Google's Project Ara may truly change smartphones

Remember when you used to only use your phone to call people and maybe send a few texts? Back in the day when a phone was just a phone, when you spent a few minutes changing your ringtone or playing Bounce. Then Steve Jobs announced the iPhone and changed the way we see phones.

Since then, phones have been incrementally improving. When you compare the iPhone 6S to the original iPhone you'll notice a lot of changes in performance, camera and display as well as new additions like Touch ID and 3D Touch. However, our perception of a phone is still very similar. It's a device you buy once every couple of years or so, and use it to scroll through Instagram for hours. After about two years you'd notice that people's pictures are looking better than yours, or your friend has a louder phone, and you'll decide it's time to upgrade.

Google is changing that soon with its Project Ara.

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Infographic- How People Use Smartphones

Smartphone usage has been constantly changing over the past few years. As more people have access to faster internet on their phones, the usage of the devices improve. Below is an infographic titled "How people use smartphones" that you may find interesting.

I was mostly interested with the mobile habits section. Did you know that the average American spends twice as much time on their smartphone in comparison to time spent eating?

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3 Great Free Games To Play On Your iPhone or Android Phone This Weekend

The weekend is here which means it's time to refresh the games on your phone. You can spend your weekend searching through the App Store's wilderness or check out the 3 games I've collected here for you. These are games I've been playing a lot last week so I guarantee they're fun. All three games are available for both iOS and Android for free and are in different categories.

1- Orbits - by Turbo Chilli

Jump from circle to circle with one tap. The game can be played with one hand and is fast paced. Collect diamonds, dodge spikes and complete levels. Despite being a one handed game it requires a lot of focus and thinking in order to complete the levels.

If you're after a beautiful game that you can play with one hand then you may want to try out Orbits. You can disable ads and skip levels with in-app purchases, but can play the full game for free.

Download on: iPhone/iPad, Android.

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Climax Game: Dumb Ways To Die for Movies

Most of you are familiar with the Dumb Ways to Die game. Short mini levels with three lives and fast paced game-play. Climax by Baikin Studios has a similar gaming style, but with a different concept. Instead of playing mini games where you avoid dumb deaths, you play mini games related to some very popular movies.

The game has 60 different movies. You have 10 unlocked by default and can unlock more as you reach higher scores. This gives an incentive to play the game more often as there's a challenge to defeat.

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Pennies app review for iPhone

Featuring elegant sounds, fluid animations and a simple gesture-based user interface; Pennies is the top paid finance app in the App Store for good reason. The app is a charm to use and makes it easy to keep track of how much money you've got.

Based on your spending history, the app has a 'left today' feature. This recommends how much money you should spend on this day. If you end up spending more than recommended, the app's background color turns from a happy green to a negative red. The app even takes advantage of iOS 8 by featuring a notification center widget showing your 'left today' money for every budget.

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2 Reasons Why Samsung should stop bashing Apple in its ads

Whenever a new iPhone is announced or released, we get two sets of ads. One set of ads from Apple promoting the iPhone, and another set from Samsung bashing the iPhone. Whenever a new Samsung phone is released we also get two sets of ads, one set from Samsung promoting the phone, and another set from Samsung bashing the iPhone again.

Although Android fans tend to enjoy anything that bashes Apple, below are two reasons why I believe Samsung should stop bashing Apple in its ads.

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Did Apple lose the screen size war?

When Steve Jobs first announced the iPhone in 2007, the 3.5 inch screen was referred to as “huge”. Compared to other screen sizes at the time, that size was indeed huge.

But as time advances, customers want different things from their phones. One of those wants is a larger screen. Android phone manufacturers such as Samsung and HTC were soon producing gigantic phones and were praised for it. This lead Apple to announcing the iPhone 5 with a larger 4 inch screen. Although this was the biggest iPhone at the time, it was smaller than its direct competitors who had phones with almost 5 inch screens.

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Everything Apple Announced In The September 9 Event

On September 9 2014, Apple held it's iPhone 6 event. Most announcements were rumored and predicted in advance, but we weren't aware of all details until they were announced.

Apple announced two new iPhones: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Additionally Apple announced Apple Pay, a new payment system replacing credit cards and also the Apple Watch which probably was the most anticipated Apple product for years.

I'll cover details of all three products in this post.

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Video shows leaked iPhone 6 put together from factory parts

With just 4 days until Apple announces a beautiful and fresh new iPhone; leaks, rumors and concepts are everywhere. Rozetked, a Russian youtuber put together a 4.7 inch iPhone 6 using parts stolen from the production line. The result is a genuine looking iPhone that could possibly be Apple's upcoming iPhone.

The leaked iPhone has an original system board featuring an A8 processor and an NFC chip according to Rozetked.

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They Need To Be Fed 3 Review

On August 19, They Need To Be Fed (TNTBF) hit the trilogy mark. The game started off on PC then made its way into iOS almost four years ago. I've never played any version of TNTBF in the past, so it was exciting to give the third version a try.

The concept of the game is pretty simple. You need to move your character around levels of rotating blocks while dodging spikes and picking up diamonds until you reach a hungry plant at the end of the level. The game has a little twist in it which makes it a lot more fun: Gravity isn't pulling your character down. Instead, every block has it's own small gravitational field and you jump from one block into another. You can not fall off and die as you're always withing a block's gravitational field.

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Deleting Safari History Does Not Remove All Traces Of A Website From Your iPhone

It’s common habit by many iPhone users to clear browsing history from safari. However the assumption usually is that this removes all evidence of visited websites from the iPhone. Unfortunately that’s not the case.

Your iPhone automatically stores website data, this is visible in the settings app. Website data is used to help improve your safari experience as it saves your data and loads it for you. The problem with this is that even when you clear your history, your website data remains visible from the settings app. This could expose certain websites you’ve visited in the past.

Don’t worry though, there’s always a solution!

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Mustard- Upcoming App To Find Someone To Do Something Now

Smartphones have helped us with many things in our lives. It's now a lot easier to keep in touch with family and friends that lives continents away. You can turn your lights on and off using your smartphone, as well as order pizza in one tap. There are still aspects of our life that haven't been improved by smartphones yet, such as finding someone to hang out with right now. And that's what Mustard is for.

Mustard is an upcoming app that lets you find people to hang out with. No more sending messages in group chats and never reaching a conclusion, and no more texting a lot of people to find out if they're free. Mustard solves all that.

You can check in as free for temporary periods of time such as 2 hours or the weekend, and friends will do the same. This will lead to you having a list of all your free friends at the current time. So if you're bored at home and want to grab some coffee with a friend or if you want to watch a movie in the weekend; you can just open Mustard and see who's free too.

Mustard has a lot of potential. I think it'll kick off really well since I'm sure it'll help most people one way or another. I can already see it helping me in the future when the app is released.

I asked the founder of Mustard, Matt Hurley, why would people use Mustard to connect with their friends rather than traditional texting and calling. His response was:

While there is definitely no shortage of services keeping you "connected" to your friends - showing you what they've been doing, where they've been, or helping you organise events in the future - nothing answers the question: which of my friends is looking for something to do, right now? Traditional texting or calling is certainly an option if you know who to call, but finding someone who is available and keen can prove difficult.

Mustard will provide a simple answer to that question by showing you which of your friends are keen when you are. It could be someone you see regularly, or someone you haven't seen for years.

He absolutely nailed it. Mustard is an app to serve a completely different purpose than texting people when you're bored. Instead, it helps you meet these people in real life and have face to face conversations with them, which is a lot more sociable than online communication.

To keep up with Mustard, make sure you join their mailing list for prototypes and betas: getmustard.io 

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Pako Review- Fun Car Game for iPhone & iPad

The App Store isn’t short of games at all. Yet sometimes people struggle in finding the right game to play on their iPhones. I spend a lot of time looking for fun games and I have found a great one: Pako.

Pako is a simple car game. The objective is to drive around and avoid crashing into anything as your car will blow up if you crash. To spice up the game, there are police cars chasing you around the area and you have to dodge them too as well as the traffic, buildings and lamp posts. One of the areas even has tanks which fire at you!

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How to Use Third Party Alarm Apps Properly on iPhone

With the release of iOS 8, Apple has shown the world that it's moving towards a more flexible and open system with Extensions. One of the most annoying limitations I face that has not yet been addressed is how alarm apps can not bypass Do Not Disturb. Do Not Disturb is a feature Apple announced with iOS 6 that silents your notifications completely and avoids the screen lighting up or your phone vibrating during the night. I rely on this feature to ensure I get my peaceful goodnight sleep.

However, the alarm in iOS is the only app that can bypass Do Not Disturb (as well as phone but that's off by default). I recently downloaded CARROT Alarm. It makes waking up a lot more fun than regular alarms. However it requires me to keep my phone unlocked and the app running if I want to wake up since it can't bypass Do Not Disturb.

--> Related: CARROT Fit app threatens you into losing weight

I figured out a little trick that avoids this whole problem.

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How to See All Passwords Used in Safari for iPhone

Safari on iPhone is fast, sexy and powerful. One of the features that make Safari powerful is it's ability to remember your passwords from sites across the web. Most internet users have grown used to the autofill option in browsers, but how many of you know that all your passwords are accessible from your iPhone to anyone who knows your phone's password?

Let's give it a shot. Follow through my step by step tutorial to view all passwords on your iPhone!

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Pee Run- A Must Have App for Cinema Addicts

There are three problems I face when watching a movie in the cinema: arriving late, needing to pee and sharing the armrest with the person sitting next to me. And while Pee Run can't help me take the armrest for myself, it does help solve the first two problems.

Launching Pee Run will show the user a list of the movies available. There is a search bar at the top to help quickly find the movie that you are looking for. When the movie is selected it shows suggested times to take a pee or buy some popcorn. Scenes with little meaning to the story will be suggested, additionally the app will summarize the events that took place during the few minutes you spent in the bathroom.

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Lucky Dragon- a game that makes dragons cute

Apple updates the hardware of the iPhone every year to allow it to run games with more intense graphics and gameplay. The iPhone 5S features a powerful 64 bit processor that allows the 4 inch device to run games with almost console-level graphics. Yet, users tend to like simple games with minimal graphics that require a tap or so to play a game (think of flappy bird).

I am one of those users who wants a quick game to play on the go, and if you are too, then I'm sure you'll enjoy Lucky Dragon.

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ProCamera 7 Review for iPhone

The iPhone camera is loved for its simplicity. Any beginner will soon become very familiar due to the absence of menus and jargon. However, some iPhone users are after a more advanced experience. They want complete control over their photo taking experience. If you're one of these people then ProCamera 7 may be the app for you.

ProCamera 7 features a lot of customization when taking a photo. It has typical features from the default camera app such as rapid fire (burst), focus & exposure lock, grids and self-timer (iOS 8). It also has features not available in the default camera app such as adjusting white balance, fullscreen mode, anti shake mode and live data.

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Solve Camera makes taking photos in public a lot less embarassing

Photography on smartphones has improved a lot over the past few years. We can now take HDR photos with a high resolution and maintaining a good quality. However one big problem with taking photos is when you want to take a photo without other people knowing that you're taking a photo.

Thankfully, iOS developer Ravi has addressed the issue with his latest app Solve. Ravi is the developer of many great iPhone tweaks such as Addial, Torch & Pluck 2. His app Solve Camera is very similar to his tweaks: remarkably simple and very useful.

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Strides app review- track your goals and habits beautifully

The problem with setting goals and working towards making an activity a habit is that it's very easy to procrastinate them both. We tend to leave things for "tomorrow" and never actually making a start. If you're able to completely achieve your goals without procrastinating then this app isn't for you, but for the majority of people like me, we need something that works.

I've been using an app called Strides for a week now. The app promises that it'll help me achieve my goals. From the app's website:

Strides is the easiest way to track all your goals and habits in one place, with flexible reminders and beautiful charts to keep you motivated and on track.

 So I gave Strides a go by testing it with two trackers, the first is doing push ups and the second is to minimize my swearing. Strides features four different types of trackers depending on the activity, more on that later.

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