I love my iPhone, but it would be a lie to say there aren't some Android features I wish would find their way to iOS. While iOS has plenty of its own advantages, Android has pulled ahead in many other areas. With iOS 12 coming later this year, we're hoping Apple takes a hint from Google and adds some of these awesome features to the iPhone.
Android Pie is bringing in plenty of changes, but the headlining feature is a set of navigation gestures like the iPhone X uses. With Android 9.0, you can now navigate through your phone using a total of seven new swipe gestures.
A powered-off Windows 10 laptop can be compromised in less than three minutes. With just a few keystrokes, it's possible for a hacker to remove all antivirus software, create a backdoor, and capture webcam images and passwords, among other highly sensitive personal data.
If you tend to use the app switcher a lot to open recent apps, then all of the apps you accessed months ago are just sitting there cluttering things up. While force-closing all of the recent apps on your iPhone isn't really necessary, it's sometimes nice to wipe the slate clean and empty the app switcher completely to start fresh.
Samsung's big reveal of the Galaxy S9 and S9+ at Mobile World Congress revolved around its "reimagined" camera and augmented reality capabilities.
IFTTT is the king of simple automation apps. With minimal setup, you can easily add applets that companies and users create. You can also create your own applets to suit your needs. Sometimes, though, you need to trigger an action on your own. For times like these, adding a widget to your home screen is exactly what you need.
Some phones have a feature that turns your screen white for a second when you're taking a selfie in dim lighting. This does a great job of illuminating your face in a pinch, but there are two problems with it: First, not all phones have the feature, and second, it doesn't work in third-party camera apps like Snapchat and Instagram.
In its goal to push the visual quality of real-time rendering to a new level, Unity is starting the new year off right by releasing a sneak peek at its upcoming interactive rendering improvements via a short, three-minute first-person interactive demo called "Book of the Dead."
Bitcoin's wild price fluctuations — and by extension, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ethereum — can be terrifying if you're new to trading cryptocurrency. Seasoned traders, however, see these price movements as opportunities to maximize their holdings and profits. With Coinbase, you can trade cryptocurrencies more efficiently.
If you used Touch ID on an iPhone before, all you had to do to install apps and games from the App Store was rest your fingertip on the Home button. On the iPhone X, there's Face ID instead, and Apple has included on-screen instructions to help everyone adjust to the lack of Home button. Still, those instructions may not be working for you, but the solution is as simple as a misinterpretation.
With Apple Pay Cash in iOS 11.2, your iPhone potentially becomes the only form of payment you need. Whether you're sending money to a friend via iMessage or paying for your groceries, you can use Apple Pay Cash to complete those transactions. It makes sense, then, that Apple would allow you to add your Apple Pay Cash card to the lock screen, for quick access wherever you are.
Google just rolled out a revolutionary feature to its Pixel devices — Google Lens. Previously, Lens had only been available in the Photos app, but now, whenever you want to learn about something in the real world, you can just bring up Google Assistant, turn on the camera, then let Google's famous AI analyze the scene.
Android's Quick Settings menu gives you easy access to certain actions from any screen, but the tiles available are largely dependent on your phone's OEM skin. For instance, the Google Cast button that can cast your entire screen has been exclusive to Nexus and Pixel devices, even though other phones have the requisite software to use it. Fortunately, there's a way to add it on any device running Nougat or higher.
The iPhone X is one of the most beautiful phones ever made, but the aesthetics stop just short of perfect due to one thing: That notch. It was a necessary evil since Apple had to incorporate a front-facing camera somewhere, plus it houses all the sensors for Face ID, but that doesn't change the fact that it looks a bit goofy.
A Russian augmented reality startup wants the next frontier in real estate to be augmented reality estate.
Eventually, we all get tired of our home screens. There's nothing wrong with it, but after hundreds of times seeing the same thing, it all starts looking a bit stale. You can rearrange icons and widgets, or even just pick a new wallpaper — but sometimes, your layout is perfect and you still want a fresh look. Well, thanks to Action Launcher and icon packs, this is really easy to accomplish.
Let's face it — our phones are our heart and soul. We do everything on them, from banking to media consumption. However, sometimes we download apps that we don't want others to see. Sometimes, we wish to hide apps so that, in the rare times we lend our phone to someone, we don't get judged for a lifetime by what they find.
Apple demonstrated their continued interest and investment into the awesome world of augmented reality during their Sept. 12 event, highlighting a few new AR games that will appear on iPhones thanks to ARKit. But that's not all you can expect — as long as you have an iPhone with an A9 chip or later, there will be a ton of cool new AR tools, games, and other apps to play around from the App Store.
Gestures are a big deal on an iPhone X, XS, XS Max, XR, 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max. Without a Home button on Apple's super-premium smartphones, several actions had to be mapped to gestures instead, which impacts other areas of the system such as the Control Center.
If you've ever wondered how to import your photos in Snapseed, then you've come to the right place. Snapseed is a wonderful photo-editing app and will provide you with many tools to take your photos to the next level. But you can't get to that next level if you don't know how to get your images into Snapseed in the first place.
Google has an exclusive launcher for its Pixel devices, and it's pretty slick. But even though we've found ways to get this home screen app on other phones, certain features simply wouldn't work unless you were rooted. That's finally changed.
The stock home screen app that comes with your phone is nothing compared to Nova Launcher. Not only is Nova faster, but it's got tons of customization tweaks like gestures, adjustable grid sizes, and icon packs, just to name a few.
Apple introduced iMessage effects in iOS 10, which offer creative ways to send messages to other iPhone users. These effects can either be applied to the screen, like seeing an explosion of confetti falling down the display, or to the message bubble itself. iOS 11 brings two new screen effects to iMessage, named "Echo" and "Spotlight," and they look like they'll be a fun addition to the current lineup.
Everyone's been talking about Samsung's new Galaxy S8 and S8+, but not all of the chatter is positive. The fingerprint scanner is in an awkward location, the North American variant is simply not as smooth and fluid as the international model, and Samsung Experience is nothing more than TouchWiz with a bow on it. But perhaps worst of all, user reports are starting to roll in that indicate the Galaxy S8 may have a serious problem with premature screen burn-in.
Last week, the internet was ablaze with talk about the Galaxy S8's home button, because it subtly changes positions without the phone alerting you. This feature was included to stop burn-in issues with the screen, and the general consensus from tech sites was the screens would not experience any burn-in at all.
After months of leaks and rumors, Google has finally unveiled the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. If there were such a thing, the Pixel would be the one "true" Android flagship — so even if you don't plan on buying a Pixel 2, you'll want you learn more about this milestone device.
If you have a mobility impairment that affects your hands, arms, or manual dexterity, a smartphone's touch-based interface can almost be a barrier between you and the mobile internet. Eye-tracking software requires too much computing power for today's smartphones to handle, so it might seem as though there's no good way to interact with an Android device.
The beauty of Android is that nearly everything can be customized. But sometimes, we get so caught up in tweaking functionality and other minutiae that one of the most important interfaces gets neglected—the home screen wallpaper.
An app from the development team at ts-apps has the potential to make your Android device smarter than it's ever been. At first glance, you'd think it's just an ordinary home screen folder—but depending on what you're doing at a given time, the folder can show a completely different set of apps.
Creative thoughts are fleeting, so when an idea strikes, you have to jot it down as quickly as possible or risk forgetting it altogether. Let's say you randomly think of a perfect tweet while you're using your phone. You exit whatever app you were using, head to the home screen, dig through your app drawer, open Twitter—and by the time you make it to the "What's happening?" screen, you totally forgot what you were going to say.
Apple is famous for keeping a tight grip on the look and feel of iOS (a grip so tight it may even change the future of patent law), but the clever folks over at heyeased found some neat tricks to put the control back in your hands.
Google's Pixel phones have a feature that lets you swipe down on the fingerprint scanner to open your notification shade and Quick Settings panel. It's one of those features that make you wonder why it wasn't there in the first place, since it gives you another way to interact with your device, and your fingerprint scanner isn't being used while you're screen is on anyway.
After updating your iPhone to iOS 10, you may have noticed that your screen will wake up whenever you pick up the device to look at it, or even when it's just in your pocket or dangling in your hand.
If you could save the world by eating a burger, would you? Two companies, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, are on a mission to redefine veggie burgers and eliminate all of the downsides of animal farming on our planet. With over five years of research and product testing, they've finally figured out how to make a plant-based burger look, feel, and taste just like real meat.
With Touch ID enabled, your iPhone needs to scan your fingerprint before you can access your home screen or last app used. Before it unlocks, your iPhone might request that you press the Home button, adding an unnecessary step between you and your data. However, you can turn the feature off so that you don't need to click any buttons to unlock your device.
For the most part, when you take a screenshot, it's because you intend on sharing it with someone. And, of course, we all take pride in our smartphones, so we want to show them off as much as possible. But the downside here is that regular screenshots are pretty boring, so they don't do a great job of showing anything off, really.
Before iOS 10 existed, you were stuck with every single app Apple shoved down your digital throat. While you could hide a few of them with some trickery, you couldn't remove any of them. Now, you can remove almost any Apple app you want from your home screen — for good — just like any third-party app.
Are there any benefits to watching a movie in a holographic mixed reality headset, or should you just stick with your TV? It's not as cut and dried as you might think. While TVs have some advantages, so does the virtual screen of a Microsoft HoloLens.
Even with today's high-powered devices, battery life is still an issue. We, as users, have to almost habitually check the current battery percentage, because otherwise, we might end up draining too much in the morning, then get stuck with a dead phone at night.
We recently covered an app called Touch Controls for YouTube that allows you to swipe up or down on any YouTube video to quickly adjust volume levels or brightness. As awesome as that app is, commenters here and on our YouTube channel thought it was lacking one big feature—the ability to seek forward or backward in the video by swiping the screen.
