android power user | Mobiles365

Google Now just got answering machine-like functionality – here’s how to use it

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Joe Levi

“‘OK Google’ is the magical key-phrase that unlocks all the wondrous potential of your Android-powered device – and drives you nuts when someone on a podcast says it and all your Android’s wake up and wait for your instructions.”Now that my new house is built, my daily commute is over an hour long – each way. That’s okay with me. I love to drive, the scenery is beautiful, Waze helps alert me to upcoming hazards, and thanks to Audible I’m “reading” more now than I ever have before.When a phone call comes in, thanks to the ...

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The future of Bluetooth: what to expect and why you should care

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Joe Levi

Back in 1994, Ericsson (who would later merge with Sony) “invented” Bluetooth. Back then out devices were connected by one of a few technologies: RS-232 “COM Ports”, Parallel Ports, and SCSI. USB was still being worked on. Ericsson’s vision was to replace the serial RS-232 cables with a new, wireless standard. Bluetooth was born.Uhura knew about Jawbone before Jawbone knew about Jawbone.Bluetooth is a wireless communication standard using the 2.4GHz band (which ...

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What is Factory Reset Protection and why is Android Marshmallow forcing OEMs to include it in their devices

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Joe Levi

There used to be a time when, if you lost your phone, that was it – it was gone. You’d get in touch with your carrier and report it lost or stolen so any calls or texts wouldn’t be added to your bill, but your options beyond that were pretty limited. A little later on, recovery options were added to help you find out where you phone was (just in case you lost in the couch or at the restaurant). If it was heading down the interstate at 70MPH, you could probably assume that it had been stolen – and you could remotely wipe it.While these tools can be very helpful, all ...

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Android Google Chrome exploit: what to do about it

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Joe Levi

Chrome is the web browser at the center of Google’s empire – both on desktops as well as mobile devices. In addition to being just a standalone app (which may or may not be preloaded on your smartphone), the Chrome engine also drives the component that displays web content inside apps. As you might expect, a vulnerability in that engine could cause significant problems for the device running it. Such is the case with a particularly troublesome Android Google Chrome exploit.During the recent PacSec conference in Tokyo, Qihoo 360 developer Guang Gong showed off a vulnerability ...

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Android Google Chrome exploit: what to do about it

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Joe Levi

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Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Posted on September 22, 2015September 22, 2015 by Joe Levi

You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who would turn down a phone with a bigger battery than a smaller one, all things being equal. Unfortunately, phones with bigger capacities generally mean thicker dimensions and heavier devices. Even a few dozen mAh can add significant costs to the bill of materials. The solutions to this conundrum come in four varieties: OS and SoC optimizations to reduce battery use, and wireless and quick charging schemes to help keep the battery full. Targeting the latter, and following up from a successful 2.0 release, Qualcomm’s solution is Quick ...

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Five ways to keep your cellular data usage under control

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Joe Levi

Today’s smartphones and tablets are significantly more useful than phones and laptops of yesteryear. Most of that centers around the availability of today’s devices to access the Internet from virtually anywhere. These days we use our phones more to text and interact with web-based services than to make phone calls, and our tablets consume media (streaming audio and video), let us play web connected games, and keep us in touch with our friends via social networks. All of these are enabled by a ubiquitous, wireless connection to the Internet. However, not all wireless ...

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Android Pay feels like a downgrade from Google Wallet

Posted on September 15, 2015September 15, 2015 by Joe Levi

I was one of the first people in my area to adopt Google Wallet. Everywhere I did business soon knew me as “the guy who pays with his phone” – so long as they were equipped with a compatible terminal. I helped train cashiers how to use this “newfangled” payment method, and even helped identify when terminals were installed – but not configured – to use NFC payments.Google WalletI was also one of the folks who was burned by the “Secure element not responding” bug in Google Wallet on the Galaxy Nexus. For those of you who don’t know ...

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A closer look at the Snapdragon 6xx family

Posted on August 25, 2015August 24, 2015 by Joe Levi

Unless they’re made by Apple, when you think about smartphones and tablets, chances are they’ve got a Qualcomm Snapdragon powering them. Generally speaking, when we rank devices they typically fall into one of those three categories: entry-level, entry level, midrange, and high-end. Oddly enough, Qualcomm’s SoCs are also segmented by device class, but Qualcomm opted for four tiers (rather than three), this can make it a little confusing to tell which category a device falls into – such is the case with the Snapdragon 6xx family.

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Move over Google Photos, Focus lets you dive deeper

Posted on August 18, 2015August 18, 2015 by Joe Levi

If you’re an Android power user you’re probably familiar with the name Francisco Franco. The franco.Kernel updater app (and associated Franco kernels) have long been a favorite among rooted users – myself included. But what happens when a developer turns their attention and talents away from kernels and governors and optimizing for thermal thresholds? In this case, they turn their attention to your pictures.Not long ago Google updated (or ...

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What is build.prop and my 5 favorite tweaks

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Joe Levi

One of the things we all like about Android is the ability to customize our smartphones and tablets to suit our personalities and the way we each use our devices. Out of the box, stock and unrooted, Android is a very powerful operating system. With just a couple taps you can enable sideloading of apps, and you can even install any of several app stores. However, if you’re brave enough and with a little technical know-how, you can OEM unlock and What is build.prop and my 5 favorite tweaks appeared first on Pocketnow.

Here’s why I rooted my Nexus 6

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Joe Levi

There was a time (not that long ago) when Power Users needed to root their Android-powered smartphones to do anything really powerful with them. Primary among those reason was to flash a custom ROM. These days stock Android includes many of the features and functionality that were previously the exclusive realm of custom ROMs. Sure, there are still ample reasons to flash a custom ROM, but for an increasing number of us Power Users, “stock plus root” is good enough. Here’s why I went with a Nexus 6 root, but kept the stock ROM.Tethering

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Seven things you still need root to do, and two things that don’t

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Joe Levi

When we talk about root or “rooting” your smartphone or tablet, we’re talking about bypassing the built-in securities and permissions that come prepackaged on your device so you can obtain “privileged control” or “root access”. Our Apple-toting friends often call this “jailbreaking”, which, in a manner of speaking, it is. OEMs lock our devices down “for our own good”, to keep us from breaking them or allowing malicious software to get inside and do damage. A secondary objective is to make sure that we can’t do ...

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What are “Android OS” and “Android System” in my battery report?

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Joe Levi

Regardless of how large the batteries in our portable electronics are, or how efficiently their SoCs power them, we never seem to have “enough” power. Thankfully, Android lets you see what apps and processes are using your battery, so you can take corrective measures and (ideally) get the most out of the limited mAhs in your LiPo cell.Take a look at your own stats. Open Settings and tap on Battery. Depending on which version of Android you’re running and how heavily your OEM has skinned your device, you’ll probably see a chart with a list of apps and processes ...

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How safe is sideloading APKs?

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Joe Levi

As Android users, most of us have the ability to sideload apps directly onto our smartphones and tablets – no app store needed! People who use other operating systems on their mobile devices aren’t always so lucky. To load apps on their devices from sources other than those officially sanctioned by the company that makes their phone, many have to go through a jailbreaking or unlocking process. While not necessarily a “bad” thing, jailbreaking brings with it many other implications that reach significantly deeper than simply installing an app. Most Android-powered ...

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