The king of all Xposed modules is alive and kicking on Android Lollipop. GravityBox received an update over the weekend that will bring its bevy of UI tweaks to folks who have installed the framework on their Android 5.0+ devices.
After I traded in my Samsung Galaxy S5 for an iPhone 5S, the one feature I truly missed was the Smart Remote app. My television remote was broken and the S5 saved me from, you know, actually having to get up and change the channel.
These days, we truly have a world of knowledge at our fingertips. Trouble is, a large portion of that information is not something you'd want your five-year-old learning about quite yet.
By default, whenever you plug your iPhone into your Mac computer, iPhoto automatically launches alongside iTunes. While this can be useful for those who like syncing their photos with iPhoto, it's annoying to those who don't. Even if you do sync with iPhoto, chances are you don't want it popping up every time you want to charge your iPhone or sync with iTunes.
When you hear a song you like but can't quite catch enough of its lyrics, it can be nearly impossible to search for it online. That's where Shazam comes in. For the past decade, they've been making music easier for us to identify by analyzing a track's acoustic footprint, requiring only a few seconds of audio for accurate identification.
Looking back at my childhood in the '90s, I can't help but feel like I was deceived. Movies that took place in the "future," like in the year 2015, would showcase awesome technology. You know, self-driving or flying cars, hoverboards, and virtual displays controlled with hand gestures—so where are they?!
The Nexus 6 came with a hidden kernel module that allowed for double-tap-to-wake functionality, essentially letting you turn your screen on just by tapping it. A simple root app allowed us to activate this feature, which meant we were always two quick taps away from waking our device.
At its core, the Chromecast is essentially a web browser on a stick. When you cast content from your computer or smartphone, all you're really doing is telling the Chromecast which website to load.
Normally, if you want to close all of the open apps on your Mac, you'd have to either quit them all one by one or restart, shut down, or log out while making sure to deselect “Reopen windows when logging back in." The latter option is great, but it doesn't always work in Mac OS X, and what if you don't want to restart, shut down, or log out?
These last few months have been a Lollipop lovefest, and I'm not talking about the candy. Android's latest OS has been exalted for its embrace of Material Design, and we've certainly given Lollipop its fair share of coverage as well; check out all its new features and ways to make older devices get some of the new look and feel of Android 5.0.
Getting caught using your iPhone at school or work (when you're using it for personal reasons) can be a little bit embarrassing. Even worse, it can be detrimental to how you're perceived by your teacher or boss. But sometimes you just have to beat that next level of Candy Crush, view a risqué photo on Snapchat, or send an important WhatsApp message.
Emojis are a huge part of communication these days. In fact, I'm beginning to think that in a thousand years, historians will come across our then-ancient texts and speculate that we used a writing system that evolved from hieroglyphics.
Android's biggest selling point over alternatives like iOS or Windows Phone is the level of customization that it offers. If you don't like something about the UI, you can change it, whether it's as small as an icon set or as big as the entire home screen.
Battery life is extremely unpredictable on an Android. Finding the right ROM and kernel combo can make or break having the kind of battery that will last you all day long. Even if you do find the perfect pair, you then have to worry about apps, widgets, and other processes constantly waking your phone and draining your juice. While your media scanner isn't the biggest battery hog out there, it can definitely take a chunk out of it.
Oops... did you forget to connect to a Wi-Fi network before streaming HBO GO on your iPhone? While those episodes of The Wire may have been absolutely life-changing, your three-digit cellular bill is definitely going to hit you a little harder.
When you're on a limited data plan, bumping up against your monthly cap is a major concern. Overage fees are incredibly high these days, and being throttled down to 2G coverage almost renders a smartphone completely useless.
The switch from Dalvik runtime to ART in Android Lollipop has rendered the Xposed Framework useless until a new version is released, but Xposed isn't the only way to mod a phone.
Android's beauty is in its customization; you can have widgets for anything, launchers that look and feel completely different from one another, and fonts you can change at any time. And it doesn't stop at aesthetics—you can go much deeper than looks.
Whether you use a third-party keyboard or the stock offering, your Samsung device keeps a history of the last 20 words you copied on its clipboard. Samsung added this feature to Android to help make multitasking a bit easier, but if you use a password manager like LastPass, this feature quickly becomes a gaping hole in security. While you're copying and pasting your various passwords, the last 20 of them become freely available to anyone that gets their hands on your device.
Before Continuity and Handoff were even announced, Pushbullet was already allowing users to quickly send notes, links, and photos between their devices with a few clicks.
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.
The Air Command window on Samsung Galaxy Note devices makes it easy to access all of the features that the S Pen has to offer, such as Action Memo, which turns your handwritten notes into actionable links, and Pen Window, where you can draw a square on the screen to open a certain application.
Most people's fascination with social media these days is the instant gratification that can come with it. Whether you post an image on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter, a minute or two later your phone will receive a notification informing you of a buddy or two who liked it.
We all have apps that we use most frequently, or system preferences that we're regularly adjusting. Whether it's Netflix or a new game that you're hooked on, there are times when you want quick and easy access versus searching for them, even if they're on your home screen.
If you're like me, things just seem to look better when they're symmetrical. While Android's status bar icons are indeed weighted against the notifications that show up on the left side of this area, the balance still seems skewed to the right.
iTunes Radio, Apple's answer to Pandora, provides endless hours of free music streaming, but like other so-called "free" services, every now and then you're going to hear some ads. While you may not be bombarded with them, they can definitely kill the vibe when you're jamming to your favorite stations.
The attention to detail and build quality that Motorola put into the new Nexus 6 is amazing. Its curved backplate fits the hand like a glove, and fingers slide effortlessly across the rounded edge of its glass front, making the swipe gesture for side navigation menus feel more natural than ever—even for its huge, nearly six inch display.
How many times do you think you press the Home button on your iPhone? You probably can't place a number on it, but you know it's a lot.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a working Super Nintendo in someone's house nowadays, but back in my adolescence it was gaming heaven. But now there's no reason to have an SNES console at home, because there are so many ways to play those retro games without one. All it takes is a good emulator.
Apple hasn't been the most avid supporter of widgets over the years. Yes, they added them to the Notification Center in Yosemite, but that requires a drawer to be opened and closed whenever you want to check them. In my search for a better solution, I came across Ubersicht by developer Felix Hageloh.
While it's much quicker in Yosemite, the Calendar app for Mac has never been as fast as I'd like. If my schedule is really full, it can sometimes hang when first opening the Calendar.
Every so often, we come across an app that makes us wonder "Why didn't someone think of this before?" This is definitely the case with developer Dor Sakal's latest offering, FloatNote.
It's been a long time coming, but Google's Calendar app for Android has finally received a visual makeover. In the spirit of Android Lollipop, Google's new Material Design permeates throughout the update.
Silencing my phone always gives me mild anxiety; while my Android is muted, my girlfriend or boss may be trying to reach me with some urgent news or task. On the one hand, I want to enjoy some peace and quiet, but on the other, I don't want to come back to a phone with 100 missed calls and countless exclamatory texts.
With Halloween fast approaching, social media sites are abuzz with ghosts stories and pictures of cool costumes. By contrast, regular photos just seem to be lacking that macabre feel.
Getting things done isn't easy when you're bombarded with alert sounds and notifications all day long on your Mac. Here's how you can quickly remove those distractions with just a single click.
Since the release of the Galaxy S5 back in April, the process of converting older models, like the Galaxy S4, to replicate the look and feel of the newest S-family member was inevitable. Galaxy users didn't want to be left out, and for good reason. The revamped interface of the S5 introduced a new color palette that was a definite improvement from the flat boring colors on older models.
This how-to is for everybody who faced the problem of intercepting personal data sending through the Internet and is looking for fast and secure method to protect his activity in the global network.
Google's new Inbox by Gmail service wants to fundamentally change the way you handle email, so a bit of a learning curve is to be expected when you're first using the utility. As of right now, the service is invite-only, but if you were lucky enough to get in on the ground floor, you're probably wondering, "How the heck do I use this thing?"
Math homework isn't the easiest thing to get through quickly, no matter how prepared you are. Knowing your stuff simply won't cut it. Going through dozens of equations in one sitting could take up hours of your time. Even when you finish, there's always going to be that one problem you couldn't solve, which could take hours itself to finally get right.
