Hot Smartphones Posts

How To: See Who's Viewed Your TikTok Profile (And How to Stop Them from Knowing You Visited Theirs)

Most of you have probably wondered at least once who has been checking out your social media profiles. While most platforms prohibit you from seeing who's viewed your profile, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, TikTok is one of the few places that lets you track profile visitors. And unlike with LinkedIn, you don't have to pay for the privilege.

How To: Import Apple Calendar Events into Google Calendar on iPhone or Android

If you have devices that run different operating systems, you know how frustrating it is that Apple's Calendar app isn't available on other platforms. If you use Siri to quickly create an event on your iPhone or Mac, you're not going to see that event on your PC or Android tablet unless you sync your calendar to another service.

How To: Invite People to Messenger Group Chats with a Link So They Can Join Right Away or Wait on Approval

While some of our group chats should probably remain private and closed off, others will only get better with more people. Whether you're organizing an event and need a headcount or you want to share a funny YouTube video with a large crowd, you can add all the friends you wish to on Facebook Messenger by sending them a unique link.

How To: Redial Busy Phone Lines Automatically on Your iPhone or Android Phone

Whether you're calling the unemployment office, a popular radio contest, or any other phone line that gets super busy, having to recall the number manually is a pain. Whatever you do, however, don't punch in the same digits over again and again — our smartphones can help do it for us, saving our time (and sanity).

How To: Make the Perfect Finsta That No One Will Ever Find

Everything you post on social media lives there forever — even if you delete it. Just ask anyone that's ever posted something stupid. Instagram does not provide built-in tools to save or download images and videos from other users, but there are workarounds. Third-party tools make saving other people's photos and videos easy, and there are always screenshots.

How To: Rename Your Original Sound to Make Your TikTok Video More Shareable

TikTok is a video-platform first, and while visual content is critical to its popularity, what has carried many of these videos to millions upon millions of views isn't only what you see but what you hear.

Google Photos 101: How to Use Google Lens to Save Contact Info from Business Cards

Business cards are a great way to keep tabs on the contacts we network with. So why shouldn't our smartphones make them even more useful? Enter Google Lens, which will help you save, search, and expand on the contact information found on all of the business cards you've collected.

How To: Verify Your Bumble Account to Help Fight Catfishing

As the stigma of online dating fades and swiping potential suitors on your phone becomes the new norm, one very real issue that you may have to deal with is catfishing: the act of being deceived by a fictional online persona. Although dating apps do their best to weed out fake accounts, a few of them slip through the cracks and take advantage of innocent people just looking for a connection.

How To: See What Traffic Will Be Like at a Specific Time with Google Maps

As intuitive as Google Maps is for finding the best routes, it never let you choose departure and arrival times in the mobile app. This feature has long been available on the desktop site, allowing you to see what traffic should be like at a certain time and how long your drive would take at a point in the future. Fortunately, Google has finally added this feature to the app for iPhone and Android.

How To: Make Spoofed Calls Using Any Phone Number You Want Right from Your Smartphone

Spoofed phone calls originate from one source that's disguising its phone number as a different one, and you probably get these calls all the time. Maybe they're numbers from your local area code or for prominent businesses, but the callers are just hijacking those digits to fool you into picking up. Turns out, making a spoofed call is something anybody can do — even you.

How To: Find Out Whether Your Phone Has an LCD or AMOLED Display (& Why It Matters)

When it comes to smartphone screens, there are two predominant technologies—the traditional LCD panel, and the newer AMOLED display. Most phones still use LCD screens, as the tech is more cost-effective due to its longstanding reign as the primary display type in TVs, smartphones, and tablets.

News: I Met Magic Leap's AI Assistant Mica & Saw the Future of Augmented Reality

Unlike VR, when you're talking about augmented reality, describing what an experience is like can be incredibly difficult — primarily because the experiences are even more contextual than relatively static virtual worlds that don't involve real-world settings.

How To: The Trick That Lets You Link to Specific Start Times in YouTube Videos Right from Your Phone

You can add a timestamp to any YouTube video in just a few clicks from the desktop website on your computer but not from YouTube's iOS or Android app. Until YouTube adds a "start time" when sharing videos from the mobile app, you'll have to use one of these workarounds on your phone or tablet.

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: There's a Super Easy Way to Select Multiple Pictures in Google Photos

Selecting multiple pictures or videos in Google Photos can be tedious. Usually, you'd long press on the first image to select it, then tap on other pictures one by one to select them as well. But there is a much easier and faster way to do this.

How To: Set Up Instagram Recovery Codes So You Can Always Access Your Account with 2FA Enabled

Two-factor authentication (also known as 2FA) adds a necessary additional layer of security to your username and password in many important apps. On Instagram, 2FA requires you to confirm it's you attempting to log in, with a special code sent to you via text message. Enter the code and you're in ... but what happens when you need to log in and don't have access to your phone?

How To: Add Variety to Your Favorite Pandora Stations

Whether you're out for a drive, commuting to work, or just taking a stroll, listening to your favorite tracks on Pandora takes the legwork out of choosing which songs to play next. After a while, however, you go-to playlist can get repetitive, as the same songs from the same artists seem to play over and over. Luckily, Pandora makes it easy to add variety to your stations in just a few taps.

How To: This Hidden Setting Is the Trick to Uploading HD Videos on Your TikTok Profile

You might have noticed some of the videos you upload to TikTok don't always look great. If you think the answer is that you need a DSLR, you're wrong. The blurriness, pixelation, and overall bad quality that can happen in your uploaded videos is probably not your smartphone's fault — it might be because you aren't uploading your videos in HD.

How To: Block Your Phone Number from Appearing on Any Caller ID

Caller ID is great to have, but there are certain situations where you don't want the person you're calling to have your number. People who sometimes use their personal phones for work may not want clients knowing where to reach them outside of work, and anytime you're dealing with Craigslist, it's better to be safe than sorry.

How To: Unroll a Twitter Thread for Easier Reading

While tweetstorms were a part of Twitter since the beginning, threads, which makes tweetstorms more viable, didn't show up until late-2017. Still, threading multiple tweets at once to create long-form stories, opinions, tirades, and other lengthy Twitter posts, can be hard to digest. However, you can make reading them easier with just a single message.

News: Google Extends AR Search Lead Over Apple with Landmark Recognition for Google Lens

This week, Apple unveiled its own version of Google Lens in the form of Live Text. In response, Google just hit back with a new feature for its visual search tool called Places, a new search category that can recognize landmarks and return information on them within the camera view, which Apple touted as a capability of Live Text during its WWDC keynote.

How To: 5 Major Privacy Concerns with 5G

For all the benefits 5G brings to cellular data, it isn't without weaknesses, the biggest being privacy. Yes, the latest standard comes with breakneck downloads speeds up to 4.3 Gbps, but at what cost? Like with all things on the internet, 5G devices open opportunities for both good and bad actors.

News: Royal Australian Air Force Using HoloLens to Experiment with Augmented Reality

The limitless applications of 3D data visualization will enable a more efficient approach to many of life's problems. Each day, developers exploring this technology are finding new ways to solve these problems in mixed reality; 3D modeling, easier house management, spinal surgery, and forest fire management are just a few recent examples of ways 3D data visualization can benefit us all.

How To: Find All the Reels You Liked & Saved on Instagram

So, you're trying to show a friend or two a hilarious Reel you liked or saved on Instagram, but where is it? Unlike TikTok, Instagram doesn't make it clear where you're supposed to find your liked and saved Reels. Luckily, we can help.

How To: This Is the Quickest Way to Add a New Contact on Any Phone

The awkward silence when you're adding someone's name and number to your contacts is worse than usual since you're meeting a new person and this is part of their first impression of you. So don't get labeled as clumsy or slow before you even get a chance to network with your new contact — just whip out your phone and confidently showcase this trick instead.

How To: Prevent People Who Have Your Contact Information from Finding Your Instagram Account

Sharing your personal information can come up for any number of reasons: you may want to get in touch with a colleague after work or you've been involved in a car accident and need to stay in contact with the other driver. Unfortunately, giving out information can be the key for others to find your social media accounts, such as Instagram, whether you want it to happen or not.

How To: Play Pokémon Go Like a Pro with These Companion Apps for iPhone and Android Phones

When the topic of Pokémon Go comes up, the typical response is, "Do people still play it?" The answer is a resounding yes!

How To: Send Star Wars Emoji in Text Messages & Chats

Why are there no official Star Wars emoji in the Unicode Standard? We've got the "Vulcan Salute" from Star Trek, so where's the force choke hand gesture?! While you may never see Star Wars officially invade your emoji keyboard, there are ways to send Star Wars emoji and stickers to your friends in your favorite chat app.

How To: I Tried 5 Different Pomodoro Apps Over 5 Days — Here's Which Helped Me Get the Most Done

Procrastination is an ugly beast. At first, it seems so innocent to spend five minutes checking Reddit or Twitter. You'll get started on work right after. Next thing you know, it's 1 a.m. and that paper is due in seven hours. Before you start another YouTube video, know you don't have to be like Spongebob. You can be like me, taking control of your productivity with the right app.

How To: Disable Vanish Mode in Facebook Messenger & Instagram

Facebook recently implemented "Vanish Mode" into Messenger and Instagram, which lets you have an end-to-end encrypted conversation in a chat that will disappear as soon as you leave the thread. As cool as it sounds, it's easy to enable accidentally, and a friend could force you into using it. In some cases, that may not be ideal since everything you or the recipient said will disappear.

Google Photos 101: How to Use Google Lens to Identify Landmarks in Your Images

When traveling or sightseeing, you may come across a landmark you can't quite identify and want to know what exactly it is and the history behind it. It could be a building, waterfall ... anything. If there are no signs around or they're in a different language, you'll have no idea what you're looking at. Fortunately, Google Photos can be your personal tour guide with the power of Google Lens.

Snapseed 101: Use the 'Healing' Tool to Remove Unwanted Elements from a Photo

Snapseed is an app that you should definitely be using not only if you're really serious about photography, but also if you want to ensure that your online work sets the standard for social media. It's a great companion app to Instagram and VSCO, and it will save your day many times over when you find yourself on your phone, on-the-go, needing to edit an image beyond the typical everyday filters.

How To: Change the Notification Sound & Call Ringtone in Facebook Messenger

When you hear a "ding" on your phone, chances are it's a new notification for Facebook Messenger, and it could be a fairly painful sound depending on how loud your volume's set. Thankfully, you aren't stuck with this singular alert option, so if you're unhappy with both this sound and the call ringtone, you can change it to something else — something less distressing.

How To: 5 Apps That Let You Make Calls Without Giving Out Your Real Number

Throwaway phones aren't just for seedy criminals and spies—they can be useful for many everyday situations.

How To: Use Your Smartphone as a Keyboard for Your Smart TV

With more digital content than ever, the search feature on smart TVs is essential. But typing is such a terrible experience when you're forced to use voice dictation or peck around with the remote control. Thankfully, there's a better way.

How To: 3 Easy Steps to Fixing Stuck Buttons on Your Phone or Tablet

As we go about our daily grind, our smartphones and tablets take a silent beating. Dirt, dust, oil, and grime that our hands have picked up immediately gets transferred over to our shiny pocket-sized computers every time we check the time or look for new notifications, and over the course of months, this can have a very noticeable adverse effect.

How To: We Tested the Best Burner Phone Apps for iPhone & Android — Here's Our Top 4

A burner number isn't just for criminals and cheating spouses. In this digital world, with many of our interactions being conducted online, a throwaway phone number acts as a buffer — it lets you enjoy the web without having to give out your personal information, such as real name or phone number.

How To: The Specs That Really Count When Buying a Phone

When shopping for a new smartphone, you'll encounter comparisons and spec sheets that are filled to the brim with values like mAh, GB, and GHz. To the average consumer, however, these values are meaningless, so we end up looking at which device has the specs with the highest actual numbers.

How To: Video Too Long for Instagram Stories? Here's How to Split It Up

One of the latest trends in Instgram is breaking up larger videos into more digestible clips to use in stories. Stories max out at 15 seconds, making it a pain to show anything meaningful in that short time frame. Fortunately, you can virtually extend the duration of your Stories on both your iPhone and Android phone.

How To: Make Any App Work with Android's Split Screen Mode in 30 Seconds Flat

Ever tried using Android's split screen mode only to find the app you wanted to split doesn't support it? Even big-name apps like ESPN still don't support the feature despite the majority of Android devices having split screen. So instead of waiting for the developers, how about we just force compatibility?