changing the layout of icons to finding the perfect wallpaper to reflect your current mood, there's a wide range of tools to make your phone yours. One of the easiest ways is to t ...more

Unlike the iOS App Store, which is a one-stop shop that lets you search for and instantly download apps on your iPhone, jailbreak apps found within Cydia are far more fragmented and not as easy to source. In fact, Cydia only comes stock with a fraction of the apps and tweaks t ...more

Though the Golden State Warriors won the crown as the NBA's best team again this season, the Sacramento Kings continue their rule as the sport's technology leader, debuting their new uniforms from Nike through augmented reality today. With an assist from Zappar's augmented re ...more

Goertek's AM3D offers world-class audio processing software that powers millions of high-end devices around the world. Their biggest advancement is likely Virtual Surround Sound, which can make two speakers sound like a full 5.1 setup. You normally can't get these features on ...more

Android O doesn't have an official code name yet, but it's certainly got plenty of cool new features. The OS won't officially debut until Q3 2017, but we've gotten our hands on some of the updated stock apps thanks to the Android beta program. Developer krisyarno went ahead a ...more

SoundCloud is one of the most popular music streaming services for good reason. You can upload your own music, listen to remixes from your favorite DJ, check out the latest releases from mainstream artists, and even discover new artists. But while you've always been able to li ...more

Nobody likes ads, especially when they're tailored to your browsing history like the promoted content posts on Twitter. These deceptive advertisements are injected into your feed, trying to hijack your attention with clickbaity headlines and distracting images. You most certai ...more

Depending on your device, when you lower your brightness slider all the way to the minimum, it may still emit a considerable amount of light. This is because manufacturers have the option of setting a minimum brightness value, and while 1 would be the true minimum brightness t ...more

4DViews, the volumetric capture company that films actors and performers in augmented and virtual reality for things like movies, TV series, and applications, has just released the app 4DViews: Raise Virtual to Reality, to demonstrate its technology for smartphones. The mobil ...more

If you have stuck volume buttons, it can be a real pain to adjust sound levels since your only other option is to use the volume menu in Settings. But even if your volume rocker is working fine, it's still a little weird to have to click a mechanical button to control one of t ...more

Google made an entirely new launcher for its Pixel devices, and it's got a lot of cool features such as a swipe gesture to open your app drawer and an entire home screen page dedicated to Google search. We've already shown you how to get this so-called Pixel Launcher on other ...more

Skype is one of the most popular messaging and video chat services for a good reason—it's packed to the brim with tons of cool features. But one bit of functionality that Microsoft left out is the ability to block friend requests from people that aren't in your contacts, which ...more

Android clearly wasn't made with bilingual users in mind. When you set a default system locale, every app on your phone uses that region's language—and there's no granular control here. This really becomes an issue if you use social media or news apps that are primarily in a d ...more

When you're on the road, the last thing you need to be doing is fumbling around with your phone. But with online radio services like Spotify and Google Play Music, you almost have to use your phone to play music through your stereo, because the in-dash head units on most cars ...more

The VLC Player app for Android has a really nice feature that allows you to adjust brightness and volume by sliding your finger up or down on the left or right side of your screen, respectively. It helps keep you immersed in the video while you're in full screen mode, since yo ...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

Google's YouTube Red is an awesome service, particularly in the United States where it comes bundled with a subscription to Google Play Music. You don't have to worry about ever seeing ads again on any videos, you can continue playback after you exit the YouTube app or even wh ...more

Ever since developer bponury created his TouchControl app for the Galaxy Nexus back in 2011, manufacturers and modders alike have been racing to re-implement the "Double-tap-to-wake" functionality it brought to the table. We've seen LG do it with their "Knock On" feature, we'v ...more

The Google Cast feature that serves as the primary interface for the Chromecast and comes bundled with Android TV devices like the Nexus Player is a marvel of modern technology. But as these things go, troubleshooting issues can be difficult with something so groundbreaking, e ...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 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

Hackers have stolen over 225,000 Apple user's account information from countries all over the world—including the United States, China, and France—in what many are reporting to be the biggest known Apple hack in history. Using a type of malware dubbed “KeyRaider,” hackers hav ...more

The transition from Android KitKat to Lollipop was pretty drastic in the looks department. Google's new Material Design guidelines changed the way many parts of the UI function, like the notification drawer, status bar, and most notably, the lock screen. Don't Miss: How to Pr ...more

The Samsung Galaxy S6 includes a pretty nifty feature known as "Gesture wake up," which lets users wave their hand over their locked display to wake it, making those periodic notification checks from the lock screen a lot more simple than having to press the power or home key ...more

Have you ever had one of your Android games post a notification in a lame attempt to remind you to play? This is becoming a common practice these days, and to me, it's about as annoying as a Best Buy blue shirt when I'm just trying to check out the latest TVs. Or perhaps you' ...more

The EFS partition on modern Android phones houses the unique IMEI for your device, which is essentially an identification number that lets you connect to mobile networks. But sometimes, when you're flashing ROMs or restoring backups in custom recovery, the EFS partition can be ...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

Sony's Xperia line of smartphones are beautifully crafted and have many great features. But considering the fact that Sony has evolved into a media company over the last two decades, it's their media-related apps that stand out the most. Just recently, they've updated their s ...more

Apple's latest round of devices—including the MacBook Pro, Apple Watch, and the iPhone 6S—use a new touch input method that can detect when you've applied a bit more force than usual. Dubbed "Force Touch" ("3D Touch" on the new iPhones), this gesture simulates a long-press or ...more

For every contact photo you add, Android keeps two copies. The first is stored at a 720p resolution, and this is used for high-definition imagery when you're looking at a full-sized contact card. But the second image is only 96 pixels by 96 pixels, and this is used for all thu ...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

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

They might be a little late to the party, but the Cyanogen team has finally released their newest ROM for the OnePlus One, Cyanogen OS 12. The launch had to be pushed back a few times due to some technical issues, but now we finally get to see what the Cyanogen team has cooked ...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

The Gmail app recently became stock Android's central hub for all of your email accounts. Instead of being limited to just Gmail accounts, the app can now handle POP3, IMAP, and exchange service email accounts, making it a one-stop shop for all of your emailing needs. But the ...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

If you're like me, you probably encounter the lock screen on your Android device more than any other screen. Every time you check for new notifications out of habit, or simply pull your phone out to see the time, the lock screen is front and center. For being such an importan ...more

Carriers really suck, don't they? We constantly have to monitor our data usage, even though many of us are on "unlimited" plans, which, in reality, will just be throttled to a slower 2G or 3G connection when we hit a certain download threshold. Even when we're not actively us ...more