As Matias Duarte and the team over at Google's Android Design department ready their wares, they've given us a preview version of the upcoming "L" release of Android to try out.
The new preview build of Android is out, and it looks good. But if you're not quite ready to install Android L on your phone, there's still another way to enjoy some of these new visual elements on your Nexus device.
I am not a morning person. This is a fact that has been proven with science. I need every bit of help to get me out of bed in the morning—multiple alarms, extremely loud tones, Pandora—I've tried everything.
Update, November 12, 2014: Android 5.0 Lollipop is officially out now. If you haven't gotten the OTA yet, check out our new guide on installing the official Lollipop builds on any Nexus for download links and instructions, for Mac or Windows.
We got a fairly extensive look at the newest version of Android at Google I/O yesterday. The "L" version, which we're betting stands for "Lollipop", brings Google's new design philosophy to Android, and one of the main aspects of that design are new "heads up" notifications. Allowing you to continue using whatever app you're currently in without interuption, this new type of alert borrows from Apple's iOS, but does it the Android way. These notifications can be dismissed with a swipe away, ex...
Admit it, you wish Siri was on your Mac, and so do I. She stole my heart on iOS, and now every time I open up my MacBook, I feel something missing. Wouldn't it be great if we could, I dunno, hack Siri onto our Macs? Yeah, it would!
Google's new camera app has a highly innovative and unique feature dubbed Lens Blur, and the most interesting thing about it is not necessarily what it does, so much as how it does it.
The new iOS 8 was just unveiled, and it looks pretty awesome. Apple showed off some of the enhancements and new features we can expect to receive in the fall at WWDC, and while not the huge facelift we saw with iOS 7, it does showcase what Apple does best—refinement. Continuity
This week, Google sidestepped their usual "Update Wednesday" strategy by dropping a huge update to their Maps app for both Android and iOS. We're accustomed to seeing new features and bug fixes to their stable of apps on Wednesdays, but today's Maps update was presumably big enough to get its own release day (it's Tuesday, folks).
Samsung's TouchWiz skin gets a lot of flak for its appearance, namely the garish colors on the quick settings toggles. The bright green on dark blue scheme is definitely an eyesore compared to the ones in stock Android, and even other manufacturer skins like HTC's Sense.
If you've seen ParaNorman or Fantastic Mr. Fox, then you have some kind of idea of what stop-motion animation is. Basically, these artists make objects, or small figures, appear to be moving on their own by manipulating and repositioning them in the smallest increments, then capturing each frame after doing so. When all the frames are compiled together, the final product is something spectacular like The Nightmare Before Christmas, which took roughly 109,440 frames in all.
You can read at 500 words per minutes. Don't believe me? Here, see for yourself. This amazing technology comes from the startup Spritz, and they're ready to unleash it onto the smart device world, starting with the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the Galaxy Gear line of smartwatches.
I have literally played Madden, watched YouTube videos, and listened to music on my phone all at the same time. Some would call this pathetic, but I call it talent. Life is way too short, so I need to get the most out of it when I can. Thank goodness for multitasking, which should be a key feature when you're looking into a new tablet or phone.
The majority of our documents and music are digital, which is great for convenience, but it presents a problem for those with a lot of stuff—where do you store it all? There are tons of sites that offer cloud storage, like Dropbox, SkyDrive, and even Flickr, but most of them have limits unless you want to pay, and no way to connect them all.
Samsung unveiled their new flagship device, the Galaxy S4, at a live event in New York City today. Here's a quick rundown of the specs and all of the new features that you can expect when you finally get your hands on one (whenever that will be). The GS4's Specs
Apple just made its most significant update ever to the iOS lock screen, with a lot of features to be excited about. The theme of this upgrade is customization, giving you complete control over the look and functionality of your iPhone's lock screen.
Widgets have been available on the iPhone for a while now, but they were tucked away in the Today View or hidden in the quick actions menu for app icons on the home screen. Android had always had a leg up on Apple in the widget department because they were so much more versatile, but that changed with the introduction of iOS 14.
Apple has a few exciting surprises for you in its latest iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 software updates. Released on Thursday, May 18, version 16.5 includes new features, bug fixes, and security patches, and there are even hints of some big things coming in future software updates for iPhone and iPad.
Now that Google Meet is free for anyone with a Gmail address, you can expect to see invites from Google's service alongside Zoom calls.
Over the last few years, Apple has significantly improved and scaled up your iPhone's ability to edit photos. Using the Markup feature, which was introduced back in iOS 10, you can add doodles, highlights, important text, your signature, and arrows and other objects onto pictures and screenshots. One of the lesser-known tools in Markup lets you zoom into essential details without cropping.
For Android 11, Google is doubling down on the handy App Suggestions feature that debuted in Android 10's app drawer by expanding it to the home screen dock.
With high-resolution photos and 4K videos being standard these days, it's no surprise that media hogs most of the storage space for many iPhone users. If that's you, there's always iCloud, but you only get 5 GB free, and a paid 50 GB or 200 GB plan can fill up fast. To save money and reclaim storage, you can just delete content from the Photos app, and there's a trick to doing it faster.
Snapchat popularized personalized stickers for social media and messaging with Bitmoji, followed by walled-garden versions from Apple with Memojis and Samsung with AR Emojis. Even Google has gotten into the game, integrating an emoji generator for Gboard.
It's OK to want an extended break when you're working or learning from home. Maybe you want to play a video game, spend more time with your family, hang out with your dog, or FaceTime with friends. But how can you do that when you're supposed to be in a Zoom video conference or class? Thanks to one Zoom feature on your iPhone, it may be easier than you think.
While consumer-grade smartglasses are the holy grail for tech companies, smartglasses maker Vuzix knows where its bread is buttered, and that's in the enterprise segment.
Apple's ARKit has built a considerable lead in terms of features over Google's ARCore, but Google's latest update to ARCore adds a capability that makes the platform a bit more competitive with ARKit.
The week in AR business news started out with a bang with two bombshell reports that cast a shadow on the AR industry as a whole.
Cases and stickers are always great, but they aren't the only way to customize an iPhone. The software on your device is full of customization options, from a better-looking home screen and cooler lock screen wallpapers to app icon changes and a system-wide dark mode. There's literally over 100 ways to make iOS on your iPhone genuinely unique, some of which are hiding in plain sight.
This time last year, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and his company were faced with an erosion of its user base that cratered its stock price. This year, on the strength of Snapchat's AR camera effects, the company has reversed course. And that's why Spiegel tops the NR30, our annual list of the leaders in the AR industry.
When you hear a "ding" on your phone, chances are it's a new notification for Facebook Messenger, and it could be a fairly painful sound depending on how loud your volume's set. Thankfully, you aren't stuck with this singular alert option, so if you're unhappy with both this sound and the call ringtone, you can change it to something else — something less distressing.
Developers in the augmented reality industry got a lot of love this week.
Just when we thought the AT&T partnership with Magic Leap wouldn't really take off until the latter launched a true consumer edition of the Magic Leap One, the dynamic duo jumped into action this week to offer the current generation headset to customers.
When someone sends you a funny video, image, tweet, what have you, often the first thing you want to do is share it with someone else. Instead of copying the link and jumping over to another chat to do so, WhatsApp makes it easy to share content right from the thread you received it in, via the forward feature.
While the notch on Apple's newer iPhones started a wave of notches across the smartphone market, there are still plenty of users who don't like screen-obstructing zone up top, and you may be one of them. While it may soon disappear in future iPhone models, or at least get smaller, there are things you can do to hide the big notch you have right now.
The hype around augmented reality has risen to a fever pitch over the past two years, and if this week's selection of business news stories are any indication, the din is about to get down right deafening.
TikTok is great for creating short videos of people lip-syncing to songs or comedy sketches, but it's also very entertaining to just browse and share cool videos with friends. When you stumble across a video you like, you can download it onto your phone to watch over and over again. Even better, you can turn the video in a live wallpaper if you just can't get enough of it.
In late-2017, Instagram rolled out a feature that automatically saves your ephemeral Stories to a private archive. Before that, Stories disappeared into the ether after 24 hours, but not everyone was comfortable losing these precious photos and videos. If you post to Instagram Stories quite often, you can now easily access your history from your account — and you might not even know it.
Fan favorite Transformer Bumblebee returns to theaters on Friday in a spin-off of the film franchise, so Paramount Pictures is bringing the car-robot back into the homes of fans via augmented reality.
If you ever looked at Apple's Peek and Pop feature on Safari and said "I want that," Google has kinda-sorta delivered. A new hidden Chrome feature brings similar functionality to Android despite the lack of 3D Touch, and while it's a bit redundant and nowhere near as polished, it does make navigating the web easier.
Giphy has had a few apps for iOS over the years. Giphy Keys was a keyboard built specifically for GIFs. Giphy Cam lets you create your GIFs complete with stickers. Giphy World is for adding augmented reality stickers to the real world. But now, Giphy has combined elements of all of these into its main app, so you can create, find, and share GIFs and stickers right from your keyboard.
