The calendar app is one of the unsung heroes found within your iPhone. It's the ultimate personal assistant that you've come to rely on to keep track of your schedule and ensure you never miss a class or meeting, all while reminding you of upcoming birthdays and deadlines to help maintain good relationships with loved ones and colleagues.
Online shopping giant Shopify literally cannot wait for ARKit 2.0 to arrive via iOS 12 this fall to implement its latest augmented reality feature.
Augmented reality experiences created in Lens Studio now have a permanent home in the Snapchat app. On Tuesday, Lens Explorer will begin giving users access to a scrollable screen full of a variety of new Lens Studio creations.
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.
One gem that Apple added with iOS 12 is the perfect companion for the dictionary that's already available with the "Look Up" tool. I say gem because it's taken a backseat to all of the other new iOS 12 features, but it shouldn't, because a thesaurus is like the phloem to a dictionary's xylem, making it hard to believe that Apple didn't include this synonym finder from the start.
The roster of handsets supporting Google's augmented reality toolkit now includes 46 Android models as well as support for ARKit-compatible iPhones and iPads.
Samsung's Good Lock app has has breathed much needed life into its TouchWiz UI by giving us the ability to customize our Galaxy phones in ways that previously would've required root or a custom ROM. One companion app in particular even lets you personalize your lock screen to set it apart from the rest of the crowd.
A revamped Recent Apps overview is one of the most significant changes set to arrive with Android P when it touches down later this year. Incredibly, Samsung has beaten Google to the punch, and has made this feature available for all its Oreo-based Galaxy handsets courtesy of its Good Locks app.
Regal Cinema's augmented reality magazine Moviebill enjoyed a big debut in April and it has its sights set on an even bigger (virtually) outing with its next edition.
One of the best features in the Apple News app is the ability to save stories for later. If you see an interesting or important article but don't have time to read it right away, there's a good chance you'll never find it again unless you save it. Ever since News' birth in iOS 9, accessing these bookmarked stories was as easy as going to the "Saved" tab, but that's no longer the case in iOS 12.
It's no secret that Android has a messaging problem. iPhone users can turn to iMessage as a one-stop shop for all their messaging needs — features like read receipts and the ability to text from a computer have been standard with Apple products for quite some time. Android has no such solution, but Google's looking to fix that with a huge update to the Android Messages app.
If you're on iOS 11.4.1 or iOS 12 and go more than an hour without unlocking your iPhone, an "Unlock iPhone to Use Accessories" message will appear whenever you connect your iPhone to a computer or other device that tries to use the Lightning cable's data lines. This is to protect you, but it can be annoying if you have no reason to believe that law enforcement or criminals will have access to your iPhone.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a great way to add another layer of security to sensitive third-party apps and websites like Venmo. However, before iOS 12, to log into a particular 2FA-secured app or site on your iPhone, you'd have to memorize or copy the SMS code from Messages, then jump back in a timely manner to log in. Apple's latest iOS version streamlines this process.
Apple released the second beta for iOS 11.4.1 on Monday, June 11. The company seeded the update 12 days after the release of the first 11.4.1 beta on May 30. The initial beta brought no new features to iOS 11, just bug fixes and stability updates, and beta 2 appears to be the same case.
After years of struggling, it appears BlackBerry has finally figured out how to update its iconic design for modern times. The BlackBerry KEY2 pays homage to past devices such as the Bold 9000 while adapting to modern times with the Android OS. The result is a device that might be the best BlackBerry to date.
Apple knows their products can be addicting, and with iOS 12, they are doing something about it. With the help of Screen Time and few other new tools, it should now be a lot easier to get off your phone and enjoy life in the real world.
Among iOS 11's many criticisms, one of the more surprising complaints came from parents worried that Apple wasn't doing enough to monitor and control their children's iPhone usage. Apple seems to have taken these issues to heart, as iOS 12 introduces new and improved parental controls to help encourage healthier mobile habits for kids.
As expected, Apple revealed today at the WWDC keynote that ARKit 2.0 will support multiplayer gaming support and persistent content, which will arrive this fall with iOS 12.
Apple pushed out iOS 11.4 on May 29 to iPads and iPhones, which included the long-awaited Messages in iCloud feature. The company did not release macOS High Sierra 10.13.5 at the same time, limiting the usefulness of being able to sync messages in the cloud since 10.13.4 is not compatible with Messages in iCloud. But three days later, Apple finally released macOS 10.13.5.
Auto rotation is generally useful, but it gets annoying when you trigger it accidentally. In past Android versions, you could lock rotation into portrait mode as a workaround, but you'd have to disable this every time you wanted to put your phone in landscape mode. Luckily, Android Pie has a great fix for this.
We've been able to download our Facebook data onto our computers for a while now, but now you can do so right from the comfort of your iPhone or Android phone. With it, you'll be able to integrate your data into other apps that support it or even just download it before you deactivate your account.
Apple is speeding things up in the iOS 11.4 development. The company released to developers the fifth beta for iOS 11.4 on Monday, May 15. Public beta testers got the update just hours later. The update comes just one week after the release of the fourth 11.4 beta, which introduced minor bug fixes and security patches to iPhone running the software. This beta version doesn't seem any different.
Earlier this year, with the Developer Preview, we got a tantalizing glimpse of Google's upcoming Android 9.0 Pie and a whole slew of new features that comes along with it, such as iPhone X-like gestures and improved security features, to name a few. With its announcement at Google I/O, Android Pie just got a lot more accessible.
According to Google at their 2018 I/O conference, Google Assistant is now available on over 500 million devices. Now that the assistant is available on iPhones as well, Google has to give iOS users a reason to switch to its assistant over the built-in Siri. Today, Google has eight more reasons for users to do so.
In the latest installment in its burgeoning augmented reality journalism practice, The New York Times is bringing its readers closer to Mars and NASA's latest spacecraft set to travel to the red planet.
Apple released the third beta for iOS 11.4 on Tuesday, May 1. This update comes exactly two weeks after the release of the second beta, which, in addition to adding a new wallpaper, fixed issues with AirPlay, Music, and Keychain. The only noticeable change in beta 3 is a fix for unresponsive 3D Touch.
Whether due to spotty cellular reception or just data that you want to save, popular navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze offer an offline feature that lets you navigate from one location to another in the absence of internet service. Apple Maps also lets you use its service offline on your iPhone, though the feature is not as straightforward as it is on its competitors.
When it's all said and done, it doesn't really matter who did it first — the more important question is who did it best. Still, it's nice to know who's really responsible for groundbreaking innovations in the smartphone space.
Apple released the iOS 11.3.1 update for iPhones on Tuesday, April 24, 26 days after the official release of iOS 11.3 and eight days after the iOS 11.4 beta 2 update. It is the first minor update to iOS 11.3, and the biggest thing in it is a fix that lets displays fixed by third parties work again.
The latest update to the Christie's app for iPhones and iPads extends its augmented reality capabilities to the famed private art collection of David and Peggy Rockefeller.
The Android version of Google Chrome only shows a home button on some devices. Unfortunately, this feature isn't available to all Android phones due to several factors. But thanks to a simple workaround, you can now enable this button and set a home page regardless of what device you have.
TouchWiz might not be the Android skin of choice for hardcore aficionados, but the Galaxy's OS still has a ton of great features up its sleeve that help provide one of the most enjoyable smartphone experiences out there. Many of these are relatively hidden and overlooked features that you may not be aware of.
It's no secret that iOS 11 is one buggy piece of software. Remarkably, even after three major updates, we're still seeing issues with our iPhones. This time, the glitches have come for 3D Touch on iPhones running the new iOS 11.3 update.
With much of the hype centered around its powerful cameras, it's easy to overlook the equally impressive audio capabilities of the Galaxy S9. After all, the S9 and S9+ are the first Samsung flagships to feature AKG-tuned stereo speakers, and that's not even mentioning all the software enhancements that help deliver rich, immersive sound in several different listening situations.
The iPhone vs. Android debate is almost as old as smartphones themselves. While there are a number of reasons to skew towards one operating system or the other, the Samsung Galaxy S9 models have a ton of great features that help set them apart from Apple's iPhones. The coolest feature, in my opinion, is the way notifications are handled.
After more than a year and a half of silence, the rumors have morphed into reality: Microsoft has finally released an update for the HoloLens. And with that update comes a collection of new features that hint at big plans for the HoloLens this year.
In the weeks following Google's AR toolkit launch last month, the availability of quality ARCore apps has been somewhat limited. That changed on Tuesday, as a flurry of new and updated apps arrived on the Play Store, including some AR experiences available exclusively on Android.
Update: The new Galaxy phones are now official! Check out all the details on the Galaxy S10 and S10+ or the Galaxy S10e.
The Galaxy S9 is now available worldwide. We ran through several Android P features already on the Galaxy S9 and even took a look at a few hidden things you might not know about. While you're likely loving your new phone, there are a few concerns with any new device. One possible issue is the new persistent Android System notifications on the Galaxy S9.
Along with the awesome early-2018 addition of Giphy GIFs in Snapchat, you can now share other people's Snapchat handles and tag them in a way that lets others reach those people easily — something you couldn't do before in the app.
