As the granddaddy of all gesture-based keyboards, Swype has seen quite a few updates in its day. A recent version bump, however, added a feature that has been universally panned by Swype users.
Android's lock screen has evolved quite a bit over the years. From the Donut days of two tabs that launched the phone app and unlocked the device, to KitKat's clean and simple approach, shortcuts have come and gone.
We've previously covered an app called YouTube Floating Popup Player which let you watch YouTube videos anywhere on your Android device, but it has since been removed from the Google Play Store due to infringement of certain policies.
A new API in Android Lollipop allows apps to color the status bar to match their overall theme. Google billed this as a more immersive user experience that allows app developers to extend their color branding even further. It certainly seems like a win-win on the surface, but unfortunately, not many apps are using this feature yet.
Lollipop brought a complete visual overhaul to Android, and while the vast majority of changes have been met with praise, some UI tweaks missed their mark.
When my girlfriend told be about a Trivia Crack cheat she discovered, I was a little dubious. Then, after witnessing her trick in action and trying it out myself, my faith in the popular trivia game was forever tainted.
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.
When you hear a song you like but can't quite catch enough of its lyrics, it can be nearly impossible to search for it online. That's where Shazam comes in. For the past decade, they've been making music easier for us to identify by analyzing a track's acoustic footprint, requiring only a few seconds of audio for accurate identification.
The Nexus 6 came with a hidden kernel module that allowed for double-tap-to-wake functionality, essentially letting you turn your screen on just by tapping it. A simple root app allowed us to activate this feature, which meant we were always two quick taps away from waking our device.
Step 1: Introduction: Hello! Hackers
With Android devices getting bigger by the year, you'd think there would be a native multitasking solution by now. While Samsung and LG have included such features in their customized builds of Android, the stock base that manufacturers start with still doesn't include multitasking support.
Android Lollipop promises tons of new features and functionality when it comes to a device near you, but as we wait, it's almost painful to see the screenshots and demo videos from Nexus devices and how downright pretty the new operating system looks.
I once had a collection of over 300 different wallpapers for my MacBook, set to randomly change every 30 minutes. Needless to say, my desktop never got boring. Wallpapers can facilitate a mood, imply a political stance, or just add aesthetic appeal, so having to manually change them on my iPhone is a bummer because of how many times I want a new home or lock screen look.
I've been lucky enough to never be a victim of street crime, but I have read and seen too many articles and videos to completely rule it out as a possibility. You can do some things to prevent it, but if your life suddenly turns into a scene from Friday the 13th, you'll want to be prepared with some sort of way to let others know you need help. This is where Shake2Safety comes in, a free Android app from Phontonapps.
Android's biggest selling point over alternatives like iOS or Windows Phone is the level of customization that it offers. If you don't like something about the UI, you can change it, whether it's as small as an icon set or as big as the entire home screen.
Battery life is extremely unpredictable on an Android. Finding the right ROM and kernel combo can make or break having the kind of battery that will last you all day long. Even if you do find the perfect pair, you then have to worry about apps, widgets, and other processes constantly waking your phone and draining your juice. While your media scanner isn't the biggest battery hog out there, it can definitely take a chunk out of it.
Android's beauty is in its customization; you can have widgets for anything, launchers that look and feel completely different from one another, and fonts you can change at any time. And it doesn't stop at aesthetics—you can go much deeper than looks.
Whether you use a third-party keyboard or the stock offering, your Samsung device keeps a history of the last 20 words you copied on its clipboard. Samsung added this feature to Android to help make multitasking a bit easier, but if you use a password manager like LastPass, this feature quickly becomes a gaping hole in security. While you're copying and pasting your various passwords, the last 20 of them become freely available to anyone that gets their hands on your device.
One of the Note 3's best features is Multi Window mode, which allows users to display more than one app on the screen at the same time, taking advantage of the large and high-resolution display.
Apple introduced Touch ID on the iPhone 5S back in 2013, which let you unlock the device with your fingerprint. While it was an impressive feature, it could only do that one thing—unlock the device.
The attention to detail and build quality that Motorola put into the new Nexus 6 is amazing. Its curved backplate fits the hand like a glove, and fingers slide effortlessly across the rounded edge of its glass front, making the swipe gesture for side navigation menus feel more natural than ever—even for its huge, nearly six inch display.
Social media is constantly evolving, and as a result, we're now capable of sharing much more than we were even just a few years ago. Television, on the other hand, continues to hold strong as one of America's favorite pastimes.
How many times do you think you press the Home button on your iPhone? You probably can't place a number on it, but you know it's a lot.
We recently showed you YouTube's new music streaming service, YouTube Music Key, with it's promise of ad-free music complete with background listening and offline play. Well, if you check your YouTube app, there's a good chance that Google flipped on the service for you. Activate the Service
If you're struggling with freeing up space on your iPhone thanks to your massive collection of photos and videos, there's a feature in iOS 8 that could help you get some of that much-needed internal storage back while giving you more room in the future.
The Google Calendar app hasn't really changed much over the years. As a pre-installed staple on most Android devices, the interface is definitely lacking in some areas. Google knows this, and has plans in the pipeline to completely revamp Calendar's UI alongside Android 5.0's official release.
Whether if it's to play games or watch Netflix or YouTube, children love using our smartphones and tablets. As an uncle of many, I don't mind my nieces and nephews using my gear, but I do mind them opening apps they have no business being in, like my photo gallery or messaging app.
As much as it pained me to lose lock screen widget functionality, I just can't bare changing out the sleek-looking lock screen that's standard on the OnePlus One. The latest OTA introduced a new transparent theme, and while that's a welcomed improvement, I need more options!
By eliminating the need for hard keys on phones, manufacturers are able to use that extra space for a larger display, which is clearly evident on the bezel-minimal LG G3. In order to replace the physical home, back, and app switcher keys, we now have stylish soft keys.
While I consider myself to be a pretty organized guy, there are often times where I just can't find a file I put on my phone. Most of the time, when I download a file it goes automatically into my Download folder, but when I use a third-party to download other files, like torrents, they could end up in a number of places. Filtering abilities on file explorers often fall short, so it was time to find an app that would automatically sort files in real time.
Now that you've updated your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to iOS 8, there's a lot of cool new things to explore. If you felt a little overwhelmed from all of the detailed information available in our Coolest Hidden Features of iOS 8 post, then I've got a simple breakdown of all of the new features available with quick links to their walkthroughs and pictures, if available. Watch the short video roundup, or skip below for the list.
With recent security breaches in the news, there is no better time than the present to make sure you know exactly what's happening on your device.
Despite what some in the tech-world would like you to believe, iOS isn't totally locked down, free from user customization. Take your home screen, for example. Not only can you change your app icons and move them wherever you'd like, you can actually choose to hide them all. If you have a wallpaper that's just begging to be shown off, this trick is for you.
Bluetooth has been a staple on every Android smartphone ever since they began taking over our lives. Despite the fact that every device seems to have the ability to share files with one another, there is a limit to the types of files that can be shared between them.
Your device has several volume levels that are regularly adjusted: the alarm, media, and ringer. Keeping track of the various volumes on a device can become an easy-to-forget task, potentially resulting in you not hearing an alarm in the morning, as you have to enter the sound options or trigger a volume change, then expand the dialog box that pops up.
Chances are that you're living in a city and/or state that's banned using your phone while driving, and because of that, many manufactures have added a "car mode" to their devices. In most instances, this mode is simply an app that simplifies your phone to its basic parts so you can navigate, make calls, and play music, limiting the amount of smartphone distractions.
I'm always looking for the best apps and services for my Android, and that means sticking strictly to the Google Play Store is a no-go. If you're like me and tend to install a lot of APKs (application files), you're probably tired of seeing the "Install" confirmation that always pops up.
Some apps have a nasty habit of ignoring your Android's auto-rotation settings and locking the display into either portrait or landscape orientation.
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 tasks.
In the past few weeks, the internet has been abuzz with nightmarish horror stories of Comcast's questionable decision-making and downright terrible customer service. The central theme of many of these disputes with the nation's largest cable provider is that without evidence, the conglomerate will refuse to acknowledge its mistake and place the burden of proof on the customer.
