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5 Simple Gallery alternatives to avoid new owner ZipoApps
Simple Mobile Tool isn't the only option for a quality gallery app
You've probably heard about Simple Mobile Apps' recent purchase by Zipoapps, a company known for ruining the apps it buys. On the Play Store, Simple Gallery's review ratings have plummeted from a respectable 4.5 down to 2.1; people are not pleased with all of the new monetization. It's a shame because apps like Simple Gallery can be really handy when the majority of options are filled with subscriptions and in-app purchases, going the extra mile to keep our photos, videos, GIFs, and albums secure and organized under the watchful eye of a respectable open-source platform.
Rumors of another T-Mobile data breach have been debunked by the carrier
Employee data was rumored to have been leaked this time around
When it comes to your personal information, there are a number of tools you can use to ensure that it’s protected on the internet. However, what happens to your data once it’s in the hands of a company is not always up to you, since a breach can expose your information unexpectedly without the company’s consent. T-Mobile is one mobile service provider that has become almost as renowned for its data breaches as its promotional deals. After an app glitch showed incorrect billing info earlier this week, a separate rumor began circulating on X (formerly known as Twitter) that the carrier had suffered yet another breach. However, T-Mobile has now debunked this report as false.
Business is often conducted on the go these days, and this has never been more viable on your favorite Android phone. In conjunction with the best apps on Android, business apps can make the earth move in terms of productivity, connectivity, and financial stability. AP loves the best management and tycoon games, but if you're looking to invest time in optimizing a real business, today's roundup is one that you won't want to skip.
Apex Legends Mobile beginner's guide: How to get started
How to find the Apex Legends character that suits your playstyle the best
Diving headfirst into Apex Legends Mobile without any prior experience and background in battle royales can make you feel like a deer lost in the headlights. It's a bit different than PUBG and Fortnite, where you rely on passives and abilities to gain the upper edge in a match without skewing the overall game balance. Apex Legends Mobile offers a new experience, a well-polished one that goes beyond running and gunning, transforming itself into an adapted hero shooter designed for battle royale gameplay. It even ambitiously tests the best Android phones on the market at the highest FPS and graphics to resemble the experience you'll find on consoles and PC.
Catalyst Black beginner's guide: How to conquer the latest mobile hero shooter
Learn how to defeat your foes in the new 12v12 hero shooter developed by the Vainglory team
The Vainglory team's newest title, Catalyst Black, has come through on releasing an epic action-packed free-to-play battleground shooter. The game delivers on a solid performance, various game modes to share between friends and an abundance of customization options for your theory-crafting loadouts. Our beginner's guide aims to get new players up to speed with the hero shooter by teaching you gameplay basics and each game mode's objectives while detailing the title's upgrade system.
Streets of Rage 4 beginner's guide: Tips and tricks to beat the game (without getting beat up yourself)
Improve your brawling gameplay by learning the best characters and moves to use
The word of the street is that one of the best brawlers, Streets of Rage 4, has finally landed on Android and iOS. So far, the hype is warranted. The challenging beat 'em delivers perfected gameplay on Android, so there's no better time to reveal our latest tips and tricks guide to get players into the groove. We've profiled the available Street of Rage 4 characters while detailing what's included in the Mr. X Nightmare downloadable content (DLC), with some handy move examples and general reminders to help you clear those problematic stages.
When will my phone be updated to Android 12?
2021's Android upgrade is slowly coming to more devices every month
We're well into the age of Android 12 and if you own any of the devices that have already been updated, you can count yourself lucky. For the rest of us with relatively new phones, there's only one question: when will I get it? We've dug for the answers, all you need to do is click through to find them out.
I am a very, very big fan of Peak Design's products. I use and abuse an Everyday Backpack, Sling, and Travel Tripod, and I couldn't imagine covering events for our site without them — at least, back when we had tech events. As a borderline fanboy, I was pretty excited to test out the company's upcoming suite of magnetically mounted mobile accessories. It's a system that has promise, but some of the pre-production hardware we got to check out could use a little more work.
Netflix undercuts its Basic plan with a cheaper Mobile+ offer
HD playback on one device, but no TV support
Netflix is trying to gain ground in India’s crowded and largely price-sensitive online streaming market. The global giant already runs a lengthy lineup of local programming and it recently started offering cheaper plans — costing as low as $3 — to draw more users. Keeping up with that approach, Netflix recently began testing a new Mobile+ plan, which sits right between the existing Mobile and Basic tiers.
Google just shook up the smartphone game with the announcement of the Pixel 3a and 3a XL. Suddenly, owning a Pixel with Google's fast updates and excellent cameras is significantly more affordable (and tempting) for AP readers.
Voice is quickly becoming a preferred method of search for many mobile users, and Google is responding by pushing voice features to as many of its platforms and services as it can. The latest example is voice search on Google.com for mobile web. The tech giant began rolling out the new feature this past week, but it's only available to Android users so far.
Samsung published its third-quarter financials yesterday, and results are mixed. Although profits and revenue are up (both year over year and quarter over quarter), the mobile division continues the decline set last quarter. Interestingly, that's not as a result of sales, but rather increased marketing costs and unfavorable currency developments. Nonetheless, it expects those mobile earnings to decrease further next quarter, even as smartphone shipments rise.
Google is making a real effort to enhance its travel features across a variety of platforms lately. Over the past few months, the search giant updated Google Flights with new features for sussing out whether you're overpaying for airfare and hotels, added new tools in Search for planning upcoming trips, and overhauled hotel listings in Google Maps. It's now continuing that trend with an update to hotel browsing on Search for desktop that takes after a mobile refresh from earlier this year.
Social media stars finally have an Adobe video app just for them. Adobe announced its Project Rush cross-device video editing app in June 2018, revealing a platform designed for individuals creating and publishing video content for the web. Now it officially has a name — Premiere Rush CC — and an availability timeline for Android.
Google recently revealed new Search features that mark, in its words, a "fundamental transformation" in the way users look for and find content on the web. The updates all focus on a shift towards more tailored, personalized results. One major addition is activity cards, which surface pages you've already visited related to your current search. Another is a new "dynamic organization" of search results that provides users with relevant subtopics specific to their inquiry. For instance, when you search "pug," you see subtopics like "buy or adopt," "health," and "how to train" in a row along the top of the primary result. Building off this change, Google is now testing a scroll overlay that shows the subtopics as you scroll further down in results.
Read update
Google doesn't often revise its interface for image searches, though it did tweak the mobile UI a bit in October of last year. The web version is now getting a similar treatment, complete with a new look for the gallery and a new image viewer.
Read update
Slow websites are lame, and Google knows it. Starting in July 2018, Google will use a page's speed in the ranking algorithm for mobile searches. That means slow websites will be penalized, moving faster ones up closer to the top.
Foldable smartphones have been patented, demoed, and scrapped more times than any of us can count over the years. Maybe foldable phones aren't the future—maybe the future is going to be about expandable phones. Samsung has filed a patent for a smartphone display that expands when you pull on the sides. It's like carrying a smartphone and a tablet at the same time.
Google offers so many products and services, it can be hard to keep track of them all. Google tries to address this problem with Dashboard, a place to view all of your account's data in one place. But the page has never had a mobile layout, so trying to use it on phones has been somewhat of a pain.
VR doesn't seem to be as exciting these days. Whether it's the limitations of mobile VR (like heat, video quality, and battery drain) or being tethered to your PC with the Rift or Vive, VR doesn't seem that appealing to many people — I, for one, am not one of those, but I digress. To combat some of the weaknesses of both platforms, Zeiss has come up with the VR One Connect, which bridges the gap between mobile and PC virtual reality... in theory.