When you leave your iPhone on a table or anywhere within somebody else's eyeshot, a private message may pop up on your lock screen that could be read by anyone who sees it. But there's a way to keep others from reading your possibly sensitive text messages and emails without giving up the convenience of lock screen notifications entirely.
Samsung's Galaxy S9 was recently announced with features like AR Emoji and Dual Aperture, but great functionality lives underneath them — such as the ability to have your home screen auto-rotate to landscape mode. It's a nice feature, but with a little work, you can already do this on any Android phone.
One of the standout features of Nova Launcher is its vast customization options. Not only does it includes numerous tweaks to alter the aesthetics of your home screen, but it even has plenty of features that reduce clutter. One area of our device that has a high potential for disarray is our home screen.
Samsung kicked off their Android Oreo rollout earlier this week. The update already improved the lock screen significantly with new wallpaper color-matching for the clock. With the newest update, we also get the ability to tweak the transparency of lock screen notifications.
The Galaxy S8 Oreo Beta has been out for just over a week now. Over that time, we've taken a look at some of the best new features and improvements. One area of smartphone software that never gets much love in updates is the lock screen. Samsung changes that in the Oreo beta, bringing new colorization options that match lock screen info to your wallpaper.
When customizing your Android home screen, it's always a challenge to balance aesthetics with functionality. Do you crowd your home screen with icons and widgets so they are easier to reach, or do you spread the icons over many home screens? Each option has its downsides, and with most launchers, these are your only choices — but with Action Launcher, there's another way.
The Galaxy S8's Always On Display is a fantastic feature that gives you a brief overview without having to wake up your phone. But AOD now has a virtual home button, which kinda ruins the sleek look and can even cause screen burn-in.
There's never an Apple announcement without some good ol' anger and backlash. To be fair, Apple received some really positive feedback from parts of the iOS 11 presentation at WWDC back in June. Fans had been waiting for years to customize the Control Center, as well as for native screen recording. But if there was one thing that got fanboys and Apple haters raging about in unison, it's that weird, incomprehensible notification system.
I haven't bought into Apple Pay just yet, but I do love the idea of having quick access to passes like loyalty programs, boarding passes, and my Starbucks card. However, for some users, it's impossible to open these passes stored in Apple Wallet on the iPhone's lock screen. While it's not totally obvious, or even ideal, there is a way to get those Wallet passes back on your lock screen in iOS 9 or iOS 10.
The Pixel XL reportedly uses the same exact display panel as the Galaxy S7 Edge, but according to third-party testing, Samsung's flagship gets at least ten percent brighter than Google's. The same can be said of the regular Pixel, which tops out just shy of its bigger brother's brightness rating.
Google's Material Design guidelines have finally brought some consistency to the look and feel of Android apps, bringing most of the user experience on par with what you would see on iOS. However, some developers are still using non-compliant home screen icons, even though Material Design calls for specific padding, size, and layouts.
Considering how much smartphones cost in the first place, we're understandably reluctant to throw them out when we've bought a newer model. And this is probably the best practice, too, as there are many great uses for an old Android device.
I was skeptical when I first heard about GifWidget, an Android widget that lets you place GIFs on your home screen. As much as I love GIFs, did I really need to see this, this, this, or this, or even this, forever repeating on my phone?
I often read ebooks on my iPhone while I walk, but being glued to my screen is a good way to get run over or cursed at. To save my physical and social hide, I use this trick to get my iPhone to read ebooks and articles out loud, turning my whole text library into de facto audiobooks.
For the past three or four months, Microsoft has been pushing advertisements onto the lock screens of some Windows 10 users as part of its "Windows Spotlight" feature. This feature normally shows you scenic photographs and gives you the option to learn more about them by launching an Edge window once you log in. However, the aforementioned users have reported seeing the image below for the new Rise of the Tomb Raider game. Rather than taking you online in Edge to learn about it, you're given ...
If you left your iPhone sitting unlocked, or have friends and family that like to play pranks, you may be stuck with an overly orange screen out of the blue. Or worse, your screen is normal most of the time, but seems to randomly change its tint in certain parts of the day.
If you're running iOS 10 or lower, there is no built-in way to make a screen recording on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch directly from the device, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way to record your screen at all.
When you swipe from page to page on your home screen, the contents on your screen change, but the wallpaper always remains the same. And while Android does include plenty of ways to customize your device, setting a unique wallpaper for each home screen page isn't one of them.
If your PC setup includes a mouse and keyboard, you'll be happy to know that most of the touchscreen-first features of Windows 8 have gone by the wayside in Windows 10. Where it once required awkward gestures to access key features, Windows now recognizes when you're using a traditional desktop or laptop, then responds by making sure that all features can be easily discovered with clickable buttons and menu entries.
Windows 10 makes it a cinch to change the lock screen background: simply go to Setting -> Personalization -> Lock screen, then change the background to whatever you'd like. But, trying to change the login screen background—the screen where you enter your password—was a long, complicated, and possibly dangerous process. Luckily, developer Krutonium has published a tool that automates the entire process, and it's very easy to use.
On the whole, Windows 10 is vastly different than its predecessors, but there's not any one big change that distinguishes it from Windows 7 or 8. On the contrary, it's a series of small tweaks and optimizations that makes this version such a departure from previous iterations.
With an Android device, you can replace almost any default app with a third-party offering. Don't like your home screen app? Replace it. Tired of the text messaging interface? Upgrade it. The same can be said for Android's lock screen. But while many third-party lock screen apps are available, so far, only one has been designed with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and its fingerprint scanner in mind.
Samsung has a long-standing reputation for packing their devices with lots of added functionality, and the Galaxy S6 Edge is no exception. It comes with a nifty feature called "Information stream," which allows you to get quick, at-a-glance information by swiping the edge of your screen back and forth while the display is off.
Your iPhone's home screen is a tricky thing. You can sort your collection of apps in any order you'd like, but where you place those apps is a totally different story. App and folder placement follows a strict grid on iOS from left to right, top to bottom. No exceptions, and that's how Apple wants it. So you might think without a jailbreak you're stuck with this layout — but you're wrong.
Using my Nexus 7 tablet as a flashlight to light my path on the way to my room late at night is difficult, and honestly, useless. It doesn't have an LED flash for pictures, so using it as a flashlight is essentially just me brightening the display as high as it can go.
On-screen navigation buttons offer many distinct advantages over physical buttons—they can change orientation along with your device, they're capable of visually morphing to indicate secondary functionality, and the user experience is more consistent when buttons and app elements require the same amount of force to press. Add to that the fact that they're far less likely to fail and can be themed or even switched out altogether, and it's hard to come up with an argument in favor of physical b...
Many Nexus 6 owners, myself included, have already started to experience the dreaded burn-in issues that often come with AMOLED display technology. These displays are different than your typical LCD screen in that each pixel emits its own light instead of using a backlight, so this leaves AMOLED screens more susceptible to issues with dim or unresponsive pixels.
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.
Lock screen notifications can sometimes be overwhelming and difficult to manage, especially in the morning when I receive a massive influx of emails, texts, reminders, and social media alerts. At some point it's not even worth scrolling through all of them on your lock screen when you can get a better grasp of everything by just checking out the Notification Center instead.
Android 5.0 has a killer new feature that should make securing your device easier than ever. It's called Smart Lock, and it essentially lets you bypass your secure lock screen when you're in a "trusted environment." This means that if you're connected to a known Bluetooth device or near a pre-programmed NFC card, you don't have to bother entering your pattern, PIN, or password.
Google's Chromecast streaming device is a marvel of functionality and form. Even with powerful features such as screen mirroring and collaborative party playlists, it's the device's idle screen that first catches the eyes of most folks.
Apple definitely wasn't first to the widget game, but any iPhone running iOS 8 or higher can add widgets to their Today View found via a swipe down from the top of the screen when on the home screen or in any app. There's even access to widgets on the lock screen via the same swipe down on iOS 8 and iOS 9 (on iOS 10, iOS 11, and iOS 12, all you have to do is swipe right on the lock screen).
Despite what some in the tech-world would like you to believe, iOS isn't totally locked down, free from user customization. Take your home screen, for example. Not only can you change your app icons and move them wherever you'd like, you can actually choose to hide them all. If you have a wallpaper that's just begging to be shown off, this trick is for you.
There are countless lock screens you can apply to your Android device, but very few offer more than just quick access to apps or advanced security functionality. Since you probably unlock your device a gazillion times every day, why not use this to your advantage and let it teach you something new?
The idle screen for the Chromecast is certainly beautiful. Full of many high-definition pictures taken of various parts of the world, it's almost a shame that we have to dismiss this screen in order to cast content.
Apple took great strides to enhance Accessibility features on iOS 7 for low-vision users, adding button shapes, dark colors, bold keyboard text, and more. With iOS 8, Apple looks to continue their run at making life easier for the optically impaired.
At last month's I/O event, Google demonstrated a set of cool new features that were said to be coming to the Chromecast soon. While we may not be able to set custom backgrounds or cast content without being on the same WiFi network just yet, the biggest feature of them all has started rolling out to devices today: Screen mirroring.
Some of my favorites hacks are the ones that speed up the process of accessing my favorite and most-used apps. So, in this softModder guide, I'll be showing you a super fast way to open those apps straight from your Samsung Galaxy Note 3's lock screen.
We've always been able to switch between running apps pretty easily, but iOS 7 beefed up the multitasking menu significantly by incorporating app previews in lieu of just icons.
Android 4.4 KitKat has begun rolling out for the Galaxy Note 3 in India, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries, and an unofficial build for AT&T customers has been leaked for all of us stateside.
