Hot Gadget Hacks How-Tos
How To: Make Your iPhone Tell You When It's Done Charging
Battery management is a never-ending struggle. To be on the safe side, you likely won't want to leave your home with less than 100% battery, but continually checking your charging iPhone is a hassle. Instead of continuously monitoring your battery's power level, have your iPhone tell you when it's reached a full charge.
How To: 13 Tips for Recording Better Videos on Your Galaxy
Smartphones have put an end to camcorders. If you want to capture memorable moments in high quality, look no further than that technological marvel in your pocket. Recent Galaxy phones are shining examples of how far we've come — but the more capable a camera gets, the more complicated things can be.
Venmo 101: How to Send Money to Friends & Family
In the not so distant past, you had to actually go meet someone in person to repay money you owed them. Say they covered your half of dinner or picked up movie tickets — they wouldn't get their money back at least until the next time you saw them. Thankfully, Venmo has effectively eliminated this inconvenience.
How To: Still Missing Live Photos on Your Android? Try These 3 Apps
Apple didn't invent the concept of photos with videos embedded (that credit goes to HTC and their Zoe feature), but they sure did popularize this functionality when they came out with Live Photos. If you're jealous of iPhone users, you certainly don't need to be — there are several great ways to recreate Live Photos on Android.
How To: Tell if Someone Has Read Your WhatsApp Message—Even if They Have Read Receipts Turned Off
We've all been there... admit it. You sent a couple messages, but your friend had the "Read Receipts" option turned off in WhatsApp, so after a few minutes, you start wondering if they're away from their phone right now or just flat-out ignoring you.
How To: There Are 18 New Features Hiding in Your iPhone's Camera App on iOS 17
The Camera app on your iPhone includes new features with the iOS 17 update that will help you take better photos and more impressive videos, but there are a lot of cool new things available that you might not see right away.
How To: Use iOS 17's Live Voicemail Feature on Your iPhone — Everything You Need to Know
Visual Voicemail revolutionized phone calls and the voicemail system when Apple introduced it with the original iPhone. Now, thanks to iOS 17, Apple has done it again with its newest calling feature, Live Voicemail. This feature uses speech-to-text technology to show you voicemail transcriptions on the incoming call screen in real time, helping you decide if it's important enough to answer the call.
How To: Safari's Private Browsing Mode Just Made Your Private Tabs Way More Private on iOS 17
Private Browsing mode finally lives up to its name in Apple's huge Safari 17 update for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. So whether you search for things you don't want anybody to know about or want to ensure websites and trackers aren't eavesdropping on your activity, you'll want to update your devices pronto.
How To: Download and Install iOS 16.8 on Your iPhone to Try New Features First
Apple's iOS 16.6 software update for iPhone was released on July 24, with iOS 16.7 following on September 21. While Apple is currently focused on improving iOS 17, we may see iOS 16.8 pop up. When it does, you can try out all the upcoming new features as long as you're OK with running beta software on your iPhone.
How To: Turn Your iPhone into a Personal Sound Machine to Help You Focus, Rest, and Stay Calm
If you get distracted or stressed out easily, your iPhone might be able to help you focus or calm you down. It can even help you fall asleep with white noise, and you don't have to install a third-party app or buy an audio track to turn your iPhone into a personal sound machine.
How To: 11 Best Calculator Apps for iPad to Solve All Your Math Needs
Apple doesn't include its Calculator app on the iPad and never did. One almost appeared over 12 years ago but was nothing more than a blown-up version of the iPhone app. Since then, the company still hasn't made an iPad-optimized calculator, and there is no shortage of third-party alternatives to fill the gap. It may happen one day, but for now, these are the best calculator apps for your iPad.
How To: Your iPhone's Display Can Get Brighter Than You Think
When you want to brighten up your iPhone's screen, you likely use Control Center's brightness slider to increase your nits (especially if you've disabled auto-brightness). But once you max it out, it doesn't seem like the display can get any brighter. However, depending on your iPhone model, your display may be capable of getting a lot brighter based on how you use it.
How To: Make YouTube Music Siri's Preferred Music Player in iOS 14.5 Intead of Apple Music
A new feature in iOS 14.5 lets you change your preferred music player for Siri requests. So if you primarily use YouTube Music over Apple Music and other services, Siri will learn so that you never have to tell the virtual assistant to play a song, artist, or album "on YouTube Music" again.
How To: Sideload Apps on Chromecast with Google TV — Get Virtually Any Android App on the Big Screen
At launch, Chromecast with Google TV is fairly limited in the number of compatible apps. Many of the usual suspects are there, but there are some interesting omissions, like Google Stadia (though support is coming). However, at its core, the device runs on Android 10, which means you can sideload apps, including those that don't officially support Chromecast with Google TV.
How To: Disable Android's Back Gesture on the Left Side to Make Hamburger Menus Easier to Open
The gesture navigation introduced with Android 10 worked wonders by giving you more of your screen and less tapping. Android 11 offers the option to fine-tune the back gesture sensitivity for your screen's left and right sides. However, the issue still stands for people who like to use the left swipe menu within apps to open hamburger style menus.
How To: How & Why You Should Change Your iPhone's Name
You might be giving out your name to every stranger you see, and you don't even know it. That iPhone of yours has a name — generally a combination of your first name and device model — and it broadcasts it to others via AirDrop, Personal Hotspot, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other connections. Sure, it's useful to keep your device name simple and to the point, but there are upsides to changing it.
How To: Easily Reveal Obfuscated Passwords Hidden Behind Asterisks & Dots for Login Pages in Safari
Enter a password into a password field, and it's a sure bet that black dots or asterisks will obscure the characters. Nearly every website you visit in Safari on your iPhone will do it, but sometimes it helps to see what you're typing or what was auto-filled with iCloud Keychain, LastPass, or a different password manager.
How To: Use Your Rooted Phone to Root Another Phone
The biggest hurdle to rooting is that it usually requires a computer. Things get complicated when you're trying to use a desktop operating system to exploit a mobile OS, and the connection isn't always reliable. But with the help of Magisk, you can now use one Android phone to root another.
How To: Missing Burst Mode? Here's How to Find It on iPhone 11, 11 Pro & 11 Pro Max
Burst mode on iPhone is a great way to ensure you capture the photo you truly want, especially when your subject is moving too fast. You'd be forgiven for thinking that Apple ditched the feature entirely on iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max, since a long-press of the shutter button now records video instead. However, burst mode is alive and well on your new iPhone — it's just hidden.
How To: Completely Hide Root Using Magisk
Ever since the introduction of Google's SafetyNet feature, it's been an ongoing battle with apps trying to detect root access. For a while, there was a lot of back and forth between Magisk and certain apps. Pokémon GO was a high profile example of an app aggressively checking for anything related to root. Luckily, Magisk has made great strides to keep apps from detecting root for good.
How To: Stop a Show from Continuously Autoplaying Episodes in Apple Podcasts
Introduced to Apple Podcasts back in iOS 11.2, whenever one episode of a show ends on your iPhone the next one begins right away for an uninterrupted experience. While the continuous playback feature for each show or station is incredibly useful for lengthy commutes, long drives, or to catch up on what you've missed, it may not be ideal for other situations.
How To: 12 Creative Ways Your Smartphone Can Help You Cheat on a Test
Look, tests are no fun, and doing poorly on them is rarely an option. Whether you're studious or a slacker, everyone needs a little boost now and again. While students have found ways to cheat as long as tests have existed, the invention of smartphones has greatly enhanced the potential to get ... creative.
How To: Record Your iPhone's Screen Without the Annoying Red Bar or Bubble
Native screen recording, one of the hottest features that Apple included in iOS 11 and later, is easily started from the optional Control Center toggle on your iPhone. From there, you can stop recording from the same place or from the red status bar or bubble. It's a very convenient addition to iOS, but there's one obvious downside — that red indicator, which can appear in your recordings.
How To: Calculate Tips Faster on Your iPhone Using the Shortcuts App
When it's time to calculate a tip at a restaurant or bar, I usually try some mental math at first, but sometimes I resort to opening the Calculator quickly from the Control Center on my iPhone and doing a quick calculation. But with Apple's Shortcuts app, there's an even easier way, and you don't even have to leave your lock screen to get the results.
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: Set Rotating Lock Screen Wallpapers on Samsung Galaxy Devices
Say what you want about Samsung's TouchWiz UI being cluttered or overbearing, but one thing you can never complain about is a lack of features. In fact, it's been almost 8 months since I first took my Galaxy S6 Edge out of its box, but I'm still discovering features to this day.
How To: Apple Has a Killer New Word Game Puzzle Called Quartiles on iOS 17.5
Apple's newest software update, iOS 17.5 includes one killer new feature for people who like word games: another lexical challenge to complement the crossword puzzles that Apple News already has.
How To: Your iPhone Has Hidden Tools to Help You Understand Emoji Better
Is the emoji you're using really the one you think it is? While you can use any emoji that looks like it fits what you have to say, it may have been created for a different purpose. On an iPhone, it's easy to find that purpose by retrieving the actual name of the emoji in Apple's operating system.
How To: Enable Spatial Audio on Your Pixel Smartphone for Surround Sound Everywhere You Go
The newest feature for Pixel smartphones puts a home theater in your pocket. Spatial Audio outputs sound that appears to come from in front of and behind you, adding a new level of immersion to your streaming video and music apps.
How To: Get Water Out of Your iPhone's Speaker with a Simple App
Whether you drop your iPhone into a toilet or your dog's water bowl or regularly take it into the shower or pool, water will likely become nestled inside its speaker grilles. Water exposure causes audio playback through the speakers to soften and sound muffled, and getting that water out is no easy task. Luckily, there's an app for that.
How To: Update Your iPhone Calculator's Look with These Easy Color Mods
If you're anything like me, you use the Calculator app on your iPhone like fifty times a day, and you're sick of the same user interface it's had since iOS 11 came out. While you can't mod the button shapes and sizes, there is a way to breathe new life into your calculations with some Calculator theming.
How To: Can't Dislike Songs in Spotify? Here's How to Really Hide Them from Playlists & Radio Stations
You can block artists no matter where you are in Spotify's mobile app for Android or iOS, but it's not as easy when you want to hide songs from playing. Disliking tracks is possible here and there, but not everywhere, and that's a serious problem if you keep hearing songs you hate.
Nova Launcher 101: How to Unlock the Hidden 'Labs' Menu for Experimental Features
TeslaCoil's Nova Launcher is one of the best home screen apps on the Play Store. It's about as fast as it gets, and it's always among the first to add the latest Android features. However, it looks like Nova Launcher isn't showing users all of the customization options available — apparently, there's a secret menu, and it's pretty simple to unlock.
How To: Enable the Hidden 'Night Mode' Setting on Android 7.0 Nougat
When Google released the first Developer Preview build of Android 7.0 Nougat, users were happy to see that a new "Night Mode" was included among the changes. The feature would cancel out any blue light emitted from your screen to help you get to sleep a bit earlier, quite similar to f.lux for desktop computers, or Apple's Night Shift for iPhones. It could be set to turn on automatically based on time of day, or you could manually enable Night Mode with a Quick Settings toggle.
How To: Secretly Take Photos on Android Without Launching Your Camera App
The art of taking secret photos is one that requires keen awareness and skill. Not only do you need to ensure that your subject remains oblivious, but you also need to make sure that no one near you notices what you're attempting to do. It's great when you buddy is acting a fool, but sucks when they stop their shenanigans when they notice you pulling out your camera phone in an effort to evade your picture.
How To: The Best Smartphones to Buy in 2024
If you're in the market for a new smartphone and want nothing but the best of the best, now's the time to act. Some of the greatest phones money can buy are being released as we speak, while others are still in their prime and will continue to be for most of 2024. Whether you want an iPhone or Android, we've rounded up the best picks you have to choose from for top-of-the-line specs and advanced features.
How To: Your iPhone Has 24 New Accessibility Features You Shouldn't Ignore on iOS 17
Apple previewed new cognitive, speech, and vision accessibility tools for the iPhone back in May, and they've finally been realized with the iOS 17 release. But there are more accessibility features than that hiding in Apple's latest software update — and they're not just for users with disabilities.
How To: Apple's Messages App Has a Hidden Feature You Can Use Only by Doing This
Apple has a secret iMessage effect so hidden that there's only one way to unlock it, and it's not by digging through the Messages app's settings, tools, effects, or interface. However, it's used the same way whether you're messaging from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, so it's easy to remember once you know.
How To: Replace the Goals Function in Google Calendar After Google Kills It for Good
If you use Goals in Google Calendar, you've probably already received the notification that Google, in typical executioner fashion, has marked the feature for death. As of November 2022, you can't create new goals, and your current goals won't repeat anymore. Google suggests switching to repeating events or tasks, but there's a better option to use on your Android and iOS device.
How To: Use One-Handed Mode on Pixels and Other Android 12 Phones to Reach the Top of the Screen More Easily
For some time now, Samsung, LG, and other smartphone manufacturers have had one-handed modes that let you reach on-screen content with your thumb that would otherwise be unreachable without another hand or uncomfortable grip. Google has finally caught up in Android 12 with its own version for Pixel phones.