Gadget Hacks: Page 17

It's easy to back up and restore your iOS devices using iCloud, but there are a few downsides to encrypted iCloud backups. For one, Apple holds the key to decrypt all the data. Plus, you're limited to only 5 GB of data for free before you have to upgrade your storage to 50 GB, 200 GB, or 2 TB.

How do spammers get your email? You give it to them. Not directly, no — you sign up for an app or service and happily hand over your email to verify your new account, then that app or service sells your email address to marketers who now know what kinds of apps and services you like.

One thing you can expect from Apple is that big features work right out of the box. The company designs its products to be easy to use for any experience level, so you might expect the same to be true for 5G, one of the biggest selling points for the iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max. Yet, you might have trouble getting 5G to work on your brand new iPhone. Here's how to avoid that.

It's easier than ever to toggle your iPhone's flashlight (or torch) on and off. From your lock screen, home screen, or from within any app, most iPhone models will let you enable or disable the flashlight from the Control Center, via the Notification Center, or with Siri. But there's an even faster and more convenient way to trigger the flashlight button, and you don't even have to look at your iPhone to use it.

Shortcuts are meant to make your life easier, and iPhone shortcuts are no exception. They can use different triggers, manual or automated, to perform actions in the background, allowing you to do things like send a prewritten text message during a bad date or change your wallpaper at certain times of the day. However, sometimes it's not only about the shortcut itself but about how fast you can run it.

Chief among iOS 14's excellent new features is the overhauled home screen. Now, you can add customizable widgets that live alongside your traditional apps, and both first-party and third-party apps can take advantage of it. Talk about an upgrade. They even work in the Today View and lock screen, so you can have the reinvented widgets for one or the other — or both.

Popular chat apps like Facebook Messenger and (these days, sadly) WhatsApp might not cut it when it comes to privacy and security, but they sure do offer some fun ways to customize your chats. If you're worried that moving to Signal Private Messenger means you lose these features, don't — the privacy-focused app also lets you choose custom chat wallpapers for all your threads.

There's an easy way to take your PC to the next level — without any need for a hardware upgrade. The secret is in software that unlocks uses and productivity hacks you never knew you needed. Even better, right now, The Power User PC Software Bundle is on sale for just $59.99. That's 90% off the regular price of $614.

Outside of iPhone releases, software updates are arguably the most exciting aspects of iOS life. It's like Christmas morning when your iPhone installs an update, as you dive through your device to find all the new features and changes Apple thought to include. With iOS 14.4, there are at least 10 such new additions just waiting for you to explore.

As a means to combat annoying and intrusive advertisements in Safari, Apple added native support for content blockers on the iPhone. Instead of being bombarded by notifications, banners, and pop-ups, content blockers prevent them from opening, which can also be said about those annoying cookie consent notices that many websites now have.

You take a photo or video, send it to a friend, and they say, "Hey, I can't open this." More often than not, your friend won't be using an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. Instead, they're likely trying to open the file with a non-Apple device. But this problem can be avoided if you know what setting to change.

Buckle up, iPhone users, because it's update time! Apple just released its latest iPhone OS to the public, iOS 14.4. This new edition isn't the company's most ground-breaking, but it doesn't come up short, either — you'll find support for smaller QR codes in Camera, a new "Device Type" setting in Bluetooth, support for a new Apple Watch face, and a major privacy feature, among other new changes.

Apple has finally seeded the release candidate for iOS 14.4 to iPhone developers and public beta users, build 18D52. The update adds scanning support for smaller QR codes in Camera, the ability to classify Bluetooth devices to improve audio notifications, and alerts on the iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max for if the camera is detected not to be genuine. There's also a short list of bug fixes.

Apple released the second public beta for iOS 14.4 today, Wednesday, Jan. 13. The most notable addition to this beta isn't user-facing — baked into 14.4 beta 2's code is evidence that Apple will start issuing warnings on iPhones using unapproved cameras. Of course, those warnings will only apply to phones that have had their cameras replaced.

Once you start converting text to speech, you'll never go back. Allowing you to easily listen to large amounts of text while multitasking, the Notevibes Text to Speech Personal Pack: Lifetime Subscription will transform your daily productivity at home, work, school, and anywhere else you may be. Even better: it's on sale now for just $69.99, which is a huge 87% off the regular price of $540.

Since iOS 11, your iPhone has been capable of offloading hardly used apps to free up storage space for more useful data. But offloading only gets rid of the app's binary, meaning its documents and data are stored on your device in case you reinstall the app. That can take up a lot of space itself, so it's good to periodically review files for offloaded apps and purge the content you no longer need.

Every mainstream Android home screen app looks and behaves almost exactly like Google's Pixel Launcher. It's the trendsetter, like the Nexus Launcher before it. But when all your options are modeled after the same thing, that really takes the "custom" out of "custom launcher."

These days, the only thing your eyes view more than your phone's home screen is the backside of your eyelids. So it goes without saying that whatever picture you have as your background gets old pretty fast.

Whether you work in sales or want to become more persuasive and better at selling yourself, the art of selling can be transferred to nearly any career path or walk of life. Whether the gains are monetary or interpersonal, being a great salesperson is one of the most invaluable skills you can ever learn.

Do Not Disturb is the best way to block out all interruptions on your iPhone without having to power down. All notifications and alerts are silenced, but the same can't be said for phone calls. By default, repeat calls will bypass Do Not Disturb, which can be quite frustrating when you're in a movie, classroom, or board meeting. It's good for emergencies, but not for people who can't take the hint.

Okay, so you rooted your Android phone .... now what? There are a few ducks you need to get into a row, like backing up your stock boot image, getting SafetyNet sorted, and improving security with biometrics. But there are also awesome root mods waiting for you — just don't get ahead of yourself.

There's no better time to reset, improve yourself, and develop new skills than at the start of a brand new year, where you're stuck at home with nothing better to do. Thankfully, this amazing deal on The 2021 Career & Self Development Master Class has come at a perfect time. Right now, it's on sale for just $39.99 — that's a whopping 98% off the regular price of $2,000.

Samsung and Google have done some amazing work together in the past, particularly with Android related projects. But after years of an inexplicable lack of interoperability, the primary smart home hardware divisions from both companies are finally on the same page — starting right now.

One of the easiest ways to change up your Android experience is by swapping out the stock launcher with a new one. The word "launcher" is Android lingo for "home screen app," and it's a common term because of how easy it is to switch to a new one. So if you're looking to revamp your home screen, this guide's for you.

If you'd rather be gently relaxed out of bed instead of stressed out at loud alarm sounds, there are a few things you can do on your iPhone. One of your best options is to use carefully selected songs that start out calm and soothing and gradually increase in intensity and volume. But you could also use a more intense track you know will wake you up, only set to ascend in volume to ease you out of slumber.

If your iPhone's home screen is littered with apps in no discernible order, and you rely on muscle memory to locate one when you need it, it gets harder with each new app icon added. Folders can help organize the mess, but you can also create your very own app picker or group of app pickers. They act similar to folders but show apps in a list and let you add the same app to multiple app pickers.

With so much stimuli in today's world, it can be hard to keep track of all the places we've visited and the events we've attended. Thankfully, a great feature in Google Maps lets you view a detailed log of your phone's location history to help you remember where you were at almost any given point in time.

Want quick access to message threads with your favorite or important contacts? Just pin them to the top of the conversations list. It's a common feature in many messaging apps, including Apple's Messages in iOS 14. While it's not particularly well-advertised, TikTok also lets you pin chats to the top of your direct messages inbox on Android or iPhone.

Let's say you're hanging a picture frame, and it doesn't look quite right. Sure, you could grab a spirit or bubble level, but maybe it's in another room or buried in a toolbox somewhere. Maybe you're away from home, away from your tools. As it turns out, you almost always have a level with you, and it's likely sitting in your pocket right now or resting in your hand as you read this article.

Highlight text, tap "Copy," open the app to paste the text into, long-press or double-tap where you want it, and hit "Paste." That's probably what you do when you need to copy text from one location to paste into another on your iPhone. It's a tried-and-true method, but there's a hidden trick for saving and sharing text on iOS that cuts down on that lengthy copy-paste process.

When it comes to rooting and modding any Android device, ADB and Fastboot commands will quickly become your two new best friends once you realize the power they have. From unlocking your bootloader to flashing any file you could ever want — if you're serious about the modding and customization game, you'll want to become acquainted with these commands as soon as possible.

Want to land an exciting new job, get that promotion, or simply become more productive in 2021? Project and quality management are invaluable, transferable skills that will improve your efficiency in almost any industry. Right now, "The Premium 2021 Project & Quality Management Certification Bundle" is on sale with an amazing 98% off the regular price of $4,400, for just $45.99.

Videos hosted on Streamable may be fleeting or forever. So when you come across a cool video that you want to watch again later, it's a good idea to download it to your device in case it's one that disappears after a few months. There is no built-in download button in the Streamable player, but that doesn't mean you can't save anything on your iPhone.

When it comes to texting, Google's Messages app for Android is absolutely top-notch. The app gives you the ability to block those annoying spam text messages that have been plaguing us for so long, send messages from a computer, and can even provide RCS features if your carrier supports the Universal Profile.

The next big phase of iOS 14 has started with the release of the iOS 14.4 beta. Right now, the developer-only beta features only one known item. Apple introduced the ability to scan App Clip Codes in iOS 14.3 with the Code Scanner control, and now in iOS 14.4, you can launch a local App Clip experience via Camera, NFC, Safari Smart App Banner, or iMessage.

If you surf the web on your iPhone, you no doubt run into this problem all the time: a website wants your location. It can happen when performing a location-based task, such as using a store locator, or whenever a web app just wants to deliver better ads or local recommendations. If you're tired of allowing or denying permission each time, there's an easy way to stop the annoying security pop-ups.

Android Messages, formally named simply "Messages" now, has built-in spam protection. This doesn't get every spam SMS message, however — in fact, you can still get unwanted texts multiple times daily even with the feature enabled. Thankfully, you can manually block numbers, too.

Working with people in different time zones can be difficult when scheduling a time to meet up virtually, whether it's on Zoom, FaceTime, another video chatting app, or just a good old-fashioned phone call. The time needs to be good for all parties, and trying to remember UTC offsets and doing mental math isn't easy. Luckily, there's an easier way to deal with time zones on your iPhone.

Everyone needs a great website. Whether you want to launch the new business you've been dreaming about in 2021, increase your brand's web presence and bring it into the digital realm, or promote yourself and your portfolio, a fully optimized website is the way to do it — and the results can be life-changing.

Google's legendary phone series fittingly ended with the Nexus 6 (P), and all the replicants that have come in its wake failed to unite the geek crowd quite as well. It might seem silly to think back on a smartphone with a sense of nostalgia, but if any Android phone deserves it, it's the Nexus.