News: 25+ Annoying Things iOS 12 Got Wrong or Failed to Address
While there are over 100 cool features iOS 12 has to offer, there are some things Apple has made more annoying on iPhones or just has not addressed yet.
Issues Swiftly Search Results
News: This Is What Tech Reviewers Think of the Magic Leap One After Spending Time with the Finished Product
The hype train that left the station years ago has reached its first stop, and now we finally have access to the Magic Leap One, the device many have claimed would revolutionize the augmented reality space at launch. But is that really true?
Released: iOS 12 Dev Beta 3 (Public Beta 2), Includes Improved Maps, Bug Fixes & Security Patches
Apple released the third beta of iOS 12 for developers on Tuesday, July 3. The update comes exactly two weeks after the release of the second developer beta, which introduced a variety of fixes as well as new issues, and just one week after the release of the public beta. Public beta testers received this iOS 12 update on Thursday, July 5, labeled as public beta 2.
Market Reality: Disney, Universal, & FIFA World Cup Turn to Augmented Reality for Marketing Muscle
Augmented reality is really picking up steam as a tool for marketing departments to pitch their products.
How To: Prevent Accidental 911 Calls from Your Apple Watch (So Emergency Services Don't Show Up While You're Sleeping)
I've called 911 accidentally more than a few times on my iPhone using the Emergency SOS triggers, but it's also just as easy to trigger an unintentional call to emergency services using an Apple Watch. These accidental 911 calls can put a strain on local public-safety answering points, or call centers, as well as local authorities and emergency medical technicians.
News: Apple Just Broke Its Update Cycle Record with iOS 12 on the iPhone 5S
With each year that we anxiously await Apple's next big version of iOS, there comes the sad reality that the eldest iPhones will not continue to receive support. That's not the case with iOS 12, however, as the software is compatible with all iPhones currently running iOS 11, going back as far as the iPhone 5S.
How To: Ads Taking Over Your Lock Screen? Here's How to Fix It
Android has gotten significantly better at handling intrusive ads over the years. Things have gotten to the point to where these nuisances are largely a non-issue for most of us. However, there are still a few ad-laden apps that fall through the cracks — particularly the kind that bombard your lock screen with ads.
How To: You Can Play Dead Rivals & Slaughter Zombies on Your iPhone Right Now
Mobile gamers are well aware of this, but zombie shooters have become pretty stagnant and unimaginative in recent years. Too many entries in this genre feature the same cookie-cutter gameplay, but thankfully, Gameloft aims to change this. The company has soft-launched Dead Rivals in a few countries, and with a little work, you can try the game yourself right now.
How To: Google Assistant Doesn't Work with Your Account? Here's What to Do
If your virtual assistant can't assist you, what's the point? Anyone who has ever failed to activate Google Assistant knows the frustration that error screen can be. But there are solutions for this problem — "The Google Assistant isn't available for this account" is one message you can actually avoid.
How To: Indian (Telugu) Character Crashing Messages? Try This
If you have an iPhone, you probably know that iOS 11 hasn't been the smoothest iOS version released, to put it lightly. We've seen bug after bug cripple the software's usability, many times within the Messages app. Now, yet another glitch has emerged to drive us crazy, one where just a simple Indian character can crash Messages as well as other third-party apps.
News: How the RED Hydrogen One's 4V 'Holographic' Display Works
RED has apparrantly been blowing minds with the revolutionary technology inside its upcoming Hydrogen One. Like the Razer Phone in late 2017, most of the cool tech lives inside its screen — which, also like the Razer Phone, is unlike any other on the market today. RED, too, is poised to make some major waves in the coming months, as its phone should be arriving in stores this summer.
News: New iOS Update Will Tell You More About Your iPhone's Battery Health & Turn Off Slowdown
Update 1/17: Tim Cook chimed in about the upcoming iOS upgrade with expanded battery health data. We'll expand on that below.
Nova Launcher 101: How to Unlock the Hidden 'Labs' Menu for Experimental Features
TeslaCoil's Nova Launcher is one of the best home screen apps on the Play Store. It's about as fast as it gets, and it's always among the first to add the latest Android features. However, it looks like Nova Launcher isn't showing users all of the customization options available — apparently, there's a secret menu, and it's pretty simple to unlock.
News: The Differences Between the Galaxy S8 & Galaxy Note 8 Oreo Updates
Both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 have Oreo beta software available in the wild at this point. We devoted a number of articles to covering what's new in Oreo and went into detail about the bugs and hiccups on both the S8 and the Note 8. Still, many people are left wondering — what's the difference between the Oreo builds on these two phones?
How To: Check if Your Phone Can Stream HD Video from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video & Other Services
It recently came to light that a number of Android phones are unable to stream HD video through services like Netflix, Google Play Movies, and Amazon Prime Video. If you're worried that your phone may be affected, there's a simple tool you can use to find out for sure if you can actually stream video in 720p or higher.
How To: Easily Bypass macOS High Sierra's Login Screen & Get Root (No Password Hacking Required)
It looks like there is a fatal flaw in the current macOS High Sierra 10.13.1, even straight from the login menu when you first start up the computer. This severe vulnerability lets hackers — or anyone with malicious intentions — do anything they want as root users as long as they have physical access to the computer.
News: How Would the Pixel 2 XL Look if HTC Built It? Now We Know
The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL were built by different manufacturers. This is pretty common knowledge among Android fans at this point — Google's smaller Pixel 2 was built by HTC, while the larger Pixel 2 XL was built by LG. What would the Pixel 2 XL look like if HTC had followed through and delivered on the larger phone for Google? Today we have some answers.
iPhone X Preorders: It Might Be Time to Start Camping Out at the Apple Store Already
The first wave of iPhone X preorders, the ones with a delivery date of Nov. 3, sold out in ten minutes. You can still preorder one and skip the lines next week at Apple Stores across the country, but if you want that bezel-less beauty in your hands ASAP, brick and mortar might be the way to go.
News: Android 8.1 Oreo New Feature Roundup — What's Coming to Pixel & Nexus Devices
Google just released the second developer preview of the Android 8.1 update for Nexus and Pixel devices, and even though it's just a point-one release, there are lots of cool changes. Before you run off to join the Android beta program and try the new version, it's worth reading up on what's new.
How To: Get the Pixel 2 Launcher with the Bottom Search Bar & Google Now — No Root Needed
Update 10/14: Developer paphonb has added rootless Google Now integration to the leaked Pixel 2 launcher, so now, anyone running Android Nougat or Oreo can get the full Pixel 2 home screen experience. For those running Lollipop or Marshmallow, we've left the unaltered leaked version linked out below, but we've added a new link for the tweaked version with Google Now integration.
Apple AR: Defend Your Home from Zombies with Your iPhone
While VR promises to take gamers to another world, AR has the potential to bring the game elements into your own neighborhood or home.
How To: Exploring Kali Linux Alternatives: How to Get Started with BlackArch, a More Up-to-Date Pentesting Distro
In 2013, Offensive Security released Kali Linux, a rebuild of BackTrack Linux derived from Debian. Since then, Kali has gone on to become somewhat of a standard for penetration testing. It comes preconfigured with a collection of tools accessible by a menu system, tied together with the Gnome desktop environment. However, Kali Linux isn't the only penetration-testing distribution available.
Dev Report: Unity Fixes Visual Studio Issues & View 3D Models in the World Around You Without a HoloLens
Here are a couple of quick bits, and also a little bit of a teaser. If you know of my old YouTube channel and are a developer, you may be aware of the "Scale and Rotation System" tutorial series I did. I then started working for Next Reality and never finished it.
iOS Users: Prepare to Have Your Twitter World Rocked with Redesign
You seriously won't even recognize Twitter after this. Twitter has launched a major redesign, their first in years and it seems the app is finally starting to listen to what users are looking for — starting to being the keywords.
News: As FTC Cracks Down, Instagram Will Start Letting You Know Who's Getting Paid to Post
Get ready IG influencers, the Instagram promotional world as you know it is about to change. Instagram is one of the top places for influencers to make money with product promotion. So, of course, it is to be expected that these IG dominators would run into their fair share of disasters. Especially since over 90% of celebrities and influencers on Instagram don't follow FTC guidelines.
News: Your New Shrink Is Only a Facebook Message Away with Stanford's New Chatbot
Getting support for your mental health is now as easy as opening up Facebook Messenger. By just opening up the Messenger app, you can connect to Woebot, a new chatbot developed at Stanford trained in administering cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
News: Uber in More Hot Water with Pittsburgh Officials as Driverless Deal Sours
Things aren't looking good for Uber after its driverless experiment in Pittsburgh soured relations with local authorities. Surprised? Me neither.
News: Uber Facing Criminal Probe, Maybe Much Worse
Uber's year is going from bad to worse, and they may be subject to a potential criminal probe in the ongoing Waymo legal battle.
News: 'After Ice' Shows What Climate Change Is About to Do to Our World
In honor of Earth Day tomorrow (woo!), visual artist Justin Brice Guariglia has released a new augmented reality app that lets you experience climate change from wherever you're standing.
Brief Reality: AR Goes Green in Hackathon
NextReality will be giving readers a rundown of the augmented and mixed reality news briefs from the preceding week that we didn't cover already. This way, you'll never miss anything of importance in the NextReality landscape, and will always know what's going on with new augmented and mixed reality tech and applications. The first one starts right now, and you can enjoy future ones every Tuesday going forward, so stay tuned.
Timeline: Uber's Terrible Year Just Keeps Getting Worse
Uber's driverless cabs began picking people up in Arizona in February, after its attempt at a pilot test in San Francisco. Now, one of these cars has been in an accident, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
News: New Nexus 6 Update Downgrades Your Android Version Back to 7.0
Google has done it again—they've pushed another broken OTA update for the Nexus 6. Except this time, it almost completely softbricks your Nexus 6 instead of just screwing up Android Pay and SafetyNet. Apps are force-stopping left and right, making the phone practically unusable.
News: Microbes to Blame for Serious Dental Issues in People with Diabetes & Metabolic Diseases
As many as 700 species of bacteria live on our teeth and in our mouth, and just like the microbiomes inhabiting other parts of our bodies, they change in response to diseases and other health conditions.
News: This Bacteria Could Be a Signal That Your Baby's Coming Early
The rate of preterm birth has been increasing in the United States for unknown reasons, causing increased health risks for infants born too soon. But researchers may have found a signal that could help doctors plan ahead for, or even prevent, early birth with a simple swab of the vagina and cervix during pregnancy.
How To: Customize YouTube's Default Landing Page & Resolution on Android
The YouTube app for Android doesn't exactly offer the greatest user experience. For one thing, it opens to an arbitrary "Home" tab instead of your subscriptions, so you see a list of what YouTube thinks you want to watch instead of your favorite channels. In addition to that, videos are loading at a mere 144p playback resolution for many users lately, which is downright terrible quality.
News: Bluetooth 5 Is Here—But It Won't Make Your Headphones Sound Better
Bluetooth 5 was announced and made officially available on December 7, 2016. It comes with a handful of improvements to speed, range, maximum device connectivity, and anti-interference from other nearby devices. While this might be great for those special few who use Bluetooth on a daily basis to send and receive (or steal) data, what about the average Joe?
News: These Android Phones Could Be Affected by Adups' Chinese Spyware
Kryptowire, a company specializing in mobile security solutions, released a report on Tuesday, November 15 that exposed firmware in a number of Android devices that was collecting personally identifying information (PII) and uploading it to third-party servers without users' knowledge.
How To: Energize Your Status Bar with a Color-Coded Battery Indicator
Even with today's high-powered devices, battery life is still an issue. We, as users, have to almost habitually check the current battery percentage, because otherwise, we might end up draining too much in the morning, then get stuck with a dead phone at night.
Android Basics: How to Unlock Your Phone with Your Fingerprint
Starting with version 6.0 Marshmallow, Android now supports fingerprint scanners natively. This change has effectively opened the floodgates, and now almost every flagship Android device includes a fingerprint scanner out of the box.
How To: Fit More on Your Galaxy's Screen with This Hidden Samsung Feature
Smartphone displays are getting bigger every year, and Samsung devices are at the forefront of that trend. But, from a software standpoint, the icons, buttons, and other on-screen elements seem to stay at the same scale. So while phones are getting bigger, their interfaces are getting bigger as well.