Location-based app shortcuts in iOS 8 work at places like Starbucks, the Apple Store, as well as train stations, banks, hospitals, grocery stores, and more. When you're in the vicinity of these locations, a small notification appears at the bottom left of the lock screen. You you can slide up on these icons (as you would on the camera icon on the lock screen) to access specific apps based on where you're located, making it easy to access your Starbucks account when you're buying coffee or che...
Apple just unveiled iOS 8 at the Worldwide Developer's Conference, and it has a lot of exciting features to play around with. Unfortunately, it won't be available to the public until this coming fall—but that doesn't mean you can't get it right now.
With its growing popularity, it's clear that the Chromecast isn't going away anytime soon, with options for casting games, cloud files, music, and much more. But not all content providers are in a hurry to add support for the device, and SoundCloud is one of them. While My Cloud Player is by no means an official SoundCloud app, it comes pretty darn close.
The Nexus 5 has a known issue with its display. Affecting all models from the first manufacturing run and most models thereafter, this display issue is easiest to notice on something with a white background. A yellowish tint, most noticeable when compared to other devices, seems to emanate from the Nexus 5's screen.
Twitter found a sweet spot with its 160-character limit, but Snapchat sports a social media low of 31 characters, forcing us to condense our ideas into a few short words when typing in picture captions because of their ephemeral nature. While this severely limited amount of words is Snapchat etiquette, I've got so much more to say than 31 characters!
For the most part, Google Play Music makes it extremely easy to upload and organize your music library, as well as access it quickly using the default settings—but there are a few things it could do better.
Sony has been hard at work refining its Xperia line of flagship phones. With a 6-month release cycle, they've managed to slim bezels, increase viewing angles, and boost processing power in the 1.5-year span between the original Xperia Z and the Z2.
Sometimes, stock just doesn't cut it. When you're sick of the limitations in Sense on your HTC One, a new ROM can be a ray of sunshine. By installing a custom ROM, you can add or unlock new features in Sense, or you can get a pure Android experience instead. It's all up to you.
If you've ever used the automation app Tasker, then you know exactly how powerful the tool can be. If you haven't, suffice it to say that there's virtually nothing on your Android phone that Tasker can't automatically do for you.
When I first used the Google Now Launcher, I appreciated the transparency that came with it, and how it made the real look larger than it did before. But now that I'm used to it, that transparent navigation bar is beginning to look a little stale.
The act of viewing a new notification on your Nexus 5 can feel a bit clunky and cumbersome at times. When a new message comes in, you hear the notification sound, you see the LED blinking, but you can't see what the actual notification says without waking the device and opening the notification tray.
Recently, Sprint announced a partnership with Harman Kardon to deliver exclusive sound FX technology to their variant of the HTC One M8. The joint effort between the two companies is both to entice customers to switch to Sprint as well as improve the overall audio quality coming from the already extraordinary BoomSound speakers. But while this is great for new and existing Sprint customers, it does leave the rest of us out in the cold.
Once you unlock your bootloader and root, you're left with one more hurdle to overcome, and that's getting S-Off.
If new leaked images are to be trusted, an iPhone with a display around 5 inches will be released later this year. From Italian site Macitynet, images show a device that's stated to be the new iPhone 6 side-by-side with the new Samsung Galaxy S5. A couple of weeks ago, I showed you leaked internal emails and memos that suggested Apple was concerned with not only Samsung's marketing strategy, but about the industry trend towards larger devices.
Just about every softMod requires some kind of reboot. Whether it's because something in the System UI was changed, or because a ZIP needs to be flashed in custom recovery.
Included in Spotify's new darker, slimmed down redesign is a much needed My Music section, which consolidates all of your starred music, local files, and playlists into a personal collection of songs, albums, and artists, similar to how iTunes organizes your music. This makes me wonder...
If you're as bad at locking your Nexus up as I am, you have the "slide" option set for your screen lock. It may not be the most secure option, but it's definitely the easiest way to unlock your device while being able to utilize lock screen widgets.
What's the point of having a 1080p screen if you're not using it to get in some quality gaming time? Google Play is great for downloading games, but you probably already have an extensive library of games for your consoles, so use those!
As Nexus owners, we love our device's operating system, and it's probably the reason we went for a pure Google experience in the first place. But that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement in Android, especially when the OS has so many freely available softMods to tinker with.
The all new HTC One M8 is the latest Android flagship making the rounds through major carriers hoping to beckon your purchase. Coming in at about $200 for most carriers with a contract, it makes a good case for itself with its advanced features and solid price point—but, there's another way to buy the One, and it's not from your carrier.
Yesterday, I wanted to remove BackTrack from my system and install Kali, and at the same time didn't want to damage my Windows 7 or my hard drive. I searched a lot of articles, but almost all of them wanted me to have a backup Windows 7 CD, which I don't possess.
As fellow softModders, I'm sure you strive to find any and every way to make your phone unique. Wallpapers and icon packs are great to get started, but to really stand out from the rest, try changing your HTC One's boot animation.
Currently in its alpha stage, Facebook has pushed forward a redesigned mobile app for Android users that provides a flat user interface and rearranged navigation tools.
First, they came for our Pokémon...now it's an emoji takeover. Adding to the flurry of Google related April Fool's Day jokes, Chrome for Android and iOS has a new hidden functionality: translating the web to emoji!
The little black status bar at the top of your screen is great for at-a-glance info, but let's face it—it's pretty ugly. If you want to hide it completely, only showing it when you need it, check out our guide on using Immersive Mode in KitKat. However, if you want to keep the at-a-glance convenience and have it blend in with your apps, try out Tinted Status Bar.
One of the hardest tradeoffs when installing a non-Sense-based custom ROM on an HTC One is the loss of Beats Audio. Due to a patent restrictions from Beats and compatibility issues, it's currently impossible to port it to a non-Sense ROM, but with ViPER4Android you can get almost identical results, bringing life back to the BoomSound speakers on your device.
You've unlocked your bootloader and rooted your HTC One running KitKat, but there's still one lingering aspect of security you've yet to rid yourself of—S-On—the extra security measure HTC implemented into Sense.
Since the introduction of LED flash to smartphones, there have been hundreds of flashlight apps flooding Google Play, since most Android phones do not have built-in flashlight apps, including the HTC One.
As softModders, the first thing we do after updating to the newest version of Android is to root, install a custom recovery, and install a superuser app. By doing this you open up your HTC One to a vast quantity of new apps and tweaks you can use to truly make your phone One of a kind.
Nokia's recent foray into the world of Android brought a plethora of goodies along with it. The Finnish smartphone manufacturer offers a slightly different take on our favorite mobile operating system, with customizations ranging from ringtones to its very own app store.
Part of the reason bacon tastes so good is because of its high fat content, but that also means that it shrinks significantly when you cook it. How much it shrinks depends on how fatty it is and what method you use to cook it. Bacon cooked on the stovetop shrinks quite a bit more than bacon that's baked in the oven. DIY blog Franalan tested a Pinterest tip that claimed rinsing bacon under cold water before cooking it could reduce the shrinkage by up to 50 percent. Yes, we just wrote about how...
If you're a user of Google Play Music, but not a fan of being relegated to a browser tab, I've got you covered. Developer Sajid Anwar has created a desktop client for Google's music service, but since he made no attempt to hide logos and trademarks, it may not be long before the app vanishes completely. So get it while it's hot...and before Google takes it down.
You probably use your smartphone to mostly surf the web, play games, and communicate with others, but there's so much more it can do. Thanks to integrated features and third-party apps, you can seamlessly control things around your home, including your TV, tablet, Bluetooth speakers, and even lighting fixtures.
Alright, I'll admit it, iOS can be quite nice. Android loyalist that I may be, I'm not so stubborn that I can't recognize a good thing when I see it. Apple's iOS has a lot of strengths, and our Nexus 4s, god bless 'em, are growing a little long in the tooth.
With Chromecast-capable applications slowly seeping into the market, it's difficult to find useful ones that we might use on a daily basis.
Normally, you'd have to jailbreak your iPad or iPhone to play any games that aren't available in the iOS App Store, like the now-extinct Flappy Bird game. But this isn't the case if you want to play some of your favorite old school Nintendo classics.
The flexibility within Android is pretty amazing. Unlike iOS, you can make a lot of modifications with nothing more than a download from Google Play, but to really step up your softModder game, you'll need to go a little further.
Getting the volume on our phones to be just right can be a pretty annoying task. Some people like to listen to music and videos with max volume while some like it a little lower. With the default volume control on your Samsung Galaxy S3, there are only 15 steps before you reach max volume, making it tough to find that sweet spot.
Midway through 2013, a popular custom ROM called Paranoid Android introduced their multitasking feature "Halo." Bubble-style notifications inspired by Facebook chat heads pop up near the top of the screen, and you simply tap on them to bring up the app in a floating window.
We softModders come from all walks of life, and sooner or later, our devices begin to reflect who we are. Maybe you've followed one of our guides on customizing your Nexus 7, such as getting the exclusive Google Experience Launcher or hiding the navigation buttons for more screen space, or maybe you used one of the various Xposed mods we've covered.
