It used to be that nothing was certain but death and taxes, to quote Benjamin Franklin (who wasn’t actually the first to point this out, but is probably best known for the phrase). Well, we can add to that short list. In today’s landscape, certainties include death, taxes, and display notches on a growing number of smartphones. Some people don’t…
I do a number of things before I go to bed – I clean my teeth, I get a glass of water, I plug my phone in to charge overnight and I shake some holy water in each corner of my room to protect me from the night screamers. Simple, everyday stuff. But it turns out I am doing one of…
A couple of days ago I took my mom out to dinner (yes, it was a late Mother’s Day dinner), and before the food came out she was on her phone tapping around on the big display. After a little while something started to get on her nerves, and, before too long, she switched off the screen, set her glasses…
I have always been the type of person to do anything in my power to do something myself before asking for help. If I make something, I usually do it myself. If I have an ailment, I usually either wait it out or try stuff I already have at home before heading to the doctor. If I have an issue…
A funny thing happened this week: My wife’s Android phone stopped working — and after troubleshooting it and concluding there was no easy fix, I chuckled to myself and felt a strange sense of wonder. Let me step back a bit and explain. The missus has a Nexus 5X (yup), and it’s generally served her well since she moved into…
Many children look at their collections of Pokemon cards and shout for all to hear, “They’re all mine!” It’s fair to wonder if Google had the same impulse when it took the stage at the Google I/O 2016 conference and declared that more than 600 phone models running Android were released in the last year. The company took this grand opportunity to…
If you’re a working on an Animal Crossing rip off or a Fire Emblem clone, it is time to pack it in and give it up. You’re going to fail. Nintendo is finally dipping its toes into the iOS and Android app market and your two-person operation in Round Rock can’t compete. Nintendo Chief Executive Tatsumi Kimishima held a news…
Metal and glass. When it comes to high-end smartphones, we’re seeing more of this type of design decision. Sure, there are alternatives, and that’s great, but for the most part when we’re paying top dollar for a new smartphone, that comes with a design that goes out of its way to look and feel like a high-end device, too. Not that that’s…
Google introduced full-device encryption back in Android Gingerbread (2.3.x), but it has undergone some dramatic changes since then. On some higher-end handsets running Lollipop (5.x) and higher, it’s enabled out-of-the-box, while on some older or lower-end devices, you have to turn it on yourself. Why You Might Want to Encrypt Your Phone Encryption stores your phone’s data in an unreadable, seemingly scrambled form.…
Opinion: The 24-month phone contract is dead, writes News.com.au. Phone plans go out of date quickly, leaving their buyers stuck with small data quotas. But there’s also the fact that new smartphones, bundled with these plans, are apparently a Bad Idea — because they can be lost, or damaged, or stolen. It’s that last point that is particularly galling. “When…