I love my status bar. Not only does it tell what time it is and how much battery juice is left, but it gives me cellular connection info, text alerts, and app update notifications. However, one thing is does not give me is customization. Since you're looking at it all the damn time, why not personalize it?
When our Nexus 7s upgraded to KitKat, one key piece of functionality was lost in the mix—Flash support. Of course, even before that we never had official support on the Nexus 7, but hacks seemed to do the job just fine. As it stands now, Google remains on the warpath against Flash, opting instead for HTML5 use, specifically in Chrome (where Flash never worked anyway), and of course Adobe stopped supporting Android long ago.
Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! Recently, I demonstrated a hack where you could redirect traffic intended for one site, such as bankofamerica.com, to your fake website. Of course, to really make this work, you would need to make a replica of the site you were spoofing, or better yet, you could simply simply make a copy of the original site and host it on your own server!
Created by by XDA developer rovo89, the Xposed Framework allows you to quickly search for, download, and install new modules that allow various forms of customization for your Android device.
The lock screen in iOS 7 is great at giving you immediate access to notifications, weather forecasts, date and time, music controls, and even the camera, but for a sports fan like me, there's one critical thing missing—game scores and news highlights.
On more than one occasion, I've wanted to check out the Google Play page for an app I was currently using, whether it was to get contact information or read recent reviews to see if others were experiencing issues that I was.
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.
Flappy Bird is immensely popular, we already know that, but it's even more so now that the developer removed it from Google Play and the iOS App Store. Android users can still get the game fairly easy, but it's nearly impossible to install a safe version on the iPhone now, so you'll have to resort to one of the many Flappy Bird clones out there.
Changing the look and feel of an app's user interface can really make it more pleasurable. Popular apps like Facebook or Twitter may take for granted the importance of a clean UI, since the companies have hundreds of millions of users no matter what their apps look like.
The advent of the Google Nexus 4 seemed too good to be true—high-end hardware, unlocked and contract-free at a low price. As time went on, however, we began to see the compromises. The camera was "meh" at best, and most egregiously, it shipped without LTE functionality.
There are much better things that can go in your iPhone's status bar besides an always-on indicator displaying what carrier you're shelling out money to every month. While it would be nice to get rid of the carrier name altogether at the top of the screen, an even better option is switching it out with something else to better personalize your iPhone.
It seems nowadays the word "easy" has taken on an alternate meaning. When I see "easy," I expect a quick and painless process, but when it comes to flashing or installing a custom ROM, easy means anything but.
Customization is one of Android's popular selling points, and going hand-in-hand with that is being able to set default apps for different actions. Whether you want to play a song, navigate somewhere, or send a text, you can set a go-to app for each of those tasks.
If you turned on your HTC One for the first time and wondered what that weird icon that looks like an N is, it indicates that NFC is on. It seems strange to me that HTC wanted to waste Status bar space on an NFC indicator, but sometimes we just have to deal with it. However, if you're a softModder, you don't have to just deal with it. The icon can't be removed permanently, but there is a very easy way to hide it forever.
Probably the most favorite custom ROM among softModders is CyanogenMod, a theme-friendly take on stock Android that not only makes it easier to customize your device, but also increases performance using a variety of system tweaks and enhancements.
I love surprises. Surprise parties, surprise visits, surprise Patrick... But there are times when a surprise is the last thing you want, like reaching into your pocket to find that your Samsung Galaxy S3 is not where it should be.
I've already covered how you can automatically save Snapchat photos and videos to your Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and how to take screenshots of Snapchats sent to you without the sender knowing, but there's one other thing about Snapchat that could use some softModding.
If you still have time left on your warranty, taking your HTC One in for repairs can be a serious pain if you've modified it in any way. To avoid the chance that they'll reject your phone because it's been tampered with, you'll have to return it to stock condition.
Thanks to HTML5 and dedicated video apps, watching your favorite shows, movies, or video clips on your Samsung Galaxy S4 couldn't be easier. However, there are still times when you'll run into a website that requires Flash to play a video or interact with its content. Although its mobile life has been dead on Android for 2 years, Adobe Flash Player still lives on in the desktop world, fueling millions of websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, ESPN, CNN, and more.
In a previous softModder tutorial, we installed CyanogenMod on our HTC Ones to approximate the look and feel of the Google Edition HTC One. Unfortunately, this rendered Beats and HTC's ImageChip (among other things) useless.
Android is constantly being refined, and the tools used to root and install custom recoveries are no exception. Earlier methods to root and install custom recoveries were very long and complicated. Any misstep along the way and you can end up with a bricked tablet.
With so many cloud storage services out there, many people are starting to keep their important documents online, especially when they know they'll need to view them when they're away from their computer.
Snapchat's self-destructing nature is the perfect way to send funny and potentially embarrassing photos and videos (something Anthony Weiner wishes he knew about). That's why there are currently 150 million Snapchats sent each day. While it may be used for fun, many fail to recognize that there's a dark side to every good thing. While Snapchat claims that the pictures and videos on their application are completely obliterated—not only from the phone, but from the Snapchat server—there are oth...
When you upgrade to a new Android smartphone like the HTC One, you can have browser bookmarks, Wi-Fi passwords, and other settings quickly transferred over from your old device using your Google Account backup. However, you'll still have to download apps individually from your Google Play list, and not all of your saved progress will be transferred over. Fortunately, there is a third-party app that will allow you to backup and restore your apps—with all their data.
The new Samsung Galaxy S4 just received an update to Android 4.2.2, so why is it that my Galaxy Note 2 is still running an older version of Jelly Bean? It felt like yesterday that my device was finally updated to 4.1.2, but why even bother since 4.2 has been around since last November?
Facebook Home was just released in the Google Play Store a couple days ago, and for those of you eagerly waiting to get it on your Nexus 7, you'll unfortunately be stuck with this message: The new Facebook Home launcher app is blocked on the Nexus 7, because Facebook only released it for a few select Android phones. Home for tablets probably won't appear for months, but that's okay, because you don't have to wait that long! In this article, I'm going to show you how to get Facebook Home insta...
Something went wrong and your Nexus 7 is freaking out on you. Maybe you flashed a bad ROM or ZIP file, or maybe it's just bugging, and it's time to restore your tablet back to a working condition. Thankfully, you've already made a backup of your Nexus 7!
Rooting, bootloaders, custom ROMs, CyanogenMod, ClockworkMod... it's all pretty confusing, isn't it? You're not the only one having trouble with this. Many users in the Nexus 7 SoftModder forum have been scratching their heads at these many terms.
We've all been there. Your phone is on your nightstand, but you're on the couch in the living room browsing the web on your Nexus 7. Then you hear it—a faint sound for a new text message notification from the bedroom.
WhatsApp is a very popular messaging app on the Play Store, but unfortunately, tablet users have been left out of all the fun because WhatsApp only works on smartphones—until now.
You (or your partner, or both) are a Steampunk. Let's get away from all the mindless, unfeeling commercialism for a few minutes and think about dates instead of gifts—where do you take your significant other for Valentine's Day? What would be the ultimate Steampunk Valentine's Day date?
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Several of you have you have emailed me asking whether it's possible to install a keylogger on a victim’s computer using Metasploit. The answer is a resounding "YES"!
If you use Ubisoft's uPlay browser extension, you should probably get rid of it right now. An Information Security Engineer at Google discovered that the plugin has a hole in it that allows programs to be installed through uPlay, essentially letting anyone who feels so inclined to take over your computer. How the Exploit Works
Summer is in full swing! Everywhere you look, plants are in full bloom and green is a way of life. Gardeners are clearly living up to their full potential. I cannot think of anything else that personifies summer better than gardening.
Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) is out today, available in the Mac App Store for just $20. Unfortunately, installing Mountain Lion requires that you already have a Mac running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) or Lion (OS X 10.7). If you're currently running a Leopard system, you're out of luck, and need to pay $29 to upgrade to Snow Leopard, and then an additional $20 to upgrade again to Mountain Lion. That sounds like way to much trouble to me. But why exactly is Leopard incompatible? Turns out it's not—m...
So you've just installed Minecraft 1.8 on your computer, and you're trying to figure out how to use the cooler options of creative mode. Where do you start? This guide will show you how to destroy blocks, create buildings with blocks, manage your inventory, obtain unlimited blocks, and use fly in creative mode while playing Minecraft 1.8.
The Yogbox mod compilation pack features many different Minecraft mods, neatly bundled and ready for a quick installation via this walkthrough for Macs. Some of the more popular ones are 'Doors open Doors', 'Pfaeff's redstone blocks mod', 'More Health'.
If you have a rooted Android phone, you can change the shutdown animation to anything you want. Watch this video to learn how to do it. This video explains how to use root explorer to change the shutdown animation on an Android device.
Check out this video to learn how to use Set CPU for Android. This video explains how to install SetCPU, including the system requirements for doing so. Watch this video and then follow along with your phone to get SetCPU running.
Sure, you could watch helpful video and install and activate iOS 5 beta on your iPhone today. But if you'd rather not bother, watch this video instead and get all of the features of iOS 5 with different apps.
