Gadget Hacks How-Tos
How To: This App Saves Battery Life by Toggling Data Off When You're on Wi-Fi
One of the biggest causes of smartphone battery drain is the mobile data connection—particularly if you live in an area with poor reception. But, chances are, you don't actually need this connection most of the time, because you're probably connected to Wi-Fi for a good chunk of the day, which uses far less battery life.
How To: Use This Map to Find PokéStop Locations in Pokémon GO
If you want free Poké Balls and eggs when playing Pokémon GO, you can find them at PokéStops in variation locations around your city, which are marked with towering blue icons on your map. Once you're at Level 5, they'll also grant you Potions and Revives to help you in your battles against other trainers, so they're definitely something you should be visiting whenever you can.
How To: What Do the Leaves Mean in Pokémon GO?
While wandering around in Pokémon GO, you'll occasionally see what appears to be leaves fluttering around nearby. This is actually meant to be Pokémon "rustling in the grass," but whatever the intention, it means that there may be a wild Pokémon in that area. While there's no use in tapping on the leaves (it does nothing), they can be helpful in your search for Pokémon to catch.
How To: The Ultimate Guide to Hatching Eggs in Pokémon GO
Finding Pokémon in the wild isn't the only way to add to your collection in Pokémon GO—you're also able to hatch your own from eggs that you've gotten from PokéStops.
How To: Find Emails on Your iPhone Faster with iOS 10's New Mail Filters
While filters were technically available in Mail for iOS previously, you would have to hit "Edit" on the main Mailboxes view and add them as folders, which made your already crowded main screen even more crowded.
How To: Adjust WiFi Video Quality on Your iPhone in iOS 10
If you're watching videos over Wi-Fi on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, iOS 10 lets you adjust the quality for when you want to save data or need help watching a movie or TV show on a poor connection.
How To: Get Android Nougat's New Boot Animation Right Now
Android Nougat came with a lot of new features, including a futuristic and sleek circle animation. When this article was originally published, it was rumored that the circular design would be used as the new boot animation in Android 7.0—but as it turns out, you'll only see this screen while you're installing a firmware upgrade or working with ADB.
How To: Cheat at Pokémon GO Without Getting Banned
Gotta catch 'em all, right? That's easier said than done, considering that Pokémon GO has region-specific characters that you may never get a chance to see. Sure, you can spoof your GPS location to make the augmented reality game think you're at a different spot on the map, but Niantic Labs seems to be catching on to this method, and some users have been soft-banned for a few hours after trying it.
How To: Your iPhone Will Automatically Add Events to Your Calendar in iOS 10
iOS 10's Calendar app comes with a new Found Events feature, which scans Mail and Messages on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch for events and lets you add them to your calendar. This one is easy to set up, because it's automatically enabled and on all the time, so you don't have to do anything.
How To: StepLock Makes You Exercise to Use Your Favorite Android Apps
Most newer Android devices manufactured in 2014 or later have a built-in pedometer for tracking your fitness activity. This step counter is a great way to keep yourself in shape and motivated, but developer Leonardo Cavaletti has come up with an even better way to put it to use.
How To: Change Flashlight Brightness on Your iPhone in iOS 10
There has been a built-in flashlight on iPhones and iPod touches ever since the release of the Control Center in iOS 7, but it has stayed exactly the same since then. In iOS 10 and higher, you can actually adjust the brightness from the toggle if you have 3D Touch.
How To: Add a Special Swipe to Access Your Favorite Android Widgets from Anywhere
The widget selection on Android is one of the main things that set it apart from other mobile operating systems. You can get quick, at-a-glance information for topics like weather, news, music, and much more, all without ever leaving your home screen.
How To: Fake Your GPS Location & Movement to Cheat at Pokémon GO on Android
A strange thing is happening: there are people, groups of people even, walking the streets day and night staring wide-eyed at their mobile phones and laughing like manic children. What are these people doing? Are they taking pictures? Are they participating in some new social media craze? Is their activity an omen that the zombie apocalypse is upon us?
How To: Make Your Own Battery-Saving 'Lite Apps' for Android
Several major web services—most notably Facebook—have horrendous Android apps that occupy way too much space and drain battery life at an alarming rate. Such issues have led to a new trend where third-party developers create minimalist "lite" apps that are essentially the mobile website bundled into a native Android wrapper, freeing up storage space and saving battery life without sacrificing many features at all.
How To: Watch Viral Videos on Your iPhone Without an Internet Connection
The internet, as I understand it, is a wonderful, magical place where people congregate to share memes and viral videos. Well, okay... there's a lot more to it than that, but let's just focus in on the good stuff.
How To: Jazz Up Boring Screenshots with Phone Frames & Custom Backgrounds
For the most part, when you take a screenshot, it's because you intend on sharing it with someone. And, of course, we all take pride in our smartphones, so we want to show them off as much as possible. But the downside here is that regular screenshots are pretty boring, so they don't do a great job of showing anything off, really.
How To: Get iOS 10 on Your iPad or iPhone Right Now with Apple's Public Beta
The official release of Apple's iOS 10 mobile operating system is still a few months away, but starting today, June 7, the public beta version is available to download if you'd like to get a head start on checking out all the cool new features included in Apple's latest mobile OS.
How To: Undo. Redo. Find & Replace. Get Them for Your Android Keyboard Right Now
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.
How To: Pick Your Own Status Bar Icons for Wired or Bluetooth Headphones
The skinned versions of Android that come with Samsung, LG, and HTC phones usually have a feature that displays a small icon in your status bar when you connect a pair of headphones. It lets you know that your earbuds are plugged in or connected properly, and offers assurance that your music won't be blaring out of the loudspeaker—but mostly, it's just a nice little touch.
How To: Root Your Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge (US Models)
The international, Exynos-powered Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have had a working root method ever since a few days after release. But the North American variants—those using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor—have locked bootloaders, and have proven to be almost unrootable up until now.
How To: Use Samsung's Hidden Hearing Test to Get Drastically Better Sound Quality from Your Galaxy
A lot of folks complain about the extra features Samsung adds to Android, but while there are some benefits to the slimmer stock Android, the TouchWiz firmware on Galaxy devices definitely has its own advantages.
How To: Get the Best One-Handed Swiping Keyboard for iPhone
Swipe keyboards such as GBoard, SwiftKey, TouchPal, and Swype are handy for quick one-thumbed typing on an iPhone, but Microsoft upped the game with its experimental Word Flow Keyboard. In short, the keyboard fans out to occupy the natural range of your thumb, where you can type or rely on predictive swiping.
How To: The Best Way to Make GIFs Out of Anything on Your iPhone
The internet has officially been taken over by GIFs—they're everybody's favorite method of communication these days, and nary a meme would exist without them. But even with the abundance of GIF-sharing websites, and even GIF keyboards, we're still a bit lacking in regard to creating GIFs on a mobile device.
How To: Get Android Nougat's New Navigation Keys Right Now
The new Google phones, which are rumored to ditch the Nexus moniker for Pixel, will most likely come with an Android feature that 7.0 Nougat doesn't currently have—a new set of navigation keys.
How To: Remove Amazon's Lock Screen Ads from the BLU R1 HD & Moto G4—Without Rooting
It just got a whole lot easier to decide whether or not saving $50 on Amazon's new ad- and bloatware-subsidized smartphones is worth the headache of having to see an advertisement on the lock screen every time you wake the device.
How To: Make Your Android's Screen Stay On in Certain Apps
The default screen timeout on most Android devices is 30 seconds. This usually offers a good balance of usability and battery savings, but sometimes, you need the screen to stay on longer. For instance, practically every time I try to show something on my phone to someone else, the screen locks before they get a chance to see it. But increasing the system-wide screen timeout isn't a great solution either, because this can lead to unnecessary battery drain and even screen burn-in.
How To: Perform the Air Tap Gesture Correctly on the HoloLens
Microsoft's HoloLens has two gestures: bloom and air tap. While the two might not seem like much to learn, some people struggle with the air tap because the headset can be a bit particular. The easiest way to learn the proper form is to look through someone else's eyes while they do it, so we've captured that for you.
How To: Send & Receive Encrypted Android Texts Using Your Mac's Messages App
Prior to this year's WWDC, there were lots of rumors that Apple might finally be making a version of iMessage for Android. While that never came to fruition, a few big updates to a very useful app have now ensured that we can seamlessly send and receive Android texts in Apple Messages on our Macs.
How To: Keep Long Texts from Breaking into Separate Messages on Android
Depending on your carrier and the texting app that you use, sending long SMS messages from an Android phone often results in the recipient being hit with a barrage of fragmented, out of order texts.
How To: Use Chrome Flags to Prevent Page Load Jumps
Google's Chrome browser comes pre-loaded on the vast majority of today's Android devices, and it's one of the fastest, most stable, and useful browsers out there. But it does have one major annoyance—while a page is loading, you'll see a link, then reach to tap it, but an element further up the page will load, and the link will jump out from underneath your fingertip.
How To: Find Out Whether Your Phone Has an LCD or AMOLED Display (& Why It Matters)
When it comes to smartphone screens, there are two predominant technologies—the traditional LCD panel, and the newer AMOLED display. Most phones still use LCD screens, as the tech is more cost-effective due to its longstanding reign as the primary display type in TVs, smartphones, and tablets.
How To: Auto-Mute Group Chat Notifications Before They Get Annoying
If you have any group chats going, you're surely familiar with this scenario: One person sends a picture, then, within 30 seconds or so, all other participants chime in with one-word responses like "Cute," or "Awesome." It's a social nicety, so you have to expect this behavior, but that doesn't make it any less annoying when your phone randomly beeps and vibrates ten times in a row because of it.
How To: Turn an Old Android Phone into a Chromecast Remote
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.
How To: Get Sony's Feature-Packed Xperia Keyboard on Any Android Device
North American users get a raw deal when it comes to Sony devices. For some reason, the critically-acclaimed Xperia lineup of smartphones is hardly ever available here, whereas in Europe, the Sony Xperia Z series is one of the most popular flagship devices around.
How To: 10 Must-Know Tips for Better Note-Taking with Google Keep
When it comes to note-taking, Google Keep is one of the most diverse and functional applications on the Android platform. Sure, there are a plethora of other note-taking apps to choose from, such as ever popular OneNote and Evernote, but Google Keep differentiates itself from the crowd with its user-friendly interface and Google Now integration.
How To: Keep Your Android's Screen On All the Time Without Killing Your Battery
Samsung's latest flagship devices, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, as well as the Note7, have a useful feature called "Always On Display." With this one enabled, the clock and some other information will continue to be shown on the screen, even when you lock your phone or turn your screen off.
How To: Browse Your Mac's Hard Drive Using Your iPhone
When it comes to sharing files between a smartphone and a computer, there are several solutions available for a Windows and Android pairing. But for those of us with Apple devices, the selection of apps in this category isn't quite as great. You can use AirDrop to quickly share files, but searching for files is not so easy.
How To: Get the Nextbit Robin's Launcher on Any Android
We recently covered a set of ported apps from the new cloud-based smartphone, the Nextbit Robin. These ported APKs brought two of the Robin's slick new stock apps—Camera and Gallery—to any other device, but the launcher was conspicuously absent.
How To: Share Photos & Videos with the Microsoft HoloLens
Microsoft's HoloLens comes with helpful features for capturing video and photos, but sharing whatever you record isn't as straightforward as you might expect. So here are the many ways to get your media off the device to share with the world.
How To: Find Out When Your Nexus Will Stop Getting Android Updates
The beauty of Nexus devices is they receive firmware updates faster than any other Android phone, and keep getting updates for years longer than most of the competition. This means that you can always use the great new features that come along with an Android update, and even more importantly, your phone gets monthly security patches to keep hackers and malware at bay.