Those of you using iOS 7 probably know by now that swiping down on an app's preview screen in the multitasking menu does absolutely nothing. Swiping up force closes the app, but down is useless—unless you're jailbroken.
When iOS 7 was released, there were actually news reports of people getting disoriented and sick due to the motion of the parallax effect, along with the speedy animations when opening and closing apps and folders.
Mobile gaming, in case you haven't noticed, is huge. From the astronomical popularity of Candy Crush Saga, to the ease of using old school emulators, we love gaming on our mobile devices. The future is also bright, just take a look at the Oculus Rift, an immersive virtual world that just might change the way we view and play games.
The movie Her is getting a lot of love from viewers and critics alike. While I find it kind of creepy to fall in love with a computer program, if Scarlett Johansson talked to me every day, I'd probably fall in love too.
Long before Windows Phone hit the scene, Windows Mobile was the operating system for Microsoft's older brand of smartphones through the early 2000s. But due to its clunkiness and inability to keep up with modern features, it was scrapped in 2010.
Waking up to my Night Owl iOS alarm has grown beyond old. I'd switch it up to one of the other ones, but I pretty much hate all of them. Thankfully, Pandora added an alarm clock feature to their application. Godspeed Pandora, Godspeed.
Conversations can be a little stale sometimes, so a little color help add some life. AOL realized this In the early days of AIM, and let you customize your colors just the way you want. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't let you go into your settings to customize your messaging app's colors, but with this awesome and effective tweak you can. All you need is a jailbroken iOS 7 iPhone or iPad, which is easily achieved.
Here we go again, softModders, it's time for another awesome tweak for your iPod, iPhone, or iPod running iOS 7. Have you ever felt like changing your lock screen with a custom text instead of it saying "slide to unlock"? Why shouldn't we be able to edit this? We're not given much freedom as it stands with our Apple devices.
If you're lucky enough to have an iOS developer account, then you had a brief glimpse of some of the darker options with the 7.1 update, including a darker keyboard. This was exclusive to developers who installed the first iOS 7.1 beta, but is no longer available, unfortunately.
NSA aside, Apple makes it difficult for users to extract and download text messages from their iPhones onto a computer. For whatever reason (legal, devious, neurotic, etc), we've all found a time where we'd like to save backups of certain meaningful, important, or perhaps incriminating conversations (including all MMS or iMessage pictures and videos). While there are a handful of third-party applications that can help with this process, the majority of them cost money and implement certain te...
We've all been there. Rushing to find an outlet because your smartphone's battery is about to die and you're in the middle of uploading a picture on Instagram or something else of dire importance. Android's operating system shuts down automatically when ever there is 1% left in order to allow for a proper shut down, and so as not to mess with the calibration of the battery, extending its overall life.
If I could think of one thing the world was missing, it would surely be more tablets. While people struggle between shelling out 200 to 500 dollars for a new iPad, Nexus 7, Kindle Fire, Microsoft Surface, or one of the hundred other tablets on the market, the folks over at DreamWorks have decided to make their own, aptly named the Dreamtab. The Dreamtab will have an 8-inch screen and favor applications with the use of a stylus, for coloring and the like. Total cost is rumored to be under 300 ...
Just days after news spread that Snapchat could be exploited by spammers, an anonymous group of hackers have released the private information of over 4 million users of the popular photo-sharing application.
Most people were skeptical when Google replaced Google Talk with Hangouts, but to my surprise, it was an easy and pleasant transition. It has basically consolidated my conversations into one location. I can see all SMS, MMS, and Google Talk conversations in one place.
Most people don't ask for gift cards, but they're always a popular gift choice for notoriously hard-to-shop-for people—or the time-constrained gift-giver. While most gift cards are attached to certain stores, many folks will get a prepaid Visa or MasterCard card that allows them to make purchases wherever those companies are accepted.
Seemingly out of nowhere, something strange started happening on my Nexus 7. Every time I restarted my device, the camera application on the far right of my dock kept disappearing on me.
Just 94 days after the release of iOS 7, the team over at evasi0n have once again gifted us with their latest jailbreaking software for the newest version of iOS. The first iteration of evasi0n7 contained Chinese malware, but the subsequent release removed the malicious Chinese app store, so this evasi0n7 jailbreak should be just as safe as previous evasi0n jailbreaks were for iOS 6.
While ads certainly pay the bills (thank you guys, we love you), they can also be obtrusive and annoying when it comes to accessing and viewing content (not our advertisers though, they rule).
It seems like most of the really cool and interesting modifications you can make to your Android device always require special root access, so when a fun mod comes along that doesn't require root—I feel it's my duty to alert you.
My favorite type of video game is first-person shooters, and the one that started it all for me was GoldenEye 007. There was just something about the controls, fast-paced action, and free-roaming environment that got me hooked.
While still extremely awesome, the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch is limited as to what you can download on to it, especially apps. It also doesn't have its own internet access (only Bluetooth), so apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Vine have yet to make their way to the Gear Store.
I've covered a few multitasking app switchers before, but none of them are as sleek and smooth as the aptly titled Switchr, a new app developed by Mohammad Adib that lets you move from one app to another quickly and smoothly—just like how I switch between my women. Well, not really, but I would.
These days, everyone's snapping selfies, taking pics of their latest meals, or sharing pet trick videos on Instagram for the whole world to see. It's not only fun to shoot photos and videos for Instagram, it's inspiring to look at everyone else's creativeness in your feed.
Let's face it, the stock YouTube app for Android kinda sucks. It has limited capabilities, at-time wavering connectivity, and the pop-up player it comes with is just not very good. If you want to enhance your mobile YouTube experience to how it should be, the answer lies within a third-party app called Viral HD YouTube Popup Player by Android dev Mata.
Photographers have been using the Pepper's Ghost Illusion for over a century to play up the level of creepiness in their photos. Many of the pictures that claim to be real "sightings" use this technique to project a ghostly figure into the background of their images. Today, it's still used in theatre, "scary" rides at amusement parks, and haunted houses all over the world, which makes it a great photography trick for Halloween time. As shown in the tutorial below by Make's Jason Poel Smith, t...
The design of iOS 7 has its lovers and haters, and if you're an Android user who just happens to love it, there are plenty of ways to make your device feel more Apple-y.
You don't have to be in debt to receive annoying calls from unwanted numbers. You may love your grandma, but if she calls you three times a day to ask how to turn on the television, you might just want to push all of her calls to voicemail.
Welcome back, my aspiring hackers!
Ubuntu isn't just a cool sounding name, but pegs itself as the world's favorite free operating system. It gained its popularity for being lightweight, fast, and visually appealing, and now that great look and speed can be placed right on the lock screen of your Samsung Galaxy S3.
On the new Moto X smartphone, the only thing you have to do to activate the virtual assistant is say "Okay, Google Now." That's it. You don't have to press a button or tap on the display at all. It's always ready for your voice commands via its "Active Listening" feature, making it a truly hands-free experience.
According to a new study, the majority of smartphone users check their devices 150 times a day. While that number may seem incredibly high at first glance, the influx of notifications and amount of social media apps available reduce the initial shock and make the number seem not so preposterous after all. Yeah, even on a date.
There's no shortage of cool customizations for my Samsung Galaxy S3, except when it comes to the launcher. Sure, there a ton of Android launchers out there, like Nova Launcher or Apex Launcher, that allow you to customize app placement, app grouping, infinite scrolling, etc. There's even Facebook Home for those who are Facebook addicts.
There are a ton of cool features available on your Samsung Galaxy Note 2, but if you're a softModder, you can make your phone do just about anything.
There are a ton of options available to Android users when it come to messaging, but the problem is that with all of these options, where is the go-to app? The one used by most people? The one that can offer a more unified approach?
Uploading certain pictures to Instagram can be problematic, especially when the dimensions of your picture exceed the dimensions of the square crop that's forced upon you. Why should I be forced to hack up my awesome fisheye picture inside of a lame square? I get the whole square thing, and I love it, but there's just some times when you can't be bound by the rules.
Although the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is a speedy device, one feature that feels a bit slow is swiping down from the Status bar to see the Notification tray when I'm using a full-screen app. When a full-screen app is open, I have to swipe down not once, but TWICE, on the upper portion of the screen in order to bring down the Notification tray.
Mascara application for me is not only for the eye lashes, but also for the water line and eye lids. Through the different techniques I tried, I can certainly and undoubtedly say that it works like a charm and is truly two-in-one.
With all the little improvements that Apple made to iOS 7, some older features have been changed or moved (and sometimes, it's not obvious).
There's absolutely no shortage of flashlight apps on Google Play, so when one comes around that sports uniquely different features than the rest—it should definitely be noted. That's why I bring to you Ambient LED Flashlight, a new app for your Samsung Galaxy Note 2 by Android developer Jie Huang.
When it comes to text documents and spreadsheets, Microsoft Office is the be-all and end-all office suite—but it's not cheap. Paying anywhere from $140 to $400 puts a big dent in your bank account, especially if you're a broke college student eating ramen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Something that I wish I would've known about during college is Microsoft's HUP (Home Use Program). With HUP, any employee or student of an organization that has a Microsoft volume license is eligible to purc...
