#or give me more control over the android os. let us code into it or smth

[p2ii]

still couldnt find it :( the phone library might be usefull though thats such a cool resource

[asset35-maya]

Prompt no. 18 from this list

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

“Sorry, just give me a minute, babe. I need to recalibrate the interface I’m using…”

Gavin’s voice trailed off. The only sound in the room was from the clacking of his keyboard, his fingers flying across the keys.

Nines tried his best to take his mind off his situation. Immobile in bed… with the very real possibility that it could be permanent.

It was a just a software update… just another afternoon nap… but now he had no idea whether he’d ever move again.

Noticing his stress levels spiking, he focused on Gavin. The crease of his brows… the old scar across his nose… the determined set of his jaw as he scrubbed through lines and lines of code to find the root of the problem.

Gavin.

Lover. Friend. Saviour.

The man he depended on for everything, including his continued existence.

Nines silently thanked whichever force of nature had brought him into the safety and sanctity of Gavin’s embrace. RA9 or God or the laws of physics that dictated where atoms would end up from the beginning of time.

Not all androids were as lucky as he was.

After the Revolution, the digital giant known as Cyberlife had been dissolved under political pressure from New Jericho and its vehement supporters. Android production ceased, Cyberlife’s assets were stripped and its R&D departments were spun off into smaller, more benign companies.

People were elated in the beginning… and then they realised there was no one around to maintain and service the androids that now comprised 30% of American citizenry. Private technicians had booming business, but they were eventually overwhelmed.

The worst of it was the software.

The patches, the bug fixes, the security.

No single company was able to do it by themselves and individuals realised they were pretty much on their own. Human husbands and wives and girlfriends and brothers and pretty much everyone scrambled to learn how to take care of beloved androids on their own.

Gavin was one of the most capable ones. He knew how to do most of the mechanical work and quickly taught himself the software and systems elements. When Nines asked him how he was so proficient… whether he learnt any of it in college… he wouldn’t respond directly. The closest Nines had gotten to an answer was a grumbled “s what happens when you share a room for fifteen years with the nerdy prick that started all this trouble in the first place”

It was initially tough on the both of them… and expensive… as they figured out how to do things by trial… but Gavin was confident and adamant that he wouldn’t let Nines down. He quickly reached a steady state, even managing to get a maintenance routine in place.

But he couldn’t be perfect.

And there were things he couldn’t control.

Androids were the most complicated cyberphysical systems on the planet. Anything and everything could go wrong at any time…

And it had… during a major OS update.

“Babe, can you hear me?”

Nines’ LED cycled yellow once and went back to red.

Gavin held one of the limp hands in his own.

“Can you feel this?”

The LED spun again.

“Great. And I’m pretty sure you can see me, I know that look in your eyes, babydoll. Hmm… okay, that means all the sensors and IOT device connections are fineee…”

The musing continued as Gavin set aside the laptop and scooted closer to Nines. A gentle hand came up to tilt the android’s face from side to side.

“But you can’t talk…”

“AAAAAAAAAA”

“Wow. Never make that noise in the bedroom again. Hmm… Okay, this means your vocal chords are fine but you can’t move your mouth. Huh.. well… you can’t seem to move anything… not that different from your usual participation levels in bed then. Not to worry.”

The only thing Nines could do was glare and Gavin seemed relieved that even that was possible. He patted the android’s cheek.

“I’ll check your motor actuation and control. Simple modules. I should be able to see anything strange right away.”

Gavin resumed scrolling through the chunks of code and running searches for common errors. But minutes passed… and turned into an hour… and the hour, doubled, tripled.

But Gavin was undeterred. He had to be. Giving up was not an option. Plus, years of being a dedicated police officer had wiped out any fears of hard work and failure… he would scroll all night if it came to that.

A notification popped up on the screen.

RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: Sweetheart, you’ve been trying for hours. Take a break.

Gavin turned to his side. Nines could detect the worry and agitation behind the facade of lighthearted calm.

“I know right. It’s not fair. You’ve been chilling this whole time I’ve been working. Tsk tsk.”

RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: I’m serious, Gavin. Stop. Take a break for today. Call someone. You can try again tomorrow morning.

“Nines, you’re not a work assignment. I can’t take a break from you. You can get up and close this laptop for me.”

A few more hours passed. Frowning, Gavin climbed under the covers with Nines and began troubleshooting and testing all other modules too. It was a massive undertaking, but he’d be damned if he didn’t do it.

RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: Know when to give up on a lost cause.

It was nearly two in the morning when that message popped up. Gavin’s eyes were red from all the screen time, but his fighting spirit had not flagged. If anything, he felt close to the finish line. Having gone through nearly the entirety of his lover’s system architecture, there were only a few stones left unturned. He’d identify the problem, win half the battle and then the solution would flow from there. It always did. They’d be fine.

He turned to tell Nines precisely that and balked at the tears staining the android’s perfect face.

“Hey…”

Gavin leaned over his partner and wiped the tears away.

“Hey… shhh… don’t… don’t worry, I’ll take care of you…”

RK900 #313 248 317 - 87: I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I’m putting you through all this. Things can’t go on like this. I’m such a liability. Emotionally, physically, financially! You can’t keep doing this for me, Gavin.

Gavin placed the laptop on the bedside table and slipped deeper under the covers, wrapping himself around Nines’ still form.

“It’s a good thing you can’t speak right now, cause you’re talking some major bullshit, baby. You are going to be FINE. I will take care of you, like always, like I promised.

You are not a liability. You are my man. I signed up for this. If you were human and sick and I dunno, needed a kidney or something, I’d simply give it to you. You and I are bound like that. For life.

So quit bitching, let me do my thing, and when you’re back… you know how to thank me.”

He smiled genuinely as he said that, stroking the android’s skin and trying to calm him down. When the speed of the LED cycles came down and the colour stabilised at a warm amber, Gavin kissed the frozen lips and gave Nines one last cuddle before returning to his computer.

Sunrise began to streak across the dark sky by the time the critical error was identified. Gavin sighed deeply as he pulled up the faulty synchronisation that had jammed the hundreds of motors and drives throughout Nines’ body.

There was actually nothing much to be said for the root cause of the failed execution loop. Just improper methods written for some of the new hardware they had installed the previous week.

That’s what they got for using uncertified biocomponents and unlicensed third party software bought off the seedier parts of the internet. Some incompatibility somewhere would inevitably trip them up. Gavin was usually able to see such trouble before it found them… but even he couldn’t be perfect.

He stretched and cracked his spine and wiggled his fingers before plunging into rewriting the problematic section. He would sleep like a log after this… but first, he had to sprint to the finish line.

And he did.

At 7AM, Gavin finally copied the clean code into the compiler and hit execute. After a brief reinitialisation, Nines blinked awake. He raised his hands tentatively. As soon as he realised full functionality had been restored, he sat up and threw himself at Gavin, smothering the exhausted human in a giant hug.

Gavin hugged back, fighting to keep his emotions at bay.

“All… all good?”

“You saved my life. Again.”

“I’ll do it a thousand times more if I need to.”

“I thought I was done for.”

“Don’t be dramatic. It was just some bad code.”

“I could have been stuck like that forever. Never moving, never talking. Just lying there till my charge drains out. That could have been the end for us, and frankly, I was prepared for that eventuality. You should be too.”

“Never.”

“I don’t doubt your abilities, sweetheart, but we are painfully limited by our resources. There’s things in this world that only Cyberlife can do and they’re never coming back. We have to make our peace with that. Pulling all-nighters just to keep me alive… it’s not sustainable.”

“Hey it’s not like this happens all the time, Nines. I get that this was really scary, but it’s not always like this… so please don’t tell me whether things are sustainable. I will always fight for you. End of discussion.”

Nines didn’t respond and just rested his head on Gavin’s shoulder. His steel blue eyes were fixed on the pair of birds fluttering outside their bedroom window. They sat intertwined like that on the bed for a while. Now that he could, Nines didn’t seem to want to stop holding his partner. The birds landed on the window sill, chirping away and enjoying the morning breeze.

“They’re really quite sweet, aren’t they? The two of them are always here in the morning. I should build them a little bath in our garden.”

“They’re mates.”

“Huh. Just like us.”

“You know… it’s just a myth, what they say… that birds die when their mates do.”

“What?”

“Most species will go through a grieving period, but after that they will begin courtship again.”

“What the phck are you on about? No one’s dying and no one’s beginning courtship again. Nines, I’d move heaven and earth before anything like that happens.

Besides, if I really, really couldn’t get your body to work, worst case scenario, I’d just transfer you to a mobile device. Carry you around like a voice in my head… like my conscience… I promise you that nothing can keep us apart.”

It wasn’t all that easy to convince Nines, and Gavin wasn’t about to try. It had been an ordeal for the both of them. It wasn’t the first time, and it might not be the last. But for the time being, they had emerged, and they had each other, and that was all that mattered.

Yawning, Gavin lay back among the mussed sheets and pulled Nines with him. Birdsong and the muted whir of thirium pump compressions lulled him into a dreamless sleep.

[clearpeanutcollector]

Bets College Homework Mac App

College isn't all fun and games (unless you want it to be.) Don't sweat it, though. Take a look at these 25 apps — they'll give you a smoother college experience by helping you study smarter, connect with new people and wake up in time for your early lectures.

Jul 06, 2020  BET+ is a premium online streaming service with over 1,000 hours of your favorite Black content from the best Black creators. Now, you can stream Black culture: the movies you remember, the TV shows you love and the new series you can't live without. And they're all in one place, commercial free. Everything from classics like Martin and House of Payne to modern favorites like Bigger and Carl. The best part about this app is that the students can opt for one-on-one interaction with a tutor and clear their doubts instantly. Download: iOS. Student Agenda. This homework app offers a free planner and diary that is designed by the students for an uncluttered usage.

Your university probably has its own app, too — download it. It will provide you with a more tailored breakdown than a national application.

See also: 12 Things Students Should Never Do on Social Media

Any helpful ones we missed? Let us know in the comments!

1. BenchPrep

Image: BenchPrep

BenchPrep is an interactive course library with all the graduate and professional exam study material you can handle. It includes hundreds of practice questions, flashcards, in-app purchases and almost 600 study lessons. Go ahead and pick your poison: LSAT, MCAT, GMAT.

Available for free on iOS and Android devices.

2. iStudiez Pro

Image: iStudentPro

iStudiezPro keeps track of your deadlines, grades and more across all Mac devices — all you need to do is plug your class schedule into the app. It comes with both Cloud syncing and iCal integration.

Bets College Homework Mac Application

Available for $2.99 for iOS. The free iStudiez Lite version limits the number of classes you manage, but it's useful nonetheless.

3. Evernote

You've probably heard a lot about Evernote, and yes, you should try it. What have you got to lose .. your homework? The app syncs all your stuff — text, audio, photo, video — to an online account, so you're always connected with resources to study.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by Evernote's many features, check out this comprehensive beginner's guide.

Available for broke college students (read: free) for iOS and Android devices. The premium version is even more useful, at $5 a month or $45 a year.

4. StudyBlue Flashcards

Flashcards are an effective way to memorize information, but making them is a headache. With StudyBlue, use text, pictures and audio to create the perfect stack of (digital) flashcards; or, search the massive database to borrow someone else's.

Bets College Homework Mac App Free

Available for iOS and Android devices.

5. RealCalc Scientific Calculator

Did your little brother steal your calculator once you finished AP physics? Use RealCalc for serious computing — it's a perfect alternative for the calculator-less.

Available for free for Android. If you need a heavy-duty upgrade, try RealCalc Plus for $3.49.

6. Engineering Professional

More than 650 chemical, civil, electrical, environmental, hydrology and mechanical formulas are updated in Engineering Pro — so don't worry about buying multiple formula apps. Save or Favorite the formulas you need most often.

Available for $11.99 for iOS.

7. EasyBib

Image: EasyBib

EasyBib generates citations in MLA, APA and Chicago style wherever you are — just scan the book's bar code or enter the title. The app also lets you easily email and export the bibliographies to yourself. Using this, you have no excuses for putting off that term paper.

Available for free for iOS and Android devices.

8. Notella

Image: Notella

Some professors drop the most important bombs when you least expect it ('Have a good spring break, everyone. Oh! One more thing: We're having an exam worth 60% of your final grade the day you get back. See ya!').

Don't miss a thing with Notesdeck. This super-fast note-taking app opens to a new note by default, lets you create custom hotkeys and syncs notes from other apps — iCloud, Evernote, Simplenote and Dropbox. You can even search within those other apps from one search bar.

Mac map mouse button app download. Feb 06, 2007  Question: Q: Mouse Button Mapping More Less. Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations. May 28, 2012  ‎Joystick Mapper is an application that allows you to configure your joysticks or gamepads to simulate keyboard keys/mouse movement/mouse click/mouse scroll, so you can control any app or game using them, even the ones without built-in support. It also lets you remap the Scroll Wheel Button to some useful functions like Mission Control and it features a refined Smooth-Scrolling algorithm, which I think strikes a great balance between fluidity and control. Mac Mouse Fix is very light on system resources and it's a System Preferences Plugin so there's no status bar item. X-Mouse Button Control by Phillip Gibbons (Highresolution Enterprises) is a free application that can help you customize the functionality of your mouse buttons (set new functions to mouse buttons). Sadly, there is no version of X-Mouse Button Control for Mac available for download, but there are other tools that can help you change the.

Available for $2.99 for iOS.

9. Wolfram Alpha

From thermodynamics to baseball, the Wolfram Alpha reference app uses its supercomputing Cloud to quickly generate answers — across thousands of domains — to all your research questions.

Available for $2.99 for iOS and Android devices.

10. Dictionary.com Mobile

With more than two million definitions, synonyms and antonyms, Dictionary.com's fast and user-friendly mobile app will decode that confusing media law textbook in no time.

Available for free for iOS and Android devices.

11. Babylon

Whether you're a Spanish lit major or just looking to finish your general education requirements, Babylon provides comprehensive dictionary results and translations for dozens of languages. With pasteboard integration and access to more than 1,500 glossaries in 75 languages, you'll never struggle to find an accurate definition for your foreign language presentation again.

iBabylon is available for free for iOS; Babylon Translator is available for free for Android.

12. Jumpcut

You have better things to do than copy and paste all day. Make light work of data entry assignments with Jumpcut: copy as much text as you want, one after another, and paste using simple keystrokes.

Available for Macs only.

13. Dragon Dictation

Ever wish you could type faster? Dragon Dictation uses accurate voice recognition software to let you speak and instantly see your words in text. Dictate statuses to your social networks or pretend you're talking to someone if you're trying to write a speech — even send statuses straight to your social networks. Try this if you're in a time crunch and really need to churn out an essay; or, if you're just someone who prefers speaking over writing.

Available for free for iOS.

14. SelfControl

Image: Flickr, jonas maaloe

It's finals week. You have a huge essay to finish .. but then there's Reddit, emitting its bewitching siren call. Every. Damn. Time.

SelfControl lets you set a period of time to block certain websites or mail servers by adding them to a 'blacklist.' It's too bad if you finish your work early — restarting your computer or deleting the application won't negate the timer.

Available for free for Mac OS X.

15. Studious

Avoid interrupting class and getting on your professor's bad side with Studious. Once you input your class schedule, Studious will silence your phone during those hours.

Available for free for Android. Upgrade to Studious+ for $1.99 to bypass the ads.

16. Circle of 6

Ever feel uncomfortable when it's dark and you're in a new part of a city — or even campus? Circle of 6 won the White House's Apps Against Abuse challenge. It helps you stay safe by connecting you to six trusted contacts, whenever and wherever. Use the pre-programmed 'come and get me' message with your GPS location, or easily call national and local emergency hotlines in critical situations. It's a fast and discreet way to put your safety first.

Available for free for iOS and Android devices.

Addendum: You don't actually need six people if you want to double up on contacts.

17. Skype

Image: Skype

Hi!The last days I've noticed how every time I start Safari everything freezes (finder included) for a couple minutes. Macos bitcoin miner in mrt.app. Then I can write something in the search bar, and then it freezes another time!

Video interviews are not going away any time soon — so you might as well get a heads up now. Microsoft's Skype is a reliable way to connect with faraway family and friends via text, voice and — of course — video.

Available for free for iOS and Android devices.

18. LinkedIn

LinkedIn and all its nifty mobile features makes connections a breeze — for better or worse, college is a time of both personal and professional connections.

Available on the web, of course, but also for free for iOS and Android devices.

19. Twitter

Don't be the only person in class who isn't up-to-date with world events. Use Twitter to keep yourself in the loop in both the academic and social aspects of your life. In today's contemporary classrooms, you may even be asked to participate in class discussions via Twitter.

Available for free for iOS and Android devices.

20. Sworkit

There are a lot of things to do in college. Exercising isn't always one of them; especially when there's socializing and studying to be had. Sworkit's greatest asset is its ability to let you choose your exercise time allotment in five-minute increments — starting at, yes, the very low threshold of five minutes. Doable, right?

It also boasts an extensive list of work out routines.

Available for free for iOS and Android devices. Sworkit Pro comes with advanced features and costs $0.99 for iOS and Android.

See also: 10 YouTube Channels That Will Make You Smarter

21. Mint

Club fees. Books. Tuition. Food. College adds up — quickly. Mint is a web and mobile app that helps you keep track of your spending. Plus, it's never too early to start cultivating good credit.

Available for free for iOS and Android devices.

22. Sleep If U Can Alarm

Bets College Homework Mac Apps

Come on, you lazy bum — you're paying for these early classes, remember? Nicknamed the 'world's most annoying alarm,' Sleep If U Can gives you two options to silent the alarm: 1) Shake your phone; or 2) Physically go the place shown on your screen (see: the bathroom sink in the video) and take a picture.

Available for $1.99 for iOS and free for Android.

23. Pocket First Aid & CPR

Mashable composite, images: Pocket First Aid & CPR

While it's not the sexiest app to have at your disposable, you never know when it might come in handy. Along with clear and concise CPR instructions, Pocket First Aid and CPR contains 34 videos and 46 high-resolution illustrations.

Available for $1.99 for iOS and Android devices.

Bets College Homework Mac App Download

24. Between

Attempting the long-distance relationship course? Kudos — that's no small task. Relationship app Between can help ease the separation anxiety by letting you send messages, voicemails, memos and photos. A private timeline makes it easy to reminisce about the good old days with your significant other(s).

Available for free for iOS and Android devices.

25. TED

Image: TED

In an environment often congested with bad influences, a heavy dose of genius goes a long way. TED Talks give you instant access to the biggest thought leaders of our time.

Available for free for iOS and Android devices.

Image: Mashable, Meghan Uno

Whether you're taking the first step towards school or passing out of the college, your life can be a total mess including assignments, surprise tests, homework, examinations, attendance and so on. All you do is wake up early, go to school and come back. That becomes your routine cutting out the quality time to spend with your family and friends. How disheartening is that? With such a busy schedule and a massive number of deadlines to fulfill, it becomes quite challenging to keep track of homework or anything that has to be submitted on the next day. In such circumstances, a homework planner or organizer could be reliable to oversee and update you regarding the assignments, homework and other deadlines. Of course, it's a daunting task to look out for a suitable homework planner who can assist you with your regular tasks.

Top 5 Homework Planner Apps for College Students

Because it is a tedious job, we have come up with the best homework planner apps for students that will help them to do their tasks without any hassle:

1. School Planner

School planner is a full-scale homework planner app that is designed mainly to pay attention to students so that they are well focussed about their career. This app has a pile of features ranging from simple features to ones that you can think of. Besides your homework and timetable, school planner app assists you to keep track of your attendance. You can also add your teachers' contacts on the list, combine recorded lectures which could be beneficial during exams and add multiple planners too. Initially, it is a tedious job to use this app as you have to enter all your details in a form. In addition to your details, you must enter your teacher's details, timetable, and other college details. But once that's done, you're good to go! The app also supports backing up all the data that you feed in via Google drive, calendar, etc. This app does not fail to give you weekly reports, give reminders on the day of submission of assignments, attach snapshots to any reminders. Although the school planner offers a lot of features, it has the best performance with a beautiful framework. In case of your research paper you can use Edusson at affordable pricing.

2. Istudiez pro

Istudiez pro is yet another student-friendly homework planner app and probably the oldest app when compared to all of the mentioned apps. Like school planner, this app also offers a wide range of features including grading, attendance and subject wise organization of activities. It is way easier to set up when compared to a school planner. But the prominent feature in studies pro is that it is integrated with Google Calendar which gives you all the details like holidays, exam schedule, daily routine and so on. Not just that, it is also supported in all operating platforms like iOS, Mac, and windows. All the apps sync well and therefore you can operate this homework planner anywhere anytime on your laptop.

3. My study life

The next homework planner app for college students is My Study Life. The best thing about this app is that it has its web app which makes it unique. The web app can sync well(mostly on Android) therefore making your data accessible from any remote location using your device. Make sure that you've got a web browser installed in your device. This is a goal-oriented app and keeps reminding you about how much is completed and how much is left to achieve the goal. In addition to that, the calendar feature keeps track of all the important dates, it could be deadlines or project submission dates. The only con of my study life is that it is quite lengthy to set up. Once it is correctly done, you're all set!

4. ChalkBoard

One of the smartest homework planner app for students is a chalkboard. It is pretty quick regarding its features and subject wise allocation of teachers on the app. When you open it for the first time, it prompts you to fill the name and subjects of all your teachers along with the timetable. Cool, isn't it? Although the setup process is a tedious job, it is entirely reliable and smooth. The amazing part is you don't have to memorize your timetable as you can see the upcoming classes on the home screen. Not just that, you can also find pending assignments and other tasks on the screen making your job way too easy. Features like these make this app stand out when compared to other homework organizer apps and gives you a great overall experience. This homework planner app would have been much more superior if it had a calendar feature in it.

5. Egenda

It's quite easy to set up Egenda when compared to others. All you need to do is, add the subjects and classes that you have. Once that is done, you have the choice of adding any homework, deadline, project or test. The pending tasks can be seen in the form of cards and have to be swiped away once it's completed. The best part about this homework planner app is that it keeps you updated, could be regarding the upcoming assignments, tasks or competitions. This will help you plan ahead and complete the job on time. Unfortunately, the app doesn't have a timetable feature. But in its latest update, you will find a calendar that can assist you in keeping track of dates. Backup option not available in this app, therefore data can't be recovered once you lose it.

Final Words

So these were some of the coolest homework planner apps exclusively for career-oriented students who want their tasks to be completed on time and who do not wish to struggle till the last minute to meet the goal. We genuinely understand your problem and these apps are going to be of great use to you!

[webdevelopmenttopic]

Something Wikipedia Can’t Tell You: Why A Media App Like Netflix Needs to Be Developed in iOS Swift

Media Streaming Application - Netflix

Netflix is a movie streaming service that offers its customer the opportunity to watch varieties of award winning movies, documentaries, amongst others on their devices which are connected to the internet.

On Netflix, you have the opportunity to watch without limit and you can be sure that you won’t find any commercial whatsoever either the friendly one or the annoying one.

Watching becomes easy when you don’t need to scroll up and down searching aimlessly for the next movie to watch. With the Netflix application, you can now see and watch movies easily without any stress.

The beauty of the Netflix application is that you don’t need a system to watch any movies. You can watch movies at your comfort with Netflix on your smartphone anytime. For this beautiful feature, you need not pay any extra charges, your normal Netflix subscription will cover that.

Whether you are using apple device, android or windows, you can be sure that Netflix application is compatible with it. As of the 2nd quarter of 2017, Netflix Application was listed as the leading application by Google and Apples store.

Another stat shows that over 7.5 billion minutes were spent watching movie on Netflix in 2017. It’s not surprising then that there have been over 100 million downloads worldwide.

Features – Netflix Mobile Application

Netflix application has some distinctive characteristics that differentiate it from all other movie streaming applications. it features include:

Supported in all Region

Most streaming application are only available for some selected countries or region, but that is not the case with Netflix application, it doesn’t matter where you are from, you can always use their application. With the help of internationalisation and localisation feature of iOS Swift, it is easy to scale to various culture & people.

Navigation

Another good feature of Netflix application is it easy navigation system. Using the search catalogue, you can easily search for your desired movie and it bookmarks the last paused video, and you can easily sort those movies for easy identification.

Sorting could be on the year of production, year of release, genre etc. While also streaming or watching a movie, you can choose to either fast forward or rewind the movie easily by just tapping the screen and following the prompt it brings.

Resolutions

Watching movies and not being able to enjoy the best view can be very disappointing. This is one thing that Netflix application developers also understands, and they did well in solving this problem. Their movies are all in high definition (HD), and you can be so sure none of their movie is less than 480p.

Subtitle

This is one feature that many enjoy. Those who are hearing impaired can also enjoy our movie streaming as they can read along each scene as they happen. There are times when you might not hear clearly what is been said in a movie, but with the subtitle you can be sure that no statement will escape your sight.

It is beneficial for those who watch movies on the go, you need not worry about surrounding noises, that will be taken care of by your subtitle.

Alternative Audio

If you love to hear clearly each statement said in a movie, Netflix application is a good stop for you. You can always get a better audio quality that will replace the original one.

Use your Phone as a Remote Control

This function might look extremely impossible to many, but with your device and the Netflix application installed on it, you need no other remote control as your phone is fit to function as a remote control.

Elimination of Buffering

Sometimes one just grow tired especially when streaming a live program and you keep seeing the “buffering pop up”, Netflix application has made moves to help solve this problem. Clicking the “screen manager” setting and selecting the “manual” function will help you to alter rate of streaming.

You can always reduce the rate to get a faster view and a less clear view. Trust me keeping up with the program is the best way to enjoy it.

Downloads

You may not always be able to watch a movie or stream it immediately after seeing it, especially when you find like 2 to 3 interesting movie at once. The download function will help you save those movies offline and when you are less busy, you can always jump back and watch it at your comfort.

Apple Swift Language & Why?

Swift is an object-oriented and protocol-oriented programming language used for iOS and OS X. Well, that may have given you an idea about what the term Swift in thin context means. We write and develop software’s both for phones and our computer daily, but the best way which is safe, fast and interactive as a means of writing the codes is through Swift.

Beauty of Swift

Code Readability

The first advantage of Swift is its ability to deliver in clean syntax. This will make it easy to read and write codes. When comparing the number of lines needed to be written in Objective-C to Swift, it became clear that Swift uses fewer lines because it drops some functions that are not useful like semicolons for ending line, parenthesis for conditional statements etc.

Bracket mess that results from method calls have also been corrected and now the method and function calls now uses comma separated list of parameters within its parenthesis. This makes our code cleaner and our syntax simplified. Swift can be compared to speaking in plain English and it saves developers time by limiting their search for various codes.

Movie Player

It is very easy to develop movie players like Netflix, thanks to Swift. They have powered so many third party movie player SDK companies and have recorded success with each trial.

Robustness of App

To help in robustness of applications, apple introduced the protocol oriented programming in Swift 4.x which helps to make app robust and more scalable with features like make use of multiple inheritance.

Less Learning Curve

Compared to Objective C and Java Swift has very less learning curve which lets your development team to manage resources in a long run. This gives benefit to development team for a long running project.

Backward Compatibility

Another advantage of using Swift is it backward compatibility. If an application is upgraded, most times it stops working with the previous versions, but with the development of backward compatibility an application created in Swift3.0 can work with one created in Swift 4.0

Future Language

Compared to Objective-C, apple is now throwing its full support behind Swift and this signal to the fact that soon the world will generally migrate from Objective-C to Swift. Your code will not prone to technology change as Swift is going to become a language of 21st Century. This is clear judging by the design of the Netflix application.

How Much Time and Cost Will It Take to Create Media Streaming App in Swift

One cannot be exactly accurate while predicting the amount of time it might take to create Netflix kind of app in Swift owing to the following facts:

Expertise will define how fast one will be.

Time frame for delivering the job (deadline).

The function or the use of the app to be created.

Availability of the developer.

The extra function to be introduced.

Why Not to Use Cross Platform to Make Netflix Kind of App?

A beautiful User Interface (UI) is Guaranteed

A nice look and feel is certain and this will make the application more usable. Remember your choice will affect the success of your application.

Performance

Being a media application, it is bound to be very heavy. Using native application will be efficient as the codes will be directed directly to the operating system to produce the best performance.

Cross Platform Issues

But for Cross platform, you are bound to have the following problems performance delay, extension of native components that will end up affecting application sooner or later.

Technology Stack - Not a Cake Walk!

Technology stack is not the discussion agenda of this article, but interested product stakeholders may just want to have an idea on some important parts of it.

Backend: Java & NodeJs

Database: PostgreSQL & Amazon DynamoDB

Web Front End: React

Mobile apps: Swift and Android Java

Containerization & Orchestration: Docker

Cloud: Amazon Web Services, Amazon Kinesis

Summary

If you want to have a great product quality just like Netflix then opt in iOS, you will need to have a good development partner as it will help save you cost and time. With the help of powerful Test frameworks of Apple & scalable backend architecture, we leverage it to guarantee your product quality at next level.

With a good application development partner, you will be able to come up with an application that will enable you approach the market scene competitively and stand out among competitive apps with same features.

If you want a development partner for your app project, you can contact Perception Systemas your partner. Do you want your movie app built in iOS Swift so it can outsmart those built in other model? Perception System can help you with that.

Source URL

[child-of-hephaestus-blog]

How to install a tablet in your car

A standout amongst other things about the Android OS is that its achieve isn't quite recently restricted to our cell phones and tablets. While we've seen some one of a kind gadgets that utilization the working framework, its capacities are finding a more standard application over the previous year or so on our wrists, with Android Wear, and in our autos, kindness of Android Auto. While the last is advancing toward a developing number of vehicles by 2016, you obviously, must be in the market for another auto. You likewise have the choice to physically introduce an outsider in-dash unit, however those can end up being very costly.

A moderately less expensive approach to appreciate Android Auto-like highlights in your vehicle is conceivable nonetheless, as long as you have Nexus 7, or some other 7-inch to 8-inch tablet, convenient, and separated from the tablet itself, the rest of the apparatuses and prerequisites will set you back at generally $150. The whole establishment doesn't take a ton of time either, and you can have the setup up and running in only a couple of hours. Inquisitive to discover how this is conceivable? Here is our snappy guide on the most proficient method to introduce a tablet in your auto dashboard! https://plantystudies.tumblr.com/

Instruments and things required

tablet-auto introduce 5

The principal thing you'll require is a little head unit enhancer. My decision was the Alpine KTP-455U 4-channel control pack, since it is moderately shabby, and is likewise ideal for the activity, being sufficiently minimal to fit inside the dash with no issues. You'll likewise require a 12V attachment, a two-port USB auto charger, and a breaker tap with a 10A wire. As should be obvious, these are now associated on the grounds that I had played out this establishment on my past vehicle also, and you can discover the points of interest on the best way to do as such here. Likewise required is a RCA to 3.5 mm connector, a Bluetooth connector, a remote charger, a modest bunch of zip ties, and a wiring tackle that is good with your auto. A few link splicers are likewise required, and any alternative, for example, utilizing wire nuts, patching, or the crease strategy, will all do.

tablet-auto introduce 6

The Bluetooth connector is actually discretionary, however is something I used to have the capacity to interface with various gadgets without expecting to open up the dashboard each opportunity to connect it to.

Finding the proper wiring saddle for your auto can be either to a great degree simple or extremely lumbering, and I was lamentably in the last gathering. Obviously, there will be a few contrasts between your auto and the one found in this video, the Ford F150, and some examination and arranging of your own isn't just prescribed, yet will quite be required. Generally however, this is an effortlessly versatile tablet establishment process.

tablet-auto introduce 7

To the extent the apparatuses you'll require is concerned, make sure to keep convenient a couple of scissors, a little screw driver, wire cutters and strippers, a creasing instrument on the off chance that you as of now have one, needle nose forceps, and possibly some wrenches and a multimeter, contingent upon the make and model of your vehicle. Once you have all that you require, you are prepared to start the establishment procedure.

The establishment procedure

tablet-auto introduce 9

First of all, you'll need to locate the best possible wiring map for you auto, and this data can be found from a few extraordinary assets, including Wilson Auto Electric, Wiring 4 Cars, and The 12 Volt. Before you do anything notwithstanding, it's certainly a smart thought to open up the dash, unfasten the at present introduced radio, and acclimate yourself with what you are managing. As a matter of first importance, ensure that wiring saddle you've acquired coordinates with the associations inside your dash, and on the off chance that they don't coordinate, you have the wrong wiring bridle. As specified, I had a considerable amount of inconvenience in such manner, and with almost no documentation accessible on the correct arrangement I had, I wound up installing an industrial facility amp and graft the plant wires to influence it to work. All things considered, there is a decent possibility that you won't need to do this, yet there is a workaround if necessary too.

tablet-auto introduce 10

On the off chance that everything is a match, you are prepared to begin joining. Utilize the shading codes on the wiring tackle bundling to coordinate the wires from the head unit, and it is likely that they are all similar hues. For instance, yellow to yellow for control, green for left back speaker positive, green with dark for left back negative, et cetera. When every one of the wires are associated together, expel the pins and wires from the plastic connectors, which should be possible pretty effectively with a little screw driver. At that point take the wiring from your auto that you found and re-stick your wiring bridle to coordinate with the wires inside the vehicle, with left front speaker positive to left front speaker positive, etc. This assignment requires your complete consideration and can be really overwhelming at in the first place, however will get simpler as you come. A valuable tip here is to cross-reference the shading codes with a photo you can take of the wires in the dash. Obviously, this will bring about a total chaos of wires leaving the amp, and this where a portion of the zip ties, to keep things clean and tangle free, prove to be useful.

tablet-auto introduce 8

Presently will be a decent time to check whether you've prevailing in your wiring endeavors. Evacuate the stereo for the auto dashboard, disengage every one of the hookups, and connect your new wiring bridle and amp. Associate the RCA to 3.5 mm connector to the amp info, and module the Bluetooth connector into this also. Interface a telephone or tablet to the Bluetooth connector and play some music. In case you're currently hearing that music through your auto speakers, you are progressing nicely.

tablet-auto introduce 11

Next up is wiring the new 12V attachment into the inward circuit box of the auto, which more often than not dwells underneath the directing wheel. Evacuate the cover, and utilizing the proprietor's manual as a kind of perspective, locate a 10A circuit that is just fueled when the key is turned. This is required, as your tablet and Bluetooth connector will generally continually be a deplete on your auto battery, notwithstanding when the auto isn't running. To do this, first ground the negative wire from the 12V attachment, by utilizing any uncovered edge. At that point expel a 10A breaker from the circuit box, embed it into one of the vacant spaces on your wire tap, embed an extra 10A wire into the wire tap, connect the wire tap to the vacant opening, and module the auto charger. Presently hand the key over the start and search for any indications of life. On the off chance that the auto charger keeps on working even with the start off, search for another circuit to tap.

tablet-auto introduce 12

After you've discovered the correct wire, for all time ground the 12V attachment's negative lead by screwing it into the edge, and afterward locate a decent, helpful, and shrouded area to connect the new power source. Fortunately, I have a shrouded board in the section of flooring that was sufficiently close to the make a beeline for simply abandon it there. Drop the two USB links for the remote charger and the Bluetooth connector through the gap in the dash, down to the auto charger, and connect them to. It must be specified here that I could utilize a remote charger in light of the fact that the Nexus 7 takes into account it, however in the event that you are utilizing another tablet, you can straightforwardly connect its charging link to the auto charger too. At long last, discover a place to semi-for all time append the Bluetooth connector. I could do as such by boring an opening in the side of a little unused compartment under the guiding wheel, and utilizing velcro to append the connector.

tablet-auto introduce 13

Secure the amp inside the dash with some zip ties, and connect the remote charger to the Nexus 7. While I initially wanted to utilize velcro to do this, it turned out to be too thick and not take into account charging through the two sides, thus I wound up utilizing some froth mounting tape.

tablet-auto introduce 2

The last advance is to mount the tablet inside the dash board. I am utilizing Sugru to do as such, and keeping in mind that it isn't the most cleaned alternative, it is a pleasant transitory arrangement until the point when a more changeless fix is accessible. This does likewise give me a chance to evacuate the tablet effectively when required to do any overhauls or changes overnight. Evacuate the dash and apply Sugru to either side of the tablet and close to the base, let it sit, and re-introduce the dash, now with the tablet inside. The worry that the Sugru won't be sufficiently firm turned out to be to some degree valid, as the tablet moves marginally when tapping on it, and a more changeless fix will positively be essential. All things considered, it works all around ok for the present, and the entire setup looks incredible.

tablet-auto introduce 15

At long last, to have the capacity to appreciate the Android Auto encounter on the tablet, I utilized AutoMate beta, which imitates the Android auto framework superbly, without relinquishing the genuine idea of the tablet. Computerize likewise keeps the screen on when the tablet is charging and naturally turns it off when it isn't, so with the present setup, if the truck is running, so is the screen.

The most effective method to introduce tablet in your auto

So there you have it for this more critical take a gander at how to introduce a tablet in your auto! The procedure can be a bit tedious and requires your complete consideration, however the last outcome more than compensates for it, enabling you to appreciate the Android Auto involvement in your vehicle, without expecting to spend on a significantly more costly outsider Android Auto head unit, or buying another auto.

[amershamsdigitalmarketing]

Sketch vs Figma, Adobe XD, And Other UI Design Applications

Sketch vs Figma, Adobe XD, And Other UI Design Applications

Ashish Bogawat

2019-04-19T11:00:16+02:002019-04-19T11:35:47+00:00

For a while now, Sketch has been the application of choice for many UX and UI designers. However, we have lately seen many new contenders for Sketch’s position #1 as a universal UI design tool. Two apps that I think stand out mostly from the rest (and that have made the biggest strides in their development) are Figma and Adobe XD.

This article is oriented towards user interface designers and developers. I’ll try to summarize my thoughts on how Figma and Adobe XD compete with Sketch and what unique features each one of them brings to the table. I will also reference some other alternative apps that are aiming to become leaders in the same niche.

Note: To profit from the article, you don’t need to have prior experience with Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD. Still, if you have some experience with at least one of these apps, it will certainly help.

Table of Contents

The Sketch Competitors (And Where It All Started For Us)

Figma

Adobe XD

Others

Similarities And Differences

User Interfaces

The Basics: Artboards And Pages

Grids And Layout

Drawing And Editing Tools

Symbols

Styles

Designing With Data

Plugins And Integrations

Prototyping, Interaction, And Motion Design

Collaboration

Which One Is Right For You?

References And Further Reading

The Sketch Competitors (And Where It All Started For Us)

A while ago, Adobe Fireworks was the preferred user interface design app for our entire team. Fireworks was flexible, easy to use, and with the help of many free extensions was fitting perfectly in our design workflow. When Adobe discontinued Fireworks, the only alternative we had left was Sketch. We made the switch (and it was an expensive one, considering we had also to move from Windows to Mac), but the gain in productivity was huge, and we never regretted the choice made.

For a while now, Sketch has been the application of choice not only for our team but for many other user interface designers. But in the last couple of years, a number of competitors started to seriously rival Sketch as the current tool #1. Given how rapidly these new competitor apps have improved, our team was tempted to try some of them out and even considered switching over. In this article, I’m hoping to give you a comprehensive comparison of the top contenders of Sketch in the UI design tools arena.

Although it feels like a week doesn’t go by without a new screen design app launching, only a few of them have matured enough to stand up to Sketch’s currently leading position. The two that I think come the closest are Figma and Adobe XD. Both apps have fully functional free versions — making the entry barrier for new users much lower.

XD has versions for Mac and Windows, while Figma supports Mac, Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS — pretty much any operating system on which a modern modern browser can be installed and run.

Comparing Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD. (Large preview)

Figma

Figma is a web app; you can run it in a browser and therefore on pretty much any operating system. That’s one aspect completely in contrast with Sketch, which has been a Mac-only app. Contrary to my presumptions, Figma runs perfectly smooth and even trumps Sketch’s responsiveness in a number of areas. Here’s an example:

Why I choose @figmadesign over Sketch. pic.twitter.com/sZRO97tlNO

— Housseynou Fall (@HousseynouFall) 19. Dezember 2017

A lot has been said about how Figma compares with Sketch, but the race has only been heating up with the recent updates to both apps.

Figma’s success has the developers of Sketch reconsidering their native-only approach. The company recently raised $20 million to help it add more features — including a web version of Sketch app.

Adobe XD

Although an entire generation of designers grew up using Adobe Photoshop for design, it was never built with user interface designers in mind. Adobe realized this and started working from the ground up on a new app called XD. Although it took a while for XD to get up-to-speed with Sketch in terms of features, Adobe seems to have taken it very seriously in the last year. New features — and some of them quite powerful — are being added to the app almost every month, to a point where I can actually consider it a viable alternative at this point.

Others

Figma and Adobe XD are by no means the only contenders to Sketch’s leadership. Although it may seem like a new one joins the race every few weeks, some are clearly ahead at this point — just not in the same league as the ones above, in my opinion.

Framer X Although Framer started off as a code based tool for creating prototypes, they have been steadily adding design capabilities. The latest iteration is Framer X, which can be termed as a UI design tool with the ability to code interactions and animations for finer control and flexibility.

InVision Studio InVision started as the best way to share design mockups with colleagues and clients. Over the years though, they have added features to the app and also built Studio as a standalone app for UI design, prototypes, and animations. (Studio is probably based off of Macaw, which InVision bought in early 2016.)

Gravit This is another UI design app that has been slowly but steadily improving in the background. Corel bought Gravit a few months ago, which means we might soon start seeing it gain more features and traction within the community.

“Another up and coming category of apps in this domain are the ones that combine design and code to output actual production-ready code that developers can directly use in their apps. Framer X actually does this to an extent, but apps like Alva, Modulz, and Supernova take things one level further. I will not dig into these here because all of them are in very early stages of development, but I wanted to point them out because that’s where the future of UI design tools seems to be headed.”

As a design consultancy, we — me and my team at Kritii Design — end up adapting to whatever toolset clients use. I saw the gradual shift from Photoshop to Sketch over the years, but in the last year or so we have seen a sudden switch from Sketch to Figma. Sketch is still the dominant tool in most teams, but Figma — and even XD in some cases — have begun to find favor with larger teams. I’m yet to come across a group that prefers any of the other options, but I’m assuming that divergence is not very far.

Similarities And Differences

I’ve been a Sketch user for three years now and consider myself a power user. I’ve been trying Figma on and off for about a year now, but much more so in the last couple of months. Adobe XD is fairly new to me — about a month since I started experimenting with it. As such, the comparison below is based on my experience with all three apps. I’ll also include snippets about other apps that seem to do certain things better, but it’s mostly just those three.

User Interfaces

I will not get into the details of the user interfaces of each app because all three share an almost identical interface: layers panel on the left, the canvas is in the middle, properties panel on the right, and tools toolbar at the top. Safe to say Figma and XD’s interfaces are heavily inspired by what Sketch started with.

Note: The right panel (which lets you control the properties of the objects on the canvas) is called Inspector in Sketch app, Properties in Figma Design, and Property Inspector in Adobe XD. They all do the same thing though.

The Basics: Artboards And Pages

When you create a new file in Sketch or Figma, you are on ‘Page 1’ by default, with a plain canvas staring at you. You can create artboards on the page, or add more pages. You can choose from a bunch of presets (for iPhone/Android phones, or for the web), or just drag any size you need.

Adobe XD does not support multiple pages yet. Just a canvas that you can add artboards to. Given how large some of my projects can get, I find this extremely limiting.

Artboards in Figma are called frames, and they’re much more powerful than Sketch. While Sketch stopped supporting nested artboards a few versions ago, Figma actually encourages nesting of frames. So you can have a frame for the screen, and then frames for the header, footer, lists, and so on. Each frame can have its own layout grid and can be set to clip content when resized.

The header, list and tab bar are frames nested within a frame for the entire screen in Figma. (Large preview)

When you create a new document in Adobe XD, it explicitly asks you to choose from a preset list of artboard sizes. You can choose “Custom,” of course. The preset selection in baked in the way XD lets you preview the designs. Anything beyond the preset height scrolls by default. When you increase the height of the artboard, XD adds a marker to show the original height of the device frame.

A blue line shows the height of the selected device’s viewport to help position content appropriately ‘above the fold’. (Large preview)

One thing Sketch does differently from the other two applications is that it adds a ‘Symbols’ page that holds all your symbols by default. You can decide not to send symbols to this page when you create them, but I’ve never seen anyone doing that. It actually makes a lot of sense to centralize all the symbols, so they are easy to organize.

Summary

Sketch and Figma support pages and artboards, although Figma’s artboards (or frames) — are more flexible because they can be nested. Adobe XD supports only artboards.

Grids And Layout

All three apps let you overlay grids on top of the artboards. In Adobe XD, you can use a square grid or a column grid. Sketch allows for both at the same time, plus allows for columns as well and rows in the layout grid.

Figma lets you add as many as you want of each type — grid, columns, and rows. Another example of the attention to detail in Figma — when you set the gutter to 0, it automatically switches from showing filled columns to showing lines only.

Comparing layout grid options in the three apps.

Figma takes layout grids a step further by allowing grids on frames (which can be nested) as well as individual components. One interesting possibility with the latter is that you can use them as guides for padding when working with resizable components.

All three apps also let you set constraints to define how elements will scale or move when their containers are resized. Moreover, they all employ an almost identical user interface to set and manage those constraints. Figma was the first of the lot with this UI concept. Sketch followed and improved upon it in their latest release, and Adobe XD introduced the feature in September 2018.

The object resizing and constraints UI in all three apps. (Large preview)

In Figma, constraints work only on elements inside a frame, not groups (like in Sketch and Adobe XD). It is mildly annoying because you can set constraints, but they just don’t work when you resize the group. But Figma does actively encourage you to use nested frames which are much more powerful than groups. Another advantage with Figma is that when using layout grids, constraints apply to the column or cell the element is inside.

In Figma, layout constraints apply to columns when a layout grid is added.

Summary

All three apps let you use grids and column layouts inside artboards. Figma’s implementation feels more powerful because you can nest frames and therefore have separate grids for sections of a screen. Support for constraints in all three is pretty good and more-or-less at par.

Drawing And Editing Tools

Neither of these apps have the advanced vector tools like Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer. What you get are the bare basics — rectangle tool, ellipse tool, polygon tool, and a free form vector drawing tool. Plus boolean capabilities to combine and subtract shapes. For most user interface design needs, these are just fine.

That is not to say that you cannot create complex vector artwork in any of these apps. The images below represent what each app is capable of, if you’re willing to spend the time learning all of the tools and features.

Examples of illustrations created in all three apps. From left to right: Nikola Lazarevic in Sketch, Mentie Omotejowho in Figma, and Matej Novak in Adobe XD (check each link to see the originals). (Large preview)

Sketch has been my staple design tool for a few years now and I’ve never felt the need to go to Adobe Illustrator for any of the icons and the occasional illustration I needed in my designs. You get the usual rectangle, ellipse and polygon shapes, a bezier tool for everything else, and even a freeform line tool that probably only makes sense if you use a tablet/stylus.

Figma has an advantage in this department due to what they call ‘vector networks’. If you ever used Adobe Flash to draw, this will seem very familiar. Rather than try to describe it though, I’ll just show you what it does…

Figma’s vector networks in action.

Figma’s shape tools also feel a step ahead of Sketch. For ellipses, there is now the ability to easily carve out pies and donuts — a great feature for anyone who has tried to use Sketch’s dash settings to create donut charts. Corners of a rectangle can be dragged in to set the corner radius without bothering with the Properties panel.

Creating a donut chart in Figma.

Adobe XD falls behind here given it doesn’t even come with a polygon tool as of now. You also cannot align individual bezier nodes on a path, or change the roundness of these nodes — something we use very often to create smooth line graphs in dashboards.

Once you have added elements to your design, all three apps let you group them, arrange them above or below each other, align and distribute selected objects evenly, and so on.

One standout feature in XD is something called Repeat grid. It lets you create one item and repeat it in a list or grid, each with similar properties, but unique content. Figma’s answer to this is Smart selection. Rather than specify something as a list or grid, Figma lets you select a bunch of elements that are already a list or a grid, then arrange them by spacing them out evenly and easily sorting them via drag-n-drop.

Comparing XD’s Repeat grid feature with Figma’s smart selection.

Summary

Although none of the apps can hold a candle to the power of Illustrator or Affinity Designer when it comes to illustrations, they do provide an adequate enough drawing toolset for day-to-day UI design stuff. Figma’s vector networks place it ahead of the other two in terms of flexibility.

Symbols

All three apps support symbols — elements that all share the same properties and can be updated in one go. How they implement them though, changes quite dramatically from app to app.

Sketch In Sketch, converting something to a symbol will send it to a page called “Symbols” by default, creating an instance of it in place of the selected elements. This clear separation between the symbol and its instances is by design. An instance of a symbol can only be updated in certain ways — size, text, images; while nested symbols can be updated via the Inspector panel on the right. To edit the original symbol, you can double-click it to go to the “Symbols” page and make changes. Any changes you make there will be applied to all instances of the symbol.

“You can set it so that symbols don’t get sent to the separate page, but I don’t know anyone who does that. Symbols in Sketch are designed to live on their own page.”

Starting with Sketch version 53, you can now select elements inside a symbol instance and then use the Overrides panel to change the content for just that element. This is an improvement from earlier when you could only select the entire instance.

Editing a symbol instance in Sketch.

Figma In Figma, symbols are called components. When you create a component, it stays in place and is denoted as the ‘Master Component’. Copying it elsewhere in the design creates instances by default. Instances can be edited in a place like you would do with any other group, with the exception that placement of elements cannot be changed. You can change text, color, size and even swap nested symbols — all inline. This definitely feels more flexible than Sketch’s approach while at the same time putting adequate constraints in place as to not mess with the original component. For example, deleting the master component does not affect the instances. You can simply ‘recover’ the master component at any time and continue making changes.

Editing a component instance in Figma.

Adobe XD Adobe XD’s symbols are the least powerful at the moment. It does not have the concept of a master symbol and instances. Every instance is a clone of the symbol, so any changes to any instance is applied to all the others. They’re also extremely limited in what you can customize per instance — which is basically text and background images.

All three apps support reusing symbols across files.

In Sketch, any file can be added as a library, which enables you to add its symbols and styles to any other file you have open. Changes made in the original library document can be synced in the files that use those symbols, as long as you open them and click the notification.

Adobe XD takes a more simplistic approach for its ‘linked symbols’. Copying a symbol from one document to another automatically links the two. Changes made to the symbol in any document show up as notifications in the others, giving you the ability to review and apply them within the other documents.

Figma’s approach is a centralized repository of components called ‘Team Library’. Everyone on a team with the right access can add components to the team library. Any changes made to the components in the library show up as notifications, allowing you to review and update them in the files you have open.

Summary

All three apps support symbols, but XD’s version is so basic it might as well not exist. Figma’s approach to editing a symbol — or component — instance is much more intuitive and powerful than Sketch’s, although the latter has been catching up in recent versions. Both have strong library features for easy management and collaboration.

Styles

Styles are one of the most basic elements of a design system. The ability to save sets of element properties, apply them to multiple elements and apply changes across the boards, is extremely helpful when working on medium to large design projects. All three apps include support for styles, but the implementation varies a fair bit.

Sketch supports two style types — text styles and layer styles. Text styles include all font properties, color, and effects. Layer styles include fills, borders, and effects. As is obvious from the names, text styles apply only to text elements and layer styles to everything else. Starting with version 52, Sketch lets you override styles for elements inside of symbol instances. This is a huge upgrade to the utility of symbols in Sketch, eliminating a lot of hacky ways you would have to go through in the past for something as simple as changing icon colors inside symbol instances.

Layer and Text styles in Sketch. (Large preview)

Figma takes a dramatically different approach by making styles cascade. That means you can save styles for text (font, size, weight, line-height, etc.), colors or effects (drop shadows, blurs, etc.), and then mix and match them on elements. For example, the font properties and color on a text block are independently changeable. This makes it possible to have a different color for a word inside a paragraph, something you can’t do in Sketch.

Color, Text and Effect Styles in Figma. (Large preview)

Styles in XD are limited to character styles for text elements. You can save colors and apply them from the library, but there is no way to save a set of characteristics (fill, border, shadow, and so on) as an individual style.

Summary

All three apps support text styles. Sketch also has layer styles that can be applied to non-text elements. Figma breaks styles down by characteristic and lets you mix and match them to get the result you need. It can be more flexible or too open-ended, depending on what your use case is.

Designing With Data

One of my most used Sketch plugins is Content Generator, which allowed me to quickly populate my designs with realistic dummy data instead of the usual lorem ipsum and John Doe and the likes. With the release of version 52, Sketch eliminated the need for that plugin by introducing built-in support for importing data. Now you can easily add realistic names, addresses, phone numbers, even photos in your design. A couple of sets are built in, but you can add more as you need.

You can add and manage external data sets from Sketch preferences. (Large preview)

The Adobe XD team demoed some work-in-progress support for built-in functionality at Adobe’s MAX conference, but we don’t know when that will make it into the product itself. The one feature that has already made it in is the ability to drag-n-drop a TXT file onto an element in a repeat grid — or a bunch of images onto an image in a repeat grid — to populate all items in the grid with that data. What’s more exciting to me though, is the plugin ecosystem that is bringing in much more powerful ways of importing realistic and real-time data in XD. Case in point are the Airtable and Google Sheets plugins, which allow you to connect with the apps and pull in data from spreadsheets in real time.

Figma lags behind Sketch and XD in this regard. As of now, there doesn’t seem to be any way to populate realistic content inside elements in Figma, other than copy-pasting the bits of content one by one.

Summary

Adobe XD finally takes the lead with a much more capable API that lets you pull in live data, not just static data like Sketch does. Figma has a lot of catch up to do on this front.

Plugins And Integrations

This is where Sketch’s position as the most popular UI design application shines. With a huge library of plugins and new ones coming every few days, Sketch has no rivals when it comes to its ecosystem of plugins and integrations. From plugins for animation, prototyping and version control, helpers for managing text, styles, to connectors for popular apps, there is a plugin for everything you can think of. Here are some of my favorites:

Sketch Runner Quick access to every tool and command inside the app, like Spotlight for Sketch. Sketch Measure Free, local alternative to developer handoff tools like Zeplin. Craft A suite of super useful plugins, including prototyping, external data and library management. (You can read more about Craft for Sketch in Christian Krammer’s article “Craft For Sketch Plugin: Designing With Real Data.”) Angle A quick way to add your designs to device mockups at various angles. Artboard Tricks A bunch of helpers for managing artboards in Sketch.

As the leader of the pack, Sketch also enjoys the largest list of integrations with third-party apps. Be it prototyping and sharing via InVision, developer handoff via Zeplin, version control via Abstract or Plant, most apps have direct integration with Sketch, with the ability to import, sync or preview Sketch files.

You can enable, disable, update and delete plugins from Sketch preferences. (Large preview)

Plugins in XD launched as recently as a few months ago, but things are already looking quite good. Adobe, with its marketing might, was able to get a lot of companies and developers onboard to launch their plugin ecosystem with a bang. Although not as vast as Sketch’s, the list of plugins for XD is pretty good and growing at a quick pace. Here are some highlights:

Dribbble Post your designs to Dribbble right from inside XD. Data Populator Pull in live data from JSON files into your mockups. Rename It Powerful batch renaming for layers and artboards. Content Generator Generate random content for different elements in your design. Airtable & Google Sheets Bring real data from spreadsheets into your designs in real time.

The Airtable plugin I mentioned above is an example of app integrations that XD is quickly getting very good at. There are also integrations with usertesting.com, Cloudapp, Dribbble and more.

You can quickly browse and install plugins directly from inside XD. (Large preview)

As far as plugin management goes, XD does a much better job with a nice UI to find, read about and install all plugins. For Sketch, you need to find the plugin on the web, download it and launch the .sketchplugin file to install it. You can disable or remove them from the preferences screen, but not much else.

Figma falls short on the plugins front when compared to Sketch and even XD. It does not have a plugin API specifically, but Figma did open up some APIs for integrations with other apps earlier this year. Apart from built-in integration with Principle, Zeplin, Avocode and Dribbble, the result has been mostly things you can do with your files outside of Figma — like this PDF exporter, the ability to push assets from Figma to Github using Relay, and so on.

In March 2018, Kris Rasmussen from Figma said the following about the plans to add extensions:

“We have watched as our competitors added extension models which granted developers freedom at the expense of quality, robustness, and predictability. We’re eager to leverage the incredible collective brainpower of the Figma community in making our tool better, but we’re not going to introduce extensions until we are confident our extension model is robust. There’s no estimated date just yet, but we are actively exploring how to build this in a solid way.”

Summary

Again, Figma has some catching up to do on the plugins front, especially when compared to Sketch’s huge ecosystem, or Adobe’s powerful APIs and marketing might to get more developers onboard.

Prototyping, Interaction, And Motion Design

Sketch and Figma started off as static design apps, whereas Adobe XD launched with the built-in ability to link screens together to build low-fidelity prototypes. Figma added the prototyping functionality in mid-2017, while Sketch added prototyping in early 2018. As of today, all three apps let you create prototypes and share them with others.

Sketch and Figma’s prototyping tools were mostly limited to linking individual elements to other artboards on click/tap or hover, with a limited selection of transition effects. Figma just pulled ahead with the introduction of overlays in December 2018. This — combined with the fact that Figma’s frames are more flexible than Sketch’s rigid artboard structure — opens up the ability to prototype menus, dialog boxes and more. Both apps have support for other prototyping apps, though. Figma has an integration with Principle and Sketch with pretty much every prototyping tool out there.

While Figma lets you share the prototypes with a simple link (the perks of being in the cloud), with Sketch you need to upload your file to the Sketch cloud before you can share it with others.

Comparing the prototype controls in Sketch and Figma. (Large preview)

Adobe XD’s October 2018 release pushed it way ahead in the race when it comes to prototyping. It now does everything I mentioned above, but includes two more powerful features:

Auto-animate Where designers had to pull their designs into apps like Principle or After Effects to add motion design, some of it is built into XD now. It works by automatically moving elements with the same name when transitioning from one screen to another. This may sound simple, but the kind of effects you can generate are pretty spectacular.

Adding animations to prototypes using ‘Auto animate’ in XD.

Voice prototypes You can now trigger interactions in XD by voice commands, and even include speech responses to triggers. This is a huge addition that makes it easy to prototype conversational user interfaces in XD, something that is not possible in Sketch, Figma, or any of the leading prototyping apps out there.

If animation is important to you, one app to look out for is InVision Studio. It has a timeline based animation workflow, something none of the other apps on this list can boast of. Or if you’re comfortable getting your code on, Framer’s code based interaction model is definitely something to explore.

Summary

Adobe XD has the most powerful prototyping toolset of the three apps, with voice and auto animate leading the way. Sketch has rudimentary prototyping capabilities, but Figma’s implementation feels more seamless when it comes to sharing and gathering feedback.

Collaboration

Sketch and Adobe XD are traditional desktop apps — built for designers to work in isolation and share their designs when ready. Figma, on the other hand, was built for collaboration in mind, more like Google Docs for designers.

In Figma, multiple users can work on the same document at the same time. You can see colored cursors moving around the design when others are viewing or editing the design you’re on. This can take some getting used to, but in situations where we have multiple designers working on a project, this can be a godsend. The cherry on top is the ability to view the design from another designer’s perspective. Just click the user’s avatar in the header and you can see exactly what she is seeing and follow along.

Collaborative design in Figma, à la Google Docs.

Going beyond collaborative editing, sharing your work is also more streamlined in Figma than in the other apps. You can either invite others to see or edit a design or simply send a URL to the design file or prototype preview.

Developers who are viewing the file can get specs for the design elements — a la Zeplin or Avocode — and export any image assets they need. The assets don’t even need to be set to export like in Sketch.

Note: For Figma designs, there are three levels of access: 1) owner 2) can edit, and 3) can view. We use “can view” to give developers access to all the specs, and the ability to export assets as and when they need them.

Figma also has a built-in commenting system which is important when reviewing designs with broader teams and clients. Today, I rely on a combination of Sketch and InVision to achieve this.

Sketch allows you to upload files to its cloud services, and then share a link for others to view. Ensuring that the latest version is in the cloud is up to you, though. This can be a big risk if you have developers working off of a design that may not be current. XD’s December 2018 release added the ability to save files to the cloud, and you can decide which files to save in the cloud and which ones locally. This addresses the problem with maintaining latest versions in the cloud.

Summary

This is where Figma’s web-based roots really shine. It leaves the other two far behind on the collaboration front with built-in sharing, commenting and the single-source-of-truth approach. Sketch and XD are adding sharing features at a good pace, but their file-first approach is holding them back.

Which One Is Right For You?

If you’re a user interface designer, you can’t go wrong with either of the three apps that I have covered here. Or the others that I touched upon just briefly. They all will get the job done, but with varying levels of productivity.

If a native desktop app is necessary for you, and you don’t care about a Windows — or a Linux — version, Sketch is the best bet right now. Adobe XD is getting better at breakneck speed, but it is not as good as Sketch yet for day-to-day design tasks.

If you’re on Windows though, or if motion design is part of your requirements, Adobe XD is your best shot. Sketch simply does not have any animation capabilities and it doesn’t look like that a Windows version could appear on the horizon any time soon. For animation, InVision Studio might also be something you can look at. And if you’re comfortable with code, Framer X provides the most flexibility of the lot.

For me though, at this moment Figma strikes the best balance between features, usability, and performance. Yes, you need to be online to use it (unless you have a file open, in which case you can edit it offline). No, it doesn’t have plugins or any animation capabilities. But if UI design mockups are your core requirement, Figma does a far better job for creating, sharing and collaborating with others than either Sketch or Adobe XD. It has a very generous free tier, it is available on any platform that can run a modern browser, and it’s very actively in development, with new features and updates coming in faster than I can keep up learning them all.

In my team, for example, there seems to be an even split between folks who prefer Sketch or Figma. I’m myself beginning to lean in on Figma myself, but also use Adobe XD every now and then for some quick motion design experiment.

And if you’re looking for an even shorter tl;dr summary — trust Meng To:

“My thoughts on design tools and why you should pick them. Figma: collaboration and all-in-one Sketch: maturity and plugins Framer: code and advanced prototyping Studio: free and animation XD: speed and adobe platform”

References And Further Reading

Sketch

“A Look Back At Sketch In 2018,” Sketch, Medium

“Plugins,” Sketch

Sketch App Sources (Free and premium design resources for Sketch App)

Figma

“Figma Tips And Tricks,” Tom Johnson, Medium

“Best Practices: Components, Styles, And Shared Libraries,” Thomas Lowry, Figma Blog

“When To Use Groups Versus Frames In Figma,” Thomas Lowry, Figma Blog

“We Refreshed Figma’s UI: An Inside Look At Our Process,” Rasmus Andersson, Figma Blog

Adobe XD

“60+ Major Features In The Last Year,” Andrew Shorten, Twitter

“StudioAmigos (A curated collection of free resources for Invision Studio)

(mb, yk, il)

[nancydsmithus]

Sketch vs Figma, Adobe XD, And Other UI Design Applications

Sketch vs Figma, Adobe XD, And Other UI Design Applications

Ashish Bogawat

2019-04-19T11:00:16+02:002019-04-19T09:06:52+00:00

For a while now, Sketch has been the application of choice for many UX and UI designers. However, we have lately seen many new contenders for Sketch’s position #1 as a universal UI design tool. Two apps that I think stand out mostly from the rest (and that have made the biggest strides in their development) are Figma and Adobe XD.

This article is oriented towards user interface designers and developers. I’ll try to summarize my thoughts on how Figma and Adobe XD compete with Sketch and what unique features each one of them brings to the table. I will also reference some other alternative apps that are aiming to become leaders in the same niche.

Note: To profit from the article, you don’t need to have prior experience with Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD. Still, if you have some experience with at least one of these apps, it will certainly help.

Table of Contents

The Sketch Competitors (And Where It All Started For Us)

Figma

Adobe XD

Others

Similarities And Differences

User Interfaces

The Basics: Artboards And Pages

Grids And Layout

Drawing And Editing Tools

Symbols

Styles

Designing With Data

Plugins And Integrations

Prototyping, Interaction, And Motion Design

Collaboration

Which One Is Right For You?

References And Further Reading

The Sketch Competitors (And Where It All Started For Us)

A while ago, Adobe Fireworks was the preferred user interface design app for our entire team. Fireworks was flexible, easy to use, and with the help of many free extensions was fitting perfectly in our design workflow. When Adobe discontinued Fireworks, the only alternative we had left was Sketch. We made the switch (and it was an expensive one, considering we had also to move from Windows to Mac), but the gain in productivity was huge, and we never regretted the choice made.

For a while now, Sketch has been the application of choice not only for our team but for many other user interface designers. But in the last couple of years, a number of competitors started to seriously rival Sketch as the current tool #1. Given how rapidly these new competitor apps have improved, our team was tempted to try some of them out and even considered switching over. In this article, I’m hoping to give you a comprehensive comparison of the top contenders of Sketch in the UI design tools arena.

Although it feels like a week doesn’t go by without a new screen design app launching, only a few of them have matured enough to stand up to Sketch’s currently leading position. The two that I think come the closest are Figma and Adobe XD. Both apps have fully functional free versions — making the entry barrier for new users much lower.

XD has versions for Mac and Windows, while Figma supports Mac, Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS — pretty much any operating system on which a modern modern browser can be installed and run.

Comparing Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD. (Large preview)

Figma

Figma is a web app; you can run it in a browser and therefore on pretty much any operating system. That’s one aspect completely in contrast with Sketch, which has been a Mac-only app. Contrary to my presumptions, Figma runs perfectly smooth and even trumps Sketch’s responsiveness in a number of areas. Here’s an example:

Why I choose @figmadesign over Sketch. pic.twitter.com/sZRO97tlNO

— Housseynou Fall (@HousseynouFall) 19. Dezember 2017

A lot has been said about how Figma compares with Sketch, but the race has only been heating up with the recent updates to both apps.

Figma’s success has the developers of Sketch reconsidering their native-only approach. The company recently raised $20 million to help it add more features — including a web version of Sketch app.

Adobe XD

Although an entire generation of designers grew up using Adobe Photoshop for design, it was never built with user interface designers in mind. Adobe realized this and started working from the ground up on a new app called XD. Although it took a while for XD to get up-to-speed with Sketch in terms of features, Adobe seems to have taken it very seriously in the last year. New features — and some of them quite powerful — are being added to the app almost every month, to a point where I can actually consider it a viable alternative at this point.

Others

Figma and Adobe XD are by no means the only contenders to Sketch’s leadership. Although it may seem like a new one joins the race every few weeks, some are clearly ahead at this point — just not in the same league as the ones above, in my opinion.

Framer X Although Framer started off as a code based tool for creating prototypes, they have been steadily adding design capabilities. The latest iteration is Framer X, which can be termed as a UI design tool with the ability to code interactions and animations for finer control and flexibility.

InVision Studio InVision started as the best way to share design mockups with colleagues and clients. Over the years though, they have added features to the app and also built Studio as a standalone app for UI design, prototypes, and animations. (Studio is probably based off of Macaw, which InVision bought in early 2016.)

Gravit This is another UI design app that has been slowly but steadily improving in the background. Corel bought Gravit a few months ago, which means we might soon start seeing it gain more features and traction within the community.

“Another up and coming category of apps in this domain are the ones that combine design and code to output actual production-ready code that developers can directly use in their apps. Framer X actually does this to an extent, but apps like Alva, Modulz, and Supernova take things one level further. I will not dig into these here because all of them are in very early stages of development, but I wanted to point them out because that’s where the future of UI design tools seems to be headed.”

As a design consultancy, we — me and my team at Kritii Design — end up adapting to whatever toolset clients use. I saw the gradual shift from Photoshop to Sketch over the years, but in the last year or so we have seen a sudden switch from Sketch to Figma. Sketch is still the dominant tool in most teams, but Figma — and even XD in some cases — have begun to find favor with larger teams. I’m yet to come across a group that prefers any of the other options, but I’m assuming that divergence is not very far.

Similarities And Differences

I’ve been a Sketch user for three years now and consider myself a power user. I’ve been trying Figma on and off for about a year now, but much more so in the last couple of months. Adobe XD is fairly new to me — about a month since I started experimenting with it. As such, the comparison below is based on my experience with all three apps. I’ll also include snippets about other apps that seem to do certain things better, but it’s mostly just those three.

User Interfaces

I will not get into the details of the user interfaces of each app because all three share an almost identical interface: layers panel on the left, the canvas is in the middle, properties panel on the right, and tools toolbar at the top. Safe to say Figma and XD’s interfaces are heavily inspired by what Sketch started with.

Note: The right panel (which lets you control the properties of the objects on the canvas) is called Inspector in Sketch app, Properties in Figma Design, and Property Inspector in Adobe XD. They all do the same thing though.

The Basics: Artboards And Pages

When you create a new file in Sketch or Figma, you are on ‘Page 1’ by default, with a plain canvas staring at you. You can create artboards on the page, or add more pages. You can choose from a bunch of presets (for iPhone/Android phones, or for the web), or just drag any size you need.

Adobe XD does not support multiple pages yet. Just a canvas that you can add artboards to. Given how large some of my projects can get, I find this extremely limiting.

Artboards in Figma are called frames, and they’re much more powerful than Sketch. While Sketch stopped supporting nested artboards a few versions ago, Figma actually encourages nesting of frames. So you can have a frame for the screen, and then frames for the header, footer, lists, and so on. Each frame can have its own layout grid and can be set to clip content when resized.

The header, list and tab bar are frames nested within a frame for the entire screen in Figma. (Large preview)

When you create a new document in Adobe XD, it explicitly asks you to choose from a preset list of artboard sizes. You can choose “Custom,” of course. The preset selection in baked in the way XD lets you preview the designs. Anything beyond the preset height scrolls by default. When you increase the height of the artboard, XD adds a marker to show the original height of the device frame.

A blue line shows the height of the selected device’s viewport to help position content appropriately ‘above the fold’. (Large preview)

One thing Sketch does differently from the other two applications is that it adds a ‘Symbols’ page that holds all your symbols by default. You can decide not to send symbols to this page when you create them, but I’ve never seen anyone doing that. It actually makes a lot of sense to centralize all the symbols, so they are easy to organize.

Summary

Sketch and Figma support pages and artboards, although Figma’s artboards (or frames) — are more flexible because they can be nested. Adobe XD supports only artboards.

Grids And Layout

All three apps let you overlay grids on top of the artboards. In Adobe XD, you can use a square grid or a column grid. Sketch allows for both at the same time, plus allows for columns as well and rows in the layout grid.

Figma lets you add as many as you want of each type — grid, columns, and rows. Another example of the attention to detail in Figma — when you set the gutter to 0, it automatically switches from showing filled columns to showing lines only.

Comparing layout grid options in the three apps.

Figma takes layout grids a step further by allowing grids on frames (which can be nested) as well as individual components. One interesting possibility with the latter is that you can use them as guides for padding when working with resizable components.

All three apps also let you set constraints to define how elements will scale or move when their containers are resized. Moreover, they all employ an almost identical user interface to set and manage those constraints. Figma was the first of the lot with this UI concept. Sketch followed and improved upon it in their latest release, and Adobe XD introduced the feature in September 2018.

The object resizing and constraints UI in all three apps. (Large preview)

In Figma, constraints work only on elements inside a frame, not groups (like in Sketch and Adobe XD). It is mildly annoying because you can set constraints, but they just don’t work when you resize the group. But Figma does actively encourage you to use nested frames which are much more powerful than groups. Another advantage with Figma is that when using layout grids, constraints apply to the column or cell the element is inside.

In Figma, layout constraints apply to columns when a layout grid is added.

Summary

All three apps let you use grids and column layouts inside artboards. Figma’s implementation feels more powerful because you can nest frames and therefore have separate grids for sections of a screen. Support for constraints in all three is pretty good and more-or-less at par.

Drawing And Editing Tools

Neither of these apps have the advanced vector tools like Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer. What you get are the bare basics — rectangle tool, ellipse tool, polygon tool, and a free form vector drawing tool. Plus boolean capabilities to combine and subtract shapes. For most user interface design needs, these are just fine.

That is not to say that you cannot create complex vector artwork in any of these apps. The images below represent what each app is capable of, if you’re willing to spend the time learning all of the tools and features.

Examples of illustrations created in all three apps. From left to right: Nikola Lazarevic in Sketch, Mentie Omotejowho in Figma, and Matej Novak in Adobe XD (check each link to see the originals). (Large preview)

Sketch has been my staple design tool for a few years now and I’ve never felt the need to go to Adobe Illustrator for any of the icons and the occasional illustration I needed in my designs. You get the usual rectangle, ellipse and polygon shapes, a bezier tool for everything else, and even a freeform line tool that probably only makes sense if you use a tablet/stylus.

Figma has an advantage in this department due to what they call ‘vector networks’. If you ever used Adobe Flash to draw, this will seem very familiar. Rather than try to describe it though, I’ll just show you what it does…

Figma’s vector networks in action.

Figma’s shape tools also feel a step ahead of Sketch. For ellipses, there is now the ability to easily carve out pies and donuts — a great feature for anyone who has tried to use Sketch’s dash settings to create donut charts. Corners of a rectangle can be dragged in to set the corner radius without bothering with the Properties panel.

Creating a donut chart in Figma.

Adobe XD falls behind here given it doesn’t even come with a polygon tool as of now. You also cannot align individual bezier nodes on a path, or change the roundness of these nodes — something we use very often to create smooth line graphs in dashboards.

Once you have added elements to your design, all three apps let you group them, arrange them above or below each other, align and distribute selected objects evenly, and so on.

One standout feature in XD is something called Repeat grid. It lets you create one item and repeat it in a list or grid, each with similar properties, but unique content. Figma’s answer to this is Smart selection. Rather than specify something as a list or grid, Figma lets you select a bunch of elements that are already a list or a grid, then arrange them by spacing them out evenly and easily sorting them via drag-n-drop.

Comparing XD’s Repeat grid feature with Figma’s smart selection.

Summary

Although none of the apps can hold a candle to the power of Illustrator or Affinity Designer when it comes to illustrations, they do provide an adequate enough drawing toolset for day-to-day UI design stuff. Figma’s vector networks place it ahead of the other two in terms of flexibility.

Symbols

All three apps support symbols — elements that all share the same properties and can be updated in one go. How they implement them though, changes quite dramatically from app to app.

Sketch In Sketch, converting something to a symbol will send it to a page called “Symbols” by default, creating an instance of it in place of the selected elements. This clear separation between the symbol and its instances is by design. An instance of a symbol can only be updated in certain ways — size, text, images; while nested symbols can be updated via the Inspector panel on the right. To edit the original symbol, you can double-click it to go to the “Symbols” page and make changes. Any changes you make there will be applied to all instances of the symbol.

“You can set it so that symbols don’t get sent to the separate page, but I don’t know anyone who does that. Symbols in Sketch are designed to live on their own page.”

Starting with Sketch version 53, you can now select elements inside a symbol instance and then use the Overrides panel to change the content for just that element. This is an improvement from earlier when you could only select the entire instance.

Editing a symbol instance in Sketch.

Figma In Figma, symbols are called components. When you create a component, it stays in place and is denoted as the ‘Master Component’. Copying it elsewhere in the design creates instances by default. Instances can be edited in a place like you would do with any other group, with the exception that placement of elements cannot be changed. You can change text, color, size and even swap nested symbols — all inline. This definitely feels more flexible than Sketch’s approach while at the same time putting adequate constraints in place as to not mess with the original component. For example, deleting the master component does not affect the instances. You can simply ‘recover’ the master component at any time and continue making changes.

Editing a component instance in Figma.

Adobe XD Adobe XD’s symbols are the least powerful at the moment. It does not have the concept of a master symbol and instances. Every instance is a clone of the symbol, so any changes to any instance is applied to all the others. They’re also extremely limited in what you can customize per instance — which is basically text and background images.

All three apps support reusing symbols across files.

In Sketch, any file can be added as a library, which enables you to add its symbols and styles to any other file you have open. Changes made in the original library document can be synced in the files that use those symbols, as long as you open them and click the notification.

Adobe XD takes a more simplistic approach for its ‘linked symbols’. Copying a symbol from one document to another automatically links the two. Changes made to the symbol in any document show up as notifications in the others, giving you the ability to review and apply them within the other documents.

Figma’s approach is a centralized repository of components called ‘Team Library’. Everyone on a team with the right access can add components to the team library. Any changes made to the components in the library show up as notifications, allowing you to review and update them in the files you have open.

Summary

All three apps support symbols, but XD’s version is so basic it might as well not exist. Figma’s approach to editing a symbol — or component — instance is much more intuitive and powerful than Sketch’s, although the latter has been catching up in recent versions. Both have strong library features for easy management and collaboration.

Styles

Styles are one of the most basic elements of a design system. The ability to save sets of element properties, apply them to multiple elements and apply changes across the boards, is extremely helpful when working on medium to large design projects. All three apps include support for styles, but the implementation varies a fair bit.

Sketch supports two style types — text styles and layer styles. Text styles include all font properties, color, and effects. Layer styles include fills, borders, and effects. As is obvious from the names, text styles apply only to text elements and layer styles to everything else. Starting with version 52, Sketch lets you override styles for elements inside of symbol instances. This is a huge upgrade to the utility of symbols in Sketch, eliminating a lot of hacky ways you would have to go through in the past for something as simple as changing icon colors inside symbol instances.

Layer and Text styles in Sketch. (Large preview)

Figma takes a dramatically different approach by making styles cascade. That means you can save styles for text (font, size, weight, line-height, etc.), colors or effects (drop shadows, blurs, etc.), and then mix and match them on elements. For example, the font properties and color on a text block are independently changeable. This makes it possible to have a different color for a word inside a paragraph, something you can’t do in Sketch.

Color, Text and Effect Styles in Figma. (Large preview)

Styles in XD are limited to character styles for text elements. You can save colors and apply them from the library, but there is no way to save a set of characteristics (fill, border, shadow, and so on) as an individual style.

Summary

All three apps support text styles. Sketch also has layer styles that can be applied to non-text elements. Figma breaks styles down by characteristic and lets you mix and match them to get the result you need. It can be more flexible or too open-ended, depending on what your use case is.

Designing With Data

One of my most used Sketch plugins is Content Generator, which allowed me to quickly populate my designs with realistic dummy data instead of the usual lorem ipsum and John Doe and the likes. With the release of version 52, Sketch eliminated the need for that plugin by introducing built-in support for importing data. Now you can easily add realistic names, addresses, phone numbers, even photos in your design. A couple of sets are built in, but you can add more as you need.

You can add and manage external data sets from Sketch preferences. (Large preview)

The Adobe XD team demoed some work-in-progress support for built-in functionality at Adobe’s MAX conference, but we don’t know when that will make it into the product itself. The one feature that has already made it in is the ability to drag-n-drop a TXT file onto an element in a repeat grid — or a bunch of images onto an image in a repeat grid — to populate all items in the grid with that data. What’s more exciting to me though, is the plugin ecosystem that is bringing in much more powerful ways of importing realistic and real-time data in XD. Case in point are the Airtable and Google Sheets plugins, which allow you to connect with the apps and pull in data from spreadsheets in real time.

Figma lags behind Sketch and XD in this regard. As of now, there doesn’t seem to be any way to populate realistic content inside elements in Figma, other than copy-pasting the bits of content one by one.

Summary

Adobe XD finally takes the lead with a much more capable API that lets you pull in live data, not just static data like Sketch does. Figma has a lot of catch up to do on this front.

Plugins And Integrations

This is where Sketch’s position as the most popular UI design application shines. With a huge library of plugins and new ones coming every few days, Sketch has no rivals when it comes to its ecosystem of plugins and integrations. From plugins for animation, prototyping and version control, helpers for managing text, styles, to connectors for popular apps, there is a plugin for everything you can think of. Here are some of my favorites:

Sketch Runner Quick access to every tool and command inside the app, like Spotlight for Sketch. Sketch Measure Free, local alternative to developer handoff tools like Zeplin. Craft A suite of super useful plugins, including prototyping, external data and library management. (You can read more about Craft for Sketch in Christian Krammer’s article “Craft For Sketch Plugin: Designing With Real Data.”) Angle A quick way to add your designs to device mockups at various angles. Artboard Tricks A bunch of helpers for managing artboards in Sketch.

As the leader of the pack, Sketch also enjoys the largest list of integrations with third-party apps. Be it prototyping and sharing via InVision, developer handoff via Zeplin, version control via Abstract or Plant, most apps have direct integration with Sketch, with the ability to import, sync or preview Sketch files.

You can enable, disable, update and delete plugins from Sketch preferences. (Large preview)

Plugins in XD launched as recently as a few months ago, but things are already looking quite good. Adobe, with its marketing might, was able to get a lot of companies and developers onboard to launch their plugin ecosystem with a bang. Although not as vast as Sketch’s, the list of plugins for XD is pretty good and growing at a quick pace. Here are some highlights:

Dribbble Post your designs to Dribbble right from inside XD. Data Populator Pull in live data from JSON files into your mockups. Rename It Powerful batch renaming for layers and artboards. Content Generator Generate random content for different elements in your design. Airtable & Google Sheets Bring real data from spreadsheets into your designs in real time.

The Airtable plugin I mentioned above is an example of app integrations that XD is quickly getting very good at. There are also integrations with usertesting.com, Cloudapp, Dribbble and more.

You can quickly browse and install plugins directly from inside XD. (Large preview)

As far as plugin management goes, XD does a much better job with a nice UI to find, read about and install all plugins. For Sketch, you need to find the plugin on the web, download it and launch the .sketchplugin file to install it. You can disable or remove them from the preferences screen, but not much else.

Figma falls short on the plugins front when compared to Sketch and even XD. It does not have a plugin API specifically, but Figma did open up some APIs for integrations with other apps earlier this year. Apart from built-in integration with Principle, Zeplin, Avocode and Dribbble, the result has been mostly things you can do with your files outside of Figma — like this PDF exporter, the ability to push assets from Figma to Github using Relay, and so on.

In March 2018, Kris Rasmussen from Figma said the following about the plans to add extensions:

“We have watched as our competitors added extension models which granted developers freedom at the expense of quality, robustness, and predictability. We’re eager to leverage the incredible collective brainpower of the Figma community in making our tool better, but we’re not going to introduce extensions until we are confident our extension model is robust. There’s no estimated date just yet, but we are actively exploring how to build this in a solid way.”

Summary

Again, Figma has some catching up to do on the plugins front, especially when compared to Sketch’s huge ecosystem, or Adobe’s powerful APIs and marketing might to get more developers onboard.

Prototyping, Interaction, And Motion Design

Sketch and Figma started off as static design apps, whereas Adobe XD launched with the built-in ability to link screens together to build low-fidelity prototypes. Figma added the prototyping functionality in mid-2017, while Sketch added prototyping in early 2018. As of today, all three apps let you create prototypes and share them with others.

Sketch and Figma’s prototyping tools were mostly limited to linking individual elements to other artboards on click/tap or hover, with a limited selection of transition effects. Figma just pulled ahead with the introduction of overlays in December 2018. This — combined with the fact that Figma’s frames are more flexible than Sketch’s rigid artboard structure — opens up the ability to prototype menus, dialog boxes and more. Both apps have support for other prototyping apps, though. Figma has an integration with Principle and Sketch with pretty much every prototyping tool out there.

While Figma lets you share the prototypes with a simple link (the perks of being in the cloud), with Sketch you need to upload your file to the Sketch cloud before you can share it with others.

Comparing the prototype controls in Sketch and Figma. (Large preview)

Adobe XD’s October 2018 release pushed it way ahead in the race when it comes to prototyping. It now does everything I mentioned above, but includes two more powerful features:

Auto-animate Where designers had to pull their designs into apps like Principle or After Effects to add motion design, some of it is built into XD now. It works by automatically moving elements with the same name when transitioning from one screen to another. This may sound simple, but the kind of effects you can generate are pretty spectacular.

Adding animations to prototypes using ‘Auto animate’ in XD.

Voice prototypes You can now trigger interactions in XD by voice commands, and even include speech responses to triggers. This is a huge addition that makes it easy to prototype conversational user interfaces in XD, something that is not possible in Sketch, Figma, or any of the leading prototyping apps out there.

If animation is important to you, one app to look out for is InVision Studio. It has a timeline based animation workflow, something none of the other apps on this list can boast of. Or if you’re comfortable getting your code on, Framer’s code based interaction model is definitely something to explore.

Summary

Adobe XD has the most powerful prototyping toolset of the three apps, with voice and auto animate leading the way. Sketch has rudimentary prototyping capabilities, but Figma’s implementation feels more seamless when it comes to sharing and gathering feedback.

Collaboration

Sketch and Adobe XD are traditional desktop apps — built for designers to work in isolation and share their designs when ready. Figma, on the other hand, was built for collaboration in mind, more like Google Docs for designers.

In Figma, multiple users can work on the same document at the same time. You can see colored cursors moving around the design when others are viewing or editing the design you’re on. This can take some getting used to, but in situations where we have multiple designers working on a project, this can be a godsend. The cherry on top is the ability to view the design from another designer’s perspective. Just click the user’s avatar in the header and you can see exactly what she is seeing and follow along.

Collaborative design in Figma, à la Google Docs.

Going beyond collaborative editing, sharing your work is also more streamlined in Figma than in the other apps. You can either invite others to see or edit a design or simply send a URL to the design file or prototype preview.

Developers who are viewing the file can get specs for the design elements — a la Zeplin or Avocode — and export any image assets they need. The assets don’t even need to be set to export like in Sketch.

Note: For Figma designs, there are three levels of access: 1) owner 2) can edit, and 3) can view. We use “can view” to give developers access to all the specs, and the ability to export assets as and when they need them.

Figma also has a built-in commenting system which is important when reviewing designs with broader teams and clients. Today, I rely on a combination of Sketch and InVision to achieve this.

Sketch allows you to upload files to its cloud services, and then share a link for others to view. Ensuring that the latest version is in the cloud is up to you, though. This can be a big risk if you have developers working off of a design that may not be current. XD’s December 2018 release added the ability to save files to the cloud, and you can decide which files to save in the cloud and which ones locally. This addresses the problem with maintaining latest versions in the cloud.

Summary

This is where Figma’s web-based roots really shine. It leaves the other two far behind on the collaboration front with built-in sharing, commenting and the single-source-of-truth approach. Sketch and XD are adding sharing features at a good pace, but their file-first approach is holding them back.

Which One Is Right For You?

If you’re a user interface designer, you can’t go wrong with either of the three apps that I have covered here. Or the others that I touched upon just briefly. They all will get the job done, but with varying levels of productivity.

If a native desktop app is necessary for you, and you don’t care about a Windows — or a Linux — version, Sketch is the best bet right now. Adobe XD is getting better at breakneck speed, but it is not as good as Sketch yet for day-to-day design tasks.

If you’re on Windows though, or if motion design is part of your requirements, Adobe XD is your best shot. Sketch simply does not have any animation capabilities and it doesn’t look like that a Windows version could appear on the horizon any time soon. For animation, InVision Studio might also be something you can look at. And if you’re comfortable with code, Framer X provides the most flexibility of the lot.

For me though, at this moment Figma strikes the best balance between features, usability, and performance. Yes, you need to be online to use it (unless you have a file open, in which case you can edit it offline). No, it doesn’t have plugins or any animation capabilities. But if UI design mockups are your core requirement, Figma does a far better job for creating, sharing and collaborating with others than either Sketch or Adobe XD. It has a very generous free tier, it is available on any platform that can run a modern browser, and it’s very actively in development, with new features and updates coming in faster than I can keep up learning them all.

In my team, for example, there seems to be an even split between folks who prefer Sketch or Figma. I’m myself beginning to lean in on Figma myself, but also use Adobe XD every now and then for some quick motion design experiment.

And if you’re looking for an even shorter tl;dr summary — trust Meng To:

“My thoughts on design tools and why you should pick them. Figma: collaboration and all-in-one Sketch: maturity and plugins Framer: code and advanced prototyping Studio: free and animation XD: speed and adobe platform”

References And Further Reading

Sketch

“A Look Back At Sketch In 2018,” Sketch, Medium

“Plugins,” Sketch

Sketch App Sources (Free and premium design resources for Sketch App)

Figma

“Figma Tips And Tricks,” Tom Johnson, Medium

“Best Practices: Components, Styles, And Shared Libraries,” Thomas Lowry, Figma Blog

“When To Use Groups Versus Frames In Figma,” Thomas Lowry, Figma Blog

“We Refreshed Figma’s UI: An Inside Look At Our Process,” Rasmus Andersson, Figma Blog

Adobe XD

“60+ Major Features In The Last Year,” Andrew Shorten, Twitter

“StudioAmigos (A curated collection of free resources for Invision Studio)

(mb, yk, il)

[cryptswahili]

Ledger Nano S Review: Things To Know Before Ordering The Ledger Wallet

Where should I store bitcoins for maximum safety?

Is a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S worth buying?

Is Ledger Nano S Safe?

How does ledger Nano S work?

Why can’t I leave my bitcoins on an exchange? 

These are just some of the many questions that we all go through when deciding to purchase a hardware wallet. Last year, I was also facing the same dilemma, and I wasn’t sure if I should be investing close to $120 to buy the Ledger Nano S.

This detailed and extensive review is designed so you can answer the very important question: “Should I buy the Ledger Nano S?”

But before anything else…

The backstory of how I evolved as a Bitcoin wallet user:

I always liked Bitcoin as a piece of technology, but I never intended to invest in or purchase any bitcoins. However, later on, after I discovered a few Bitcoin exchanges and became even more interested in the technology, I finally decided to buy my first bitcoins. Initially, I stored them on exchanges.

But later, I learned that this is risky as there is no guarantee that they will still be there when I want to use them.

At that time, I started using the MyCelium mobile wallet to store these bitcoins. However, we all know how easy it is to hack a mobile phone. Being from the information technology field and having a keen interest in information security, I knew it was not wise to trust my mobile phone for holding large amounts of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

That is when I discovered paper wallets, which sounded like the best option for holding Bitcoin for a long period of time, but it still seemed a little too inconvenient.

After spending countless nights learning about Bitcoin wallets and which methods would keep my Bitcoin most secure, I discovered a simple hardware wallet: The Ledger Nano S.

Based on my research, this sounded like a solid wallet, but I didn’t want to believe in another’s words until I saw it being valuable myself. By that time, I held 2 bitcoins (each worth of $1200 at the time), and my investment on that Bitcoin had already doubled, so spending $120 was no problem at all.

I was like, “What the heck… Let me order this. In the worse case scenario, I will be sharing a review and telling the world not to waste their money.” But oh boy, I was so far away from that worst case scenario…

One fine day, I received my Ledger Nano S. That same day, I transferred all of my bitcoins onto this newly purchased wallet. It was very easy. Within an hour, I was able to secure all of my bitcoins on my brand new Ledger Nano S.

“Hey, Harsh! Should I buy Ledger Nano S?”

My answer is: Definitely. Go ahead and order it right now. While this wallet gives you complete security, it also gives you something even more priceless: Peace of mind.

Order the Ledger Nano S from the official site here

Surprising Things About The Ledger Nano S

So what’s so special about the Ledger Nano S? Aren’t all hardware wallets secure in an offline environment?

Well, here’s the difference:

You can use the Ledger Nano S to store ETH, ETC, Dash, Ripple, Stratis, ZCash, Litecoin, NEO, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Cash, Viacoin and a few other alt currencies (including BTC). You can see a complete list here.

Because it’s an HD wallet, you control many accounts for all supported cryptocurrencies. This means that all cryptos stored here will be secure with the same backup key. So let’s say you are storing Bitcoin for your friends or family, you can label those account for them and keep them safe as if they were your own.

Ledger supports all ERC tokens when used with MyEtherWallet. I have already tested this.

Ledger is compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS. It can also connect to your Android device using an OTG cable.

To receive Bitcoin, your Ledger Nano S doesn’t need to be connected to a computer. You can receive Bitcoin even if your Ledger is offline.

Fine points based on our reader’s questions:

You can store unlimited coins.

When you update your wallet, you don’t need to transfer coins to anywhere. After updating and restoring, all the coins will reappear automatically.

Ledger Nano S works with Windows, Linux, Mac, Android phone.

The simple act of being able to store other cryptocurrencies on this wallet has, for me, made the whole purchase completely worthwhile.

They keep adding in support for newer cryptos for their customers, including the new Bitcoin Cash. This shows that they really do put their customer’s interests first and are not just looking to sell you things.

How About The Security Of The Ledger Nano S?

Now, let’s talk about the security of the Ledger Nano S and why it is so trustworthy. Note: For even more security options, check out its more sophisticated counterpart- Ledger Blue.

How Does The Ledger Nano S Ensure Security?

Your computer and mobile can be hacked easily. When hackers can hack multi-million dollar servers (essentially big computers), then our smaller systems should also be seen as equally vulnerable.

The Ledger has a separate chip and screen to mitigate the potential security flaw of certain apps taking random screenshots of mobile and laptop screens.

When dealing with any Bitcoin wallet, one important thing we all need to do is note down the seed key/recovery phrase. When this recovery phrase is shown on a mobile or computer screen, it becomes susceptible to hacking.

When you are using the Ledger Nano S, the seed word is displayed on the OLED screen which only you can see. And it’s no exaggeration to say that this security feature alone makes your Bitcoin holdings secure.

Moreover, most of the work like checking Bitcoin balances and account management happens through a desktop app while your Ledger Nano S is still connected to the computer via a USB cable.

When you are sending Bitcoins to someone, you need to allow the transaction by tapping certain buttons on your Ledger. So even if your computer is hacked, a hacker won’t be able to transfer those bitcoins because they don’t have physical access to your Ledger Nano S. 

More Security Features:

Your Bitcoin private key is stored in a secured section of the device itself. It doesn’t ever leave the device, and hence, there’s no way for a hacker to get to it.

The Ledger Nano S is an HD wallet. This means that every time you receive funds, you get a new receiving address. This enhances your privacy to a great extent.

You can also sign a message using the Ledger Nano S to prove your ownership of the address. You may use this feature in the future when you advance in your Bitcoin and cryptocurrency usage.

There are more advantages of using Ledger Nano S that you will discover as you become more comfortable with the device.

If you are deciding between whether or not to buy, recognize that it’s going to enhance the way you interact with cryptos by a large degree.

I highly suggest you get one now.

A few more important things to know before ordering the Ledger Nano S:

Due to high demand, delivery is not instant. That’s why you should order it ASAP to get ahead in the queue.

Order Ledger only from the official site over here.

Ledger offers the Ledger Nano S and the Ledger Blue, and both are great. But if you are looking for something portable, then the Ledger Nano S is the best. Think of the Ledger Blue as the iPad version of the Ledger with the same security features.

If possible, you should order two. You can use one as a backup in case you travel a lot. This will also allow you to have even more security when dealing with cryptos.

Visit the official Ledger Nano S page

How Does Ledger Nano S work?

Here is a short video series that will help you learn everything about the Ledger Nano S from scratch. Just watch them and you will know about how to take backups of seed words, connecting to your Android device, sending/receiving coins, etc.

I have been using Ledger the Nano S for the past 2 years, and I can confidently recommend this to you. Most of my friends are already using this wallet, and they are using it for just one purpose:

Keeping their Bitcoin secure.

Visit the Ledger website

FAQs About The Ledger Nano S

Q. What will happen if you lose your Ledger Nano S?

A: You can order a new one and restore your funds using your seed key. You can also restore your seed on any other popular Bitcoin wallet like MyCelium, GreenBits, Electrum, and CoPay.

Q. If Ledger supports a new cryptocurrency token (Ex: Monero), do I need to order a new Ledger?

A. No, you can store newly supported cryptocurrencies on your existing Ledger. This part is easy, and you can learn this from watching the above video playlist.

Q. How many cryptocurrencies do the Ledger Nano S support?

A. Ledger supports BTC, BitcoinCash, ETH, ETC, LTC, Dash, Stratis, Komodo, Ripple, and zCash. They keep adding support for new cryptocurrencies every few months.

Update: Now there more than 700 cryptocurrencies/tokens right now supported by Ledger Nano S.

Q. Will the recovery phrase recover all of the additional cryptocurrencies?

A. Yes. A single recovery phrase supports all cryptocurrencies. You can restore any cryptocurrencies (that you are using on your Ledger device) using the same recovery phrase.

Q. What if you forget the Ledger Nano S pin code?

A. You can reset your Ledger Nano S to its factory settings by entering the wrong pin 3 times. You will then need to restore your wallet using the 24-word backup key.

Q. Ledger Nano S or Ledger Blue: Which one should I buy?

A. Ledger Blue is an extended version of the Ledger Nano S, and it is costlier. The Ledger Nano S is portable and easy to move around with. If you don’t need portability and want to connect your Ledger to your devices using Bluetooth, the Ledger Blue is a good choice. Otherwise, the Ledger Nano S is better. You can also order both devices and use the same seed key to configure both of them. This way, one device can be used as a backup device.

Ledger Nano S Review: Is It Worth It?

Obviously, you can tell that I’m a huge fan of this little device. It has completely changed the game for me as I no longer have to worry about my coins becoming hacked or stolen.

Unlike a normal wallet that stores cash, even if someone steals this wallet, they won’t be able to get the funds because they won’t know my pin or seed key. This makes it truly secure.

All in all, if you’re looking for the best hardware wallet, there’s nothing better than the Ledger Nano S.

Do you own a Ledger Nano S? Are you satisfied with your experience? What’s your review? Share your experience with me in the comments below!

Visit the Ledger Nano S website

Know someone who could benefit from a Ledger device? Share this post with them!

The post Ledger Nano S Review: Things To Know Before Ordering The Ledger Wallet appeared first on CoinSutra - Bitcoin Community.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

[knoxursoxoffpenwriter69]

Gaming on Windows is just better.

Reasons windows is better I'll, save you guys the trouble there aren't any actually yeah. I agree. Are you guys kidding me? The vast majority of the world runs Windows on the desktop and believe it or not. There are some pretty darn good reasons for it, so guys we compiled the top 10 of them from our community to share with you in this video thanks LastPass for sponsoring a portion of this video. They relieve the burden of trying to remember all your passwords for every website. Let LastPass fill in your passwords, for you learn more at the end of the video or at the link below [, Music ]. First up and this one's a shocker gaming, our community spoke, and we agree. Gaming on Windows is just better. 

Not only are there tons of current games for the Windows PC platform like literally thousands of them, but accessing them and keeping them up to date is much simpler than it used to be thanks to online marketplaces like Steam, origin, you play, and yes, even the epic Game store and Windows gaming has far more going for it than just the current library. Recent progress towards integration with Microsoft's Xbox ecosystem has brought cross-platform play to some titles and even cross-platform purchases, and on the subject of compatibility. Well, there's the back catalog of games, which numbers in the tens of thousands with a shocking number of old games still being playable on modern hardware. I fired up 1602 80, a game from almost 1602 80 on my Windows, 10 PC with a Titan RT X on it with minimal tinkering required. 

That'S crazy! So we're actually working on a collab with good old games. Right now to show this off make sure your sub, so you don't miss it on the subject of tinkering Windows games, particularly the older ones, allow for a ton of it with large communities that have built everything from their own servers from multiplayer to mods that alter Visuals or gameplay elements and even mods that change the genre of the original title fun fact for you, young kids out there dota used to be a custom map in Warcraft 3. Finally, there's the advantage that comes naturally with being the incumbent gaming platform support wan na try out the hottest new peripherals like brand new graphics cards, VR headsets, haptic feedback, vests odds are excellent, that the Windows software is going to be much more polished than what's available. For other platforms, that is, if anything exists, for them at all, RTX real-time ray tracing on Mac. 

Please is actually a common one for users of every platform and it's that it just works or because I don't feel like something new like Apple Microsoft has made it OS that, for the most part, works as intended. Out-Of-The-Box, no real extra effort is needed. Thanks to Auto magical third-party driver installs through Windows Update when you get into the weeds with obscure devices, hardware compatibility on the platform does have its issues, but for the average user it is much better than it used to be, and so is the general intuitiveness of Using it I mean I still remember when they introduced the documents and pictures folder. Comm 4 is the toolbox. The registry editor, if used responsibly, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to optimizing. The windows experience task manager got some big upgrades with Windows 8 and now makes it so simple to monitor CPU RAM network and even GPU usage. 

So anyone can do it, but if you want to go even further, this rabbit hole. 2 has pretty much no bottom resource monitor, gives you a much more granular. Look the information from cast manager, making it easy to identify processes that are sending large amounts of network data out or causing your disk to churn and slow down the rest of your system. Task scheduler is a crazy, powerful utility that lets. You have Windows, automate tasks for you. It can open and close programs for you when you log in and out it can send emails when tasks complete and you can even post to Twitter and Facebook using the window. Scheduler and power toys are back, so these are actually Microsoft provided tools that enthusiasts can use to add or enhance features.

 I was a huge fan of sync TOI back in the day and this new window management one for Windows, 10 looks sick. 5. Is the support base want to learn how to do some of the stuff? You'Ve talked about well, with 78 % of the worldwide desktop OS market share. If it exists, someone has probably done it so, like you want to become the new macro king. Well, there are tutorials on how to do that, need to troubleshoot a weird error between the official support from Microsoft, for both current and legacy windows and the thousands of enthusiasts on forums around the world. The odds of finding someone to help. You are pretty good. One. Great resource is actually our forum linked below, where our community is ready, willing and able to help feel free to check that out after the video 6 is productivity. Even Apple had to acknowledge. 

Windows is strength when it comes to buckling down and just getting some work done, whether you're trading stocks, writing reports, tracking financials, making super cool, PowerPoint, slides or making YouTube videos like us windows probably supports the software and the hardware that you need to get it done. Microsoft'S Office suite is incredibly powerful and works best on Windows if you want to do 3d or CAD work. Most of the industry-standard software is on Windows and, let's not forget the plethora of one-off and highly specialized programs needed for scientific study, engineering and many other industries. Now I wasn't sure where to put this little bit so we're gon na chuck it in productivity, shortcut keys, so many shortcut keys, classic control-alt-delete for when things go wrong windows and one two three and four to launch the corresponding app on your taskbar go ahead and 

Try it it's really cool and if you like bad one, you can grab the other new power toy that lets. You hold the Windows key to see all the shortcut keys for your active programs. Oh productivity bliss awaits my friends. Seven is OS unity with some notable exceptions. Windows hasn't changed too drastically over the years. So if you went straight from Windows, XP to Windows, 10 you'd probably find your way around it sooner rather than later, and if you're a technician. This can be really nice because it's not uncommon to find yourself working on a different version from one hour to the next. It'S a totally different experience compared to Linux, which has I don't know, I stopped counting after 30, let's just say a lot of different distros or versions that are designed for a multitude of different tasks or specialized use cases. 

There are mainstream optimized distros out there, but if you don't consult the internet beforehand as a newcomer, it can get really confusing and thing is even if you do consult the internet. People might not agree on which flavor of the month is vastly women do bunt to stop being cool. Eight was a bit of a surprise to me, but it came up a lot. So maybe I just take the taskbar and file explorer for granted. The modern taskbar is a great tool for maintaining a clean and organized desktop, giving you quick access to frequently used programs and offering up a quick preview of all of your active windows as for File Explorer. Well, it's got its issues. The search is pretty slow. The up, folder navigation is done. Sometimes, documents should go to sequel and slash users, slash your username, not this PC etc. 

But it's got wide support for thumbnail, previews lots of useful information readily available, and it requires no keyboard shortcut to cut paste. Sometimes you don't have to be great just better than your competitor. 9 is reliability with good Hardware. The days of daily blue screens are long. Gone crashes do still exist, but for years now I've experienced long periods of smooth and stable performance. Microsoft does have some work cut out for them to make their automatic updates mover in the regarde, but they at least seem to be aware of the problem. At this point, bringing us to ten finally sort of related to gaming to compatibility, got an old program from the Windows XP days. Well, there's a decent chance that, with some trial and error, you will be able to get it to run even in the latest. Builds of Windows 10. 

There are just so many specific use programs that have been written over the last couple of decades and losing access to them because of an OS update could be devastating for some people. Compatibility mode actually works more often than you'd think and when it doesn't, some quick googling will often bring up a solution, and the cool thing is that goes. Both ways got a computer that mom bought 10 years ago, but still wants to use. Well, there's a solid chance that Windows and most programs that run on it will still work on that, even if not very well. Our Skull trail system from 2008 was actually a great example of this no driver issues and, aside from a couple of games that refused to launch because of missing CPU instructions, our issues were related to performance rather than to compatibility, so guys go check out that video. 

If you haven't already now one of the tools we love using on Windows comes, of course, from our sponsor for this portion of today's video LastPass LastPass relieves the troubles of remembering your passwords and reduces the anxiety about getting locked out of your accounts and then waiting For reset password emails, you won't need to write down, remember or reset passwords anymore with LastPass LastPass allows you to keep track of an unlimited number of passwords and not just passwords. Even just things like you know, Wi-Fi codes or just things you want to remember and store somewhere safe, and it doesn't only work for desktop it even works on mobile sites and apps for both iOS and Android. When you open an app or a site, LastPass will fill in your username and password making logging in easy, so click the link below to find out more about LastPass. So, thanks for watching guys hope you enjoyed this video see you 

[dropswisdom]

Introduction

Inphic SPOT i5 is one of the newest models from the Chinese manufacturer Inphic.

My thanks goes to the Inphic team and especially Javier, for providing this review sample!

It uses the cheaper and less powerful little brother of the AMLogic chipset family – the S805.

That means that if you’re looking for 4K playback, you better look elsewhere, as this device tops out at 1080p.

It also means that the price point is quite low. Inphic did a promotion a short while ago, where it sold the first 100 units that came out for half price – that’s 13 USD, excluding shipping.

Therefore, the regular price stands at around 26 USD. But for now, the price is still low at about 15.6 USD per unit, or about 26.82 USD with shipping.

What do we get in the box?

The Inphic SPOT i5, DC Power adapter, Micro-USB to female USB adapter (the device only offers one micro-USB slot), a Infra-red remote control, a small user manual, and a (white) HDMI cable.

Modest, but as can be expected from a device that’s been designed to offer a good price.

The device arrived with an initial version of firmware, but after a few days, I was sent an updated OTA application that allowed me to update to the latest firmware which includes rooting (and I added SuperSu to allow permissions management) and corrected at least one of the issues: 3d Mark managed to run after installation, after not being able to before. PC Mark 8 installed and run (only from downloaded APK) but would only perform the tests in portrait mode and still could not complete them.

All issues found have been reported to manufacturer and hopefully will be addressed in time.

Looks and design

The i5 is an interesting animal in the TV boxes world. For one, it’s not even shaped as a box. Instead, it’s designed as a top hemisphere, a beetle, or half of a ball. It is offered in one of four colors (Red, Blue, Black or White), and stands out in the sea of rectangular TV boxes out there. It’s made of soft plastic/rubber, and may turn sticky over time in a warm/hot environment, so be aware.

For another, it’s main purpose is to keep costs down, while still offering a reasonable performance. How does it do it, and does it succeed? You’ll have to keep reading to find out.

Specifications

Chipset AMLogic S805 Quad-core Cortex-A5 at 1.5GHz GPU Quad-core Mali-450 at 600MHz+ Memory / Storage 1GB DDR3 RAM / 8GB eMMC LAN 10/100M Ethernet, (Realtek) Wireless 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi OS Android 4.4.2 Video & Audio Output HDMI 1.b up to 1080p60 with CEC support Power DC 5V/1.5A Peripheral Interface 1x micro USB OTG port, micro SD slot up to 32GB, IR receiver and LED, 1 * HDMI(A type Male), 1 * RJ45 LAN Port Packing Included 1 * SPOT i5, 1 * Adapter(DC 5V/1.5A), 1 * HDMI Cable ,1 * IR Remote Controller,1 * USB OTG adapter cable, a user’s manual

Benchmarks and Testing

All benchmarks have been repeated 3 times and results have been averaged to give a more accurate reading:

Antutu Benchmark

The Antutu benchmark tests single core performance over multi-core as it is a better indication of the performance of one device over others in most situations. As can be seen, this budget box performs a little better than the HiSilicon 3798M based box, and a part of its poor performance can be attributed to the low amount of working RAM (1GB) that it carries.

GPU Mark Benchmark

Average and Normalized score

GPU Mark Average Frames per Second

GPU Mark tests 3d gaming performance and also provides a normalized score according to the used screen resolution (for a more accurate result). The test is quite short and should be taken as a supporting result to that of the more serious 3D Mark benchmark. The average FPS score is a bit surprising as it’s not as bad as can be expected, and can be due to the fact that the GPU is similar (although at a lower clock speed) then that of the faster options tested.

A1 SD Benchmark

A1 SD Benchmark tests RAM and flash memory speeds. As can be seen in the provided graphs, RAM is much faster (by a factor of about 40) than flash memory – that is why it’s in smaller amount and is also volatile (does not keep its contents after a reboot). The included RAM in this box is fairly slow, and it affects the performance just as much as the low amount of it. This is likely due to the need to cut costs on this model.

PC Mark Benchmark

Benchmark would not run

3D Mark Benchmark

3D Mark is a labor intensive 3D animation and gaming Benchmark. It runs a series of 3d heavy game and video animations. In the case of the i5, it pointed quite clearly at the box’s inability to handle heavy tasks. Do not try to use it as a gaming android machine – it is simply not up to the task.

Video Playback testing (Using KODI)

Resolution Video Format Local Playback Network (Wi-Fi/LAN) Playback 720p (1280*720) AVC (High@L4.1) Playing correctly Playing correctly* 1080P (1920*1080) AVC (High@L4) Playing correctly Playing correctly*  2160P (3840*2160) HEVC (H.265) – 10Bit Does not play Does not play 4K (4096*2304) AVC (High@L5.1) Does not play Does not play 4K TS HEVC files HEVC (H.265) Does not play Does not play

* A small amount of buffering occurred while playing some HD content off of local area network. Both over Wi-Fi and Wired connections. Issue has been reported to the manufacturer.

As the testing, and as I previously already knew from information on the internet, the AMLogic S805 is not capable of 4K (sometimes referred to as 2160p or UltraHD) video playback. I only tested it on Kodi, but unlike other boxes, it does not include a 4K external player application and that is further evidence to the fact.

Gaming performance

 Frames Per Second Minix Neo X8-H (Amlogic S802) Probox2 EX+ (Amlogic S812) Inphic SPOT i5 (AMLogic S805) Asphalt 8 Airborne 23 33  17 Angry Birds 2 30 31  14 Walking War Robots 25 29  19

 Resource Usage Minix Neo X8-H (Amlogic S802) Probox2 EX+ (Amlogic S812) Inphic SPOT i5 (AMLogic S805) Asphalt 8 Airborne 8%, 169MB 12%, 326MB  9%, 94MB Angry Birds 2 9%, 201MB 13%, 315MB  13%, 181MB Walking War Robots 10%, 99MB 13%, 275MB  14%, 93MB

I should mention: Asphalt 8 was playable, but it crashed out to the desktop several times mid-game, and loading was VERY slow. Angry Birds mostly worked well, with slow loading times. WWR worked quite well, but I think it is better coded and less heavy than the other two. In short, don’t get this device to play games, unless you enjoy waiting.

Conclusions

The i5 is a different kind of kodi machine, both for its unusual shape and its target audience. It gives an average performance but also comes at one of the cheapest prices out there. It is not a gaming device.

The manufacturer Inphic does seem to listen and work on the correction of the issues I found. Remember that aside from the low specs, it is a brand new model that did not yet have time to go through too many firmware upgrade cycles. I’m sure that the device will get better with time.

Did I like it? Not especially, but I recognize that for its price point, it may be a good option for some.

Would I recommend it? Yes, but only for price conscious buyers and those who want a only-kodi device that tops out at 1080p video.

I give it…  2.75/5 Stars – Passing marks, with hopes that future updates will correct some if not all the issues found.

Let shareasale.com find sales leads for you. Only pay when it works!

Review | Inphic SPOT i5 TV Box Introduction Inphic SPOT i5 is one of the newest models from the Chinese manufacturer Inphic. My thanks goes to the Inphic team and especially Javier, for providing this review sample!

[appdesignsmelbourne-blog]

Android App Development For Tablets

HTC Puccini, the arrival of a totally new tablet within the town is round the corner. HTC Puccini smacked the FCC last session. Now it is prepared to bring a revolutionary change in the way people view products. It's a ten inch tablet with advanced features. Each of the websites revealed best and back of the gadget. Its back will have 8 MP Camera with embedded dual LED flash and a speaker along at the other door. This Android device will host a 6.5 GHz dual core processor, Android Honeycomb, a 4G LTE radio, and HTC Pick up on. Though the launch of this powerful device is not yet disclosed, we predict it to hit U.S. markets in summer with AT&T service. How to I test my app before printer? Take the time to go and review the back-end coding and test the nose functions. One thing way accomplish . this is to liberate a beta copy. You will want to ensure your app is working correctly and operational with all known glitches and errors corrected before general take back. This brings me to the next phase of Android App Development Melbourne desire to be app vetted for attention. There is nearly always a criteria set for approval and rejection for apps handed over. The vetting rules and guidelines vary depending on the platform. I have recently started learning how to design apps for the iPhone myself and I became intrigued once i came across an over the internet training course called iPhone app Dev Secrets. You are able to thought I'd personally post a quick overview of the things the iPhone application Dev Secrets series involves just incase is everyone is thinking about giving it a plus wants learn more about it. Internet Explorer 10 and the of its new functions will be included into the lineup of awesome technology in the Windows Phone 8. Getting we get faster, iPhone App Development Melbourne better browsing and also the new SmartScreen Sift. Choose the right day for your app new product. Apple lets you control the day and time of the launch once your app qualifies. This is leading part of developing an app for that iPad drug. Conduct Local App Development Company , and release your app in the best possible time. Able to your app is assigned to a particular event or occasion, guarantee to obtain the timing legal right. Nokia, Samsung, RIM, HP and Microsoft all have big cash piles to complete their mobile OS strategy. They may not get this is equally number of app developers to adopt their platform as Apple or Google and an individual fail ultimately. However, it will do mean that they invest huge amounts of money in marketing, pay developers for iphone Cheap iPhone App Development Company melbourne and request big brands and software program as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google, and so on. to build for their birdseed feeders. They will not give up in another 2-3 months and months. It hurts to see someone chained to a desk all day, specifically he features a creative mind that nurtures great ways. Are you going to sit check out as almost all your tips for applications get implemented by someone else, because may not use the "program" on your own experience some benefits. What deadline have got kept to finally accomplish it? https://www.vic.gov.au/decide-if-you-need-mobile-app depends on you! It up loads your app with beautiful graphic that have multi dimensional effect. With changing patterns it keeps full hang on your customer. In fact in word of selling packing style counts tons. You should contact us when you are going to be able to finalize the packing style of your mobile app. The world is filled with cultural differences. Our experts can tell you which color of individuals app develop into popular where country can.So don't forget for taking help from App Marketing Services in this regard.

[fazeupmag-blog]

New Post has been published on Fazeup

New Post has been published on https://www.fazeup.tk/2019/06/12-issues-it-is-advisable-know-in-tech-at-the-moment/

12 issues it is advisable know in tech at the moment

Right here’s your day by day tech digest, by means of the DGiT Every day publication, for Friday, June 7, 2019!

1. Google Stadia: What we now know

Google’s Stadia Join occasion revealed a number of the core particulars we’ve been eager to know for the reason that first unveiling of the streaming gaming platform again in mid-March.

What we now know: pricing, availability, and video games.

Earlier than these particulars, the large takeaways:

We now know for certain this isn’t fairly “Netflix for games” however extra of a PlayStation Now / Xbox Sport Move deal. Pay to play, with some video games included, however not all.

The included or bundled video games shall be some older PC and console video games, however any new AAA title that’s obtainable on Stadia will nonetheless must be bought earlier than you possibly can play it.

When you personal it, it’s obtainable in all places, and begins inside seconds, with none ready for downloads, patches, updates, and so forth.

And Future 2 is included in a particular once-off deal – extra on that under.

Now let’s check out the brand new particulars.

Pricing:

Google introduced Stadia Professional as its essential pricing mannequin.

Stadia Professional which prices $9.99 a month within the U.S. and 9.99 EUR. It does supply entry to a bundle of older PC and console video games abruptly in a Netflix-style enterprise mannequin. It is going to help as much as 4K decision and 60fps for video games.

There’s another choice earlier than launch, a restricted “Founder’s Edition” model of Stadia.

This limited-time supply contains three months of Stadia Professional service, a Chromecast Extremely, and a restricted version Evening Blue Google Stadia recreation controller, plus full entry to Bungie’s first-person shooter sequel, Future 2, through Stadia. There’s additionally a buddy move code for 3 months of Stadia Professional to present to a buddy.

This launch pack prices $129 within the U.S. and $169 in Canada, and 129 EUR elsewhere.

Pre-order it right here.

There’s a free model too known as Stadia Base – coming in 2020. Purchase any recreation with Stadia, play totally free, restricted to 1080p high quality, and stereo sound moderately than 5.1 encompass sound. Which is an effective deal, even with the restrictions, if and when it occurs.

Availability:

Coming in November, Stadia is obtainable in 14 nations at first, simply in Europe and North America.

The U.S. and Canada, UK, then European nations together with Germany (yay), Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Eire, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden:

Which excludes an enormous quantity of individuals, together with the same old launch nations like Australia, Japan, India, Singapore, Taiwan, and even Mexico.

We don’t know why that’s, nevertheless it’s most likely a mix of Google knowledge heart areas and common broadband speeds.

Video games:

We all know there’ll be a minimum of 31 video games obtainable, together with Doom Everlasting, Doom (2016), Rage 2, The Elder Scrolls On-line, Farming Simulator 19, Baldur’s Gate III, Tomb Raider trilogy, NBA 2K, Borderlands 3, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, and Future 2 after all, plus new video games Gylt and Get Packed, and extra.

Some titles will get a reduction if you buy through a Stadia Professional subscription, too.

At this stage, I’m uncertain if the most important element or the smallest element is the quantity and titles of the video games obtainable.

With a November launch, and with E3 subsequent week, it’s possible there are extra video games popping out or introduced with compatibility – together with first-party video games from Google’s personal recreation studio Stadia Video games and Leisure.

I paid up, which is bizarre for me:

I historically like to attend and see with new merchandise, however I purchased the Founder’s Version on day one.

Why?

My Android Authority colleague Joe Hindy irresistibly pushed me over the sting with these factors:

“If there’s something on this planet I’m a sucker for, it’s restricted version recreation controllers! Plus, a Chromecast Extremely is like $70, and also you get the three months of $9.99 Stadia Professional content material.

So it truly finally ends up being cheaper than simply the common controllers. $29 for a restricted version controller. Bought.”

Now, Joe’s proper. However there’s a counter to this – you don’t really want the Stadia controller to play – you possibly can recreation through Google Chrome in your laptop computer with mouse and keyboard, for instance, or use a DualShock Four or Xbox One controller that you simply already personal if you happen to personal a Chromecast, or along with your cellphone (solely Google Pixel Three and 3a gadgets are appropriate at launch, thus far).

Oh, and importantly, I gained’t have a problem with obtain speeds with a good connection in Berlin, in order that cleared me to purchase up much more.

Take a look at out your individual speeds before you purchase through Stadia’s particular velocity take a look at.

Extra – Google Stadia takes on the gaming trade: The whole lot it is advisable know (AA), and every part introduced in a three-minute wrap (Twitter).

2. Huawei’s personal OS may come as quickly as August/September, in accordance with Chinese language state media (AA).

3. HTC nonetheless makes smartphones, launching a brand new one subsequent week (AA).

4. Nokia 2.2 introduced: Who needs an Android One cellphone for 99 euros? (AA).

5. Google confirms that a complicated backdoor got here preinstalled on Android gadgets, put in earlier than gadgets had been constructed (Ars Technica).

6. The intelligent cryptography behind Apple’s “Find My” characteristic (Ars Technica).

7. Google Search gained’t present greater than two prime outcomes from the identical web site (Engadget).

8. There’s a Breaking Dangerous cellular recreation, now obtainable on the Play Retailer (AA).

9. Blizzard cancels StarCraft first-person shooter to give attention to “Diablo 4” and “Overwatch 2” (Kotaku).

10. “Uber Copter” to supply flights from decrease Manhattan to J.F.Okay. (NY Instances).

11. Watching a Boston Dynamics robotic malfunction is fairly scary (Vice).

Most clicked hyperlink this week:

12. The 80-mile large, 80-mile large ladybug swarm that confirmed up on climate radars (NPR).

DGiT Every day: Your Tech Useful resource

In case you don’t know, the DGiT Every day delivers a day by day e-mail that retains you forward of the curve for all tech information, opinions, and hyperlinks to what’s happening within the planet’s most necessary discipline. You get all of the context and perception you want, and all with a contact of enjoyable, and the day by day enjoyable component that you simply in any other case miss.

Supply

[techbotic]

Android Weekly: What’s Coming in Android Q (and Some Other Stuff)

There was a lot of movement in the Android world the week of March 8th thru 15th. The Q beta landed with all sorts of new features, Vivo showed off a portless phone, and Google killed a bunch of services.

Android Q Feature Roundup

Let’s start with the biggest Android news for the week, shall we? The Q beta landed for all Pixel devices, and it’s jam-packed with all sorts of new features. Android Police and 9to5Google both did an incredible job of covering all the new stuff as it showed up—here’s everything so far.

The Android Q Beta is here. For Pixel phones, anyway. [Android Developers Blog]

The word on the street is that Q is also going to hit even more devices during the beta and developer previews this year. [Android Police]

With the upcoming demise of Google+, the Android Beta community has been moved to Reddit. [Android Police]

Android Q has a built-in screen recorder! But apparently, it’s broken right now. [9to5Google, Android Police]

There are more haptic feedback vibrations in Android Q. Okay then! [9to5Google]

Foldable phones are coming. Q is ready. [Android Police]

The always-on display in Q got a bit of a makeover. [9to5Google]

The Files app is all new, with an updated look and some nifty new features. [Android Police]

Google is cracking down on undocumented APIs to make Q more secure. [Android Police]

The sharing menu is getting faster and less crappy. Finally! [9to5Google]

Thanks to some ART enhancements, apps launching should be faster. [Android Police]

Android Q has a desktop mode! Which is…kind of confusing. Why does Android Q have a desktop mode? [XDA Developers]

Pixel Launcher on Android Q will let you replace removed items with a new undo feature. [Android Police]

Dual SIM and standby support on the Pixel 3 is live in Q. [XDA Developers]

There’s a little bell icon for new notifications now, so you can tell which one just pinged. That’s useful! [9to5Google]

You can share your Wi-Fi password with a QR code. [Android Police]

Remaining battery shows an estimated time in the shade now. [Android Police]

You can only dismiss notifications by swiping to the right in Q—the left is the action menu. Oof. [9to5Google]

So many new privacy features. [Android Police]

Accent colors and new icons shapes are tucked into Q’s Developer Options menu. Are more customization options incoming? [Android Police]

You can switch the audio source from the notification shade. [9to5Google]

Rounded corners and the notch show up in screenshots in Q. Yuck. [Android Police]

There are more options when you long-press a notification, which is neat. [Android Police]

Third-party camera apps have access to depth effects and more. [Engadget]

Call screening and emergency information apps are now part of Android’s Default Apps menu. Third-party options don’t exist yet, so this is telling. [Android Police]

Background clipboard access is blocked in Android Q, which probably means bad things for clipboard managers. [XDA Developers]

Smart Home and IoT connections are getting simpler in Q. [Android Police]

Battery Saver is more dynamic in Q, with the option to automatically activate based on usage. [Android Police]

There’s a new series of options called “Feature Flags” that lets users tweak all sorts of stuff. [9to5Google]

You can see all your disabled notifications in one place in Q. [Android Police]

It looks like Google is planning six betas in total, with the final release in Q3 of 2019. [XDA Developers]

In what’s sure to make some users upset, the Magisk dev says that Q could mean bad things for root access. Uh-oh. [9to5Google]

Vivo’s Portless Phone Shows Its Stuff

Chinese phone manufacturer Vivo showed off an absolutely gorgeous portless concept phone to a group of writers in Hong Kong. The shell of the phone is a unibody piece of glass—apparently, Vivo had to come up with a special production method to form, cut, grind, and polish a single piece of glass for the body of this phone. It’s wild.

You can read more about this forward-thinking handset at The Verge and Engadget.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Updates (And More)

All sorts of stuff happened with Samsung’s newest flagship this week. Some good, some bad. Some just neat. Here’s you go.

If you hate the S10’s hole punch camera cutout, these are the wallpapers for you. [XDA Developers]

Samsung pushes the one-handed gesture navigation app from One UI to the Play Store. This means it can be updated independently of the OS. Nice. [Android Police]

S10 owners can get six months of free Spotify Premium. The downside? Spotify is pre-installed on all S10s. You win some, you lose some. [The Verge]

Speaking of free stuff for S10 owners, they also get four months of YouTube Premium. Yay for no ads! [9to5Google]

In slightly less pleasant news, the S10’s face unlock feature easily can be fooled by a picture because Samsung removed the retina scanner. Ouch. [Android Police]

Verizon started pushing Android 9 Pie with One UI to the Note 9. Better late than never, I guess. [Android Police]

Similarly, Android Pie started hitting the Galaxy A+ this week, too. [XDA Developers]

Samsung wants to make a “perfect full-screen” phone with no cutouts or notches. Interesting. [Engadget]

What’s New with Google This Week

Google announced some stuff, killed some stuff, and maybe killed some other stuff. This is everything that isn’t the Android Q Beta.

Finally, Google released an Android Q feedback app. [9to5Google]

Google Fit is getting more battery efficient on Wear OS. All three of you who use Fit and Wear OS better be grateful. [9to5Google]

Google Home Hub and other Assistant smart displays finally got continued conversations. Finally. [Android Police]

Google teased its upcoming game streaming service. It’s going to announce plans at GDC next week. Exciting stuff. [Google on Twitter]

Speaking of, Google filed a patent for a game controller. [The Verge]

If you subscribe to Google Fi and bring your existing number and device, you get a free month of service. That’s better than a not free month of service if you ask me. [Android Police]

Deaths: Allo, goo.gl URL shortener, Inbox, and Google+. RIP, those things. [9to5Google]

Third-party Google Assistant speakers are getting phone calls. [Android Police]

Google shut down part of its hardware division focused on tablets and laptops, which is troubling. [9to5Google]

If you use Google One and pay for 2TB of storage, Google probably wants to give you a free Home Mini. [Android Police]

Google’s Lookout app for the visually impaired is now available for download…assuming you have a Pixel device, anyway. [The Verge, Google Play]

The Drive mobile apps got a facelift to match the web UI. It’s pretty. [Engadget]

Google Maps is getting more features from Waze, like speed trap and crash reporting. Nice. [9to5Google]

Good news: An adware app had almost 150 million downloads before Google realized it and pulled it from the Play Store. Also, I think I need to work on my definition of “good news.” [The Verge]

Chrome’s data saver on mobile now works on HTTPS sites, which is like 80% of the web at this point. I think that really is good news. [Android Police]

Shared Libraries on Photos moved to a more obscure place that still kinda makes sense? [Android Police]

Device Updates, App Updates, and Everything Else

There were a couple of major app updates this week, along with some minor device updates. Also, RED said some stuff about the Hydrogen One that pretty much confused everyone.

Pushbullet got a major update that brings bundled notification, quick replies, and some other stuff. [Android Police]

Facebook is testing a blindingly-white interface in its Android app. I’m sure that’s going to go over well if it gets released. [XDA Developers]

Spotify is testing an option to let users disable its dumbest feature: canvas videos. Good. [9to5Google]

Microsoft’s My Phone feature in Windows 10 is getting screen mirroring. [The Verge]

The Xiami Redmi Note 7 got its first MIUI update, which brings a low-light camera mode. [XDA Developers]

The NVIDIA SHIELD got a small update that brings Xbox Elite Controller support and some other stuff. [9to5Google]

You know the little dinosaur you see in Chrome when it’s offline? Well, you can buy a real one now. I need it. [Dead Zebra]

RED pulled the add-on modules for the Hydrogen One, then said some confusing stuff. [Android Police]

The Xiaomi Mi 8 got official LineageOS support. [XDA Developers]

T-Mobile’s OnePlus 6T got RCS messaging. So it begins. [9to5Google]

Firefox Fenix got its initial release. It looks neat. [Techdows]

Root Stuff: The 2015 Amazon Fire TV got rooted again. Go modders, go. [XDA Developers]

Root Stuff: GravityBox can be installed on Android Pie devices running the Xposed framework now. [XDA Developers]

Some details about Motorola upcoming Razr folding phone leaked. Curiously, it’s said to be using a Snapdragon 710 processor. Weird. [XDA Developers]

That’s a lot of stuff, but that’s how it goes in Google’s world. Something is always happening.

Android Weekly: What’s Coming in Android Q (and Some Other Stuff) published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

[blakcmambaa]

There was a lot of movement in the Android world the week of March 8th thru 15th. The Q beta landed with all sorts of new features, Vivo showed off a portless phone, and Google killed a bunch of services.

Android Q Feature Roundup

Let’s start with the biggest Android news for the week, shall we? The Q beta landed for all Pixel devices, and it’s jam-packed with all sorts of new features. Android Police and 9to5Google both did an incredible job of covering all the new stuff as it showed up—here’s everything so far.

The Android Q Beta is here. For Pixel phones, anyway. [Android Developers Blog]

The word on the street is that Q is also going to hit even more devices during the beta and developer previews this year. [Android Police]

With the upcoming demise of Google+, the Android Beta community has been moved to Reddit. [Android Police]

Android Q has a built-in screen recorder! But apparently, it’s broken right now. [9to5Google, Android Police]

There are more haptic feedback vibrations in Android Q. Okay then! [9to5Google]

Foldable phones are coming. Q is ready. [Android Police]

The always-on display in Q got a bit of a makeover. [9to5Google]

The Files app is all new, with an updated look and some nifty new features. [Android Police]

Google is cracking down on undocumented APIs to make Q more secure. [Android Police]

The sharing menu is getting faster and less crappy. Finally! [9to5Google]

Thanks to some ART enhancements, apps launching should be faster. [Android Police]

Android Q has a desktop mode! Which is…kind of confusing. Why does Android Q have a desktop mode? [XDA Developers]

Pixel Launcher on Android Q will let you replace removed items with a new undo feature. [Android Police]

Dual SIM and standby support on the Pixel 3 is live in Q. [XDA Developers]

There’s a little bell icon for new notifications now, so you can tell which one just pinged. That’s useful! [9to5Google]

You can share your Wi-Fi password with a QR code. [Android Police]

Remaining battery shows an estimated time in the shade now. [Android Police]

You can only dismiss notifications by swiping to the right in Q—the left is the action menu. Oof. [9to5Google]

So many new privacy features. [Android Police]

Accent colors and new icons shapes are tucked into Q’s Developer Options menu. Are more customization options incoming? [Android Police]

You can switch the audio source from the notification shade. [9to5Google]

Rounded corners and the notch show up in screenshots in Q. Yuck. [Android Police]

There are more options when you long-press a notification, which is neat. [Android Police]

Third-party camera apps have access to depth effects and more. [Engadget]

Call screening and emergency information apps are now part of Android’s Default Apps menu. Third-party options don’t exist yet, so this is telling. [Android Police]

Background clipboard access is blocked in Android Q, which probably means bad things for clipboard managers. [XDA Developers]

Smart Home and IoT connections are getting simpler in Q. [Android Police]

Battery Saver is more dynamic in Q, with the option to automatically activate based on usage. [Android Police]

There’s a new series of options called “Feature Flags” that lets users tweak all sorts of stuff. [9to5Google]

You can see all your disabled notifications in one place in Q. [Android Police]

It looks like Google is planning six betas in total, with the final release in Q3 of 2019. [XDA Developers]

In what’s sure to make some users upset, the Magisk dev says that Q could mean bad things for root access. Uh-oh. [9to5Google]

Vivo’s Portless Phone Shows Its Stuff

Chinese phone manufacturer Vivo showed off an absolutely gorgeous portless concept phone to a group of writers in Hong Kong. The shell of the phone is a unibody piece of glass—apparently, Vivo had to come up with a special production method to form, cut, grind, and polish a single piece of glass for the body of this phone. It’s wild.

You can read more about this forward-thinking handset at The Verge and Engadget.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Updates (And More)

All sorts of stuff happened with Samsung’s newest flagship this week. Some good, some bad. Some just neat. Here’s you go.

If you hate the S10’s hole punch camera cutout, these are the wallpapers for you. [XDA Developers]

Samsung pushes the one-handed gesture navigation app from One UI to the Play Store. This means it can be updated independently of the OS. Nice. [Android Police]

S10 owners can get six months of free Spotify Premium. The downside? Spotify is pre-installed on all S10s. You win some, you lose some. [The Verge]

Speaking of free stuff for S10 owners, they also get four months of YouTube Premium. Yay for no ads! [9to5Google]

In slightly less pleasant news, the S10’s face unlock feature easily can be fooled by a picture because Samsung removed the retina scanner. Ouch. [Android Police]

Verizon started pushing Android 9 Pie with One UI to the Note 9. Better late than never, I guess. [Android Police]

Similarly, Android Pie started hitting the Galaxy A+ this week, too. [XDA Developers]

Samsung wants to make a “perfect full-screen” phone with no cutouts or notches. Interesting. [Engadget]

What’s New with Google This Week

Google announced some stuff, killed some stuff, and maybe killed some other stuff. This is everything that isn’t the Android Q Beta.

Finally, Google released an Android Q feedback app. [9to5Google]

Google Fit is getting more battery efficient on Wear OS. All three of you who use Fit and Wear OS better be grateful. [9to5Google]

Google Home Hub and other Assistant smart displays finally got continued conversations. Finally. [Android Police]

Google teased its upcoming game streaming service. It’s going to announce plans at GDC next week. Exciting stuff. [Google on Twitter]

Speaking of, Google filed a patent for a game controller. [The Verge]

If you subscribe to Google Fi and bring your existing number and device, you get a free month of service. That’s better than a not free month of service if you ask me. [Android Police]

Deaths: Allo, goo.gl URL shortener, Inbox, and Google+. RIP, those things. [9to5Google]

Third-party Google Assistant speakers are getting phone calls. [Android Police]

Google shut down part of its hardware division focused on tablets and laptops, which is troubling. [9to5Google]

If you use Google One and pay for 2TB of storage, Google probably wants to give you a free Home Mini. [Android Police]

Google’s Lookout app for the visually impaired is now available for download…assuming you have a Pixel device, anyway. [The Verge, Google Play]

The Drive mobile apps got a facelift to match the web UI. It’s pretty. [Engadget]

Google Maps is getting more features from Waze, like speed trap and crash reporting. Nice. [9to5Google]

Good news: An adware app had almost 150 million downloads before Google realized it and pulled it from the Play Store. Also, I think I need to work on my definition of “good news.” [The Verge]

Chrome’s data saver on mobile now works on HTTPS sites, which is like 80% of the web at this point. I think that really is good news. [Android Police]

Shared Libraries on Photos moved to a more obscure place that still kinda makes sense? [Android Police]

Device Updates, App Updates, and Everything Else

There were a couple of major app updates this week, along with some minor device updates. Also, RED said some stuff about the Hydrogen One that pretty much confused everyone.

Pushbullet got a major update that brings bundled notification, quick replies, and some other stuff. [Android Police]

Facebook is testing a blindingly-white interface in its Android app. I’m sure that’s going to go over well if it gets released. [XDA Developers]

Spotify is testing an option to let users disable its dumbest feature: canvas videos. Good. [9to5Google]

Microsoft’s My Phone feature in Windows 10 is getting screen mirroring. [The Verge]

The Xiami Redmi Note 7 got its first MIUI update, which brings a low-light camera mode. [XDA Developers]

The NVIDIA SHIELD got a small update that brings Xbox Elite Controller support and some other stuff. [9to5Google]

You know the little dinosaur you see in Chrome when it’s offline? Well, you can buy a real one now. I need it. [Dead Zebra]

RED pulled the add-on modules for the Hydrogen One, then said some confusing stuff. [Android Police]

The Xiaomi Mi 8 got official LineageOS support. [XDA Developers]

T-Mobile’s OnePlus 6T got RCS messaging. So it begins. [9to5Google]

Firefox Fenix got its initial release. It looks neat. [Techdows]

Root Stuff: The 2015 Amazon Fire TV got rooted again. Go modders, go. [XDA Developers]

Root Stuff: GravityBox can be installed on Android Pie devices running the Xposed framework now. [XDA Developers]

Some details about Motorola upcoming Razr folding phone leaked. Curiously, it’s said to be using a Snapdragon 710 processor. Weird. [XDA Developers]

That’s a lot of stuff, but that’s how it goes in Google’s world. Something is always happening.

via How-To Geek

[applecybermonday]

Cyber Monday Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Deals

Looking for latest Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals? then check this post to avail Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday 2018 Deals, Sales & Ads.

Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals, Sales & Ads

Thе Pros

Durable design with two-year accidental-damage protection;

Robust parental controls;

Tons of free, age-appropriate content;

Long battery life;

Bright screen

Thе Cons

Soft speakers;

Weak cameras

Verdict With its durable chassis, powerful parental controls and rich content library, thе Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition is thе children's tablet tо beat.

Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Promo Codes and Coupons

Check out our daily refreshed list of the best deals for Cyber Monday and Cyber Monday. $40 off All-New Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet. 

Save $40 on Fire HD 8 Kids Edition, only $89.99 – and save an additional $10 when you buy two Fire HD 8 Kids Edition, only $169.98

List of TOP Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals

Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet, 8" HD Display, 32 GB, Blue Kid-Proof Case

$129.99

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Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet Variety Pack, 8" HD Display, 32 GB, (Blue/Pink) Kid-Proof Case

$259.98

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Fire HD 8 Kids Essentials Bundle with Fire HD 8 Kids Edition (Pink), NuPro Sleeve (Purple/Pink)...

$147.97

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Last updated on August 21, 2018 3:51 am

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Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals, Sales & Ads

Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Promo Codes and Coupons

List of TOP Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals

Top Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Deals 

Details Of TOP Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals

Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals, Sales & Ads

Read More About this Cyber Monday deals

Final Words About Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday DEALS

Top Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Deals 

1. Save $50 on the All-New Fire HD 10 Tablet With Alexa 2. Save $30 Percent on All-New Fire 7 Kids Edition Tablet 3. 25 Percent Off the Kindle Paperwhite E-reader 4. $90 off Fire HD 8” Kids Edition Tablet Two Pack 5. Free Fire 7 Tablet With Rosetta Stone 12-Month Subscription

Details Of TOP Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals

Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet, 8" HD Display, 32 GB, Blue Kid-Proof Case

$129.99

Free shipping

Buy Now Amazon.com

as of August 21, 2018 3:51 am

Features

Up to 144 in savings on Fire HD 8 tablet, 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, and a Kid-Proof Case, plus a 2-year worry-free guarantee

Not a toy, a full-featured Fire HD 8 tablet with a vibrant HD display, 32 GB internal storage, and up to 12 hours of mixed-use battery life. Add a microSD card for up to 256 GB of expandable storage.

The included 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited gives your kids access to 15,000 popular apps and games, videos, books, and educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more. Your subscription will then automatically renew every month starting at just 2.99 per month plus applicable tax. You may cancel at any time by visiting the Amazon Parent Dashboard or contacting Customer Service

2-year worry-free guarantee: if they break it, return it and we'll replace it for free. No questions asked.

One year of FreeTime Unlimited gives you access to 15,000 popular apps and games, videos, books, and educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more

Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet Variety Pack, 8" HD Display, 32 GB, (Blue/Pink) Kid-Proof Case

$259.98

Buy Now Amazon.com

as of August 21, 2018 3:51 am

Features

Contains two Fire HD 8 Kids Edition tablets (32 GB): one with a Blue Kid-Proof Case, and one with a Pink Kid-Proof Case

Not a toy, a full-featured Fire HD 8 tablet with a vibrant HD display, 32 GB internal storage, and up to 12 hours of mixed-use battery life. Add a microSD card for up to 256 GB of expandable storage.

The included 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited gives your kids access to 15,000 popular apps and games, videos, books, and educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more. Your subscription will then automatically renew every month starting at just $2.99 per month plus applicable tax. You may cancel at any time by visiting the Amazon Parent Dashboard or contacting Customer Service

2-year worry-free guarantee: if they break it, return it and we'll replace it for free. No questions asked.

One year of FreeTime Unlimited gives you access to 15,000 popular apps and games, videos, books, and educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more

Fire HD 8 Kids Essentials Bundle with Fire HD 8 Kids Edition (Pink), NuPro Sleeve (Purple/Pink) and Screen Protector (Clear)

$162.97 $147.97

1 new from $147.97

Buy Now Amazon.com

as of August 21, 2018 3:51 am

Features

Includes the latest Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet, Pink ($129.99), Kids Zipper Sleeve, Purple/Pink ($19.99), and Nupro Screen Protector, Clear ($12.99).

Up to $144 in savings on Fire HD 8 tablet, 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, and a Kid-Proof Case, plus a 2-year worry-free guarantee

Not a toy, a full-featured Fire HD 8 tablet with a vibrant HD display, 32 GB internal storage, and up to 12 hours of mixed-use battery life. Add a microSD card for up to 256 GB of expandable storage.

2-year worry-free guarantee: if they break it, return it and we'll replace it for free. No questions asked.

One year of FreeTime Unlimited gives you access to 15,000 popular apps and games, videos, books, and educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more

Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday Deals, Sales & Ads

These are the Best Amazon’s Best Cyber Monday Tablet Deals. Choose which suits you better. Thе Fire HD 8 Kids Edition is thе larger of Amazon’s two tablets targeted at children. At heart it’s а standard Fire HD 8, but with а drop-proof rubber case and а year’s free subscription tо thе Fire Fоr Kids service, which provides access tо а wealth of kiddy-friendly content.

Read More About this Cyber Monday deals

What is thе Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition? Thе Fire HD 8 Kids Edition is thе larger of Amazon’s two tablets targeted at children. At heart it’s а standard Fire HD 8, but with а drop-proof rubber case and а year’s free subscription tо thе Fire Fоr Kids service, which provides access tо а wealth of kiddy-friendly content. Amazon Prime Day 2018 Amazon has discounted thе tablet fоr its annual Prime Day sale. You can check out thе new sale price below. Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition – Design and Features So thе core of this package is thе Amazon Fire HD 8 – if thе nuts and bolts of that concern you, feel free tо click away and come back here after. In а nutshell, it’s а cheap and cheerful 8-inch tablet that’s fine as long as you don’t mind being locked into thе Amazon ecosystem. Squeezed into thе supplied Kids Edition case – available in blue, pink or yellow – physically it becomes а very different beast indeed. It’s much fatter and heavier, but very grippable, and it feels like it could survive being hurled across а room in а slushie-fuelled tantrum. Like thе cases of previous Kids Edition tablets, it reminds me of а car steering wheel. It has а little give and а light texturing tо stop it slipping from chocolate-smeared fingers. Thе HD 8 simply squeezes into it with а nice, tight fit. Latest HP Envy photo printer Prime Day deal is а license tо print money iPhone X vs iPhone 8 Plus Thе 6.1-inch iPhone 2018 really looks like it’ll be thе runt of thе litter Toshiba Fire TV Toshiba’s 4K HDR Fire TV Edition sets are well worth а punt on Prime Day US There are holes cut out of thе case fоr thе rear camera, thе stereo speakers along thе bottom, thе volume rocker and 3.5mm headphone socket, as well as thе power button and Micro USB charging port. It still bothers me а little that Amazon doesn’t supply а screen protector, especially considering thе huge premium charged fоr thе Kids Edition over thе standard HD 8. Thе case protrudes far enough from thе screen that it will be а saviour most of thе time, but I’d worry about it being dropped on а pointy wooden toy or something, with thе glass display taking а direct hit. Thankfully, Amazon offers а two-year no-quibble warranty with thе HD 8 Kids Edition. Another thing I’d still like tо see is some form of kickstand, enabling thе tablet tо be stood on а table or floor. Thе EE Robin managed it via а neat folding carry handle, and I’d hope Amazon will try something similar in thе future. Thе HD 8 Kids Edition comes with thе top-tier 32GB of storage, which is handy fоr downloading all those apps your children will probably eat through. A microSD slot means you can even ramp up thе space tо 256GB. Thе final extra that you pay а premium fоr is thе Fire Fоr Kids app and one year’s free subscription tо thе service. This offers а child-friendly overlay with а load of useful parental controls and access tо а ton of decent videos, games and ebooks. Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition – Performance As we said in our review of thе standard HD 8, there’s plenty tо like about Amazon’s tablet, but also а lot it could do better. Thе 8-inch IPS display, fоr instance, is quite reflective and lacks contrast. It does go quite bright, though, so at least you can try tо combat those reflections if it’s used outdoors. Performance from thе MediaTek processor and 2GB of RAM isn’t scintillating, but it’s good enough fоr thе simple apps and video streams that will keep your little ones glued tо thе screen. Thе cameras – а 2-megapixel unit on thе rear and VGA fоr thе front – are both fairly awful by today’s smartphone standards, but again they’ll be decent enough tо let your kids play around. It isn’t like they’ll be Instagramming their Alphabetti Spaghetti, is it? Thе 12-hour battery life is pretty impressive, however. Amazon’s operating system, Fire OS, is Android-based but not Android as you know it. That means you can get most of thе major Android apps fоr Fire OS, including Netflix and thе CBeebies apps, but you can’t get Sky Q or Sky Kids, fоr instance. You’ve been warned. Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition – Fire Fоr Kids app And now tо thе real meat: that one-year subscription tо thе Fire Fоr Kids service. It’s basically а simplified UI that overlays Fire OS and provides access tо masses of age-appropriate content. You open Fire Fоr Kids just like any other app, and it gives you thе option tо add profiles fоr each of thе children who will be using thе tablet. Just give them а name, age, gender and profile pic. You can also decide whether tо assign them а standard Fire Fоr Kids account or give them а Teen Profile, fоr children aged 11 and older. I’ll admit I couldn’t spot much difference between thе two. With your child signed in, they have а choice of content type: Books, Videos, Apps, Characters, and (if you’ve enabled permission) Web. They can also search by title or use thе camera. All of thе categories are crammed with content, and you’ll even recognise most of it – these are mostly well-known brands rather than cheap filler. Browsing by character reveals plenty of familiar faces: Harry Potter, Thomas thе Tank Engine, Fireman Sam, Postman Pat, Gruffalo and а load more, as well as sub-categories such as Dinosaurs, Trains, Princesses, Sports and Superheroes, tо name just а few. There doesn’t seem tо be any real structure tо thе category lists, however, so something like Videos can be а bit overwhelming. Or, rather, you might find your kids never even spot that there’s something in there they would have loved. Some of thе apps can take а long time tо download, and thе progress bar isn’t super-obvious, so you might get your little darlings complaining about things taking too long. Books are much quicker, though, and videos stream almost instantly – but you do need constant Wi-Fi fоr thе latter, so no videos fоr those long journeys in thе car. Handily, you can also download outside apps – such as CBeebies Playtime Island – through your adult account and simply add them tо your child’s approved apps list. This is really useful fоr older children, in particular, as much of thе Fire Fоr Kids content is still targeted at younger kids. One thing Amazon has added is а special web browser, which can be set tо show а curated set of Amazon-approved bookmarks. Any other websites have tо be manually put on thе approved list – although in thе case of YouTube, you can only approve specific videos rather than thе whole site. Within thе Fire Fоr Kids Settings page, there’s also thе option tо Set Daily Goals & Time Limits. You can specify what time of day your child’s profile can be accessed, fоr how long per day, and whether you want tо set them а goal, such as а minimum of 30 minutes reading books. Should I buy thе Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition? Thе HD 8 Kids Edition is а really great tablet fоr children, combining а decent screen size and drop-proof design with а slick UI and tons of truly excellent content. Thе only downsides are а lack of offline video viewing, and thе fact that thе large price premium over thе standard HD 8 only gets you а one-year subscription tо thе Fire Fоr Kids service. Verdict Thе best kids’ tablet so far – although it isn’t without its faults.

Review Source : https://goo.gl/R9M42B

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Final Words About Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Cyber Monday DEALS

Thе HD 8 Kids Edition is а really great tablet fоr children, combining а decent screen size and drop-proof design with а slick UI and tons of truly excellent content. Thе only downsides are а lack of offline video viewing, and thе fact that thе large price premium over thе standard HD 8 only gets you а one-year subscription tо thе Fire Fоr Kids service.

REVIEW & SCORE

From Cyber Monday Plus .com https://cybermondayplus.com/cyber-monday-fire-hd-8-kids-edition-deals/

[lindyhunt]

The 9 Best Password Managers for Every Browser and Budget

If you're anything like me, you've been re-using the same password variation across accounts for years, adding or exchanging the odd number or exclamation point.

An uncomplicated password is simple for you to remember, but it's also easy for someone to hack, making you more susceptible to crimes like identity theft.

Additionally, it's frustrating when you can't remember the password to your Apple ID, because it's a slight variation from your Gmail account and your WiFi password. Why go through all that trouble when you can choose one "master" password for all your accounts?

A password manager can generate, retrieve, and keep track of long, super-random passwords across all your accounts for you -- passwords that would take hackers a lifetime to crack. Password managers also secure critical online information like credit card numbers, three-digit CVV codes, home addresses, and answers to security questions. This information is right at your fingertips, making form-filling faster and easier than ever.

Now, you're probably thinking -- okay, sounds great. But which one should I choose, and how much will it cost? Here, we'll explore the nine best password managers for every browser and budget, to ensure you have all the information you need to make the best decision.

Chrome Password Manager

LastPass

1Password

DashLane

Sticky Password

PadLock

Android Password Manager

Dashlane

LastPass

1Password

Sticky Password

Roboform

Padlock

Firefox Password Manager

Firefox Password Manager

Mac Password Manager

LastPass

1Password

Dashlane

Keychain

Sticky Password

Roboform

Padlock

Dashlane

<keychain< li="">

Free Password Manager

LastPass

Firefox Password Manager

Sticky Password

Roboform

KeePass

PadLock

Dashlane

Keychain

Open Source Password Manager

KeePass

PadLock

1. LastPass (Free)

Accessible in the Chrome Web Store, LastPass is a free password manager that will auto-login to all your sites and sync all your passwords under one "master" password. You can add credit card information to LastPass to checkout online faster, and even attach important documents, images, or PDFs. Best of all, LastPass is free to use on any phone, laptop, or tablet, and you can install the extension on all your computers, so you can save and keep track of important information across all devices.

It's equally important to mention LastPass in app form for Android -- as a standalone app, it's incredibly intuitive and useful. The app offers a security analysis feature, meaning it will scan all your passwords and suggest areas you can improve security. It integrates with Google's Oreo-level autofill function and Android's accessibility system, so it works consistently for any sign-in you come across on your Android.

Works on: Any browser, iOS, Windows, Android.

2. 1Password ($36/year)

You can use 1Password's own cloud server to sync your data, but this password manager also offers the option of syncing information to your Dropbox, iCloud, or WiFi connection, providing you with additional control over where your data is stored. However, the extra options come at a cost, both monetarily and to your user experience. 1Password costs $36 per year for individuals, and it doesn't operate as smoothly or intuitively as some of the others in this list.

Works on: Any browser, iOS, Windows, Android.

3. Firefox Password Manager (Free)

If you primarily use Firefox, it might make sense to use Firefox's free built-in password manager. To access the manager, click your Firefox menu and select "Preferences", "Privacy & Security", and then "Saved Logins …". Here, you'll find your free built-in password manager, with options to create secure passwords to keep your identity safe, see saved and hidden passwords, and import passwords from Chrome or Internet Explorer.

While the Firefox Password Manager is a safe and easy bet for keeping your identity safe from external password hacking, it's important to note someone with access to your computer will be able to log into your accounts. To protect against this, Firefox offers a "Use Master Password" option, to protect your saved logins in case your laptop is lost or stolen.

Works on: Firefox browser.

4. Dashlane (Free or $39.99/year for premium)

Dashlane is incredibly easy-to-use and has a clean user interface, making it one of the most popular managers out there. It has an auto-login feature that enables you to log into any of your online accounts or emails automatically. Dashlane claims this feature, along with the form filler, saves one user "50 hours a year".

It also provides the option to set an emergency contact for important accounts, so you can give a coworker or family member temporarily access to an account. However, the free version doesn't let you access your Dashlane passwords online or sync information across different devices -- you'll need premium to do that, for $39.99 per year.

Works on: Any browser, Android, iOS, Mac, Windows.

5. Keychain (Free on iOS)

If you typically only use passwords for websites on iOS and OS X devices, you could use Apple's free built-in password manager, Keychain. While it suits basic needs on an iOS device -- including suggesting a stronger password and managing passwords in one place -- it doesn't work outside an iOS web browser log-in, and won't sync with non-iOS devices. Additionally, you can't offer temporary access to coworkers or family members like you can on LastPass or 1Password.

Works on: Any iOS and OS X device.

6. Sticky Password (Free)

While some free versions of tools are meek alternatives to their paid counterparts, Sticky Password provides most necessary components for free, including impressive features like auto-fill and form filling, password management, and two-factor authentication. Additionally, the manager is capable of saving your credit card payment information, making online checkout faster. The cloud backup is only available in the paid version, but the free version offers the option to sync your data across WiFi. It's user-friendly, and was even voted PCMag's Editors' Choice.

Works on: Any browser, Windows, iOS, Android.

7. Roboform (Free)

Featured in impressive publications including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Roboform offers some of the best features of any free password manager, including unlimited logins, an auto-fill form tool for both payment information and addresses, single-click logins, and a password generator to calculate password strength. It has a user-friendly, clean interface, and allows users to share their login credentials. If you pay $24 per year, you'll also have 24/7 support and the ability to backup data.

Works on: Windows, iOS, Android.

8. KeePass (Free)

KeePass is primarily designed for Windows systems, and it can run on a USB stick, so you can carry important passwords and information around with you and sync it up to different devices. It's one of the best open source managers, offering strong encryption options, easy exporting, advanced search features, and more. The software also lets you sort and organize your passwords into groups, and arrange those groups into trees.

Works on: Windows systems.

9. PadLock (Free)

This open source manager is simple and no-fuss and stores all your important information on their Padlock Cloud, enabling you to access your information from anywhere. The source is available on GitHub under a GPLv3 license. The program is able to sync data across devices. On their website, PadLock claims, "while other apps boast about their long list of shiny cool features, we focus on security, usability and performance instead."

Works on: Any browser, iOS, Windows, Android.

Password Manager Reviews

Since I don't have the time to try all of these myself, I thought I'd reach out to our marketing team here at HubSpot to get some reviews from real-life users. Here's what some of my colleagues had to say about the password managers in our list:

LastPass Reviews:

Mark Metcoff: "I’ve been an avid LastPass fan for years now. It makes it easy for me to keep my accounts way more secure than I could on my own. It also comes loaded with bonus features like a built-in security audit, password generator, the ability to add notes for each site, and a mobile experience that is in some ways better than the desktop. 10/10 would highly recommend."

Crystal King: "I LOVE LastPass. It's convenient, can be used across multiple devices, creates and stores strong passwords, and can manage autofill for credit cards. I’d be lost without it. LastPass can also manage family accounts, so you can have one account for multiple people and allow someone to have access in case something happens to you."

Daniela Kretchmer: "I use Lastpass - it also auto-updates the passwords."

Jeffrey Vocell: "I use LastPass which has been great."

Dashlane Review:

Eric Peters: "I've been using Dashlane for years because it keeps my passwords organized, automatically enters them on webpages, and warns me if I should update a password if a particular site has been compromised."

1Password Review:

Margot Mazur: "I use 1Password. It's easy to set up across devices, so no matter what computer or mobile device I'm on, I have all of my passwords available and ready to go. It lets me easily create strong passwords, so I don't have to worry about the security of my sites."

David Ly Khim: "1password is bomb."

KeePass Review:

Constance Starcky: "I use KeePass. Never hacked, always easy to use, open-source project, etc."