Looking back at older versions of software makes you wonder how we even managed to use them years ago. Dusty iterations of programs like Word, Excel, and even Photoshop were crude as hell by today’s standards. But what if Snapchat—Mark Zuckerberg’s favorite ephemeral app—had existed on desktop computers in the ‘90s? It probably would have been simpler to use, actually.
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The self-destructing social media app prides itself on an interface that most adults find confusing, while tweens find it second nature. But as Squirrel Monkey reveals, had Snapchat existed before mobile devices with touchscreens and built-in cameras, it would have been dependent on simple pulldown menus and buttons, UI elements even your grandparents mastered. Of course, scanning in photos yourself is hilariously time-consuming, so you may have just been better off taking a Polaroid and sticking it in your friend’s real-life mailbox.
[YouTube via Laughing Squid]
How your other favorite modern __apps would have worked decades ago
If YouTube Were Invented in the 90s, It Would Have Worked Like This
If Facebook Were Invented In the 90s, It Would Have Worked Like This
Believe It Or Not, LinkedIn Would Have Been Even More Annoying In the 80s
If you’ve got a debt to pay, a bill to split or a reward to give, you no longer need to dig out your wallet or bother with notes and coins—your smartphone is perfectly capable of sending money to friends and relatives with just a few taps.
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But the __apps that let you send the money can be rife with hidden fees, they often hold your cash for longer than you might like, and sometimes they force you into a whole new social media sphere you might have zero interest in. So here are the best __apps for sending money with your phone ranked from least to most annoying.
Square Cash (Android, iOS)
Image: Square Cash
One of the best benefits of using Square Cash is that the person you’re paying doesn’t need a Square Cash account, so there’s no need for them to install another app or set up another account—all you need is their email address and your debit card. It’s free to use too, unless you’re a business, or you want to use a credit card (a three percent fee applies here).
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Standard deposits show up the next day, while same day deposits cost a small fee (one percent) and you can link your account to a Visa card, MasterCard, or Discover debit card. Square Cash is difficult to beat for simplicity and ease-of-use, and you won’t have any problem keeping track of payments in and out. The app also lets you set up your own “$Cashtag” code that lets you get paid anonymously.
Facebook Messenger (Android, iOS)
Image: Facebook Messenger
That’s right, they’ve put payments into Facebook Messenger now. You’ve handed over the rest of your life to Facebook, so why not put money into the mix too? Paying money is as easy as typing out a dollar sign and an amount in a conversation window—it turns into a hyperlink that can be clicked to make the payment. You need to link a debit card to your Facebook account to send money in Messenger, though the service is free to use.
Payments can take up to five days to process, but the obvious benefit is that pretty much everyone you know already uses Facebook (though anyone receiving money needs to enter their debit card details too). So there’s none of the hassle of asking friends to make an account just so you can pay them back for a pizza.
PayPal (Android, iOS)
Image: PayPal
PayPal has been making digital payments simple for many years now, but the mobile apps have often lagged behind the fake bank’s desktop iteration. Yet after the acquisition of Venmo back in 2013, Paypal has slowly been getting more intuitive and easy to use. It’s now pretty simple to pay someone you know from the PayPal app, though the recipient will need PayPal too (if they’ve somehow gone the last 15 years without, they’ll get a prompt to sign up for one).
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You need to have a bank account or card linked to your PayPal to draw the balance from, or you need a positive PayPal balance in your account, so some preparation is required. Sending money straight from your account or PayPal balance is free of charge, but if you use a linked debit or credit card there’s a fee of $0.30 plus 2.9 percent of the amount. That’s the costliest money transfer fee on this list, but PayPal is also the only app that lets you send money to people who aren’t in the US. Which means PayPal will be the best choice for paying back those Brits you met at the bar last Saturday.
Venmo (Android, iOS)
Image: Venmo
Venmo is built around the idea of seamless mobile payments to friends and family, so you would expect it to be pretty good at its job, and it is. Both parties need the Venmo app installed, but transactions are free if you use a linked bank account, a debit card from a major bank, or your Venmo balance, otherwise the sender pays a 3 percent charge.
The app is now owned by PayPal, so like the parent company it has a tendency to hold onto you cash longer than you might like. Yet there’s also a built-in tool for splitting a bill, and you can pay over text without opening the app (Venmo links to your phone number, WhatsApp-style).
But Venmo is structured like a social network for payments (you can even “like” transactions). Which means you have to see all the eggplant emojis your friends use when paying back their significant others. That’s why even though Venmo is cheaper than PayPal, it’s still much more annoying.
I’m going to toss my hat into the ring of an age-old debate; Mac or PC? While many people will argue their opinion one way over the other, for me it comes down to performance. I want to be on the platform that offers the best performance for what I must do. I do most of my work from a laptop that I like to dock at the office when I need to be stationary. This had led to me trying a variety of laptops, both Mac and PC, in the search for the perfect solution.
In the video below I put the Asus GL502VS up against the Macbook Pro. While these machines both have different specs, the GL502VS is technically a gaming laptop, I was curious which one was better for video editing. For my testing, I will be rendering the same project on both machines using Premiere Pro CC. Let’s see who wins in the video below.
Curious on how these machines do with photo editing? Check out the video here.
Get the Macbook Pro on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2iPlVr7 Get the ASUS GL502VS on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jDoEsk
Which is truly better for photographers; Mac or PC? With camera technology rapidly changing and with that, file sizes increasingly becoming larger, it’s important to have a computer that can handle all of your editing tasks. With the Macbook Pro not receiving much in the way of upgrades, I looked towards the PC side of the fence to see if I could find something that could compete.
In the video below I put the Asus GL502VS up against the Macbook Pro. While these machines both have different specs, the GL502VS is technically a gaming laptop, I was curious which one was better for photo editing. For my testing, I will be exporting the same batch of photos from Adobe Lightroom on both machines. Let’s see who wins in the video below.
Curious on how these machines do with video editing? Check out the video here.
Get the Macbook Pro on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2iPlVr7 Get the ASUS GL502VS on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jDoEsk
It’s been roughly a year since Google released Android Wear for iOS, bringing the functionality to use an Android Wear watch with an iPhone. Recently, Google Released Android Wear 2.0, and major update to Android wear watches that brings a slew of new features and improvements. With that, the iOS app was updated to allow Android Wear 2.0 devices to be paired to the iPhone. But, is it worth it? Why not just get an Apple Watch?
I picked up the LG Watch Sport, one of the first Android Wear 2.0 watches to be available in the US. The LG Watch Sport comes with Android 2.0 installed out of the box and features an LTE chip so it can be used independently of a smartphone using AT&T Number Sync, and similar services on other carriers. With all of that said, is it worth it to use the LG Watch Sport with an iPhone over the Apple Watch? Check out the video to find out.
LG Watch Sport on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ncbujZ iPhone 7 on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2n3QFYD Google Pixel on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mjy9wY
The successor to the GoPro Hero 4 line has finally arrived. The Hero 5 line of GoPro products is here and boy do they look awesome. Only time will tell if they are truly a worthy successor to the Hero 4 line of products but they are off to a good start.
As a longtime user of the GoPro Hero 4 line, I discuss my initial thoughts on the GoPro Hero 5 and the Hero 5 Session. And being that I currently am a Sony Action Cam user, I discuss my thoughts on the two brands of action cameras as well.
GoPro Hero 5 Black on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jwNF7W GoPro Hero 5 Session on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jWVtwM
When Apple introduced the Macbook Pro with Touch Bar, they left many creatives wondering if Apple cared about them at all. It was only a slight hardware improvement over the previous generation, it comes with a new Touch Bar, and costs more than the previous model.
While on the other side of the fence, Razer, is pushing the limits of mobile computing with their stylish and powerful Raze Blade 2016. Razer, while mainly catering towards gamers, is wanting to capture some of the creatives that feel left behind by Apple.
But, does it make sense to purchase a gaming laptop when the main purpose of it will be for creative tasks such as coding, photo editing, and video editing? In the video below, I give you my top five reasons that you should choose a Razer Blade 2016 over the Macbook Pro with Touch Bar.
Macbook Pro with Touch Bar on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mQ0AUT Razer Blade 2016 on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2myRY4l
The time has come to build an editing workstation. Lately, I have been having many issues with my Macbook Pro slowing down while trying to edit photos in Adobe Lightroom as well as editing 1080p and 4K footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Don’t get me wrong, the Macbook Pro is still an amazing machine but it doesn’t have the horsepower to keep up with my increasing demoing workload. This is where the PC comes in.
It’s been many years since I decided to embark on the PC building expedition. It was something that I enjoyed for a long time but the inconsistencies and issues with building a PC got to me and that’s why I’ve been Mac only for several years. In the video below, I’ll show you what parts are going into the build and why I chose them. Also down below is the parts list if you’re wanting to see current pricing or to pick on up for yourself.
This is just a PC build video, no benchmarking done, sorry! Perhaps the next PC build I do I will include more specs and benchmark results.
Parts List: Intel Core i7 6850K: http://amzn.to/2jE0PQQ Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM: http://amzn.to/2iQ4Ux0 Samsung 950 PRO NVMe SSD: http://amzn.to/2ju3lGX Asus X99 Deluxe II Motherboard: http://amzn.to/2jEdKSS Asus STRIX Geforce GTX 1080: http://amzn.to/2iPU0qY Corsair AX1200i Power Supply: http://amzn.to/2iQ1P05 Corsair H100i V2 AIO: http://amzn.to/2iQ16vD Corsair ML 140 Pro Case Fans: http://amzn.to/2k6d996 Corsair ML 120 Pro Case Fans: http://amzn.to/2jEbTh2 Nanoxia Deep Silence 5 Case: http://amzn.to/2iQ4qHl
The Macbook Pro with Touch Bar is Apple’s latest and greatest Macbook pro. It has better internal hardware than the previous generation as well as the Touch Bar which makes navigation around macOS and various other applications a breeze. Apple didn’t push the hardware to the limits, though, it’s just a minor spec improvement over the prior generation. But, it’s a quality built machine that’ll sure to keep pushing a few years down the road.
While on the other side of the fence, Razer, is pushing the limits of mobile computing with their stylish and powerful Raze Blade 2016. Razer, while mainly catering towards gamers, is wanting to capture some of the creatives that feel left behind by Apple.
But, does it make sense to purchase a gaming laptop when the main purpose of it will be for creative tasks such as coding, photo editing, and video editing? In the video below, I give you my top five reasons that you should choose a Macbook Pro with Touch Bar over the Razer Blade 2016.
Macbook Pro with Touch Bar on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mQ0AUT Razer Blade 2016 on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2myRY4l
The Google Pixel and Pixel XL are the to Google what the iPhone is to Apple. The Pixel phones run a stock version of Android, have amazing cameras, and are very well designed. These phones are Google’s vision of what Android should be. But, does that mean that they are the phone for you?
There are many arguments to whether you should choose an Android phone over an iPhone. And there are much more arguments on the opposite. Most of these decisions come down to the individual but there are some things that you should take into consideration before choosing one over the other. In the video below, I outline the top five reasons, in my opinion, that you should choose a Google Pixel, or any Android phone for that matter, over an iPhone.
Google Pixel on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mjy9wY iPhone 7 on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2n3QFYD
Who doesn’t love the smell of a new car? What about a new iPhone? When I first get something new I find that customizing it to my liking can be quite fun. With a new iPhone, that means downloading my favorite apps, organizing them into folders, setting my wallpaper, changing the ringtone, and the list goes on. And with each new version of the iPhone, there are specific settings and features that I like to customize and/or change.
On the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, those are the most current versions at the time or writing, there are some settings specific to those devices that I like to change to make things a bit easier. And there are some iOS specific settings I change that you’ll find on each iPhone. In the video below I share my thoughts on the settings I often change on my new iPhones that make my life easier and hopefully will help you out too.
Get the iPhone 7 on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mdYr5h Get the iPhone 7 Plus on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lLYtjQ
The Razer Core is an external graphics card until that will allow you, through Thunderbolt 3, to connect a desktop graphics card to either a Razer Stealth or Razer Blade laptop. What’s nice about the Razer Core is that it also has USB 3 ports and an Ethernet port so you can also use it as a hub as well as a graphics housing.
In this review, I take my Razer Blade 2016 and pair it with the Razer Core housing an Asus Strix GTX 1080 to see if it can outperform the GTX 1060 that comes with the Razer Blade. While the Razer Core is mainly targeted towards games, as it can help boost FPS in most games, I am looking at this from a creative’s perspective on a mission to find the ultimate processing power.
Razer Blade (Skylake) on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mOaW4R Razer Blade (Kaby Lake) on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mUoCNz Asus GTX 1080 Strix on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2niqTCV
This last year Google announced and released, Android Wear 2.0. Android Wear 2.0, a major update to Android wear watches that brings a slew of new features and improvements. With that, there were new Android Wear 2.0 smartwatches announced, one of them being the LG Watch Sport.
I picked up the LG Watch Sport, one of the first Android Wear 2.0 watches to be available in the US. The LG Watch Sport comes with Android 2.0 installed out of the box and features an LTE chip so it can be used independently of a smart phone using AT&T Number Sync, and similar services on other carriers. The Watch Sport has received mixed reviews online so I decided to toss my opinion out there too. Check out the review video below.
Asking if a PC is better than a Mac is like asking if the chicken came before the egg. You’re going to have many compelling arguments that could convince you of either stance. There are certain things that a PC is known for being better at and there are certain things that a Mac is known for being better at. But that’s not really the definitive answer that most are looking for when purchasing a new computer. They want to know which one is ultimately better and best suited for their needs, which means that the question, in general, can be quite subjective.
Over the last year, I’ve been in a battle between choosing a Mac or PC. Needing a more powerful workstation, I’ve tried all sorts of Windows laptops, Macbooks, Macbook Pros, and more! With all of that, I feel that I’ve ultimately decided on which is truly better, find out in the video below.
So you’ve picked up a brand new Galaxy Tab S3 or any other Android tablet and your first thought is: how am I going to make the most of this extra screen space? The general consensus is that iOS is stronger in the tablet department, but there are Android __apps out there that work particularly well on a bigger screen held horizontally. There are just very few apps.
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Don’t expect to find a nice Tweetbot equivalent for Twitter on a tablet. Nor should you anticipate all your traditional __apps have a tablet layout. Android apps are still built primarily for use in portrait mode.
Yet beyond video players like Netflix or Plex, or games that have been scaled up, like GTA or Super Mario Run, there are still a few solid apps that have tailored tablet experiences. Here are 8 of our favorites.
Spotify (freemium)
Image: Screenshot
The world’s most well-known music streaming service makes a decent go of updating its Android UI for tablet devices, stretching track listings and album art to make the display seem as full as possible. It’s not perfect but it’s getting better, and there are some nice touches like the split view for browsing playlists.
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We’re partly including Spotify because of all the devices you can hook the app up to, including Sonos speakers—so there’s the option of setting up your tablet somewhere in the house and using it as a master controller for your music. Google Play Music looks good on tablets too, but Spotify has a slight music selection edge.
Excel (freemium)
Image: Screenshot
Spreadsheets are perfectly suited to tablets and we think Microsoft’s app makes slightly better use of a bigger screen than Google’s own effort (in fact all of the Microsoft Office Android apps are worth a look). You get the basics for free on screens below 10.1 inches and a few extra goodies with an active Office 356 sub.
As for the app itself, it’s more powerful than you might expect for a mobile app, with support for annotations, basic chart types, column sorting and filtering, plus all the basics of formulas and cell formatting too. The ribbon interface adapts neatly to suit mobile devices and if you’ve got a keyboard attached it’s almost like you’re on a laptop.
Adobe Photoshop Express (free)
Image: Screenshot
What else can you use that extra screen space for? Filter previews and toolbars, that’s what, and Adobe Photoshop Express is only too happy to help out. It’s nowhere near the desktop application in terms of features and power, obviously, but it’s one of the best Android image editors for using on a bigger display.
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You can drop in preset filters or make manual tweaks to colors, contrast and brightness, you can correct issues like red-eye, erase unsightly photobombers, crop and straighten pictures, and much more besides. With a larger screen there’s plenty of room to see both your image in detail and the full set of tools and filters that are available.
Gmail (free)
Image: Google
Of course Google’s own Gmail makes good use of a tablet format, splitting itself into two columns so you can actually keep your inbox and the currently selected conversation both in view at the same time. You can even go for a three-column view and get a look at all your labels and categories too.
Plus you get all the usual Gmail goodness, including multiple account support that’s much easier and more seamless than it is on the web, and different ways to customize alerts so you only get them for messages that matter. Bonus entry: Google Maps is another Google app that works well on Android tablets.
Pocket (freemium)
Image: Screenshot
We could add any kind of e-reader or read-it-later app here, but Pocket genuinely makes decent use of the extra screen real estate on an Android tablet, with its tiled layout, fly-in menus and wide images and videos. It’s now owned by Mozilla, so we’ll have to see how that affects development in the future.
For the time being Pocket is a very useful article archive app for your tablet, and one of the areas where tablets are worth their price is when you want to kick back on the sofa and catch up with your reading. You can cache stories for offline reading too, which may come in handy on devices without data plans.
Evernote (freemium)
Image: Screenshot
It’s fair to say Evernote has lost a bit of momentum in recent years, but judge it on its Android tablet app alone and it’s still just about the best note-taking tool out there. In part that’s due to the flexibility Evernote has always had—you can make your notebooks pretty much whatever you want them to be.
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The app actually works well in both landscape mode (for organizing notes) and portrait mode (for reading through single articles) and the app’s various toolbars and menus take up intelligent positions on screen. As you dig deeper into your notebooks, the layout shifts to match whatever it is you’re trying to do.
IMDB (free)
Image: Screenshot
Hats off to the developers of the IMDB’s tablet app, because it’s several orders better, in layout terms, than the equivalent phone app or even the original website. There’s always been a ton of information available on the Internet Movie Database—from who starred in what to movie times—and the tablet app makes getting at it all very simple and intuitive.
Pull up a movie page, for example, and you get a big look at the trailer with film details and the cast list down the side. As far as TV shows go, you can keep tabs on both individual episodes and the series as a whole thanks to the tablet layout, and browsing through searches looks fantastic with large, colorful thumbnails.
Flipboard (free)
Image: Screenshot
Flipboard was made for tablets and its Android app is a joy to use, with big images, intelligent layouts, and lots of customization options. As we mentioned in the description for Pocket, you’re probably going to want to lean back and do some reading on your tablet, so you may as well do it in style.
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If you’ve never used Flipboard before, the on-boarding process is nothing to be scared of—you’ll be asked to specify a few interests or favorite publications to get started, and you’re then presented with a choice of current articles. You can easily tweak and personalize your Flipboard feed at any time too.
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Chrome 58 has graduated to beta status, moving one step closer to the stable channel. This time around, Google has been working on new features for Progressive Web Apps (and normal sites), improvements to Chrome Custom Tabs, and more.
Changes to bookmarks and history
Some major design changes to Chrome are currently in development, but in the meantime, Chrome 58 has a few minor changes to the interface for bookmarks and history. Take a look at the screenshots below.
Left two images: Chrome 57; Right two images: Chrome Beta 58
The bookmarks screen hasn't changed much, just a larger space between folders and bookmarks. On the other hand, the history page now looks more integrated with Chrome, no longer opening chrome://history in a new tab. The delete buttons on history entries have been changed to trash cans, and the clear history button has moved to the top of the screen.
Removal of old New Tab Page UI
All the way back in Chrome 54, Google revamped Chrome's New Tab Page. The buttons for opening Bookmarks and Recent Tabs were replaced by a suggested articles section - much like the Google Now Feed. Many of you weren't a fan of this change (myself included), but going back to the old design was possible by disabling two flags.
Unfortunately, the #enable-ntp-snippets flag has been removed in Chrome 57 - making it impossible to get the old layout back. You can still remove the suggestions by disabling #enable-ntp-remote-suggestions, but the Bookmarks and Recent tabs buttons do not come back.
Chrome Custom Tabs
Chrome Custom Tabs, while useful in most cases, sometimes behave differently from opening pages in full Chrome. Starting with Chrome 57, Custom Tabs gained almost all the functionality of normal Chrome tabs - including Find in page, saving pages for offline, and adding pages to the home screen.
Chrome 58 further improves Custom Tabs by adding additional link controls. When holding down on a link in a Custom Tab (in Chrome 57), you can only copy or download the link. On Chrome 58, links can be opened in your default browser as well.
Left: Chrome 57; Right: Chrome Beta 58
This is definitely a minor change, but a welcome one.
Progressive Web Apps can now go full-screen
Google has been increasingly focusing on Progressive Web Apps - web applications that behave like native apps. They can push notifications, declare scopes, and even have their own icon in the app drawer. Chrome 58 is giving PWAs another power - going full-screen.
By declaring "display: fullscreen" in the web app manifest, PWAs launched from the home screen will hide the status bar and navigation bar. Just like normal Android apps, they become visible again if you swipe from the top or bottom of the screen.
Other features
As with every Chrome release, there are several smaller features that are worth briefly mentioning. Here are a few of them.
Web sites can now customize Chrome's native media controls with the new ControlsList API.
Certain web __apps added to the home screen will be able to autoplay video and audio, with limitations.
Sites can now use the CSS color-gamut media query to detect the approximate range of colors supported by Chrome and the device its running on.
Chrome 58 supports trailing commas in Javascript, for parameter and argument lists.
Non-HTTPS sites can no longer display notifications with the Notifications API.
Navigating to data: URLs in tabs (doesn't apply to content embedded in the page) is no longer supported. I'm actually incredibly glad Google has done this, because it has been recently used in many phishing scams - like this one.
APK Download
The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.
Once upon a time, I was able to get most of my communication done through Hangouts. Between its support for standard SMS, Google Voice, and normal Hangouts conversations, it was an incredibly useful tool. It even could even merge SMS and Hangouts conversations into the same thread, much like iMessage on the iPhone.
Over the past year or so, Google has been separating all this functionality into separate apps. Google started asking SMS users to switch to Messages, then removed merged conversations, and finally launched a new separate Google Voice app. The company has also been trying to move people off Hangouts itself, with its new Allo and Duo apps.
Now Google appears to be finally pulling the trigger on Hangouts' SMS integration. In an email sent out to G Suite administrators, Google said that a warning (pictured above) will appear to Hangouts users starting March 27. The email also says that SMS support will be completely removed from Hangouts on May 22.
The message states that Google Voice users will not be affected, but with all the improvements in the standalone Voice app, you might be better off switching anyways. No changes were announced for SMS integration with Project Fi, which allows texts and calls to go through Hangouts, but I'm almost certain that it will stay (at least as long as Voice integration does).
Thanks:
Dan,
Joff
Google Hangouts (Playboard) | Google Hangouts (Play Store)
From the creators of Papo & Yo, Minority Media VR inc. have released a Daydream VR game onto the Play Store today. Titled The Other Room, this is a virtual reality take on the tried and true concept of escaping a room through solving puzzles.
The Other Room offers procedurally generated puzzles while mixing in immersive audio and bizarre 360 video segments. Your overarching task will be to foil your adversary's plans, but beware -- they will convincingly try to evaluate your mental state in order to throw you off your game. As you can imagine, this adds up to a pretty involved plot with quite a few layers. Sure, it can get a little weird, but hey, who doesn't like weird?
Sadly for all of you Samsung Gear VR owners, The Other Room is only available for Daydream VR devices. Those of you lucky enough to own a Daydream compatible device, well -- you can pick up the game for $4.99 upfront with zero advertisements or in-app purchases to worry about.
The Other Room (Playboard) | The Other Room (Play Store)
