I'm an Android fan through and through, but occasionally, I see a feature or two on iOS that makes me a bit jealous. This was the case when I first discovered the useful functionality that lets you scroll to the top of a page by simply tapping the status bar on an iPhone.
You know how when you finish a bag of potato chips, Cheetos, or some other glorious savory junk food snack, there's always some bits and crumbs in the bottom of the bag? And you know how you pour those into your mouth, making sure to get every last speck of dust, because it's the most delicious part?
The Galaxy S6 might just be the best Android phone on the market right now. From a hardware standpoint, Samsung truly knocked this one out of the park with its finely-crafted build quality and amazing screen.
The Xposed Framework is a very powerful platform on top of which smaller modules can run to make changes to the Android system and various other apps. Installing modules is just as easy as sideloading any Android app, but afterwards, you'll need to activate the module and reboot your device.
Many Android utilities use Android Debug Bridge, or ADB for short, to send commands from a computer over to your phone or tablet. This enables such utilities to run terminal commands that, in some cases, wouldn't be possible on Android without root access.
Samsung is known for its added features, but occasionally, these can cross the line between functionality and bloat. For many users, this is the case with the "S Finder" and "Quick connect" buttons that are hard-coded into the notification tray on most Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge variants.
Chromecast is so small and portable that it would seem to be a perfect device for making PowerPoint presentations. But even now that you can mirror your Android device's display, there are still a few issues.
Many of Google's stock Android apps are some of the best options out there—especially now that they've all been made over with Material Design. But generally, as these are pre-installed system apps, they cannot be used on non-Nexus devices.
With our internet-connected devices growing in number by the year, it would be nice if they could somehow all be interconnected. This is becoming commonplace for our tablets, smartphones, and laptops, but our media streaming boxes still seem to be isolated in their own little worlds.
The Galaxy S6 Edge comes with a useful feature called Information stream that allows you to view quick tidbits of info with a quick back-and-forth swipe on the edge of your display while the screen is off. Apparently, Samsung left the door open for third-party plugins to use this feature, and now we're starting to see an influx of useful additions.
With the purchase of my new Apple Watch, the days of striving to be a James Bond-like spy have never been closer to fruition. Granted, talking to your wrist in public can look pretty pretentious, and I may very rarely do it, but let's get real—you look like 007!
Exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, "Information stream" is a screen feature that lets you see quick, at-a-glance information with a simple swipe while the screen is off. It also supports plug-ins, or additional streams of information that can come from third-party sources. So developers are starting to come up with nifty little add-ons for Information stream, and the team at 3C has some cool new system feeds that might come in handy.
The display on the Apple Watch is way too small to even attempt typing on it, which is why the Messages app only allows for responses using default replies or by speaking a message. But you won't always be able to speak a message, and often the default replies will be too generic to want to use.
Continuity, introduced back when iOS 8 and Mac OS X 10.10 were released, lets users seamlessly connect all of their Apple devices together. With it came a feature known as Handoff that "hands off" an app or task from one Apple device to another, like starting an email on your iPhone and completing it on your Mac.
With smartphone screens getting bigger by the generation, one-handed mode mods are becoming rather prevalent. Most of these function by shrinking the screen to a more manageable size, but this is actually kind of boring when you think about it.
It happens to even the most avid cereal eaters: sooner or later you open a box, unfurl the crinkled plastic bag, and find that the cereal inside is stale. Maybe you forgot about it, maybe you ate it too slowly, or maybe you just found a new, better cereal and left it behind like Andy left Woody. Either way, the crunchy goodness is now stale, and you grab the box and walk to the trash can. Stop!
Chances are your hearing isn't the same as the person next to you. Personally, I have moderate hearing loss, so I tend to turn the volume nob towards the loud side. For others, it may be that one ear is slightly better or worse than the other, not only in perceiving volume, but tone as well. Considering this, is it possible for smartphone manufacturers to ensure the best sound quality on their devices?
Apple Watch doesn't include a multitasking feature like its iPhone companion, so there's no way to show active apps or swipe up to force-close one. Watch is an extension of the iPhone, not a replacement, so including a fully-functional multitasking feature seems impractical.
It's already that time of year again—LG has unveiled its latest high-end smartphone, dubbed the G4. In past iterations, LG released its flagship devices in the fall. But slowly over the course of the past 2 years, the release schedule has been bumped up to be more in line with HTC and Samsung's springtime releases, and further away from the sales-sucking iPhone event each fall.
Customization helps your device stand out from the rest, and that sentiment is no different when it comes to the Apple Watch. Unlike every other Apple device before it, the Watch allows you to customize the information that appears on the UI—without the need for any jailbreaking.
Snapchat developers insist that the app stay true to what its always been: a service for snapping and sharing self-destructing images. This belief is further hit home with their strict 31-character text limit, which some people refuse to abide by. Namely, Snapchatter Shayne Skellett.
As you're probably well aware by now, the Apple Watch isn't just for sending text messages and checking Instagram—you can also use it as your wallet. With Apple Pay compatibility, you can use your Watch to make purchases at any retailer that accepts the payment service.
If you have an Apple Watch, it's easier than ever to ask Siri for directions, send a quick text, or locate the nearest Chipotle—because you don't need to pull out your iPhone anymore. Luckily, Apple made it fairly painless to get Siri up and running on the Watch, so let's go over the two quick activation methods.
Your Apple Watch is a fantastic tool that can help you perform daily tasks on your iPhone. Notifications get filtered through it, you can respond to messages on it, and you can even use Apple Pay to purchase goods and services. Your Apple Watch is also a valuable asset when it comes to finding your lost iPhone, too.
Samsung has a long-standing reputation for packing their devices with lots of added functionality, and the Galaxy S6 Edge is no exception. It comes with a nifty feature called "Information stream," which allows you to get quick, at-a-glance information by swiping the edge of your screen back and forth while the display is off.
For all that money spent on a new Watch, Apple could've given us more than just a charger and its case. I mean, the case is nice and all, but what realistic use is there for it? In all honesty, it'll probably find its way onto a shelf high above in the closet—but it doesn't have to.
Regardless of the size and metal-type you purchased, storage and space are limited on the Apple Watch, so stuffing it full of apps like you'd do on your iPhone may not be in your best interest. If you went app crazy when you first set up your Apple Watch, don't worry—it's easy to uninstall some of them. Just know that you can only delete third-party apps, which means stock apps like Photos or Workout are there to stay.
The Apple Watch may be a much simpler device than your iPhone, but that doesn't mean it's free of bugs, glitches, and crashes just like your other devices. A common problem that you'll run into is a frozen screen due to a malfunctioning app. While this can be frustrating, the solution can be as simple as a quick reboot.
Beef: it's what for dinner. And if you really like the taste of it, it can be what you season the rest of your dinner with, too.
With the first wave of Apple Watches being received today, you're probably busy setting yours up and playing with all its features.
Whether it's to flaunt your new digital face on Instagram or to show off a unique app to your friends, you'll ultimately need to know how to take a quick screenshot with your shiny new Apple Watch. Turns out, it's not that much different than taking one on your iPhone.
Welcome back, my neophyte hackers! In previous tutorials, we learned how to steal system tokens that we could use to access resources, how to use hashdump to pull password hashes from a local system, and how to grab password hashes from a local system and crack them.
With the Galaxy S6 Edge, the curved display is mainly an aesthetic feature. Unlike the Galaxy Note Edge, Samsung didn't include many software features to take advantage of its unique design, outside of the scrolling tickers and night clock. For instance, with the Note Edge, you can launch apps from the curved portion of the screen—but this isn't true for the S6 Edge.
Google Play Music is an awesome app—even if you don't subscribe to their $9.99/month All Access service, you can still use it to store and stream up to 50,000 of your own songs for free. Add to that the fact that it's a pre-installed app on most Android devices, and there aren't many reasons not to be using Play Music.
Android Debug Bridge (or ADB for short) serves as a remote terminal interface for executing shell commands on any Android device. Put simply, ADB lets you send commands from your computer to your phone or tablet, some of which would require root access if they were performed on the Android side of the connection.
Our hands aren't necessarily getting any bigger, but smartphones still seem to be getting larger and larger. With average cell phone display sizes nearly doubling since 2007 (leading to new terminology like "phablet"), reaching all corners of a screen can become nearly impossible with one hand. Granted, most larger devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Note 4 come with a one-handed option to make navigating easier, but other popular devices like the Nexus 6 don't. While it may see...
Samsung included an "SOS" feature for its phones since the Galaxy S6 that could literally be a lifesaver should you ever find yourself in an emergency situation. It's one of those things that we hope to never have to use but will be very thankful for if a need ever arises.
As your Galaxy S6 lies on your desk while you're hard at work, it's difficult to resist from periodically pressing the wake/lock button to check the weather or glance over any notifications you may have on your lock screen. While pressing the hard key is easy enough, there's an even easier method where you simply hover your hand over the device to wake the screen.
Ever feel like you're receiving notifications way too late on your Android device? Many Android apps use Google's Cloud Messaging service to send and receive notifications, including Hangouts, Gmail, Pushbullet, Facebook, and even WhatsApp to an extent.
The vast majority of Android apps use background services to sync data, check for location updates, and perform various silent tasks. These background services can start up whenever they'd like, and they continue to run in the background even when you're not actively using the app that they originated from.
