With Windows Phone a failure and Windows 10 Mobile going nowhere fast, Microsoft's newfound mission to dominate the iPhone with its own apps continues.
Microsoft's newest app is a keyboard replacement called Word Flow. The free keyboard, currently only available in English in the U.S., is designed to make it easier to text with a single hand.
Word Flow can be used like a traditional QWERTY keyboard. Alternatively, you can text by swiping between letters to string together words and sentences quickly, a feature Swipe pioneered.
But the standout feature for the keyboard is its "arc" mode; once activated, the keyboard scrunches up into an arc (for lefties and righties), which makes it easier to type with one hand, especially on larger iPhone.
Like any good phone keyboard, Word Flow comes with a predictive algorithm to anticipate your next word for faster texting. You can also customize the app's background.
I installed Word Flow to see if it could really speed up my texting skills. With arc mode turned on, it's definitely easier to bang out some words with one hand on my iPhone 6. Normally, I have to use two hands to reach a decent typing speed. If you've never used Swype, there will be a little bit of a learning curve to adjust to the typing pattern.
The predictive AI is good, but I wouldn't say it's great. It didn't seem any smarter than the iPhone's default autocorrect.
The lack of distinct outlines for each key is reminiscent of Google's Keyboard for Android. You're bound to make mistakes if you're not accustomed to this style.
Microsoft previously released a keyboard for iPhone called the Hub Keyboard, which brings in context from different services. It, unfortunately, was not a very good keyboard. It currently has a two-star rating on the App Store with many reviews complaining about it being slow, buggy and not ready for prime time.
A trick to get more storage space on your iPhone has been circulating around the Internet today — but you have to have less than a gig of available space left on your phone to make it work.
Redditor eavesdropping you posted a tactic for clearing up extra space that involves renting a movie from iTunes (don't worry, it won't charge you). Eavesdroppingyou suggests picking a long movie like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, because the trick requires that the movie's file size exceeds the amount of storage left on your phone.
After you hit the Rent button on a movie, a dialog box will come up, which will prompt you to hit OK or Settings. Hit Settings.
The dialog box that appears when trying to rent a movie that exceeds your storage size.
Your phone will take you to the Settings menu. If you take a look at General > Storage & iCloud Usage, you'll see that your phone's available storage space has probably gone up. My iPhone 5S with iOS 9.3 started at 890MB and jumped up to 1.6GB available.
If you hit your home button, you can see your iPhone working through different apps, graying them out and replacing their names with "Cleaning..." This likely means that your phone is removing a bunch of unused data and things like cookies, caches and histories. Your iPhone might automatically do this when storage space gets very low, but this is a great way to force the process to happen.
When I tried this, my phone went for Safari first, and also cleaned my Twitter, Snapchat and Imgur apps.
The Reddit post suggested renting the movie multiple times to free up more space, and it works. After three more cleanings, my iPhone had 3.9GB of available storage, and I didn't even have to remove any apps, photos or podcasts.
In just five minutes, attempting to rent a movie a few times brought this iPhone from 890MB of available storage to 3.9GB.
Try this out for yourself to get your phone to do some cleaning for you — it could save you from deleting some items you'd rather not give up.
How to Monitor Your Kid's iPhone or Android Text Messages
Here’s some exciting news for parents looking to monitor their child’s text message activity. Child safety website TeenSafe has launched a new version that not only lets you view your child’s social network activity, but also lets you read the text messages they send and receive on their Android or iPhone. Better still, you can even read text messages that have been DELETED on the phone! Text message monitoring has been of huge interest in recent years. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, kids spend an average of 7 hours, 38 minutes a day connected to some type of electronic device. The big worry for parents is that they don’t often know what their child is doing on their phone, online, or in the real world — and their kids aren’t always forthcoming with what’s going on in their lives. From sending friends seemingly innocent (but potentially provocative) photos, to online solicitations, sexting, or befriending some less-than-desirable characters, kids can make mistakes caused by youthful inexperience. Those actions can end up haunting a child and parent forever, but TeenSafe gives parents access and visibility into their child’s world. TeenSafe also works on an iPhone -- including iOS9. You don’t need your teen’s phone to set it up, and you can monitor the iPhone without needing to jailbreak it, which can invalidate the iPhone warranty. All you need is your child’s Apple ID and password. The application for Android smartphone installation is slightly different, but just as easy. Just enter some basic info, accept the app on the phone, and you're good go.
TeenSafe enables you to:
View your teen's text messages, including deleted texts.
See your teen's device location.
Monitor call logs and browser history.
Monitor Instagram, WhatsApp, Kik messages and more.
Visit TeenSafe.com
Once you register with TeenSafe, the information gets downloaded to your private login page where you can read all the iPhone or Android text messages your child has sent and received. You can also view their phone call logs, phone contacts and web browsing history, and monitor Instagram and WhatsApp activity. TeenSafe also uses the phone's GPS to track its location on a map. And nothing shows up on your child’s phone, so they won’t know about it unless you tell them. Admittedly, it can sound a little sneaky, but as long as you are the parent or guardian of the child it’s legal. As for whether or not you should tell your child, TeenSafe goes the common sense route by explaining that the decision is up to you.
Every family is different, and when it comes to protecting your children it’s sometimes good to open a dialogue. Other times it’s better to be discreet, such as when your child has already run into some trouble and you’re now trying to prevent him or her from encountering bigger problems.
So, whether you’re giving your child a cell phone for the first time and just want to keep an eye on them, or you have a teen exposed to more than they’re ready to handle, TeenSafe could be your way to safely and anonymously observe them without being a helicopter parent.
In 2015 the phone market couldn’t go unnoticed, as consumers were flooded with high-end smart phones, making it difficult to crown a well-deserved winner making it an interesting year.
Samsung was the first in line with Galaxy S6 Edge, which adapts a dual curve glass display to achieve an amazing design. World renowned Apple followed by launching the iPhone 6S Plus taking its place as the first series of this size. The trust worthy Huawei ended the year with the groundbreaking Mate 8, the first of its kind to compete boldly in the market. The smartphone was also introduced at the CES in Las Vegas recently and won several awards for its screen size, improved fingerprint recognition technology, camera quality, slim and attractive design, superior battery capacity and power consumption optimization, octa-core processor and rapid charging technology.
Although all these smartphones are touch screens they have differentiating qualities and functionalities. Lets look at some of the differentiating factors:
Battery
Mate 8 earned its first place as one of the biggest batteries. The Huawei Mate 8 comes with a non-removable Li-Po 4000 mAh battery, which gives consumers almost 2 days heavy use with a full battery charge. In comparison, the Apple iPhone 6S Plus has a non-removable Li-Ion 2750 mAh battery and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge has a non-removable Li-Ion 2600 mAh. Camera
Both the Huawei Mate 8 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge come with a 16MP rear-facing camera while the Apple iPhone 6S Plus has a 12MP rear-facing camera. With the ubiquitous nature of ‘selfies’ most smartphones are putting more consideration into the front-facing camera. The Apple iPhone 6S Plus and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge have a 5MP front-facing camera while the Huawei Mate 8 comes with an 8MP front-facing camera to give consumers the best selfie experience.
Huawei Mate 8
Operating System
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge runs on Android OS, v5.0.2 (Lollipop), upgradable to v5.1.1 (Lollipop); the Apple iPhone 6S Plus runs on iOS 9, upgradable to iOS 9.2 and the Huawei Mate 8 runs on Android OS, v6.0 (Marshmallow).
Size
Huawei Mate 8 proudly boats of a larger phone workspaceowing to its 6.0 inches size with ~78.0% screen-to-body ratio. The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge came close with a~71.7% screen-to-body ratio but is 5.1 inches. Apple being larger than the Samsung S6 edge manufactured the iPhone 6S Plus to be 5.5 inches in size but with ~67.7% screen-to-body ratio.
iPhone 6s Plus
Samsung Galaxy s6 Ede
Colors
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge comes in White Pearl, Black Sapphire, Gold Platinum and Green Emerald.Huawei Mate 8 is designed in Champagne Gold, Moonlight Silver, Space Gray and Mocha Brown. Apple iPhone 6S Plus gives the consumers four choices of colour - Space Gray, Silver, Gold and Rose Gold.
Card Slot
The Apple iPhone 6S and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge have no option for a card slot while the Huawei Mate 8 comes with an option for a microSD, up to 128 GB (uses SIM 2 slot). In addition it creates room for an extra sim to avoid the use of two mobile phones.
CPU
For the technical lovers you may want to know that the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge has the Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57; the Apple iPhone 6S Plus has the Dual-core 1.84 GHz Twister and the Huawei Mate 8 has the Quad-core 2.3 GHz Cortex-A72 + quad-core 1.8 GHz Cortex A53.
Memory Space and Special Features
Although The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge comes with 3 GB RAM memory space, Huawei Mate 8 equally has 3 GB RAM against the Apple iphone 6s Plus which has 2 GB RAM. Huawei Mate 8 offers the reverse charge function enabling its users to charge another device. The finger print screen access feature used by Apple was modified by the Mate 8 by placing the feature at the back making it easier for users to unlock their screens just by picking up their phones. Also the Mate 8 added the water ripple design with an ultimate visual experience without the need of a phone cover.
After the comparative analysis of the 3 smartphones, it is clear that the Huawei Mate 8 can hold its own against the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and Apple iPhone 6S.
Well, with all three having amazing specifications and designs, each smart phone has their various advantages but which product is the consumer’s favorite?
Well now it’s time for you to tell us what you think about.
Which product is the consumer’s favorite? Which product is the Best?
