You can wake up to ringtones, music from streaming services, or downloaded audio files when setting alarms in Google's Clock app for Android, but that's not all. The latest feature lets you turn your own voice into an alarm sound, saying whatever it is you need to say to wake you up.
Apple's Always-On display feature for the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max can show important information on the screen even when the device is sleeping. While the dimmed Lock Screen may seem like a WYSIWYG component, there are actually a few ways you can customize it to fit your needs better.
Your iPhone's Camera app isn't the only place you can use Portrait mode for selfies. An easy-to-miss feature built right into iOS lets app developers leverage Apple's powerful Portrait mode effect in their own apps, so you can add a shallow focus effect to photos and videos when using the front-facing camera in FaceTime and apps like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Zoom.
Apple's latest big software update includes an entirely new Apple app, a controversial change in the TV app, better Siri control, an improved Shortcuts app, interesting Safari upgrades, Apple Music Sing, and more. Keep reading to see what iOS 16.2 has to offer your iPhone.
Night Shift, Dark Mode, Reduce White Point, and Zoom's Low Light Filter all help reduce the harmful effects on your body's clock that bright iPhone and iPad screens have at night. But there's another option on iOS and iPadOS that turns your entire display red, and it's useful for so much more than just late-night browsing in bed.
Google Photos is not only an exceptional cross-platform app for photo storage but also a handy tool for generating and creating collages, movies, and animations from your photos and videos. When it comes to collages, you can now customize them and dress them up with vibrant templates.
When you see foreign words on a sign, unfamiliar currencies on a dinner menu, or a recipe using a different measurement system, there's a good chance you google it for a translation or conversion. Your iPhone's Translate app comes in handy for real-world language translations, and Siri's pretty good at converting measurements, but there's an app on everyone's lock screen that can do both: Camera.
Apple's Contacts app just got its biggest update ever. Since the first iPhone in 2008, there have only been minor upgrades here and there to how you manage and interact with contacts. That changes with iOS 16.
Apple gave its Photos app some serious muscle in a new update, and it's time to start flexing. Photos has so much power now that it may finally be time to ditch all your iPhone's other photo and video editing apps. You won't even need any third-party apps to remove backgrounds or lock private content from prying eyes because it's all included in the latest Photos upgrade.
Some apps look great with Dark Mode, and some do not. So when you have system-wide Dark Mode enabled on your iPhone and are using an app that only looks good in Light Mode, you'd normally have to turn the dark appearance off manually, then switch it back on when you leave. But there's a workaround that can automate the process for you.
Apple News. Facebook. Twitter. Reddit. LinkedIn. These are just a few of the apps you probably have on your iPhone or iPad that keep you up to date on today's events. Unfortunately, they can also cause information overload. But a new viral speed-reading tool thinks it can help you process your daily news more efficiently.
After just a few hours, your iPhone's app switcher can become cluttered and even chaotic enough that you won't even want to use it. If you like your app switcher clean and tidy, with only your current session's apps accessible, there's a trick to force-quitting all apps simultaneously rather than one by one.
The Messages app for iOS and iPadOS has a lot of hidden features, but one in particular can save you time and energy whenever you need to forward or copy and paste messages from within an SMS, MMS, or iMessage conversation.
Samsung has a cool security feature built into One UI that has an interesting side effect, one that lets you have two separate copies of any Android app on your Galaxy phone. And that's not the only integrated Samsung tool for cloning apps.
The hottest word game right now is Wordle, a simple game that gives you six chances to guess the five-letter word of the day. I've already shown how you can add the real Wordle app — not a fake clone — to your iPhone or Android phone's home screen. But there's also a way to save Wordle for offline gameplay for years to come.
Apple's iOS 15 update has some great camera features that can benefit professional photographers and casual users alike. And while many are exclusive to newer iPhone models, there are still some Camera app upgrades and additions that apply to all iPhones running iOS 15.
The standard way to sort your notes and to-dos in Reminders has always relied on you putting them in the correct list and group. Then came smart lists for flagged and scheduled tasks, followed shortly by a smart list for tasks assigned to you. In iOS 15, Apple brings yet another way to find your reminders more easily — tags.
The Lens Studio community, now made up of more than 200,000 creators, has generated some impressive augmented reality effects in the last few years. Amazingly, the groundbreaking Lenses for Snapchat continue to come, often from the internal AR team at Snap.
Yo dawg, Snap heard you using Snapchat augmented reality Lenses in your messages, so it's putting its AR Lenses in other messaging apps.
One of the most underrated features that came out with iOS 14 was being able to add captions to images and videos in the Photos app. It's an amazing tool to take advantage of if you ever need to search for a specific picture and Apple's AI fails to recognize the query in your library. The only problem is that you can only edit captions, also called descriptions, one by one.
Web applications are ubiquitous in the modern online world, and knowing how to attack them is an increasingly valuable skill. But the key to a successful attack is good recon since it's easier to be focused and efficient with the more information you have. There are many fingerprinting tools available, such as httprint and WebTech, but there are even more that can aid us in reconnaissance.
When an iPhone is lost or stolen, it's imperative to start tracking it via Find My as soon as possible, whether that's from a computer, tablet, or someone else's phone. However, if it's stolen, there's a good chance the thief or robber turns on Airplane Mode, blocking all communication with the iPhone. If this is a scary thought, you can prevent thieves from accessing Airplane Mode altogether.
Your iPhone is full of features, many of which you might not even know about yet. Still, Apple keeps adding feature after feature with each new iOS update, and iOS 14.5 is no exception. The latest iOS version adds at least 69 features for your iPhone that you should be happy about.
Captions are great for catching every word and important sound in a movie or TV show, but now there's a way in Google Chrome's desktop browser to enjoy captions for any audio file or source. You could ensure you never mishear a comment during an online meeting, and you could even follow along to a song's lyrics on platforms that don't already have in-sync lyrics, such as SoundCloud.
You should feel relatively safe to watch and post videos on TikTok, but like with any online service, you're always at the mercy of hackers.
URL tracking codes: you'll see them on almost every link you copy online to share with friends and followers. It could be tens or hundreds of extra characters appended to the end of a URL, which websites and marketers use to tell how you got to the link in the first place. These excess tracking tokens not only make the links you share look sloppy and spammy — they could even invade your privacy.
I always keep my iPhone's Portrait Orientation Lock on so that my screen doesn't randomly rotate while I'm lying down. However, there are certain apps that I do turn it off for. It's kind of a pain since you have to swipe down the Control Center and toggle the orientation lock — but that ends now. Instead of doing it manually, a new iOS update can automate app orientations for you.
For its latest take on augmented reality-infused playsets, Lego is giving the young, and the simply young at heart, its twist on the viral lipsync format made popular by TikTok with Lego Vidiyo.
Since iOS 11, a thumbnail preview appears on your iPhone whenever you take a screenshot. It's useful for access to quick sharing options and editing tools, but you can't disable the preview image. You can wait for it to disappear or swipe it off-screen, but that's as good as it gets — until now. In an iOS 14 update, there's an option to disable the screenshot preview — only you won't find it in Settings.
Apple's two iCloud storage plans have made it easier than ever to free up space on your iPhone to take more pictures, play more mobile games, and download more music. The plan prices range from $0.99 to $9.99, which isn't bad, but not everyone wants to pay for storage. So deleting items becomes a great option to free up storage — especially music and music videos.
Google's "At A Glance" widget gives you the current weather conditions and upcoming events from your Google Calendar in a handy spot right at the top of your home screen. But on Pixel phones, this widget is permanently embedded into the launcher, so you can't just long-press it to remove it.
It's easier than ever to toggle your iPhone's flashlight (or torch) on and off. From your lock screen, home screen, or from within any app, most iPhone models will let you enable or disable the flashlight from the Control Center, via the Notification Center, or with Siri. But there's an even faster and more convenient way to trigger the flashlight button, and you don't even have to look at your iPhone to use it.
If you'd rather be gently relaxed out of bed instead of stressed out at loud alarm sounds, there are a few things you can do on your iPhone. One of your best options is to use carefully selected songs that start out calm and soothing and gradually increase in intensity and volume. But you could also use a more intense track you know will wake you up, only set to ascend in volume to ease you out of slumber.
ADB and Fastboot are powerful tools that have always required a computer. But with the right setup, you can now send commands to a phone using another phone.
Many podcasts you come across will tell you to check out the episode notes for information and links about whatever that show's topic is. Easy enough, unless you're using Apple Podcasts, where these episode notes don't appear to be anywhere at all. Luckily, they're just hiding in plain sight.
The first Android update of the year is here. On Monday, Jan. 4, 2021, Google started pushing out the January security patch for the Pixel 3 and all newer Pixels, after having ended support for the Pixel 2 last month.
Okay, so you rooted your Android phone .... now what? There are a few ducks you need to get into a row, like backing up your stock boot image, getting SafetyNet sorted, and improving security with biometrics. But there are also awesome root mods waiting for you — just don't get ahead of yourself.
If you just got an iPhone 12, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max, or 12 mini, and you've never owned an iPhone before, some of the most basic tasks can be baffling. Shutting it down, force-restarting it, quitting apps, and even viewing the percentage of battery remaining sound simple but aren't very intuitive for new iPhone owners. Another big question mark is screenshots, and there are several ways to take them.
Google switched to gestural navigation in Android 9, and in removing the back/home/recents buttons, they were able to greatly reduce the size of the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. However, there's still a white line, aka "The Pill," taking up space to show you where to start your gestures.
Apple's latest big update to iOS 14 has a lot to be excited about. While iOS 14.2 had some fun new features, such as new emoji and wallpapers, People Detection in Magnifier, and a Shazam control, iOS 14.3 brings on the heat. There are new Apple services and products that are supported, ApplePro RAW is ready to go, the TV app makes searching better, and custom home screen app icons work even better now.
