Category: Technologies

Your Android phone is like your car — it requires regular maintenance so you can identify any major issues, prevent future problems and keep it running at its best.

To start, you can give the exterior of your phone a good clean, since you’re likely putting it close to your face every day. Dust, dirt and gunk can quickly collect in the charging ports and speakers, and it’s not only bad for your hygiene — it can also shorten your phone’s lifespan.

But the most important upkeep work is under the hood, and it includes changing phone settings you may never have touched before.

An investment of just a few minutes can turn your Android phone into something that looks and feels new — at least until you’re able to upgrade. Read on to find five simple tips for decluttering, reorganizing and customizing your Android phone to keep it in tip-top shape.

And if you’re interested in getting a completely new device, check out the best Android phones for this year.

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As we mentioned above, part of making your Android phone feel new again is to also clean up the hardware. This $10 Amazon cleaning kit comes with the tools you need to clean your screen and all the stubborn dirt stuck in all the ports. And the best part is the kit can be used for any phone, as well as your headphones, laptop, tablet and more.

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Delete all of your forgotten apps

Take a few minutes to go through your home screen or app drawer and delete any and all apps you no longer use. Not only do those apps take up precious storage, but they potentially have access the personal information or permissions you approved when the app was first launched.

How you go about deleting an app can vary based on who makes your device, but I covered all the bases in this post. Give it a read if you don’t see an uninstall option after long-pressing on the app’s icon.

Eliminate old files to free up storage

After removing any old apps, free up more storage by going through the files saved on your Android phone. It’s far too easy to forget about all of the files you’ve randomly downloaded — like the takeout menu of the new place down the road or a GIF a friend sent. And those files add up. The quickest and easiest way to manage your phone’s storage is to use the Files app that comes preinstalled.

Actually, some phones use a variation of that same app. On Samsung, for example, it’s called My Files. On the Pixel lineup, it’s just Files. On the OnePlus 10 Pro, it’s File Manager — you get the point.

I recommend opening the app drawer on your phone and reaching for “files.” Odds are that will reveal whatever your phone-maker calls the app.

Start with checking the Downloads folder, where you can either delete the files you no longer want or move them somewhere like Google Drive.

Most file apps will also reveal any large files that are saved on your device. For instance, the OnePlus 10 Pro’s File Manager app has a dedicated section in the app for files that are taking up a lot of space.

Tweak home screen settings for a new look

One of the best parts of Android is how much you can customize the entire look of your phone. From installing app icon packs to completely replacing the launcher your phone uses, there are plenty of options to personalize your phone.

While you can definitely jump into tweaking launchers and installing app icons, start by digging into the home screen settings your phone already provides. I do this once in a while and it’s surprising how subtle tweaks to aspects like app layout can make it feel like an entirely new phone.

Long-press on a blank area of your home screen, then select Home settings (or some variation of that). That will open the options for your home screen, where you can customize various settings.

Settings like the size of the app grid. It may seem like a small change to go from a grid of 4×5 apps to 5×5, but that extra column can make a big difference (the same can be said about shrinking the grid).

This is also where you’ll find settings for things like swiping down on the home screen to view notifications instead of having to swipe from the top of the screen.

Go through the respective settings your phone has and experiment with your home screen setup.

Optimize your device settings

Speaking of settings, now is a good time to go through and change any settings that have been annoying you. I have a roundup of settings you’ll want to change and customize on any Android phone to get the most out of it.

For example, turning on dark mode not only makes the app look better, but it saves battery life. And yes, I even show you how to stop app icons from automatically appearing on your home screen.

Customize your privacy options

Before you take a break, do yourself and your Android phone one last favor — double-check your privacy settings.

Open the Settings app then tap Privacy > Permissions Manager. Go through each category to see which apps currently have access to which treasure trove of your personal data. Find an app you don’t want to have access to your location? Turn it off. The same goes for contacts, calendar or camera.

It doesn’t take long to go through each section, and even if it did, it’s well worth the effort.

The iPhone 14 is only a few months old, but I’m already curious to see what’s in store for the iPhone 15. Apple gave us many of the upgrades we’ve been waiting for with the iPhone 14 — especially on the Pro models. Such features include an always-on display for showing the time at a glance and better multitasking through the Dynamic Island.

Still, there are a few ways Apple could take things further with the iPhone 15. For example, the company could do a better job of bringing certain Pro-exclusive features down to its less-expensive iPhone models. Samsung frequently does this with its cheaper phones, and I’d like to see Apple embrace this approach more fully, too. The Dynamic Island also shows a lot of promise already, but Apple could make it an even more integral part of the iPhone experience.

Apple typically announces its new iPhones in September and releases them shortly thereafter. Here’s what I’m hoping to see from the iPhone 15 next year.

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USB-C charging

The Lightning connector has been around for 10 years, and it’s time for a change. With so many Apple products making the switch to USB-C, there’s never been a bigger need for one charger that powers all devices. Apple currently has four different types of chargers on the market: Lightning (for iPhones, the 2021 iPad, AirPods and a few other accessories), USB-C (for most new iPads and MacBooks), MagSafe (the wireless magnetic charger for iPhones) and MagSafe 3 (the magnetic charger for the 2022 MacBook Air, 14-inch MacBook Pro and 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro).

Making new iPhones compatible with USB-C instead of Lightning means you could use the same cable to charge your new phone, the Mac and new iPads. There’s a good chance most of your other electronics use USB-C too.

The good news is that a USB-C iPhone may not be very far away. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, confirmed that the company would comply with the European Union’s mandate that all phones sold in the region would need to have a USB-C charging port. He made the comments during an interview at the Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference. Apple has also previously tested USB-C iPhones, according to Bloomberg.

However, Apple has not revealed any specifics about its plans. We don’t know if Apple will begin making the switch to USB-C with the iPhone 15 or if it will wait until the following year, since the new rules require USB-C by the end of 2024. Apple also has not said whether USB-C will be coming to all iPhones or just European models, although analysts expect Apple to make a complete shift to USB-C.

Higher refresh rates on the regular iPhone 15

Starting with last year’s iPhone 13 Pro, Apple added higher refresh rates to the displays on its premium smartphones. The iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have a feature Apple calls ProMotion, which can boost the screen’s refresh rate as high as 120Hz depending on what’s being shown. This results in more fluid scrolling and smoother animations.

It’s a small touch, but one that makes the experience feel more pleasant — as my colleague Patrick Holland wrote in his review of the iPhone 13 Pro. While having a high refresh rate isn’t a deal breaker, it’s become standard on most smartphones. Google’s $599 Pixel 7 has a 90Hz refresh rate and Samsung’s $800 Galaxy S22 includes a 120Hz refresh rate, for instance. Even the $450 Galaxy A53 5G has a 120Hz display, making its absence on the $799 iPhone 14 feel even more noticeable.

More features that use the Dynamic Island

The Dynamic Island, which is available only on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, is essentially a second miniature screen. Instead of getting rid of the notch, Apple gave that space a new purpose by using it to display information from other apps.

For example, you can see music that’s currently playing, timers, and directions in Maps at the top of the screen — eliminating the need to switch between apps. The Dynamic Island makes it easier to multitask on the iPhone 14 Pro, an area in which Apple has traditionally lagged behind Samsung and other Android phones that support split-screen apps.

Now that the Dynamic Island has proven its value, I’d like to see Apple do even more with it next year. It would be interesting to see Apple use this space to make proactive suggestions, like apps that may be useful based on your activity, the time of day or your schedule. Part of the Dynamic Island’s usefulness also depends on what app developers decide to do with it, too. There are already a handful of apps that incorporate the Dynamic Island, such as Pixel Pals, which essentially looks like a Tamagotchi for your iPhone. But I’m hoping to see more practical use cases for the Dynamic Island that make it feel like a more critical part of your phone, similar to the iPhone’s home screen widgets.

If Apple does expand the Dynamic Island’s functionality in the future, there’s a chance you may not need the iPhone 15 to take advantage of it. Instead, Apple could build new Dynamic Island features into its next major software update, which is likely to be called iOS 17.

A smaller notch on the regular iPhone 15

If Apple isn’t going to bring the Dynamic Island to the base iPhone 15, I hope it at least makes the notch less intrusive. The notch hasn’t changed all that much since its debut on the iPhone X in 2017, aside from the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. Meanwhile, other smartphone makers like Samsung, Google and OnePlus have found ways to provide edge-to-edge screens on their devices without carving out a large notch for the front-facing camera. Reducing the notch’s size would likely result in more screen space and a more modern look for the iPhone 15.

If Apple does move in this direction, we might have to wait until the iPhone 16 to see it. Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with TF International Securities known for his Apple predictions, estimates under-display Face ID and front-facing camera sensors will be coming in 2024.

That said, there are good reasons why the iPhone still has a larger notch than many of its competitors. It mostly comes down to Face ID, which is more sophisticated than the facial recognition systems found on other phones like the Pixel 7, which Google cautions shouldn’t be used for authenticating sensitive data like payment information.

Reverse wireless charging

Many Android phones have reverse wireless charging, which is exactly what it sounds like. You can use the back of phones like the Galaxy S22 and Pixel 7 to charge other devices, like a smartwatch or earbuds. While it’s likely not a must-have for most people, I can imagine it being very useful for avid AirPods users.

No one likes being stuck on their morning commute with a dead pair of AirPods. Having the option to get just enough juice to make it through my 30-minute train ride by placing my AirPods on the back of my phone for a few minutes could be a game changer. Yes, you’ll have to sacrifice some of your phone’s battery. But if you’re traveling to a destination where you’ll easily be able to charge your phone once you arrive — like the office — it might be worth that tradeoff.

The return of Touch ID

While Face ID is convenient in many situations, there are instances in which using your finger to unlock your phone is just more practical. That’s why I’m hoping Touch ID makes a comeback on the iPhone. Maybe you haven’t had time to set up Face ID so that it works with a mask yet, or perhaps you’re just not holding your iPhone at the right angle for Face ID.

Apple clearly sees the value in fingerprint recognition, considering the top button on the latest standard iPad and iPad Air have Touch ID. Doing the same for the iPhone 15 would add more convenience, giving users the choice to use Face ID or Touch ID depending on the situation. Most Android phones have both a fingerprint reader and some form of facial recognition, so it would be great to see iPhone users get the same options.

It’s unclear whether Apple will ever bring Touch ID back to the iPhone. While the analyst Kuo previously predicted that future iPhones would get an under-display fingerprint sensor, he changed his outlook in March 2022.

The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max already address many of the previous shortcomings of Apple’s smartphones. The updates I’m hoping to see in the iPhone 15 may not seem revolutionary, but they’re bound to make everyday tasks like charging and unlocking your phone a bit easier.

You’d probably be a little creeped out if someone kept track of where you went each day over the holidays, right? Believe it or not, that’s what Google and other companies routinely do online. Google offers many helpful apps, but if you have one of the tech giant’s apps on your iPhone or Android device, there’s a chance the company knows your location. Even if your Google account’s location history is disabled, some Google apps could still be storing your location with a timestamp.

After a 2018 investigation by the Associated Press, Google added features to make it easier to control what location and other data is saved, and what is deleted with features like Your Data in Maps and Search, which give you quick access to your location controls.

However, Google was sued by several states in January 2022 over its use of location data. The lawsuits alleged that Google makes it “nearly impossible” for people to prevent their location from being tracked. Google defended itself against the accusations, saying that the claims were inaccurate and based on outdated assertions of its settings.

The good news is that there are settings you can check to make sure Google isn’t tracking you. We’ll tell you how to check and turn off Google tracking, and what the outcomes of doing so might be.

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Turn off Google’s location tracking

Here’s how to stop Google’s ability to log your location.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. Select your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Select Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Location history inside the History settings box. This opens Activity controls.

5. Beneath Location History, select the button on the right that reads Turn off. This opens a pop-up window.

6. Scroll to the bottom of this window and select Pause.

Turning off location history only removes where you’ve been from the Google Maps Timeline feature, which logs your location with certain data at a specific time. Google’s support page on the matter says that even when turned off, “some location data may continue to be saved in other settings,” like your web and app activity. Google told us that it uses this data to make features more personalized and helpful, and that this information is never shared with third parties or advertisers. But if you still aren’t comfortable with that, with a few more steps, you can stop Google from knowing where you are 24/7.

What does this stop Google from storing?

Pausing this setting prevents Google from storing location markers associated with specific actions and stops storing information collected from searches or other activity. Turning it off keeps your approximate location private and other places you go — like your home address.

Note that to use certain features effectively, like the Maps app, Google will still need to access your location. However, completing the steps above prevents it from storing any future activity. When Google timestamps your activity within a general area, it is within a span of more than 1 square mile with typically more than 1,000 users to protect personal privacy. Google’s help page on the matter says this helps them to detect unusual activity, such as a sign-in from another city, while maintaining personal privacy.

However, you can grant Google permission to use your precise location — your exact location, like a specific address — for the best search results for where you are.

Pros and cons of turning off Google tracking

Turning off this default setting does have some drawbacks. While Google’s settings may seem intrusive to some, they also help cultivate an ultra-personalized online experience, such as helping people find nearby businesses instead of ones in another city, or seeing personalized ads. They help give users more relevant information instead of random information, according to Google.

Turning off tracking means you’ll see less relevant ads, less helpful search recommendations and get a less personalized experience overall using the search engine and its apps and services. For those who enjoy personalized ads, turning off tracking will prevent Google from predicting what you might care about. However, for those who prioritize privacy over everything, turning this setting off may be worth the loss of specificity.

The bottom line: You can maintain your privacy and lose the personalized internet experience, or continue to see relevant ads and search suggestions instead of more random, unfiltered information.

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Delete old location history

Disabling tracking will prevent Google from storing new location information, but it doesn’t delete any prior data gathered. Here’s how to delete that information.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. After logging in, select your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Select Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Location history inside the History settings box. This opens Activity controls.

5. Select Manage history near the bottom of the page. This opens a map with a timeline in the top left corner. The map shows where you’ve been and the timeline shows where you were at what time.

6. To delete your location for a certain date, select the date in the timeline. That date will then be displayed below the timeline. Select the trash icon to the right of the date. In the pop-up window, select Delete day.

7. To delete all your location history at once, select the trash icon near the bottom right corner of the map near the Map and Satellite display options.

8. In the pop-up window, select the box that reads I understand and want to delete all Location History. Select Delete location history.

Stop Google from collecting your web and app activity

When you make a new Google account, Google minimizes the amount of data it collects by only keeping 18 months’ worth of web and app activity by default — anything older than that is deleted automatically. Here’s how to stop Google from collecting your future web and app activity.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. After logging in, select your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Select Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Web & App Activity inside the History settings box. This opens Activity Controls.

6. Select Turn off underneath Web & App Activity.

7. Scroll to the bottom of the pop-up window and select Pause.

8. Select Got it.

Stop iPhone Apps From Tracking You With This Settings Change

See at CNET

Automatically delete your location and activity history

You can also automatically delete your Google location and activity history if you’d prefer to have your history automatically deleted at certain intervals. Here’s how.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. After logging in, select your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Select Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Web & App Activity or Location History inside the History settings box. This opens Activity Controls for the setting you want to change.

6. Select Choose an auto-delete option under Auto-delete.

7. Select your desired timeframe (3 months, 18 months or 36 months) from the Auto-delete activity older than drop-down menu.

8. Select Next.

9. Select Got it.

Delete all of your Google web and app activity

Even if you’ve stopped Google from collecting your web and app activity, Google has your data from before. Here’s how to delete your previous web and app activity.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. After logging in, click your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Click Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Web & App Activity inside the History settings box. This opens the Activity Controls.

5. Select Manage all Web & App Activity near the bottom of the screen.

6. Under Search your activity, click Delete on the right.

7. The new window will display the options to delete your Web & App Activity from the Last hour, Last day, All time or a Custom range. Select All time.

8. A new window will open and ask you to confirm you would like to delete your activity, which will be displayed. Select Delete.

9. Select Got it.

That’s it. Now Google shouldn’t have any web or app activity on you.

On a chilly Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, I was under a patio heater with a group of friends when someone said we should get a group photo. What happened next was surprising. Instead of using his phone to take a commemorative photo, my friend pulled out a point-and-shoot camera. I thought to myself, “Wait. The phone killed the point-and-shoot camera years ago. Why didn’t he just use his iPhone?” Granted it was the high-end Sony RX100 VII, which is an excellent compact camera and one of the few point-and-shoots still made today.

Phones from Apple, Samsung and Google include some of the best phone cameras you can buy, like the iPhone 14 Pro, Google Pixel 7 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. But for professional photographers and filmmakers, that’s not always enough. The holy grail is being able to have a truly large image sensor like the one you’d find in a high-end mirrorless camera and a lens mount that could attach to your phone. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong.

Everyone from Samsung to Panasonic, Sony and Motorola has tried to make this dream a reality in some way. Now Xiaomi, the world’s third largest phone-maker (behind Samsung and Apple) is the latest to rekindle the quest for the phone camera holy grail. The company has a new prototype phone that lets you mount a Leica M lens on it.

But this is just a concept. If you’re wondering whether phones will ever make dedicated pro cameras obsolete the way they did with point-and-shoots, the answer is a resounding no. The past decade has shown us why.

Why phone cameras are limited

First, it’s important to understand how your phone’s camera works. Behind the lens is a tiny image sensor, smaller than a single Lego brick. Sometimes there are headlines that Sony, Sharp or, years ago, Panasonic put a 1-inch sensor in a phone. Sadly, that name doesn’t refer to the actual dimensions and in reality, a 1-inch image sensor is about 0.6 of an inch diagonally or, for the sake of approximation, two Lego bricks. The 1-inch sensor is the hoverboard of cameras, but it’s still one of the largest to be put into a phone.

Dedicated cameras have sensors that are closer to 12 Lego bricks (positioned side-by-side in a four-by-three rectangle) and most come with a lens mount that lets you change lenses. The “holy grail” is to put one of these larger sensors into a phone.

But bigger sensors are more expensive than the little ones used in your iPhone and there are space considerations. A lens for a phone camera sensor is relatively small. But lenses for a full-frame sensor are larger and require more space between the back of the lens and the sensor. Phones simply lack this room without becoming significantly thicker.

Every year we see Apple, Samsung and the like take small steps toward improving phone photography. But phone camera hardware has largely hit a ceiling. Instead of radical camera improvements, we get modest upgrades. This could be a sign that companies have honed in on what consumers want. But it could also be a consequence of space and size limitations of tiny sensors.

Instead smartphone-makers use computational photography to overcome a tiny sensor’s limitations — smaller dynamic range and light sensitivity. Google, Apple, Samsung all use machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to improve the photos you take with your phone.

But hardware is also important. Earlier this month Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, shared a photo on Twitter, above, of a visit to Sony in Japan. While it’s been widely assumed that Apple uses Sony’s image sensors in the iPhone, this is the first time Cook formally acknowledged it. And as CNET readers already know, Sony phones like the Xperia 1 IV have some of the best camera hardware found on any phone sold today.

The Xperia 1 IV won a CNET Innovation award for its telephoto camera, which has miniature lens elements that actually move back and forth, like a real telephoto lens. The result is that you can use the lens to zoom without cropping digitally, which degrades the image. Can you imagine an iPhone 15 Pro with this lens?

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra Leica lens prototype is so 2013

That brings us to Xiaomi, which is the latest company attempting to merge pro-level cameras with your phone. In November, Xiaomi released a video of a phone camera concept that shows a Leica lens mounted on a 12S Ultra phone. This prototype is like a concept car: No matter how cool it is, you’ll never get to drive it.

The Chinese company took the 12S Ultra and added a removable ring around its circular camera bump. The ring covers a thread around the outside edge of the camera bump onto which you can attach an adapter that lets you mount Leica M lenses. The adapter’s thickness is the same distance that a Leica M lens needs to be positioned away from the sensor in order to focus.

A few caveats: The Xiaomi 12S Ultra concept uses an exposed 1-inch sensor, which as I mentioned earlier, isn’t actually 1-inch. Next, this is purely a concept. If something like this actually went on sale, it would cost thousands of dollars. A nice dedicated camera like the Fujifilm X100 V, which has a much bigger sensor, costs $1,399 in comparison.

Xiaomi isn’t the first phone-maker to try this. In 2013, Sony took an image sensor and put it on the back of a lens that has a grip to attach to the back of a phone. The idea is to use your phone’s screen as the viewfinder for the camera system, which you can control through an app. Essentially you bypass your phone’s cameras.

Sony made several different versions of this “lens with a grip” and used sensors that were just a bit bigger than those found in phone cameras. Sony also made the QX-1 camera, which had an APS-C sized sensor that in our Lego approximation is about six bricks positioned side-by-side in a three-by-two rectangle. That’s not as large as a full-frame sensor, but vastly bigger than your phone’s image sensors.

The Sony QX-1 has a Sony E-mount, meaning you can use various E-mount lenses or use adapters for Canon or Nikon lenses. Because the QX-1 is controlled with Bluetooth, you could either attach it to your phone or put it in different places to take photos remotely.

The QX-1 came out in 2014 and cost $350. Imagine having something like this today? I would definitely buy a 2022 version if Sony made it, but sadly the QX-1 was disconitntued a few years after it went on sale. That’s around the time that Red, the company that makes cinema cameras used to film shows and movies like The Hobbit, The Witcher, Midsommar and The Boys, made a phone called the Red Hydrogen One.

Despite being a phone made by one of the best camera companies in the world, the $1,300 Red Hydrogen One’s cameras were on par with those from a $700 Android phone. The back of the phone had pogo pins designed to attach different modules (like Moto Mods), including a “cinema camera module” that housed a large image sensor and a lens mount, according to patent drawings. The idea is that you would use a Hydrogen One and the cinema mod to turn the phone into a mini-Red cinema camera.

Well, that never happened.

The Red Hydrogen One was discontinued and now shows up as a phone prop in films like F9, on the dashboard of Dominic Toretto’s car or in the hands of Leonard DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up.

2023 will show that pro cameras won’t be killed off by our phones

There aren’t any rumors that Apple is making an iPhone with a camera lens mount, nor are there murmurs of a Google mirrorless camera. But if Xiaomi made a prototype of a phone with a professional lens mount, you have to imagine that somewhere in the basement of Apple Park sits an old concept camera that runs an iOS-like interface, is powered by the iPhone’s A-series chip and able to use some of the same computational photography processing. Or at least that’s what I’d like to believe.

How amazing would photos look from a pro-level dedicated camera that uses the same processing tricks that Apple or Google implement on their phones? And how nice would it be to have a phone-like OS to share those photos and videos to Instagram or TikTok?

Turns out, Samsung tried bringing an Android phone’s interface to a camera in 2012. Noticing a theme here? Most of these holy grail phone camera concepts were tried 10 years ago. A few of these, like the Sony QX-1, were truly ahead of their time.

I don’t think Apple will ever release a standalone iOS-powered camera or make an iPhone with a Leica lens mount. The truth is that over the past decade, cameras have gotten smaller. The bulky dSLRs that signified professional cameras for years are quickly heading into the sunset. Mirrorless cameras have risen in popularity. They tend to be smaller, since they don’t need the space for a dSLR mirror box.

If there is a takeaway from all of this, it’s just a reminder of how good the cameras on our phones have gotten in that time. Even if it feels like they’ve plateaued, they’re dependable for most everyday tasks. But they won’t be replacing professional cameras anytime soon.

If you want to step up into a professional camera, find one like the Fujifilm X100 V or Sony A7C, that pack a large image sensor, a sharp lens and can fit into a coat pocket. And next time I’m at a dinner party with friends, I won’t act so shocked when someone wants to take a picture with a camera instead of a phone.

Read more: Pixel 7 Pro Actually Challenges My $10,000 DSLR Camera Setup

iPhone 14 Pro, Pro Max Get the Biggest Changes to Apple’s Phone Lineup

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After a few good years of performance, your old iPhone just isn’t what it used to be. Maybe your display is cracked or your camera is foggy, but aside from the cosmetic damage, there might also be hardware issues, mostly from age, that are affecting how useful your phone is.

And if your iPhone is slow to charge, has trouble maintaining a charge throughout the day or is unexpectedly shutting down, you might have a battery health problem. It’s a common issue to have, because all batteries degrade over time, but is it enough of a problem to consider replacing your battery?

In this story, we’ll show you how to easily check whether or not you need to replace your iPhone battery, as well as what you can do to prolong its health.

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How to check on your iPhone battery’s health

Your iPhone battery becomes less effective over time, but you could also have a faulty battery on a brand-new iPhone. To quickly check if there’s an issue with your battery health, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging. If you’re running anything below iOS 16.1, the latter will appear as just Battery Health.

At the top, you’ll see the maximum capacity of your battery, which should be 100%, or close to it, if you have a relatively new iPhone.

However, what you want to look at is Peak Performance Capability and the sentence underneath that. If you see Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance, you don’t have any recognized battery issues and you shouldn’t need a replacement.

Do you need to replace your iPhone battery?

If you see any of the following messages, you may need to replace your battery, or at the very least make an appointment with Apple or an authorized service provider to check your battery out:

• This iPhone has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to deliver the necessary peak power. Performance management has been applied to help prevent this from happening again/You have manually disabled performance management protections.
• This iPhone is unable to determine battery health. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can service the battery. More about service options.
• Your battery’s health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity. More about service options.

Depending on whether you have insurance (third-party or AppleCare+) or not, you may not have to spend any money at all to replace your iPhone’s battery. If your iPhone is new, you have at least a one-year warranty to replace a defective battery. If you do not have insurance, Apple charges an estimated $49 to $99 to replace your battery. Additionally, you can check out the Apple Service Programs page to see any replacement or repair programs are available for your device.

Is there anything you can do to prolong your iPhone battery’s life?

The quicker your go through your daily battery life, the quicker your battery’s overall lifespan degrades, so here are some tips to follow, according to Apple:

• Update to the latest software available.
• Adjust your screen brightness (manually or automatically) as needed.
• Use Wi-Fi when available.
• Enable Low Power Mode as needed.
• Turn off Background App Refresh (overall or an on a per-app basis).
• Turn off Location Services (overall or on a per-app basis).
• Turn off Allow Notifications.
• Turn on Airplane Mode when applicable.
• When you charge your phone with your computer, make sure your computer is plugged in.

If you need more battery-saving tips for your iPhone, check out 8 ways to improve iPhone battery life, 2 iOS 16 features to disable to save battery and what happens if you keep your iPhone in Low Power Mode all the time.

The background wallpaper isn’t the only way that you can personalize your iPhone’s home screen.

Thanks to a built-in application, as well as a third-party one that you can download for free from the App Store, you can pretty easily create themes for your home screen, allowing you to create your own unique app icons and widgets.

If you really want to make your iPhone your own, you’ll want to read on to learn how to customize your home screen.

For more about personalizing your iPhone, check out the best iPhone cases in 2022 and how to get rid of some of the most annoying features on iOS 16.

How to change your app icons on your iPhone

The applications that live on the home screen have their own logos, but you can use a native iOS feature to change the look of any app icon:

1. Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone (it’s already preinstalled).
2. Tap the plus icon in the top right corner.
3. Select Add Action.
4. In the search bar, type Open app and select the Open App action.
5. Next, tap App and select the app you want to customize.
6. Then tap the downward-facing arrow next to Open App at the top.
7. From the menu, tap Add to Home Screen.
8. Where it says Home Screen Name and Icon, rename the shortcut to anything you’d like.
9. Next, go into your web browser of choice and find a new icon image. You can search for something like “Facebook icon aesthetic.” When you find an image you like, save it to your photos.
10. Go back to the Shortcuts app and tap the icon under Home Screen Name and Icon. Select Choose Photo and tap on the image you just saved. You can zoom in or out on the image. Tap Choose.
11. Finally, hit Add.

Now you have a customized app on your phone (it’s actually a bookmark). You can delete the original app from your home screen, but you’ll easily be able to find it in your App Library.

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Customize the widgets on your iPhone home screen

Apps aren’t the only think you can customize. With the help of this third-party app, you can also add a little flavor to your widgets:

1. Download the Widgetsmith app on your iPhone.
2. In the app, select the size of the widget you’d like to customize — your options are small, medium and large.
3. Tap the widget to customize it. You can change the font and colors. Go back once you’re done and tap Save.
4. Go to your home screen and hold and press down anywhere on the screen.
5. Once you’re in edit mode, tap the plus icon in the top left corner and search for Widgetsmith. Tap the icon.
6. Select the widget size you’d like to add to your home screen and tap Add Widget.
7. You can change the widget by pressing down on the app and selecting Edit Widget. That’s all! Now your home screen has different-size icons for a customized look.

You can create widgets for certain features and applications, including photos, time, date, Weather (paid), Health, battery, Calendar, Reminders, tides (paid), and astronomy.

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Here’s a good New Year’s resolution: Clean out your iPhone’s storage. Those apps, photos, playlists and videos can pile up quickly, and our phones can only hold so much. Luckily, there are a few steps you can take to maximize your phone’s capacity.

The best way to save local storage is to invest in a cloud storage service like Apple’s iCloud, Google Drive, Box or Dropbox to offload some of your files. But there are also certain settings you can change to make sure you’re using your iPhone’s storage capacity to its fullest. Now that iOS 16 launched, your iPhone will also be able to detect duplicate photos, which should make it easier to keep your image library lean and organized.

See below to learn more about how to free up storage space on your iPhone.

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First, see what’s taking up the most space on your iPhone

To maximize your iPhone’s storage, you need to know what’s occupying your device in the first place. Take a look at what’s eating up your storage so that you know where to get started. Launch Settings, tap General and scroll down to iPhone Storage. Choose this option to see a breakdown of the types of files and media that are taking up space on your iPhone. Apple might also make some recommendations about how to free up space, such as reviewing videos stored on your device as shown below.

Make sure your iPhone is optimizing photo storage

Photos are among the biggest offenders when it comes to gobbling up space on your iPhone. But the iPhone’s settings menu has an option that enables your device to save smaller photo files locally if your device is low on space instead of the original versions. These full-resolution photos and videos are instead stored in iCloud, and you can download them as needed. To make sure this feature is turned on, start by opening the Settings app. Then scroll down to Photos and make sure there’s a blue checkmark next to the Optimize iPhone Storage option.

Read more: The Best iPhone 14 and 14 Pro Cases

Save photos and videos to a cloud service instead of on your device

The best way to free up space on your iPhone is to remove files you don’t need to store on your device. But that doesn’t mean you have to downsize your photo library. Instead, try storing them in a third-party cloud storage service like Google Photos rather than on your device. It’s a quick way to free up a lot of storage without requiring you to part with old memories.

But before you delete anything, make sure the photos you want to save have been backed up or transferred to Google Photos. If your photos and videos are not backed up to another service like Google Photos, Dropbox, Box or OneDrive before being deleted, they’ll be permanently erased. This guide walks you through how to copy over your entire iCloud photo library to Google Photos, but just note that the unlimited free storage option is no longer available.

You might be wondering why you need to use a separate cloud service if your photos are already stored in iCloud. That’s because deleting your photos from your iPhone erases them from iCloud as well, so you’ll want to use another service if you plan to delete images from your device.

Read more: Best iPhone 14 Fast Chargers

Delete apps you no longer use

Another great way to clear out your iPhone is to get rid of apps you no longer use. If you don’t know where to start, take a look at which apps you haven’t used in a long time. Open your iPhone’s Settings menu, tap General and go to iPhone Storage. You’ll see a list of your apps along with how much space each app occupies and the last time you used it. Scroll through the list and try deleting apps that you haven’t used in a long time.

Offload apps you don’t use all the time

If you don’t want to completely delete an app, you can offload it instead. Offloading it lets you retain the documents and data associated with that app so that you can reinstall it anytime and quickly pick up right where you left off. Navigate back to the list mentioned above by opening Settings, pressing General and choosing iPhone Storage. Tap any app in the list and select Offload App. You can also set your iPhone to do this automatically by opening Settings, tapping the App Store option and making sure the Offload Unused Apps switch is toggled on.

Automatically delete old messages

It’s not just photos, videos and apps that may be clogging your iPhone’s storage. Getting rid of old text messages can be helpful as well. You can set your iPhone to automatically delete your message history by opening Settings, choosing Messages and tapping the Keep Messages option under Message History. From there, select if you’d like your iPhone to retain text messages for 30 days, one year or forever.

Delete videos and music from apps

You probably have videos and music stored offline in multiple apps on your phone, and fortunately, there’s an easy way to find those files and delete them. Launch Settings, choose General and select iPhone Storage. Search for an app that you’ve downloaded offline content from, such as Netflix. You’ll then see storage information about the app, such as its size and buttons for deleting or offloading it.

If you’ve downloaded offline videos, you’ll also see a section for this content underneath the Delete App button. Place your finger on a downloaded video and swipe it all the way over to the left side of the screen to delete it.

More from 12 Days of Tips:

• The Best Places to Trade In Your Old iPhone
• Buying the New iPhone 14? Here’s How to Transfer Your Data
• Stop iPhone Apps From Tracking You With This Setting Change

Clear out your web browser cache

You can always try cleaning out your web browser cache if you’re really scrounging for space, although deleting apps and media will make a much bigger difference. But doing so could give your iPhone a bit of a speed boost when web browsing, so it’s worth trying if you’re low on storage and are experiencing sluggish browser performance. But just remember that it will sign you out of websites you’ve logged into.

Open Settings, choose Safari and tap Clear History and Website Data.

If you use Google Chrome, tap the three dots at the bottom of the screen, choose History and tap Clear Browsing Data. You should see a check mark next to three categories: Browsing History, Cookies, Site Data and Cached Images and Files. If you want to only delete browsing data for a certain time period, tap the Time Range option near the top of the screen before hitting Clear Browsing Data at the bottom.

Looking for more iPhone tips? Check out our guide to iOS 16. Plus, here’s how to delete your iPhone’s cache.

There’s a lot to discover in iOS 16. As you probably know by now, you can unsend and edit text messages, as well as emails, and easily crop people or objects from photos with a single press. There are also several hidden features you might not know about, like how to find all your saved Wi-Fi passwords.

But not every new iOS 16 feature is universally loved. For example, the new iPhone home screen search button and unexpected photo pop-ups are are not everyone’s cup of tea.

Want to improve your cybersecurity?

We’ll teach you why protecting your identity and data is important. Plus, get recommendations for VPNs, Password Managers and Antivirus Software.

Fortunately, most of these iOS 16 features and settings can be disabled or removed altogether.

I’ll help walk you through how to “fix” the most widely unloved new iOS 16 features. And while you’re here, make sure you’ve changed these clutch iPhone settings and brushed up on these two new Apple Maps features.

Read more: Best iPhone 14 Cases So Far

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Strip the new search button from your iPhone’s home screen

Your iPhone’s search feature lets you quickly find a text message, third-party app, file, note or location — pretty much anything on your device or on the web. As you know, to get the search bar, you just swipe down anywhere on the screen, and it appears.

With iOS 16, Apple adds another way to access Search from the home screen, via a small button right above your dock.

However, the new search button is easy to accidentally trigger, because it’s near where your thumb might go when you swipe between your various home pages.

But, like many new features on iOS 16, you can turn this setting off. Simply launch the Settings app, go to Home Screen and toggle off Show on Home Screen to remove the search button from your home screen.

The Search bubble should disappear, replaced by a few small dots representing your various home screens.

Stop unexpected (and embarrassing) photo popups on your iPhone screen

Apple’s artificial intelligence helps surface photos and videos in various places across your iPhone, as a reminder of family vacations, couple photos and holidays — but you may not always want your personal pictures to pop up unexpectedly, especially if they’re private, embarrassing or inappropriate.

With iOS 16, you can now prevent Featured Photos, as well as curated collections known as Memories, from appearing in photo widgets on your home screen and the Search and For You sections in Photos.

To block these tailored photos, launch the Settings app, go into Photos and toggle off Show Featured Content. All featured content will no longer appear across your device — instead, it’ll only be available in your photo library and albums.

Keep from accidentally ending your own phone calls

The side/power button on the side of your iPhone allows you to quickly sleep and wake up your device, but if you accidentally hit it during a phone call, you’ll prematurely end your call. If that’s something you’ve encountered in the past, iOS 16 finally allows you to prevent that from happening.

In Settings, go to Accessibility > Touch and toggle off Lock to End Call to prevent the side button from ending your calls. If you do hit the side button accidentally, your screen will go to sleep, but you’ll stay on your phone call, uninterrupted.

Go back to using old iPhone lock screen notifications

Apple’s latest redesign brings widgets, customizable fonts and colors, a wallpaper gallery and stylized date and time to the lock screen, as well as one overlooked change to notifications. Instead of appearing at the top of your lock screen, notifications now appear at the bottom, which you can then tap on to appear full screen.

However, not everyone may be happy with this change. If you want to go back to the way notifications appeared on iOS 15, launch the Settings application and go to Notifications > Display As. You’ll then see three options:

• Count: Notifications appear as a numbered count at the bottom of the screen.
• Stack: Notifications appear in a stack at the bottom of the screen.
• List: Notifications appear fully across your screen.

To go back to the old notification style, choose the List option.

LG is set to unveil a new camera module at CES that could take the “bump” out of your smartphone.

G Innotek, a branch of LG that makes electronic components, said Tuesday that the new micro component combines the optical-zoom capabilities found in DSLR cameras with a thinner design.

Optical-zoom smartphone cameras aren’t a new thing. What makes LG’s upcoming offering different is that it allows you to zoom in at magnifications of between 4x and 9x without reverting to a digital zoom for the magnifications in between, as current fixed-zoom smartphone cameras do.

Digital zooms use software, rather than a lens, to make images bigger, which can significantly reduce image quality.

Combining the multiple optical-zoom options into a single module will also help free up space inside smartphones and boost battery efficiency, LG said.

Meanwhile, LG said it has reduced the thickness of the module in order to remove the camera bump found on the backs of smartphones that feature optical-zoom cameras with larger magnifications.

The company added that it’s working with Qualcomm to optimize software for the module and jointly market it.

CES, which takes over the Las Vegas Strip each January, is the tech industry’s largest in-person event.

We all came out of the last three years changed. Amazon is no different.

All that online shopping you did during the pandemic added to soaring demand, which combined with other economic forces to push prices higher. Costs got too high for the tech industry, too, driving companies to shrink their ambitions – even the gargantuan Amazon.

Amazon was already the Goliath of US e-commerce before the pandemic, representing more than 40% of the market, according to Statista. With the boom in online shopping, fueled first by lockdowns and then by stimulus cash, the company’s profits shot up for more than a year.

Then came the bust. Amazon’s growth stalled out in the middle of 2021, and it posted its first loss in seven years at the beginning of 2022. By November, Amazon was the first company in the world to lose $1 trillion dollars in value, Bloomberg reported.

The problem wasn’t just that we stopped shopping through our misery. Amazon, like a lot of tech companies, banked big time on our new buying behaviors. As we went back to brick-and-mortar stores and cut our spending this year, the company was left with an oversized workforce and a hulking logistics network it couldn’t support. This year, Amazon and its competitors scrapped large chunks of what they built during the pandemic.

For you, Amazon’s new frugality means its advancements on flashy new gadgets — or the inexpensive ones you use to set timers, create reminders and check the weather — may get less of the company’s devotion next year.

Amazon’s most visible sign of retreat was the planned layoffs, which the company has confirmed will happen without giving the number of employees it plans to cut. Estimates in new reports range from 10,000 to 20,000 people who will lose their Amazon jobs in the coming months, but that’s just the most recent glimpse of trouble. Amazon began telling investors in October 2021 that it had built up its warehousing and air freight capacity too much in response to early pandemic demand.

The middle of this year started to reveal casualties elsewhere in the company. Amazon shut down its physical bookstores and some Amazon Go convenience store locations. It jettisoned its Amazon Care health care service on doubts it would ever be profitable. And departments in charge of customer favorites like Alexa-powered devices took a disproportionate hit from the layoffs so far.

Amazon declined to provide a comment for this story but directed CNET to remarks Amazon CEO Andy Jassy made during the New York Times DealBook Conference. Jassy said then that Amazon wasn’t done making bets on businesses that could have long-term payoffs.

“What we’re trying to do is streamline our costs in a bunch of different areas, while at the same time making sure that we keep betting on the things that we believe long-term could change,” Jassy said.

Still, this year’s cuts at Amazon reflect a turn toward immediate profitability, said Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at GlobalData, noting that the company hasn’t found a way to profit from Alexa devices.

It’s a sign of an industry-wide reckoning with shoppers hitting the brakes on spending, Saunders said, adding, “A lot of companies behaved as if it was a permanent shift.”

Peaks and valleys

E-commerce hit startling heights in 2020. Shoppers dropped earnings and stimulus cash on home furnishings, gardening supplies and electronics, and growth of online shopping was remarkable. It shot up from a steady growth rate of around 16% at the end of 2019 to more than 44% in the summer months of 2020.

E-commerce is still growing today, but the frenzy is over.

But while spending was still at unprecedented levels, Amazon used the extra cash to feverishly build warehouses and air hubs. It doubled its ranks from just under 800,000 employees at the end of 2019 to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021. And it wasn’t just Amazon. Shopify, the company behind many standalone online shops, also went on a hiring spree. Social media companies like Meta and Twitter benefited too, bringing in extra advertising revenue from merchants who aimed targeted ads at shoppers sitting at home.

Figures from the US Census Bureau show e-commerce spending is now where it would be if it had just kept growing at the same steady clip that it was before the pandemic. Even though the feverish buying started to cool last year, a few tech chiefs have said they thought the shift to online shopping was permanent. It wasn’t.

“Those chickens are coming home to roost,” Saunders said.

When Meta announced layoffs of 11,000 employees in November, CEO Mark Zuckerberg conceded it was a mistake to assume increased revenues would endure. Shopify cut 10% of its workforce in July, with CEO Tobi Lutke saying he was wrong to predict a permanent leap ahead of five to ten years in the growth rate of online shopping.

Amazon’s layoffs will also be significant. Proportionally, they’re on track to represent the company’s biggest workforce reduction since the 2001 dot-com bust, which hit 15% of its staff, according to the New York Times. Nonetheless, Jassy said Amazon made the right decision to scale up rapidly starting in 2020, adding that it was better to get too big than to stay too constrained to meet demand from shoppers and from sellers who use the company’s marketplace.

The slowdown shouldn’t have caught the heavyweights of e-commerce by surprise, said Andrew Lipsman, a retail analyst at Insider Intelligence. We were going to regain access to in-person stores at some point, and stimulus payments weren’t going to last forever. But even if cash-flush tech companies knew there would be an inevitable bust, they couldn’t let the opportunity to scale up and capture all our shopping dollars pass them by.

“They tend to think of it as an arms race,” Lipsman said. “When their major competitor is investing heavily, they don’t want to be the ones not doing it.”

Slowing innovation

That bitter downswing has forced Amazon to pull back on some of its flashy pet projects, like Alexa, where a large portion of the layoffs took place. While Alexa-powered devices like Echo smart speakers and displays dominate the smart home market, they’re priced to lose money. And even though Alexa made huge advances in voice recognition and AI-generated speech, the technology hasn’t succeeded in getting people to shop by voice, analysts say.

Amazon’s health care initiatives are also seeing cutbacks. The company said Amazon Care, a service that offered telehealth and in-home medical appointments, would close down at the end of 2022. (Amazon says it’s pushing forward with its purchase of One Medical, which offers primary care clinics and telehealth services).

Also on the chopping block were Amazon’s brick-and-mortar bookstores and its remaining “Four-star Stores,” which analysts say never found a purpose.

Amazon hasn’t killed the Alexa division or its health care efforts entirely, and Jassy has said the company is still betting on innovations like autonomous vehicles with its Zoox business. But the moves show Amazon is unwilling to sink quite as much money into services just for the sake of destabilizing or owning a market. That’s a contrast to its earliest approaches with selling books and music online, which Amazon pursued while taking a loss for seven years before finally turning a profit in 2001, said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst with Forrester.

“The DNA of Amazon was, ‘we’re going to lose money,’” Kodali said. Now the company must invest in things that’ll pay off sooner rather than later, she added.

And just like everything about Amazon, when the company cuts back, it does it in a big way.