Gadget Hacks Features
How To: Boost Sound Quality on Your Galaxy Using Dolby Atmos
While the audio experience is solid on Galaxy phones, it isn't the absolute best out of the box. That's because Samsung has partnered with Dolby Laboratories to provide its industry-leading sound technology known as Dolby Atmos, but it's turned off by default. Once enabled, your audio experience will go from good to great.
How To: This Hidden Trick Lets You Create App Groups for Multi-Window Mode
By now, Samsung's Multi-Window Mode is a pretty well-known feature. With other manufacturers now recreating this functionality in their own flagships, like LG, it's safe to say the feature has been a hit with consumers.
Pocket Camp 101: How to Make Human Friends in Animal Crossing
While Animal Crossing's emphasis has always been on making friends with the animals that populate your world, each subsequent game following its initial release has stressed relationships with human players more and more. In Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, making human friends is a crucial part of the process with the inclusion of market boxes, Shovelstrike Quarry, and giving "kudos."
How To: Get Sony's Xperia Weather App on Any Android Device
Sony's Xperia smartphones are some of the most beautiful Android devices out there—but unfortunately, they're rarely promoted in the U.S. and are seldom available through major carriers (aside from the new Xperia Z5 devices), so not many Americans are aware of how awesome these devices really are.
How To: The 7 Best New Features for Live Photos in iOS 11 for iPhones
When Apple first introduced Live Photos in iOS 9, it was a big hit for those who had 3D Touch devices — but one thing this cool feature was sorely missing was editing options. Thankfully, Apple has fixed that in iOS 11 by turning Live Photos into a complete package with editing tools and new effects right within the Photos app.
How To: Access Files, Manage Apps, & Get Remote Camera Access to Your HTC One Wirelessly from Your Computer
The first thing I do when I get a new phone is ditch the USB cable. At least, when it comes to data transfer. My brand new HTC One came with a USB cord that feels sturdy, but like any other cable, it will eventually fall apart from overuse. It will probably still charge just fine, but at that point it will be unreliable for transferring data. Lucky for me, there's a solution. Transfer files over the air. This will let you save that USB cord only for charging and the occasional situation when ...
How To: Improve Your LG V20's Speaker Sound with This Simple Hardware Mod
The LG V20 is a true audiophile's phone when it comes to playing music through headphones, but it only has a single bottom-firing mono speaker. So even though the V20 has received plenty of praise for its overall audio experience, that single built-in speaker ruins the fun by putting out some shoddy and cheap-sounding audio.
How To: Get the iPhone X's Swipe-to-Go-Home Gesture on Any Android
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.
How To: Get Moving Cinemagraph Wallpapers on Your Android's Home Screen
Cinemagraphs are basically artistic photos that have been turned into a GIF to showcase a bit of subtle motion and give them life. Unlike regular GIFs, which can sometimes loop with a jarring cut at the end, cinemagraphs give the illusion of perpetual motion, like water drops off a flower's petal or clouds moving over a scenic sky.
How To: Hack a Bluetooth with ibluenova App for iPhone & iPod touch
If you've got an iPhone or iPod touch and are looking to hack Bluetooth, check out this video and see how it's done. You'll need your Apple devices to be jailbroken already so make sure you do that step first.
News: Listen to the iPhone X's New Default Ringtone 'Reflection'
Apple rarely changes the ringtones on its iPhones. In fact, the last addition was all the way back in iOS 7. However, it appears they wanted to do something special with the 10th-anniversary edition iPhone, so Apple included a unique ringtone called "Reflection" on the iPhone X.
How To: Give Your Status Bar Stock Android's Material Design Icons & Matching Colors
These days, the user experience on stock Android is a lot more refined and polished than manufacturer skins like Samsung's TouchWiz or HTC's Sense. This is mostly due to Material Design, the look and feel that Google implemented back in Android Lollipop, which has finally started to give Android a unified appearance with its sleek icons and abundant use of colors.
How To: 5 Things You Can Do on the Play Store You Didn't Know About
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.
How To: Convert Protected M4P Files to MP3 Songs with iMovie and iTunes
I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it's awesome that you can now download music from the iTunes Store that's free of DRM (digital rights management) limitations. That was always my biggest problem with buying music from iTunes. Paying a buck for a song that I can only play on Apple devices? Really? That's what finally led me away to other legal music downloading services like eMusic and Amazon.
News: Here's What the iPhone 7's IP67 Waterproofing Rating Really Means
When Apple announced its new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models in San Francisco, one of the biggest new features was an "IP67" water-resistance rating. Couple that with a few official renderings that show the new iPhone covered in water, and you'd probably arrive at one logical conclusion: The iPhone 7 is waterproof.
How To: Rearrange & Remove Apps from Your iPhone's Home Screen in iOS 13
Whether you're used to 3D Touch or Haptic Touch, deleting and rearranging apps and folders on your iPhone is a little bit different in iOS 13.
How To: The Best Bitcoin Wallet Apps for Your Android Device
Bitcoin continues to make chaotic waves in the finance industry, with one bitcoin currently worth about $1,250 as of this writing. What's great about bitcoin is that you don't need to shell out rent money to get in the game, because bitcoins can be bought in increments—basically, whatever you can afford.
How To: Download your favorite TV shows to your computer
Use a torrent to download your favorite TV shows to your PC or Mac computer. You can also set up RSS feeds to get the newest episodes.
How To: Turn Your Nexus 4 or Nexus 5 into an LG G2 Clone
The advent of a new Nexus phone begins with the bigwigs at Google partnering with a manufacturer, then selecting that manufacturer's flagship as the model for the new Nexus hardware.
How To: Get Majestic App Icons on Your iPhone with This iOS 7 Winterboard Theme
Winterboard for iOS 7 allowed us to use some pretty great-looking themes. Circulus and Space BlueBerry are both great, but a little too "fun" for me. If you want something serious, yet appealing to the eye, then M'flat is for you.
How To: Hack a megaphone into a bionic hearing spy device
Make a bionic hearing spy device by hacking a megaphone! Kipkay brings you this hack video on how to use a megaphone to spy on people. You can pull in conversations up to 100 feet away! Check out Kipkay hiding in a tree, spying on people. It also works through walls. That's how to make a bionic hearing spy device!
How To: Make Your Facebook Profile Pic a Video That Loops
Instead of the still image we've been accustomed to since the inception of Facebook, you also have the option to apply a seven-second video as your profile image, which definitely mixes things up a bit with GIF-like animations. Best of all, this can be done straight from your iPhone or Android device.
How To: Everything You Need to Know About Android Pie's New Adaptive Battery Feature
Battery drain is a major pain point for Android users, though that promises to change thanks to Android Pie's new Adaptive Battery feature. But Google hasn't said much about the inner workings of this feature, only publicly stating that it uses AI to boost battery life. So we dug in to find out what's really going on under the hood.
How To: Remotely Power Off Your Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with a Simple Text Message
Gaining remote access to a phone isn't only for super hackers and spies. There are plenty of times when the average smartphone user would want to have remote access to their device.
How To: Automatically Add Your Shazam Songs to a Rdio or Spotify Playlist
We recently showed you how to recover your Shazam history from Siri, which is a lot less intuitive than finding the songs you've tagged directly in the Shazam app. But with a subscription to Rdio or Spotify, there's no need to even locate your history. You can Shazam songs and have them automatically added to a newly created playlist titled "My Shazam Tracks."
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: Make a rechargeable light / mobile charger powered by USB or solar panels
Samimy is at it again. And this time, his ingenuity has tackled a clever way to take something old and broken and restore it to something new and useful. What are we talking about? Modding a broken hard drive and some busted cell phones into a useful rechargeable USB / solar-powered light, which also acts as a portable mobile charger.
How To: Spy on any iPhone anywhere
Kevin shows the different features and options with the program ownspy, which is through OwnSpy and is capable of tracking through phone a persons location as well as texts and phone calls. He first logs in and the first screen that opens is the tracking screen where you can sync how often the program will update the persons location. The second tab is SMS, which will show you all texts and conversations as well as the length, date, and time. The third tab lists all the persons contacts. The ...
How To: Let others download photos from your MobileMe Gallery
With Apple's MobileMe, you can easily allow your visitors to download beautiful, full quality photographs from your MobileMe Gallery. Check out this video tutorial for all of you newbies out there on sharing your pictures with friends and family, from the Internet. All this can be done, from the safety of your Mac or PC, with the world wide web.
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: Install Android 6.0 Marshmallow on Your Nexus Right Now
Google has finally released the next version of the world's leading operating system—Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This latest iteration isn't as much of a visual overhaul as Lollipop was, but it packs in more new functionality than almost any update before it. Awesome features like Now on Tap, granular permissions control, and a deep sleep battery-saving feature called Doze round out the highlights, but there is far more to it than that.
How To: Get Truly Local Weather Readings from Your Galaxy S5's Built-in Sensors
Your Galaxy S5 is jammed to the brim with all sorts of electronic sensors. These are capable of reading humidity levels, ambient temperature, air pressure, and much more. Yet, while this data is constantly being collected by your phone, there aren't any built-in apps that are capable of displaying much of it.
How To: Build an infrared pen cheaply
Build an infrared pen fast, cheap and easy, just check out this how-to video! There's no need to solder anything. You need scissors, tweezers, an infrared LED, and a light LED pen. Check out this video tutorial and make a fancy infrared pen.
How To: Add “Hey, Snapdragon” Voice Detection to Your OnePlus One
Motorola changed the way users interact with their devices when they introduced their "always listening" feature on the Moto X. When I first saw it demoed, I couldn't wait to get the same functionality on one of my handsets, and now that has finally come to fruition.
How To: Scratch-proof the top layer of an audio CD
If your audio discs aren't playing anymore or constantly skip, then your problem might be scratches. Not just the bottom layer matters on an audio CD. The top layer can scratch just as easily and cause just as many problems. That's why it should be protected, and this video shows you a great hack for protecting your music compact discs. You just need to add an extra thin cover to the top of your CD, which comes from a trashed CD or DVD, for which you need to boil to remove the thin plastic la...
How To: Liven Up Your Background with These Free 3D Parallax Wallpapers for Your Samsung Galaxy S3
The inclusion of the parallax effect caused a shitstorm amongst iPhone users when it was released in iOS 7, especially when it came to creating custom wallpapers. It was hard to control, and even disabling it didn't fully get rid of it, making it one of the most hated new features in Apple's latest mobile OS.
How To: Turn a flatbed scanner into a camera
Want to take an ordinary flatbed scanner and turn it into a camera (that takes some pretty wild photos)? You can and, with the help of this video tutorial from MAKE, you will. For detailed, but simple, step-by-step instructions on assembling your own flatbed scanner camera, take a look at this how-to video!
News: iOS 13's Notes App Is Packing 15 Cool New Features & Changes
For years, Apple's Notes app has been a reliable way to jot down important ideas, tasks, plans, and more. While there are apps on the market that advertise themselves as being more feature-filled than the stock iOS option, Apple is now giving them a run for their money. Here are 14 new features and changes you'll see with Notes in iOS 13.
How To: Get Perfectly Composed, High-Res Selfies on Android Using Your Rear Camera
Maybe it is narcissistic to take selfies, but it has become a socially accepted norm, no matter how stupid you might look doing it. Since so many people are seemingly in love with themselves and mobile photography, I thought it was about time to show you how to step up your selfie game.
How To: Beam Any File You Want from Your Nexus 5 to Another Android Device
Your Nexus 5 comes with a pretty cool feature baked in called Android Beam. Using NFC, or Near Field Communication, this functionality allows you to send information to another compatible device by simply touching the two together. Most flagship devices have NFC built into them these days, so there is a broad range of devices that your Nexus 5 is capable of sharing information with wirelessly.