You may have heard about a crazy new smartphone called the Blackphone. The Blackphone is calling itself the most secure Android smartphone ever built. And by all accounts, that claim seems accurate. The Blackphone is made by Geeksphone and Silent Circle and uses a heavily modified version of Android KitKat called PrivatOS. The Blackphone started accepting preorders back in February. However, it took until the start of July for those preorders to start shipping. It’s not cheap: it…
When something is called a “lock” screen, you expect it to be locked. Unfortunately, the recent Google Now update removes two critical locks from your lock screen and exposes a potential security hole in Android. Specifically, enabling the OK Google Everywhere function lets anyone place calls directly from the lockscreen. You can simply say “OK Google, Call ” from the locked phone screen to place a call. There are some restrictions: the contact has to be in your contact book,…
Back in March 2013, I told you about a new Facebook experiment called Facebook Home. Facebook Home was the long-awaited Facebook Phone. It was essentially a UI overlay that replaced your existing UI with a Facebook-centric UI. One phone, the HTC First, even came with Facebook Home pre-installed, which made the HTC First the unofficial “Facebook Phone” that had been rumored for so long. Anyways, to cut a long story short, Facebook home was not what the consumers wanted. In a…
Booking a taxi had never been hassle-free and you never can’t seem to catch one when you really need it. Apart from this, there are so many things to take into consideration in order for the service to be reliable. Sometimes the taxis are just a no-show! However, all that is about to change with a nifty Android app named Taxi Beat that’s going to revolutionize the way you book a cab and make the process easy and user friendly so you no longer have to fret about it. It allows you to…
Floating notifications have been around Android for a few years. However, you’ve always had to root Android in order to access them. Today, I’m pleased to tell you that’s no longer the case. Thanks to a free app called Floatify, anyone can install floating notifications just like the ones you see in Android L. You can download Floatify for free from the Google Play Store here. The app is easy to setup and customize. After installing the app, your incoming notifications will…
At the end of June, Google released the Android L Developer Preview. The preview was only officially released on the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7. However, that didn’t stop Android fans from porting Android L to their favorite devices. Today, we’re proud to tell you how to download Android L for your Nexus 4. Thanks to XDA Developers Forum members sykopompos and defconoi, you can easily download the new Android L preview for your Nexus 4. Apparently, those two developers have been working…
It’s easy to hate auto-correct. Nobody has ever tried to spell “ducking” intentionally, but auto-correct remains a driving force in our texting lives. As much as you hate auto-correct, it does help us avoid common texting mistakes. Sometimes, it’s useful. And in other cases, it’s awful. That’s why you need an auto-correct toggle button. Thanks to a member of the XDA Developers Forum named theknut, you can easily install that button. Theknut’s toggle is very simple: you…
Nokia is trying to make its app store a worthy competitor to Google’s Play Store. In order to do that, it has to attract developers. That’s why Nokia came up with the creative Xtreme Coding Challenge, where developers are challenged to show themselves publishing apps to the Nokia store in extreme conditions. So far, we’ve seen one extremely memorably entry: a developer went hangliding over Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and found the time to publish an app while he was in the…
If there’s one thing Android fanboys love to do, it’s making fun of Apple fanboys. Whether you call them iSheep or Apple fanatics, few of us agree with their choice of smartphone. Samsung loves trolling Apple. Sometimes, Samsung trolls Apple with its expert defense of silly patent lawsuits. In other cases, Samsung trolls Apple with funny commercials. After the success of its “Next Big Thing” lineup of advertisements, Samsung has decided to take Apple trolling one step further…
VLC for Android is finally here! Sorta. VLC for Android has released its first beta. Nearly two years after the VLC app was first announced, VLC is finally making its way onto the world’s most popular mobile operating system. VLC, in case you didn’t already know, lets you play any video file or format without downloading expensive codecs or complex software programs. It’s lightweight, free, and extremely easy-to-use. You can download the VLC beta from here. It’s currently…
