How To

Customize iOS app icons without jailbreaking

The ability to customize your iOS device beyond a wallpaper on the home and lock screens and icon arrangement doesn't truly exist. Unless, that is, you decide to jailbreak your iDevice. Jailbreaking a device gives you full permission to modify and install whatever you want on iOS, outside of Apple's walled garden. There are plenty of arguments for and against the act, but we'll leave that for another post.

For those who don't want to jailbreak, a new app called Iconical will allow you to create your own app icon for a long list of supported … Read more

How to use Transit App to find your way around town

In a spurt of perfect timing, I discovered Transit App almost immediately upon arrival in Chicago, where I was totally unfamiliar with the city's awesome public transportation system (make that systems, plural). In short order I was riding the CTA and Metra buses and trains all over the place with the ease and efficiency of a Chicago native.

I used the app on my iPhone, but Transit App is now available for Android as well. It can be a little confusing at first, so here's how to use it to navigate from point A to point B, with … Read more

Google posts six tips and tricks for Google Maps on iOS, Android

After Google launched a completely redesigned Google Maps experience for iOS and Android users, our own Nicole Cozma covered five tips for Android (which applied to iOS as well) users to get started with Google Maps.

On Monday Google posted six tips of its own for Google Maps. Some of the tips covered overlap with our previous post, but there are some additional gems from Google.

One of them is the ability to zoom in and out on the map by double tapping the screen with a single finger, then sliding up or down to zoom in and out. This … Read more

Stop Android 4.3 from always scanning for Wi-Fi networks

Android 4.3 didn't bring many user-facing features to the latest iteration of Jelly Bean. There's the new dial-pad autocomplete that was long over due, and some under the hood improvements like Bluetooth Low Energy. There's another feature you may be surprised to hear about. Starting with Android 4.3 your device will continuously search for Wi-Fi networks, providing better location information, even if you have Wi-Fi turned off.

This isn't going to sit well with everyone, and thankfully Google included a way to disable the feature, it's just a bit hidden.

To disable Wi-Fi … Read more

Export your data from Catch Notes before it shuts down

Catch Notes sent out an e-mail this week stating that service will be terminated August 30, 2013. According to the e-mail, the company is "headed in a different direction," and evidently your notes are not invited for the ride.

After the end of the month, Catch Notes and AK Notepad will have their sync and collaboration abilities discontinued, and the app and Web interface will stop working. So now it's time to export your data and move on. Here's how:

Step 1: Log in to your Catch account on the Web. The export tool that the … Read more

How to unlock the Google Play Games Easter egg

Google is no stranger to hiding Easter eggs in its various products. For those who aren't familiar with the term, an Easter egg is a feature, often playful in nature, hidden in software for users to find. Often times it adds no real value to user experience, other than possibly providing a smile.

The latest Easter egg comes courtesy of Droid Life and Reddit and can be found in the new Google Play Games app.

The Konami Code is an old school way of unlocking an Easter egg, even Facebook has used it. Google Play Games seems like the … Read more

Create amazing presentations on your iPad with Flowboard

The next time you want to create a digital scrapbook, or have to create a presentation, give Flowboard on your iPad a try.

The free app comes with 19 different templates, or an option to create a project from scratch. The templates range from modern and hip to a business-oriented presentation.

You're able to add photos from a long list of services such as Dropbox, Instagram, Box, and even a Google Images search if you can't quite find the right image for a slide.

In addition to photos, you can embed photo galleries, videos, text, and hyperlinks to … Read more

Android 4.3's restricted profiles: Easy to use, but here's the catch

It's about time. When stories get out about how obsessed kids are with their parents' tech toys, and that one time a kid spent $1,500 on level-ups in 10 minutes, it hard to believe it took this long for Google to give tablet owners restricted user profiles.

In Android 4.2, Google gave us multiple user profiles, granting each user a personalized interface, settings, and apps independent of anyone else using that tablet.

Now, in Android 4.3, the tablet owner (read: parent) earns greater reign over those profiles. Moms and dads, rejoice: you can now shut … Read more

Opt out of Pinterest's personalization feature

Pinterest just announced that it will now support the Do Not Track feature if it is enabled on a user's Web browser. However, the Pinterest Web site will still be collecting data on users to help "personalize" their experience.

A personalized experience means that when you are visiting other Web sites, this data will be used to show pins that may be of interest to you. So if you've been looking at cupcake recipes, you'll start seeing boards full of cupcakes when you log in. If you don't want that, fortunately there's a … Read more