More often than not, road trips will include unforeseen pit stops that have to be made, no matter how well prepared you are. In the past, making an unscheduled stop may have led to headaches and delays when your navigation app got off track, but thanks to a feature in Google Maps, this is no longer an issue.
If you have a large media library, you should definitely have the Plex server installed on your computer. If you do, you can just install Plex for Android or iPhone, then you'll have access to all of your music, movies, and TV shows anywhere.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger and fashion label Anrealage have teamed to produce the world's first augmented reality sneakers. The shoes — called the Anrealage Monte Z — look like a regular pair of sneakers until you view them through Anrealage's new AR app. Once viewed through the app, they become unlike any pair of sneakers that have ever existed.
Not everyone digs Siri. Some of you probably can't live without the personal assistant on your iPhone, and some of you probably never even use it — and likely never will. If you fall into the latter category of iPhone users, you can simply disable the feature altogether, which will prevent accidentally triggering her or him anymore and will keep your iPhone nice and secure overall.
With the hype surrounding the iPhone 8, Apple's announcement that it's developing driverless software, and the new iOS 11 beta out, it seems like the tech giant is constantly in the news. Today, Apple's continuing this streak with updates for its iWork app suite on iOS and macOS.
A fairly hidden feature in iOS 10 let you turn websites and documents into PDFs, but thanks to the new Markup function in iOS 11, this process has become a lot more streamlined.
Though its necessity is less frequent compared to Android devices, iPhones still need to be shut down from time to time. Whether it's to help correct a buggy app, prevent overheating on a hot day, or conserve battery life in a pinch, the power button on any device is an indispensable tool that can't be taken for granted. So when it's busted, what do you do?
When you think of high quality music, your phone isn't the first thing to pop into your mind, even though 68% of US smartphone owners stream music on a daily basis. Most of us tolerate the audio quality from our devices simply because music is something we can't live without — but we shouldn't have to put up with poor quality, and as it turns out, we don't.
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ might not have made it into the hands of the public yet, but we sure have come across a lot of the stock apps from Samsung's latest flagship phones. First, there was the new launcher, then Hello Bixby, and now, the extremely elusive Record Screen feature has been leaked.
The latest Google Play Services update has somehow broken major functionality in both Titanium Backup and Substratum. Titanium Backup has suddenly become stuck at zero percent while restoring, and Substratum simply fails to apply themes anymore. Both of these apps do require root, but they've slowly become essential to rooted users, especially since apps like these come into play when you're deciding what your next phone should be.
If you have stuck volume buttons, it can be a real pain to adjust sound levels since your only other option is to use the volume menu in Settings. But even if your volume rocker is working fine, it's still a little weird to have to click a mechanical button to control one of the most central aspects of an operating system that is otherwise entirely touch-based.
LineageOS, the successor to the wildly popular CyanogenMod custom ROM, is adding an interesting new feature that could potentially save lots of juice when your battery is running low. When enabling "Extreme power saver" mode, which can be set to kick in automatically at 15%, you'll soon have the option of changing your kernel's performance profile as well.
The internet's an amazing place. The entirety of human knowledge is now accessible in an instant, and all sorts of media can be streamed directly to the palm of your hand. But, of course, that also includes the darker side of humanity, so there's plenty of NSFW content floating around out there that's certainly not suitable for children.
If you have the Xposed Framework installed, there's a module that lets you enable background playback in Android's YouTube app without buying a YouTube Red subscription. But Xposed is not available on many devices—particularly those running Android Nougat—so this isn't an option for everyone.
Android is a highly customizable operating system. Sometimes, we use these capabilities to add core functionality or streamline the user experience, but there are other times when customization is just about having fun and making your smartphone's interface more enjoyable.
Android has separate volume levels for various system sounds like incoming calls, notifications, alarms, and media. This means that when you want to adjust volume levels for just one of these categories, you usually have to press the physical volume rocker, tap a button to expand the volume menu, find the category that you want to adjust, then finally raise or lower the volume.
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.
YouTube is a great place for all your mainstream audio and video needs. But you can't simply plug in your headphones, choose a playlist, and put your phone back in your pocket without subscribing to YouTube Red, which costs $9.99/month for ad-free and background playback. If you can't afford that for just background playback, there are other ways.
Out of all the new changes in iOS 10, the most noticeable difference is a handful of fun new features that were added to iMessage. Not only can you now send GIFs directly from the Apple-exclusive messaging platform, but there's now an entire App Store dedicated to bringing fun new stickers and other cool add-ons to iMessage.
The widget selection on Android is one of the main things that set it apart from other mobile operating systems. You can get quick, at-a-glance information for topics like weather, news, music, and much more, all without ever leaving your home screen.
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The new Google phones, which are rumored to ditch the Nexus moniker for Pixel, will most likely come with an Android feature that 7.0 Nougat doesn't currently have—a new set of navigation keys.
Many apps and services that are available for Android can only work if they have access to your Google account. While you're setting up one of these apps, you'll see a popup that says something like "This app would like to access your Google account," and the options are "Accept" or "Cancel." Of course we tap "Accept" here to ensure that the app will work properly, but what are the long-term repercussions of doing that?
The new lock screen in iOS 10 is a lot different than previous versions, but one thing that stuck around is the quick access camera shortcut. The only real difference aside from aesthetics is that now you don't have to swipe up from the camera icon. Instead, you can simply swipe to the left from right side to quickly snap a picture.
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.
These days, there's almost an expectation that you have to deal with messages as soon as you get them. But that's not always the best way to handle things—sometimes, you're preoccupied with something, and it would be better if you could deal with a new message when you have a chance to give it your full attention.
When Hey Siri was first introduced in iOS 8, it was a pretty lackluster feature since you had to be plugged into a power source in order to even use it. Since then, newer devices (iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 9.7-inch iPad Pro) don't need to plug in to have always-on Siri, which makes the feature actually worthwhile—when it works.
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.
If you're in the market for a new tattoo, the biggest hurdle to clear is imagining exactly how it's going to look. It's going to be part of your identity for the rest of your life, so you have to make sure it looks just right—or as your mom probably told you, "Think of what it's going to look like when you're 60."
Android 6.0 introduced a new feature called Direct Share that allows apps to pin a more specific set of targets to Android's share menu. You've probably seen it already—messaging apps will allow you to share a file directly to a specific contact instead of just to the main app, and there are several other implementations like this.
Smartphones are designed to be used in portrait mode primarily, so smartphone apps are created with that layout in mind. This means that practically every app on your phone is vertically oriented, which, in turn, means that we have to scroll up and down quite a bit.
Google has an intriguing feature called Nearby that lets users share content without being on the same Wi-Fi network, or without even exchanging contact info first. Instead, the function uses an array of standard smartphone features, as well as subsonic sound, to identify other devices that are in the room, then makes a secure connection to transfer any data.
GIFs are awesome, but GIFing from your keyboard is some next-level stuff, and Apple knows this. That's why they've included a way to find and send GIFs in Messages from the stock iOS 10 keyboard. However, iOS 10 is not out for the public just yet, so if you want to easily send GIFs in your messages, you'll have to settle for a third-party keyboard.
Samsung's latest flagship devices—the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge—both sport an interesting new feature called Always On Display, or simply AOD. When enabled, this feature keeps the clock, date, and other bits of information visible at all times—even when the screen is off.
Google has been working on its voice recognition technology ever since the days when you had to call a phone number with a Silicon Valley area code to dictate your query. As you can imagine, things have come a long way in the decade or so that has passed, to the point where we talk to our phones as if they were a person nowadays.
Much like the Chromecast, Android TV devices such as the Nexus Player and Nvidia Shield TV have always had those beautiful background images as their default screensaver. However, unlike the Chromecast, these "Backdrop" images, as they're called, weren't always customizable on Android TV.
Smartphone displays are getting bigger every year, and Samsung devices are at the forefront of that trend. But, from a software standpoint, the icons, buttons, and other on-screen elements seem to stay at the same scale. So while phones are getting bigger, their interfaces are getting bigger as well.
There are plenty of Android apps for creating reminders, to-do lists, and taking notes—but the vast majority of these are all-in-one apps that may actually have too many features. When a thought randomly crosses your mind and you'd like to remember it for later, the most important thing is to be able to jot it down quick, fast, and in a hurry.
Android's flexible operating system allows for lots of customization, and one of the most common ways to add personal flair to your smartphone is to set your own ringtones and notification sounds.
We knew it was coming eventually, but this is a bit out of left field—early builds of the next version of Android have been released almost two months ahead of schedule. Android N, as it's being called for now, is already available for the last two generations of Nexus devices, though it's just an early preview build for now.
