Unless you own a Samsung device, your Android's navigation buttons have probably always been in this order (from left to right): "Back," "Home," "Recent Apps." But depending on which hand you use to hold your phone, this may not be the most ergonomic layout for you.
If you utilize strong passwords—which you absolutely should be—you've probably had to go back and forth between keyboard screens multiple times to input various letters, numbers, and symbols.
The front-facing stereo speakers on the Nexus 6 certainly pump out some awesome sound—but it could always be better, right?
Android "Lollipop" introduced a ton of cool new functionality. Unfortunately, the Nexus 5 didn't get all of these features, as some were exclusive to other devices. For example, the Ambient Display function on the Nexus 6 that shows new notifications as they come in with a black-and-white lock screen. Sure, the new Nexus phablet has an AMOLED display that doesn't waste any battery to power black pixels, but it would be nice to have this feature as an option on the Nexus 5, wouldn't it?
At $349 off contract, the Nexus 5 has always been one of the best bang-for-your-buck smartphones on the market. In order to keep the price that low, however, Google had to pass up on some of the minor features that other flagship phones offer.
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.
There were over 1.2 million changes made to Android when the OS got updated from KitKat to Lollipop, but a minor front-facing modification has many users in an uproar.
An app with overabundant features can make it more customizable, but too many options can also be overwhelming, even on a mobile web browser. If you're tired of Safari or Chrome on your iPhone, try out Frameless from developer Jay Stakelon, a simpler web experience using just the essentials.
Podcasts are back. The Rich Eisen Show, The Joe Rogan Experience and StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson make up just a tiny fraction of what's become an incredibly dense market, with these being some of the most popular available right now.
Nothing else quite sums up my childhood like Super Mario, the Italian plumber who constantly had to defeat Bowser to save Princess Peach (aka Princess Toadstool) from danger. While it's easy to relive the classic gameplay on your Android with Nintendo emulators, not everyone has time for lengthy quests. Instead, you can get your Mario nostalgia fix with a live wallpaper for your home and/or lock screen.
Practically every kid in the '80s would rush home after school to put in some time on the first-gen Nintendo before their parents got home. Games like Super Mario Bros. and Super Smash Bros. were synonymous with fun times, and to this day, call up a wave of nostalgia amongst Generation-Xers.
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.
While the new Google Inbox is currently invite-only, if you were able to snag one, you'll want to learn the best ways to navigate it. Google Inbox coins itself as "The inbox that works for you," and after a brief run through of it, we think it's definitely living up to that slogan.
While the Quick Settings feature on Android is great, manufacturers like HTC, LG, and Samsung took it a step further in their custom skins. For instance, on Samsung devices, you can access the most common toggles at the top of the Notification tray, and you can tap once to access more tiles. This makes toggling cellular data, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi a fast and painless process.
As carriers finalize their variations of the Android 4.4.4 update, we're left with only brief glimpses of what the new "Eye Experience" holds in store for us while we wait. However, thanks to a system dump of an updated European HTC One M8 and some clever hackery by donmarkoni, we can now install the new camera app on any variant of the HTC One M8.
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.
Chances are that you're living in a city and/or state that's banned using your phone while driving, and because of that, many manufactures have added a "car mode" to their devices. In most instances, this mode is simply an app that simplifies your phone to its basic parts so you can navigate, make calls, and play music, limiting the amount of smartphone distractions.
While screenshotting a received Snapchat has never been a hard thing to do, saving one without being noticed is a completely different story. Previously, you would have to have either a rooted Android or jailbroken iOS device to save one of those self-destructing messages undetected, but one particular app has opened this trick up to the masses.
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.
Normally, it's good to automatically update your apps to the latest version, but sometimes those updates take away features that you've grown to love.
If you notice any issues with your LG G3, pinpointing the culprit can be an arduous task. It could be a hardware issue, a resource-heavy app, or a bloatware-infested operating system.
Unlike other Android devices with soft keys, the LG G3 actually comes stocked with a few different styles, as well as the ability to adjust the button layout and combination. But while the customization options are great, the styles you can switch between don't add much flair or personality to your device.
Get ready to stop using the stock Contacts app on your Samsung Galaxy S4, because there's something better out there for keeping track of your family and friends—and it looks better too.
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.
You can't always have your media on the same network as your Chromecast. Say you're at a friend's house or even out of town—it sure would be nice to cast your videos when you're out and about, wouldn't it?
Transparent status bars and new lock screens weren't the only new additions that came with the Galaxy S3 KitKat update. Along with better battery life and a smoother user experience, we got a new toggles design and recent apps menu. Of course, Samsung's infinite wisdom left these two aesthetic features hidden away. Luckily, with root, you can easily enable them with just a few quick edits.
As Nexus owners, we love our device's operating system, and it's probably the reason we went for a pure Google experience in the first place. But that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement in Android, especially when the OS has so many freely available softMods to tinker with.
In a flurry of moves today, Microsoft has not only released their suite of Office apps for the iPad, but they also updated their Android and iOS Office Mobile apps to allow for creating and editing documents without requiring an Office 365 account (so long as it's for "home" use). Microsoft Office Mobile for Android & iOS
Google Glass is all about transforming the world around us with little to zero interaction from the wearer. Much of this is done using augmented reality—a live view of physical, real-world environments that are augmented by computer-generated input in the form of graphics, sights, and sounds.
There are a ton of great mods and tweaks available in Cydia, but occasionally there will be one you want to install that hasn't quite made it into one of the main repositories yet. If you're not patient, it can be still be installed by manually placing the .deb file directly onto your device and installing it with iFile.
In a world where more features are king, sometimes it's a good thing to breathe, take a step backwards and keep it simple. With home launchers, this isn't often the case, as developers add a galore of features to their apps in order to be at the top of the game.
The day I picked up my iPhone 5S was a very exciting day. I had taken all the correct steps in backing up my old device so that after a quick restore-from-backup (which turned into half an hour), I was right at home on the new hardware.
Thanks to its dedicated ImageChip, the HTC One has one of the best cameras out of all the smartphones currently on the market. Their branded UltraPixel Camera can take full resolution photos while shooting video, has superior auto-focusing, and provides great overall quality for everything from low-light to action shots.
A free Wi-Fi hotspot can be a lifesaver. Whether it's because you have shitty reception, need faster connectivity, or just don't want to go over your monthly data plan, free Wi-Fi in public areas is greatly appreciated. While connecting to these free hotspots is fairly easy, finding them can become a whole nother issue. I've been in plenty of situations where I wasted my data plan instead of taking a few steps to the right, where free Wi-Fi would have been waiting for me and my Samsung Galaxy...
With iOS 7, Apple is finally fighting back against spam, offering the option to block certain phone numbers from sending you text messages or iMessages (plus, phone calls and FaceTime too).
As you may have noticed, many of our tutorials cover topics that require you to have root access. When your phone is rooted, backing up apps doesn't require you to connect to your computer, and installing custom ROMs lets you get more useful settings. Rooting also lets you get rid of the Sense-style menus and status bar, and even upgrade to a newer version of Android.
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.
I read a ton of articles online and I am always looking for a way to make the experience a little better. Reading long articles can be tiresome, and if an article has multiple pages, I will most likely skip it. With the ability to endlessly scroll, no site should have multiple pages. It's just a sneaky way to get more page views, IMHO.
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! So many of you responded positively to my post about using the keylogger, as well as my post regarding turning on the webcam, that I decided that you might enjoy another similar hack. In this article, we will enable the audio recording capability on the remote system of your roommate.
Inverting colors on your mobile device not only saves battery life, but also helps prevent straining your eyes, especially during the nighttime. Bright white screens interfere not only with your eyes, but with your sleeping patterns, as well. The bright lights greatly reduce your melatonin, a hormone secreted by the pineal gland in the brain that helps you go to sleep. Thus, the onset of sleep is delayed and the possibility of deep sleep is reduced greatly.
