Those of you lucky enough to snag a PlayStation 5 can pair your DualSense controller to Sony's PS Remote Play mobile app to stream and play your PS5 games from anywhere you want. DualSense support for Remote Play has been available on iOS since May 2021, and it's just now arrived on Android.
Battery drain is a major pain point for Android users, though that promises to change thanks to Android Pie's new Adaptive Battery feature. But Google hasn't said much about the inner workings of this feature, only publicly stating that it uses AI to boost battery life. So we dug in to find out what's really going on under the hood.
At this point, we've seen Samsung's vision for Android Oreo on both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8. Just last month, Samsung opened its Oreo Beta Program for the S8 to the public. A few days ago, we obtained and detailed a leaked beta build of Oreo for the Note 8. While both of these updates have some compelling new features, there are always tweaks we hoped to see that didn't make the cut.
As a former repair tech, I've heard the same reasons over and over as to why people opt not to purchase phone insurance. Some cite the cost—why pay extra every month for insurance when you're careful with your phone? Deductibles are expensive, so why not just spend that money on a repair instead of getting a refurbished phone as a replacement?
There are plenty of legitimate reasons that you might want to record a phone conversation. Let's say you operate a business and take orders over the phone, and you don't want to miss an item. Or perhaps you need to jot down some notes from a recent conference call, and things were just happening too quickly in real time.
Let's say you're flush with Google Opinion Rewards credits, or you just got a Google Play gift card for your birthday. This is a perfect opportunity to remove ads and unlock new features by upgrading some of your free apps to their paid counterparts, or to finally purchase that app you've been lusting after that doesn't offer a free version.
No matter what device you have, Android lag will get you down. It's our little green robot's only major downside, and you've probably noticed it quite a bit on your Nexus 7 tablet. Apps open slowly, actions stutter or pause, and loading files takes forever.
One of Android's headlining strengths has always been how it handles notifications, and things have only improved with each new update. More recently, Android has improved notification permissions, so you'll have a choice of whether to receive notifications as soon as you first open an app. It's easy to permit or deny these permissions, but it's just as easy to reverse your decision.
Android 11 is officially out. With Google's continuous work on the update process, it is expected that more smartphones will receive the latest update in a timely fashion. However, exactly when the update is expected isn't always known.
With Android 10, there are now three options when an app asks to access your location: Allow, Deny, and Allow While In Use. That last one prevents apps from seeing your location unless you're actively using them, and it's the default now. But when you first update, most of your apps will still be allowed to access your location in the background — at least, until you do something about it.
Android 10 has some super cool gestures that let you navigate your device with intuitive swipes. But did you know this headlining feature is not enabled by default? To get the most out of Android 10, you'll have to turn on gesture navigation.
I'm a notification minimalist. When I get alerts, I want to deal with them ASAP. If the time is not right and I want to reference the notification later, snoozing was always the best course of action. But in Android 10, Google tucked away snoozing, so here's how to get it back.
Ever tried using Android's split screen mode only to find the app you wanted to split doesn't support it? Even big-name apps like ESPN still don't support the feature despite the majority of Android devices having split screen. So instead of waiting for the developers, how about we just force compatibility?
We've already shown you our favorite new action games that have come out this year, but now it's time to share our all-time top ten list. These games are available for both Android and iPhone, they don't have intrusive ads or freemium schemes, and most importantly, they're all completely free to play.
Thanks to Samsung's One UI, we can now experience firsthand what Android 9.0 Pie has to offer flagship Galaxy devices like the Note 9, S9, and S8. Perhaps one of the best features is something we've all been clamoring for: a system-wide dark theme that gives numerous apps and UI elements a custom look without having to resort to using a third-party theme.
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.
Regardless of the operating system, selecting a piece of text on a touchscreen device is never fun. Thankfully, Google has finally added a new feature to Android 9.0 Pie that will make it at least a little less annoying.
To take a screenshot on most phones, you'd use the power + volume down button combo. For a brief moment, you could even use Google Now on Tap to take screenshots without those hardware buttons, but Google Assistant eventually removed the functionality. Now, easier screenshots are back with Android 9.0 Pie.
Samsung has had a rich screenshot editor in TouchWiz for years, and Apple even added a similar feature to iOS 11. Until now, stock Android has lagged behind in this area, but that's finally fixed in Android 9.0 Pie.
Attention LG V30 and G6 owners — Android 8.1 is coming to a device near you. While fans of LG's latest smartphones are still stuck on Nougat here in the US, we now have confirmation that Oreo's first major update will find its way here, even if we aren't sure when.
Trivia games are among the most entertaining ways to learn factoids and interesting info you may have never known about before. They're also the perfect genre to enjoy with friends and family, as they're particularly great at breaking the ice to make for a more memorable time together.
It's the bane of many a tech geek's existence that the customizability of Android software cannot be combined with the sleek design of the iPhone. A new Kickstarter project titled Eye, however, is looking to change that with a new iPhone case that allows you to combine the two.
It took nearly six months, but Google has finally made its wildly popular iOS keyboard available to Android users. Technically, it's just an update to the existing Google Keyboard app for Android, but it renames the app to "Gboard" and includes all of the features from iOS, so Android users can stop feeling like Google's neglected stepchildren.
When you think of all the fun and games smartphones have to offer, it's easy to forget that they also make a great tool for getting things done. With utilities like document scanners, calendars, to-do lists, office apps, and password managers, that little computer you carry around in your pocket has the potential to increase your productivity levels in all aspects of life.
For years, we've had to download third-party apps if we wanted to browse or manage the files stored on our Android devices, but Google has finally included a bare-bones file explorer in Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Only thing is, it's not easy to find—but I'll show you how to access and use it below.
In case you didn't know, Android has an awesome hidden settings menu called "Developer options" that contains a lot of advanced and unique features. If you've ever come across this menu before, chances are you just dipped in for a minute so that you could enable USB debugging and use ADB features.
On September 1st, 2015, Google made headlines by introducing their new logo. It may not seem like huge news to some, but as I write this, there have been 2,167,914,729 searches on Google so far today. So there's a large amount of people who see their logo when browsing the Web.
Theming is one of the many facets of Android that gives it a leg up on its iOS competition. With the right home launcher and icon theme, you can completely change the look and feel of your device in just a few minutes.
Have you ever noticed that some Android gallery apps display every last photo that you have stored on your device? This is particularly annoying when most stock gallery apps don't provide an option for hiding certain folders from your filmstrip view. Then there are music players that load up ringtones and video players that queue every video on your device, regardless of whether you want them there or not.
When opening a link or sharing a photo, your Android device will bring up a list of possible applications that you can complete the action with. However, some of the apps included you never use or didn't even know existed, and this leads to unnecessary clutter. Fortunately, if you're rooted, there's an easy way to remove apps from the "Open with" and "Share via" lists.
Lollipop's imminent release should be cause for excitement with Google bringing out new features, a huge redesign, and under-the-hood changes. Unfortunately, the Nexus line of devices will be the first to receive the Android 5.0 update, leaving the rest of us to wait on manufacturers and carriers to release their skinned, bloatware-packed builds.
When a big company (Google) concentrates on big things (Auto, TV, Wear), some of the smaller aspects of their design can be overlooked. Just as we saw in Android KitKat, battery percentage information is absent from the status bar. While we were able to enable a hidden setting to show that all-important number in KitKat, you could see why it was never enabled—the white text on the white battery icon made it nearly impossible to read.
Anyone who has rooted their Android device has likely used a tool called Android Debug Bridge, better known as ADB, at some point during the process. For most, that is their only interaction with the ADB, but to be a true Android power user, you need to really know the tools at your disposal.
There are countless mods and apps for Android devices that give them an iOS-style look, but maybe it's about time we take some notes from Android, especially when it comes to the iOS 7 lock screen.
Android's newest Jelly Bean 4.2 update comes with Daydream, a feature that allows you to run screensaver-like apps while your Android device is docked or charging. While the feature comes with several stock 'daydreams' available, there's a hidden Easter egg one that you can unlock! The 'daydream', aptly titled BeanFlinger, is hidden inside of Android's 4.2 Jelly Bean. In order to unlock it, you'll have to go to the phone's Settings and click on About phone. From there, you should come across ...
Samsung's Galaxy Note and Note II phablets have been hailed for their large displays and responsive systems, making them ideal for gaming and movie watching. But if you've recently upgraded to Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) from Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0), you'll be sad to know that some Android devices running Jelly Bean no longer support Adobe Flash Player.
There's nothing better or more rewarding in the tech world than finding a hidden feature on your favorite app, and that app today is Netflix. If you've updated Netflix lately on your Apple or Android device, you can now use it to control the Netflix app on your PlayStation 3. This will work on any iPad, iPhone, iPod touch running iOS 5 or higher. Android smartphones, the Kindle Fire, and the Nook tablet require Android OS 2.3 (Gingerbread) or higher. All other Android tablets will need Androi...
Android's operating system has garnered much of its popularity due to the high amount of customization the user has at their fingertips. Whether it's customizing your home screen, lockscreen or even operating system, Android has always been one step ahead of Apple in the customization department. And now you can even design your own web browser.
There's an official way to install apps onto your Android phone using basically any device that has internet access — heck, you can even download new apps from an iPhone and they'll install in seconds on your Android device.
Just weeks after revealing plans to port one of its most vital augmented reality products from HoloLens to the smartphone world, Microsoft has finally opened the mobile software floodgates to the public.
