Incorporating features such as CarPlay, UI enhancements such as the new call screen, and several bug fixes, iOS 7.1 was the first major update to Apple's operating system since iOS 7 was released in June of last year.
It appears that the next iteration of KitKat, Android 4.4.3, is fast approaching. If the past is any indication, today's update to the Nexus 5 software changelog on Sprint's website tells us a new version of Android will begin rolling out within 24 hours. Sprint has broken the news of a forthcoming Android release twice in the past. With 4.4.1 and 4.4.2, a mini-changelog was posted on the Sprint website about a day before Google began pushing updates to its Nexus devices.
If mainstream media has taught us anything, it's that being beautiful can get you ahead in life. The notion isn't necessarily correct, but it's what the general consensus accepts and it seems to hold quite a bit of weight (no pun intended) in the western world.
Amazon just announced its entry into the set-top streaming content marketplace with its new Fire TV box. Competing directly against Apple TV, Google's Chromecast, and Roku, Amazon is betting on big processing power and voice controls to stand out from the competition. Features include the following.
There were some pretty amazing things included in the Android 4.4 KitKat update, but unfortunately, most of them were left inactive on our Nexus 7 tablets. Some, like full-screen immersive mode and the hidden battery percentage status bar icon, could be enabled on rooted devices, but not everyone wants to root.
Google Glass is all about transforming the world around us with little to zero interaction from the wearer. Much of this is done using augmented reality—a live view of physical, real-world environments that are augmented by computer-generated input in the form of graphics, sights, and sounds.
After many beta builds, Apple has finally released iOS 7.1 to the public. It includes bug fixes for the old iOS 7.0.6, along with UI enhancements and even some new features.
When you're scrolling through your iPhone's home screens, you'll inevitably reach the end and have to either swipe backwards or hit the Home button to return to the first page. Why Apple didn't instill an endless scrolling feature, or at the very least an option for it, is anyone's guess, but just because you can't do it out of the box doesn't mean you can't do it.
Facebook makes it easy to show how much you appreciate a funny status, great picture, or cool news article using their iconic "thumbs up" button, but what about those terrible jokes and annoying baby pictures? Where's the "thumbs down" for that crap?
Having instant access to monitoring your battery level is critical, especially when you're traveling or forget your charger at home. You need to know how much juice you have so you can adapt accordingly.
Apple's iOS 7 is riddled with annoying features, and some of them can't be toggled off in Settings. For example, I really don't like having labels directly underneath my app icons, and there's no way to remove them. Sure, it may be nitpicky, but it's my device, and it should behave the way I want it to.
The iPhone 5S may be the most popular Apple phone to date, but I'm still rocking my iPhone 4. No disrespect to the 5S, but I'm not upgrading until I can unlock with a retina scan or get Siri to sound like Scarlett Johansson.
It's been a great week for Chromecast owners. First, Google released the development kit, allowing devs to install the casting code into their apps. Then, CyanogenMod dev Koush updated his AllCast app to support the Chromecast. That means you can shoot personal movies, music, and photos directly from your Android device over to a Chromecast-connected display.
Update January 27, 2014: Samsung has released a statement to address the flip cover issue, claiming it as a bug with a "fix" coming soon:
Apple and Google are not only two of the biggest names in the tech world, but also two of the biggest competitors. So, it's no surprise that you can't watch movies or TV shows purchased from iTunes on an Android device. Likewise, you can't watch any videos purchased on Google Play with your iPad or iPhone—until now.
There are several ways to get around location restrictions on subscription sites like Netflix and Hulu using apps, extensions and proxies, but they tend to only work on laptops and computers. Users who want to access content from mobile devices and gaming consoles are usually out of luck.
The Chromecast may be slowly weaving its way into the smartphone ecosystem, but the amount of supported Android apps that are available for the streaming media player are still severely limited.
In a world where more features are king, sometimes it's a good thing to breathe, take a step backwards and keep it simple. With home launchers, this isn't often the case, as developers add a galore of features to their apps in order to be at the top of the game.
Like insurance, it's always better to have a computer mouse and not need it than to need it and not have it. Honestly, I don't want to carry around a clunky mouse with my laptop, so I don't. I do something else, something more convenient. I use my Nexus 7. If you want to give it a try, I'll show you how it's done right now. All you need to is a Wi-Fi network and a specific Android app to control your computer with your Android tablet.
Sometimes, taking a picture of your friend doing a crazy stunt just doesn't suffice. Getting the progression of the stunt in one image does!
Snapchat was created for the sole purpose of removing evidence from your mobile that a photo or video ever existed. That way, snoopers can't find any of these questionable selfies in your photo gallery. Of course, there are plenty of ways around this safeguard, but it's still more private than the standard social networking app.
The Xbox One is the quintessential jack of all trades. It can be your browser, music player, gaming system, and cable box, but in order to benefit from all of these goodies, you're going to have to set it all up.
I can't say that my handwriting skills are the best, and my cursive is even worse. I mean, I still don't know how to write a capital L in cursive, but who really cares when I do all my everyday writing with a keyboard now. I've gotten pretty fast at typing on my computer, but those tiny buttons on the Samsung Galaxy S3's keyboard is a totally different thing.
WhatsApp is one of the most well-known and most utilized cross-platform chat applications available today. It's free for one year, and only $0.99 a year after, which is chump change when you realize there are no hidden costs like international charges. Basically, it creates an easy to use forum for you and your friends to chat, regardless if they're an Android or iPhone user.
Hey guy's, hope everything's going well! Here's a snippet of a few cool things and the latest news on Minecraft.
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.
Normally, "restricted access" is something you despise. No one likes to be told they can't do something, especially when it comes to the Internet. Unfortunately, having web access at all times can not only eat away at your wallet, but make your day less productive overall, so some sort of moderation is needed.
Thousands of history files, cookies, other unwanted files stored in your system as logs and other formats. To manually check each one is difficult. New computers are too fast by processor behavior, after some times of working it comes to slow performance.
Customization of our Android devices, outside of what Google and mobile carriers allow us to do, used to mandate that our devices were rooted and running a custom ROM.
You don't need to be a robot to be overly concerned with battery life, especially if we're talking about Terminators, which have nuclear or hydrogen fuel cells that keep them running for years straight. It will be a long time before smartphones get that upgrade, so in the meantime, we have to figure out how to make them last more than a couple hours in a single charge.
Learning to make giant bubbles for this video has been the most fun I've had with a project in a long time. It's addicting to try to get them to grow bigger and bigger than the ones before. Since filming this video, my skill has improved tremendously and the bubbles you're about to see, though spectacularly big, are dwarfed by what I've made since. Everyone loves to watch. This is definitely one project that will draw a crowd!
If you're new to Android phones, one of the first things you've probably noticed is how notification alerts differs from Apple devices, especially in regards to getting a text message.
With CyanogenMod 10.2 recently released and the Samsung Galaxy S4 still waiting on Android 4.3, it only makes sense that the coveted features from both firmwares are highly desired by Android owners all over. We've already brought you a feature from each firmware—the cLock home/lock screen widget from CyanogenMod and the Google Play Edition Camera and Gallery from Android 4.3. Now we're bringing you another in the form of an updated text messaging application, ported from both Android 4.3 and...
"Ain't No Sunshine" might just be a classic song to you, but for me and my Samsung Galaxy S3, it means so much more. For the most part, my GS3 does a decent job at automatically adjusting the brightness of the screen when I'm in normal lighting, but when I'm in little or no lighting, or there's just way to much, I usually have to switch over to manual to get the right balance. Luckily, we're not stuck with Samsung's built-in auto brightness feature. There are some really good third-party solu...
Android gets a lot of love for its immeasurable amount of customization, and for the most part, you don't even have to do any heinous hacking to swag out your Samsung Galaxy S3 or other Android device.
Anyone who uses a computer on a regular basis probably knows how to access the task manager to check system resources and usage stats. However, on a Samsung Galaxy S3 or other Android device, it may not be so obvious. There's no equivalent to Control-Alt-Delete, but it's still fairly easy to monitor running processes and battery usage.
Snapchat users upload a whopping 150 million pictures a day—which are deleted as just quick as they're sent. However, none of these images are coming from Android tablet users. If you try downloading Snapchat from Google Play on your Nexus 7 or other Android tablet, you'll get the "Your device isn't compatible with this version" message. Even those with the new Nexus 7 tablets that have the front and rear cameras are out of luck. Unless you're a softModder.
What Is Graphene?
Cloud storage looks pretty good compared to the heavy restrictions that hard drives and other types of external memory carry. The cloud is not only limitless in what it can hold, but it can also easily be accessed from any device that has Internet—your smartphone, work computer, personal laptop, tablet, and more. While accessing a specific cloud storage system like Dropbox or Google Drive may be easy on your Samsung Galaxy Note 2, managing all of them individually can not only get confusing, ...
Even if you have the fastest internet connection in the world, it's not going to be fast if your Android device isn't optimized to use all of the bandwidth. I have pretty fast speeds at home, but every now and then my web surfing on my Nexus 7 tablet is halted in its tracks—for seemingly no reason.
