At the core of your Galaxy S5's hardware lies the central processing unit, or CPU for short. Practically every piece of data, every binary bit, has to pass through your CPU before it can be used to display a video or execute a game command.
When Google released Android 4.2, a new feature was introduced for tablets that allowed for multiple accounts to be used on a single device. In order to create a unique experience for each user, apps and personal data were kept separate, and switching between users became as simple as tapping your profile photo from the lock screen.
Over the course of covering the Nexus 5 for the last 6 months, I've come to realize that almost every hack out there will work for this device. I also cover the Galaxy S5, and let me tell you—hardly any of the cool mods I come across work for that phone. In this regard, we are downright spoiled as Nexus owners.
The Android lock screen interface is an integral part of our everyday use. For those of us who use lock screen security, it functions as a barrier between the sensitive data contained within our smartphones and potential outside access. Even if you don't use a pattern or PIN to secure your phone, you still interact with the lock screen every time you go to use it.
Apple has Siri, Google has its Now service, and Microsoft has Cortana. All of these voice-activated services can bring you information quickly and easily without having to type anything into your smartphone. Speak and within seconds you're provided with either an answer or somewhere you can find it.
Before your carrier got its grubby little hands on your Galaxy S5, there was less bloatware installed and more functionality offered by the Samsung flagship device. Case in point: the GS5 that Samsung designed was capable of recording phone calls, yet the one that you own probably isn't.
Yes, I know. Nexus owners aren't exactly the biggest Apple fans out there. That "Pure Android" experience was one of the main reasons we bought our Nexus devices. But give the other side some credit—the iPhone's operating system has come along way, and is still the champ when it comes to aesthetic design (at least until Material Design dethrones it this fall).
Tab previews—you can do it on an iPhone or an Android device, so why not on your Mac or PC? It's about time you take your browsing game to the next level and learn how to toggle between previews of your tabbed webpages.
As Matias Duarte and the team over at Google's Android Design department ready their wares, they've given us a preview version of the upcoming "L" release of Android to try out.
The new preview build of Android is out, and it looks good. But if you're not quite ready to install Android L on your phone, there's still another way to enjoy some of these new visual elements on your Nexus device.
I am not a morning person. This is a fact that has been proven with science. I need every bit of help to get me out of bed in the morning—multiple alarms, extremely loud tones, Pandora—I've tried everything.
The debate between physical and virtual navigation buttons and their respective benefits has been going on for a few years now. It looks to finally be settled, with the Samsung Galaxy S5 being the only current-generation flagship Android phone that has yet make the switch to on-screen buttons.
Most variants of the Galaxy S5 come with the gesture-based Swype keyboard preinstalled. If you're into gesture typing, you probably already switched to this input method from the default Samsung keyboard (whose gesture service is nice, but it's no Swype).
We got a fairly extensive look at the newest version of Android at Google I/O yesterday. The "L" version, which we're betting stands for "Lollipop", brings Google's new design philosophy to Android, and one of the main aspects of that design are new "heads up" notifications. Allowing you to continue using whatever app you're currently in without interuption, this new type of alert borrows from Apple's iOS, but does it the Android way. These notifications can be dismissed with a swipe away, ex...
Loving parents can suffer bouts of insomnia when their children leave the house. Not just when they move out, but when hanging out with friends or during out-of-town weekends. Others may worry about their significant other who has to work late all week and their only option for getting home is that sketchy nighttime bus.
Autocorrect, a common feature available on most Android keyboards, helps fix fat-finger typos and even predicts the words you want to write. Without this feature, it'd take me about 5 minutes to write a sentence, and even then, it'd probably still be intelligible.
HTC claims to have improved the One M8's battery life by 40% over its predecessor, but there is always room for improvement.
The outstretched arm, the perfectly positioned angle, the shot and the subsequent array of tinkered saturation, contrast and shadows. In almost every car, changing room, or Starbucks, these string of events happen—you might know it as the selfie.
The Google Now Launcher that was introduced with the Nexus 5 seems to have a lot of folks torn. On the one hand, having a home screen page dedicated to Google Now, as well as the always-listening voice search, are killer features. On the other hand, its lack of customization options like home screen gestures and variable grid sizes has some people considering switching to third-party launchers.
When you were younger, you probably had your parents bugging you not to have your cassette player headphones up too loud. For all you younger readers out there, it was probably a CD player. The even younger readers likely had an iPod or other MP3 player. Either way, your parents didn't want you to mess up your hearing, blasting that Limp Bizkit in your ears (wow, I'm showing my age here).
If you have friends like mine, letting them check out one photo on your phone means they're going to check out all of the photos on your phone. Before you realize what they're doing, it's too late, and they're sending out perverted emails to your coworkers, making you look like a newb at Candy Crush Saga, and viewing your Snapchats for you.
Twitter's video-sharing app, Vine, had some very stiff competition once Instagram added video sharing to its repertoire. Recent figures show Instagram at 130 million followers compared to Vine's 40 million. Many think that Vine is on its way out, but on the contrary, I think it's here to stay.
Samsung's quick settings toggles are insanely useful for accessing settings that you would normally need to dig into menus for. Definitely a case of function over form, though. TouchWiz's bright green on dark blue has to be one of the fugliest color combinations I have ever seen.
As things begin to clutter on your device, navigating through it can become much more difficult than when you first got it. The sheer number of added apps and mods that build up after time take its toll not only on the quickness and memory of your device, but also on your efficiency to access everything easily.
One of the things I hate most about Android's alarm clock is that you get the alarm icon in your status bar way ahead of time. Regardless of whether the alarm is in five minutes, five hours, or five days, that icon just sits in your status bar.
Customization is one of Android's popular selling points, and going hand-in-hand with that is being able to set default apps for different actions. Whether you want to play a song, navigate somewhere, or send a text, you can set a go-to app for each of those tasks.
If you've had the pleasure of owning both an iOS and Android device, you may have noticed one subtle difference on each one's PIN unlock screen. Android's lock screen requires you to press "OK" after entering the PIN, whereas iOS's simply unlocks the screen right after the last digit.
A few weeks ago, Bluebox Security uncovered a bug that could potentially effect 99% of Android devices. Bug 8219321, dubbed the Master Key bug, works by allowing applications with modified code to pass Android's signature verification system, thereby bypassing security measures that normally wouldn't allow these apps to be installed.
I spend practically all day surfing the web and writing on my laptop, and just as much time texting and checking emails on my smartphone. So, it's only natural for me to charge my iPhone using the USB port on my MacBook Pro.
Walking the streets at night can be uncomfortably dangerous. In 2010, there were 32,885 motor vehicle deaths in the United States. Of those, roughly 13%, or 4,280, were pedestrians. Two-thirds of those pedestrian deaths occurred at nighttime. Along with darkness, drivers also have to deal with rain and other harsh weather conditions. Combined, all of these factors can be very dangerous for anyone taking a walk at night. As it happens, pedestrian deaths are on the rise since 2009.
WhatsApp is a very popular messaging app on the Play Store, but unfortunately, tablet users have been left out of all the fun because WhatsApp only works on smartphones—until now.
There are a number of reasons why you might want to trick a web server into thinking you're on a different operating system (OS) or web browser. One might be that you want to test the mobile version of your website from your computer. Or perhaps for some reason a website is restricted to a certain OS or browser and you wish to circumnavigate that barrier. Today's guide shows you how to do just that!
Welcome back my fellow hackers! In my last few articles, I've concentrated on what is called a listener, which is basically the same thing as backdoor and rootkit, only "listener" sounds much less malevolent than the other two terms.
The native timer feature on your iPhone works well enough that you probably haven't even thought about installing a third-party timer. With just a few taps, you can get a countdown for any amount of time up to 24 hours (or one second shy of 24 hours, to be precise). But as fast as it can be to set a timer from the Clock app, there are even faster ways to start the countdown.
If you've ever tried to update your Android phone manually, you know the process can be unnecessarily hard. There are so many steps and parts, that if one thing goes wrong, the whole process doesn't work. Recognizing this, the Android team came up with an even easier way.
Estimates say that there are roughly 441 million Apple Pay users in the world, but with almost a billion active iPhones in the world, some of you have yet to jump on board the digital payment method. But once you're ready — or if you just need a refresher — adding your debit and credit cards to Apple Wallet is simple.
Stadia is a lot like an Xbox or PS4, except there's no console — the games just stream from Google's servers to your phone, computer, or TV. But Stadia is limited to Pixel phones for right now, and when Google does expand support, it will still only be for select phones. Thankfully, there's a workaround for that if you're rooted.
Apple's latest updates to its operating systems add another security feature to its Find My service, so you have an even better chance at locating your lost iPhone, iPad, or Mac should it ever happen. As long as you have the option enabled, you can leverage other Apple users' devices to find yours on the map.
|Choose Your View: Quick Bullet Points | Detailed Descriptions Android's newest major update is a special one — it's the tenth full version of the world's most commonly used operating system. The latest release, dubbed simply Android 10 (codename Android Q), was first showcased as a beta back in March 2019, so we've been digging around in it for several months. There's one dramatic visual change, plus there are a lot of goodies in general.
Despite newer phones having larger batteries, after a few months, my battery life drops significantly. I started researching solutions after my third phone. No matter who I asked, the most recommended solution was always Greenify. And unlike other solutions, you don't need root to use it.
