With the iPhone X, Apple introduced a brand new way for iOS users to interact with their iPhones. Gestures took the spotlight, as they very apparently replaced functions you would normally execute on the Home button. But swipes aren't everything for the new iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR. Don't believe us? Just take a look at the Side button.
Apple's dedication to iPhone security is one of the company's biggest selling points. It's no surprise then that iOS 12 offers users a simple yet powerful way to make, save, and auto-fill strong passwords to your iCloud Keychain when creating accounts in both Safari and in apps. The best part? You hardly need to do a thing.
Front and center for iOS 12 this year is Group FaceTime, which allows users to chat with up to 31 additional people at once. While that ambitious feature is sadly delayed, don't cast away FaceTime just yet — you can always pick up your iPhone and start a call with any single contact directly from the Messages app.
A majority of iPhone users, including our whole staff here, have an irritating issue with media playback from car stereos: The first song alphabetically in the iPhone's library will play automatically when connecting to the head unit either via USB cable or Bluetooth. CarPlay is even affected sometimes. If you're tired of your first "A" song playing all the time, there are a few things you can do.
Thanks to recent reports, we now know third-party apps have a lot more access to our Gmail than we may have initially thought. In fact, these third-party apps have the ability to read our emails, not because these companies are necessarily shady, but because we agreed to it. Luckily, there's a way to view which apps have this access, as well as a way to boot those apps from your Gmail entirely.
Snap Inc. added stickers back in 2016 to its Snapchat app, and it has been building on that functionality ever since. Now, you can add Bitmojis and even GIFs from Giphy to your photos and videos. Even better, you can pin any of these stickers to background items or moving subjects when sharing videos. That means stickers aren't pinned to the screen itself but to a real-world location.
While having no internet connection is definitely a bad thing when you need it, you can at least bide your time until you're back online with a hidden Easter egg inside of the Google Chrome browser. This gem unlocks a secret side-scrolling game that can keep you busy during your downtime.
Google's been using their "Material Design" look in Android for years now, but a change is coming up with "Material Design 2," their updated version focusing on new colors, icons, and spacing. Whether it'll be called "Material Design 2" or not remains to be seen, but you can try it out right now in Google Chrome on your Android device right now.
Privacy is a hot topic. In the wake of Facebook's data scandal, many want to safeguard their personal info. On the other hand, we all gain a certain amount of convenience by using services administered by huge companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Google Assistant collects plenty of data, but you can easily check what is stored and delete items at will.
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.
When the Nintendo 3DS XL came out, I traded in my regular sized Nintendo 3DS for one — but I ended up hating it. The XL just felt big and unwieldy, and because the screens were larger (with the same resolution), it ended up looking blurrier than the regular 3DS. This, to a less severe extent, is the argument for the Galaxy S9 against the Note 8.
While it may not be an obvious feature, Apple actually built a way into iOS that lets you hide specific pictures and videos in the Photos app that you want to keep on the down-low, for your eyes only. If you show off your photos a lot or stream slideshows to your TV, this is a great way to keep less appealing content private.
Sure, emojis are all the rage, but there's not an emoji for every emotion or feeling just yet. That's where emoticons come into play, emoji's older typographical sibling. Unfortunately, emoticons can be hard to type out, easy to forget, and ASCII art, in general, can be pretty time-consuming to create from scratch — but there's an easy way to forgo all these issues — make keyboard shortcuts.
When you accidentally close out of an important tab on your iPhone, Safari's "Recently Closed Tabs" list really comes in handy. However, when it comes time to clear the list, things get a bit complicated. There's no "Delete" or "Erase" button on this page, but don't let that fool you — there are three easy ways to clear your recently closed tabs list.
For those times when we need music grouped together for a specific task, we have playlists. Playlists are the next natural step after mastering your library and radio stations. While you've probably been an All-Star of curating playlists since your mid-90s mixtapes, Google Play Music has some pretty neat features that are going to really Smash your Mouth.
If you work with multiple email addresses, you need an app that can organize and declutter your day-to-day messages. Outlook is a great choice, but if you only have one account attached, it somewhat defeats the purpose. Lucky for you, adding additional email accounts is both quick and simple.
Binance, a China-based cryptocurrency exchange, is rapidly gaining popularity thanks to the sheer selection of digital currencies you can purchase — Ripple (XRP), Tron (TRX), IOTA, and Stellar (XLM), to name a few — using both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Binance has an iOS app, and there are a couple ways to install it. Either way, you can trade cryptocurrency from your iPhone today.
In addition to the standard "Raise to Wake" option that's been around since iOS 10, the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, and XR have a unique capability that lets you "Tap to Wake" the screen. But these features can get annoying real fast when your screen keeps turning on accidentally, which could even lead to some unnecessary battery drain.
Features like themes and a tab queue make Firefox an extremely versatile mobile browser. Mozilla is constantly adding bonus functionality like this to Firefox, but a long-time staple is perhaps the most powerful feature: Extensions. This system gives you the ability to add features without having to upgrade the entire app.
Now that Apple Pay Cash has arrived, you (hopefully) might end up getting sent some money right from inside an iMessage. If so, that money gets added to your Apple Pay Cash card in iOS 11.2, which you can use just like any other card in your digital wallet. If you're not so lucky, you can still add money to the card yourself without having to wait for a contact to send you money first.
Have you ever been listening to the radio and a song comes on that you can't identify? But you're driving, so you can't open your phone and use your favorite app to find the song's name. Well, with a feature called "Now Playing" on Pixel phones, Google has solved this problem.
The promise of augmented reality when it comes to gaming is the conversion of the player's real-world environment into a virtual playground.
Whether you used it to remind yourself to buy a game or to store away that app recommendation that your friend begged you to download, the "Wish List" in the iOS App Store was a useful tool to keep track of new apps you might have wanted to install on your iPhone. But how can you access your Wish List in iOS 11?
Niantic pioneered location-based augmented reality gaming with Ingress and popularized it with Pokémon Go, but others have attempted to replicate the model without reaching the level of success that Niantic has garnered.
The Xposed Framework lets you modify your phone's software like nothing else. But because of how powerful this tool can be, it seems like things are always in development. This is certainly the case with many Xposed modules, to the point where some have several alpha and beta releases before they go mainstream.
More often than not, road trips will include unforeseen pit stops that have to be made, no matter how well prepared you are. In the past, making an unscheduled stop may have led to headaches and delays when your navigation app got off track, but thanks to a feature in Google Maps, this is no longer an issue.
Life is all about spending time together with loved ones, experiencing new places together to enjoy and create memorable moments. Luckily, Google has made it easier for us to rendezvous with friends and family at specific places by letting us broadcast our locations using Google Maps.
If you live in New York City and are itching to sell your Yeezys, you're at risk of falling victim to thieves. A devious duo is searching Facebook to find people selling the popular sneakers and then robbing them at gunpoint when they meet up in person.
Update: HBO discontinued this service. Your best bet for transferring your data from one account to another is to save a record of your watch list. That way, you can add your titles back manually with your new account.
This may not matter to you if you only FaceTime from your iPhone occasionally, but if you're FaceTiming every day on a limited data plan from your cellular provider, you're going to want to conserve as much data as possible by making sure that you're connected to Wi-Fi only — especially if they are video calls.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get your mind out of the gutter. Search histories can and should be managed. Many folks are uncomfortable knowing that every video they click and every phrase they search is being recorded and saved, and YouTube is no exception.
It looks like "going live" is another thing we all have to figure out how to do to remain relevant in this very Facebook-driven world. But why would you ever want to go live? That's really up to you.
Netflix added the ability to download TV shows and movies on Android and iOS for offline binging back in Nov. 2016, and the process is the same as it is today. So if you anticipate having some downtime to catch up on Narcos or give Bright a try when you'll be away from a secure Wi-Fi connection, download videos onto your phone and save your data for more important things.
I wanted to post a Live Photo to Instagram of me in front of that donut that got eaten next to the CVS on Houston St. in New York, between Mott and Mulberry. The only problem is that Live Photos aren't supported on Instagram, so I couldn't just tap and post it to my feed without it becoming a regular still image. Luckily, there is an awesome workaround.
The number of Legionnaires' cases in New York over the last couple weeks has led to concern and recommendations of caution for those at risk.
With so many apps being cloud-based, cached data has started to become a problem. This is particularly true if you're low on storage, so developer Dhi decided to do something about it.
Traces of bacteria at a precinct in East Harlem created an all-out scare after doctors diagnosed an NYPD officer with Legionnaires' disease, a deadly infection caused by Legionella pneumophila.
Is technology making us disconnected? Findings from a study conducted by YouGov hint that — for millennials — the answer is yes. The research found that nearly one in five US teens prefers to video chat their friends rather than spend time with them face-to-face.
Running commands on Linux seems so complicated for the layman that it may as well be a foreign language. But for the die-hard terminal users, or for those who are just curious about the Linux experience, there's a new Android launcher that gives your home screen a command line makeover.
Open your Spotify app, search for an artist, view its "Spotify Code," and display it to that friend lurking over your shoulder. Sound familiar? Probably not ... yet.
