Using Siri to perform tasks on your Google Home device was never possible until Apple released Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12. Actually, it wasn't possible until Google added support for Siri Shortcuts for Google Assistant in Nov. 2018. No matter the timing, the important thing here is that you can use Siri to command Google Assistant which, in turn, can command Google Home.
On Yelp, you have the option to check in to a business you're visiting. For you, broadcasting who you're with and where you're at is fun for social purposes, but for business owners, you're basically giving them free publicity. Well, almost free publicity. Since there's incentive to get you to check in, some businesses reward customers with special deals, such as 20% off your first visit.
Apple's aiming to take over the TV world, and it shows in iOS 12.3. Nothing is going on yet with Apple TV+, Apple's video streaming platform with original content, which isn't supposed to come out until the fall. But there are some goodies in the new Apple TV app for iPhone that you should get to know.
Business hours and addresses change, but they're not always updated on Yelp by business owners for the rest of us to see. Showing up when a business is closed or going to the incorrect address is a major annoyance, which is why the company allows us, the customers, to help update business information through the Yelp mobile app on iOS and Android. If owners won't do it, somebody has to.
If you've ever received an email from a sketchy address purporting to be Uber, asking you to sign in with your credentials, you might be a phishing target. Hackers use a fake login page from real-looking domains to trick you into giving up your account information, and while it's been an issue in the past, Uber is making it more difficult on cyber thieves with the addition of two-step verification.
Editing photos can be tedious, especially if you are using a similar theme for all of your photos. It takes time to select every tool, play with the bars, and find an adjustment that you're happy with. Luckily, there's a faster way. Adobe Lightroom for Android and iPhone allows you to save your favorite editing presets so you don't have to change every photo every time.
Can you be too lazy for video games? That's how I feel sometimes. I want to play the latest PlayStation has to offer, but I can't be bothered to get out of bed. As if Sony read the minds of lethargic gamers everywhere, the company has released an amazing thing — PS4 Remote Play allows you to play your PS4 on your iPhone, no TV required. The best part? It's 100% free.
When it comes to digital security, one of the best ways to protect yourself is to use two-factor authentication. Most apps these days support it, including Facebook, a site where the more privacy you can muster, the better. However, of the two 2FA options available for Facebook, only one should be used as the other will share your phone number with the world, a huge privacy concern.
Switching phones has never been easier. Google backs up most of your app data on the cloud, which can then be restored onto your new phone. Sadly, Signal doesn't use this feature since it could compromise your security. Instead, Signal stores encrypted backups locally, requiring a bit of work to restore these messages.
Picture this: You finally get that awesome angle, the perfect selfie. You can't wait to post it on your Instagram, except there's one problem — it looks a little flat and the colors just seem off. Maybe it's the lights? Or maybe your new smartphone camera isn't as good as you thought? How are your friends getting those beautiful photos they've been posting on social media?
Android 9.0 Pie moved the status bar clock from the right corner to the left to accommodate phones with notches, but there's one major downside for Samsung users: since no Galaxy phones have a notch, all this did was take away space for the notification icons that would otherwise start from the left corner.
When your iPhone goes missing, it's serious business. Depending on your usage, your whole life might be connected to your iPhone, not the least of which includes debit cards, credit cards, and Apple Pay Cash stored in Apple Pay. While it's nearly impossible for someone to use your money with Apple Pay, it's still a good idea to disable it until you find your iPhone, just in case.
Update: The LG G8 ThinQ has been announced. You can read all of the official specs at our full article on the new phone.
The Moto G7 Power is a phone that screams battery life. From its display resolution to the massive battery, it was designed for those who hate to recharge each night. But unlike other battery-focused smartphones, it comes at a price almost anyone can afford.
Traditionally, if you were looking for end-to-end encrypted messaging, you'd stick with something like iMessage, WhatsApp, or Signal. However, if you already use Facebook Messenger, you have all you need for truly private chats with its built-in E2E encryption. It's available to all users, on Android and iOS — you just need to know where to look.
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.
Almost every phone comes with biometric security of some sort these days, but the same can't be said of Windows computers. While fingerprint scanners are becoming increasingly common with laptops and desktops, they're nowhere near ubiquitous. Thankfully, your phone's scanner can be used as a sort-of remote authentication point for your PC.
Until very recently, Apple apps were among the only ones that would play nicely with Siri on iPhones. If you wanted to take advantage of the digital assistant to, say, compose an email, you would need to go with Apple Mail instead of the email client you actually use. As of iOS 12, this is no longer the case.
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.
Your iPhone is just that — yours. Why should your home screen look like everyone else's? While iOS, and by extension, Apple, famously locks its users into its way of doing things, there's a lot more room for customization than you'd think. Before you make the switch to Android, you might want to see what you can do with the iPhone you already have.
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 of tips you should know to hit the ground running.
Every photo you take is brimming with metadata such as iPhone model, date and time, shooting modes, focal length, shutter speed, flash use, and geolocation information. Share these pictures with friends, family, or acquaintances via texts, emails, or another direct share method, and you unwittingly share your location data. Even sharing via apps and social media sites can compromise your privacy.
Waking up your Apple Watch to see "your heart has shown signs of an irregular rhythm suggestive of atrial fibrillation" might come as a shock. While your watch can send you warnings if it detects a fast or low heart rate, those messages are pretty vague, while the abnormal arrhythmia alert can downright scary. So what should you do if you receive one of these AFib notifications?
You're minding your business when your Apple Watch taps you. To your surprise, the watch claims your heart rate dipped abnormally low. The news might come as a shock — especially if you have no history of a heart condition — but before you panic, you should take the time to fully understand what this alert is really saying and what you can and should do about it.
The OnePlus 6T is easily one of 2018's best value phones for many reasons, especially when it comes to rooting and modding. But like many new phones, it's plagued with the single bottom-firing speaker that left us wanting more in the sound department. The speaker is decent on its own, but it appears to have some hidden potential at the same time.
Your Apple Watch sends you notifications from friends, family, and the apps that are important to you. Occasionally, however, the watch may scare the heck out of you with a notification warning of an abnormal, elevated heart rate. If you have no history of heart conditions, this alert might come as a shock. Why do you have a high heart rate, and what are you to do with the information?
When flashing files through TWRP, ADB, or Fastboot, there's a slight chance for things to go wrong. Whether it's user error related or something else entirely, it's always good to have a backup plan. In most cases, you'll be dealing with a semi-brick or soft-brick, which can usually be solved by wiping the data of the device using TWRP. However, it can be more severe than that in some cases.
With YouTube TV and DirecTV Now starting at $40/month, and others like Sling TV offering an eye-catching $25/month plan, streaming cable services may sound like a great way to cut costs while cutting the cord. But when you look at all the factors, the price you pay may very well end up being just as high as your traditional cable bill — if not more.
Huawei has been in a losing battle with the US government for around ten years, with the last year being the spike of Huawei's problems. Because of US pushback against some Chinese-based smartphone manufacturers due to security concerns, Huawei is hoping to limit its dependency on US-based companies, and recent rumors of Huawei's very own mobile operating system may be the first step.
In case you hadn't heard, Google is now a legit cell service provider. Google Fi has its pluses and minuses, but the biggest upside is in the pricing. Depending on how much data you typically use, there's a good chance you could save a lot of money without sacrificing coverage by switching to Fi.
The holiday season is upon us, and that means all the big-box stores are competing against each other to offer the best prices on electronics. What was once a 24-hour period of flash deals the day after Thanksgiving has now become a holiday in and of itself — Black Friday is an event you don't want to miss.
Before you can dive into customizing your OnePlus 6T, you must take the initial step of unlocking the bootloader to gain the ability to install TWRP, Magisk, custom ROMs, and other mods.
Creating doodles on an iPhone is made easy thanks to the "Draw" tool in Notes and "Digital Touch" for iMessages, but these are limited in scope. Drawing in Notes has no animated effects, and while Digital Touch does, its drawing tools are lacking and the animations can only live within iMessages. If it's animations you want, Apple has another app that can help you create them.
The iTunes App Store makes it easy to buy an app or game on someone else's behalf, and it's a great way to send an iPhone user a thoughtful gift. The Google Play Store doesn't have such functionality, but there are still a few workarounds to accomplish the same goal: gifting an app to an Android user.
If you store important, sensitive information on your iPhone in Notes, you'll want to be more careful. When Notes syncs across your iPad and Mac via iCloud — devices that family members or coworkers may share — you run the risk of having your notes read, edited, and deleted by other people. Such a catastrophe is easily avoided.
All of the new iPhones from 2018 were released with dual-SIM support, but none of them were capable of actually using the eSIM in iOS 12, only the physical nano-SIM. But on iOS 12.1 and later, you can finally take advantage of eSIM so you can have, say, a business and personal plan on your iPhone XS, XS Max, or XR at the same time.
The main draw for Google's Pixel series is the software. It rocks a clean version of stock Android instead of a heavy OEM skin like TouchWiz, it gets frequent prompt OS updates, the camera software is downright amazing, and it has perhaps the most fluid UI of any phone. But an understated advantage of the software is how dead-simple it is to modify with root-level tweaks.
The new iPhone XS and XS Max have more issues than just their hefty price tags. Customers have only had the phones for a handful of days, but some are already complaining of cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity issues on both models. If your experience is the same on your XS or XS Max, there are steps you can take to get your iPhone reliably back online.
You can never replace the skills and expertise of a professional graphic designer, but Canva comes pretty damn close. It's ridiculously easy to use the drag-and-drop design tool for both professionals and people like me who don't have the need (or knowledge required) to use more advanced graphic design software.
The iOS 12.0 beta earned admiration for its superior performance to last year's controversially buggy iOS 11. That doesn't mean it was free from problems before the stable release went live. During the initial iOS 12.0 beta testing phase, there were plenty of bugs and glitches, many of which affected the apps we use every day. However, none of these issues persist anymore since iOS 12 stable went live.
