How To

There are Android apps that come with many features, possibly more features than you need. Or perhaps it's not fully-featured apps you're trying to avoid, but the battery power they require. The more apps you have running in the background, the less battery life you'll see. Here's a trick you can use to skip out on apps that have Chrome bookmarklet counterparts.

This example uses Pocket (formerly Read It Later) to show you how it's done. The Pocket app is actually fantastic -- provided you want access to any queued content on-the-go. If you're … Read more

Google recently rolled out Google sign-ins affording Web and app developers the ability to have users sign in with Google credentials. Once an app is integrated with Google sign-in, data from the app can then be shared to Google+ much like sharing data with Facebook has occurred for a while now.

In order for the apps on your Android device to be compatible with the new system, an update to Google Play Services is required. There's nothing you need to do for the update to happen, it all takes place in the background and normally you wouldn't notice … Read more

Editors' note: This post is part of an ongoing series. For the other parts, check out the related stories.

Wi-Fi and Internet are two very different things.

With the popularity of wireless networking, the term Wi-Fi is often synonymous with access to the Internet. In fact, our seasoned editor Scott Stein compared how fast the new iPhone 5's 4G LTE Internet speed was with his "home Wi-Fi," which is a skewed comparison at best. To be fair, most of us use "Wi-Fi" as a shortcut to mean our home broadband Internet connection, and Scott just … Read more

Launching iTunes, the App Store app, or the Mac App Store just to find an app, copy its direct link, and then send it to someone is a process we all accept. Sure, it doesn't take up too much time, but if you're sharing apps on a regular basis, the entire process adds up. But there's a quicker, easier way to share an App Store link with your fellow iOS and Mac users.

During the Super Bowl, the AppStore.com URL shortener made its official debut when the "Star Trek: Into Darkness" commercial used AppStore.com/StarTrekApp … Read more

If you own an Android tablet, or just a phone with a huge screen, watching YouTube videos while you perform other tasks can be superconvenient. Perhaps you're checking e-mail and watching videos from your favorite band, or maybe you're watching a scene from a play and following along in the script. This split-screen feature is available on the Samsung Galaxy Note II, but hasn't rolled out to many other handsets. Ready to add more multitasking power to your device?

First you'll need to install a copy of Floating YouTube Popup Video on your Android device, then … Read more

A relatively minor update for the Nexus line of devices, Android 4.2.2, was released last week by Google. The update, which included various performance improvements, also included a change to the behavior of the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi tiles in Quick Settings.

To access Quick Settings, you simply swipe down from the top of your screen with two fingers. You'll see various tiles, all allowing you to quickly access their respective settings screen. New in the 4.2.2 update is the ability to long-press on the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth icons, toggling the state of the service.

It'… Read more

NoCrop is not an app you will want to use with any regularity. The barrage of ads is unyielding, but this free and universal iOS app is useful for those times when Instagram's framing constraint doesn't mesh with the composition of a rectangular photo on your phone.

For such instances, NoCrop lets you share the entire rectangular frame on Instagram. It pulls off this feat by adding a white border on either side of portrait-oriented photos or on the top and bottom of landscapes.

When you first launch the app, you'll need to allow it access to … Read more

Last night, Facebook pushed an update to its Android app that lets users update their cover photo from directly within the app. In the past I had covered an Android app that helped you create a new cover photo, but it required you to use the Web site in order to actually change the photo.

To change your cover photo using the Android app, make sure you're running the latest version of the Facebook app. Pull up your own timeline and tap on your cover photo. You can then select "View Photo" or "Change Cover"; … Read more

Just because paper notebooks have things called pages doesn't mean a virtual notebooks need to have them. With MagicalPad, you can take notes and brainstorm on a freeform, page-less layout. The app was just updated this week and is currently on sale for 99 cents.

When you first launch the app, you'll see two default notebooks. This is a similar view to what you get with other note-taking apps such as Outline+, Paper, and Penultimate. Unlike these apps, however, MagicalPad's notebooks are filled with limitless workspaces instead of multiple pages.

From the notebooks home screen, you can … Read more