If Android is all about options, then iOS is all about new features. Every year without fail, Apple announces a cool software component that brings something new to the table, and this year was no different.
Before you sell or give away an old iPhone, Find My iPhone, which works in conjunction with Activation Lock (Apple's anti-theft system) needs to be deactivated from your iCloud account. This also applies if you've lost your passcode and are locked out of the device, if you're restoring to a previous iTunes backup, or just want to remove it from your list of iCloud devices.
Android has a built-in browser called WebView that any app can use, which makes it easy for developers to display webpages without actually having to build an internet browser into their apps. But WebView is a stripped-down, bare bones browser with no ties to Android's default browser, Chrome, so none of your synced data like bookmarks, passwords, and history is available when an app is using WebView to display a page.
The competition between iOS and Android is fierce. Each operating system offers unique and powerful features, so it can be hard to choose which one you want. However, for iPhone users, a little tweaking and some themes can give your iPhone some of the key features and aesthetics of an Android.
When you have some form of lock screen security enabled, Android makes sure that you don't have to fumble around to enter your pattern, PIN, or password before you can call 911 in an emergency. It does this by adding an "Emergency Call" button to the bottom of the screen—but as handy as this may sound, most of the time it's more trouble than it's worth.
Back in August, Google unveiled a new YouTube Gaming service meant to compete with e-sports streaming sites like Twitch. At its launch, the service was capable of broadcasting desktop PC gameplay, but when it came to the mobile segment, users were only capable of viewing streams hosted by others.
Roughly four years ago, Adobe decided to abandon development of the mobile version of their popular Flash Player browser plugin. Their excuse at the time was that this move would enable them to focus more on HTML5 development for mobile devices and allow them to put more effort into maintaining the fluidity and security of their desktop Flash plugin.
In part one of this tutorial we found out that your English teacher is a paedophile, by using a Man in the Middle attack to intercept his internet traffic.
If Netflix's $9.99/month has deterred you from signing up for its streaming service, you're probably looking for cheaper alternatives to stream movies and TV shows, like Crackle (free with ads) or Hulu ($7.99/month with some ads). And now there's a new option for you when it comes to movies—Paramount Vault.
When it comes to news, updates, and arbitrary nonsense, it's hard to find a better source than Twitter. And for some of us, the best way to consume Twitter is through the web (versus a mobile app). But as much as I prefer the standard browser version, it's easy to make it better, faster, and more convenient using a few Chrome extensions—and here are my favorites.
Google just announced a new and improved Chromecast at an event in San Francisco this morning, and debuted a new "Chromecast Audio" for streaming music directly to any speaker. I'm sure you rushed off to the Google Store to buy one of these promising and powerful devices, but while you wait on the new one to come in the mail, your old Chromecast just got a lot more functional by way of a simple app update.
Smartphone games are getting pretty good these days, but they still can't beat the retro appeal of a good emulator. I mean, who wouldn't want to have their all-time favorite console and arcade games tucked neatly in their front pocket? Classics ranging from Super Mario Bros. to Pokémon can all be played at a silky-smooth frame rate on today's devices if you can just find a good emulator to run them on.
Task Manager got revamped quite a bit in modern versions of Windows. First introduced in Windows NT 4.0, it's become pretty popular among more advanced users. In Windows 10, Task Manager is not just a task manager anymore, it's also a system monitor, startup manager, history viewer, user controller, and the list goes on.
Every time you log in to a website in Safari on iOS, you're also asked if you would like to save the username and password—a great feature of just about all browsers that makes it so that don't have to enter your credentials each time you access website in the future. While this feature is great for quickly getting into all your favorite websites, have you ever wondered where all those passwords are saved on your device? In this guide, I'll be showing you where to find all of the stored usern...
In most cases, when the free trial of software is over, that's it—you're left to either pay for it or find an alternative. But what happens if the trial wasn't long enough to sell you on the product? It'd be nice if there was a way to test it out again without having to whip out your credit card.
All of those keys on your keyboard can do much more than just help to update your Facebook status or fire off a scathing tweet. By learning all of the keyboard shortcuts for apps on your Mac, you can cut back on mouse or trackpad usage to perform actions faster and more efficiently.
Make no bones about it—having an "undo" option is a freaking godsend. Whether you accidentally deleted an entire essay, screwed up the shading on a Photoshop job, or sent an email that wasn't quite ready, having the option to undo a click or button-press can definitely be a lifesaver.
Whether I'm in my car or making dinner, I always have music playing. And since I don't like to keep my headphones on me at all times, I end up using my Android's built-in speakers a good portion of the time.
Imagine this scenario: You exploited a system using metasploit and you want to install a backdoor. You have a few options;
Carriers like to distinguish their Android phones from the competition by making small changes to the interface here and there. This practice is so common that Android now has a built-in system for managing these small tweaks.
Is your Mac starting to feel messy and sluggish after using iOS 8 on your iPhone every day? Even with all of the iOS-friendly features built in to Mac OS X Yosemite, your Mac can still feel kind of "old" in comparison to an iOS device—but it doesn't have to. Using the tips and tricks below, you can easily make your Mac desktop or laptop look and feel like iOS 8 in no time.
With smartphone screens getting bigger by the generation, one-handed mode mods are becoming rather prevalent. Most of these function by shrinking the screen to a more manageable size, but this is actually kind of boring when you think about it.
Google Play Music is an awesome app—even if you don't subscribe to their $9.99/month All Access service, you can still use it to store and stream up to 50,000 of your own songs for free. Add to that the fact that it's a pre-installed app on most Android devices, and there aren't many reasons not to be using Play Music.
Android Debug Bridge (or ADB for short) serves as a remote terminal interface for executing shell commands on any Android device. Put simply, ADB lets you send commands from your computer to your phone or tablet, some of which would require root access if they were performed on the Android side of the connection.
Desktop users have taken advantage of dual-booting operating systems for decades now. If your core system software is lacking in any regard, dual-booting a secondary OS can give you access to those features that you're missing out on.
Despite CyanogenMod actively working on their CM 12S Lollipop-based ROM, OnePlus has opted to develop their own ROM, and after a few setbacks, OxygenOS is finally out. The OS is the result of OnePlus wanting to ship their devices without needing an outside company to create a ROM to power it. Like CyanogenMod's ROMs, Oxygen OS offers a vanilla Android Lollipop experience tailored for the OnePlus One.
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! "How can I travel and communicate over the Internet without being tracked or spied on by anyone?" It's a question many Null Byteans have asked me, so I have decided to write a comprehensive article addressing this issue.
If you are anything like me, you have a knack for taking silly selfies of yourself, i.e., taking scotch tape and wrapping it around your face to make yourself look like the blob, or perhaps you like taking selfies of yourself in weird or unusual situations doing weird and unusual things.
Sony has a gorgeous line of smartphones using the moniker "Xperia," and the latest and greatest model is the Z3. The firmware for the Xperia Z3 was just updated to Android Lollipop, and many system apps of course got tweaked and refreshed with this latest version.
Applications like Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Waze save every location you visit or search for as a way to speed up future searches and to find commonly-frequented places. But what if you go somewhere unsavory and don't want anyone knowing?
Android Lollipop still doesn't have a simple way to add a custom lock screen wallpaper, so when I came across Corgi For Feedly from developer Stan Dmitriev, I had to check it out. What sets Corgi apart from other lock screen replacements is that it connects directly to your Feedly account to display top stories from your favorite RSS feeds as your background.
As is the case with most software updates, Android 5.0 brought changes that were viewed by users as somewhat positive and somewhat negative. This generally happens because we're accustomed to the old way of doing things, and changes, no matter how useful, can slow us down.
The biggest complaint I hear about Android Lollipop is the fact that the new Priority Mode notification system has effectively killed off "Silent Mode." Sure, you can still put your phone on vibrate, but that's not truly silent. Selecting "None" as your notification mode isn't a perfect solution either, since no notification icons will be shown in your status bar and your alarm will not go off in the morning.
The lack of Xposed support on Android Lollipop has left modules like GEL Settings incompatible with my Google Play Edition HTC One, so I've had to find a new launcher to meet all of my needs. While I can safely say I will never find the perfect launcher for me, Blinq comes pretty damn close.
Samsung phones have a pretty nifty little feature called Smart Stay that will prevent your screen from turning off while you're actively using your device. Trouble with this is that it's exclusive to Galaxy devices and it uses a ton of battery since it monitors the front-facing camera to detect when you're facing the screen.
If you've ever attempted to report a bug to a developer, no doubt you've heard the response, "Get a logcat." This is infinitely important to a developer because of the fact that a logcat captures a full report of every command that was recently executed on your Android device, and it allows them to see exactly where something went wrong.
There's a common bug that affects many Samsung Galaxy S5 users, myself included. The software that drives the fingerprint sensor can randomly fail to load, leaving you without one of the most unique features of your beloved smartphone.
Decisions are rarely easy to make, and there are countless ways to mull your options over. You can sleep on it, pluck flower petals, make a list of pros and cons, or even follow the advice of a psychic. Yet to make the best decision possible, you might want to consider holding off until a certain time of the day—or even until you feel specific emotions. The state you find yourself in has significant impact on each decision you make.
You wouldn't send your GPS coordinates to a completely random stranger just because he or she asked you for it, right? So why are you constantly sharing your location (and other data) to apps on a daily basis?
Using a combination of my phone, laptop, and an arsenal of apps and plugins, I can send pretty much anything to my Chromecast. However, nothing is ever perfect, and the file type that was still giving me headaches were torrent and magnet files.
