When Hey Siri was first introduced in iOS 8, it was a pretty lackluster feature since you had to be plugged into a power source in order to even use it. Since then, newer devices (iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 9.7-inch iPad Pro) don't need to plug in to have always-on Siri, which makes the feature actually worthwhile—when it works.
CyanogenMod, the popular custom ROM available for many Android devices, has a nice little feature that displays a music visualizer beneath your on-screen navigation keys while you're listening to your favorite songs. It's a subtle touch, but it makes for a more immersive experience when you're jamming out while using your phone or tablet.
The VLC Player app for Android has a really nice feature that allows you to adjust brightness and volume by sliding your finger up or down on the left or right side of your screen, respectively. It helps keep you immersed in the video while you're in full screen mode, since you don't have to mess around with any popups or overlays to perform these basic functions.
At their annual I/O event, Google introduced their latest app to the public: Allo. The messaging app is the company's latest and most powerful entry into the expanding world of similar apps, with one twist—the inclusion of artificial intelligence.
Whether you're performing a factory reset to get your device ready for sale or trade-in, or you're wiping your device in the hopes of fixing software issues, there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Sure, it seems like a simple task on the surface, but if you're not careful, you could end up wasting a lot of time or losing precious data.
The Galaxy S7 edge comes with a feature called Edge Apps that lets you quickly launch your favorite apps by swiping in from the edge of your screen. It's a natural and intuitive gesture, and as a result, we've seen a recent influx of apps that look to emulate this feature.
It looks like Facebook is adding a "Live" tab to the navigation bar for its Android app, and the feature has already been turned on for at least one user. A screenshot uploaded by Niko Steele shows the new feature, which lets you search for and watch live video directly on the Facebook app. Right now, you need to already be friends with a person who is streaming or be following a page or personality to receive a notification that live video has started. Some pages will post about an upcoming ...
Google dropped its opposition to T-Mobile's Binge On service due to some favorable policy changes at the magenta carrier. From now on, YouTube and Google Play Movies will happily work with the feature. Binge On rolled out late last year, allowing many customers to receive unlimited video streaming at 480p. That's not a great offer if you care about video quality, but it's nice if you want to save money.
After months of speculation and sifting through rumors, Samsung finally unveiled its Galaxy S7 and S7 edge flagships, and they're pretty much what we had been anticipating. But just because there weren't any major surprises doesn't mean that it's not still exciting. Let's have a look.
Android TV devices have had those beautiful Chromecast background images as their screensaver for quite a while now. Envious of this feature, Apple copied the idea for a similarly-styled screensaver in their newest Apple TV, but with one big twist—they used videos instead of still photos.
Ever since developer bponury created his TouchControl app for the Galaxy Nexus back in 2011, manufacturers and modders alike have been racing to re-implement the "Double-tap-to-wake" functionality it brought to the table. We've seen LG do it with their "Knock On" feature, we've seen Motorola put a twist on it with "Active Display," and we've even seen Google implement the feature in their Nexus 9 tablet.
You've probably heard the old joke about how Ford is an acronym for "Found on Road Dead." Well, the Detroit automaker on Monday announced a new and much better way to help you find your parked vehicle, as well as a whole host of other features—just use your smartphone.
Historically, battery life has not been a strong suit for machines running Windows. Poor decisions by hardware manufacturers combined with the resource-hogging behavior of Windows are to blame. However, Microsoft is trying to resolve this issue, once again, with the release of Windows 10.
Apple revealed the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus at their September 9th event, and there are two particularly awesome features built in just for selfie photogs. The first is 3D Touch, which gives you a quick shortcut to taking selfies just by pressing the screen in a certain way. The second feature is a front-facing flash to help illuminate your face in dark lighting.
Spotify has a feature called Taste Rewind that claims to know what you would've listened to back in the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and oughts ('00s), all based on your listening history and favorite artists. You can essentially time travel into the past and already have "favorites" songs to listen to! While I was skeptical at first, I tried the feature out for myself and was pleasantly surprised with the results. So if you want to create uniquely tailored playlists from the past five decades, st...
One of the biggest new features in the soon-to-be-released Android 6.0 Marshmallow is something Google is calling "Now on Tap." Essentially, this service will be able to scan the contents of any screen on your Android device, then after you long-press the home button, it will provide you with relevant information about anything—from movie times to directions or dinner reservations.
Microsoft has invested years and countless man-hours in an effort to get their cloud storage service on par with competitors like Dropbox and Google Drive, who have long resided at the top of this market. Their hard work has definitely paid off, as OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) has finally reached a point in its development where it can stand toe to toe with any comparable service in almost any measurable regard.
These days, that pocket-sized computer we call a smartphone is home to your entire digital life. But with the onset of mobile payments and online banking, the line between your virtual world and the physical realm is becoming increasingly blurred.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 includes a pretty nifty feature known as "Gesture wake up," which lets users wave their hand over their locked display to wake it, making those periodic notification checks from the lock screen a lot more simple than having to press the power or home key every time.
While the Apple Watch does have up to 18 hours of battery life each day on a full charge, your results will vary depending on how often you use it and what you're actually doing with it.
If you have a smartphone, chances are you have something on it you don't want others seeing. Whether it be photos, videos, or documents, some things are best left private. Not everyone is a saint, after all.
When ringtones and vibration alerts miss the mark and fail to grab your attention, causing you to miss an important call or text, LED flash alerts are a great backup plan. While we already showed how to activate this on Samsung devices, the apps shown below make this feature easier to toggle on and off. Plus, they work on devices that don't have flash alerts included in the system settings.
In the shadow of Facebook's announcement for third-party app development on Messenger, the company has announced the release of a whole new application called Riff, a creative tool for making videos with friends.
Samsung's got a pair of beautiful new flagship devices coming out this spring that will surely top the sales charts. The Galaxy S5's successor is truly worthy of that title, but a second variant with a curved display turned heads at Mobile World Congress this weekend.
Android Lollipop has an awesome feature called "Battery saver" mode that reduces power consumption through various tweaks in order to squeeze in an extra hour or two of standby time when your battery is running low. It does this by disabling background processes as well as location services and transition animations, so the phone is essentially running at half-throttle.
After the Galaxy Note 3 firmware updated to NF4, Samsung decided to remove the option to hide apps in the app drawer, replacing it with an uninstall/disable feature instead. Before, with the hide feature, you could simply hide third-party apps that were barely used or that you didn't want others to see. Now, you can only completely get rid of them.
Android 5.0 has a cool new feature called Priority Mode that allows you to silence your phone's ringer except for when certain people call you. It's something you'd enable right before bedtime, for instance, if you don't want to be disturbed unless it's someone important trying to reach you.
One of the Note 3's best features is Multi Window mode, which allows users to display more than one app on the screen at the same time, taking advantage of the large and high-resolution display.
Snapchat is definitely not known for its stellar privacy or security features, but that hasn't stopped them from gaining millions of users. Now, those millions of users can do more than just share pictures and videos—they can share money.
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When your iPhone can't be found, Find My iPhone is a true lifesaver. When you use the feature, you can ping your iPhone and even see its current location on a real-time map. But what happens when your iPhone runs out of battery? Find My iPhone can't locate a dead iPhone, can it? You might be surprised to know it can, to a certain degree.
The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are supposed to last a lot longer in your pocket with improved battery life, but that doesn't mean that iOS 8 will be that friendly on your older iPhone model. All of those awesome new features could be killing your battery, but with some simple tweaking, your battery life concerns will be a mere afterthought.
There are a ton of great new features in iOS 8, and one of the most interesting (and perplexing) ones is called "Family Sharing."
I'm a long-time and loyal Android user, but one iOS feature that I'm truly envious of is their keyboard shortcuts, which lets you assign a short macro that inputs a longer phrase. For example, typing "home" can input your home address.
Android's permissions system is simple, transparent, and straightforward. When installing an app, you get a chance to review all of the permissions that the app has requested. These can range from accessing your location data to holding a "wakelock" in order to prevent your phone from entering sleep mode. But your only choice in this matter is to accept all requested permissions, or not install the app.
Samsung's Galaxy devices, for all the grief they get about supposed "bloatware", offer quite a few functional features that are not included in stock Android. From "Air Gestures" to a handy "Smart Alert" notification reminder, many of these features are more than just the latest gimmick to pitch in their ads.
Google announced Android L to the masses at their I/O event, and with it they introduced their new "Heads Up" notification system. These notifications are part of the new Material Design UI and are sure to change the way we interact with notifications on our devices.
Apple's iOS 8 brings a few new features to the Mail app, including some speedy swipe gestures to flag, delete, and mark emails as read or unread.
As it is right now, you can only send 5 images by email at the same time from your Camera Roll in iOS 7. There are some workarounds to increase that number, but a new feature in iOS 8 is finally making them unnecessary.
Just over a month ago, Google made its camera app available to all devices running Android 4.4 and higher. Originally exclusive to Nexus devices, the app got a UI overhaul and a new Lens Blur mode, but lost some features in the transition.
