The hardware running your One is nothing short of powerful, but the people at OnePlus can't control how developers choose to utilize that power—or rather, not utilize it. Most popular developers have removed all signs of lag from their apps, but others still have archaic lines of code that can make your shiny, new device feel like a first-generation smartphone.
With the Power key located on the back of the device, LG included a convenient "double-tap to sleep" function in their G2 and G3 devices. The function allows users to simply double-tap the display to put their device to sleep instead of picking it up and pressing the Power key.
Accumulating approximately one million downloads on the Google Play Store in less than 72 hours from its initial release, TouchPal instantly became a favorite among Android users.
Welcome back, my novice hackers! New hackers often ask me the same question: "What is the easiest platform to hack?" My response is always the same—it is not a platform, but rather a particular piece of software that is easiest to hack, which is on nearly every client-side system. That software is Adobe Flash Player.
Whenever a picture is sent via MMS, a certain amount of compression needs to be done in order for a carrier's network to send it. That compression is meant to ease strain on the network, but in the end it leads to heavy downsizing and increased graininess in pictures.
Living in a densely populated city means that I usually have a strong cell signal, but that isn't always the case when I start driving out to the boonies. When I do get that occasional dropped call, it makes more sense to shoot off a text or email instead of trekking around trying to get more bars.
Creating interesting photographs used to be more fun, before we all collectively decided that color filters and rotations qualified as "unique" smartphone pics. Scrolling through my Instagram feed only confirms that these supposedly special, filter-laden photos are actually the norm now.
There's a feature that debuted in iOS 7 that lets you to save your credit or debit card information in Safari so that you can auto-fill text boxes when purchasing something online. Unfortunately, you still had to manually fill in your card info the first time, and if you wanted to disable the feature for security concerns, it was entirely useless.
From my experiences, there are only two types of U2 people: those that love them and those that hate them. I'm the latter, so it's pretty damn annoying that Apple just added U2's new album, "Songs of Innocence," to my iCloud. If you find it creepy that U2 is appearing on your iPhone or in iTunes, don't worry—I've found a few ways to deal with it. UPDATE: How to Delete U2 Forever & Ever
Quickly jotting down grocery lists, recommended books, phone numbers, and addresses, among other things, has been a pretty straightforward process on an iPad or iPhone. Through the Notes app, you can enter information and have it seamlessly synced across all of your iOS devices, making access to them simple, quick, and universal.
While the legality of recording phone conversations varies from state to state, it's still a sought-after feature for most people. How else are we going to shame all of those bad Comcast customer service reps? Since it's a legal gray area, HTC and other smartphone manufacturers have omitted call recording capabilities from their devices.
These days, phones are more like portable entertainment systems. It's a hybrid mobile device for gaming, texting, watching movies, and listening to music more than it is an actual "phone" that you talk on.
My OnePlus One easily gets over a day of battery life without a problem, but when I try to charge it, it seems to take just as long. For some reason, no matter what charger you plug your OPO into, it never gets more than USB-level power, meaning that charging times are more than double when compared to traditional AC-charging.
If you have a custom recovery installed on your Android device, the first thing you should have done as soon as you finished installing it was to create a Nandroid backup. But if you didn't, I'm not here to judge—I'm here to show you a much easier way.
BoomSound has spoiled me when listening to music on my HTC One M8, but when someone comes into my room, it can be a hassle trying to quickly pause or mute my music.
When the Google Maps web app got a massive redesign earlier this year, I was pretty excited to try it out, but it was a fairly disappointing update for me. The slower load times, confusing street view, and bicyclist neglect are just a few of the reasons I don't enjoy it over the old classic Google Maps. The brand new drag-and-drop measuring tool released this week is actually pretty useful, but not enough to change my mind.
Back in August, Google introduced Android Device Manager. This new service allowed you to locate, lock, or wipe a lost or stolen Android device from either a companion app or a web interface. Effectively, this is the "kill switch" that legislators are clamoring for.
Remember the feeling you had the moment you removed your shiny new Nexus device from its packaging and booted it up for the first time? You swiped through the app drawer at lightning speed and thought to yourself, "This is the last Android phone I will ever need, they just aren't going to get any better than this."
If rapid battery drain is something that's been an issue for you in the past, Apple is now making it easier to monitor what might be the problem. In the new iOS 8, you can now check battery usage for every app on your device.
Apple just unveiled iOS 8 at the Worldwide Developer's Conference, and it has a lot of exciting features to play around with. Unfortunately, it won't be available to the public until this coming fall—but that doesn't mean you can't get it right now.
Keeping track of your phone's battery life can quickly become a chore. Since no one wants to get stuck without a charge, we constantly find ourselves checking to see exactly what percentage remains.
Fast moving cars, strangers in the background, and even birds flying by can all ruin a great shot. Thankfully, TouchWiz provides the tools to remove unwanted objects, right in the stock camera application.
There are so many things to love about the Nexus 5, from timely updates to newer versions of Android to a terrific blend of price and specs. But while mobile phone tech keeps churning along, battery technology isn't quite up to snuff yet, and I find myself wishing that my phone's battery lasted longer on a single charge.
Flashing ROMs can be a tricky process, and sometimes you can end up leaving yourself without a ROM at all, often referred to as a soft brick. If you accidentally wiped your internal memory before a flash or forgot to download the ROM before wiping your system partition, don't worry, there is always a way to get your phone back up and running.
Okay, so you're rooted and need to return your Nexus 5 to its stock firmware. Whether it's because you need to send your phone in to the manufacturer to fix a defect or you just want to use the device's over-the-air updating feature, unrooting and returning your Nexus 5 back to its fresh-out-of-the-box state is a fairly simple process with the right tools.
The term "selfie" is taking the world by storm. Having been around since 2002, the slang word for "self-portrait" went into hyperdrive thanks to the addition of front-facing cameras on mobile devices. It's even popular enough to have been included in the Oxford Dictionary, and to have broken Twitter (thanks to the Oscars selfie taken by Ellen DeGeneres).
Now that the Chromecast development kit has been out for over a month, more and more Android apps are being released or updated to work with the Chromecast.
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.
Nintendo fans rejoice! Not only can you play classic NES games on your iPad or iPhone without jailbreaking, you can play Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color games. And that's not it. Now, thanks to @angelXwind, we can add Nintendo DS to our list of non-jailbreak emulators for iOS 7.
Locking up your iPhone with a passcode prevents mischievous friends from looking at your pics and emails, and makes it harder for thieves to access your data before you get around to wiping it. For even more security, there's the password option, which gives you more than just 4 lonely digits.
Android developer Roman Nurik, famous for his open-source DashClock widget, recently released his latest creation, Muzei Live Wallpaper. Now, live wallpapers (LWPs) may not seem like a huge deal as far as mods go, but they're a great way to add flair to your device—and Muzei adds it in spades.
A banner alert for notifications is like the Robin to our iPhone's Batman—they're taken for granted and don't really get the recognition they deserve. Yes, they can be disruptive at times, but just like Robin, they can be necessary for getting things done.
There are countless mods and apps for Android devices that give them an iOS-style look, but maybe it's about time we take some notes from Android, especially when it comes to the iOS 7 lock screen.
A long time ago, we recommended the Hover Zoom extension for Chrome as an easy way to blow up small image thumbnails without actually have to "click" on the images themselves. Over the past year, there have been reports that Hover Zoom now collects and sells your browsing data to third-party advertisers without your consent.
A rooted Android device means we're on our way to some truly amazing customization options. But there may be a few steps left to completing that journey, and a major one is installing a custom recovery.
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.
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.
Google Chromecast is only 35 dollars. That's about 2 and a half drinks at a decent bar in Los Angeles. So, my roommates and I looked to make the investment. The small box arrived in the mail and the setup couldn't be easier. Simply, plug the Chromecast into the HDMI port on your TV and pair the two devices. Done and Done. Having the ability to stream anything on our computers or cellphones right to the TV was the main reason for getting Chromecast. Now, for streaming through the Chrome browse...
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.
Apple is extremely strict when it comes to modifying your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. For example, let's look at the dock on iOS 7 devices. You've only really got two options for the dock background, either the default frosty translucent one, or the dark gray version. That's it, and the dark one will also change the look of other things on your device.
