Articles by Jeramy Johnson

They tick all the right boxes, but they still may not be a good fit.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m starting to rebel a little against so-called “smart” devices. I often find them more trouble than they’re worth, whether it’s due to inconsistent connections, poor battery life, or annoying assistant interactions; I’m kind of at the end of my rope! Granted, not all smart devices are a pain. I love a good smartphone or smart speaker just as much as the next person. But these recent frustrations that have surfaced for me are the emotional baggage that I carried with me when I set out to do this Fauna Audio Glasses review.

My personal grumpiness aside, these frames were mostly a pleasant surprise. They did just what I expected from a device in this product category, and no more. And you know what? I’m fine with that! As far as smart glasses go, these were some of my favorites, save for a few caveats that might prevent you from actually picking up a pair. …

Ready to talk your friends’ ears off?

It may sound hard to believe, but the popular audio-sharing social app Clubhouse is finally available on Android. Clubhouse first launched on iOS in April 2020 and quickly gained popularity among influencers before spreading to the general public. It also influenced a host of competitors, from Twitter Spaces to similar attempts by the likes of Facebook and Slack.

This weekend we received confirmation that Clubhouse will is now available in beta on Android (U.S. only) via an invite system, but this is just a precursor to the app becoming more widely available soon. Whether you have one of the best Android phones or are rocking a good budget device, you’ll soon have the opportunity to experience what all of your iPhone-wielding friends have been raving about. But will you?

Are you excited for Clubhouse on Android?…

One of the most annoying things about surfing the web back in the wild west days of the early internet was pop-up ads. Do you remember those? Yuck! Unfortunately, pop-ups have been reborn in recent years with pop-up notifications that appear when you visit various websites in popular browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome. If these notifications bother you as much as they bother me, then you’re probably wondering if there is anything you can do about them, short of clicking Block every time one pops up. Thankfully, there is something you can do, and it’s pretty darn easy. I’ll show you how you can get rid of Google Chrome pop-ups once and for all so that they never bother your browsing again!

How to prevent site notification popups in Google Chrome

Open up the Google Chrome browser.
Click on the three-dot menu at the top right corner.
Click on Settings.

Click on Privacy and security.

Click on Site Settings.

Click on Notifications.

Click the toggle at the top th…

One way that Signal maintains its ultra-secure privacy is by not sending or storing message data in the cloud — not its own, not Apple’s iCloud, not Google Drive/One, not anywhere else. So what is a loyal Signal user to do when they change phones, but want to bring their chat history with them? Well, if you’re an Android user, you’re in luck. You can create a locally stored, encrypted backup of your chat that can regularly and automatically back up. We’ll show you how to set up and enable these automatic Signal backups on your Android phone.

How to enable automatic Signal backups on an Android phone

Open up the Signal app on your Android phone.
Tap on the three-dot settings menu in the top right corner.
Scroll down and tap on Chats.
Scroll down and tap on Chat backups.
Tap Turn On.

Choose or create a folder on your device that you want to save your encrypted backups to.

Tap Use This Folder.
Tap to Allow Signal to access files in your selected folder.
Copy the passsphrase cod…

If there’s one messaging faux pas that we’re all guilty of, it’s opening a message and then getting distracted before we reply. Then, a few hours, days, or weeks go by, and we look like a jerk because we never responded to our friend’s question or funny GIF. After all, that message was marked as read. Well, what if I told you that you could have your cake and eat it too in this scenario? It’s true! I’ll show you how easy it is to preview chats on Telegram, so you can get that instant gratification of seeing who sent what without having to worry that you’ll forget to respond. Let’s get started!

How to preview chats on Telegram

Open the Telegram app and find a thread with an unread message.
Press down on the chat’s profile picture.

That’s it! This works for both individual and group chats, and it allows you to quickly read the message to see if it’s important without marking it has read. I will caution that it is much easier to preview messages from your phone or tablet than fro…

Chatting with the AC forums.

While not as common as they used to be, several of the best Android phones these days like the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra or even the OnePlus 9 Pro and Oppo Find X3 Pro still have (slightly) curved displays. It seems that for right or wrong, many manufacturers have largely given up on the curved display form factor and have rediscovered the joy of flat displays. And yet, there are definitely people out there who like a curved screen. Are you one of them?

This topic has sparked an interesting conversation over on the AC forums:

Evilguppy
05-01-2021 03:44 PM

“

Since I got my Note 20 Ultra, I’ve become a big fan of curved screens. I just love the feel of it when I pull out my side panel. I hear many people hate it but I can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s because I don’t use a screen protector? I find the glass on this phone to be practically bullet proof, even my 85 lbs…

This eye-opening Echo device frames Alexa in a positive light.

Before you roll your eyes at another smart glasses review, just hear me out. The Amazon Echo Frames (Gen 2) may sound like another half-hearted attempt by a tech company to shove smart virtual assistants where they don’t belong, further complicating and confusing our already crazy lives. But I’m here to tell you that these are actually pretty well thought out, designed, and implemented. After all, they’ve already been wear-tested for over a year by hundreds of nerds like me.

First introduced at Amazon’s fall 2019 hardware and services event, the Echo Frames were part of Amazon’s Day 1 Editions program, through which Amazon aims to product test innovative designs and ideas with early adopter customers. Prime customers can request to participate in the program, and if accepted, are offered the Day 1 device at a reduced price. The only other Day 1 Edition product so far has been the Echo Loop, an Alexa-powered smart ring. …

The Venu 2 is a great smartwatch that would be almost perfect if it were $100 cheaper.

Perhaps the fastest-growing tech category right now is wearables, specifically smartwatches. Having one of the best smartwatches is important to those of us who need (or want) to stay in constant communication with our friends and family, or who need a quick and easy method to triage notifications or control smart home devices. Particularly in the time of COVID-19, more and more of us are paying more attention to our activity and fitness and want to collect as much of this data as possible to get a better idea of our overall health and wellness picture.

When it comes to making fitness wearables, there is arguably no company that does it better than Garmin. Elite athletes seek out Garmin’s watches, trackers, and monitors due to their accuracy, feature set, and battery life. The best Garmin smartwatches have traditionally had some compromises compared to others from Apple, Samsung, or even Fitbit i…

It’s not the phone, but what’s behind it that counts.

Even before I joined Android Central, I’d been wanting to get my hands on a Fairphone device. I’ve followed the company’s story over the past few years, and have been both inspired by its courage and leadership and left completely aghast at just how unsustainably the tech industry as a whole operates.

That’s true of most industries of course, but because this is the field I’m passionate about and cover for a living, it was particularly sobering to learn just how unfair and unsustainable the tech industry is overall. I likened this awakening to my first reading of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, in that in learning about the Fairphone story, I got to truly see how the sausage was made, so to speak — and I didn’t like it one bit.

So it is with that background that I was delighted to get my hands on the company’s latest device, the Fairphone 3. I got to spend a few weeks using it in and around my house (hey, we have been in quaran…

Chatting with the AC forums.

Recent reports from the Apple vs. Epic Games trial unearthed communications between Apple executives, confirming that the company had at least considered bringing its popular iMessage service over to Android as far back as 2013. It’s pretty easy to understand why Apple wanted to protect its ecosystem lock-in, but it’s also interesting to speculate what might have been.

Sure, we have no shortage of great messaging apps over here on Android, but being able to securely communicate with our iPhone wielding friends on their preferred chat app would have been nice too.

So what say you, faithful Android community? Would you have rushed to download iMessage for Android to join club blue bubbles? I probably would have.

We want to hear from you — If iMessage was available on Android, would you use it? Why or why not? Let us know!

Join the conversation in the forums!…