Gadget Hacks How-Tos
How To: Remove the Audio Recording Button in iOS 8's Messages App
Ever accidentally sent an audio message to someone through the Messages app? It happens to me all the time. My finger slips towards the right side of the keyboard and all of a sudden a one-second audio recording is being made and sent. Personally, I don't even send audio messages to anyone, but the feature is baked into the Messages app with no way to disable it. That is, unless you're jailbroken.
How To: Get Fast Access to Your Most Used Apps, Shortcuts, & Toggles from Any Screen
We all have apps that we use most frequently, or system preferences that we're regularly adjusting. Whether it's Netflix or a new game that you're hooked on, there are times when you want quick and easy access versus searching for them, even if they're on your home screen.
How To: Unlock Your iPhone with Custom Images Instead of Numbers
One feature that the majority of iPhone owners utilize is the device's passcode security lock. And while iOS 8 ushered in device customizations that add a whole new level of personalization on the Apple's mobile devices, the lock screen passcode page remains frustratingly the same.
How To: Stop Handing Out Your Wi-Fi Password by Enabling "Guest Mode" on Your Chromecast
Chromecasts can make for some fun nights. Whether you're setting up a collaborative YouTube watch list, letting everyone add to a giant party playlist, or playing games like Cardcast and Big Web Quiz, Google's streaming media stick is a hit by all accounts.
How To: Root, Unlock, & Restore Your OnePlus One with Bacon Root Toolkit
Keeping your OnePlus One running smoothly can be taxing, especially if you spend most of your day looking for ways to tweak performance settings like me. Sometimes I get lucky and end up with a faster phone, but because I experiment so much, I often end up restoring it back to stock. This process can get old really quick, but when I started using the Bacon Root Toolkit from WugFresh, it became exponentially easier.
How To: 1-Click Root Many Android Devices with Kingo Android Root
To Android users, especially advanced ones, rooting their phones or tablets is becoming a necessity. Rooting Android could be complicated, if you do it all by yourself, even with a step-by-step tutorial. However, what Kingo Android Root offers you is a true one-click experience when rooting your Android.
How To: Enable Stereo Sound on Your Nexus 5
At $349 off contract, the Nexus 5 has always been one of the best bang-for-your-buck smartphones on the market. In order to keep the price that low, however, Google had to pass up on some of the minor features that other flagship phones offer.
How To: Add a Power Menu to Your iPhone for Quick Reboots, Resprings, Safe Mode, & More
For those of you who have been taking full advantage of the jailbreak for iOS 8 that's available, you can understand and appreciate what this really offers iPhone users—sovereignty.
Themeboard: Designer Themes for Your iPhone Packed into One Keyboard
Third-party keyboard support, introduced earlier this year by Apple with iOS 8, was initially pretty awesome. I loved playing around with all of the different options available in the iOS App Store, including SwiftKey, TouchPal, GIF Keyboard, and Swype.
How To: Dashlane & LastPass Can Now Automatically Strengthen All of Your Weak Passwords
A group ironically called the "Guardians of Peace" hacked into Sony Pictures' computer systems and released a mountain of internal information such as medical records, leaked scripts, work complaints, and even celebrity aliases.
How To: Theme Lollipop on Your Nexus 5 with a Darker Material Design Look
Android Lollipop's new Material Design interface does its best to strike a delicate balance between intuitiveness, usability, and aesthetics. For some folks, though, the use of a lighter color palette throughout the interface disrupts this balance.
How To: Select All Contacts with Just One Tap in Snapchat's Android App
While having a ton of friends on Snapchat does wonders to stroke my ego, sending content to all of them at once becomes a hassle when I have to go one by one, checking each contact individually.
How To: Unlock Your iPhone Using the Current Battery Percentage as Your Passcode
With countless images and messages packed into one small device, security is always a high priority amongst iPhone users. For this reason, we've previously shown you how to make your iPhone's passcode match the current time, which made figuring out your passcode a lot more difficult for wandering eyes.
How To: Center the Status Bar Clock in Android Lollipop
If you're like me, things just seem to look better when they're symmetrical. While Android's status bar icons are indeed weighted against the notifications that show up on the left side of this area, the balance still seems skewed to the right.
How To: Make the AccuWeather Widget Transparent on Your Samsung Galaxy Note 3
The stock AccuWeather widget on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is great if you want a super quick way to see the current time, date, and weather forecast for your area, but personally, its design just doesn't do it for me. It's big and bulky and I find that the background weather imagery is distracting. Developer ElMartinoAT feels pretty much the same, and brings us nine alternatives to choose from when it comes to the stock AccuWeather widget on Galaxy Note 3 devices running Android KitKat.
How To: Replace the Boring Apple Boot Screen on Your iPhone with a Custom Animation
With its white Apple logo on a plain black background, iOS 8's animated boot screen isn't very interesting. While there is no built-in way to change this boring animation, you can customize this boot screen animation if you have a jailbroken iPhone, and the process is fairly easy. You can even create your own using your favorite GIF file.
How To: 4 Ways to Fix Your Galaxy S5’s Dysfunctional Fingerprint Scanner
There's a common bug that affects many Samsung Galaxy S5 users, myself included. The software that drives the fingerprint sensor can randomly fail to load, leaving you without one of the most unique features of your beloved smartphone.
How To: Mirror Your Android's Display & Respond to Text Messages from Your Mac or PC
When it comes to getting your computer and smartphone to work well together, there's no service more robust and capable than AirDroid. For years, it's been the go-to tool for users looking to transfer files between their devices or access contact lists and call logs from their computer.
How To: Get a Windows-Inspired Start Menu on Your Android
Windows 8 may have introduced a new, intuitive touch-based interface, but plenty of Microsoft loyalists were unhappy with the absence of the classic start menu that they were so accustomed to.
How To: Prank Your Apple Friends with 1,000s of iMessages in Just One Click
Apple scrubbed the floor clean of all existing text-bombing apps in the iOS App Store, and even though there were once a ton of these apps in Cydia, the go-to store for jailbroken devices, there few and far between these days. If they do exist, they either cost money or don't work as advertised.
How To: Add a Full "Reboot" Menu to Android 5.0 Lollipop
If you're someone who likes to customize their user experience, stock Android is a lot like a blank canvas. The firmware that comes preinstalled on Nexus devices is just Android—no manufacturer skins or carrier bloat involved. This simplicity opens up the door for many root mods and flashable ZIPs that can be installed in a custom recovery.
How To: Get Android Lollipop on Your HTC One Right Now
After a few unforeseen delays, the Android Lollipop update is finally here for Google Play Edition HTC Ones. This means that if you have an official GPE M7 or M8, or if you have simply converted your HTC One from a carrier-specific, Sense-based model to a Google Play Edition, you should be receiving an OTA notification shortly indicating an update.
How To: Skip Ads When Listening to iTunes Radio on Your Mac or iOS Device
iTunes Radio, Apple's answer to Pandora, provides endless hours of free music streaming, but like other so-called "free" services, every now and then you're going to hear some ads. While you may not be bombarded with them, they can definitely kill the vibe when you're jamming to your favorite stations.
How To: Fix Wi-Fi Performance Issues in iOS 8 & Yosemite
You can find hundreds, if not thousands, of complaints about Wi-Fi performance issues with iOS 8 across all Apple devices. Even I had the issue on my iPhone 5S. The Wi-Fi connection on my router was strong, but I was getting extremely slow speeds. So slow, that I would resort to using LTE instead of Wi-Fi, which in turn led to going over my monthly data allotment.
How To: Get Back the Gallery App on Any Nexus Device Running Lollipop
There were over 1.2 million changes made to Android when the OS got updated from KitKat to Lollipop, but a minor front-facing modification has many users in an uproar.
How To: Automatically Refresh Your Google+ Feed on Android
Google+ doesn't have quite the user base of Facebook or Twitter, but for Android enthusiasts, it's definitely the place to be. All of the major developers—such as Chainfire and Koush—make their social media home on Google+, and the Android app sports one of the nicest interfaces of any comparable platform, chock-full of Google's Material Design.
How To: Use Touch ID to Log into Apps & Websites More Easily on Your iPhone
Apple introduced Touch ID on the iPhone 5S back in 2013, which let you unlock the device with your fingerprint. While it was an impressive feature, it could only do that one thing—unlock the device.
How To: YouWish for Android Lets You Create & Share Your Christmas Wish List with Anyone
I love the holidays, but man am I sick of receiving oversized sweaters as Christmas presents. As well as people think they know us, their gifts often say otherwise. Instead of stocking up on useless items and articles of clothing you'll never wear, it's high time to create a wish list that's easily sharable amongst family and friends, and it's incredibly easy to do on Android.
How To: Use the Volume Buttons to Wake Your Nexus 6, Not Just the Power Button
The attention to detail and build quality that Motorola put into the new Nexus 6 is amazing. Its curved backplate fits the hand like a glove, and fingers slide effortlessly across the rounded edge of its glass front, making the swipe gesture for side navigation menus feel more natural than ever—even for its huge, nearly six inch display.
How To: Add a Google Search Widget to Your iPhone's Home Screen
Aside from identifying songs with Shazam and using the "Hey Siri" feature while driving, Apple's personal assistant isn't something I regularly use on my iPhone.
How To: Get New Playback Controls for iTunes, Spotify, & More on Your Mac
I just about always have iTunes running in the background when using my Mac, but switching in and out of the app to change songs and albums can make focusing on my main task difficult. To help keep my mind on track, I have a few extensions enabled to take control of my music playback.
How To: Get Floating Bubble Notifications for Any Android App
Notifications are an integral part of our day-to-day smartphone usage. They allow us to easily see and act upon all of the latest information that comes our way. Well, most of the time, that is.
How To: Organize Lock Screen Alerts on Your iPhone into a Priority Hub
Lock screen notifications can sometimes be overwhelming and difficult to manage, especially in the morning when I receive a massive influx of emails, texts, reminders, and social media alerts. At some point it's not even worth scrolling through all of them on your lock screen when you can get a better grasp of everything by just checking out the Notification Center instead.
How To: The Trick to Inserting Line Breaks into Instagram Captions & Comments
Line breaks signify not only the ending of one line of thinking, but the beginning of another. We use them to emphasize points, to fragment information, to shift tone, and more. They're important in getting our message across properly, which is why I'm always disappointed when I can't insert a line break into my masterful Instagram caption.
How To: Create Custom Video Boot Animations on Android KitKat
Android is all about customization: "Be together. Not the same," as Google's latest ads for the platform put it. Changing your device's boot animation, for instance, is one of the many great ways you can add a touch of personal flair.
How To: Hot Cyber Monday Deals on Apps, Games, TVs, & Other Tech
If you missed out on Black Friday this year, you've got a second chance at saving some big bucks on apps, mobile devices, HDTVs, and other tech. See below for all of the hot Cyber Monday deals from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other online retailers. This list will be continuously updated throughout the day, so bookmark it to stay up to date on all the of Cyber Monday discounts.
How To: Add Notes to Your iPhone's Notification Center for Easy Access Anytime
Confirmation numbers, grocery lists, addresses, and phone numbers are all things we need to quickly jot down on our phones, but the thing is, they're never extremely easy to access later. You have to figure out which app you wrote them in, meaning lots of needless searching and scrolling. Even if you use a dedicated note-taking app, those extra steps of actually opening the app to find a UPS tracking number can be an unnecessary pain.
How To: Change Profile Picture on YouTube
For a YouTube channel connected to a Google+ page or profile, your YouTube channel name and icon reflect the name and photo of the connected Google+ page or profile. Please Watch the Video Below for Clear Understanding.
How To: Add YouTube Channel Art
Channel art can be used to brand your channel's identity and give your channel page a unique look and feel. Your channel art will be used on all platforms where viewers can see your channel (TV, mobile, tablets, etc.) Please watch the video below for clear understanding
How To: Add Videos to Watch Later Playlist on YouTube
The Watch Later feature lets you conveniently save videos to watch at a later time, using a playlist. Hover your cursor over the thumbnail of a video, like the one below, and click the clock icon to automatically add the video to your Watch Later list.