How To: Get iPhone's Dynamic Island on Your Android Phone for Quick Access to Notifications, Alerts, and Activities

How To: Disable App Icon Badges and Unread Notification Counts on Your Samsung Galaxy Smartphone

If you scan the notification panel on your Samsung Galaxy smartphone daily, all those red circles with numbers that litter the apps on your home screen and app drawer can feel like persistent nagging and unnecessary clutter rather than friendly reminders to check your app alerts — but you can do something about it.

How To: Hide Apps on Your Samsung Galaxy's Home Screen, App Tray, and Search

You don't have to see every app installed on your phone if you don't want to. Samsung One UI makes it easy to hide apps from your Samsung Galaxy's home screen, app tray, and search tool, whether you want to declutter, simplify things, or keep other people from seeing some of the apps you use.

How To: Disable Android's Back Gesture on the Left Side to Make Hamburger Menus Easier to Open

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.

How To: Get Android 11's New Media Controls on Any Phone

In Android 11, music player controls have been moved from the notification tray to the Quick Settings. The change frees up space for the new Conversations notification section. It also adds media output controls, making it possible to switch from your phone speakers to a Bluetooth device with only two taps.

How To: Get Completely Custom Themes for Any Samsung Galaxy Using Hex Installer

Samsung's stock Galaxy Themes system leaves much to be desired with its restrictive and expensive theme packs. Back in the day, the gold standard for Android theming was CyanogenMod Theme Engine. And while it no longer exists, a successor has emerged to fill the void.

How To: Want a New Look? Add Custom Fonts to Any Samsung Galaxy — No Root Needed

Samsung uses their own SamsungOne font for their Galaxy lineup. But if you're coming from an iPhone or another Android device, you might not love it. With the help of this mod, however, you're sure to find a font that's right for you.

How To: How Google's Preventing the AirDropped Nudes Problem with Android's New Nearby Share

Android has finally got a proper alternative to Apple's AirDrop. With a few touches, Nearby Share lets you send files, links, and even tweets to Android, Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, or Linux. But AirDrop has not been without its share of issues, and thankfully, Google has learned from them.

How To: There's a Hidden Notification History Widget on Your Android

Have you ever accidentally dismissed an important notification? Realized you didn't mean to delete an alert after hitting "Clear all?" Instead of pulling out your hair, know you can see the alert again — at least, a portion of it.

How To: Make Your Android Phone Read Articles, Books, News, and Other Text Out Loud to You

For the avid multitasker, listening to audiobooks and podcasts is the ultimate way to passively absorb knowledge while performing other activities — but there are other options. You can turn any written text on your Android phone into speech that's read aloud to you, so there's virtually no limit on what you can soak up audibly from your headphones or speaker.

How To: Copy Text from Anywhere on Your Phone — Even if the App Blocks Text Selection

It's easy to copy text from webpages, messages, documents, and other views on your Android device — except when it isn't. Many apps block or prohibit text selection, forcing you to take screenshots or write out the whole excerpt manually. But you don't have to resort to those methods since there's a simple workaround to selecting and copying text from uncooperative apps.

How To: Copy/Paste Between Android Devices and Chromebooks Quickly with Nearby Share

While I prefer Android in my personal life, I've had the opportunity to work in the Apple ecosystem. One of the coolest features I've come to rely on is AirDrop, which makes it easy to beam content from mobile devices to desktops and vice versa. Thankfully, Android now has an equivalent.

How To: Watch Apple TV+ on Any Android Phone or Tablet

With the prestige appeal of its original programming and relatively low subscription price, Apple TV+ is one of the more appealing streaming options out there — and you don't need an Apple device to subscribe and watch movies, TV shows, sports, and other Apple TV+ content.

How To: Get iPhone's Dynamic Island on Your Android Phone for Quick Access to Notifications, Alerts, and Activities

Apple's Dynamic Island is an animated, interactive isle surrounding the front-facing camera on the iPhone 14 Pro series. It's a small capsule when nothing is going on but fluidly stretches across the screen for notifications, alerts, and ongoing activities like music, timers, and directions. It can even expand with controls and more information. And now, you can get Dynamic Island on your Android phone.

How To: Back Up & Restore Your Home Screen Layout & Icons on Any Samsung Galaxy

In the past, if you upgraded to a new Galaxy or if you had to factory reset your existing one to fix an issue, you had to restore your home screen layout manually. Your wallpaper, widgets, icon placement, and launcher settings were all dependent on you to be put back in their place. Thankfully, this isn't an issue anymore.

How To: See if Your Phone Has A/B Partitions for Seamless Updates

If your phone has an A/B partition layout, there are two virtual hard drives that each contain a copy of Android. After every restart, it picks a partition to boot from, then the other lays idle. The idle partition can be overwritten with a new copy of the OS and it won't affect the active one. So the next time you reboot, it just switches partitions and it's as if you updated instantly.

How To: Remove the 'Connected to VPN' Notification on Your Samsung Galaxy Device

If you're using a VPN app to block ads or secure your Galaxy's internet connection, Samsung has decided you need yet another non-dismissible notification from One UI to tell you about it. Not just a status bar indicator like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but a full-size alert that can't be dismissed. The entire time your always-on VPN is running.

How To: Find What's Eating Up Your RAM on Android

Not every app is designed well. With nearly 3 million apps on the Play Store and countless more that you can sideload from other sources, there are bound to be a few stinkers. And many of them do a terrible job using RAM.

How To: Open 2 Apps at the Same Time on Any Phone with Android's Split-Screen Mode

As phones' screens get closer to seven inches, now is the perfect time to take advantage of Android's split-screen mode. This feature has available since Android 7.0 Nougat and allows you to divide the screen into two halves, with a different app on each side.

How To: Disable the Redundant Screenshot Notifications on Your Samsung Galaxy Phone

An unfortunate byproduct of Samsung's One UI version of Android is redundancy, where you have the Google/AOSP way of doing things mixed with Samsung's methods at the same time.

How To: The Best Settings to Use for Pro Mode in Your Galaxy S20's Camera App

No matter how many camera improvements a phone adds, you're always better off using manual mode. Known as "Pro Mode" on the Galaxy S20, this feature can remove Samsung's pre- and post-processing from photos, putting you in total control.