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All Posts by Ara Wagoner

How to disable icon notification badges on the Galaxy Note 8

6 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 21 Sep 2017 3:00 pm
This could be your favorite feature ... or it could annoy you every single day. Notification badges are a small but divisive feature that has sparked many an argument among smartphone users. Many users, particularly anyone who's used an iPhone, greatly appreciate seeing that little circle on their app icons indicating the number of unread notifications. Notification badges have had a spotty...

Nest announces slew of home security products including a connected doorbell

19 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 20 Sep 2017 1:16 pm
Nest wants to help you keep your own nest secure. Nest has dipped into home safety before with its carbon monoxide detectors and home-monitoring cameras, but today, it's upping its game to new levels. The Nest Security event debuted several new products that want to help you keep your home secure and safe. From newer, tougher cameras to a complete home security system, Nest had plenty of eggs...

The LOFT battery base lets you take Google Home anywhere

7 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 20 Sep 2017 12:25 pm
Google Home does Google Assistant better than anything else, and now you can untether it from the outlet. Google Home is a wonderful little speaker with Google Assistant, but it's tied to an outlet, so you can't carry it around your home as you get your work done without having to unplug, replug, reboot, and re-connect whatever you were listening to. And yeah, you can get Google Assistant...

Pattern your home screen this Wallpaper Wednesday

25 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 20 Sep 2017 9:00 am
Patterns are everywhere else; why not have them on your home screen, too? Patterns and geometry help us make sense and order out of the seemingly random nonsense of the world around us. They help us find peace, and their symmetry can be as pleasing to the eye as it is to the mind. A patterned wallpaper can also work wonders on your home screen, helping you find and keep things in order so that...

How to customize Always On Display on the Samsung Galaxy Note 8

8 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 19 Sep 2017 1:00 pm
Samsung has slowly improved its Always On Display — here's how to get started with it. Even when your Galaxy Note S8's display is "off," it isn't really off. Always On Display triggers right away, and continues to show you useful information that's available at a glance so you don't always have to turn on the whole display just to check the time or see if you have notifications. It's a neat...

Bose QC35 II headphones will have Google Assistant built-in

20 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 17 Sep 2017 4:44 pm
Bose is synonymous with quality and expense, and with those come great features. Bose's QuietComfort 35 headphones are some of the most highly-recommended active noise-canceling headphones on the market. Modern Dad calls them the best headphones a traveler could ask for, and its successor, the Bose QuietComfort 35 II, are apparently packing a new feature that'll be quite handy to Android users...

Camera cutouts: The next horrible smartphone trend?

143 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 15 Sep 2017 9:00 am
Smartphone trends take lots of different forms, but this latest one sucks. Some smartphone trends are born of necessity, like the trend towards larger onboard storage. Some smartphone trends are born out of a desire to curb costs and space, like the trend of removing the headphone jack. Some trends are useful, such as the wide adoption of fingerprint scanners. Some trends are nuisances, such...

How to use Tasker to automate Bluetooth connections

18 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 14 Sep 2017 12:00 pm
Tasker makes managing Bluetooth a breeze. If you want to connect and disconnect from a Bluetooth device, usually the easiest thing to do is power the Bluetooth device off, but that's easier said than done for some Bluetooth devices, such as Bluetooth-enabled audio-video receivers and out-of-sight Bluetooth adapters. For those, you usually have to dip into Settings and manually disconnect....

Add some royal flair to your phone with these castle wallpapers

24 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 13 Sep 2017 12:00 pm
Whether you're stuck in the city or the suburbs, we all want to escape. Some want to escape to the beach, some want to escape to the mountains, but you know where you should really want to escape? A castle. Castles are majestic, they're powerful, and they're well-fortified against revolutionary uprisings or zombie apocalypses. Okay, your mileage may vary on that one, but nevertheless, castles...

Best Android Launchers

149 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 11 Sep 2017 12:00 pm
Want to upgrade your Android experience? Try upgrading your launcher. The way we arrange, organize, and interact with our apps on Android is called the launcher. Launchers usually consist of a series of home screens, where we can arrange app shortcuts and widgets and an app drawer. Every phone comes with a launcher, but when they drop the ball, there are endless third-party launchers that not...

Adaptive Icons make the jump to Nova Launcher in its latest beta update

13 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 10 Sep 2017 8:14 pm
Adaptive icons require two things: apps that submit them and launchers that can display them. Adaptive Icons, Android Oreo's answer to both chaotic app drawers and ugly icon masks, is still brand-spanking new, and if you want to use it, the supported launchers you have to choose from are pretty slim. Thankfully, the latest Nova Launcher beta update, you've got one more option.

Fall into Autumn with a new leafy wallpaper

2 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 6 Sep 2017 12:00 pm
Fall is coming, and it cannot fall soon enough. Summer is hot, and we're so over it. The scorching heat that makes you sweat all day; the summer flocks of tourists congesting the cities and highways; it can all go away. I'm ready for the kids to be back in school and the temperature outside to not melt things. Fall is coming, PUMPKINS ARE BACK and the leaves are about to explode from a boring...

Action Launcher Quickthemes: One touch customization for your Android phone

13 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 5 Sep 2017 12:00 pm
Quick themes are good, and Action Launcher's Quicktheme gets quick themes themed quickly. Action Launcher has garnered a fair bit of praise from us at Android Central. Some love Quickdrawer and being able to ditch the traditional app drawer. Some love the Covers and Shades, which free up space and get us into apps faster. But as a themer, Action Launcher's got a great trick that can make your...

Google Play Music and YouTube Red are the best deal in streaming right now

38 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 1 Sep 2017 9:00 am
You get a lot of video and music subscriptions vying for your money. From music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music to video services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, there's more and more subscriptions anxious to get your money every month, but one of the best values in subscription streaming isn't one subscription, it's three. It's Google Play Music All Access! It's...

Keep some Texan pride on your home screen with these wallpapers

10 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 30 Aug 2017 1:00 pm
Texas is a big state with a big heart. We believe in helping our neighbors, in opening our doors and our hearts to anyone in need. We believe that we are stronger together, and in times like these, we know that our fellow Texans will band together to help. Whether you call the Lone Star state home or not, whether you've ever sampled the amazing cuisine at Port Aransas or dreamed of the stars...

YouTube brings design changes full circle with new logo and more mobile features

19 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 29 Aug 2017 12:08 pm
YouTube is almost constantly evolving. One of the world's most popular video sites is growing, diversifying in content and platform, and its design is evolving, too. We've told you over the previous months how a new desktop design (with a dark mode, no less) was introduced earlier this year for users to test, and the YouTube app has already been redesigned once this year. And it's not done yet.

Google Maps makes it easier to find parking with your phone

3 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 29 Aug 2017 11:52 am
It's hard enough getting where you want to go, but parking, once you get there, can be a trial in and of itself. Public parking near most destinations in big cities isn't exactly easy to find, and chances are unless you put the parking as your destination, you're probably not lined up properly to get into it once Google Maps cheerfully states You Have Arrived. Google Maps knows that's a big...

A new era in Android theming is here

42 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 28 Aug 2017 8:00 am
Theming on Android doesn't require rooting, but theming Android itself almost always does. We can use third-party launchers to theme our home screens. We can theme our most-used apps to get rid of that searing white and spice things up with some color. We can do so many things to customize Android and make it our own, but theming the Android system itself requires one of two things: a phone...

Android Oreo features you'll love: Colored notifications

14 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 25 Aug 2017 8:00 am
It truly is the little things that can make or break the Android experience. Android Oreo is full of little tweaks and fixes to the Android experience both behind the scenes and in plain sight, and while there's plenty to be excited about, my hands-down favorite feature isn't Android finally fixing their emoji problem or the colorful new notification dots on my home screen. It's a divisive and...

Get lost in space with an out of this world wallpaper!

14 Comments
Posted by Ara Wagoner on 23 Aug 2017 10:00 am
"And so you're back from outer space!" Space is a place that's easy to get lost in. It's a vast void of darkness and light, of choking chill and the fire of a million suns. Space is the final frontier, and we may be a few centuries away from exploring it, that doesn't mean we can't look up at the stars and dream what it'd be like to sail betwixt them. Well, I can't get anyone off this planet,...

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