Google Play Services has been near the top of every Android user's list of battery-sucking apps for years now. It's a core system app, so you'd expect some battery drain, but for many folks, it runs rampant.
Deep down inside, Kindle Fires are actually Android tablets — the only trouble is, Amazon has layered so much of a skin on top of it all that you can't normally use Android's main app store, the Google Play Store. The Amazon Appstore, which comes bundled with Kindle Fire devices, only has about 600,000 apps, so it would be great if you could access Google Play's library, which boasts 2.8 million.
Blizzard's Hearthstone was a rousing success with more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store. Not taking things lying down, Bethesda, the creator of The Elder Scrolls, has come up with a card game based off its popular fantasy franchise. The Elder Scrolls: Legends is now out in the wild, though, officially only available for select Android tablets. But with a little creativity, there's a way to game the system and play Legends on any Android device. The Elder Scrolls: Legends is ...
The Google Play Store is known for some pretty random promotions and offers, most of the time it's a free book or a discounted movie. But this time, an entire season for Game of Thrones is up for grabs. Yes, that's right, all of Season 5 of Game of Thrones is free to download, watch, or just stash in your library for later.
Mobile gaming is a huge industry that raked in more than $91 billion in revenue in 2016, and of course, all of the major players get most of the glory. But smaller, independent game developers make some of the most fun and unique games out there — it's just harder to find their stuff because they don't have the promotional budget of studios like Rovio and Gameloft.
Remember back in 2011–2012 when "Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men was the bumping new single being played everywhere? Well, thanks to this robot created from a LEGO Mindstorm EV3 kit, and an acoustic guitar, you get to get the iconic "hey!" stuck in your head for the rest of 2017. You're welcome.
If you really want to end your next big guitar solo with a bang, consider giving this shotgun guitar a try.
We've already seen how VR can have some therapeutic benefits, but not the dramatized version. A play called Ugly Lies the Bone emotionally examines how war veterans can heal (or at least treat) their PTSD using virtual reality.
It's always a pain to make sure you have enough storage on your smartphone. Pictures and videos occupy a lot of space, so your music library has to take a back seat—otherwise, you might see that pesky "Storage Full" notification at any time.
Do I really need to tell you that it's a bad idea to play Pokémon GO while you're driving? I really hope it's not necessary, but just in case it is, here you go: It's a bad idea to play Pokémon GO while you're driving.
Google Play Music has teamed up with TripAdvisor to make planning your next vacation a little more fun, and they're throwing in a nice deal for good measure.
It was definitely a shocker when Microsoft proposed cross-network play between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 last month. After all, Microsoft and Sony have been competing for the same user base for more than a decade now, and this new feature might actually decrease console sales as a whole.
Ever since the Google Play Store removed its "Designed for tablets" section, it's been a lot harder to find good, tablet-optimized Android apps. Not that it was all that great to begin with considering that they used to list apps like Facebook and Twitter, which only have oversized phone UIs on tablets, not actual customized UIs.
More often than not, when you find an app that offers a particular functionality, there are ten other apps on the Google Play Store that offer virtually the same features. But the reason we choose one app over the alternatives is mainly due to one thing—a preference for the user interface of the app we ultimately install.
Being able to customize the look and feel of your device is the main reason a lot of folks choose Android over iOS. And perhaps the single biggest way to visually overhaul your phone or tablet's UI is to apply an icon pack, which can liven up your home screen with bright colors or make things look a bit more classy with a sleek, minimalist style, for instance.
As Android's official app provider, the Google Play Store is packed with thousands of useful programs. But Google's terms of service is extremely restrictive, which means that countless apps simply don't qualify to be hosted on the Google Play Store.
Android's Google Play Games app has let you track your feats and accomplishments in the games you play for quite a while now, but for some, the immersion experience might be broken after you finish dominating a game only to see your regular-ass name from your Google account on the leaderboard.
A couple days back we told you about the 30-day free trial for people interested in YouTube Red, and now Google is running a concurrent promotion that really sweetens the deal, especially if you're a first-time subscriber and own or plan to buy a Chromecast.
The Google Play Store hosts the largest collection of mobile apps on the planet, and it's the default app store for almost all Android devices. Ironically, though, while Google made its name with a powerful search engine, it can sometimes be difficult to find what you're looking for on the Google Play Store.
Cord cutters are changing everything about TV—the more of us that sever ties with cable, the more changes we start to see. In fact, viewing habits have already changed so drastically that waiting a week to see the next episode in a series is no longer acceptable, as binge watching has completely eclipsed this old-fashioned format.
Google Play Music has been my go-to music service ever since its release. The free cloud storage for 50,000 songs and full access to Songza-powered radio stations make it a great music app, even without the $10/month streaming service.
If you updated to iOS 8.4 already to try out the new Apple Music service, there's one important change you need to know about—there's no longer a "Shuffle" option for all songs in your library.
Most mobile games have moved to an online-only format, meaning you need to be connected to the Internet in order to get any kind of multiplayer action going. This is great when you're at home on Wi-Fi, but when you're out and about, slow and inconsistent data speeds can cause serious lag. Or worse yet, you may be nearing your monthly data cap!
While a mobile game developer may have built something unique, they still have to go through an arduous process of fixing bugs, smoothing out gameplay, making sure it works on different screen sizes, and following Apple's rules before they can submit their game to the iOS App Store.
If you're jonesing to play some Super Mario Run on your Android phone, you might not be able to get your fix for some time—at least, until Nintendo figures out the best way to keep piracy down and security high. But if you can't wait for the first official appearance of Mario on Android, we've got the next best thing...
Yup, you read that right. As of now, you can actually play the first level of one of the most popular video games of all time—Super Mario 64—directly in your web browser.
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?
Sitting at home alone on Friday night, I'm often in the mood to watch something more recent than the offerings on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video. And since the demise of video rental stores, that leaves me with browsing through the Redbox catalogue, then strolling down to the nearest 7-Eleven to pick up my movie.
Since Apple released iOS 8, many third-party apps have taken advantage of one of its more resourceful features: Notification Center widgets. These widgets have made it easier to interact with features and settings that would otherwise require launching an app itself, instead offering functionality through the native pull-down Notification Center.
If you've ever tried to record a Snapchat video of a song playing in your car, you know that it's impossible to do if the song is playing on the same device that you're Snapchatting with.
Spotify lets you use Siri commands to play and control music on your iPhone, but it wasn't always like that. It only applies in iOS 13 and later, so if you're on an older iPhone model with an older iOS version, you can use a really complicated workaround in iOS 12 or try a jailbreak tweak on older firmware.
When it comes to subscription-based music streaming services, the conversation doesn't go much further than Spotify and Google Play Music (previously called "All Access"). Both services are essentially the same aside from slightly different catalogues and social options, and they both run ten bucks a month for unlimited music streaming and offline track saving (although Spotify does have a free, ad-supported service).
You'd be hard-pressed to find a working Super Nintendo in someone's house nowadays, but back in my adolescence it was gaming heaven. But now there's no reason to have an SNES console at home, because there are so many ways to play those retro games without one. All it takes is a good emulator.
To play Minecraft with mods you will need to install Forge. Most people think this is hard to do, not so. It is very simple and in less than 5 minutes you can be playing Modded Minecraft.
Sony has already splashed through IFA 2014 with its Smartwatch 3 and new Xperia Z3 devices, but the last drop from Sony was for gamers—specifically those that game on the PlayStation 4.
Today we teach you how to play the tambourine! Playing the tambourine is So Easy A Guy Could Do It!
In early-2014, Facebook had the brilliant idea of auto-playing all of those annoying videos in your news feed that you never wanted to see in the first place. Fortunately, they realized their mistake and have provided a way to disable auto-play, which means you can now get rid of some of those plugin-blocking browser settings you have enabled.
Want to learn how to make Peppa Pig with Play-Doh? Here is our attempt on showcasing a tutorial on how to make Peppa Pig with Play-Doh.
Buying and drinking wine can be intimidating. There's so much to know, and so many ways to reveal your ignorance. If you're completely befuddled by wine and how to describe it, don't worry, you're not alone.
Tricking out your phone is nice, but there's nothing better than saving money in the process. Google Play is full of apps that offer great functionality, but some of them are not always cheap, and that's why AppSales was made. AppSales is an app browser that lists apps that are currently on sale, and can also keep track of those you are interested in buying in case the price drops.
