Gadget Hacks How-Tos
How To: Find Out Your iPhone or Android Trade-In Value & Get a Discount on a New iPhone 13
So now that we know what the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro and their respective mini and Max versions are all about, you've probably made your decision on whether or not to upgrade (or swap over from Android) during this cycle.
How To: Protect Your iPhones & iPads by Installing Apple's Emergency 14.8 iOS Security Update
With all of the hype around the new iPhone 13 series and new iPad and iPad mini unveiled this week, it would be easy to overlook a very critical update for the device you already have in your pocket.
How To: When It Comes to iPhone 12 Series Cases, Smartish Is All You'll Need
I drop my smartphone a lot. Like an absurd amount of times. Practically multiple times a day. So it's surprising that my iPhone 12 Pro has lasted nine months without a cracked screen yet. Part of that has to do with the late-2020 model's durability, and the other part is thanks to my protective case.
How To: Sync All Your Freelance Articles to Authory — Your New Online Writing Porfolio!
When you're a writer with work published across various online platforms, building a portfolio of your work can be pretty time-consuming. That's where Authory comes in.
How To: Take Back the Internet with This Custom DNS & VPN Bundle
In the early days of the internet, if something was there and not password protected, you could see it. In the process of becoming the indispensable work and entertainment resource that it is, the internet also grew the same borders that countries have while also getting less safe for the people using it. If you want to watch something, you have to hope it was available in your country. If you want to keep your information safe, you have to take some extra steps to make sure that happens. The...
How To: Protect Your Information on Up to 10 Devices with This Thrifty VPN
Your privacy is important, especially online. Almost anywhere you go on the internet, you leave a trail of data that companies can use without your permission. VPNs are the easiest way to keep your browsing private and your information safe. Ivacy VPN is one such service, and it's one of the best deals you can get on a VPN because it will cover 5 of your devices for a lifetime, and this is a two-account bundle, so you'll be able to cover 10 total devices for $49.99.
How To: Stay Connected Anywhere in the World with This Compact LTE Hotspot
The ability to stay connected online regardless of your environment is incredibly valuable. Being able to access the internet during a blackout, check your messages while camping, or get in contact with emergency services while you're out in the middle of nowhere can be the difference between a brief inconvenience and prolonged suffering. The DuoTurbo 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot with Complimentary 9 GB Data can give you that easy, constant connectivity, and right now it's on sale for $152.99 — 10% ...
How To: The Fastest Way to Dim Your iPhone Screen Lower Than the Lowest Possible Brightness
In the dark, even the lowest brightness option on the iPhone can still feel a thousand burning suns. No matter whether you're in bed or at the movie theater, you don't want to create a distraction with your smartphone. That's why you might want a brightness that isn't readily available on your device — but luckily, there may be a way to go lower than the lowest brightness.
How To: This Smart Phone Mount Is Also a Wireless Charger
Whether you're using your phone's map to navigate or entrusting your passenger with the responsibilities of the mobile DJ, your phone needs a secure place in your car. And if it could charge while it's there, that's great too. The Naztech Smart Grip Wireless Charging Car Mount is exactly what you're looking for if you need a place to keep your phone secure, charging, and able to be used when it's safe to do so. Right now, this adjustable phone mount is on sale for $39.99, an 11% discount.
How To: The Secret to Laying Down on Your Side with Headphones On
It's nearly impossible to comfortably lay down on your bed or couch with headphones on. Sure, you can position yourself so that your headphones don't touch anything, but that usually means facing up at the ceiling, which is a huge no if you're watching something on Netflix or listening to music on your side.
How To: Hear Your Favorite Songs Exactly the Way the Artist Wanted You to Hear
One of the most frustrating things you can experience as a music lover is to hear a song you've heard a thousand times, only to realize you're not hearing it correctly because your headphones aren't giving you the whole picture. A good pair of headphones will give you the exact music experience your favorite artists want you to have. These S6 Bluetooth Wireless Headphones are designed to give you authentic music down to every detail and note, and you can get them on sale for $33.95 — over 60%...
How To: Mute Any iPhone App's Notifications for One Hour or All Day with iOS 15
Notifications keep us connected to our apps and contacts, but sometimes, they just get out of hand. While you can make blanket adjustments to your notifications with iOS 15's new Focus modes, you don't have to go that extreme — if there's one app bugging you right now, you can temporarily disable its notifications.
How To: Save Your Most Important Memories Forever with Secure Cloud Storage
Losing your important data can be more painful than losing the hardware the data was stored on. Precious memories, files you don't often access but always want to have, there's so much you store on impermanent devices that you can't live without. Backing up your information to a secure, cloud-based location is the best way to stave off disaster here. Polar Backup Unlimited Cloud Backup Storage will give you an unlimited amount of cloud storage while making the process super easy.
How To: Improve Safari with a PDF Editor, URL Shortener, Bulk Image Saver & More Features on Your iPhone
Safari saw many new features and improvements with Apple's latest iOS update, including webpage translations, privacy reports, and picture-in-picture. While the updates were well-received, Apple's mobile browser is still lacking some very basic features. Thankfully, there are shortcuts to bridge the gap.
How To: View Art from Your Chromecast in Augmented Reality
The Chromecast TV streaming lineup from Google is one of the more popular products in the category, primarily due to its low price tag and broad app support.
How To: Save Family Photos Forever with This Simple Backup Stick
Losing pictures is a uniquely frustrating experience. You take pictures to remember something, to capture a moment so you can look at it again later. So when you lose the thing that's supposed to be what's keeping your memories safe, it's unfortunate and infuriating. Photo Backup Stick® Universal will keep your pictures safe. Right now, you can get this awesome backup tool for $53.99.
How To: Turn Transparency or Noise Cancellation Off Using the AirPods Pro Stem
Apple's AirPods Pro offer three different audio modes for your convenience: "Transparency," which pumps in sound around you,"Noise Cancellation," which actively blocks out surrounding sounds, and "Off," which uses neither mode. Off saves battery, and does a decent job at passively cancelling noise on its own, but you can't seem to be able to use it with the AirPods Pro stem. Here's how.
How To: Broaden Your Mac's Horizons with This 5-App Bundle
As great as Macs are, they're often limited by the apps you have installed. Your computer might have the processing power to render a 4-hour movie in the time it takes you to have lunch, but if you don't have the right apps, you're not putting all that power to use. The All-Star Mac Bundle Ft. Parallels Pro gives you access to programs that will put your Mac to use and give you the best functionality out of it, and right now this whole bundle is on sale for $49.99.
How To: Read a Book Faster Than You Can Eat Lunch with 12min's Massive 'Microbook' Library
Reading is as gratifying as it is time-consuming, the more you put it off, the bigger your to-be-read stack gets. Eventually, that stack will become a shelf, then a case, and then even if you want to read, who has the emotional fortitude to pick just one from all those unread books. With 12min Micro Book Library: Lifetime Premium Subscription you can read an entire book from start to finish in 12 minutes without losing any of the meaning, and it's on sale now for $39.
How To: The Fastest Way to Remove the Background from Your iPhone Photos
You might think your photo is amazing, but in the midst of editing it and getting ready to post it on social media, you notice something in the background. Maybe it's an unwelcome stranger or a wide-open dumpster, or it's the entire backdrop, but suddenly you realize that it's bad. Although you look good in it, the background just doesn't work — which is why you can always get rid of it.
How To: 15 Awesome FaceTime Alternatives for Cross-Platform Video Calls on Android & iOS
In these times of social distancing, video calling is becoming the technological substitute for face-to-face connections. For those who carry an iPhone, the art of video calling defaults to FaceTime, the native app on iOS that is exclusive to Apple devices. But what do you do if you or the other party is on Android?
How To: Up Your Linux Game with This $19.99 Bundle
When we think about operating systems, we tend to view them from the perspective of a user. After all, most of us have spent a substantial amount of time on our computers, and so we've become more than acquainted with the ins and outs of whatever system we have running on our personal device. But there is one operating system that, while being less commonly used on the user side, is behind a great deal of design and business technology: Linux.
How To: Practice Using Essential Tools of the IT Trade with This Value Bundle
If you're trying to get your start in the web development and IT field, then one of the best places to begin is by building confidence with your coding by practicing Python and sharing your work on Git & Github. The Learn Python & Django Developer Bundle can help get you up to speed in Python, Django, Git & Github, and more, and right now it's on sale for $29.99.
How To: Remove Annoying Auto-Playing Videos, Banners, & Other Distractions from Any Website in Safari
Ads aren't the only annoying part of navigating websites in Safari. Colorful banners, autoplaying videos, embedded objects, and other distracting elements can make it harder to read or watch what you want. Although ad blockers are one answer, they only get rid of advertisements, so you'll need something else to remove other irritating elements from your favorite websites.
How To: Adjust Accessibility Settings on a Per-App Basis on iOS 15
Accessibility features — such as spoken content, reduced motion, and voice control — help those who might have hearing, vision, learning, or physical and motor disabilities better use their iPhone devices. These features are very welcome, but when enabled they work system-wide, which can be a problem if you need these settings enabled only in certain situations.
How To: Mute Notifications for Everything but Your Favorite Contacts in iOS 15
Your iPhone is full of apps that are all vying for your attention. Notifications from Facebook, Instagram, and even Apple Messages can get out of hand fast. With iOS 15, Apple gives you the tools to choose exactly who can contact you and when. Keep reading to see how to take control of your iPhone's notifications so that you only receive the most important alerts.
How To: You Can Rate U.S. Businesses in iOS 15's Apple Maps to Remember What You Liked
One of the many great reasons to use Apple Maps is to find fun food options, chill cafes, enlightening museums, cute gift shops, and other interesting businesses that you might otherwise overlook, as well as must-see places of interest. But after a while, you might forget about some of these hidden gems. With iOS 15, it will no longer be an issue.
How To: A Father's Day Discount on Bluetooth Earbuds Sounds Great
The draw of wireless earbuds is convenience, and many still offer the same sound performance as their wired counterparts. The difficult part is finding a pair that will stay in your ear reliably, work when you need them, and give you the best audio quality.
How To: Create, Use, and Manage Tab Groups in Safari on Your iPhone
Are your Safari tabs a tangled mess? I know mine are. Whenever I try to find an open website on my iPhone, I face dozens, sometimes hundreds of tabs. Yes, there's Search, but it's not perfect if you don't remember the right keyword to narrow the results. That's where custom tab groups come in.
How To: Add Any Apple Music Track You Want to Your Memory Videos in iOS 15
Having thousands of photos and videos in your Photos gallery can make it difficult to find the best ones, but your iPhone does make it a bit easier. Memories, which have been around since iOS 10, automatically group your photos and videos into mini-movies by location, date, or person. It's a fun feature that does the work for you, and it's getting better with the release of iOS 15.
How To: Set Unique Alert Tones for Different Types of Sounds with iOS 15's Sound Recognition
Your iPhone's Sound Recognition feature is a powerful tool to help keep you alert to the world around you. With it, iOS will inform you if it hears a fire alarm, a door bell, glass breaking, among many other kinds of sounds. In iOS 15, Apple is updating the feature, allowing you to choose the alert tone that plays when iOS recognizes a specific sound.
How To: Revert Spoofed Photos & Videos in iOS 15 to Their Original Locations & Dates
Apple introduces several new privacy settings with iOS 15, including the ability to better manage the metadata in your photos. With just a few taps, you can effectively spoof a photo's geolocation and change its creation date and time, providing a sort of disguise over your personal information. If you constantly take and share photos, it's a welcomed feature, but its results are not permanent and can be reversed.
How To: iOS 15 Makes It Really Easy to Change the Location & Date/Time for Any Photo or Video
Metadata might be a bigger concern than you might realize. In its continuous push to be a privacy-first company, Apple has released several new features with iOS 15 that allow you to adjust and permanently change the metadata stored within the photos and videos you take on your iPhone. But why would you want to do this?
How To: These Ergonomic Earbuds Will Fit Your Ears Comfortably for Truly Immersive Listening
Having earbuds that don't work for you is kind of like having shoes that don't fit. They're never where they're supposed to be, and every second you're using them, you're acutely aware of how much they aren't working for you. And if they fall off, you'll probably step on them. ComfoBuds Pro True Wireless Headphones are the right fit, the right sound, and the right choice if you want to listen to music instead of being distracted by the place your music is supposed to come from.
How To: Sound Recognition on iPhone Gets 2 New Detectable Sounds in iOS 15
Sound Recognition was introduced with iOS 14, and the accessibility feature uses on-device intelligence to detect 13 different sounds and then notify you whenever it hears one. Apple increases that number to 15 with the addition of two more detectable sounds in iOS 15 that it should have included from the get-go.
How To: iOS 15's Safari Changes the Way You Access Tabs
When you first open Safari after updating your iPhone to iOS 15, you might be a bit surprised by the design change. Apple attempted to make browsing the web on its smartphones more natural and cohesive, but it may leave you wondering just how to actually navigate your tabs.
How To: This Mini Drone Is the Perfect Gift for Father's Day!
Drones give you the joy of experiencing the sky without any of the downsides of gravity. Copernicus was the astronomer who put the sun at the center of the solar system. This little drone is aptly named after him because it similarly gives you a true look at the sky through a crystal clear camera and agile, intuitive controls.
How To: The New Way to Start a FaceTime Audio Call from Messages in iOS 15
FaceTime audio calling is a great alternative to regular phone calls on your iPhone because it usually has better audio quality and fewer dropped calls than regular calls over cellular or Wi-Fi calling. Plus, it's easier to start group chats, and you have the choice to turn on your camera. If you frequently use the "audio" button in Messages to start FaceTime audio calls, know that things work differently in iOS 15.
How To: iOS 15 Lets You View All Actions for Shortcuts in One List
One thing you couldn't do in the Shortcuts app when building a shortcut was browsing the entire list of available actions for all of the apps and services on your iPhone. That all changes in iOS 15.
How To: Add Android, Linux & Windows Users to FaceTime Calls in iOS 15
Apple's exclusive chat services, iMessage and FaceTime, force many of us to stay locked into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to communicate with other Apple users, so chatting with Android-using friends means SMS texts, third-party messaging apps, and third-party video chat services. However, Apple is breaking boundaries with iOS 15 so that we can FaceTime with Android, Linux, and Windows users.