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.
Each morning, we spend a significant portion of our time staring into the mirror. From choosing clothes and accessories to perfecting our hair, we try to make ourselves attractive. Yet catching others' attention doesn't have to rely on preening and primping. There's some truth to the maxim of beauty in confidence—all you need to make yourself more attractive is spray on your favorite scent.
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.
Navigating through the darkness—literal darkness, not the existential variety—is always a difficult task on its own, and my Android doesn't necessarily make it any easier. Many manufacturers offer quick access to a flashlight or torch feature, but my Galaxy S4 doesn't have an easily accessible toggle or button available to turn it on.
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.
One feature that the majority of iPhone owners utilize is the device's passcode security lock. And while iOS 8 ushered in device customizations that add a whole new level of personalization on the Apple's mobile devices, the lock screen passcode page remains frustratingly the same.
Back in iOS 7, Apple decided that it was actually a good thing to make the volume controls HUD translucent. This, of course, means that whatever you're watching on your screen will be obstructed temporarily whenever you adjust the volume.
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.
In places like underground bars or national parks, your phone's Internet service is sure to slow down to a very sluggish pace, making it difficult to surf the web. Or worst case, data will be non-existent, leaving you with only low-level network support for calls and SMS text messages.
Since the days of Friendster and MySpace, social media platforms have taken leaps forward, revolutionizing how we live our lives by changing the way we communicate with others. Not only has social media become a catalyst for major uprisings around the world, but on a personal level, it connects people together in ways that were unimaginable even 10 year ago—no one was taking pictures of their brunch to share with the world in 2004.
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.
Stocked with a 7-inch LCD display and 323 PPI (pixels per inch), the Kindle Fire HDX is one of the best tablets on the market for enjoying some great literature or entertaining streaming services—and I take full advantage of what this device offers.
Third-party keyboards have become a game changer for iPhone owners since their integration in iOS 8. And while the major players from the Android realm—Fleksy, SwiftKey, Swype—already have their keyboards on the iOS App Store, their products are relatively standard fare.
Now that you've updated your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to iOS 8, there's a lot of cool new things to explore. If you felt a little overwhelmed from all of the detailed information available in our Coolest Hidden Features of iOS 8 post, then I've got a simple breakdown of all of the new features available with quick links to their walkthroughs and pictures, if available. Watch the short video roundup, or skip below for the list.
With root access, you're granted greater control over your device, allowing you to do things that your Android system wouldn't allow otherwise. Things like installing Xposed mods are made possible with root, but other advantages address performance and security, like stopping your Android logging, which is exactly what we'll be going over today.
Your device has several volume levels that are regularly adjusted: the alarm, media, and ringer. Keeping track of the various volumes on a device can become an easy-to-forget task, potentially resulting in you not hearing an alarm in the morning, as you have to enter the sound options or trigger a volume change, then expand the dialog box that pops up.
The new Camera app in iOS 8 has a few really great features, but some of the best photo-centric features were packed into the iPhone's photo editing tools. These new editing features can create even more dynamic images than before, no Instagram required.
How, you ask? They did it without requiring a goofy-looking face-computer. I know what you're thinking, "Without headgear, how is it a Glass killer?" It's because it does what Glass was meant to do: keep you connected while on-the-go, without constantly staring at your phone.
App switchers are a great way to conveniently access your favorite applications from any screen, but most limit the number of apps you can use. That means that whenever you want to switch over to another app, you have to leave your current one, and either find the one you want in recents, on your home screen, or in your app drawer.
Though they share the same name, the HTC One and OnePlus One have completely different sound quality. HTC had put a lot of time and effort into fine-tuning their BoomSound technology, while OnePlus is still fairly new to the game, with brand recognition being a much greater objective than awesome speakers.
Keeping prying eyes off your device isn't always the easiest thing to do, especially once you lend somebody your phone to make a call. Seems that whenever someone is scrolling through your pictures or checking out your new phone, they always end up somewhere you don't want them be. You could always hover over their shoulder to make sure they're not getting into your texts or photos, but that isn't always possible.
Trying to explain something difficult over the phone can be pretty frustrating if the other person doesn't understand you. Using text messages can be useless for auditory learners, and a phone call won't do much good for a reading or visual learner.
It happens to everyone: you set a lock screen password in a hurry and cannot remember it the next day. To unlock your device again, you need to reset the password (or PIN, pattern, etc). There are two official methods of doing this.
Google may have decided to back HTML5 for YouTube, but much of the internet still relies heavily on Adobe Flash content. While the Chrome browser for Android is unable to play Flash-based content like Amazon Instant Video streams, some third-party browsers will.
Biting into a perfectly ripe mango is living proof of nature's goodness. The flesh is at once creamy, smooth, tart, and sweet. Plus they're incredibly good for you.
Arguably Chromecast's biggest feature since its launch, screen mirroring functionality started rolling out to select devices earlier this week, and in a word, it's awesome.
Even as a writer by trade, I'm not intimately familiar with every word in the English language. When you're typing something out on your Nexus, sometimes you think to yourself, "Is that right? Am I using the correct word here?" Then, you have no choice but to bring up Google Now and do a search for that word to make sure you're using it correctly.
CyanogenMod is one of, if not the most popular, third-party operating system for Android devices. It's so popular in fact, that it is the standard, out-of-the-box operating system on the recently released OnePlus One. CM is a lightweight ROM built on top of AOSP (Android Open Source Project), which is the base for all Android builds.
There are two types of bricks ("brick" as in "bricking your phone")—soft and hard. Soft bricks are recoverable—something has probably gone wrong with some critical system partition, causing a bootloop or inability to boot in some way. Fine. Re-flashing everything should fix that instantly. Hard bricks are not recoverable—if you manage to hard-brick your Nexus, you are in trouble.
Now that all variants of the Galaxy S5 have finally been rooted, we can start exploring all of the tweaks and hacks that Superuser privileges open up to us.
Samsung's TouchWiz interface comes with tons of small features that can increase your productivity and user experience. From Mulit-Window Mode to Stress Level Monitoring, there are so many functions that some even go unnoticed.
When I became serious about cooking, nearly every cookbook and guide I picked up emphasized the importance of using fresh stock, whether it was chicken, beef, or vegetable. When I didn't have time to make my own, I bought the highest quality boxed or canned stock I could find at the market.
When theming Android, it's the little touches that complete the look, making your device yours. If you're rooted, you probably know by now that there's virtually nothing you can't change the look of on Android.
How to build a set of strong, stackable sturdy sawhorses. Let's face it, one of the most useful pieces of carpentry equipment would have to be a set of sawhorses. Every worksite, garage or workshop needs a set of sawhorses. They have numerous uses from stacking timber on, using as painting racks, to using as a temporary workbench by laying a door or some ply across two sawhorses. You can even use them as trestles for a dining table!
Netflix releases monthly reports on major ISPs relating to how well their service works on each provider. The purpose is to educate the public on their choice of service provider, but since many of us hardly have any choice at all when is comes to an ISP, it backhandedly works to shame them (if they're even capable of feeling shame under all those millions of dollars).
When it comes to blocking unwanted calls, your Android device comes stocked with a native blocking feature that allows you to reject certain phone numbers. That being said, the native blocking feature on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 isn't the prettiest or the smartest, with its non-obvious setup and lack of features.
One of the hardest tradeoffs when installing a non-Sense-based custom ROM on an HTC One is the loss of Beats Audio. Due to a patent restrictions from Beats and compatibility issues, it's currently impossible to port it to a non-Sense ROM, but with ViPER4Android you can get almost identical results, bringing life back to the BoomSound speakers on your device.
When you're wearing EarPods or another set of headphones with built-in remote controls, pausing and playing music is as convenient as it gets. However, some of the better sounding headphones out there do not have remotes built in, so pausing a song when you need to is at least a few steps, which is a few steps more than I want.
With the introduction of the Control Center in iOS 7, we finally had a way to access common system toggles like Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode, and best of all, Flashlight. Of course, there were plenty of adequate flashlight apps in the iOS App Store, but none that made it available straight from the lock screen.
The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is run to the kitchen to make coffee, and I know I'm not the only one. According to a survey by the National Coffee Association (yes, there's such a thing), 83% of Americans drink coffee, and I'd bet most of that consumption happens in the morning.
