Apple has an excellent reputation for its privacy and security policies. That said, it isn't a perfect reputation. Take Siri, for example. The helpful iOS assistant isn't just communicating with you — Apple saves and listens to a history of your Siri interactions. If you don't want Apple storing your Siri history forever, there's something you can do about it.
For all of its many perks — from the best iPhone camera system money can buy, to arguably the best smartphone display on the market — the iPhone 12 Pro Max is undeniably huge. It has the largest iPhone screen to date despite being 0.46 cubic inches smaller than the iPhone 11 Pro Max in overall size. If you're finding it a little too much to handle with one hand, there are ways to make it much easier to use.
They say you're supposed to keep your kids away from screens until they're at least three years old. They say a lot of stuff, but then real life happens and your toddler watches a little TV while you're working from home during a pandemic.
A slideshow is a tried-and-true way to show off pictures and videos from your adventures, whether it's a long trip overseas, an extravagant wedding, or a quick hiking trip up a mountain. However, in iOS 13 and under, you could only start a slideshow from a photo or video or choose media individually to include in one. But iOS 14 makes it even easier to do in your iPhone's Photos app.
There are tons of different ways to download videos and GIFs from Twitter onto your iPhone for offline viewing, but frankly, they all kinda suck. You might have to download a third-party app or copy a link and paste it into a random website — and while they work, there are better options. TVDL, a shortcut on iOS, makes the process of downloading Twitter videos and GIFs fast and easy.
A dead man's switch is a fairly simple concept. If you don't perform a specific task before a set amount of time, it'll perform a specific action you set. They can be handy not just for hackers but for everyone who wants to protect themselves, someone else, or something tangible or intangible from harm. While there are more nefarious uses for a dead man's switch, white hats can put one to good use.
Except for the second-generation iPhone SE, all new iPhone models omit the Home button. In its place, the Side button takes charge, taking care of tasks like pulling up Siri, activating AssistiveTouch, and opening Apple Pay. If you swap your older Home button model for an iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max, you'll need to relearn simple actions like shutting down and restarting the device.
Whether it's an iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max, know that these devices are the most powerful smartphones Apple has ever made. Still, bugs happen, and you might find yourself with an app that isn't performing quite as it should. When that happens, it's best to force-close (or force-quit) the problematic app instead of waiting for it to fix itself, which may never happen.
The Memories feature in Photos is meant to help you rediscover old or forgotten experiences by creating a short slideshow of photos and videos based on locations, dates, and events. It's a fun feature to relive exciting times, but it isn't always perfect because it's generated automatically. It might include incorrect content, but in iOS 14, you can now create your own Memory Movies.
According to the CDC, one in four U.S. adults has a disability, where limitations can involve vision, cognitive function, hearing, motor skills, and more. That's why the iPhone has accessibility features; so that everyone can use an iPhone, not just those without any impairments. Apple's iOS 14 has only made the iPhone even more accessible, and the new tools benefit everyone, not just those that need them.
When you can't touch the shutter button on the screen in the Camera app, your iPhone has another way to snap a picture or take a video — just press the Volume Up or Volume Down button. But when it comes to bursts and QuickTakes, however, things are a little bit trickier in iOS 13, iOS 14, and iOS 15.
If you're a PC gamer, you know the value of performance metrics. These graphs and charts overlaid on top of a game give you real-time information about how well your system performs. And for the first time, Galaxy users running One UI 3.0 will get access to similar information for mobile games.
Apps can learn a lot about you just by reading information about your smartphone. They can easily track what device model you have, your phone number, and in some cases, your hardware MAC addresses. Many third-party apps will only track your device values for advertising purposes, but some might be trying to snoop on your data for ill intentions.
The gesture navigation introduced with Android 10 worked wonders by giving you more of your screen and less tapping. Android 11 offers the option to fine-tune the back gesture sensitivity for your screen's left and right sides. However, the issue still stands for people who like to use the left swipe menu within apps to open hamburger style menus.
The new iOS 14 for iPhone arrived Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2020, alongside iPadOS 14, and there are a lot of features to uncover. Improved widgets. Better home screen customization. Exciting Messages improvements. New abilities in Camera and Photos. There's so much here that it'll take months for you to learn everything by heart.
Have you ever watched a video on your iPhone but wanted to look at something else real quick? Before iOS 14, you had to choose between pausing the video or waiting until it's over — not exactly ideal for a device that's supposed to help you multitask. But with iOS 14 or later, we can use picture-in-picture mode to watch and perform other on-screen tasks at the same time.
Even though the Music app took a backseat during Apple's initial iOS 14 announcements, there's a lot going on in the updated app. Some of the new features and changes apply only to Apple Music subscribers, while others apply to your own music library, so there's something for everyone.
Group chats, particularly ones with many active participants, could bombard your iPhone with hundreds of texts in a single day. It can get overwhelming real quick unless you take precautions to hide all notifications for that conversation. But there's another option now, one that'll make sure you only get alerts for the messages that matter to you most in the thread.
If you've ever been into custom ROMs, you likely know the Dirty Unicorns name pretty well. It's been synonymous with unique features and awesome tweaks when compared to stock. Recently, Dirty Unicorns has returned again in a big way with some neat features for Android 10.
One of iOS 14's best new features is the ability to add and stack widgets on your home screen, which lets you check in with your favorite apps without actually needing to open them. Apple takes the concept one step further with "Smart Stacks," where iOS intelligently stacks widgets together based on how you use your iPhone.
Even if you pay for YouTube Premium, you are not exempt from ads. YouTube will stop adding pre-roll and interstitial ads, but content creators still have their own advertisements baked into videos. These product placements can be even worse than ads, and they're not the only annoyance embedded into videos. To put it nicely, YouTube is starting to have a problem with distractions.
Samsung's One UI has slowly become the model for Android skins. The old iOS-like TouchWiz already feels like a relic, thanks in part to the newer user interface's exceptional design and fast but meaningful updates. One UI is so good, other OEM skins have copied elements of it. The latest release is One UI 2.5, which has over 20 new features that make the skin even better.
Millions of people use YouTube every day, whether it's for trailers, new music, or gameplay walkthroughs. But according to Pew Research Center, over half of U.S. adults use YouTube to figure out how to do things. If you fall into that crowd, adult or not, sometimes it's good to have written instructions to follow along with the video or in lieu of it completely.
When you're in a new city or even your own neighborhood, you might not know where the best places to visit are. The number of parks, restaurants, shopping centers, and other attractions could be overwhelming, so how do you narrow down your choices? The new iOS 14 update has introduced curated city "Guides" in Apple Maps, created by trusted brands to help you find excellent places to explore.
Deep fakes, the art of leveraging artificial intelligence to insert the likeness and/or voice of people into videos they don't otherwise appear in, typically focus on celebrity parodies or political subterfuge.
While there are other photo-editing apps to choose from on the App Store, Apple Photos is more than good enough for most needs on the iPhone — and things only get better with age. With each new iteration of iOS, Apple refines and improves Photos for the better, and iOS 14 adds a lot of new features into the mix.
Out of all the myths about the iPhone's battery, one that's very true is that charging your phone overnight is bad news. Keeping the charge level at 100% puts the battery under strain, which can permanently damage it. Apple took steps to address the issue in iOS 13, where your battery stops charging when it hits 80% in some scenarios, but that's not always enough.
A group conversation can be a chaotic place. Even with a small number of people, you still may get more messages than you can keep track of on your iPhone. What makes it even worse is trying to sort through all of the conversations within conversations. Apple, however, wants to make things easier on all of us, which is why iOS 14 allows you to respond to specific iMessages using inline replies.
Android phones finally have a true AirDrop alternative called "Nearby Share." The new feature was added through an update to the Google Play Services app that comes pre-installed on all Android devices in the US, so you don't even have to wait on a firmware upgrade — it's just there.
In iOS 13 and under, whenever you were in an app or on the home screen, and a Phone or FaceTime call came in, the entire screen would be taken over by the incoming call. Apple changed it to a subtle banner notification in iOS 14 so that it doesn't wholly obfuscate what you're doing when the call happens. However, you can get the old design back if that works better for you.
You may be familiar with image-based or audio-based steganography, the art of hiding messages or code inside of pictures, but that's not the only way to conceal secret communications. With zero-width characters, we can use text-based steganography to stash hidden information inside of plain text, and we can even figure out who's leaking documents online.
Whether you miss the good old days of Telnet or you want to know what hacking was like when security was nothing but an afterthought, Telehack is the game for you. The text-based hacking game is a simulation of a stylized combination of ARPANET and Usenet, circa 1985 to 1990, with a full multi-user universe and player interactions, including 26,600 hosts.
In iOS 13.5 and later, developers can create and release contact tracing apps for iPhone, which could help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. With these apps comes COVID-19 exposure notifications, which you may or may not want to receive. If you don't want to get these alerts, you can disable them.
The Home button on an iPhone does a lot. That's not necessarily news for anyone who's ever owned an iPhone with a Home button, but what you might not know is that it's capable of so much beyond the standard everyday functions. So if you have an iPhone 7, 8, or the new SE model running iOS 13 or later, keep reading to learn about 17 secret Home button tricks you're missing out on.
In the last decade, the number of people working remotely in the US has increased dramatically, and so has their need for technology and software to supplement that remote work. Whether you work from home or a coworking office space, the requirement for highly compatible and helpful productivity apps is a must if you want to get things done successfully.
While the airline, casino, cruise, and hotel industries are asking for government bailouts during the COVID-19 pandemic, companies around the US are giving away its apps and services for a limited time. So while you're stuck at home, keep your mind off of coronavirus with free movies, TV, music apps, concerts, internet, fitness sessions, classes, and more.
Smartphones are inherently bad for privacy. You've basically got a tracking device in your pocket, pinging off cell towers and locking onto GPS satellites. All the while, tracking cookies, advertising IDs, and usage stats follow you around the internet.
The top five apps of the 2010s were all social media apps of some kind, and the fact that's not surprising to you says a lot. We may use them for other reasons here and there, but our phones are social media machines at their cores. The thing is, some make better machines than others.
The year 2019 was filled with all the normal peaks and valleys of the tech business cycle, but this year was particularly important in a space as relatively young as the augmented reality industry.
It's always a big deal when the company that makes Android releases a new phone. Google's Pixel series has made a name for itself in three short years behind its camera prowess, but now it's time to start competing with the major players. That said, Google should like how their Pixel 4 and 4 XL stack up against the iPhones and Galaxies of the world.
