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PSA: These apps are not the Wordle game you're looking for
There's only one true Wordle, and it comes from Josh Wardle
There's a hot new game out there that's gone viral. It's called Wordle, and it's a web-based word game created by Josh Wardle, a software engineer currently residing in Brooklyn. Over the last few months, his game has absolutely exploded, it's honestly a bit of a phenomenon, and so there are going to be a bunch of people out there just learning about the game, and they may run across similar titles that go by the same name, but these are not the true Wordle. Nope, the true Wordle can only be found on the creator's website.
If you didn't already know that Wordle can only be played on Josh Wardle's website, you might think it's an app with how many people are playing it on their phones. And there's the rub, if you search on the Play Store for Wordle, you get two matching results, both with the word Wordle in their titles. Unlike an unscrupulous developer on iOS who has outright cloned Josh's game, the two Wordle games on Android predate Josh's invention, and so they simply share a name as it's a fairly obvious portmanteau of the words Word and Puzzle.The thing is, Josh named his game Wordle as a play on his last name Wardle, creating a strange coincidence where the two games on Android that are older than Wordle just so happen to sport the same name despite both offering gameplay that's totally different.
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Google can't seem to catch a break when it comes to Chrome OS 91. First we saw many users reporting their devices using an egregious amount of CPU after upgrading to 91.0.4472.147. While Google pulled the update shortly thereafter and rolled everyone back to 91.0.4472.114, that managed to lock out Linux apps. Now we're seeing the arrival of 91.0.4772.165, and this update introduces an awful bug that's breaking Chromebooks left and right.
Android 12 Beta is bricking OnePlus 9 phones — here's how to fix it
The fix is easy, but you need to get back to Android 11
At Google I/O today, we got to meet Android 12's hot new interface. Not only would Pixel phones get an early taste, but phones from 10+ other OEMs, including OnePlus, are lining up to give their own users a peek at the new 12 Beta. While OnePlus is making it available for both the new OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro, it sounds like some users are facing pretty severe headaches — here's how to get your phone fixed if testing the beta goes wrong.
Scoped storage on Android 11 is ruining the Google Photos experience
If your go-to gallery app is Photos, deleting anything from your Android 11 device will be a bother and there's little you can do about it
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If you plan on buying a phone with Android 11 soon, you'll want to get used to your manufacturer's gallery app. And if you're going to be using Google Photos on something that's not a Pixel, be prepared to confirm every single thing you want to delete on the app. The reason why boils down to a new, well-intentioned policy in the operating system that leaves end users with some annoying consequences.
PSA: Check your OnePlus phone's battery health with this app (APK Download)
In other words, check your cell's cells
As we charge and discharge the batteries in our phones over time, those cells degrade and they can't hold juice like they used to. Of course, how our phones perform to get around this loss was the basis of Apple's Batterygate in 2018. Regardless of that, battery health is an important metric we should be tracking for a variety of reasons and, for owners of OnePlus phones, there's an easy way to do that.
If your Android phone is lost or stolen, the platform's built-in Find My Device functionality can help track down, lock, or remotely wipe it, though a change in Android 10 has led to some confusion among our readers. Find My Device has a setting in "Device admin apps," which grants it extra privileges it claims are required to remotely wipe and lock devices, and it appears to be disabled by default on many Android 10 devices, including the Pixel 4. Don't worry, though, you don't need to turn it back on. It turns out, Find My Device doesn't need it to work on Android 10.
If you've found yourself unable to tap on Chrome permission popups on Android 10, like when websites ask to use your location, you're not alone. As it turns out, system overlays like Facebook Messenger's chat heads or Pokémon Go stats apps are the culprit. Android 10 blocks tapping Chrome popups for security reasons when an app is drawing over the screen because there's always the possibility that some malware is showing fake dialogs on top of the ones actually displayed.
Many of Android 10's changes, like the new dark theme and extra notification management tools, are popular additions to the platform, but not every tweak is so well-loved. If you relied on clipboard syncing for your mobile-to-desktop workflow, you're out of luck. Google nerfed clipboard managers as part of Android 10, and now that the update is rolling out to Pixel users widely, those that depended on that functionality to stay productive are out of luck.
For many years, QuickPic was the darling photo gallery app of many. It was small, fast, efficient, and free — a rare combination of features. Then in 2015, QuickPic was bought by Cheetah Mobile and, despite many assurances that the app wouldn't be monetized with ads, those of us who had followed Cheetah over the years could guess that something was up. Now, following a huge Cheetah debacle last month, QuickPic has disappeared from the Play Store. If this isn't indication enough that things are iffy, I don't know what is.
Given Fortnite's current hotness, we understand if you've been scouring the web for an APK to download onto your phone. After all, Epic Games said that Fortnite would be making its way to Android this summer, and it's basically summer at this point. But be forewarned: Fortnite is not out on Android yet, and anything you see claiming to be a Fortnite APK is a scam.
Chrome notifications are great in theory, but now that virtually every site supports them, that constant, nagging banner under the URL bar can get annoying fairly quickly. Of course, you can always block each site individually, but that doesn't really solve the issue, since you'll still get the pop-up every time you visit a new site that supports Chrome's notifications.
Android O contains plenty of power-saving improvements for the platform. But it would appear that at least one of the changes won't be improving your battery life. For some users, on updating to Android Oreo (8.0 or 8.1), "mobile data always active" in Developer options will be enabled. While that will make switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data faster, it may also consume a bit more power.
British English alternative title: You can remove series from 'Continue Watching' on Netflix, but it's a bit of a faff
Google has been toying with changes to the Google Feed in its eponymous app all year, seemingly settling on a translucent look when you swipe right from your launcher home screen, or the three-tab interface in the full app. Google may still be testing different options, so yours may not be the same as mine, but I find it a lot worse than what I had before, especially as I can't swipe away cards to dismiss them anymore.
Ever noticed that Chrome suggests copied links when you go to search or enter a URL? What at first glance might have seemed like a new feature in the 4th developer preview of Android O now appears to have been around for a while, and have nothing to do with the OS itself.
Netflix added download support for a large chunk of its library late last year, which is great. It was long overdue, but still a much appreciated addition. However, Netflix's downloading functionality comes with a nasty catch that many people have just recently started running into: some content can only be downloaded a certain number of times. The worst part is Netflix doesn't tell you about that until you're almost out of downloads.
Copying and pasting text on any mobile operating system is kind of a pain, and Android is no different in this regard. Though text selection on our beloved OS has improved over the years, it's still just not an enjoyable experience. However, for those of you that use Chrome and copy URLs often, there's now a feature that may just become a staple of your lives.
Every once in a while, you might wake up and see everyone playing the same new smartphone game/app, much like in The Next Generation. Meitu is a bizarre Chinese photo app, that applies various filters and 'enhancements' to pictures of yourself and others. In just the past few hours, it has received massive coverage online. While the app is certainly fun to mess around with, several users have pointed out that the application is sending a massive amount of user details to external IP addresses.
Android Nougat is still relatively new, and very few phones have officially been upgraded to it thus far. However, in the past few hours, we've been seeing reports by multiple tech sites that the mid-range Moto G4 and G4 Plus are now receiving Android 7.0 Nougat in various countries; this is completely false. While the G4 Plus has received a Nougat soak test, the software has not officially been released in any region yet.
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- USB Type-C guru Benson Leung has informed us that the Pixel phones don't work with the adapter because they lack VESA DisplayPort Alternate Mode that is on the Pixel C and Chromebook Pixel, which means that they aren't compatible with any adapters of this sort.
Even in a world with Chromecasts and other streaming devices, it's often just easier to plug your phone directly into your TV with an HDMI cable and an adapter. Some people depend on this functionality quite a bit, and for those of you that do, it might not please you to hear that Google's Pixel smartphones will not support the company's own USB Type-C to HDMI adapter.