All Posts by Jerry Hildenbrand | Android Central

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All Posts by Jerry Hildenbrand

The Galaxy S8 is water resistant, not liquid resistant

37 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 28 Apr 2017 9:00 am
Your phone has no fear when it comes to water but be careful with other liquids. One of the features you'll find in most top-end phones in 2017 is water resistance. The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ from Samsung are no exception. Raining outside? No problem. The Galaxy S8's IP68 rating means the rain has no effect. The same goes for a splash at the sink, a dip in the pool, and maybe even a spilled...

Google Trips gets new ways to make your next vacation better

9 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 26 Apr 2017 5:58 pm
New features let you find and share everything easier to make a vacation stress-free like it should be. Planning your vacation can be a lot of work. And when you're done figuring it all out you need to get it organized and put somewhere that you can use it. Google Trips can help and some new features make it even easier. Keeping track of your reservations is now easier because everything is...

Galaxy S8 security: Which unlocking method should you use?

42 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 26 Apr 2017 1:00 pm
The Galaxy S8 comes with several different ways to lock your phone. But they aren't all equal when it comes to keeping snooping eyes out of your stuff. We think everyone should lock their phone and be sure to enable a find my phone feature that can erase it if it gets lost or stolen. This is the best way to make sure someone can't just pick it up and rifle through all your stuff. The Galaxy S8...

Hacking your Chromebook is fun and easier than you think

38 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 26 Apr 2017 9:05 am
It's easy to make your Chromebook more than the sum of its parts. Update April 26: This post was updated to make sure the information is current and the links were working! A Chromebook can be a great purchase even if you never step outside of Google's trusted environment. They are some of the best web machines ever built, require almost no software maintenance, and come in a myriad of...

Will somebody please make a Chromebook with LTE?

39 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 24 Apr 2017 9:00 am
All I want is a proper replacement for the laptop that has served me for four years. Some people have found that a Chromebook is just the best way to compute. I'm one of them and unless I need to do something that requires the big loud PC on my desk you'll find me with a Chromebook in front of me. And if I'm away from home it will be a really beat up aluminum model from early 2013 that is in...

The EFF calls out Google for privacy issues in the EDU sector but the school districts need educated, too

22 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 22 Apr 2017 6:44 pm
Chromebooks for education is an excellent program, but it looks like the educators need a little more teaching when it comes to getting started. The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has renewed their charge against Google, Microsoft, and Apple for the way student privacy is handled in their respective educational markets. They say "Students and their families are backed into a corner...

Make the Bixby button great again: BixRemap will open Google Now instead

67 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 22 Apr 2017 2:17 pm
If Bixby isn't your thing, here's how to replace it with Google Now. The Galaxy S8 has been mostly well received by everyone. Blogger and users who have scored their phones already are saying really good things, and even the naysayers are impressed with the hardware. It just seems like a damn good phone so far. But there is one thing a lot of folks are saying they would like to change: The...

Open up in this weekend's comments thread

44 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 22 Apr 2017 12:00 pm
Sit back, relax and chat about stuff because it's the weekend! The weekend is finally here. The five days between them sometimes feel like they take forever, but this week was pretty cool with all the Galaxy S8 stuff. Flo and Daniel have to be especially grateful that the calendar says Saturday this week. Be sure to have a look at the reviews (some things need more than one) they wrote for the...

How much does security factor into your buying decisions? [Roundtable]

56 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 21 Apr 2017 1:00 pm
How the AC staff thinks about security when they're buying cool stuff. There are plenty of reasons to want a new phone or cool tech gadget, and everyone has different reasons. And of course, there are plenty of phones and cool tech gadgets to buy. We find the right gadget for the right reasons and lighten our wallets. In the midst of all the talk about specs and software and updates and...

Best tips for extending the life of your phone's battery

21 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 21 Apr 2017 8:00 am
How do I make sure my phone's battery lasts as long as possible? Most of us never think about the battery in our phone until it dies. When everything is working properly the battery should not be a part of the Android experience, other than not lasting long enough because we never put our phones down. The only time we ever think about the battery is when we have to charge it. How you do that...

Best Android apps for your Chromebook

32 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 20 Apr 2017 4:00 pm
An injection of over 1,000,000 Android apps does a great job filling in the holes in Chrome. Updated April 2017: This post was updated to make sure it's full of awesome apps for your Chromebook. A few Chromebooks already have Android apps through Google Play. More are scheduled to get them, and most new Chromebooks will ship with the Play store working from day one. Android app support has...

US Cellular: Everything you need to know

10 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 20 Apr 2017 10:00 am
What you need to know about America's fifth largest network provider. When people talk about post-paid nationwide cell phone networks in the U.S. they usually mean the Big Four: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. But there is a fifth company who offers full-service nationwide contract plans that are as good or better than the bigger corporations: US Cellular. It stands to reason. As of...

Google, an ad company, will soon block 'bad ads' in Chrome

50 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 19 Apr 2017 9:53 pm
Android's native browser could block "bad ads" in a coming update and that's good for everyone. While ad-blockers may be the most popular extensions for Chrome on the desktop or your Chromebook, the Android app has been left out of the picture. That might be changing according to the Wall Street Journal. Alphabet Inc.'s Google is planning to introduce an ad-blocking feature in the mobile and...

Microsoft introduces its new task manager app To-Do in beta

7 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 19 Apr 2017 6:10 pm
If you're looking for yet another task manager application and use Microsoft's Office 365 you might want to check out the new To-Do beta app. Think of it as a Wunderlist replacement that also makes suggestions for you. It actually comes from the developers of Wunderlist and uses a sorting algorithm to determine what's important for you to do today or what you missed yesterday. A video is worth...

Five important things iOS does better than Android

149 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 19 Apr 2017 9:00 am
Android and iOS have plenty of differences. Here are five places we think Apple is doing better than Google. The internet is filled with words about Android and iOS and why one is better than the other. It makes for fun writing and reading because everyone likes to hear about why the thing they prefer is better than the thing they don't. but there are some important things each operating...

Five important things Android does better than iOS

103 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 18 Apr 2017 12:00 pm
Android and iOS have plenty of differences. Here are five places we think Google is doing better than Apple. The internet is filled with words about Android and iOS and why one is better than the other. It makes for fun writing and reading because everyone likes to hear about why the thing they prefer is better than the thing they don't, but there are some important things each operating...

Andy Rubin's Essential phone shows up at GFXBench site

15 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 17 Apr 2017 5:01 pm
When prototype meets benchmark app, magic happens. Or something. Russian mobile enthusiasts at Mobiltelefon have spotted Andy Rubin's Essential Android phone at the GFXBench. We saw a glimpse of the Essential FIH-PM1 in March. Today we get to see some of the things that might make it tick. According to the benchmark system information, there's a lot to look forward to here. And some things that...

Can Samsung's DeX Station succeed where others have failed?

99 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 15 Apr 2017 5:52 pm
DeX in action
Will Samsung's market dominance make DeX a thing people actually use? Samsung is one of those companies that likes to try things. Because it will put things out there and keep working on them we have technology like AMOLED screens that don't suck and devices that have ginormous displays. Heck, Samsung even brought back the stylus and made it sexy. Even when its ideas get universally panned (T-...

Pokémon Go Legendary event may finally be coming in July

2 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 15 Apr 2017 2:30 pm
Raids, PvP and player trading said to be coming in a massive summer update. An interview with Niantic's Asian General Manager Yoshiji Kawashima and Asian General Marketing Manager Kenji Suka hints that the long-rumored Legendary events for Pokémon Go may happen in July 2017. In the interview with Japanese site K-Tai Watch Kawashima says that a huge event is planned for summer 2017 and the new...

Open up in this weekend's comments thread

50 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 15 Apr 2017 12:00 pm
Hooray for the weekend! Another week is in the can and the glorious release of Saturday is here. We love weekends around these parts and are betting that most of you feel the same way. It's a time to do whatever you like to do without worrying about a boss or the things he or she want you to do. Good times. They're also pretty chill times without a lot going on in the world of Googly techie...

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