Crazy vending machine swaps computer art for your permanent selfie

The question of how much of your personal data you woul be willing to give up for ostensibly free stuff is what drives the value of some of the world’s biggest tech giants — ranging from Google to Facebook. It’s also a conundrum that is put to the test in the latest creation of coder artist Matthias Dörfelt.

Dörfelt has built a high-tech camera-equipped vending machine called Face Trade (no, not the movie where John Travolta and Nicolas Cage swap faces) which exchanges unique prints of computer-generated faces for users taking a selfie that is then permanently stored in the Ethereum blockchain.

“My main goal for Face Trade was to create an installation that is odd, surprising, and fun on the surface, while being a comment and experiment on how easily people are willing to give up personal — and in this case even biometric — information in order to receive a ‘free’ artwork,” Dörfelt told Digital Trends.

Dörfelt said that the machine-generated faces are generated on the spot by the computer vending machine. They are designed to be intentionally ambiguous with faces that are showing emotions which are not immediately identifiable.

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Matthias Dörfelt

Matthias Dörfelt

Matthias Dörfelt

“It is not quite clear if the faces are happy, evil, exhausted, or possibly trying to deceive you,” he said. “The drawings are, in a lot of ways, a representation of my feelings towards the short but explosive history of blockchain, which somewhat oscillates between the amazing promises of democratization and decentralization on the one hand, and silk road, greed, and hyper-capitalism on the other end of the spectrum.”

The Face Trade vending machine is currently being exhibited at Art Center Nabi in Seoul, South Korea. “Right now, it is running on an Ethereum test network as I consider the current exhibition as more of a test run,” Dörfelt continued. “This means, as of now, the faces are not stored in the main Ethereum blockchain — which I guess is a better deal for the participants. [However], there will be another Blockchain-related show in late November, also at Nabi, where the piece will be shown again. I plan to have things running on the main Ethereum network for that second show.”

While projects such as this are certainly fun in their conception (and, hey, who wouldn’t want their own computer-generated artwork?), there’s no doubt that it taps into our anxieties surrounding a much bigger issue when it comes to privacy and today’s internet titans.

Ask yourself: Would you be willing to make this particular trade? There’s a unique algorithmically generated artwork if you would!

Editors’ Recommendations

• What is a blockchain?
• What is Ethereum?
• Cat got your wallet? CryptoKitties virtual feline fetches $170K in crypto cash
• How to buy Bitcoin
• ‘The Big Bang Theory’ is ending, but we’ll never forget these 15 guest appearances

Android P review

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Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

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Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Android 9 Pie — the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system —  embraces circles, rounded edges, artificial intelligence, and it genuinely attempts to care for your digital wellbeing. Dozens of small delectable feature crumbs, not quite filling on their own, add up to a satisfying slice of pie. We’ve been using the final version of Android Pie for the past few weeks on a Google Pixel 2 XL, and have also spent time with the update on the OnePlus 6 (in beta), and the Essential Phone. Here’s what we like, and what we don’t.

While your phone might not have Pie yet, more devices will launch with in in the coming months, and expect older devices to receive the update over the next year. You can keep track of what devices have received the update in our handy guide. We also don’t list every new feature in this review — you can check out our Android 9 Pie roundup for more.

Visual and navigation changes

Goodbye, sharp edges. One of the first changes we noticed with Android 9 Pie is just how round the interface looks now. Notifications have rounded edges, the quick-settings tiles are in clean, pie-shaped circles, and the Settings app has been revamped with a more colorful, rounded interface. It makes the OS feel friendlier and fluid, and we’re happy with the change.

Perhaps the most drastic change, however, lies in the navigation menu. Gone are the Android navigation buttons in favor of a single, pill-shaped icon. Like iOS on the iPhone X, Android is now all about gesture navigation: Using swipes instead of taps on icons. We like the idea, but Google’s current implementation in Pie feels — pardon the pun — half-baked.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Here’s how it works: The pill-shaped button acts almost exactly the same as the old home button. Tap it once and you’ll go home; press and hold it and you’ll open Google Assistant. Once you jump into an app, you’ll see the back button appear on the left of the home button. It works exactly the same as before, but the button looks a little more angular and smaller. The redesigned back button looks out of place with the rounded theme that has taken over the rest of the OS.

There is no Recents button to see an overview of the recently opened apps, but there’s still a way to access them: Drag the home button to the right to switch back to the previous app. You can also press and hold it to the right to scroll through all your recent apps. To see the full list of Recent apps, or to force close some of them, do a half-swipe up from the bottom of the screen. A full swipe up will open up your app drawer.

Google’s current gesture navigation implementation in Pie feels — pardon the pun — half-baked.

It now feels like extra work just to access the App Drawer, because you need to make sure you swipe completely up. The half-swipe up doesn’t look elegant at all, and it feels disrupting. It also feels as though it takes more time to find a recently-opened app in the Recents menu: It shows fewer apps, which means more scrolling to find the one you’re looking for. The old vertical stack was faster and easier to use.

Like all new changes, it takes some time to get used to the new gesture system, but we’re still not too fond of it after testing it for more than three weeks. Our biggest gripe is how the pill-shaped home button manages to take up the same amount of space as the traditional navigation buttons. At least with the iPhone X, the bar at the bottom takes up very little screen real estate. Thankfully, you can always swap back to the traditional Android navigation buttons, though some manufacturers will have gesture control enabled by default.

Jump up top to the notification drawer, and you’ll notice the clock now lives on the left side of the system tray, and the quick settings area is now packed with more rounded tiles. It looks cleaner, but we’re sad to see some functionality disappear — you can’t tap on tiles like Wi-Fi to see networks within the same interface. Instead, you’ll need to press and hold it to dive into the relevant section of the Settings app. In the same vein, if you used to tap the Settings icon at the top of the system tray, that now requires two swipes down as it has moved lower in the notification drawer. We like the visual changes here, but it does feel like a step back in functionality.

Editor’s note: Many of these visual changes may not be the same as you see here on our Pixel 2. Android Pie will look different on your smartphone, but it should still carry the same improvements and changes.

A.I.: Adaptive Brightness, Actions, Slices

A new brightness slider showcases some of the machine learning at play in Android 9.0 Pie. Your screen will still adjust to ambient light as it always has, but Adaptive Brightness now learns from the manual tweaks you make throughout the day. It will learn your habits over time, and will adjust it the brightness accordingly. Essentially, it’s meant to make sure you don’t need to keep changing brightness manually all the time. It works surprisingly well, but it definitely needs quite a bit of time to learn your daily preferences. It’s the first time we’ve felt satisfied leaving an auto-brightness feature turned on.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Machine learning powers two more additions in Android Pie: Slices and Actions. The latter predicts actions you’re about to perform, and it will inject two buttons in the app drawer. For instance, if you’re about to text a friend, it might offer a quick shortcut you can tap on that will open up your default messaging app and jump straight to the contact. Another example is re-ordering food through your favorite delivery app at a certain time of day.

Actions needs some time to learn your routines, but when it does, it offers genuinely useful shortcuts.

Like Adaptive Brightness, Actions needs some time to learn your routines, but when it does, it offers genuinely useful shortcuts, like jumping into a conversation thread with a specific person in a messaging app. It’s not a drastic change, but it shaves seconds.

Slices add more details when you search your phone for content and apps. For example, if you type in “Lyft” in the Search bar, you may find a link to find a driver to take you home or to work. Unfortunately, this feature still isn’t available yet, and will arrive sometime this fall.

Both of these new features require support from developers to really work. From what we’ve seen with Adaptive Brightness and Actions, A.I. isn’t just a buzzword in Android Pie — it really works.

Richer notifications, quality of life improvements

Android handles notifications incredibly well, so much so that Apple has taken a page out of Google’s book in iOS 12. But Google isn’t done innovating. In Android 9 Pie, you’ll now find Smart Replies baked into notifications. These are basically prepackaged replies based on the way you typically reply (which it learns over time).

We didn’t find the recommendations to be any more tailored to us than the next person, and we mostly found them to be a good way to send short, canned responses when we were busy. They don’t work with every app just yet, so it’s tough to gauge how useful they’ll ultimately be.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The actions you can perform on notifications look a lot nicer now — “Reply” and “Mark as Read” are no longer divided separately, but instead they float in the notification bubble. The font changes here really help make the interface look cleaner, and so do the brighter colors. You can even see images directly in the notification so you don’t need to open an app to respond, which helps make notifications more useful than ever before. It truly does make multitasking on a phone feel faster.

There are a lot of other changes that just improve the everyday usability of the OS. For example, Do Not Disturb is no longer a mess of confusing options. Instead, tap it once and the OS will completely block all visual and audio interruptions. You can even flip your phone face down to turn this on. It’s simple, and incredibly effective.

These changes may be minor, but together they drastically improve the day-to-day Android experience.

Always have trouble with the volume control buttons? Now if you increase or decrease the volume, it defaults to changing the media volume. If you want to change your phone’s sound profile, you can tap one icon to cycle through three modes: Sound, Vibrate only, or Mute. The settings icon will take you into the full volume control menu. It’s a delightfully beneficial change.

You can now take screenshots by tapping a new icon in the power menu (it appears when you press and hold the power button), and edit screenshots right when you take them. The latter is long overdue, as you’ve been able to markup screenshots on iOS for some time.

But our favorite feature of all is the screen rotate function. We’ve all encountered times when the phone’s screen unnecessarily rotates to landscape mode. Now, when screen lock is turned on, an icon appears when you rotate your phone, giving you the option to rotate. About time.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Notice a trend? These changes may be minor, but together they drastically improve the day-to-day Android experience.

Some other quality-of-life changes that are worth mentioning are the magnified view when you move the cursor on text (like in iOS); a note in the notification drawer showing when your next alarm is scheduled; more details in the Night Light tile that reminds you when night mode kicks in; and the fact that you can now see battery life on the Always-on Display (on Pixel devices).

If you keep swiping away some notifications without interacting with them, Android Pie will also ask if you want to stop receiving those alerts completely, which is a handy way to offer up the ability to block particular notifications from an app. A new Manage Notifications button at the bottom of your notifications gives further control, like toggling notifications off and on, app by app.

Digital Wellbeing, and spending less time on your phone

A recent Motorola, Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital survey found that more than 53 percent of respondents (born in 1990s and the early 2000s) described their phone as their “best friend.” It’s clear we spend too much time on our phones, and Google wants to address this with a few “Digital Wellbeing” features in Android Pie.

There are four key components to Digital Wellbeing, which is currently in beta for Pixel devices. The updated Do Not Disturb option, which we mentioned earlier, helps completely block out all alerts so you can focus or pay attention to the task at hand. Then there’s App Timers, which let you set a limit for how long you can use an app. After you hit the limit, the app’s icon goes grayscale to remind you to adhere to your limit. It’s nice to see this available in the OS, but it requires a lot of willpower from the user to not override the limit.

The Dashboard in the Settings menu is also an eye-opening way to see all the times you pick up and unlock your phone, or the amount of notifications you’re bombarded with on a daily basis. It’s beneficial if you just want to keep track of what takes up most of your time, but we haven’t found much a desire to return back to it after checking it out the first time.

Wind Down effectively makes us put our phone on the charger before bed.

The final component is called Wind Down, and it’s perhaps the most useful of the lot. At a specified time bed, the whole phone screen goes grayscale. It sounds subtle, but the missing color for app icons like Twitter made us sincerely want to put the phone down. Do Not Disturb mode also engages, so you don’t get in the habit of checking notifications before bed. Wind Down effectively makes us put our phone on the charger before bed.

We’re excited to see these new additions come to other Android devices after the beta period ends. With the exception of Do Not Disturb and Wind Down, it’s tough to see if any of these will reshape our lives for the better, as the onus remains entirely on you.

Under the hood improvements

As with every update, there are things happening under the hood that you may not notice at first. One of the most important is Adaptive Battery. Google said it’s working with its DeepMind division to analyze user behavior, so the OS can predict the apps you’re most likely to use next, and ready up resources accordingly. Google said this will result in a 30-percent reduction in CPU wake-ups, which should help improve battery life. We haven’t seen much of a change in battery life on our Google Pixel 2 XL before or after we installed Android 9 Pie, but it could just be due to our high usage, so we’re not prepared to dismiss it entirely.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Another significant addition is that apps running in the background can no longer access the microphone or camera. It’s worrying to think this wasn’t the case before, but we’re thankful it’s here. There’s also now a consistent fingerprint authentication prompt across all apps and services, so it looks the same throughout the OS.

This consistency is another running theme, not just for Android Pie but for all Google apps and services. Google is helping developers integrate its Material design elements into third-party apps thanks to a Material Theme Editor, which helps unify the design. Of course, it only helps if developers use it.

An update you’ll want

It’s incredible that a little more than a month after Google released Android 9 Pie, we’re using it on three different smartphones. While it may not seem like much, that’s a major leap for Google, and a boon to Android, which has been struggling with fragmentation for quite some time. We’re hoping most of the new Android phones launching this fall come with Android Pie installed — like Sony’s Xperia XZ3 — and that older devices are updated at a much quicker pace than ever before.

Android 9 Pie is one of Google’s biggest updates to Android in some time. Android 7.0 and 8.0 largely fixed things under the hood, but this version brings fresh visual changes. There are so many small improvements that your day-to-day use of Android will drastically improve, and the injection of artificial intelligence is already helpful. We do hope Google can tweak its gesture navigation system to be a little less confusing, but otherwise Android Pie is an update you’ll want to bite into.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best and worst features of Android 9.0 Pie
• Got Android 9.0 Pie? Here’s why you should turn off auto screen rotation
• Here’s how Google’s Digital Wellbeing feature looks and works in Android 9.0 Pie
• Android 9.0 Pie vs. iOS 12: How notifications have changed
• Everything that’s new with notifications in Android 9.0 Pie

The best Android phone without a notch

The people who tell you notched-screen smartphones are the future and you should just get used to it are wrong, and they should feel bad. Thankfully, notches haven’t completely taken over the Android market; these are the phones you want if you’d rather avoid them.

The Samsung Galaxy S9+ builds on years of Samsung’s excellence. It starts with a gorgeously sculpted metal-and-glass waterproof body sporting dual speakers, a headphone jack and an SD card slot. Inside are the latest and greatest specs, plus a standout pair of cameras on the back and the best display on the market around front.

Our pick

Galaxy S9+

• $750 from Amazon
• $790 from Samsung

The best Android phone for most people doesn’t have a notch.

Choosing the Samsung Galaxy S9+ doesn’t require much thought — it can do everything and looks great doing it, with very few real downsides. It’s beautiful, has the best screen, isn’t missing any hardware features and has one of the best camera experiences available in a smartphone today.

Who should buy this phone

Samsung designs its phones to be appealing to the widest possible audience, and that makes the Galaxy S9+ a great device for just about anyone. It has a big and beautiful display that’s quite simply the best in the industry, but with very small bezels and curved edges, it fits into a relatively compact size without resorting to dumb-looking notches..

Internally, it has all of the latest specs to handle any app or task you need. It also has a pair of cameras on the back that are in the mix as the best available today. Samsung has also kept around crowd-pleasing features like wireless charging, waterproofing, an SD card slot and a headphone jack. Really, the Galaxy S9+ does a great job at being all things to all people.

Best of all, if you don’t care for the larger size of the Galaxy S9+ for whatever reason, you can simply buy the smaller and less expensive Galaxy S9 instead and get the same core experience with only a few changes.

Is it a good time to buy this phone?

Yes. The Samsung Galaxy S9+ launched the first week of March 2018, and the Galaxy S9+’s successor will not be unveiled until March 2019. The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 was unveiled in August — and we’ll get to it in just a minute — but for its price tag and its abundance of features, the S9+ is still the better buy for a notchless phone.

Reasons to buy

• Sleek and beautiful hardware
• Waterproofing, wireless charging and more
• Best-in-class display
• Fantastic dual cameras
• Dual speakers and a headphone jack

Reasons not to buy

• Lots of unnecessary apps installed
• Slow update speed

The Galaxy S9+ proves that notches are stupid

Outside of the work Samsung has done in making the Infinity Display a perfect answer for why we don’t need notches in our phones to make them feel bigger, the Galaxy S9+ is a beautiful, well-made phone. Even with its powerful specs, the phone can last through the day and charges quickly through USB-C or wireless power. The headphone jack exists, but also delivers quality audio even if your headphones aren’t the best. This is a fantastic all-around phone, something that can be picked up by truly anyone and enjoyed.

But ultimately it does come down to the display. More important than the decision to keep the forehead and chin, Samsung’s displays are among the highest quality in a phone you can buy today. The panel on the Galaxy S9 gets brighter than any other phone, the colors are vibrant, and the included Blue Filter mode makes it a lot more eye-friendly when using it at night. When you put all of this together, the Galaxy S9 becomes an obvious top choice for just about everyone.

Samsung brings its A-game with the S9+’s camera hardware and software.

The camera is all-new this generation, with a sensor that does fantastic processing to remove noise and sharpen fine detail even in poor lighting. It’s aided by a dual-aperture lens to get the best combination of light and detail in different shots, and is paired with a secondary telephoto lens for zoom and portrait mode shooting. Whether you shoot in auto or mess around in manual mode, you can get great shots in just about any scene.

You don’t get the clean and simple software experience of phones like the Google Pixel 2 XL or OnePlus 6, which may take some extra customization and tweaking on your part, but the Galaxy S9+ is far less polarizing overall because it just has so many features to appeal to everyone. When you take it all together, it’s a complete package.

Alternatives to the Samsung Galaxy S9+

The Galaxy S9+ has mass appeal, but it isn’t for everyone. There are several other awesome picks out there depending on your specific needs.

Runner-up

Pixel 2 XL

$750+ at Google Store

Stellar software and performance with a superb camera.

The Google Pixel 2 XL is the cleanest, smoothest and most Google-friendly phone available. It has sleek hardware, simple software and a killer camera, with years of guaranteed updates and unlimited Google Photos storage.

The Pixel 2 XL doesn’t have a fantastic screen or headphone jack like the Galaxy S9+ does, but the camera on Google’s flagship is every bit as good as Samsung. You also get three years of guaranteed software updates — which provides excellent peace of mind — to great software that many consider more consistent and uncluttered than Samsung’s.

Where most manufacturers have opted to move phone speakers from the front of the phone to the bottom, Google’s Pixel phones exist as one of the few left where you can get quality audio pointed right at your face when you’re listening to music or watching a video. The trade-off for this design choice, obviously, is that you have speakers on the front of your phone instead of that all-display experience. While it will soon be possible to hide sensors under the display, you can’t really do the same with speakers.

Now that it’s almost a year old — the Google Pixel 3 XL will be unveiled in early October and will very likely have a notch — you shouldn’t consider the 2 XL at full retail. But Google, Verizon and other retailers sometimes have it on discount now that we’re coming up on the new model’s debut.

Upgrade pick

Galaxy Note 9

$999 from Amazon

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is an incredible phone with a huge price to match.

The Galaxy S9+ is great, but the Note 9 is even greater. It does everything the GS9+ does, but adds in a larger screen, more storage, longer battery life and an S Pen stylus. And it’s about $200 more because of it.

The Galaxy Note 9 is easily the best Note phone Samsung has ever made, and for once it’s actually better than the latest Galaxy S phone in every way. The battery has jumped up to 4000mAh, which gives you effortless all-day battery life, and the rest of the experience is the same as what the Galaxy S9+ offers.

That means you get top-end specs, a great camera, an industry-leading display and so much more. And the Note has an S Pen, which remains unmatched in the smartphone world. The problem is its $1000+ price tag, which is a tough pill to swallow when you can get almost the same experience for about $200 less with the Galaxy S9+. That makes this an “upgrade” and not the standard recommendation.

Budget pick

Moto G6

$235 from Amazon

You can’t go wrong with the notchless Moto G6, which is far better than its $249 price tag would suggest.

The Moto G6 is the best budget phone you can buy, with Gorilla Glass 3 on the front and back and a dual camera setup. A spritely but power-efficient Snapdragon 450 processor helps , the Moto G6 is beautiful and capable.

Both the Moto G6 and the G6 Plus are cut from the same cloth, but because they are so similar, the G6 Plus is only sold in markets the Moto X4 isn’t available. Yes, it’s confusing, but that’s fine: all you need to know is that you’ll probably be happy with whichever model you like.

Bottom line

There are many phones on the market today free of the scourge of notch. From the Galaxy S9+ to the Pixel 2 XL to the Note 9 and Moto G6, there’s a notch-free phone for everyone. Does it matter whether your phone has a notch? Well, that’s up to you to decide. It matters to some people, and that’s all that matters to us.

Updated September 2018: The Galaxy S9+ continues to be our top pick with a top-notch display that has no notch! When money’s no object, the biggest, best notchless phone to get is the Note 9. The Pixel 2 XL remains, but only when it can be found on a discount as its successor is arriving soon.

Credits — The team that worked on this guide

Russell Holly is a Contributing Editor at Android Central. He lives for the shiniest new thing, and loves explaining its potential to improve your life. Whatever you do, don’t tell his spouse about the drawer full of tech under the bed.

Daniel Bader is the Managing Editor of Android Central. As he’s writing this, a mountain of old Android phones is about to fall on his head, but his Great Dane will protect him. He drinks way too much coffee and sleeps too little. He wonders if there’s a correlation.

Ara Wagoner is overjoyed to have joined the Android Central team full-time after four years of freelance contributions to the site. Yes, her holster is for a phone not a gun. When she’s not building new Android themes and poking Google Assistant with a stick, you can find her gutting pumpkins to brine and bake pumpkin seeds. If you see her without headphones, RUN.

Do you still plan on buying the Pixel 3 XL after all the leaks?

Has the giant notch turned you away from the rest of the Pixel’s merits?

If you’ve been following mobile tech news at all over the last couple of months, you’ve undoubtedly seen some of the countless renders and even hands-on photos of the Pixel 3 XL, which Google will be officially unveiling on October 9th. Its newly notched design has been … less than well-received so far, but like it or not, this is the new big Pixel.

In case you’ve somehow missed the leaks up until now, the Pixel 3 XL looks nearly identical to the Pixel 2 XL from the back, albeit with a glass panel rather than painted aluminum, but it looks like an entirely different phone from the front. The Pixel 2 XL’s massive top and bottom bezels have been replaced with a taller, nearly edge-to-edge display, which is great in theory, but problems arise once you run into the notch.

Personally, I have no problems with display notches in general — I’ve written in their defense before, and used plenty of notched phones like the iPhone X and OnePlus 6 — the latter of which is currently my daily driver. But even I have to admit that the Pixel 3 XL’s notch is pretty unreasonable, not just in its width but in its height; I’m ambivalent towards notches partially because they generally don’t take up much vertical real estate, which is far more important to me than horizontal space on a phone.

Elsewhere on Android Central, Jerry Hildenbrand has written about his disdain for the Pixel 3 XL’s notch, along with Android Pie’s new gesture-based navigation. While the latter is still optional for now, Jerry makes a good point that Google clearly wants to move in the direction of gestures everywhere, and even outside of the navigation strip at the bottom of the screen, stock Android software is continually shifting away from buttons as much as possible.

So, back to the question originally posed in the title of this article. With all of the changes being brought on with the Pixel 3 XL, do you still plan on buying one? I don’t think I will, but that’s almost entirely due to its size. As much as I love my OnePlus 6, I’m constantly wishing it were a bit smaller, and the regular Pixel 3 seems to be a perfect fit for me — especially in that teal/mint finish we’ve seen teased. That also solves the issue of the notch for those who care, since the smaller model seems to have an uninterrupted 18:9 display.

In any case, I’m curious to find out how many of you are still interested in getting the Pixel 3 XL over the smaller Pixel 3. Sound off with your thoughts in the comments below!

From the forums: Should you buy the Galaxy Note 9 or S9+?

You can’t go wrong with either Samsung flagship.

If you’re looking to buy a large Android smartphone, two of your best options right now are the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9+. Both of these devices have proven to be some of the best the year has to offer, and when stacked next to each other, it can be difficult to decide which one you should buy.

This is a topic our AC forum members have been rather talkative about as of late, and without further ado, here’s what they’ve got to say on the matter.

NIZMOZ44
09-17-2018 07:04 AM

“

Note 9 unless you can get an awesome discount on the s9 plus.

Reply

amyf27
09-17-2018 07:55 AM

“

Depending on the size and form factor you prefer. Note 9 is outstanding. It is a bit bigger overall than the S9Plus. If you like a big phone, go for it.

Reply

NexusGirlX
09-17-2018 08:50 AM

“

I have both phones. For the S9+, I have the US unlocked model and it’s easily giving me two days of standby with 5-6 hrs screen time.

I have the AT&T Note 9 and it too is easily giving me the same usage stats as my S9+. I do not regret owning both. Amazing performance on both phones.

Reply

Morty2264
09-17-2018 03:23 PM

“

I’d say it depends on your preferences. If you want a bigger battery, a bigger screen and a stylus, I would recommend the Note 9. The S9+ has a smaller battery (but it’s still pretty big, at 3500 mAh); and it will probably be at a back-to-school discount now/it may drop down in price due to the Note 9 coming out.

Keep us posted!

Reply

What say you? Should you buy the Galaxy Note 9 or Galaxy S9+?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

• Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review
• Galaxy Note 9 vs. Note 8
• Where to buy the Galaxy Note 9
• Galaxy Note 9 specifications
• Is the Note 8 still a good buy?
• Join our Galaxy Note 9 forums

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The Google Assistant can now lock your kids’ devices with Family Link

There’s a lot going on with the Google Assistant — let’s break down the important stuff.

In May 2016, we got our very first taste of the Google Assistant with the debut of Allo. The Assistant was a big draw to Allo at the time, with Google marketing it as a helpful bot that could make restaurant reservations, search the web, and more within your conversations.

Since then, the Assistant has gained heaps of new features and expanded to smartphones, tablets, speakers, and more. Google’s shown no interest in slowing down development for the Assistant, meaning that it’s likely here for the long-haul.

Whether this is your first encounter with it or you just need a quick refresher, here’s everything you need to know about the Google Assistant.

The latest Google Assistant news

September 18, 2018 — The Google Assistant can now lock your kids’ devices with Family Link

Google regularly updates its parental control suite, Family Link, with new features to make parenting in the modern world as easy as can be. With the latest update, you can now connect Family Link to the Google Assistant so you can control your kiddos’ devices with just your voice.

Assuming you’ve got Family Link set up for your family, you’ll be able to say commands such as, “Hey Google, lock Timmy’s phone” to remotely lock his device. Timmy will have five minutes to finish up whatever he’s doing, and once those five minutes are up, the phone is locked. Similarly, the Google Assistant will also be able to detect if a kid is talking to it and provide more kid-friendly responses as it sees fit.

Along with the Assistant updates, Google’s also expanding Family Link so that it can now be used with kids older than 13-year-old.

September 16, 2018 — Google details improvements made to Sound Search

Now Playing was a nifty little feature when it debuted on the Google Pixel 2, and Sound Search through Google Assistant paled in comparison to it. Google AI knows there’s still plenty of work to be done with Sound Search, but have shared some of the steps they’ve undertaken in the last several months to try and improve the Sound Search on Google Assistant and the Google app, including:

• Detailing of Now Playing’s musical fingerprinting system through embeddings to match a sound sample against a vast database
• Leveraging server-side resources and procession power for Sound Search to increase accuracy and speed of song matching
• Weighting the song sample catalog by popularity so that popular songs match quicker and obscure songs need higher levels of embedded matches to trigger a result

Google AI admits that trying to replicate the accuracy and success of Now Playing, which matches on-device against a small database, against a Sound Search sever-side database that’s 1000 times bigger, is not without difficulties that they’re continuing to work through, but they claim that they’ve already seen marked improvement to Sound Search in the last year. The challenges of identifying sounds in noisy environments like a crowded dance floor or sporting event are still being worked through, but knowing Google, it can only get better.

Read Google AI’s full Sound Search journey

September 11, 2018 — Google Assistant now supports Danish and Norwegian languages

Increased language support is always something we love to see with the Google Assistant, and most recently, everyone’s favorite AI can now speak in Danish and Norwegian.

The official Assistant pages are now live in both languages, but as we see with all of these rollouts, it may take some time for it to reach your devices. To check and see if the Assistant’s arrived for you, simply hold down the home button on a phone that’s set to either language and see if you’ve got the Assistant UI instead of the old Google voice search one.

September 10, 2018 — Disney doubles its Google Assistant content with three new games

Google Assistant can help your kids with questions about their homework or the universe, can help remind you and your kids when you need to get going for soccer practice, and it can even tell them a bedtime story. Disney is bringing a little more magic to the Google Home and beyond with three new Google Assistant activities.

• Maui’s Music Game lets kids help Maui defeat monster and reunite with Moana after getting separated from his hook in Lalotai, the Realm of Monsters. While playing, you’ll be rewarded with musical conch shells that play music from the film. You’re Welcome!
• Disney Princess brings you along on a daily adventure with one of your favorite princesses. Help Ariel learn what human world objects are called, navigate Jasmine through a horse race, and hear fun stories from Cinderella and Tiana. You can also get nerdy with Belle answering her questions about your favorite books.
• Toy Story Freeze Dance gets active with an interactive dance game that initiates you as one Bonnie’s new toys. Learn the moves and the meaning of being a toy, but make sure you pay attention, because at any moment, you could have to FREEZE! to avoid exposing the biggest secret in toydom.

These games are designed for Google Home, but you can also play them on phones and Google Assistant-enabled Chromebooks and TVs, as well as those nifty new Smart Displays. These games join Disney’s current Google Assistant offerings:

• Mickey Mouse Adventure
• Cars Adventure
• Belle’s Castle Adventure
• Star Wars Trivia Challenge

August 21, 2018 — “Hey Google, tell me something good” now dishes out “good news”

Staying up to date on all of the current news is important no matter who you are, but with everything going on in our world, sometimes it’s easy to feel like nothing good is happening. In an effort to bring “good news” to light, Google’s launching a new Assistant command in the U.S.

When talking to the Assistant on your phone, Google Home, or Smart Display, you can now say “Hey Google, tell me something good” to hear about how people are solving real issues all around us.

Google partnered with Solutions Journalism Network for this feature, and per Google, solutions journalism, “highlights how problems are solvable and that doing better is possible.”

If you’re in the U.S., you can try out this command starting today.

August 14, 2018 — Pandora Premium now supported by Google Home and Smart Displays

Users have been able to stream Pandora through Google Home speakers for quite some time now, but starting today, you’ll be able to link your Pandora Premium account so you can listen to specific, on-demand songs/playlists in addition to the service’s popular radio stations.

Pandora Premium costs $9.99/month like the majority of its competitors, but if you own a Google Home, you can get a free 90-day trial to test out the service before handing over any of your hard-earned cash.

You can start listening to Pandora Premium on the Google Home, Home Mini, Home Max, Lenovo Smart Display, and other Google Assistant speakers right now.

August 9, 2018 — Deeper, more specific news coverage is now rolling out

Pretty much since the Assistant’s inception, you’ve been able to say “Hey, Google, what’s the news?” to get a quick overview of all the big headlines for any given day.

Starting today and rolling out to users across the U.S., you can now ask the Assistant about news for specific topics, such as “What’s the latest on NASA?” or “What’s the news on the women’s national soccer team?”. Asking these questions on a Smart Display will pull up related YouTube videos while audio-only speakers such as Google Home will read out excerpts from news articles.

Additionally, this command will also be available for Android Auto, Android phones, and Assistant-powered headphones like the Bose QC35 II.

August 3, 2018 — Google Home can now understand what room it’s in for contextual light controls

That title might make this not sound all that exciting, but this is actually pretty cool.

Up until now, asking your Google Home to “turn on the lights” or “tune off the lights” without specifying a certain room would result in every single connected light being turned on/off. However, a new update now allows the Google Home to only control the lights in the same room as it when this command is issued.

For example, if you have a Google Home assigned to the same room as the smart lights in your living room, asking that Google Home to turn on the lights will only activate the bulbs in the living room. You can still specify rooms with your voice, but this update should make these interactions a lot more natural.

Following numerous Redditors discovering this feature, Google confirmed to Android Police that this is indeed rolling out to users and will be making its way to everyone over the coming days.

July 27, 2018 — You can now schedule custom routines for specific times/days

Building upon Custom Routines that were added to Google Assistant earlier this year, users can now schedule these routines to go off at a certain time/day. Previously, custom routines you made could only be used after saying a specific command.

While creating a routine, you’ll now see a new “Set a time and day” option under the “When” section. Here, you can choose the time you want it to play and what day(s) it should repeat.

There are a lot of ways to take advantage of this, with one example being to have your coffee pot turn on, crank up the AC, and hear about the weather as you’re waking up without having to ever speak to your Google Home. Neat!

July 26, 2018 — Dutch is now an officially supported language

Good news, Dutch speakers! As of July 26, 2018, Google’s confirmed that the Google Assistant now speaks Dutch as one of its official languages.

Assuming you’ve got an Android phone running Marshmallow or later, you can now access the Assistant to ask it questions about the weather, create calendar appointments, control smart home devices, and more.

In addition to your phone, you’ll also be able to use Dutch on the Google Home later in the year once the smart speaker goes on sale in the Netherlands.

July 17, 2018 — New Google Assistant page shows commute times, packages, upcoming flights, and more

Starting today, the Assistant on your phone is getting a big visual overhaul. After prompting the Assistant, tap the icon near the top right that previously opened up the Explore page for finding new Assistant actions and it’ll now show a visual overview of your day.

Similar to old Google Now cards, this page shows things like your commute to work, the current weather, upcoming flights, packages that are on their way from recent online orders, calendar appointments, and much more.

In the near future, Google says it’ll let you see a quick overview of notes/lists from Google Keep, Todoist, Bring!, and more, a discovery page that’ll help you find nearby events/activities, reminders of where you last parked your car, and recommendations for songs and podcasts the Assistant thinks you’ll like.

This new interface is rolling out today and is available on Android and iOS for all languages the Assistant supports.

July 10, 2018 — Google updates the UX for selecting the Assistant’s voice

During Google I/O this past May, four new voices were added to the Assistant’s existing male and female voices to help give it some more personality. Starting today, English users in the United States will see a new user interface when changing the voice.

With the new UX, users will now see a horizontal row of colors that denotes each voice rather than a vertical list of Voice 1, Voice 2, etc. The colors are entirely random and consist of Red, Orange, Amber, Green, Cyan, Blue, Purple, and Pink.

Google says the new look should be live for everyone by the end of the week!

July 10, 2018 — Deezer Premium is now supported on Google Homes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Italy

Deezer may not be as popular as rivals like Spotify and Pandora, but for subscribers of the paid Deezer Premium service, you’ll be happy to know that you can now listen to all of your Deezer songs and playlists through your Google Home.

Deezer Premium streaming has been available through Google Home since August 2017, but it was initially only live in France and Germany. This was later expanded to the United Kingdom in April of this year, and with this latest rollout, Deezer Premium now works on Google Homes that are in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Italy.

To link Deezer Premium to your Google Home, open the Home app, go to Music, and link your Deezer account.

The service regularly costs $9.99/month, but if you’re a new member, Google’s offering three months for just $0.99. If you want to take advantage of this offer, it’s good until September 20.

June 26, 2018 — All Google Home speakers now support Spanish

While users have been able to talk to Assistant in Spanish on their phones, we’re just now getting the ability to do the same on Google Home speakers.

Now, users in the United States, Spain, Mexico and other countries can choose to speak to Google Assistant in Spanish. If you want to change what language Google Home uses, open the Home app on your phone. The tap Settings -> Preferences -> Español.

All Google Home Speakers now support Spanish

June 12, 2018 — Google Home can now handle up to three commands at once

It can get old trying to ask multiple questions to our smart speakers — “What’s the weather” and “How’s my schedule” — but nowGoogle Home can understand up to three commands. Now, you can get your calendar, find out the weather and start playing music by only saying “Okay Google” once.

Another new feature is support for Multiple Actions. So now, instead of asking, “What’s the weather in New York and the weather in San Francisco?”, you can ask, “What’s the weather in New York and San Francisco?” This is a subtle change, but it makes conversing with Google Assistant much more like conversing with a human.

Google Home can now handle up to three commands at once

May 9, 2018 — Google announced a heap of new features at I/O

To little surprise, the Google Assistant was the star of the show for a good chunk of I/O’s opening keynote this year.

A lot of new features were announced for the Assistant, including new voices, the ability to ask follow-up questions without having to say “Hey, Google” each time, and an option for making your own custom Routines.

However, the most exciting thing was a system called Google Duplex. With this, the Assistant can call businesses and make appointments/reservations on your behalf. It’s wickedly cool and definitely one of the wildest things to come out of this year’s conference.

What’s new in Google Home and Assistant at Google I/O 2018

All the important details

Google Now paved the way for Google Assistant

The Google Now page compared to the new Google Feed.

Before there was the Google Assistant, we had Google Now. Google Now was introduced to the world all the way back in 2012, offering contextual info through the Google Now page and helpful answers to random questions with an “OK Google” voice command.

A lot of what made Google Now so great can still be found in the Google Assistant today, with the exception of the Google Now page. The Google Now page used to be home to cards showcasing the weather, information on packages that had shipped from online orders, boarding passes, and more. It’s since been replaced by the Google Feed – a collection of news stories Google thinks you’ll be interested in – and it’s definitely the biggest departure between the two services.

The Google Assistant as a whole is still more powerful than Google Now ever was, but long-time Android users like myself are still mourning the loss of that Now page. RIP, old friend.

Read more: Google Now is being left to wither and die as Google Assistant takes the focus

It’s available on just about everything

In just a few short years, the Google Assistant’s gone from being exclusive to a now-failed chat app to being integrated into just about anything you can think of.

You’ll find Google Assistant built right into most Android phones, it’s the star of the show for the Google Home lineup, and it’s even making its way into sound bars.

Here’s the full list of devices with Google Assistant

Setting up the Google Assistant is as easy or complex as you want

When you set up a device for the first time that has the Assistant, getting started is pretty simple. Accessing it is just a voice command or tap away depending on what gadget you’re using, but if you want to really fine-tune your experience, Google’s got you covered.

Take a quick dive into your Assistant settings and you’ll find options for just about everything – including your weather preferences, changing the Assistant’s voice, retraining your voice model, picking out preferred news sources, and much more.

How to set up and customize Google Assistant

Google Assistant is available in multiple regions and languages

Of course, a smart voice assistant isn’t any good if you can’t actually use it. Fortunately, Google Assistant will be available in 52 countries —adding 38 countries this year — and 17 languages by the end of 2018.

More: Google Assistant will expand to 38 countries and 17 languages in 2018

Google Home’s the premier way to get the Assistant in your house (at least for now)

It’s great to have the Google Assistant on your phone, but if you want to truly experience just how helpful it can be, you’ll want to consider picking up a Google Home.

Google Home is Google’s line of smart speakers that put the Assistant on full-display, allowing you to control smart devices, ask random questions, set timers, play music, and more by just using your voice.

You can spend as little as $49 for the Google Home Mini, $129 for the original Google Home, or a whopping $399 for the Google Home Max.

However, as great as the Home series is, don’t forget that Smart Displays are just on the horizon.

Announced at CES 2018, Smart Displays are essentially smart speakers with the Google Assistant and a touch screen display that can show you helpful visuals when talking to them. It’s basically Google’s answer to the Amazon Echo Show and Echo Spot, and we can’t wait to see more from them.

Everything you need to know about Google’s Home speakers

Then again, is an always-listening speaker the right fit for your home?

However, the convenience of a Google Home (or any smart speaker for that matter) does come at the cost of privacy. Speakers like the Google Home are “always listening”, meaning they’re constantly on the lookout for a hot word to know when you’re talking to it (such as “Ok, Google” and “Hey, Google”).

This means the microphone on a Google Home is always active, but it’s not necessarily storing all the audio it hears when it doesn’t detect its hot word.

Most all speakers allow you to restore some privacy by being able to mute the microphone, but if you want to start asking the Assistant questions, you’ll need to unmute it first.

To learn more about these “always listening” speakers, I’ll pass the mic over to Jerry

Big upgrades are coming to the Assistant on Wear OS

Switching gears for a second, the Google Assistant on Wear OS (formerly Android Wear) is about to get a big upgrade.

In the near future, the Assistant on Wear OS will support Assistant Actions (basically apps for the Assistant) and give you the option to hear its responses through your watch’s speaker or a pair of connected Bluetooth headphones.

Along with this, Google will be adding something called “smart suggestions.” After asking the Assistant for the weather, for example, you’ll see little bubbles for “weather tonight”, “use celsius”, and more so you can continue the conversation with just the tap of your finger. Google Assistant on Android offers something similar, and it’s a great tool to have.

IFTTT supercharges the Assistant’s usefulness

IFTTT (If This Then That) is a powerful online tool that allows you trigger something (that) if a certain event (this) happens. You can connect IFTTT to the Google Assistant to create your own recipes using this formula, and it can allow for some incredibly helpful combinations.

Some of our favorite uses for IFTTT and the Assistant include adding contacts to your Google account, setting your Google Calendar status to Busy for a certain period of time, and much, much more.

Getting started with IFTTT can take some time and patience if you’re new to it, but once you’re all set up and ready to go, it can prove to be a lifesaver.

How to connect Google Home and IFTTT to do amazing things with your connected tech

You’ll get the same experience no matter what devices you use

With so many devices capable of running the Assistant, it’d be easy to think that the experience you get on one gadget would be different from another. This is something that Google struggled with for a while at first, but we’re finally in a position where the Assistant experience you get on a smart speaker, for example, is the same you’ll get on your phone.

There are a handful of features here and there that still create for some discrepency, but for the most part, the Assistant you use on your Pixel 2 is the same one found on Google Home.

Google Home and Google Assistant finally offer the same experience

Google Duplex is actually going to be a thing

Google showed off Duplex — Google Assistant making natural-sounding phone calls on your behalf — at I/O 2018, but quickly noted that it was just an experiment. Flash forward a couple months, and Google announced that certain users have started testing Duplex, and a public release will be here in the next few months. Before you know it, Google Assistant will be able to book hotels, dinner reservations, hair appointments and more without you lifting a finger.

More: What is Google Duplex?

Updated July 2018: Added the Google Duplex and language support sections, as well as links to recent Assistant news.

Ubtech’s latest JIMU robot kit is a fun way to teach kids how to code

Think of the JIMU BuilderBots Overdrive kit as LEGO for the 21st century.

Chinese robotics company Ubtech garnered a lot of attention last year with its $800 humanoid robot powered by Alexa, and the manufacturer is also known for its series of education-focused robots that are designed to get kids interested in STEM.

The JIMU robot lineup already has eight kits, and the company is now launching a new BuilderBots Overdrive kit that has over 410 interlocking parts. The parts can be used to build either of the two new robots — DozerBot and DirtBot — or kids can use their imagination to come up with entirely new creations. The Overdrive kit comes with two smooth-motion robotic servo motors and two DC motors, as well an ultrasonic sensor that can be used for obstacle detection and a programmable RGB light.

The free JIMU app includes detailed step-by-step instructions to build and control the DozerBot and DirtBot. The app includes a 3D model of the robot for 360-degree viewing, an in-app joystick that lets you easily control the robot from your phone, a set of pre-programmed actions for the robots, and Blockly coding lessons that teaches kids how to code new actions.

Chinese tech giant Tencent led a $820 million Series C investment into Ubtech earlier this year, pushing its valuation to over $5 billion. The company is using the infusion of funds to expand retail availability of its products, with the Overdrive hit heading to major retailers across the country.

The JIMU Robot BuilderBots Series: Overdrive Kit is now available for $119 from Amazon as well as Ubtech’s own website, and it is also up for sale at 5,000 retail stores including Target, Walmart, and Sam’s Club.

See at Amazon

UK Daily Deals: Xbox Live Gold membership, Echo Plus, power banks and more

Whether you’re looking for new tech gear or household items, we’ve got you covered.

We found plenty of great deals today that include big discounts on Xbox Live Gold membership with free Xbox credit, high-capacity power banks, TP-Link Wi-Fi Smart Plugs, Amazon Echo Plus and much more!

View the rest of the deals

Each day, the Thrifter UK team scouts out and shares amazing deals on products you know and love, helping you find the best prices on the ‘net.

For more UK deals coverage, be sure to keep an eye on Thrifter UK and follow the team on Twitter for the most up-to-the-minute coverage.

Twitter now allows you to only see tweets in reverse chronological order

All the way back in 2006, a little website by the name of Twitter was created. This July marks the 12-year anniversary of the social network, and since then, Twitter’s become one of the most popular apps/sites around.

Over the years, Twitter’s become the go-to place to learn about current events, new movie trailers, fresh memes, and to scream about politics with random people online.

Whatever you use Twitter for, here’s everything you need to know about it.

The latest Twitter news

September 18, 2018 — Twitter now allows you to only see tweets in reverse chronological order

There are a few things Twitter users have been asking the service to address for years. We’re still no closer to editable Tweets, but the company is fixing a pain point that we’ve been clamoring about for what seems like forever — the way we see posts in our timeline.

5/ Meanwhile, today we updated the “Show the best Tweets first” setting. When off, you’ll only see Tweets from people you follow in reverse chronological order. Previously when turned off, you’d also see “In case you missed it” and recommended Tweets from people you don’t follow.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 17, 2018

Starting today, when you disable the “Show the best Tweets first” setting in the Twitter app, you’ll only see Tweets from people you follow in reverse chronological order. Prior to this change, turning this setting off would still show you the “In case you missed it” section of Tweets that broke up the chronological flow.

In the coming weeks, Twitter also says it’ll introduce a feature that allows you to switch back and forth between two tabs on your timeline — one for the latest Tweets and another for what it thinks are most relevant to you.

July 13, 2018 — Bottom-navigation bar comes to the Android app

After testing it out for a few weeks, Twitter decided to flip the switch and officially roll out the bottom navigation bar to all of its Android app users.

While the four main pages are the same, you’ll now find tabs for Home, Explore, Notifications, and Messages at the very bottom of the app rather than the top. Along with this change, Twitter’s also annoyingly removed the swipe gesture to go from page-to-page.

Lastly, Twitter’s made it easier to switch back and forth between All and Mentions in the Notifications tab.

June 13, 2018 — Twitter announces new features to more easily discover news topics

Twitter’s always sort of been an unofficial way to get caught up with the latest news, but thanks to a few new features coming soon, finding the latest stories/current events will feel a lot more natural and fleshed-out.

If something particularly big is happening, you’ll see a card for it at the top of the Home page. When you tap on a story from here or the revamped Explore page, you’ll see a brief bit of text outlining what’s happening, a live video if there’s on to accompany it, and tweets that can be filtered by Recap and Latest.

Along with all this, Twitter will also begin to send out push notifications to users if there’s a story the app thinks you’d be interested in.

May 16, 2018 — Third-party apps are in trouble thanks to Twitter’s API changes

While the main Twitter app has become much more enjoyable to use over the years, it used to be a steaming pile of hot garbage. Thankfully, developers came to the rescue with third-party clients/apps that delivered all your Twitter needs in much prettier and more powerful manners.

Unfortunately, on May 16, Twitter threw a big middle finger to third-party developers by making drastic changes to the way its API is handled. Rene created an excellent explainer for all of this, but essentially, Twitter’s now charging people outrageous amounts of cash in order to keep some features of third-party apps active while completely killing off others.

Twitter finally details new API, screws third-party apps — again

All the big details

Home, Explore, Notifications, and Messages are the four main pages

In the Twitter app, you’ll be met with four main icons at the bottom to make your way around everything. They include:

• Home — This is the page you’ll go to every time you open Twitter. It shows a list of tweets from your followers, things they’ve liked, and anything they’ve retweeted. If you see something that looks out of place, it’s probably an advertisement (yay!).

• Explore — Want to know what’s happening around the world? Explore is the page for you. At the top is the day’s most popular story, below that are trends Twitter thinks you’ll be interested in, and as you keep scrolling, you’ll see other popular stories and curated tweets based on who you follow.

• Notifications — Upon going to the Notifications tab, you’ll see chronological entries for when a tweet of yours was liked/retweeted and when someone replied to a tweet or mentioned your username. If you just want to see these mentions/replies, tap on the Mentions icon near the top.

• Messages — Slide in those DMs! On the Messages tab, you can jump into any ongoing private conversations you have with other users or start a new thread by tapping the big blue circle near the bottom right.

Tweets can be a max of 280 characters

For the vast majority of its lifespan, one of the main draws to Twitter was its restricting limit of only being able to use 140 characters per tweet. However, in November 2017, Twitter made a pretty controversial decision to double it to 280 characters for all users after testing it with small groups.

If you have a particularly big rant to go on and need more than 280 characters to get all your thoughts out, you can tap a small + icon to quickly add another tweet to your thread and then send multiple tweets out at once in an uninterrupted stream.

All hail the built-in dark mode

Even though Google still can’t get its head around a system-wide dark mode for Android, the Twitter app has had one for years.

You can manually enable it by tapping the moon icon on the hamburger menu, or have it turn on and off automatically in accordance with the sunset and sunrise.

If you want to configure these settings, tap your profile icon near the top right and go to Settings and privacy -> Display and sound -> Night mode.

How to enable dark mode in the Twitter app for Android

Bookmarks is the best feature you’re not using

This past February, Twitter added a new feature called “Bookmarks.” It’s technically not a huge addition, but it’s one that’s proven to be extremely useful in day-to-day use.

I like just about every tweet that makes me chuckle or I find interesting, and while I’m more than happy to throw those virtual hearts around, this does make it extremely difficult to go back and find a specific tweet later on.

With bookmarks, you can add tweets to a separate page that only you can see so you can go back and view them at a later time.

How to use Bookmarks in the Twitter app for Android

It never hurts to make your account more secure

Whether there’s a data breach or you just think it’s time to beef up the security for your account, resetting your Twitter password is fairly simple.

Once you’ve got a new password created, you may also want to think about enabling two-factor authentication for your account. This requires you to enter a unique code each time you log in from a new device, and with Twitter, you have the option of getting this code texted to you or through an app like Google Authenticator.

How to change your Twitter password and activate two-factor authentication

A Lite version of the app is available for developing countries

If you live in a developing market and/or have a phone that has struggles handling the full-fledged Twitter app, you can download a slimmed-down version called Twitter Lite that aims to offer the core Twitter experience while trimming down some of the unnecessary fat.

All of the main Twitter features are included with Twitter Lite, such as your timeline, profile pages, direct messaging, and even the Explore page. On top of that, there’s also a Data Saver tool to help you use even less data.

Twitter Lite should work well on even 2G and 3G networks and the app weighs in at just 810KB.

As it currently stands, Twitter Lite is available in:

• Algeria
• Bangladesh
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Chile
• Columbia
• Costa Rica
• Ecuador
• Egypt
• El Salvador
• Israel
• Kazakhstan
• Mexico
• Malaysia
• Nigeria
• Nepal
• Panama
• Peru
• Serbia
• South Africa
• Tanzania
• Thailand
• Tunisia
• Venezuela

Download: Twitter Lite (free)

How to measure height in centimeters in Google Fit

Google Fit is an excellent app for tracking all sorts of health data, including your height. If you want to change your height measurements from feet & inches to centimeters, here’s what you need to do.

What’s used in this guide

• Google Play: Google Fit (Free)

How to measure your height in centimeters

Open Google Fit.
Tap the Profile tab at the bottom.

Tap Height.

Tap the arrow next to Feet & Inches.
Tap Centimeters.

Tap OK.

With that done, you’ve successfully changed your height measurement from feet & inches to centimeters. If you ever want to switch things back, just follow this same process.

What you’ll need

New and improved

Google Fit

Free at Google Play

A fitness companion that’s finally worth revisiting.

Google Fit’s been in a rut for years, but its latest update finally makes it worth checking out again. With a new design and two clear goals to achieve each day, it just may be the perfect fit for your needs.

Google Fit has been reworked from the ground up with a simpler UI, new activity goals, and more. The app’s definitely worth a look even if you’ve been disappointed by its old version, and as you can see, updating your profile is now easier than ever before.