One of the standout features of Nova Launcher is its vast customization options. Not only does it includes numerous tweaks to alter the aesthetics of your home screen, but it even has plenty of features that reduce clutter. One area of our device that has a high potential for disarray is our home screen.
One of Android's most glaring weaknesses is its lack of an iMessage equivalent. That is, of course, until now. There's one app that will allow Android users to experience iMessage on their non-Apple phone, complete with end-to-end encryption, message effects, and group messaging.
Many people think antivirus apps are useless — why pay a subscription fee when most malware can be avoided with common sense? But the thing is, there were an estimated 3.5 million malicious Android apps discovered last year, with many of them making their way onto the Play Store. As this number continues to rise, can you truly depend on common sense to protect you?
So, you want to install the Oreo beta on your Galaxy Note 8 but you're not sure if it's stable enough. It is a beta, of course, so waiting until others have tried it out sounds safer. Well, over the past five days, I've used the T-Mobile version as my daily driver and there are a plethora of new features, as well as a few glitches. Let's take a look at the bugs, performance, and battery life.
Since its debut in 2004, Gmail has become the go-to email service for the internet at large. Over 1.2 billion people use it, so Google has wisely continued to add features that address the needs and wants of its diverse user base. For US and UK users, one of these new features is the ability to transfer money.
After recently being in the news for collecting PII (personally identifiable information) for analytics and after-sales support, OnePlus has another security problem. An individual going by the name Elliot Alderson discovered an app in OnePlus devices that can enable root access with one command.
Google just bought a huge chunk of HTC for $1.1 billion. They're bringing in around 2,000 employees, mostly from the hardware division, and these folks will presumably work under hardware chief Rick Osterloh. There's a massive patent portfolio involved, too, so stop me if you've heard this before — Motorola, anyone?
With the new iPhone X, Apple introduced a buttonless design for the first time. But without a home button, navigation within iOS 11 had to change to accommodate the new model. To solve this issue, Apple created gestures to perform the actions that the home button once executed. But while Apple users have to wait until November 3 to use these gestures, you can get these features right now on Android.
Samsung's recent TouchWiz rebranding didn't really change much — the skin is still as bloated as ever, and the UI still uses tacky accent colors. But while you can't fully remove TouchWiz without rooting, there are ways to make it look a lot better.
Deep down inside, Kindle Fires are actually Android tablets — the only trouble is, Amazon has layered so much of a skin on top of it all that you can't normally use Android's main app store, the Google Play Store. The Amazon Appstore, which comes bundled with Kindle Fire devices, only has about 600,000 apps, so it would be great if you could access Google Play's library, which boasts 2.8 million.
Android is Google's project, so of course you can see the search giant's fingerprints all over the operating system. Aside from the obvious user-facing apps, there's Google Cloud Messaging, Google Connectivity Services, and the much-maligned Google Play Services running in the background, to name a few.
Locking individual apps on your Android device gives you an added layer of security by safeguarding app data from unwanted attention. I personally prefer using an app locker over a standard lock screen because my kids play with my phone, and they've completely disabled it after inputting the wrong PIN. So app lockers give me the right balance between giving my children access to my device, and the security of locking down my data from would-be intruders.
One of the only downsides to the Pixel XL is that Google's flagship phone does not have stereo speakers. But if Android's awesome development community has taught us anything over the years, it's that limitations like these can be bypassed with some creative software tinkering.
Now that Google has announced its new Pixel smartphones, folks who rushed to buy an iPhone 7 might be experiencing a bit of buyer's remorse. The new Pixel and Pixel XL are packed to the brim with cutting-edge features and top-notch hardware, and Google seems to be taking direct aim at the iPhone 7 with its Pixel marketing (and their groan-worthy jokes during the keynote).
LG announced their latest high-end device on September 6 and its specs are pretty amazing: The new V20 sports three cameras, two displays, three microphones, four DACs for high-end sound, and it's all powered by a removable battery.
Google has already issued a few updates to Android 7.0 Nougat. There aren't many headlining features, as these minor updates are mostly bug fixes and performance improvements. But there's a few security enhancements as well, so staying up-to-date with the latest patches is important for a number of reasons.
Considering how much smartphones cost in the first place, we're understandably reluctant to throw them out when we've bought a newer model. And this is probably the best practice, too, as there are many great uses for an old Android device.
Android's stock battery menu is pretty decent. You can see which apps have been using the most power, and you can tell when your CPU was awake or asleep, among other things. But a lot of times, battery-sucking services will get lumped under the generic "Android System" header, and even though you can see when your CPU was awake, you can't exactly see why.
Ever since the Google Play Store removed its "Designed for tablets" section, it's been a lot harder to find good, tablet-optimized Android apps. Not that it was all that great to begin with considering that they used to list apps like Facebook and Twitter, which only have oversized phone UIs on tablets, not actual customized UIs.
Using a technology we like to call "Hive Computing," several Android apps allow you to contribute idle processing power to help further scientific research. This basically means that when you're not using your phone or tablet, it can join forces with other idle devices to form a supercomputer that scientists can use to potentially make a world-changing breakthrough.
The Google Play Store hosts the largest collection of mobile apps on the planet, and it's the default app store for almost all Android devices. Ironically, though, while Google made its name with a powerful search engine, it can sometimes be difficult to find what you're looking for on the Google Play Store.
For people that like to get things done, Android's home screen widgets are almost indispensable. Rather than packing your launcher with a bunch of icons, you can utilize widgets to get quick information in a beautiful package or provide one-tap access to a particular functionality within your apps.
Smartphones have been a hot button issue around school campuses for several years now—some schools allow them, others confiscate them on sight. But the fact of the matter is, when used correctly, a smartphone can be just as much of a learning tool as a textbook or school-issued laptop.
When anyone brings up Tasker, the first topic that always gets discussed is how powerful the Android automation app can be. But all of that power can be overwhelming for some people, so even if you're a Tasker pro, it's hard to share your awesome creations with friends that don't quite understand what's going on.
In the digital age, maintaining your privacy is a never-ending battle. All sorts of companies and agencies have access to your data, and quite a few can eavesdrop on almost every method of modern communication.
Taste is certainly relative. When you look at Central American architecture and notice all of the bright pastel colors, then move just a thousand or so miles to the north and see that buildings in the United States are mostly painted in earth tones, this becomes abundantly clear. Imagine if you were to switch hemispheres altogether—what would you see in East Asia?
By now, a mobile phone that isn't "smart" is about as hard to come by as a TV that isn't high definition. As a result, members of older generations who were previously reluctant to purchase a newfangled smartphone have no other choice but to cave into the more recent trends when their old device finally breaks down.
Remember portable MP3 players like the classic iPod? Seems like forever ago that they were all the rage, and I don't think I've seen a real one in the wild for a good 5 years now. These devices died out so quickly as a direct result of the onset of smartphones, which allow us to do everything that an MP3 player could do and then some.
I've been involved in the Android scene for a very long time and have grown to develop a love/hate relationship with CyanogenMod. While I do like the stability they offer in their custom ROMs, they don't always include the flashy features on top of their vanilla Android base.
I'm often reluctant to use a home screen launcher other than the stock one on my Android. Once you're well acclimated with something, complacency sets in, welcoming change with much resistance. Well, my friends, I have seen the error of my ways...
Android's permissions system is simple, transparent, and straightforward. When installing an app, you get a chance to review all of the permissions that the app has requested. These can range from accessing your location data to holding a "wakelock" in order to prevent your phone from entering sleep mode. But your only choice in this matter is to accept all requested permissions, or not install the app.
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.
Pretty soon, every restaurant and store you walk into will know exactly what you're doing. Retail analytics companies like Euclid, ShopperTrak, RetailNext, and Prism Skylabs have penetrated hundreds of food shops and retail stores across the country, installing sensors that track and log customers' moves while they dine and shop.
The flexibility within Android is pretty amazing. Unlike iOS, you can make a lot of modifications with nothing more than a download from Google Play, but to really step up your softModder game, you'll need to go a little further.
The launch of Android 4.4 KitKat alongside the Nexus 5 was met with much fanfare from Android enthusiasts. Unfortunately, if you don't have a Nexus device or are still awaiting the 4.4 update, you may feel a bit left behind.
You know what's awesome? You own a Nexus. That means, with Google's blessing, you have easier access and control over your device than other manufacturers allow. You can really dig in and do some interesting things if you root.
For new Android users, rooting an Android phone can often be an intimidating process, especially since there are so many different ways to gain root access, depending on your model and firmware version.
One of the most heated topics in the Android community now (and probably forever) is stock Android, with lots of users requesting the ability to use it rather than the manufacturer's skin.
Rooting is usually the first thing on the to-do list whenever one of us softModders gets a new Android device. Unfortunately our efforts are sometimes hindered by certain obstacles; a common one is a locked bootloader.
Android 11 has a new power menu. When you long-press the power button to shut down or restart your device, you'll see the usual buttons in addition to payment cards and a set of toggles for any smart home devices you've added to Google Home. It's a cool feature, but it does make the menu pretty cluttered.