How to Fix Crashing Apps on iPhone & iPad

Though iPhone and iPad apps are generally very stable, sometimes you’ll encounter an application that crashes at random. In iOS, a crashing app usually presents as an app that seems to quit itself immediately, returning back to the Home Screen of the device without user intent. An app crash can happen immediately upon launching the app, crash randomly in the middle of using the app, or sometimes a crash can even be triggered predictably by a particular action that is attempted within the application. Regardless of when the iOS app is crashing, we’re going to review a few solutions that nearly always work to remedy the problem and should get you on your way to a trouble-free app usage experience again.

iOS Apps Crashing? Follow These 4 Tips to Resolve the Issue

We’re listing these tips in order of ease and difficulty, for best results you’ll likely want to try them all.

1: Quit and Re-Launch the App

Sometimes the simplest solution to a resolve a crashing application in iOS is to quit the app and then relaunch it. The idea behind this is that you’ll clear the app from memory and allow for a clean launch.

1. Double-click on the Home button to bring up the multitasking screen
2. Locate the application you wish to quit, then swipe up on the app to quit out of it
3. Hit the Home button to return to the Home Screen of iOS, then tap the app icon to re-open it again

This works to remedy some basic causes of application crashes, but it’s not perfect. If the app crashes again during usage, or if you’d just prefer to prevent further issues, keep following the next tips.

2: Update the App

Keeping apps updated is often vital to maintaining application stability and the reason is quite simple: developers identify bugs within their apps, fix them, and then push an update to the app. Of course many users will ignore app updates, but if you’re experiencing a problem with a particular app, don’t do that, keep the app updated (it’s good practice anyway).

1. Open the App Store and go to the “Updates” tab
2. Install any updates available to the application which is exhibiting crashing problems or bugs
3. Relaunch the freshly updated app

If the application crashing was caused by a bug that has since been remedied with an app update, this will resolve the problem.

Still having issues with an app crashing? It happens! Move onward, we’re not done yet.

3: Delete the App and Re-Install

Yes, deleting will simultaneously uninstall an app, but you’re going to re-install the same app again immediately. This is usually pretty quick, though some apps which are large can take a little while to download again.

1. Locate the problematic app on the Home Screen of iOS, then tap and hold on the icon
2. Tap on the (X) icon when it appears, then confirm you want to delete the app
3. Now launch the App Store and use the Search function (or visit the Purchases tab) and locate the name of the application you just deleted, then re-download it

Try opening the app again, working fine? Good, it should be.

Another perk to deleting and reinstalling apps is that it dumps app cache at the same time, which will free up some storage capacity, and those caches can sometimes be the cause of the app crashing in the first place. Some apps in particular are really bad with handling caches, a few bad oranges will bloat out cache to be absolutely enormous in size, which, when attempting to load, can lead to an instant crash from memory issues.

The delete and re-download trick has been around for a while as a remedy for a variety of app related issues, and it often still works.

And if you’ve tried all of this but you’re still having issues with apps crashing, try to force reboot the iPhone or iPad. If it’s still having issues, you’ll want to be sure you’re updated to the latest version of iOS…

4: Update iOS to the Latest Version

Updates to iOS often include bug fixes for system software, but some of those bug fixes and refinements also impact third party apps too. Additionally, some apps actually require a new version of iOS for certain features to work, or even for the application to work at all. Updating iOS to the latest version is fairly straight forward and usually without incident, and this combined with installing the latest version of an app is usually the be-all-end-all solution to a problematic app experience. Be sure to back up the iOS device before you update iOS, however.

1. Back up the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to iCloud or iTunes – don’t skip this
2. Open “Settings” > “General” > and go to “Software Update”
3. Choose “Download & Install” and let the entire iOS updating process complete

When the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch boots back into the latest version of iOS, and assuming you’ve already followed the steps above and have updated the app, the app that was crashing will almost certainly work without incident at this point.

Updating to a new version of iOS and a new version of the app really works. I had a friend run into this exact scenario recently with Instagram crashing, the app kept crashing repeatedly on them no matter what they did, initially when scrolling through a feed, and then crashing instantly upon launching the app – the only solution was to update iOS to the latest version, which immediately solved the problem.

Did these tricks work to resolve your app crashing problems? Do you have another fix that works for when an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch app crashes at random or crashes at launch? Let us know in the comments what works for you!

What to Do If You Forget Your iPhone or iPad’s Passcode

Can’t sign into your iPhone or iPad anymore? If you’ve forgotten the PIN and haven’t set up Touch ID on a modern iPhone or iPad, you’ll need to reset your phone or tablet to regain access.

You’ll lose everything stored on the device itself, although you can restore from backups. If you’ve synced your iPhone or iPad with iTunes, you can even make a fresh backup first to ensure you won’t lose anything.

Why Can’t I Bypass the Passcode?

There’s no way to bypass the PIN and regain access to an iPhone or iPad, even if you do have the username and password of the account signed into iCloud.

Enter the wrong passcode six times in a row and you’ll be informed your device is “disabled” for a period of time, preventing you (or an attacker) from trying over and over again.

On a modern iOS device, the hardware encryption keys are actually protected with the passcode you enter. This is why you always have to enter your PIN or passcode every time your device reboots — even if you’ve enabled touch ID. There’s no way around this aside from wiping the iPhone or iPad and starting fresh.

Wipe and Restore From an iTunes Backup

If you’ve previously synced your iPhone or iPad to iTunes on a Mac or PC, you can have iTunes make a fresh backup and restore that backup. You won’t lose any data if you can do this.

To do this, connect your iPhone or iPad to a computer you’ve previously synced with an open iTunes. If iTunes asks for a passcode, you won’t be able to provide it if you can’t get past the lock screen. Try another computer you’ve synced with previously. If you’re asked for a passcode, you won’t be able to back up or restore the device from within iTunes — you’ll have to use one of the below methods instead.

If iTunes doesn’t ask for a passcode, you can visit the device’s summary screen in iTunes and click “Back Up Now” to make a backup.

After the backup is complete, click “Restore iPhone” or “Restore iPad.” You’ll be able to restore it from the backup you’ve just created, setting up a new passcode while you do so. The passcode is not part of the backup. Select “Restore From iTunes Backup” while going through the setup process again.

Wipe From Find My iPhone

If you haven’t synced the device with iTunes and Find My iPhone is enabled on the device, visit the Find My iPhone page at iCloud.com in your web browser and sign in with your iCloud account and password.

Select the iPhone or iPad you want to wipe using the option at the top of the screen, and then click the “Erase” button. This will remotely erase your iPhone or iPad. When setting it back up, you’ll be able to restore from an iCloud backup or set it up as a new device. Either way, you’ll be able to enter a new PIN or passcode.

Wipe From Recovery Mode

If you haven’t set up Find My iPhone and you’ve never backed up your iPhone or iPad to a PC or Mac, you’ll have to use recovery mode to wipe it.

To do this, you’ll need a Mac or PC with iTunes installed and the included cable to connect your iPhone or iPad to the PC.

First, connect the iPhone or iPad to your computer and open iTunes. Press and hold the Power/Wake and Home buttons at the same time to forcibly restart your iPhone or iPad. Don’t let go of the buttons, even when the typical Apple logo appears. Keep holding the buttons until you see the recovery mode screen, which contains an iTunes logo as well as an outline of cable.

iTunes will inform you that “There is a problem with the iPhone [or iPad] that requires it to be updated or restored.” Click the “Restore” button to restore your device to its factory default settings. Afterwards, you can set it up from scratch and restore it from iCloud backups — if iCloud backup was enabled previously.

These methods will also work for Apple’s iPod Touch devices. If you forget the passcode to your Apple Watch, you can erase it from the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and restore an Apple Watch backup from your iPhone, too.

What to Do If You Forget Your Android Phone’s PIN, Pattern, or Password

Android normally secures your device by demanding a PIN, pattern, or full password. Your phone isn’t useless if you forget the unlock code — you can bypass it and get back in.

As Google tightens security, this has become more difficult on modern versions of Android. But there’s always a way to make your phone usable again, as long as you remember your Google account’s username and its password.

Android 4.4 and Below

Older versions of Android — Android 4.4 KitKat and older — have an integrated way to bypass your pattern, PIN, or other password if you forget it. Google removed this feature in Android 5.0 Lollipop, so you’ll have to use a different method if you have a device with a newer version of Android.

To find this feature, first enter an incorrect pattern or PIN five times at the lock screen. You’ll see a “Forgot pattern,” “forgot PIN,” or “forgot password” button appear. Tap it. You’ll be prompted to enter the username and password of the Google account associated with your Android device.

Android 5.0 and Up

This feature was removed in Android 5.0. Unfortunately, this means there’s no built-in way to simply reset your pattern, PIN, or password and gain access to your phone or tablet. This does help provide additional protection to your data, however — attackers have no way of bypassing the passcode unless they actually know it.

Android’s Smart Lock feature may be able to save you. For example, let’s say you’ve set up Smart Lock on your Android phone and have it automatically log in when it’s on your home Wi-Fi. You can take your phone to that home Wi-FI network and it will automatically unlock for you, even if you can’t remember the normal unlock code.

You’re left using a few other tricks that might work. For example, on Samsung devices, if you’ve logged into the device with a Samsung account, you can go to the Samsung Find My Mobile website, log in with the same Samsung account, and use the “Unlock my screen” option to remotely remove your device’s lock screen. Other manufacturers might potentially offer similar features if they have a device-tracking website if you’ve signed up for.

If you’ve already unlocked your bootloader and installed a custom recovery, you may be able to use that environment to remove the code. However, it probably won’t be possible to install a custom recovery without factory-resetting your device if you haven’t already done so.

Factory-Reset Your Android Smartphone or Tablet

Assuming you don’t have the easy option to reset the device using one of the tricks above, you should probably give up on the data stored on your device. You can get your device into a usable state again, but that will involve performing a factory reset, wiping the device’s storage, and setting it up again from scratch.

This isn’t as bad as it sounds, as most data on a modern Android device should just sync online. Sign in with the same Google account and you’ll have access to your emails, contacts, apps, and practically everything else. You’ll then be able to set up a new unlock code.

If your device has a removable SD card, you’ll probably want to remove the SD card before performing the factory reset, just to ensure any files stored on there won’t be overwritten. It’s probably best to shut down your Android device, remove the SD card, and then continue.

If your device has Google’s Android Device Manager enabled, you can visit the Android Device Manager website and log in with the same Google account you use on that Android device. Select the device you’re locked out of and select “Erase” to remotely erase it. You’ll be able to set it up from scratch afterwards — the lock code will be removed, but the device will also be wiped.

Note that the “Lock” option in Android Device Manager will only allow you to set a new lock code if your phone or tablet doesn’t already have an unlock code, so it can’t be used to remove an existing lock code.

If you’ve enabled another remote phone or tablet-tracking service, you can probably use its website to remotely wipe your device, too.

If you haven’t enabled Google’s Android Device Manager on your phone or tablet, that’s fine. You can factory-reset your phone or tablet even if you can’t unlock it.

The exact way you’ll do this is different on different phones and tablets. You’ll need toboot into your device’s system recovery menu and wipe it from there. To do this, you’ll need to turn the device off and turn it on while holding the correct buttons. For example, on the Nexus 4, you have to press and hold the Volume Down and Power buttons at the same time. On the Nexus 5, you have to press and hold the Volume Down, Volume Up, and Power buttons at the same time. Use the recovery menu to wipe the device.

Google offers a list of ways to access recovery mode on Nexus devices. You may have to perform a web search or check your device manufacturer’s support pages to find out how to reset it.

On devices running Android 5.1, you may have to enter the username and password of the Google account that was previously associated with the device after doing this. This prevents someone else from resetting and using your device. However, you won’t need the old unlock code to regain use of your hardware.

Modern Android devices work a lot more like Apple’s iPhones and iPads. If you forget the code, you’ll need to reset it to its factory default settings to regain access. This begins to make sense when you consider Google’s desire to automatically encrypt all Android devices out-of-the-box. The PIN or password is used as part of the key to decrypt the data stored on an encrypted Android device.

Why You Shouldn’t Jailbreak Your iPhone

There are plenty of downsides to jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad. You’ll be behind on iOS updates and forced to jailbreak each new version of iOS you want to use. More importantly, leaked security documents show jailbroken iPhones are more vulnerable to attack.

Jailbreaking has become less useful over time, too. More and more features that once required jailbreaking on iOS have become built-in as Apple added background apps, widgets, and other configurability to iOS.

Keeping Up With the Jailbreaks is Hard

All jailbreaks rely on security holes in the iOS operating system used on iPhones and iPads. When an intrepid hacker finds a security hole, they can use it to escape the usual protected environment on iOS and take control over the entire operating system. This exploit is then packaged into a jailbreaking tool people can download and use on their own devices.

That jailbroken iPhone or iPad will remain jailbroken until it upgrades to the next version of iOS. When you upgrade to the next version, your device will no longer be jailbroken — and Apple will have closed the hole, making hackers search for another one before the new version of iOS can be jailbroken. This may take months. It’s becoming harder and taking longer for hackers to find holes in iOS as Apple tightens security.

This means that, if you jailbreak, you won’t be able to install new versions of iOS immediately when they’re released. You’ll have to wait for hackers to find a new security hole and jailbreak. After you do upgrade, you’ll have to run the latest jailbreak tool — and you’ll remain stuck on that version of iOS until the process repeats itself. There’s no way around it — this is just inconvenient and more work. It’s not just a one-time process.

Jailbroken iPhones Are *Much* More Vulnerable to Attack

“Hacking Team” is an Italian security firm that was recently hacked, itself. Hacking Team sells hacking tools to governments around the world, including repressive ones. Leaked documents from Hacking Team indicate that its tools can compromise jailbroken iPhones, but not iPhones that haven’t yet been jailbroken. This means that attacks exist against jailbroken iPhones, but not non-jailbroken iPhones. Sure, it’s possible that another attack might exist somewhere, but almost all malware for iPhones has been limited to jailbroken devices.

This actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Those jailbroken iPhones were jailbroken using an exploit, and that exploit becomes public knowledge once the jailbreak tool is released. It wouldn’t be too hard for these iPhone exploits to be incorporated into a hacking tool and used to compromise iPhones for malicious purposes. That’s just speculation, of course — we’re not sure exactly how this is done.

Users who want to keep their jailbreak have to stay on the vulnerable version of iOS, while users who don’t care about jailbreaking are free to upgrade to the latest version of iOS with the security hole closed and no possibility of jailbreaking.

If you care about the security of your phone — and you should — avoid jailbreaks and stay on the latest version of Apple’s iOS.

Instability

Jailbreaks can potentially be unstable, too. The jailbreak itself may cause issues on your phone, or tweaks you install — which mess with iOS in ways normally not possible — may cause problems with your system and cause apps to crash or the phone to reboot more often.

You may need to restore your iPhone or iPad if you mess something up. That means more time spent messing with your phone or tablet.

Why Bother?

And honestly, why even bother jailbreaking? Yes, we know that there are tons of tweaks out there and ways you can extend iOS in ways that Apple usually won’t let you. However, realistically, jailbreaking has become less and less compelling.

Features like widgets, the ability for apps to run in the background, sharing data between apps, and multiple apps on-screen on the iPad have already been added or are being added in iOS 9.

iOS has become a mature operating system, and jailbreaking is less and less necessary — just like rooting has become less necessary on Android phones.

Don’t jailbreak just to jailbreak or use a little tweak. Sure, you might want to do it if there’s something you’re really passionate about — but know what you’re getting into and realize how much you’ve giving up for it.

Maybe You Should Just Get an Android Phone If You Want to Tweak

If you desperately want a phone that lets you install apps from outside the app store and do powerful things that wouldn’t normally be possible, you may just want to skip iPhones and get an Android phone next time.

Many things that aren’t normally possible on an iPhone are possible on Android even without rooting. Rooting your Android phone or tablet is often easier than jailbreaking and iPhone or iPad, and you could even install a third-party custom ROM like CyanogenMod and have it stay rooted while also receiving the latest security updates.

No, we’re not saying that all iPhone users should look at an Android phone. We’re just saying that an Android phone is probably a better choice for tweaking enthusiasts than a jailbroken iPhone.

There are some solid arguments against bypassing an Android device’s security protections, too. Using a device with an unlocked bootloader means anyone who gets their hands on it can gain access to your device. It’s often a good idea to lock your bootloader again after installing a custom firmware of your choice.

Rooting your device means a malicious app breaking out of the security sandbox could run wild in a way it normally couldn’t. That’s why Android phones don’t come rooted.

How to Change the Keyboard Language in iOS Quickly

Whether you’re a multilingual iPhone or iPad user or just learning a foreign language, you almost certainly wish to change the language of the onscreen virtual keyboard from time to time. Switching the keyboard language in iOS is really quite simple once you have an alternate keyboard enabled, so let’s walk through the entire process.

Enabling Alternate Language Keyboards in iOS

Before anything else, you’ll probably want to enable an alternate language keyboard if you haven’t done so yet. This allows you to type in another language using that languages keyboard without changing the language entirely in iOS.

You can add, adjust, or remove new language keyboards at any time in iOS by doing the following:

1. Open the Settings app then go to “General” and “Keyboard”
2. Choose “Keyboards” and select “Add New Keyboard” – tap on any alternate language keyboard to add that to the list of available keyboards in iOS which you’ll then be able to gain quick access to

We’ll assume you’ve already added at least one alternate language keyboard this way, but for the sake of trying out the keyboard switching you can even just enable and use the glyph and symbol keyboard or the Emoji keyboard.

Note that in modern versions of iOS, when you have more than one alternate keyboard language enabled, the familiar smiley face Emoji icon on the keyboard gets switched out with a Globe icon, which is actually the same with what the Emoji and language access looked like in prior versions of iOS.

How to Change the Keyboard Language on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch

Once you’ve enabled at least on other alternate language keyboard in iOS Settings, you can access and switch between keyboard languages quickly and easily by doing the following:

1. Go anywhere in iOS where you can access the virtual keyboard on screen

2. Tap and hold on the globe icon to reveal the keyboard language menu

3. Select the alternate language keyboard to switch to

The chosen keyboard language immediately becomes active.

Note that you must tap and hold on the globe icon to reveal the alternate language keyboards. Simply tapping the smiley-face icon once typically just switches to the Emoji keys.

You can switch back or change the iOS onscreen keyboard at any time quickly by performing the same tap-and-hold trick on the globe icon at the keyboard, and you can do this anytime the keyboard is visible on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Mac users have a similar way to switch the keyboard language in OS X with a quick shortcut, so if you’re a polyglot with a variety of different Apple hardware, you should be covered with whatever OS you’re using.

Siri Can Play Many Sound Effects

If you’ve updated your iPhone or iPad to the latest version of iOS (iOS 8.4.1 or iOS 9, with Apple Music), you’ll find that Siri now has the ability to play various sound effects. Whether it’s the sound of fireworks, running water, a camp fire, dogs barking, or, uh, some more lewd sound effects too, Siri will play them all.

As usual with Siri, the commands are simple, so summon Siri and try it out yourself with the following type of requests:

• Play the sounds of a running river
• Play the sounds of a crackling fire
• Play the sound of crickets
• Play frog sounds
• Play horn sounds
• Play the sound of dogs barking
• Play the sound of cat meowing

You get the idea.

Get creative, Siri now has a large repertoire of sound effects available to the virtual assistant through a huge sound effect library that you can now access from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Just ask and see if the virtual assistant can find a sound to match.

(Note: apparently the Siri sound effect library is accessed from Apple Music, so if you hid or disabled the service you may not have access to the sound effects, perhaps that will change in the future…)

You can even request some more lewd sound effects if that’s your thing, which could be entertaining for a prank, or if you’re 12 year sold, or just an inner 12 year old sometimes (hey, me too!).

And a warning in advance since this is totally juvenile and somewhat ridiculous, but if you want to hear something really quite strange and rather amusing, ask Siri to “play loud farts” … no you won’t get what you think, and this is where things get really weird, as CultOfMac discovered rather than sounds of trumpeting flatulence, Siri will play a pop song called “What’s my Name” from artist “Rihanna” – LOL! (Update: the ‘play loud farts’ thing seems to have changed from playing a pop song to, well, the actual sound of flatulence, so enjoy that or don’t, oh Siri).

So yea, Siri still has a sense of humor… though if you’re looking for something a bit more serious (Siri-ous? OK I’ll go home now), you’ll probably find these other commands to be much more useful.

How to Lock Down Your Android Tablet or Smartphone for Kids

Google has added more and more parental control-style features to Android over the years. You can give a kid his or her own restricted user account, lock access to a specific app, or restrict what websites kids are allowed to use.

Depending on the version of Android you have and your device manufacturer, you may not have some of these options — or they may look a little different.

Restrict Access to a Single App

If your device has Android 5.0 Lollipop or newer, you can “pin” a specific app to your phone or tablet’s screen. You can then hand your Android tablet or phone to a kid and that kid won’t be able to leave the specific app until you enter a PIN.

This means you could launch a game and pin it, handing it over and knowing a kid won’t go through your email or look up any inappropriate content. Or, if you want your kids using a specific educational app, you can ensure they’ll stay in that app.

To use this feature, you’ll need to open the Settings screen, select Security, and activate “Screen pinning” under “Advanced.” Tell Android to ask for your PIN or unlock pattern before unpinning the app. Next, open the app you can to pin, tap the “Overview” button to show the list of open applications as cards, and swipe up. Tap the pin on the bottom-right corner of an app’s card.

To leave a pinned app, hold the “Overview” button. You’ll be asked for your PIN or pattern if you configured that option.

Set Up a Restricted Profile on a Tablet

Android Lollipop offers restricted profiles, a feature that arrived in Android 4.3. Restricted profiles are only available on tablets — not smartphones. With a restricted profile, you can create a special user account that only has access to specific apps and content you allow.

(Google added multiple user accounts to Android in Android 4.2, but only for tablets. With Android 5.0 Lollipop, multiple user accounts are now available on phones as well as tablets. However, restricted profiles are still only available on tablets.)

To create a restricted profile, head to the Settings screen, tap Users, tap Add User, and tap Restricted Profile. You can then lock down the profile and switch between the restricted profile and main user account from the lock screen. (Switching back to the main user account will require your PIN or whatever other unlock method you use.)

Theoretically, restricted profiles allow you to restrict access to specific content in some apps. In practice, app developers have to implement this. You’ll mostly be able to choose which of the apps installed on your device the child’s profile has access to.

Set Up Web Filtering

Unfortunately, Android’s restricted profile feature doesn’t provide a way to restrict adult content from being accessed through Google Chrome or other web browsers.

If you want to do this, you have two options. You could visit Google Play on your Android device and install a parental-control or web-filtering app. Or, if the Android device will just be using your Wi-Fi network to access the web, you could configure parental controls on your router. if your router doesn’t offer such built-in parental control features, you could switch your DNS server to OpenDNS and use its parental controls.

We’d encourage you to use OpenDNS and its well-regarded parental controls if possible, as many of the Android web-filtering apps seem to not work too well. They may also require paid subscriptions.

Google Play Parental Controls

The Google Play Store has its own parental control features. To access them, open Google Play on a device, tap the Menu button, tap Settings, and tap Parental Controls. Enter a special parental control PIN here and you can set age restrictions for what types of apps, movies, videos, music, and books a device can download. Anyone using the device won’t be able to download or purchase this type of content without the PIN. However, these restrictions only apply to the Google Play Store — uncensored content is still available through the web browser.

You can also further lock down Google Play to block expensive in-app purchases.

Other Parental Control Apps

Due to Android’s flexibility, the Google Play Store is full of “parental control” apps that provide some amount of lock-down features. These will allow you to set up a special application launcher that can only launch approved apps for a child, for example. These shouldn’t be quite as necessary if you have access to the “restricted profiles” feature. If you do have access to the built-in Android parental control features above, the main reason to install a separate app is torestrict access to websites.

How to Transfer Personal Data Between Android & Windows Mobile

The time has come. Your Android device has reached the end of its contract (or its life!) and you have the opportunity to buy a new phone. People are suggesting iPhones and Samsung Galaxy S6 handsets, but what you have really got your eye on is a new Windows mobile device, perhaps a Lumia.

But there’s a problem. Your Android handset is loaded with personal data, music, photos, videos, documents, contacts, emails, and even text messages. How on earth are you going to be able to migrate this data from Android to your new Windows mobile device?

Actually, it’s quite simple.

The Switch to Windows Phone App

Soon-to-be-ex Android users who are moving to Windows Phone can use a pair of partner apps–one on each platform–to migrate their data.

Begin by installing Switch to Windows Phone from Android’s Google Play store and then in the Windows Phone Store find and install Transfer my Data.

Transferring data with these two apps covers all bases: contacts, text messages, photos, videos, and music are all transferred from the Android phone to the new Windows Phone handset.

Transfer Data from Android with the Windows Phone App

Android users migrating to the Windows Phone ecosystem from Android have two paths using the Microsoft app. If the Windows Phone is already set up, you should use the Wi-Fi option; the OneDrive option is for creating a new Windows Phone profile before you’ve purchased and set up the new device.

You’ll have to make this choice once you install the app on Android and run it. Choose the appropriate option, and agree to the EULA.

If you selected the Wi-Fi transfer route, you’ll be prompted to install the Windows Phone partner app, then click Next. A private network will be established on your Android phone, and the app will display a password that you should input on your Windows Phone. On the Windows handset, open Settings > WiFi and tap the wireless LAN name that matches the one displayed on your Android device, and enter the password.

Following this you will receive a series of notifications on your Android handset requesting permission for the Winmdows Phone to access your contacts, messages, etc. Agree to all of these, and wait while they are listed on the Windows Phone device–look out for the preview that displays how long the transfer should take. Then, select those you wish to transfer and tap Start.

You can rest now. Once your data is copied across, you can put your Android device down, perhaps even reset to factory settings and enjoy life with your Windows Phone.

(Note that if for some reason Wi-Fi doesn’t work, you can still connect the two phones via Bluetooth, by making one discoverable, and searching with the other; Bluetooth pairing in Windows Phone is just as simple as it is in Android. With this option, however, only contacts and SMS messages can be transferred.)

Migrate Data to a Windows 10 Mobile Handset

So that’s data transferring from Android to Windows Phone 8.1 all sewed up. But what if you have upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile, or are running the preview version?

Fortunately, the Transfer my Data app is also compatible with Windows 10 Mobile, so you can use the same steps above to transfer your Android-based data across.

Meanwhile, if you’re using iOS, BlackBerry, or Symbian, Transfer my Data can also be used to copy across SMS messages and contact data via Bluetooth, making the transition from all other mobile platforms almost seamless.

What about Videos, Pictures, and Music?

Using the Bluetooth method to transfer SMS history and contacts? You’ll need something else to migrate your all-important photos, music, and videos.

If you want to transfer your files wirelessly, you can do this with the Easy Transfer Windows Phone app. Note that this doesn’t use the standard device-to-device Wi-Fi direct transfer type, however. Instead, it routes via a remote server, so if you have privacy conerns about this non-Microsoft app, then opt for one of the alternative transfer methods.

The best option is using a USB cable to transfer data from Android to your PC, and then from your computer to your new Windows Phone.

However, if a USB cable is not available (Windows Phone and Android devices all use the same USB connector), and you can’t set up a wireless connection between the phones, OneDrive is your next best option as the app is native to Windows Phone and there is a very good Android client.

With 15 GB of storage, you should have enough space to manage transferring the contents of your Android device, but make sure you have switched to Wi-Fi and have your device on charge. Open the app after installation and you’ll see you have the option to upload photos and videos from your Android device, which you can enable by clicking OK. Note that if you already use OneDrive, or have skipped this option, you can enable it in Settings > Camera upload.

To sync your MP3 files, things are a little stickier. The best option is to simply wait until you have a USB cable and manually sync to and from a PC, as OneDrive on Android doesn’t support MP3 uploads. Other solutions like Dropbox are good options, but MP3s don’t sync into the correct location for playback on Windows Phone.

How to Stop WhatsApp Saving Pictures & Video to iPhone Automatically

The popular messaging app WhatsApp has a default media saving setting which will automatically download and save every received picture and video to the iPhone Photos apps Camera Roll. While some users may like this feature, others may wish to change the auto-saving media behavior so that images and movies sent and received in WhatsApp are not automatically saved to their iPhones.

If you want to disable the automatic picture and video saving feature in WhatsApp, the best way to make this change is through the WhatsApp application on the iPhone directly:

1. Launch WhatsApp if you haven’t done so already, then tap on the “Settings” tab at the bottom of the app
2. In the Settings screen, choose “Chat Settings”
3. Locate the toggle switch for “Save Incoming Media” and flip the switch to the OFF position to disable the automatic saving of pictures and videos, or, turn it to the ON position to enable that feature

        4. Tap back on Settings and then use WhatsApp as usual

Now images and video will no longer save directly to the iPhone Camera Roll with your other pictures in Photos app.

Note that you can still save pictures and videos from WhatsApp manually, but it no longer happens without your direct action. In this way, with the “Save Incoming Media” setting turned off, WhatsApp behaves more like the Messages app in iOS, where the received pictures and videos are contained within the messaging client per thread, unless they are expressly saved to the local devices storage outside of the app.

Somewhat related, another option is to prevent WhatsApp from downloading media when on a cellular connection. This can help to reduce bandwidth usage of a limited data plan, and you’ll find those settings options a step further under “Chat Settings” > “Media Auto-Download”, setting to “Wi-Fi” will only allow media to save if connected to a local wireless network.

For what it’s worth, the same setting apparently exists on the Android and Windows Phone WhatsApp clients too, where pictures will automatically save to the Android phones general photo library without this setting disabled. Perhaps if you’re a WhatsMac user in OS X, that may be useful to you for your accompanying Android or Windows phone client.

How to Print Photos From Your iPhone

Digital photos are great, but sometimes you just want a printed photo you can hang somewhere or just hold in your hand. Print photos straight from your iPhone’s camera roll, whether you have your own photo printer or not.

You can do this at home with a printer, have a service print them out and mail them to you, or print them at a local business that offers photo-printing services. All you need is your phone — no computer required.

Print Photos on Your Own Printer

Printing photos yourself is fairly easy, but probably isn’t the best option unless you plan on printing a lot of photos on a regular basis. You don’t want to use any old printer you have lying around and print them out onto a typical piece of printer paper. You’ll want a printer specifically designed for photos and specialty photo paper for it. As this will be an inkjet printer, you’ll also need to pay the high price of printer ink — not even just black ink, but color ink.

Still, you can do this. If you’re shopping for a new printer that lets you do this, be sure to get a printer that supports Apple’s “AirPrint.” iPhones and Macs have AirPrint support built in, so you can wirelessly print to these printers without any setup. If you have an old photo printer that doesn’t support AirPrint, there are ways to make a printer connected to a Mac or PC AirPrint-compatible. You could also purchase photo-printers designed specifically for iPhones, but that’s a bit of a marketing gimmick — any AirPrint-enabled photo printer will do.

If you do have an AirPrint-enabled printer that’s good for photos, you’re ready to go. You just have to open the Photos app on your iPhone, tap a photo, and tap the Share button at the bottom-left corner of your screen. Tap Print and you’ll be able to print it. Your iPhone will automatically detect and list nearby AirPrint-enabled printers, so you can select and print to them.

Print Photos and Pick Them Up at a Nearby Store

You could also use an app that uploads your photos to a nearby business with a photo-printing service, allowing you to pick them up. It’s just like going to the neighborhood photo-processing store years ago — except you can send your photos there ahead of time. No need to drop off a roll of film ahead of time.

The Walgreens app offers this feature, allowing you to order photo prints from your phone and go pick them up. Target offers this service in partnership with Shutterfly. Stores with KODAK Kiosks — including CVS and Target stores — offer this through KODAK Kiosk Connect.

Kicksend also offers this feature, bringing together a list of Walgreens, CVS, and Target stores where you can order photo prints and pick them up into a single app. It’s an easy way to find the nearest location to you where you can pick up those photos.

Print Photos and Have Them Mailed to You

But why bother heading out to a store to pick up those photos? If you’re not in as much of a rush, you could order photo prints online and have them mailed to you.

The Kicksend app offers this feature, too — it encourages you to have photos printed and mailed to you instead of having them picked up. Other options include FreePrints, which isn’t actually free but charges you for shipping, SnapFish, and PostalPix. You’ll find many, many other mail-order photo-printing services with a quick search on the App Store.

Siri Can Call Emergency Services For You with iPhone if Need Be

Obviously nobody wants to be in an emergency situation, but if the need ever arises, Siri can come to your aid with a quick ability to dial the local emergency service line, and it works practically wherever you are in the world with the iPhone so long as it has a cellular connection.

There’s not much to this trick, it’s just knowing one of the proper phrases to say to initiate the emergency call. And yes, it works with the hands-free ‘Hey Siri’ command, so this could even work if you weren’t able to reach the iPhone but it was plugged in with that hands-free feature enabled.

Important: Siri dials Emergency Services with these iPhone commands, do not test needlessly!

This is really important, but don’t just test this aimlessly because it does actually call the local emergency service line, yes it works, but unless you’re having an actual emergency, the last thing you want is to tie up their lines with a pointless phone call. While you will have a brief countdown to cancel the call before it dials the emergency hotline, if you’re not cautious then Siri will actually call and connect to the emergency line in your region. This is for genuine emergencies only, do not abuse it!

The following phrases work to initiate an Emergency Call with Siri from an iPhone, you don’t even need to specify the number if you’re in a region where you aren’t sure what the emergency service line is, Siri and the iPhone is smart enough to figure it out.

Siri Emergency Service Dialing Commands

Summon Siri, or use Hey Siri, and issue the following commands to call an emergency line – DO NOT CALL WITHOUT A REAL EMERGENCY:

• “Call emergency services”
• “Dial 911″
• “Phone 911″ (9-1-1 is the USA emergency line, using this phrase outside of the USA will also dial the appropriate local emergency line)
• “Phone 100″ (1-0-0 is the emergency line in India, but it will dial the appropriate line elsewhere as well)
• “Dial 100″
• “Dial 110″
• “Phone 110″ (1-1-0 is the emergency line in China, but it will dial the appropriate line where ever you are)

Siri will respond with “Calling Emergency Services in five seconds…” and a big font saying “Emergency Call” with a countdown directly underneath it saying “In 5 seconds, In 4 seconds, In 3 seconds…” etc. You’ll also find two buttons at the bottom, the “Cancel” button to stop the call before it’s connected – what you’ll want to press immediately if you test this out – and then there is the second button, “Call”, which will immediately connect the iPhone to the emergency service dispatch line.

As mentioned before, this will even work across the room with a “Hey Siri, call emergency services” if the iPhone is plugged in and Hey Siri is enabled. The countdown will happen and dial the appropriate number.

In the USA, this is the familiar 9-1-1 call to a dispatch line of first responders, usually firemen or the police, but it works abroad in other nations to connect to their emergency lines as well.

As we’ve mentioned before, and we’ll reiterate yet again, do NOT try this or aimlessly call this number just for testing purposes. Many emergency dispatch lines will send a first responder to the location of a call (typically the local police arrive first, they pinpoint the location of the call with cellular triangulation which is generally quite accurate) if there is a questionable call that goes to the center, with the idea of being “better safe than sorry”, so it is absolutely critical that you do not toy around with this feature. Only use this if you have a genuine emergency, like when you or something else actually needs firefighters, police, or paramedics.

Interestingly enough, according to TheDailyDot you could initiate this call process through an indirect question of “Siri charge my phone to 100%”, which would dial ‘100’, and thus an emergency service line (yes, even in the USA). Some users report that still works, but in my testing it would not, while all of the above mentioned commands do work to dial the appropriate number.

Hopefully you’ll never need to use this feature, but it’s certainly good to know it’s there if the need ever does arise!

How to Use Programmable NFC Tags With Your Android Phone

Your Android phone’s NFC hardware is for more than just transferring content and using mobile payments. You can buy cheap, programmable NFC tags and have your phone automatically perform actions when you touch them.

For example, you could place NFC tags on your bedside table, near your front door, in your car, and on your desk at work. Tapping your phone against them or placing it down on them could automatically select device settings that makes sense in that location.

What You’ll Need

You’ll need just two things for this. First, you’ll need an Android phone with NFC hardware in it — and most Android phones will now offer that. Lower-end Android phones may not include NFC hardware to keep costs low. You can perform a web search for your model of phone and “NFC” or just open its Settings screen. You’ll find the NFC option under more Wireless & networks options. Obviously, the NFC hardware must be enabled for everything else here to work.

Second, you’ll need programmable NFC tags. Search for NFC tags on a site like Amazon.com and you’ll find them available for a fairly low price. Some manufacturers make their own, branded ones — but you don’t need tags made by your Android phone’s manufacturer.

These tags don’t have batteries in them, but they do have a bit of memory. When you place your phone’s NFC reader near them, the NFC reader provides power to the tag, and can read the data from the tag. The tags are programmable, so you can write whatever data you want into the tag from your phone.

Programming the Tags

You’ll now need an app that can program the tags. Android doesn’t include one, but you can search for “nfc tags” on Google Play to find a lot of apps that can handle this for you — including free ones. For example, the NFC Tools app will let you write data to a tag and read the data already on tags.

Install such an app, open it, and choose the data you’d like to write to a tag. You may be able to lock a tag so it can’t be reprogrammed, which may be good if you’re leaving that tag in a public area. However, that means you will never be able to change the data on the tag in the future, so don’t use this option unless you have a good reason to.

Afterwards, you can tap the tag against the NFC reader on the back of your phone, and it’ll copy that data to the tag’s memory. Place the tag in a convenient location for the action you chose.

Using the Tags

Next, you’ll need an app that will respond to the tags. For example, if you used NFC Tools to write data to your tags, you can install the NFC Tasks app. When your phone reads an NFC tag you’ve written instructions to, the NFC Tools app will read the instructions from that NFC tag and perform them.

You can then just place the tags somewhere convenient. Place them on a table, and then place your phone on them when you want to perform the action. Fasten them to a wall near a door if you want to tap your phone against a tag when you leave or enter an area. It’s up to you what you want to use these tags for. The uses are practically endless.

For example, if you regularly need to set an hour-long timer when you do your laundry, you can program an NFC tag to start an hour-long timer and place it next to your laundry machine. Set your phone down on that tag or tap it and it’ll start the laundry rimer. If you regularly pair your phone with a Bluetooth keyboard, you could affix an NFC tag to the back of the keyboard and tap your phone against it to automatically go through the Bluetooth pairing process.

Or, you can set up a tag with your Wi-Fi details, and guests can just tap their phones against the NFC tag to connect to your Wi-Fi network without locating it and entering a passcode. They would need an appropriate app installed on their phone to do this, however.

Scan Credit Card Info with iPhone Camera in Safari

If you’re shopping on the web from Safari with iPhone, you can make your check-out time faster and much easier by using a great built-in scanning feature to scan credit card details. This uses the iPhone camera to pull info directly from the card, preventing you from having to manually enter the sixteen digit number, card name, and expiration date.

To access the credit card scanner, you simply need to be at a checkout portion of any website in Safari for iOS. In this example, we’ll use 

Once at the checkout page where the site is requesting credit card information be entered, tap into the credit card entry area, then look above the keyboard for the “Scan Credit Card” button. Simply tapping that will open the iPhone Camera, where you are able to scan the credit card.

For best results, set the credit card to be scanned down against a neutral surface, then just hold the camera steady and it will pull the details from the front of the card.

All credit card information will be scanned this way, including he name on the card, the card number itself, and the expiration date. You’ll still have to enter the security code yourself from the back of the card (assuming it’s a Visa or Mastercard), but that’s certainly much easier than entering all of the data on your own.

This feature is available on all iPhone and iPad hardware that is able to run a modern version of iOS and equipped with a camera. That makes it a bit more universal than, say, configuring Apple Pay, which requires the latest models.

Finally, another option worth mentioning for quick payments is to use iCloud Keychain and save credit card details which can be autofilled across iOS and OS X.