Custom ROMs are one of the best advantages of rooting Android. With a custom ROM, you can enjoy a wide range of benefits – and yes, a few downsides. Why would you install a custom ROM? Should you install a custom ROM? Here are a few important things to remember about Android custom ROMs. What is a ROM? A custom ROM is a file package which contains the core version of Android and additional customized code. If you use a Samsung or HTC device, you’re already using a custom ROM:…
In the tech industry, “innovation” means taking what your competitors are doing and making it better. However, in the latest iOS8 update, Apple took that message a little differently: let’s take what Android is doing and add those features directly to iOS without really improving or changing them in any way. Don’t believe me? Check out the visual evidence below. 5) “Hey Siri” Apple clearly liked Android’s always-on listening capabilities. On Android, you can say “OK…
The resolution wars are officially on. Today, full HD resolution (1920x1080p) is the standard on all new smartphones and tablets. Over the next year, we’re going to see smartphones with quad HD displays (2560x1440). We’ve already seen the LG G3 with its beautiful quad HD display and the Note 4 will also feature the same resolution – according to early rumors and reports. One thing we haven’t seen on Android, however, is 4K resolution. That changed this past week when Qualcomm…
Game of Thrones fans need no introduction to Hodor, the lovable, “slow-witted” stable boy incapable of saying anything but his name. Over and over again. Most people were content to leave Hodor in the Game of Thrones universe. But one mobile developer was not content. Instead, that mobile developer decided to create a Hodor keyboard and it may be the most useless app in the history of Android. Here’s what this app does: -Every word you type gets translated into the word…
iOS8 was recently announced and, although this is an Android blog, we still have to talk about Android’s biggest competitor. iOS8 isn’t the biggest iOS update ever, nor is it the smallest. It adds a number of new features that will appeal to niche groups of iPhone users. More importantly, iOS8 puts pressure on Google. Google needs to knock Android 4.5 (or Android 5.0) out of the park while addressing some key Android problems: like its malware distribution and fragmentation. Here…
Have you ever been lost in a foreign city? Most travelers have, at some point or another, totally lost their way in a confusing city. That’s usually when travellers break out the Google Maps app and wait for the satellite to find their location. But with a new app called Instago, you can combine the accuracy of Google Maps with the personalized viewpoint of Street View to figure out where you are and where you need to go. Personally, one of the most confusing parts about Google…
For whatever reason, “health” is the trend of the year in the smartphone world. The Galaxy S5 kicked off the craze with S Health and its heartbeat sensor, while Apple furthered health mania 2014 with its HealthKit app. Google recently released a large update for its MyTracks fitness tracking app. That app is available for free on the Google Play Store and provides many of the same features of other fitness tracking apps – but with all the tasty cross-platform compatibility…
When I first saw the picture of the Galaxy W, I legitimately thought it was a joke picture created by Apple fans to make fun of how large Android devices have become. Unfortunately, the Galaxy W is a real Android device that takes smartphones to a whole new dimension: 7 inches. The Galaxy W officially blurs the lines between smartphones and tablets. Announced by Samsung earlier this week, the Galaxy W has quickly been nicknamed the “Galaxy WTF” due to its bizarrely large size and…
Android enthusiasts are serious about rooting. They’re so serious, in fact, that they’ve offered an $18,000 bounty to anyone who can crack the Galaxy S5. That $18,000 bounty was crowdfunded by the folks at the XDA Developers Forum. Users of that forum are typically advanced Android users and app developers. When these users discovered that they couldn’t root their Verizon and AT&T Galaxy S5s using the same methods as other Galaxy S5 rooters, they freaked out. You can read the…
Yesterday was Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). At WWDC 2014, Apple announced iOS 8 and a new Mac operating system called Mac OS Yosemite. But I’m not here to talk about either of those things: I’m here to talk about what Apple CEO Tim Cook said about Android and its users because it’s actually pretty funny. Over the course of his speech, Tim Cook repeatedly slammed Android and worked the crowd into a frenzy feeding off their pro-Apple fervor. Cook,…
