I’ve decided to use Google Now exclusively for a long list of tasks. I’m calling it the Google Now Diet.
Here’s why I’m doing it. New technology is great. Trouble is, we’re all stuck with habits formed by old technology.
For example, when you want to search, what do you do? I habitually type in a search in the URL address bar or go to Google.com.
When I want to give myself a reminder, I tend to open the Gmail app on my phone and send myself an email.
And when I want to play a YouTube video, I thumb through the apps, find the YouTube app, open it, tap on the search field and type in the name of the video or song I’m looking for.
I know that Google Now does all this stuff easier, faster and better. Yet my habits were formed in olden days before Now existed. So I forget to use Google Now.
The good news is that there’s a way to break old habits and form new ones. And that is the diet concept — limit yourself only to the new way of doing things.
One of the highlights of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean is Photo Sphere, which allows you to click a 360° panorama picture. Photo Sphere takes Panorama photos to the next level, and actually gives the viewer a sense of being present on that location when viewing them.
Since Photo Sphere is more than just a normal image, you cannot simply upload it to any website to share with your friends. The only way to enjoy Photo Spheres is to upload them to Google+. Even in Android, only the stock Gallery application is fully capable of opening a Photo Sphere in the right format.
Thankfully, a developer has come up with an alternative way to view and share Photo Spheres on Android devices and the web. SphereShare.net will not only allow you to upload your existing Photo Sphere(s) and share them with your friends, but also allow you to view thousands of Photo Spheres uploaded by users from all over the world along with its relevant location data.
The Galaxy S4 is now available in nearly every major market around the world, including the United States, Europe, and Asia. Like with the Galaxy S2 and S3, Samsung has released two variants of the Galaxy S4 – the I9500 that uses the Octa-Core Exynos SoC, and the LTE variant that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoC.
If you own the international variant of the Galaxy S4 (I9500), or the Korean variant (SHV-E300S/K) that uses the Exynos 5 SoC, and are looking to root it, here is how to do so the right way.
The initial launch of the HTC One was delayed by a couple of weeks due to the shortage of certain components, but the handset is now slowly making its way on to major markets around the world. Compared to previous HTC handsets, rooting the One is a pretty straight forward process. In fact, once unlocked, the HTC One behaves like a true Nexus device, as said by a very popular Android developer, Koush.
Before you get down to rooting your HTC One, keep in mind that the steps below are valid for the international device, as well as the AT&T variant of the HTC One. Also, make a backup of all your data on the phone since unlocking the bootloader on the phone will wipe your phone clean.
With Android 4.2, Google completely revamped the camera experience with a brand new interface and features like Photosphere. While the new UI may seem like a welcome change, it is poorly laid out which can make selecting the intended option cumbersome.
The lack of some downright basic options like scenes and timer mode does not help the matter, either. Worse, on the Nexus devices, the camera app has an auto-focus bug that can often lead to blurry photos.
While Motorola phones are not particularly known for their camera performance, the camera application on their handsets is perfect for most, with just the right amount of settings. Here is how you can get the Motorola camera app on your Android 4.0+ handset.
The days are gone when you needed to connect your device to your PC/Mac using cables to transfer files, with much more convenient options now available. With Wi-Fi, for instance, you can transfer files from device to device wirelessly. Here’s how.
A few weeks ago, Canonical released the first look of Ubuntu for phones, and soon after released developer preview builds for the Nexus devices from Google. While the OS in itself is not yet ready for consumers, the preview build does show off the interesting gesture based UI that Canonical has come up with.
One of the highlights of Ubuntu for phones is the app launcher that comes up with a simple swipe from the left edge of the screen, allowing you to quickly launch an app from anywhere in the OS. A relatively new app in the Play Store – Glovebox (free) – aims to bring similar functionality to all Android devices out there. Here’s how to set it up.
The Nexus 4, being a smartphone geared towards Android developers, is relatively easy to root; the whole process requires the use of some simple fastboot commands, which even novice users can master relatively quickly. Here’s how to get started.
Rooting an Android device has many advantages, including the ability to remove some of the pre-installed bloatware, add new features, and do much more. Samsung has been pretty liberal about the whole root thing, which makes its devices some of the easiest to root — after the Nexus series from Google.
Here is a detailed step-by-step guide on how to root the international Galaxy S III (I9300) from using a Windows-based PC.
Google removed the ability to view only your purchased applications in Google Play sometime after Ice Cream Sandwich was released. Instead of just displaying your purchased apps, the “My Apps” section started listing all the apps that you may have ever installed on your Android device.
Google did roll out a new version of Google Play sometime last year, which allowed you to manually remove the free apps from the My Apps section. But even then, if you have multiple Android devices and more than a few hundred apps installed, it can be quite cumbersome to find all the apps you’ve paid for. To make your life easier, a new app called My Purchases only lists those apps that you have paid for.
