Android Features
How To: Stop Nosy Friends from Viewing More Photos on Android Than You Intended
You have a cool picture that you want to show someone, but when you hand your phone over, they start swiping through all of your photos. Surely, you've encountered this scenario before. I definitely have.
How To: PAIRS Is the Easy Way to Restore Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Connections After Wiping Your Phone
If you enjoy modding your Android device with root utilities, custom ROMs, and Xposed modules, then there's a good chance you've had to factory reset your phone when something went awry. Plus, when you're switching ROMs, it's always recommended that you wipe all data, so us modders spend a lot of time restoring and tweaking various settings.
How To: Your Eyes Are All You Need to Keep Your Galaxy's Screen On
Having your phone's display suddenly dim and black out while reading is an annoyance we've all had to live with. If you have a Samsung Galaxy like the Note 10, however, there's a simple setting you can enable to take care of this problem once and for all.
How To: Unlock the Hidden Multi-Window Mode in Android 6.0 Marshmallow
Manufacturers like Samsung and LG have added their own implementation of multi-window features to Android for years now, but with the release of version 6.0 Marshmallow, Google has finally gotten around to working the same feature into stock Android.
News: Gmail Introduces Gmailify, a Better Way to Manage Your Non-Gmail Email Accounts
Just about a year ago, Google launched an update to the Gmail app for Android that let you link accounts from other email services to Gmail, allowing you to read and respond to everything in one place.
How To: Change the Lock Screen Shortcuts on Your Galaxy S9
One of Android 8.0's best features is also one of its most subtle — customizable lock screen shortcuts give you more control over the two functions you care about most. Your Galaxy S9 has the Phone and Camera apps in those spots by default, but you can quickly and easily change them if you have other ideas in mind.
How To: Disable Automatic Updates on Your Rooted Android Phone
One of the things you've likely gotten used to if you have a rooted Android phone is not installing OTA system updates in a typical fashion. Depending on your version of Android, you might not actually be able to swipe away that nagging update notification at all. Thankfully, there's a way to prevent your system from automatically checking for OTA updates.
Quick Tip: Speed Up Gboard Performance on Android by Disabling These Two Settings
Ever since the update that turned Google Keyboard into Gboard rolled out, a lot of people have been noticing that word suggestions and auto-correct features are downright slow. The issue seems to affect users with multiple languages installed more than anyone, though it can also happen if you have a midrange phone or older device with only one language installed.
How To: Install a Custom Recovery on Your Bootloader-Locked Galaxy S5 (AT&T or Verizon)
As the largest wireless service providers in the United States, AT&T and Verizon Wireless carry some serious clout. Sadly, they use some of this power to heavily modify the Android phones that they offer.
How To: Convert Your Favorite Android Apps into Chrome Apps
With the release of the ARChon Runtime, many Android apps can now be run within the Chrome web browser. Minor changes must be made to existing Android APK files before they can be installed on Chrome, so the process isn't exactly as easy as pasting an Android app into a folder on your computer.
How To: Unlock the Bootloader & Root Your HTC One Running Android 4.4.2 KitKat
As softModders, the first thing we do after updating to the newest version of Android is to root, install a custom recovery, and install a superuser app. By doing this you open up your HTC One to a vast quantity of new apps and tweaks you can use to truly make your phone One of a kind.
How To: Connect to Protected Wi-Fi Hotspots for Free Without Any Passwords
Depending on who you ask, internet connectivity should be a basic human right. With Google recently embarking on a project to provide internet capabilities to remote corners of the world using balloons and satellites while Facebook attempts to do the same with unmanned drones, the concept of free web access is steadily gaining steam.
How To: Install Flash on Any Kindle Fire
With so much Flash content still available on the web, it's unfortunate that Google no longer supports mobile Flash Player on Android. Loading a webpage only to be met with a "Plug-in Error" is never fun, and it can inhibit your mobile browsing experience as you attempt to watch a video or play an addicting Flash game.
How To: Get the Pixel's Google Camera App on Your Galaxy S20, S20+, or S20 Ultra
Samsung put some of the industry's most advanced camera tech in the Galaxy S20 series. However, their image processing still lags behind the Google Camera app found on Pixel phones, so the end result is good but not great. Luckily, you can install a mod to pair that beastly hardware with arguably the best camera software.
How To: Make OTA Updates Easy by Rooting Your Pixel 3 with Magisk's Boot Image Patch
Rooting usually means sacrifice. With most root methods, you lose access to apps like Netflix and Android Pay when SafetyNet gets tripped. More importantly, you lose the ability to accept OTA updates, forcing you to manually flash new Android versions. But there's a way around all of this if you root the right way.
How To: 4 Ways to Clean Up the Status Bar on Your Galaxy S6 (Without Rooting)
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.
News: Finally, You Can Unlock Your S9 Automatically Using a PIN
It's often the smallest details that determine your overall experience with a smartphone. Unlocking your device with a PIN is an example — and iPhones have had a leg up over Android thanks to their automatic unlocking. Thankfully, this era has finally come to an end with the arrival of the Galaxy S9.
How To: Remove the White Line from the Bottom of Your Galaxy S20's Home Screen
Your S20 has a shortcut for Samsung Pay along the bottom of the home screen. But it tends to get in the way sometimes, especially if you're using the new Android 10 gestures in One UI 2. Besides, if you don't use the feature, you probably don't want that little white line at the bottom of your screen anyway.
How To: See Your Google Play Store Spending History
We tend to think of Google Play as Android's app store—but there's far more to it than that. Not only does it allow you to purchase apps and games, but you can also buy movies, music, books, and even devices, plus there's always those pesky in-app purchases that it also handles.
PSA: Verizon's Shady 'DT Ignite' App Is Silently Installing Adware on Phones
A few months ago, it was discovered that Verizon was installing an extremely shady app called "DT Ignite" on some of its smartphones—most notably, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. The app, created by Digital Turbine, monitors your smartphone usage, then uses the data it collects to silently install "recommended" apps without notifying you.
How To: Get CyanogenMod's 'Caffeine' Feature to Keep Your Screen Awake Longer at the Press of a Button
Sometimes it's the smallest feature in your smartphone that makes the biggest difference in user experience. Take screen timeout, for instance. You can probably think of plenty of times when your handset's display blacked out while you were in the middle of something. You could have been cooking with a recipe on the screen or looking at chords while you learned a new riff on your guitar.
How To: Shoot Videos in Slow Motion with Google Camera
Slow motion recording is an incredibly handy feature that works by capturing moments at a higher frame rate than they're played back at. Timing is everything when recording in this setting, so if you want a user-friendly app that keeps device interactions to a minimum and leaves you to focus on capturing your subject, Google Camera will surely fit the bill.
How To: Install a Custom Recovery on Your Nexus Without Using a Computer
With Geohot's Towelroot allowing us to root our Nexus devices in under a minute without ever leaving Android, many of you are probably enjoying all of the Gadget Hacks that root access has unlocked.
How To: Hack Boosts the OnePlus One’s Max Volume Limits
Though they share the same name, the HTC One and OnePlus One have completely different sound quality. HTC had put a lot of time and effort into fine-tuning their BoomSound technology, while OnePlus is still fairly new to the game, with brand recognition being a much greater objective than awesome speakers.
How To: Get Action Launcher's Shutters on Nova Launcher & Turn Your Icons into Widgets
Action Launcher has some exclusive features that add real value to your overall experience. One such feature is Shutters, and like with most aspects of Android, there's a workaround that will let you enjoy this functionality on other launchers.
News: Here's What's New with Samsung's Messages App in One UI
Samsung's version of Android Pie has landed on Galaxy handsets like the Note 9, S9, and S8, though we've known what to expect thanks to leaked beta versions of the software a few months back. The newly dubbed One UI has plenty of new features and improvements, but some of the first you might notice are the visual improvements to the default messaging app.
How To: Turn Your Nexus 7's Screen Off & On Faster Using Gravity
Sometimes... no, most of the time, I don't want to do anything, so I was excited to find a developer teaming up with Sir Isaac Newton to create an application that encouraged my slothfulness.
How To: 8 Useful Ways to Take Advantage of Your Android Phone's NFC Chip
Near Field Communication, or NFC for short, is a feature that allows our smartphones to wirelessly communicate with other devices over a short distance while using almost no power at all. Think of it like a slimmed-down version of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth that can send a small burst of data two inches away without having any measurable impact on your battery life.
News: These Android Phones Could Be Affected by Adups' Chinese Spyware
Kryptowire, a company specializing in mobile security solutions, released a report on Tuesday, November 15 that exposed firmware in a number of Android devices that was collecting personally identifying information (PII) and uploading it to third-party servers without users' knowledge.
News: The Real Reason Android Phones with Notches Have a Chin
In 2018, notches are the hot trend with smartphones. Essential was first to release a phone with a notch in mid-2017, but Apple kicked off the fad in earnest with the iPhone X. Unfortunately, unlike the iPhone X, every Android phone with a notch has a noticeable bottom chin. Let's take a deep dive to find out why.
How To: Calibrate the Colors of Your Pixel 2's Display with ElementalX
No matter how good a display is, the idea of perfect color calibration is subjective — some prefer warmer more saturated colors, while others prefer the calmer cooler side of the color spectrum. It is almost impossible to create a single color calibration that everyone can agree on out of the box. The display on the Pixel 2 XL was specifically calibrated with a more realistic color profile in mind.
How To: The 5 Best Free Twitter Clients for Android
In a way, Twitter is the town square of our era, where people can share and discuss ideas on a wide variety of topics. While the tech giant has its own app for Android, it's pretty bare-bones when it comes to features. This has paved the way for third-party clients that are rich with customization options.
News: These Dots on Motorola's New Phones Are a Game Changer
Images of the newest Moto X flagship phones surfaced over the weekend, and it looks like Motorola has a cool new feature in store for the handsets, which are tentatively titled Vertex and Vector Thin.
How To: Add Reddit AMAs to Your Calendar & Get Reminders on Your Phone
Short for Ask Me Anything, AMA threads are one of Reddit's signature features. They enable you to directly interact with a whole range of interesting personalities, from common folk with amazing life experiences to influential celebrities that help shape politics and culture.
How To: Root Your Samsung Galaxy Note 3 in One Easy Click Using Windows
In order to unleash the full potential of your Samsung Galaxy Note 3, you've got to root it. These days, it's easier than ever, and can be done by just plugging your device into a Windows computer and pressing one button. It's so easy, your grandmother could do it, so what's stopping you?
How To: Prank Your Friends with Random Cat Facts Text Messages
It's time to enjoy one of America's longest lasting favorite pastimes. No, not baseball—pranking our friends! With the internet currently overrun with countless pictures and memes of cats, there's no way for your feline-hating friends to surf the web without coming across a kitten or two. But things can get worse for them. Way worse...
Understanding OLED: The Difference Between LG's POLED & Samsung's AMOLED Screens
With the recent launch of the LG V30 and the Pixel 2 XL, LG has reintroduced the world to POLED. This display tech was showcased at CES 2015 and billed as a rival to Samsung's AMOLED displays, then promptly disappeared from the market for two years. But now that two of the biggest flagship phones this year are using the technology, many folks will be wondering what makes POLED different.
How To: Update Your OnePlus 7 Pro Without Losing Root — No Computer Needed
Multiple methods can be used to update OnePlus phones, but if you're rooted with TWRP installed, you might want to try this one out for yourself. The update method outlined in this guide works like a charm while maintaining your root status after an OTA update. One of the best parts about it — you don't have to rely on a computer like you did when you rooted the first time around.
How To: Automatically Overclock Your Android When You Open Certain Apps
Deep down at the core of Android lies the system kernel, which serves as a bridge between software and hardware. Custom kernels can be installed in place of the stock offering, and these are generally optimized for better performance or increased battery efficiency.
How To: Get Sliding Gestures for Seamless Volume Control on YouTube
The VLC Player app for Android has a really nice feature that allows you to adjust brightness and volume by sliding your finger up or down on the left or right side of your screen, respectively. It helps keep you immersed in the video while you're in full screen mode, since you don't have to mess around with any popups or overlays to perform these basic functions.