There are spontaneous times in everyday life that just scream to be recorded on video. The crazy guy yelling obscenities on the bus. Your favorite actor at the supermarket check-out register. Maybe even your kids just being super adorable.
There are two types of bricks ("brick" as in "bricking your phone")—soft and hard. Soft bricks are recoverable—something has probably gone wrong with some critical system partition, causing a bootloop or inability to boot in some way. Fine. Re-flashing everything should fix that instantly. Hard bricks are not recoverable—if you manage to hard-brick your Nexus, you are in trouble.
While the preview images for Android's upcoming "L" release just came out yesterday, the new firmware has already been rooted, as is standard with its openness. So if you were feeling reluctant to try Android L because it didn't support existing root methods, then you might want to reconsider.
It was the star of the show, but now that Android L has been released for preview to Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 owners, there's a lot that Google didn't tell us about their latest mobile operating system, rumored to be called Lollipop.
It's the biggest day of the year for all things Google. Their developer conference, dubbed Google I/O, gives us a peak at what the guys at Mountain View have been working on over the course of the past year, and this year, Android was center stage.
Apple's iOS 8 brings a few new features to the Mail app, including some speedy swipe gestures to flag, delete, and mark emails as read or unread.
Having an open-source platform like Android is great, allowing manufacturers and developers the ability to make their own skins and apps to truly customize the end-user experience. The only downside is that when an update comes to vanilla Android, many of us are left in the cold, unless you have a Google Play Edition HTC One.
Samsung's TouchWiz interface comes with tons of small features that can increase your productivity and user experience. From Mulit-Window Mode to Stress Level Monitoring, there are so many functions that some even go unnoticed.
When Google first introduced Android 4.4, the most glaring user-facing change was a new trend towards transparency. The stock launcher, originally exclusive to the Nexus 5, had transparent status and navigation bars and its app drawer added a touch of transparency.
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.
When I'm showing off my HTC One, the first thing I do is unlock my device and say, "OK Google". It may earn me a weird look or two, but in the end people are amazed by the voice recognition and automation of the Google Now Launcher.
Many of our everyday apps include a menu tab or search bar, like Chrome and Twitter. In fact, a lot of times those are the first things we go for, as search is universal in most apps, and app settings are just about always accessible through the menu.
If you've followed our guide on unlocking KitKat's real full screen capability using the immersive mode mod, then your status and navigation bars will be hidden when not in use, giving you a more expansive full screen experience.
Your Nexus 5 comes with a pretty cool feature baked in called Android Beam. Using NFC, or Near Field Communication, this functionality allows you to send information to another compatible device by simply touching the two together. Most flagship devices have NFC built into them these days, so there is a broad range of devices that your Nexus 5 is capable of sharing information with wirelessly.
"Millions of us have smartphones with the power to speed up research that will benefit billions of people around the world." - Professor Francois Grey
A boring work meeting. A conversation with someone you don't like. A date that's going horribly. A run-in with an aggressive and intimidating stranger. These are all situations where you want to flee—and fast.
Something special is happening. Maybe it's your child's first steps or their walk down the aisle. Maybe it's a hit-and-run accident, a flaming meteorite, or your buddy spilling a drink all over himself. These are fleeting moments that need to be captured instantly.
With popular remote desktop app LogMeIn recently ending its free service, lots of Android users have begun looking for alternatives. There are some good ones out there like TeamViewer and Microsoft Remote Desktop, but today, Google released an app that makes a pretty good contender.
By this point, you've definitely come across an app or two that wasn't designed with the HTC One in mind. Either the resolution is too small, the status bar stays active when it shouldn't, or the font isn't the ideal size. There are ways out there to get that changed, but up until now it wouldn't just change one app—it would change all of them.
If you lend someone your phone, even if it's just for a second, there's a chance they can enter an app and see something you'd rather they didn't. Whether it's a personal email or a private photo, there are plenty of reasons why you'd want to keep snoops out of certain apps.
As the Chromecast becomes more and more popular (it's even available overseas now), the market has seen an avalanche of Chromecast-compatible apps. We can play games, cast TV stations, and even mirror our screens, but today I'm going to show you a multifaceted tool that'll do everything from broadcasting your camera to displaying your documents.
I regularly use my Nexus 7 to wake up in the mornings (well, sometimes afternoons), but it's pretty minimal in what it does. I shouldn't have to open multiple apps when I wake up to figure out my schedule for the day or what the weather is going to be like.
LG's new KnockOn feature for the G2 wakes the phone up just by tapping on the screen twice, in lieu of using the power/lock button.
When you're wearing EarPods or another set of headphones with built-in remote controls, pausing and playing music is as convenient as it gets. However, some of the better sounding headphones out there do not have remotes built in, so pausing a song when you need to is at least a few steps, which is a few steps more than I want.
Yesterday, the Free Software Foundation published an article written by Paul Kocialkowski. A software developer for the the Android fork system Replicant, Paul stated that his organization discovered, and later patched, a "backdoor" vulnerability that existed in older Samsung Galaxy devices, including our beloved Galaxy S3s. Only problem is, it's kind of bullshit—but we'll get to that later.
With the introduction of the Control Center in iOS 7, we finally had a way to access common system toggles like Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode, and best of all, Flashlight. Of course, there were plenty of adequate flashlight apps in the iOS App Store, but none that made it available straight from the lock screen.
Windows 8's interface was met with criticism when it was released, mainly directed at the tiled Start screen, a departure from Windows versions of old. Many felt that this new home screen style was better suited for mobile devices like Microsoft's Surface tablets and Windows Phones.
Normal wear and tear, combined with unfortunate accidents, can take a toll on any smartphone leading to scratches, cracks, and breaks that can leave physical buttons useless. One of the first buttons to usually go is the power button, since it's the main way to turn your phone (and screen) off and on.
Privacy features have become quite the hot commodity, emerging from the aftermath of the NSA scandals that rocked the United States this past year. While the NSA has the means to gather information on all of us (regardless of any security software we implement), it doesn't mean that they're the only ones looking.
Efficiency is one integral attribute that I need from my Android device. I want to be able to multitask like a maniac and do things on the fly. While multitasking itself is nothing new, actually being able to watch Netflix while scrolling through IMDB at the same damn time was reserved mainly for newer Samsung-ier devices.
The app formerly known as Google Experience Launcher is now officially called the Google Now Launcher in honor of its most prominent feature, Google Now. Only problem is, this launcher is still exclusive to the Nexus 5 smartphone.
Restrictions are inconvenient, and for this reason I've sought out softmods that loosen the constraints for many of the features on my smartphone. Things like adding favorite apps to the Pen Window drawer or choosing any app for Multi Window mode are now must-haves on my Samsung Galaxy Note 3—and should be on yours as well.
Currently, all Nexus tablets running Jelly Bean or higher can enjoy multiple user accounts. With tablets often migrating between various people in the same household, there’s no reason for Dad’s finances to mingle with little Tammy’s candy crushing. Multiple users, each with separate profiles, just makes sense on an Android tablet.
One thing almost every Android launcher has in common, from stocks to skins, is the way they handle organizing and launching apps and widgets. Tap an app icon to open the app. Drag apps together to create a folder. It's simple, it works, and it's what we know.
One good thing about having friends who are constantly on their phones and tablets is it's easy to figure out what to get them for Christmas. Everyone hates getting gifts that just sit around, so it's always nice to get something that improves an item you use on a daily basis.
The newest Android operating system, Android 4.4 KitKat, has been unleashed with the arrival of the Nexus 5, and soon to be rolled out to other Nexus devices and Google Play Edition smartphones any day now. Only problem is, the Samsung Galaxy S3 isn't getting 4.4 for a very long time. It doesn't even have 4.3 Jelly Bean yet.
No offense to T-Mobile, but if you head over to their support page for the Samsung Galaxy Gear, you get the information below on how to take a screenshot of your smartwatch. Oh, thank you for that.
There are a ton of cool things you can do with your iPhone's camera in iOS 7, from taking burst photos to bouncing the camera open and taking nice parallax-friendly wallpapers. However, nothing tops the camera's super secret hidden feature—turning you into a spy photographer.
If you're a self-described multitasker, Samsung has a feature that's perfect for you called Multi-Window, which lets you display two apps on your Galaxy S4's screen simultaneously.
Converting from iOS to Android doesn't have to be a particularly difficult process, but people make it that way anyways. Transferring contacts becomes a big deal, dimensions and hardware become an issue, and most importantly, features that were once loved become sorely missed.
