Even today, smartphone text input leaves a lot to be desired. It's difficult to select specific words, the cut/copy/paste menu isn't always accessible in every app, and we're lacking undo and redo options, even though it's as simple as pressing Ctrl + Z on computers.
It looks as though Samsung will continue to tone down the look of TouchWiz, according to a leaked look at the newest "Grace" user interface for the upcoming Galaxy Note 7. HDblog, who acquired the leaked UI, shows off the beta version of the new skin in their video below.
With each update, Apple Music continues to become a bigger part of iOS. It's gotten to the point where you have to fend off multiple requests to subscribe to the streaming music service before you can listen to your own songs on an iPad or iPhone, but as it stands in iOS 10, maintaining your own MP3 library is still possible. Just barely.
Rooted users have been able to remap their hardware buttons since the earliest days of Android, allowing them to change the functionality behind one of the most centralized methods of interacting with a phone or tablet. Up until now, however, non-rooted users have been left out in the cold, meaning these buttons could only perform the functions assigned to them by the device manufacturer.
We've experienced the HoloLens, learned a lot about the Meta 2, but almost nobody knows exactly what to expect out of Magic Leap's mixed reality headset. Thanks to a patent dug up by Quartz (which we saw first on Tech Insider), we now might have a better idea.
The Moto X and Moto Z have a set of features that let you launch common shortcuts by shaking your phone in one direction or another. For instance, there's a chop gesture that turns on the LED flashlight, and a wrist-twist gesture that instantly opens the camera app.
If you're tired of Google tracking you, but love how Chrome works, CyanogenMod has you covered. Their browser is called Gello, which is based off Chromium, Chrome's open-source counterpart. It's basically a souped-up version of Chrome—without all of the intrusive Google stuff. So if you're uncomfortable with Google displaying personalized ads based on your browsing history, or using your location to bring the "Physical Web" to your phone, you won't have to worry about any of that with Gello.
Microsoft's HoloLens is certainly a leap into the future of mixed reality interfaces, but it's not without drawbacks.
Augmented reality (AR) holds much promise for how we'll interact with technology in the future, but we still have many hurdles to clear before that dream fully comes to fruition.
A motion-based lock screen app called GestureLock was among the winner's at 2106's Android Experiments I/O Challenge, and it lets you set a specific motion (gesture) that you use to gain access to your locked phone.
Lens Launcher was one of the winners of 2106's Android Experiments I/O Challenge a few months ago, and with good reason—it gives us a new way to browse for apps on our Android phones. It's slightly reminiscent of how the Apple Watch does it, but even better.
Instagram is the world's biggest photo-sharing site, narrowly edging out competitors like Imgur and Flickr. But unlike the competition, Instagram doesn't make it easy for users to download a full-resolution copy of any of the images hosted on their servers, as the site's main intention is to keep folks coming back and using the social media aspect of it all.
Samsung's next Galaxy Note smartphone is expected to contain some nifty new additions that the company hopes will give it the long desired edge it has been seeking over Apple. One of those features that might make the difference? An iris scanner, which could make it the first major smartphone on the market to have that technology included.
It looks like Apple is finally going to do something to address all of the complaints about their unremovable stock apps clogging up people's home screens. While bloatware is a bigger problem on Android where you have to deal with apps from Google and carriers, an iPhone can still get pretty cluttered with all those stock Apple apps. I mean, just look at all this crap... AppAdvice noticed two new keys in the iTunes metadata that strongly suggest that you'll be able to get rid of stock apps on...
If you think phablets are too big to be smartphones, and not big enough to be tablets, then you're going to love what's coming next.
Remember that feeling when you first took your smartphone out of the box, powered it on, then proceeded to futz around with it for the rest of the day non-stop? If you've owned your device for more than a year, chances are, that scenario is a distant memory by this point.
Normally, you have to hold down the on-screen button to record videos on Snapchat, but if you want to go hands-free for some more creative video selfies or less shaky landscapes, there's a workaround on iPhones that lets you do just that.
3D printers have been surging in popularity for both professional and personal applications, and now OLO is on the verge of making 3D printing practical wherever you go. Their eponymous 3D printer is battery-powered and uses the light from your smartphone's screen to create 3D objects out of special "daylight" resins.
Google has added some fun Easter eggs to Hangouts that'll give you a few more ways to procrastinate throughout your day. All of them (except for one) work on the web browser version, the Chrome app, and the mobile apps for Android and iOS, and are activated by sending a specific message.
By default, the Play Store app on Android is set to automatically update your apps in the background. This definitely makes it easy to ensure that you're always running the latest versions, but it does come with some downsides.
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.
Live wallpapers have dipped in popularity lately, with many users favoring a single, static image as their home screen background. But this is generally due to still photos offering a more sophisticated look, while traditional live wallpapers can sometimes seem a little less avant-garde.
Google's YouTube Red is an awesome service, particularly in the United States where it comes bundled with a subscription to Google Play Music. You don't have to worry about ever seeing ads again on any videos, you can continue playback after you exit the YouTube app or even when you turn your screen off, you can download videos for offline playback, and you'll have access to YouTube Music.
Android's Google Play Games app has let you track your feats and accomplishments in the games you play for quite a while now, but for some, the immersion experience might be broken after you finish dominating a game only to see your regular-ass name from your Google account on the leaderboard.
Your smartphone has a GPS chip inside of it that can pinpoint your location down to the nearest 4 meters, and this little device stays in your pocket or purse all day. Combine those two facts and you start to realize that your phone knows exactly where you've been during every moment that has passed since you've owned it.
LG is set to launch its G5 handset on February 21st at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise, but images of the G5 have now been leaked ahead of the event by Evan Blass (@evleaks). This image shows that the handset will indeed have two lenses on its rear-facing camera so that you can shoot wide-angle 135º photos.
Apple has finally addressed and issued a fix for Error 53, a "safety" mechanism that would prevent your iPhone from booting if you had certain repairs done outside of Apple's official channels.
Whether you're ready to admit it or not, we've all got our alter egos—especially when it comes to the internet. Perhaps you have one Facebook account that you use publicly, while maintaining a second account for more private interactions.
Samsung is rolling out the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for Galaxy S6 and S6 edge today, February 15th, and with it come some good improvements to how S6 edge users can utilize the handset's curved screen.
Many users across the web have reported issues with receiving notifications from the Gmail and Hangouts apps on Android. The problem is most prevalent with users running Marshmallow, and the gist is that notifications from these apps are extremely delayed or don't come through at all.
Ever since developer bponury created his TouchControl app for the Galaxy Nexus back in 2011, manufacturers and modders alike have been racing to re-implement the "Double-tap-to-wake" functionality it brought to the table. We've seen LG do it with their "Knock On" feature, we've seen Motorola put a twist on it with "Active Display," and we've even seen Google implement the feature in their Nexus 9 tablet.
Chrome's download bar has looked pretty much exactly the same for years now—a simple horizontal menu that spans the entire bottom of the browser and displays buttons for each of your recent downloads. It's not exactly pretty, and when it comes to functionality, the space it occupies could certainly be put to better use.
Microsoft announced Wednesday morning that it has entered into an agreement to acquire SwiftKey, makers of the SwiftKey predictive keyboard and its SDK that runs on over 300 million Android and iOS smartphones, for about $250 million.
Turns out, you no longer need third-party flight tracking apps to get information on yours or others' flights—your iPhone and Mac can now give you flight details right from your Mail, Notes, and Messages apps.
If you've ever used the YouTube mobile app for Android or iOS, you've probably noticed a cool little multitasking feature it has. While watching any video, you can simply swipe down on your screen to shrink the video down to a thumbnail view, which then allows you to browse the rest of YouTube while the original video keeps playing.
To serve as a framework for the "Nexus Imprint" feature in their new Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P smartphones, Google added native fingerprint scanner support to Android 6.0. Sure, Android devices have had fingerprint scanners in the past, but this is a unified, system-wide implementation that all devices can use—meaning that in the near future, we may finally start to see apps that let you log in to your account with your fingerprint instead of a password.
You can do practically anything with a modern smartphone or tablet, so it stands to reason that the apps you have installed may serve vastly different purposes. Picture a game and a video player sitting right next to each other in your app drawer—odds are, you want the sound turned up while you're watching videos, but would prefer that the game was muted or a little lower. As a result, we're constantly tweaking volume levels to get the best experience.
Past video recording apps we've covered made it easy to turn your Android device into a hidden spy camera, even allowing you to inconspicuously record videos using your volume buttons. While both are viable options that can secretly capture video, today we're going over an additional method that will let you both schedule recordings or discretely trigger them without anyone around you noticing a thing.
Hello, Null Byte! Mkilic here. I doubt anyone knows I even exist on Null Byte, so hopefully this post will allow me to become more involved in the community and also help me learn even more.
If Android is all about options, then iOS is all about new features. Every year without fail, Apple announces a cool software component that brings something new to the table, and this year was no different.
