DevLab©

Make Use Of Your Phones' Sensors l Make Use Of Note 2's Weather Detecting Features

Galaxy Note 2 has a few more tricks left in its sleeves.Waiting to be explored. Making your Smartphone much cooler than your friends' phone.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has a barometer, which measure atmospheric pressure that can help alert you to a possible nearby a rainstorm before a slowly updated weather app can. It even have a thermometer.

With the proper algorithm, the internal reading could be used to approximate the ambient temperature around you.

Yes! There's a new app in town. Okay! it might not be that new coz i just found out about it.

Weather Signal by Opensignal can be downloaded from Google Play Store for free. The app can also measure:

Pressure (devices with barometers, including our Note 2s)
Light intensity (using ambient light sensors; most devices have them)
Humidity (devices with hygrometers, currently only the GS4)
Magnetic flux (devices with magnetometers, including our Note 2s) Acceleration (devices with accelerometers, including Note 2s)

There's a few more features that the app offers. And your Note 2 has even more tricks in its sleeves. Head over to the app's website to learn more.

How To Install Google Hangouts - Tricks To Install Google Hangouts

If you still have the old Google Talk icon in your homescreen and If you aren't yet able to install Hangouts on your phone or tablet, or the Play Store "Open" button takes you to the old Talk app, there's a fix for that. The steps are surprisingly easy and doesn't require extra steps. The steps below are the steps I used. It works and snapshots are shown below.

Click and Follow this Link.- It will take you to Google Play Store
If you're using your smartphone to update, open the link in your Chrome browser.

Choose your device and click Install.

How To Update Google Maps Even If Updates Are Not Available In Google Play Store

Google announced updates for Google Maps and what to expect. The smartphone version of Google Maps should be able to assist drivers with a warning whenever a traffic jam pops up and suggests new routes. An "Explore" feature was also made available that will enable users browse for nearby restaurants, shops, bars and other attractions.

I was able to update my Google Maps today even if Google Play Store shows no updates are available.

Below are the steps i used which resulted to a surprising Google Map updates in my Note 2. I hope someone can replicate the steps i used so other readers would also know that the steps are indeed working. There's really no secret to the steps except that for now, you can only update your map this way. Google Play Store doesn't offer an update yet as i've checked earlier.

Click/Follow this LINK. It will take you to Google Preview Page.
Click "Request an Invite" button and if required, Log-in to Google.

Click On Android Tab

Then click on the button "Get Google Maps for Android".

Edit: Sharing my screenshots after the update.

Google Play Music Gets Updated - What's New?

Google Play Music gets updated while I/O 2013 was on-going. A few apps where updated today along with Facebook and Lookout. What's in this version v5.0.1026J

Brand new user interface for phone, tablet, and TV
Support for All Access subscription service in the US
Key All Access features: Explore section to discover new music, Radio with unlimited skips, Add albums to My Library, Share and subscribe to playlists
New Listen Now page that makes it easy to find something to play
Swipe to remove from playlist or queue
Swipe to switch songs on the now playing screen or now playing bar
Go to album or artist from any song

What's New and the most notable is, Google Play Music now offers all access with a monthly subscription fee. This will allow you access to 20,000 tracks. This is only available via android app and for U.S subscribers.

Google Play Updated To 4.1.6 Before I/O | How To Update and Install Google Play

It was not long ago when Google updated Google Play to 4.0.27 and on the eve of Google's I/O, Google surprised us with 4.1.6 update.

Google doesn't or most of the time doesn't release change logs for each update but you can immediately notice homescreen button of Google Play is now colored instead of white.

Another noticeable change is the button on the apps screen which shows Open, Install and Uninstall are now white.

For sure, there's ton of features that will be announced tomorrow during Google's I/O. Don't worry, the update version is lighter. The .apk file is only around 5.87mb.

Just download the file here and install as a normal .apk just dont forget that > Unknown sources needs to be checked.

Just go to Settings>Security> Unknown Sources. Let us know in the comments below if you notice any other changes with this version.

iDevice's Jailbreak Tool is now available for Android Users

Cydia, a well-known tool for jailbroken iDevices e.g. iPhones and iPad is now available for Android devices. Yes,Cydia for Android.

If you're coming off an iPhone and was a Jailbroken one,then you'll be as excited as i am.

Cydia in layman's term is like an alternative appstore that when installed installs a substrate as well. This is accomplished with what are known as "substrate extensions." By itself, Cydia Substrate doesn't actually do anything from the user's perspective—it's more of a tool for developers.

Android users will need to root to install Cydia Substrate, which is available on the Play Store. Follow the link.

Further, you have to note that right now, this is all experimental.

The Difference Between A "Soft Reset" And A "Hard-Reset" And How To Do It.

I found a very simple explanation and differentiation between a " Soft-Reset" and a "Hard-Reset" from TechniPages and can't help myself but share the article because of the usefulness of the subject.

It’s easy to soft or hard reset the Samsung Galaxy Note2 smartphone if you are experiencing problems with the device. Just follow these steps.

Soft Reset
If the Galaxy Note2 is locked up and not responding to commands, you can often overcome this problem with a soft reset. A soft reset will not erase any date from the device. It will simply restart the device.

You can perform a soft reset by simply pressing and holding the Power button for about 10 seconds (some may say it takes 20). The device will automatically restart and return you back to normal operation.

Hard Reset
If you are experiencing regular problems with your Galaxy Note2 and regular troubleshooting steps have not been successful in solving the problem, you may want to perform a hard reset. A hard reset will erase all data and settings from the memory of the device and set everything back to factory default settings.

To perform a hard reset, select Settings > Back up and reset > Factory data reset > Reset device > Erase everything.

There is also another way to perform a hard reset. It can also be done from start-up. This method is handy when you need to hard reset a Galaxy Note2 that will not boot into the Android OS properly.

1. With the device powered off, press and hold the Power, Volume Up and Volume Down buttons simultaneously until you see a recovery menu.

2. Use the Volume buttons to toggle your selection to the wipe data / factory reset option.

3. Press the Power button to choose the highlighted selection and to perform the factory reset.

Hopefully these steps were easy for you to follow and have you well on the way to a fully functional Galaxy Note2.

Again,Credits to Technipages for the very simple yet important article.

StarWars Wallpaper Collection

I only have a few of the Starwars Wallpaper and decided to share them here. These are not mine. l got these from everywhere. Credits to their original owners.

l'm planning to grow the StarWars Collection and would need all the help we can get. Submit some here and we will add them to our Collection with credits to whoever submits.

You can send us your StarWars Wallpaper to totoantonio@me.com or just leave a link in the comment Section.