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Android 101

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Apr 30, 2020

When using your right hand, Gboard's one-handed mode will help you type faster with a single thumb. But not all of us hold our phones the same way — some of us prefer our left hand or hold our phones ...

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Apr 30, 2020

If your phone has an A/B partition layout, there are two virtual hard drives that each contain a copy of Android. After every restart, it picks a partition to boot from, then the other lays idle. The ...

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Apr 28, 2020

Not every app is designed well. With nearly 3 million apps on the Play Store and countless more that you can sideload from other sources, there are bound to be a few stinkers. And many of them do a te ...

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Apr 28, 2020

With Samsung's One UI version of Android, it's easier than ever to take a screenshot and quickly edit the captured image. However, the downside to that convenience has manifested itself in an overlay ...

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Apr 28, 2020

An unfortunate byproduct of Samsung's One UI version of Android is redundancy, where you have the Google/AOSP way of doing things mixed with Samsung's methods at the same time.One example comes in tak ...

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Apr 27, 2020

No matter how many camera improvements a phone adds, you're always better off using manual mode. Known as "Pro Mode" on the Galaxy S20, this feature can remove Samsung's pre- and post-processing from ...

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Apr 22, 2020

Apple added a Bedtime Mode to its Screen Time tool for curbing smartphone distractions. Google's version of Screen Time, called Digital Wellbeing, actually predates Apple's, but a recent update is fin ...

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Feb 26, 2020

The Alt-Tab keyboard shortcut makes switching between apps and programs a breeze on your Windows PC. Just like your computer, your Android phone has the same feature baked in to make switching between ...

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Jan 24, 2020

One of Android's biggest strengths relative to iOS is how simple it is to sideload apps that aren't on the official app store. Rather than having to sign IPA files or tell your phone you trust a devel ...

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Jan 24, 2020

There are phones nowadays with 12 gigs of RAM, but they'll cost you well over a grand. The majority of Android devices have much less memory — I'd wager most have less than 4 GB. And with the system t ...