Smartphones How-Tos
How To: Scan Your Surroundings with Google Maps Live View to Calibrate Your Location
Google Maps Live View is already one of the more useful examples of augmented reality on smartphones that is available to the average consumer today.
How To: Share Your Phone's Screen with Friends in Facebook Messenger Video Chats
Screen recording is an essential tool for sharing what's on our smartphones. If you want to send your friends and family an unsharable video you're watching, or a neat trick you discovered on your phone, recording your screen is one way to do so. Messenger, Facebook's standalone chat app, simplifies the experience by implementing live screen shares directly in video calls.
How To: Add PayPal to Google Pay as a Payment Method to Use in Gmail, YouTube & Other Google Services
On Android, you can connect your PayPal account to Google Pay so that you can use that as a payment option when checking out with Google's digital wallet platform. It even works across Google services like the Play Store, Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Store. If you have an iPhone, you can also use PayPal via Google Pay, but what you can do is limited.
How To: Anonymously View Instagram Stories & Posts Without an Account
Instagram makes it easy to view a public account without that person or business knowing unless, you know, your finger accidentally slips and hits the like button on a post. Aside from that, if you're careful, you can browse anonymously through an account without anyone noticing — only you can't do that with Instagram Stories.
How To: See All the Pictures You've Taken with an Interactive Heat Map in Google Photos
Google Photos is one of the most useful apps for storing, sorting, searching, and sharing all of the photos and videos you capture on your smartphone — but if you travel, it just got a lot more useful.
How To: Apple Added 8 Key Android Features to iOS 14 & It's a Big Deal if You're on the Fence About iPhones
The smartphone market is stagnating. Without hordes of new users rolling in every year, the best way to boost profits nowadays is to poach customers from the competition. That's exactly what Apple appears to be doing with iOS 14.
How To: 4 Tips to Improve YouTube Music Recommendations — Make 'Discover' & 'Your Mix' So Much Better
Now that the transfer tool for migrating your Google Play Music library to YouTube Music is rolling out, more fans of the former, which will meet its end in 2020, are giving its replacement a try.
How To: Share Your Smartphone's Screen in Google Meet
Now that Google Meet is free for anyone with a Gmail address, you can expect to see invites from Google's service alongside Zoom calls.
How To: 19 Messenger Tips for Mastering Video Chats & Group Video Calls
Facebook Messenger is a messaging app first, but of its more than 1.3 billion monthly users, 32 percent use its video chat feature at least once every month. While it may seem pretty straightforward to video call with family and friends on Messenger, there are many tips and tricks that can help enhance your experience.
How To: 5 Ways to Communicate Safely on Your Smartphone — Keep Police & Big Data Out of Your Conversations
It is well documented that what you say and do online is tracked. Yes, private organizations do their best to protect your data from hackers, but those protections don't extend to themselves, advertisers, and law enforcement.
How To: Get Your Favorite Local Business into Pokémon GO
A side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is that small businesses are suffering from forced closures and social distancing, but game developer Niantic has a solution.
How To: Join in the First-Ever Virtual Pokémon GO Fest
With the global COVID-19 pandemic preventing Pokémon GO players from venturing into the real world, developer Niantic has adapted the game for trainers to play in a socially-distanced manner.
How To: Communicate Offline — No Wi-Fi, Cell Reception, or Mobile Data Needed
Almost 20% of the US population (about 60 million Americans) live in rural areas where mobile reception is weak or nonexistent. In times of crisis, these Americans can't rely on the internet to communicate with loved ones or receive new information. This is why being able to interact offline is so important.
How To: Here's What That 5G+ Icon in Your Status Bar Really Means
When you look at the top corner of your phone, what do you see? Upon upgrading to Android 11 or iOS 14, you'll see either "5G," "5G+," or "5G E" if you're connected to the right network. But what exactly do these symbols mean? They indicate not only if you're using 5G, but also what type you're connected to.
How To: Don't Record Police with Your Regular Camera App — Use the ACLU's to Make Sure It Gets Uploaded Right Away
With thousands of people across the country protesting, you might be thinking about joining the march. But as is too often the case, law enforcement has been called to oversee the protests, and interactions aren't always peaceful or lawful.
How To: Show Your Support for Social Causes with AR Lenses from Snapchat, Instagram & More
For the average consumer, augmented reality is a fun way of dressing up photos and videos for social media. However, AR is also gaining momentum as a medium for storytelling, particularly in sharing powerful messages.
How To: 4 Smartphone Tips to Help You Stay Safe During the Country's Reopening
It is a scary time to be alive. As states start to ease back shelter-in-place restrictions, the new world you're entering is still unsafe. With a vaccine months away, your best bet is to follow CDC guidelines and use the tools at your disposal.
How To: Download HBO Max Movies & TV Shows in the Highest Quality on Your Phone
Whether you're binging "Friends," "Game of Thrones," or Harry Potter movies, if you want to watch HBO Max downloads in the highest quality possible, you can't just use the default settings. Without doing the legwork, the TV shows and films you download onto your iPhone or Android phone will be lower quality than the full HD version you can have.
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.
How To: Everything You Should Do Before Posting Protest Photos & Videos on Social Media
As protests surge in the wake of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer, powerful photographs and videos from the demonstrations have gripped the world, putting our nation's very real and very justifiable widespread civil unrest out into the digital world. Unfortunately, these pictures could put you or others in danger if precautions aren't taken before uploading them online.
How To: Make Sure You're Getting the Fastest 5G Speeds on Your Phone
Not all 5G is equal. Even if you dropped the cash on a true 5G phone and you see it's connected to 5G in the status bar, that doesn't mean you're surfing the web, streaming Spotify, and binging Netflix faster than your friends with LTE phones.
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: Everything You Need to Know About 5G — Answers to the Most Common Questions
We are now in the age of 5G. Carriers worldwide are upgrading their networks to the newest standard for mobile, which will dramatically improve your phone experience. How? By giving it download speeds and latency that surpass Wi-Fi. But before you upgrade, there are few things you should know first.
How To: Every 5G Phone That Works on AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon in the US — An Always-Updated List
You will likely have a 5G-capable phone within two years. Each carrier is working hard to improve its coverage for the next standard in mobile networks, and though the technology is fairly new and only a handful of phones support it right now, this will change very soon.
How To: Wipe & Obfuscate Identifying Information in Your Protest Photos for More Anonymous Sharing
Every single photo you take carries with it a considerable amount of seemingly "invisible" yet important information known as metadata. Although metadata is usually helpful to sort your photographs by location and date, that same information could potentially be used against you, especially if the pictures are taken during a precarious situation.
How To: Change Your HBO Max User Profile Image
Many streaming services offer user profiles for different people in your household, some of which also include profile images. In most cases, you can set a custom profile image to better differentiate and personalize your account from the others, and HBO Max lets you do the same, albeit, with limited options.
How To: Only Buy a 5G Phone Right Now if You're Okay with These 4 Problems
No doubt, you've heard a lot about 5G lately. This might have you looking at your current 4G phone and lamenting your inability to connect to the faster network. But is 5G worth buying a new phone over, and should you buy one right now?
How To: Try Out Instagram's Wild New AR Effects That Dance to the Music & Remix Your Photos
While Snapchat had a head start in making augmented camera effects popular on smartphones, Facebook has spent the past few years in hot pursuit, with no less than three apps offering mobile AR experiences, plus its Portal hardware lineup of smart home devices.
How To: Stream & Download HBO Max Over Cellular Data
HBO Max is finally here, all while unlimited cellular data plans have never been more available. The two seem like a perfect pair, but you might find that you can't binge "Friends" or "Westworld" on the go. At least, not without downloading episodes beforehand. Fortunately, there's an easy way to fix that.
How To: HBO Max Subscribes You to Its Newsletter Automatically — Here's How to Opt-Out
HBO Max promises to entertain you with hours upon hours of content, from shows like "Friends" and "Game of Thrones" to movies like "Joker" and all eight Harry Potters. The company wants to keep you in the loop on all things "Max," so it signs you up for a newsletter to do just that. That might not sit well with you, but don't worry — there's a simple way to opt-out right now.
How To: Get Back Your Watch List for HBO Max — Before or After Upgrading from HBO Now or HBO Go
As of May 27, HBO Max is taking over your HBO Now or HBO Go account. If you have your devices set up to auto-install new app updates, you should pause it right now if your HBO app hasn't been updated yet. There's one thing you'll want to do before you make the leap. However, you're not out of luck if you already upgraded.
How To: Make a Smooth Transition from HBO Now to HBO Max
If you were upset about "Friends" leaving Netflix, fret no more. The entire series, all eight Harry Potter movies, as well as HBO's massive catalog, are now available as part of HBO Max. If you're already an HBO Now subscriber, however, it can be a bit confusing to know how to switch over to this brand new service. Here's how.
How To: Here's the Difference Between Real 5G & Fake 5G
5G is undoubtedly the future of mobile networks, and there's a good chance your next phone will have it. But just like with 4G, as carriers race to get the best 5G coverage, the ones running behind are abusing marketing terms to make themselves seem further ahead than they actually are.
How To: Is 5G Available in Your Area? Here's How to Check
In 2009, 4G LTE networks rolled out in Stockholm and Oslo, replacing 3G as a better upgrade to the mobile data technology that gives us the broadband speeds we have on our mobile devices. Over a decade later, and we have the latest, next-generation wireless network technology among us, 5G, but can you even use it?
How To: Set Up a Private Facebook Room for Video Chat
It's open season on Zoom, the video conferencing platform that has grown in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic but has come under fire due to privacy issues.
How To: 'Airdrop' Files from Android to MacOS or iOS Devices (& Vice Versa)
Getting files from an Android device to a Mac or iOS device is not always easy or convenient, and the same goes for transferring content from a Mac or iOS device to an Android device. But we're here to tell you there is a better way than using USB cables, email, and cloud storage, and it gives you the look and feel of AirDrop.
How To: Not on Facebook? Here Are 4 'Avatar' Alternatives for Creating Your Digital Doppelganger
With Avatar, Facebook's personalized stickers for use on its social and messaging platforms, those who aren't on Facebook or have otherwise dumped the social network may feel left out.
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 Your Own 'Avatar' — Facebook's Answer to Memoji & Bitmoji
Snapchat popularized personalized stickers for social media and messaging with Bitmoji, followed by walled-garden versions from Apple with Memojis and Samsung with AR Emojis. Even Google has gotten into the game, integrating an emoji generator for Gboard.
How To: Schedule a Tweet on Twitter from Your iPhone or Android Phone
Twitter is a science. The smarter you post and engage with others, the better chance you have at building a bigger audience. Scheduling your tweets is one way to get there. Most engagement occurs at specific hours, but you may not be around then to post your tweet manually. While the official Twitter app on iOS and Android doesn't allow you to schedule, there is another way.