Living in Southern California means I don't really have a need to check the weather all that often. But every now and then, I'm caught off guard by a particularly chilly or hot day—no one wants to be the only person walking around with a T-shirt and sandals on a rainy, 50-degree day.
While the Spotify interface isn't overly complicated or confusing, it's not exactly safe to use when behind the wheel. Thankfully, a new app from Navideck is here to make driving with a Spotify premium membership easier and safer for your daily commutes.
If you're a rooted user, you've probably heard the term "BusyBox" by now. Many mods require these powerful root commands, but the process of installing BusyBox can be a bit confusing for the uninitiated.
As with any software, Android apps can occasionally suffer from bugs. But finding the root cause of such issues can often be difficult, and reporting bugs is a cumbersome experience.
We all have those moments where we're bored or lonely, and in those times, just having anyone to talk to would be awesome. But maybe your friends are all busy, or everyone you know is at work and nobody's responding to your text messages.
Some variants of the Galaxy S6 will allow you to silence the camera shutter sound with an option in the app's settings menu. But this is not true of all models, plus there's an additional annoyance—when you're filming video and you get a notification, you'll actually hear this tone on the final recording.
Snapchat developers insist that the app stay true to what its always been: a service for snapping and sharing self-destructing images. This belief is further hit home with their strict 31-character text limit, which some people refuse to abide by. Namely, Snapchatter Shayne Skellett.
Our hands aren't necessarily getting any bigger, but smartphones still seem to be getting larger and larger. With average cell phone display sizes nearly doubling since 2007 (leading to new terminology like "phablet"), reaching all corners of a screen can become nearly impossible with one hand. Granted, most larger devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Note 4 come with a one-handed option to make navigating easier, but other popular devices like the Nexus 6 don't. While it may see...
Android has a permission that allows apps to draw on top of other apps, but as fun as that may sound, it has mostly been used to create floating multitasking utilities. While these can certainly be useful, it would still be nice if this permission were taken literally and we could actually draw on top of apps.
Aside from the fact that it was the only game available on my cell phone at the time, I was really good at Snake. I still occasionally play it on my smartphone, but I've never been able to duplicate the same level of achievement as I once did.
CyanogenMod has been building upon open-source AOSP apps for many years now. They've made improvements to apps like the stock SMS client, the stock Audio Mixer, and a whole slew of others.
The basic clock app on Android devices is functional and has a few nice features. One of these is a "World Clock" view, which lets you see the current time in different cities across the world, and shows the time in your location at the top.
Not too long ago I showcased ReCam, a free app that lets you schedule recordings and use your Android device as a security or spy camera of sorts. While useful, this app required you to schedule when to record in advance, resulting in you possibly missing the footage you intended to record (assuming your scheduling wasn't as on-point as you wished).
Even though my high school days are long behind me, I still find myself waking up in a cold sweat worrying about what my GPA is and what college I'm going to be able to get into. During those days I had to rely on coming up with my own equations to figure out my GPA between grading periods—including AP and honors course, as well as weights for pluses and minuses—but now there are smartphones to do all that thinking for me.
Before you purchased your smartphone or tablet, the device had already embarked on quite a long journey. From product development to manufacturing, your Samsung Galaxy device had already developed a rich history prior to your ownership.
We previously showed you how to make your Android's LED notification light dance to music, but the app itself was limited in customization options, the devices it worked on, and the music apps and services it worked with. Now we'll be showing you a similar app that supports more music services and lets you select which colors will display through the LED.
Just recently, Snapchat decided to implement a feature that it had long been lacking—the ability to play music and record a video at the same time. For those of us that are jailbroken, we've had this feature for some time, but now that everyone has the ability, how should you use it?
I know where I bought my phone, and I definitely know who I'm paying money to every month for cellular service, so there's absolutely no need to see my carrier's name draped all over my device. Fortunately, with Android Lollipop, the carrier label is only present on the lock screen. Nevertheless, that label can keep your phone from feeling just right, so let's go ahead and show you how to get rid of it.
Granting seamless access to your favorite or most utilized apps with just a tap, the Galaxy S5's "Toolbox" feature is one that plenty of other Android users wish they had. Instead of holding your breath for your manufacturer to implement something similar, or hoping that Samsung releases it on Google Play, you can mimic it on your device today with a few simple steps.
When opening a link or sharing a photo, your Android device will bring up a list of possible applications that you can complete the action with. However, some of the apps included you never use or didn't even know existed, and this leads to unnecessary clutter. Fortunately, if you're rooted, there's an easy way to remove apps from the "Open with" and "Share via" lists.
There aren't many complaints I can think of when it comes to the Instagram interface, and finding one would just be nitpicking. But like with most things in life, if given the opportunity, why not take advantage? "When in Rome," as they say.
Yes, they're called volume keys, but they can do much more than adjust your volume. With minimal effort, you can do some amazing things with these physical buttons, like secretly record videos, toggle on your flashlight, scroll through pages, control your music, and much more. And while using them to wake your screen is useful, let's take it a step further and show you how to use them to completely unlock your device, even if the screen is off.
These days, using the power button to lock your Android seems a little old-fashioned. Thanks to third-party apps and mods, you could seamlessly lock your device using a double-tap, a swipe, and even gravity, or you could just throw it in your pocket, all of which help prevent additional wear and tear on your power button. Now, we've got another method for you—just shake.
Some elements of iOS's design, like its minimal color palette, are what make Apple products unique, helping to produce a clean, sleek user experience. But after you jailbreak, that all goes out the window. Once you've tried things like theming your status bar, changing your icons, or applying a new lock screen, you'll never see your iOS device in the same way again.
Reddit is a force to be reckoned with. What started out as link aggregator has become one of the world's most popular websites, with over 170 million unique visitors and 6 billion monthly pageviews. Whether you're into cute animals, crazy conspiracy theories, sports, or Taylor Swift's armpit, Reddit definitely has something for every taste, interest, and morbid curiosity.
During class or while at work, it can take an immense amount of self-control to resist navigating over to Reddit. The link-aggregator and meme-warehouse makes it too easy to kill time... most of which you should be spending on various other tasks.
If you've had your Gmail account for awhile, it's probably a cluttered mess thanks to unread messages, out-of-control newsletters, and never-ending email threads. This is one of the main reasons for the creation of Google's streamlined Inbox service, but the adoption rate for it hasn't indicated a huge shift over for most of us yet (partly because it's invite-only still).
There is no built-in way, or any options in the iOS App Store, to customize the vacant top half of the screen that appears when the newer Reachability feature is triggered in iOS 8. However, there are many Reachability tweaks for jailbroken iPhones, one of which lets you use the feature on devices other than an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.
The Oscars are just around the corner, so it's the perfect time to remind people of your favorite movie moments, even if they're not exactly Oscar-worthy. But don't just settle on sending GIFs that don't include any of the fun audio, or resort to scouring YouTube for that one specific movie clip. Instead, take a look at Qwotes, a new mobile app from developer StudyUp.
Maps is great for getting turn-by-turn directions in unfamiliar territory, but how many times does your favorite song have to be rudely interrupted by that navigation voice telling you to turn left or right? Yes, you need those spoken directions to get to where you're going, but you also need to hear every part of your song, right?
The next time you plan on going on an adventurous road trip, get paid for it! With the the new mobile app called Roadie, from developer Marc Gorlin, you can get paid to go where you're already going.
Purchasing an actual book from a brick-and-mortar store is becoming increasingly less common for people to do, but it hasn't completely gone out of style just yet. There's something about entering a bookstore and viewing all the potential great stories and epic tales just sitting on the shelves, waiting to be discovered.
When surfing the web in Safari, you can double-tap the status bar to quickly scroll back up to the top any webpage. In other iOS apps that have the shortcut enabled, you can get the job done even faster by tapping the status bar only once. The only bad thing about this feature is that there's no shortcut for scrolling all of the way back down or to the middle.
Technology allows us to communicate with others like never before, providing us with the ability to stay connected with past and current coworkers, classmates from high school, and even relatives in far-away countries.
When you've gotta go, you've gotta go. No matter how hard you try and hold your pee (or the dreaded number two), it's going to find a way to leave your body one way or another. That's why it's always good to know where all of the nearest bathrooms are at all times, no matter where you are.
S Health is one of the biggest selling points for newer Samsung Galaxy devices. It offers a centralized place to view and manage data collected by all of the various sensors like the heart rate monitor.
A highly useful, yet unrecognized and under-appreciated feature in Apple's iOS 8 is the ability to seamlessly convert incoming texts regarding future dates into calendar events. Messages like "Let's chill tomorrow" can be tapped on and quickly added to the calendar. It's convenient and easy, but unfortunately, not available on most Android devices. However, it's pretty easy to get using Inviter (SMS to Calendar) from developer Sergey Beliy.
Animal lovers, especially dog owners, know that pets are a part of the family, but it's often incredibly frustrating to know if and when something just isn't right with our furry companions. If you're out and about most of the day, your dog will be so happy to see you when you come home that you may have no idea they were tired and listless all day long, which can be a sign of health problems for your pup. This is where FitBark comes in.
The upcoming W3D gaming smartphone by Snail isn't like anything you've ever seen before. It's pretty much a cross between an Android phone, Nintendo 3DS, and PlayStation Vita. It runs on Android, has a 3D screen similar to the 3DS, and gamepad controls like the Vita, making it one hell of a portable gaming device (that's also a phone).
Samsung's Gear VR headset is a thing of beauty; unfortunately, it only works with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. That's where ImmersiON-VRelia's Head-Mounted Displays come in to play. With four different HMD models, we got a hands-on look at "The Go," which is not only affordable (at $125), but also compatible with the majority of Android and iOS devices.
