I go back and forth between two home screen apps: Nova Launcher and Action Launcher. While I prefer the aesthetics of Nova, I like Action's Quickpage feature since it puts some of my favorite apps just a swipe away. But now, I've found a way to replicate this feature on Nova (or any other launcher), and it works even better.
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-needed superpowers. One of those being the ability to block senders from emailing you.
A long-standing request for the iPhone has been a way to quickly browse and connect to available Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth devices without having to dig through the Settings app. With iOS 13, Apple has finally built this essential feature into Control Center, giving you quick access to wireless settings from anywhere, including the lock screen.
Though more well known for their OLED displays and advanced cameras, Galaxy phones like the S8, Note 10 & 10+ and S10 series are a force to be reckoned with when it comes to audio. In fact, flagships from the S9 on up feature AKG-tuned stereo speakers, along with a slew of software enhancements that make listening to music a truly pleasurable experience.
Beyond spotlight-grabbing features like Dark Mode and computer mice support that iOS 13 contains, Apple has also made its mobile platform more user-friendly for people that exhibit sensitivity to on-screen animations. If you've always found the transitional effects between app pages jarring, your iPhone now has a setting to help with that, preventing possible motion sickness and anxiety.
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 by squeezing the phone. Well, now you can.
Some may find it annoying to get YouTube notifications randomly throughout the day. Every time a YouTube channel uploads a video, every time someone replies to your comments. But at the same time, you don't want to turn off those notifications so you don't miss out. Well thankfully, YouTube offers a happy medium where you can get important notifications, but only get them once a day at your desired time.
In this era of smartphones, we all know very well how easily we can get addicted to our devices. Spending hours each day doing the endless scroll through Facebook and other social media sites just because we feel like we'll miss something if we don't. Both Google and Apple are aware of this and are trying to help control smartphone addition in their own way for Android and iOS.
For those with small hands, smartphones have gotten out of control as of late. Nearly every flagship phone is over six inches in length, so many are forced to use phones that are too big for them and hope they don't fall. Well, thanks to one developer, using these phones can be a lot easier.
The long-awaited Dark Mode may have grabbed all the spotlight with iOS 13, but Apple has made subtle changes across the whole platform to make your iPhone even more user-friendly. A small option aimed at people who are sensitive to motion is one such example — a feature that can also be a godsend for the rest of us.
While the audio experience is solid on Galaxy phones, it isn't the absolute best out of the box. That's because Samsung has partnered with Dolby Laboratories to provide its industry-leading sound technology known as Dolby Atmos, but it's turned off by default. Once enabled, your audio experience will go from good to great.
While you can now apply a dark theme to Samsung Messages thanks to One UI, you may want to further personalize your texting app. A great way to do this is by applying a custom font, which not only enhances the app aesthetically, but can also go a long way towards making your texts more readable and help you process information better.
For the most part, people use real names on Facebook. That's all fine and well for keeping tabs on those you know, but it can make friendly Messenger chats feel oddly formal. Skirt around this stiffness by giving your friends nicknames in Messenger for Android and iOS, so your conversations reflect the way you and your friends communicate in real life.
Whether gabbing via cloud chat or Secret Chat, there's no denying that private messaging is one of Telegram's strengths. Communications can often occur at night, where Telegram's default bright white theme can be a bit uncomfortable to use, but Telegram supports dark mode on Android and iOS — with a few different themes to match any late-night chatting style.
The iPhone's "Accessibility" menu is one of those options that's very easy to overlook but incredibly handy in certain situations. You can set AssistiveTouch to help navigate your device, use a Bluetooth mouse when your screen is acting up, and enable the red screen filter for nighttime escapades. For as long as the menu has been available, it's been in the "General" settings, but not in iOS 13.
Filmic Pro has a superb suite of professional settings — bit rate, frame rate, and mic choice, to name a few — which can enable you to capture the best footage possible. But different shots require different setups, and it can be frustrating to change settings on the fly. Filmic Pro lets you skip that whole process by saving your favorite settings as presets for quick and easy access.
Many of our online accounts now come with an added two-factor authentication (2FA) functionality to help keep our data safe. This essentially means no one would be able to access the account until a specific set of requirements were met. It could be a combination of a password with a security key or even a passcode with some form of biometrics, like a fingerprint or face scan.
Among the younger generation, Roblox rivals major titles like Minecraft as one of the most popular online games out there. In fact, it's common to hear children tell new playmates to "friend me in Roblox!" so they can play together online. There's nothing inherently sinister here, but with all the online interaction, kids' safety becomes a factor.
When Apple released its Downtime feature in iOS 12, it gave us an easy way to control how much time we spend on our iPhones — but it wasn't perfect. When setting Downtime, you' were forced to use the same time schedule for every day of the week, so your weekdays and weekends had the same restrictions. Apple fixed that issue in iOS 12.2 and later, so lockout periods can be more customized.
Smart home speakers, such as Google Home and Apple HomePod, are must-have accessories if you're trying to turn your home into a smart home. While HomePod is made to be used with the Apple ecosystem, the less-expensive Google Home can also be used with your iPhone — in more ways than you'd think.
Gboard has come a long way from its roots as the "Google Keyboard" in the earlier days of Android. It's now the most popular, feature-rich, and useful keyboard app on the market. Google even includes quite a few themes right out of the box for Gboard — but what if you could have even more?
Open TikTok, and you might find yourself spending hours watching video after video. While each video is usually pretty short, it's highly possible to binge-watch hundreds at a time. It's even more fun to create your own. But as a parent, you may not want your children falling into this same trap, and it's easy to limit how much time they spend watching TikTok videos on their iPhone.
OnePlus is known for pushing the boundaries of what we thought was possible for a mid-range price. One of the best things about OnePlus phones is that their battery life is fantastic in general, but to achieve this, Oxygen OS will disable or delay notifications by default once your phone goes into deep sleep mode. You will not be notified until you wake the phone up — this could be an issue for some.
If you ask Siri to check the weather on your iPhone right now, you'll get information from the stock Weather app in iOS — even if you have and prefer other weather apps installed. But that doesn't have to be the case. Thanks to Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12 and later, you can set specific phrases that Siri will respond to for any compatible weather app you want.
Android 9.0 Pie has finally arrived for Galaxy devices like the Note 9, S9, and S8, in the form of One UI. Of course, we've had a good idea as to what Samsung had up its sleeve for some time, thanks in large part to beta versions of the firmware that leaked out well before its official debut. Nevertheless, it's still exciting to experience the new features the software has to offer — with all its kinks ironed out.
No matter how good a display is, the idea of perfect color calibration is subjective — some prefer warmer more saturated colors, while others prefer the calmer cooler side of the color spectrum. It is almost impossible to create a single color calibration that everyone can agree on out of the box. The display on the Pixel 2 XL was specifically calibrated with a more realistic color profile in mind.
Even though your iPhone's Camera app is fast and easy to use, its default settings prevent you from immediately accessing any other shooting mode aside from "Photo" with "Live Photo" on and no filter applied. But there is a way to make the Camera app remember what you prefer the next time you open it up.
If you use Apple's email services and the "From:" field in your iPhone's Mail app is cluttered with @Mac.com, @Me.com, and @iCloud.com variations of the same address — along with third-party accounts — there's an easy way to declutter things and hide the addresses you don't use anymore.
Performance and stability improvements, as well as new features, are just some reasons to install iOS 12, but new changes mean new battery health challenges. It can be difficult to boost battery life while taking advantage of everything this update has to offer. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to avoid unnecessary battery drain when using iOS 12 on your iPhone.
Ever-shrinking bezels and disappearing hardware buttons make for good looking phones, but they also increase the need for gesture controls. Android Pie comes with seven new swipe gestures, but if you don't have the update yet (or find its default gesture options to be lacking), you should take a look at the Microsoft Launcher.
Fortnite's long awaited arrival on Android has ramped up excitement among gamers who are installing the beta version in astounding numbers. With so many midrange and budget devices running Android, however, it's important to stay on top of your device's performance to ensure smooth and uninterrupted gameplay.
Extra hardware buttons have become a trend with smartphones lately. Often, these are unmodifiable buttons designed to launch a voice assistant. That isn't the case with the BlackBerry KEY2. Making a return from the KEYone is the Convenience Key, which also received an upgrade.
When you receive a photo or video from a contact in WhatsApp, after you load it, it's automatically saved to your phone's local storage. That means all received content from WhatsApp is visible to anyone who gains access to your default photo gallery. Luckily, there's a new feature available for the Android version of the app that can prevent this from happening.
Android 9.0 Pie is now available to install on Google's own Pixel devices and a select few other phones. In the new release, there's a fairly hidden setting that lets you enable a system-wide dark theme that changes the look of your Quick Settings panel and other menus.
A clean slate may be just what your Apple Watch needs. Whether you want to start fresh, wipe all your personal data, fix buggy issues, let someone borrow it, sell it, or get back in after you forgot your passcode, resetting the Watch back to factory settings is pretty simple, and you can do it with or without your iPhone.
Using a passcode on your Apple Watch is a good way to keep other people out of your data, but what happens when you see that "Wrong Passcode" screen yourself? You can, of course, try again in a minute, but if you've forgotten it for good, there's still a way to get back into your Apple Watch.
While there isn't as much personal data residing on your Apple Watch as there is on your iPhone, it's still a good idea to set a passcode for it and lock it up when you're not using it. If you don't, while it's charging or otherwise off your wrist, others may be able to sneak a peek at your activity, messages, emails, and other personal details. Plus, you won't be able to use Apple Pay without one.
When it works, Android's Smart Lock feature is incredible. There's no need to enter your PIN when your phone "knows" it's in your hands — just unlock and go. But Smart Lock, particularly its Trusted Places feature, can be finicky sometimes.
Let's say you wake up in the middle of the night and check your phone to see the time. As soon as you do, you're greeted by a wall of notifications on your lock screen. You just wanted to know how much longer you could sleep, but now your mind's racing after seeing all of the messages you need to deal with. Thankfully, iOS 12's new Bedtime Mode has a solution for this problem.
Apple's digital health initiative in iOS 12 includes Screen Time, a settings menu that shows you how much time you spend playing games, reading news, and whatever else it is you do. This menu also lets you schedule downtime away from your iPhone, set time limits for your apps, and more. While this is all great, it's hidden inside the Settings app — but there's a faster way to access this data.
