DC's highly anticipated new Justice League movie is opening tonight, and Google just pushed out a nice treat for Android fans heading out to the movie. Over on the official Android Twitter account, we found a few exclusive "Android x Justice League" wallpapers featuring our favorite bugdroid.
The advantages of rooting are vast. From free wi-fi tethering, being on the latest and greatest software, theming all aspects of the OS, to ditching Touchwiz for a pure Google experience and much much more.
When it comes to mobile gaming, you have a lot of fantastic options. Most flagship devices on the market, such as the Galaxy Note 8, iPhone 8 Plus, or OnePlus 5T, are perfectly capable of giving you an excellent, immersive experience. If you're looking for the ultimate way to experience Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp or something with more action like Into the Dead 2, the Razer Phone is the winner.
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.
Smartphones don't generally play nice with tripods, so videos taken with our handheld devices make terrible source material for time-lapse photography.
Smartphones like the Nexus 6 and those in the Samsung Galaxy Note series border on being called tablets due to the sheer size of their displays. They are essentially "phablets," i.e., devices too large to be a typical smartphone, yet too small to be a tablet.
Google Now is a wonderfully powerful service—with its predictive cards and voice search, it serves as a great starting point for any searches you need done. In fact, Samsung liked it so much that they decided to build the "Okay, Google" hotword detection right into the Galaxy S5's stock launcher.
If you haven't used a Samsung device in a few years, the Galaxy S20 series will be your first taste of One UI 2, the skin running on top of Android 10. Although One UI is on the heavier side, it has loads of exciting features that go beyond what's offered in stock Android.
Sorry Samsung. I know you really wanted Bixby to be the next Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa — but it just isn't. Burying the option to disable the app won't change that. Sure, Bixby has some redeeming qualities, but there are many of us who don't want it shoved down our throats. We'll show you how to disable the app to prevent it from launching every time you try to access just about anything.
It was only a few years ago when the idea of a 5+ inch display on a smartphone was unreal. With most hovering around four inches at the time, a phone that big seemed impossible to hold. We've come a long way since then, but it appears another wave of large displays will soon hit us, and they are all at least six inches.
You may have noticed improved photo quality in the Android Snapchat app in recent months. Believe it or not, this is because Snapchat only just recently started using a decade-old camera API that predates every Android phone in existence.
Video chatting has become an important factor in the overall smartphone experience. Even just a few years ago, 37% of teens were making video calls on a regular basis, and that number has surely grown. 85% of households with infants have used video chat apps to call relatives in other cities, and it's been shown that toddlers can create bonds and learn from visual cues in video calls.
When the Galaxy S6 hype-train was building momentum ahead of the phone's release, many reports had Samsung cutting back on its much-maligned TouchWiz skin. In the end, these reports were either highly exaggerated or entirely fabricated, because while not as egregious as previous devices, Samsung's signature bloated UI and duplicate apps are definitely present on the Galaxy S6.
The Galaxy S5's fingerprint scanner feels like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. Giving you the ability to lock your device without having to fuss with a PIN or password every time you go to use it, the feature is definitely one of the device's main selling points, especially now that you can use it to unlock individual apps.
I'll give Samsung credit where it's due—the stock keyboard on the Galaxy S5 is actually pretty nice. There's a dedicated number row that resides at the top (something that the Google Keyboard needs a hack to achieve), and various settings exist to make switching between languages a breeze.
Your beloved Samsung Galaxy S3 is nearing the end of its life cycle. Sure, it can do most of what newer devices can, especially if you were lucky enough to receive the KitKat update, but your diminishing battery and scratched up screen have seen better days.
Amongst the many rumors emerging about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4, one that seems like a fairly sure bet is the inclusion of Google's Photo Sphere feature.
Stock prices be damned, HTC is ready to right the ship with it's soon-to-be-released follow up to the HTC One. The financially challenged device maker, according to inside sources, plans a March release for it's newest flagship.
It's no secret that Google is all about AI. In their eyes, machine learning is the future of software development, and you can see evidence of this all over the last couple Android updates. They've used it to power all sorts of features in their Pixel phones, and they've even donated some of their AI smarts to AOSP for all Android manufacturers to share. But it looks like Samsung isn't exactly on board.
KNOX is a major pain for Samsung owners who like to modify their devices. Its combination of hardware and software security measures make things rather difficult when you're trying to modify system-level files and functions without voiding your warranty.
Russians are well known for their knack at documenting exciting and horribly beautiful events on the go, from insane car accidents to attempted insurance fraud and even a superbolide meteor streaking across the sky.
One thing that gets overlooked on Facebook is the amount of videos you can watch, and I'm not just talking about videos uploaded directly by Facebook users—I mean everything ever shared—YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Vimeo, etc.
Forum member Luciano posted a terrific guide on adding hacks to our phone by editing build.prop. The article was great, but one of best things I saw in it was the "What You'll Need" section:
If you have a Samsung device, you probably know the hassle of dealing with both the Galaxy Store and the Google Play Store at the same time for apps. Samsung's offering is forced onto you whether you like it or not; however, it's the only way to officially receive essential updates for your Samsung apps. The good news? You can keep on top of these updates with a super simple trick.
Biometrics have a major flaw: they don't work well with personal protective equipment. Whether it's a mask obscuring facial recognition or gloves blocking the fingerprint scanner, it's a lot harder to unlock your phone when you're wearing the proper PPE. Thankfully, there are a few ways to speed things up.
Apple got rid of the iPhone's home button and assigned its long-press action (Siri) to the power button. Since it now did more than sleep and wake the screen and bring up the power off dialog, they renamed it the "Side button." Well, Samsung just removed the Bixby key, and they're taking the same approach.
Amid the coronavirus chaos, two companies at the forefront of augmented reality technology took starkly different approaches to their upcoming developers conferences, as Facebook has canceled its annual F8 conference and Magic Leap plans to invite a limited number of attendees to its Florida headquarters for LEAP Developer Days.
Despite their awkward appearance, Apple's AirPods have become the earbuds of choice for working out, largely thanks to quality audio without any wires to tangle. However, at $159 to start, they aren't exactly for everyone.
While you can now apply a dark theme to Samsung Messages thanks to One UI, you may want to further personalize your texting app. A great way to do this is by applying a custom font, which not only enhances the app aesthetically, but can also go a long way towards making your texts more readable and help you process information better.
Samsung's Galaxy S9 was recently announced with features like AR Emoji and Dual Aperture, but great functionality lives underneath them — such as the ability to have your home screen auto-rotate to landscape mode. It's a nice feature, but with a little work, you can already do this on any Android phone.
Apple's Animojis took the world by storm with their ease of use and fluidity. They added new life to your emojis by mapping your face with the technology that lives inside the iPhone X. Now, Samsung is also adding new life to emjojis with the introduction of AR Emojis in the Galaxy S9 and S9+.
Apple's Animoji on the iPhone X might allow you to use your own facial movements to control your favorite emoji, but Samsung is looking to make you the focus of the interactive icon with the introduction of AR Emoji. Instead of a dragon or an alien, Samsung wants your unique look to define your avatar.
New emojis are coming with the Android Oreo update for Galaxy S8 and S8+. Samsung Experience 9.0 has been updated to Emoji 5.0, adding 239 brand new emojis when you take into account gender and skin tone variants. While there are minor changes across the board, we wanted to focus on the newly created emojis so you'll know what's available to you.
The Galaxy S8 Oreo Beta has been out for just over a week now. Over that time, we've taken a look at some of the best new features and improvements. One area of smartphone software that never gets much love in updates is the lock screen. Samsung changes that in the Oreo beta, bringing new colorization options that match lock screen info to your wallpaper.
Just as we started running through the features packed into the Android Oreo beta for the Galaxy S8, Samsung has started pushing out the second beta to eligible devices. According to DroidVendor, the update is rolling out as build G955USQU1ZQK1 for the Galaxy S8 Plus. The rollout should arrive as an OTA for anyone that is currently running the first beta.
This week, Samsung officially kicked off the Oreo Beta Program for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in North America and several other markets. The full list of changes is quite substantial, so we'll be running through them in a series of posts detailing what's new. First up, the Galaxy phones inherit notification channels from Android 8.0.
Bixby — Samsung's voice-activated digital assistant — has been delayed again because the software still can't recognize English. Although Samsung claims Bixby can execute 15,000 tasks, it appears it's inability to master English is a major obstacle that's preventing its full release in the United States.
Everyone feels a little safer with Android's security updates, which are welcome and often necessary protective measures. But what happens when the update that's supposed to safeguard your phone actually ends up wreaking havoc with its security system?
As a former repair tech, I've heard the same reasons over and over as to why people opt not to purchase phone insurance. Some cite the cost—why pay extra every month for insurance when you're careful with your phone? Deductibles are expensive, so why not just spend that money on a repair instead of getting a refurbished phone as a replacement?
Despite its battery issues, the Samsung Galaxy Note7 is one impressive piece of machinery. Packed to the brim with loads of RAM, a top-notch GPU, and one of the best processors on the market, this thing should be able to zip through any task you throw at it with lightning-fast speed.
