I test a lot of Android phones, and the software looks the same on most of them. There's a home screen, a standard background, and icons that are all the same shape and size. After a while, that gets boring, so sometimes, I like to switch things up.One advantage of having an Android phone is the operating system's flexibility. Unlike Apple's iPhone, Google's Android platform provides users with almost complete control over their phones' appearance, from wallpaper and color palettes to downloadable themes and icons available from third-party applications.But customizing your home screen or other aspects of your phone's user interface isn't always straightforward. It involves digging through menu settings and sometimes installing new apps, but don't worry, I'll help you figure it out. Here are some of the different ways you can make your Android device more your own.Mix Things Up Without Having to Download Any AppsYou can change a lot about your Android phone without downloading a single app. Start by adding widgets to the home screen. Just tap-and-hold your finger on any open space to bring up the widget menu. Scroll through the widget options for every app on your phone that offers them, select the one you like, and add it to the home screen. You can even drag the widget to resize it or long-press on it to add it to a stack of widgets. (Credit: Google/PCMag)Many companies that make Android phones also let you customize the look and feel of their notification settings, or include themes that combine wallpaper and icons' colors and shapes into one coherent appearance. However, these customization options tend to vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. You can find these tools under Personalization and/or Notification Settings in your settings menu.For example, Samsung's Settings menu lets you pick the exact style of edge lighting—and the duration—for your notifications. Motorola, however, doesn’t offer customized notification options on its phones; instead, you can choose from five different theme options that modify the look and feel of the device.It takes a little exploration of the Settings menu, but most Android device makers allow you to tweak the basic appearance and behavior of the home screens, wallpapers, colors, icons, fonts, and much more.Easy Mode(Credit: Samsung/PCMag)Samsung’s Easy Mode is a great way to simplify your user experience. It only puts essential apps on your home screen, enlarges the icons and font sizes on your device to make them easier to read, and increases the touch-and-hold delay to make sure you don’t accidentally launch an app. It’s meant for novice smartphone users or anyone who wants a quick way to declutter their screen. You can access Easy Mode by heading into the Settings menu and clicking into the Display menu. Scroll down to Easy Mode, click on it, and then toggle it on. Your screen will immediately reflect the change with larger, more legible, fonts. Not all manufacturers include an Easy Mode in their version of Android, though OnePlus does have a similar Simple Mode. You can activate it by going into the Accessibility settings, scrolling down, and toggling on the Simple Mode button. Fonts(Credit: Samsung/PCMag)Samsung also lets you change the system fonts on your phone. You can choose from preinstalled options or download free or paid fonts from the Samsung Galaxy Store. You can also adjust the size of each font you’ve installed, as well as whether or not you’d like it to be bolded. To access the font menus, open the Display menu in your Settings. Scroll down to Font Size and Style and tap on it. You will see a preview of the current font, as well as a button for Font Style. Tapping this button shows you a list of fonts already installed on your phone. You can choose one of those, or click the Download Fonts button. This launches the top fonts in the Samsung Galaxy Store. When you download one you like, you’ll have to return to the Font Style menu where the new font will now appear as one that’s available on your device. Click on the font, adjust the size to your liking with the slider tool, and you’re good to go. Most manufacturers don’t make it this easy to add new fonts to your device. Many third-party keyboard apps on the Google Play Store come with some additional fonts, though you’ll most likely need to install an additional launcherLaunchers: Leveling the Playing FieldIf the customization options already available on your phone don't go far enough, you can download apps for additional options. These apps generally work regardless of which company manufactures your Android phone. Recommended by Our EditorsOne of the best places to start is a third-party launcher. A launcher is an entire user interface that can control your phone's home screen and app drawer, allowing you to alter the appearance and feel of your phone more completely.In order to download a third-party launcher, you’ll have to go to the Google Play Store. While there are many excellent offerings, here are a few that we recommend: Nova Launcher (Credit: Nova/PCMag)The Nova Launcher is a customizer's paradise. It lets you change your app icons' color, size, and style. You can also adjust everything about your home screen’s appearance, from choosing the placement of your search bar to picking the color and size of your dock. You can get as granular as you’d like in this app, but you certainly don’t have to. You can just change one thing—like an icon style—or dig in and change everything. You can also set the Nova Launcher as the default launcher on your phone, or leave it as an app you need to click to change your home screen. The app is free to download and use. However, a paid version called Nova Launcher Prime costs $4.99 and unlocks additional features, including gestures, the ability to add app groups, and more. Smart Launcher 6(Credit: Smart Launcher/PCMag)Smart Launcher 6 is another full-featured launcher for your phone. You can change the wallpaper, icon appearance, widgets, fonts, app grid, and more. It doesn’t offer the same level of customization as the Nova Launcher, but I found it to be more streamlined and straightforward to manage. Just long-press on your screen when in the app to access all of the launcher's settings and features. You can choose whether or not to keep Smart Launcher 6 as your default launcher or just another app on your home screen that you’ll need to click into to enable. There is a free version of the app with plenty of features, but you’ll need a Premium subscription to access all options. These include smart widgets, a blur effect, a cross-device license, and more. You can opt to pay monthly for $4.49, yearly for $8.49, or grab a lifetime subscription for $20.99.AIO Launcher(Credit: AIO Mobile Soft/PCMag)The AIO Launcher is a very different sort of launcher. It gives you as much information as possible on one page. Your home screen consists of the time, the weather, a monitor of your storage and battery life, a list of your frequently used apps, your notifications, a dialer to make phone calls, your email, tasks, news, calendar, a financial chart, an audio recorder, and the control panel. It’s a lot to look at, but it gives you all of your relevant information in one location. You can remove anything you don’t want and swipe to access a list of your apps. While the app is free, you’ll need to pay if you want to make even small changes, like switching the colors of your apps. You can get the Premium version for a one-time payment of $12.99. It unlocks different icon shapes, font selection, cloud sync, additional themes, and more. You can also subscribe to Premium Plus for $1.49 a month, which includes all the Premium enhancements as well as ChatGPT integration, AI spam filter for notifications, AI app categorization, an AI translator, and even more themes. Icon Packs: Change the Way Your Apps Look If you generally like your home screen's layout but want to spice up your app icons, icon packs are one way to spice things up. There are many different types of icon packs on the Google Play Store, and you should be able to find something that fits your mood and style. Depending on the developer, some icon packs require specific launchers, while others can work with the launcher installed on your phone. If you don’t already have a supported launcher on your phone, you can just download one from the app store. Here are a few icon packs to get you started.Viral Icon Pack(Credit: DrumDestroyer/PCMag)If you’re interested in trying icon packs, the Viral Icon Pack is free and offers a good taste of what icons can do for your phone. It comes with big, colorful icons in pastel colors, 400 additional wallpapers, and some matching widgets. Retro Mode Icon Pack Neon(Credit: Moertel Pixel Art/PCMag)While plenty of paid icon packs exist, the Retro Mode Icon Pack Neon offers a unique look. All of the icons have retro pixel art that looks like a combination of 1990s computer art and the kids’ toy Lite-Brite. The pack costs $2.79 and includes widgets, additional wallpaper, and over 4,000 icons. Minimalist Icon Pack(Credit: Minimalist/PCMag)If you’re looking for something a little more understated, the Minimalist Icon Pack might be for you. For just $0.99, it can transform your phone into a minimalist's dream. It includes over 6,000 icons in pastel colors and 70 different wallpapers.No matter what you want your phone's software to look like, you can probably find a configuration that fits the bill by using a launcher, icon pack, or new font. Your eyes will thank you!

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Users of iOS 18.4 or iPadOS 18.4 worldwide can now switch their default translation app from Apple's stock one to Google's. Here's how to do it.Google Translate can now be set as the default translation app on the iPhone and iPadApple introduced the ability to change default email and browsers with iOS 14 back in 2020. It subsequently added more options until in iOS 18.2, it included Messages and others.But from iOS 18.4 in March 2025 Apple added the option to change the default translation app. Now according to the app's release notes in the App Store, Google Translate users can take advantage of this. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Earlier this week, TikTok user CatGPT posted a video of a woman in line at a store seemingly scrolling on a completely transparent phone. The caption reads "I'm sorry, WTF IS THAT???" Check it out: The video quickly took off, with over 52 million people having viewed it on TikTok in only four days. So WTF is it? A techie casually breaking an NDA by openly rocking a prototype transparent phone? The new "Plex from Nokia" (as the top comment suggests)? A casual time-traveler caught in the act? The real story behind the "transparent phone"Sorry, it's none of the above. It's exactly what it looks like: a transparent piece of acrylic shaped like a phone. Specifically, it's a "Methaphone." The idea is that people who are dependent upon their devices might be placated by a phone-like slab."If we're all so addicted to our phones," CatGPT says in a follow-up video, "then could you potentially curb somebody's addiction by replacing the feeling of having a phone in your pocket with something that feels exactly the same?"If you're thinking, "well, no," you're not alone. The general consensus is "this is dumb," and CatGPT herself confirms in her video: "Have I used my phone less in the entire week I've been carrying this around? Probably not." She goes on to say it's empowering anyway, and that the device is currently sold out. If you want your own Methaphone for some reason, here's the link, Will we ever have real transparent phones?Although CatGPT categorizes the views on her video as evidence that people feel alienated by their devices, I think the real reason it went viral is that people think a transparent phone would be pretty cool. It would have some interesting uses too, particularly in terms of augmented reality, but clear phones seem unlikely to be a thing any time soon. You can buy a transparent television already. The last CES featured more than one transparent display screen. Transparent batteries exist. Samsung has been registering patents related to transparent phones for at least the last decade. But bringing a transparent phone to market would mean making all the components transparent, which is probably impossible, and if it isn't, it would be very expensive: That glass TV is $60,000. Also, you'd lose it the first day and never find it again. How to replace your cellphone without paying $25If you're intrigued by the idea of replacing your handset with something that's like a handset, here are a few suggestions that are better than a Methaphone:An old cellphone: I'm sure you have some older handsets in your house that are permanently dark. Just carry that with you.A battery: Many charging batteries are roughly the size of a phone, and you can use them to charge your phone when you're done pretending you don't care about your phone.A notebook: When paired with a pen, a small notebook can be used for writing and drawing.A deck of cards: Unlike a Methaphone, cards have games built-in, both solo and multiplayer, and even have a built-in photo on the front.

ByGeorge YangPublished25 minutes agoWe may earn a commission from links on this page.Screenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuDoom: The Dark Ages introduced semi open-world areas of the kind found many Halo games. The first of these appears in “The Siege Part One,” which is the sixth mission in the game.Suggested ReadingTHPS 3+4 Does Away With The OG 4's Career Mode, Here's Why Share SubtitlesOffEnglishview videoSuggested ReadingTHPS 3+4 Does Away With The OG 4's Career Mode, Here's Why Share SubtitlesOffEnglishRead More: Throughout the game, you’ll come across many knight statues with jewel collectibles. In these open-world segments, you’ll find a knight statue but it’s blocked off with a barrier surrounded by holographic lion statues. In order to fill these statues in, you’ll have to find three other lion statues scattered throughout the open-world mission and destroy them with your shield.1. Finding the Knight Statue2. First Lion Statue3. Second Lion Statue4. Third Lion Statue5. Grabbing the jewelIn “The Siege Part One,” there are three of these lion statues. Luckily, these are close to the knight statue. In later open-world missions, the lion statues are more scattered. They can be found in any order. Screenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuScreenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuOnce you enter the battlefield, there should be a red marker indicating an enemy encounter along with a yellow icon showing a Sentinel Shrine. The blocked knight statue is by a cliff towards the right side of the level.Screenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuThe first lion statue is directly under the cliff of the knight statue. There’s an enemy encounter here and you won’t be able to interact with the lion statue until all of the demons in that area are gone. After dispatching them, simply throw your shield at the lion statue to destroy it.Screenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuScreenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuThe second lion statue is near the knight statue, hidden in a nook between a flag and a wagon. Just walk down the slope and you should be able to see it.Screenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuScreenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuThe third lion statue is actually closer to the knight statue than the second one. It’s perched on another cliff, so you need to aim your shield up at it.Screenshot: id Software / George Yang / KotakuAfter shattering all three lion statues, the barrier surrounding the knight statue will disappear. You can then interact with the statue and grab the jewel, which is a Ruby. Rubies can be used to upgrade your weapons, shield, and melee capabilities.For more Doom: The Dark Ages, be sure to check out our review, as well as collectible guides for the first two missions of the game: “Village of Khalim” and “Hebeth.”

Looking back, there are a few mistakes I made while traveling internationally with my grandma. Emily Schlorf 2025-05-13T14:12:01Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? In summer 2024, I traveled with my grandma, mom, and sister to Montreal. I wish I'd thought more about my grandma's physical needs when planning the itinerary. It would've been nice to have more downtime in our schedule, too. Despite living 1,800 miles apart, my 81-year-old grandma and I have always been close. We share a love for "Downton Abbey," cross-stitch, and strong coffee, and I couldn't imagine spending weeks in the summer anywhere but her sunny kitchen table in central Minnesota.Of course, I'd be naive to assume my time with her is unlimited. That's one reason my grandma, mom, sister, and I decided to embark on a trip to Montreal together last summer.Although I'm grateful we were able to take this trip, it could have gone a lot smoother had I known these three things about traveling with an older relative. The itinerary should have reflected everyone's physical needs, not just my own I should've considered how long it would take my grandma to get to excursions like our afternoon tea. Emily Schlorf I'm the most frequent traveler in my family, so I took on all the planning myself and approached the task the same way I do for solo travel: leaving no stone unturned.I thought my grandma would be well-prepared for the long days, given that she walks 3 miles a day and eats a far more balanced diet than I do.What I failed to consider, though, was how difficult it would be for her to walk on the uneven cobblestone streets. On our first day in the city, we nearly missed an afternoon tea reservation since I didn't factor in the slower pace we'd have to take to accommodate my grandma's careful steps.I also didn't realize just how exhausting a full-day Three Pines tour would be. Although fantastic — with stops at a monastery, local museum, and five-star resort for lunch — our visit to the villages that inspired the fictional location of my grandma's favorite mystery series was nine hours long. My family and I went on a nine-hour tour of Three Pines. Emily Schlorf As the day progressed, we took turns snoozing in the back seat of our tour guide's van. Upon arriving back at the bed and breakfast, my grandma exclaimed how long of a day it was; and I didn't disagree.Similarly, I didn't consider my grandma's physical limitations when choosing restaurants. Although they weren't lacking in ambiance — picture patios swallowed in bougainvillea and cool, brutalist interiors overlooking Lake Saint Louis — the dim lighting and small font sizes made it challenging for her to read the menu.My mom, sister, and I mitigated my grandma's vision issues by taking turns reading the menu aloud, line by line, but that got old fast.In retrospect, I wish I'd shown up equipped with solutions, such as finding the menu online so she could zoom in on my phone or reminding her to bring her readers, to improve everyone's dining experience. A long trip means extended time away from routinesEveryone gets to a point on vacation when they're ready to return home, but I would argue that the feeling is stronger for older adults like my grandma, who travel once or twice a year and may be used to a strict daily routine.Although my grandma never expressed this feeling to me outright, I noticed as the days went on, she became less game for her granddaughters' plans.For example, on our last evening, my sister and I wanted to check out the shops lining Saint-Laurent Boulevard, but my grandma preferred to have takeout in the hotel.We compromised, and my sister and I walked to the boulevard to pick up dinner, but we ditched our shopping plan since we felt bad keeping my mom and grandma waiting.I wish we'd had more downtime together One of my favorite memories from the trip was when we spontaneously visited a speakeasy. Emily Schlorf Instead of jam-packing every day with new experiences, I wish I'd taken my foot off the gas as the trip progressed — for my grandma's sake as well as my own.As we reached days five and six of the trip, my excitement for the activities I planned dwindled, and I found myself wishing I hadn't planned them at all.Besides, the memories I cherish most from the trip weren't the museums or guided tours, they were the unplanned ones: a shared bottle of wine with our bed and breakfast hosts, a visit to an outdoor antique market, and a nightcap at a speakeasy.Despite the challenges, I'd love to travel with my grandma again I would love to go on another trip with my grandma. Emily Schlorf To anyone contemplating a multigenerational trip, I say do it, but be more considerate than I was. Take time to plan the trip together, think of everyone's needs, and be content with slowing down.Strolling through the city hand-in-hand with my grandma, I learned that it's OK to leave some stones unturned, because the real joy comes from who you're turning them with. Recommended video

"Artificial intelligence, if we're being frank, is a con: a bill of goods you are being sold to line someone's pockets."That is the heart of the argument that linguist Emily Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make in their new book The AI Con. It's a useful guide for anyone whose life has intersected with technologies sold as artificial intelligence and anyone who's questioned their real usefulness, which is most of us. Bender is a professor at the University of Washington who was named one of Time magazine's most influential people in artificial intelligence, and Hanna is the director of research at the nonprofit Distributed AI Research Institute and a former member of the ethical AI team at Google.The explosion of ChatGPT in late 2022 kicked off a new hype cycle in AI. Hype, as the authors define it, is the "aggrandizement" of technology that you are convinced you need to buy or invest in "lest you miss out on entertainment or pleasure, monetary reward, return on investment, or market share." But it's not the first time, nor likely the last, that scholars, government leaders and regular people have been intrigued and worried by the idea of machine learning and AI.Bender and Hanna trace the roots of machine learning back to the 1950s, to when mathematician John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence. It was in an era when the United States was looking to fund projects that would help the country gain any kind of edge on the Soviets militarily, ideologically and technologically. "It didn't spring whole cloth out of Zeus's head or anything. This has a longer history," Hanna said in an interview with CNET. "It's certainly not the first hype cycle with, quote, unquote, AI."Today's hype cycle is propelled by the billions of dollars of venture capital investment into startups like OpenAI and the tech giants like Meta, Google and Microsoft pouring billions of dollars into AI research and development. The result is clear, with all the newest phones, laptops and software updates drenched in AI-washing. And there are no signs that AI research and development will slow down, thanks in part to a growing motivation to beat China in AI development. Not the first hype cycle indeed.Of course, generative AI in 2025 is much more advanced than the Eliza psychotherapy chatbot that first enraptured scientists in the 1970s. Today's business leaders and workers are inundated with hype, with a heavy dose of FOMO and seemingly complex but often misused jargon. Listening to tech leaders and AI enthusiasts, it might seem like AI will take your job to save your company money. But the authors argue that neither is wholly likely, which is one reason why it's important to recognize and break through the hype.So how do we recognize AI hype? These are a few telltale signs, according to Bender and Hanna, that we share below. The authors outline more questions to ask and strategies for AI hype busting in their book, which is out now in the US.Watch out for language that humanizes AIAnthropomorphizing, or the process of giving an inanimate object human-like characteristics or qualities, is a big part of building AI hype. An example of this kind of language can be found when AI companies say their chatbots can now "see" and "think."These can be useful comparisons when trying to describe the ability of new object-identifying AI programs or deep-reasoning AI models, but they can also be misleading. AI chatbots aren't capable of seeing of thinking because they don't have brains. Even the idea of neural nets, Hanna noted in our interview and in the book, is based on human understanding of neurons from the 1950s, not actually how neurons work, but it can fool us into believing there's a brain behind the machine.That belief is something we're predisposed to because of how we as humans process language. We're conditioned to imagine that there is a mind behind the text we see, even when we know it's generated by AI, Bender said. "We interpret language by developing a model in our minds of who the speaker was," Bender added.In these models, we use our knowledge of the person speaking to create meaning, not just using the meaning of the words they say. "So when we encounter synthetic text extruded from something like ChatGPT, we're going to do the same thing," Bender said. "And it is very hard to remind ourselves that the mind isn't there. It's just a construct that we have produced."The authors argue that part of why AI companies try to convince us their products are human-like is that this sets the foreground for them to convince us that AI can replace humans, whether it's at work or as creators. It's compelling for us to believe that AI could be the silver bullet fix to complicated problems in critical industries like health care and government services.But more often than not, the authors argue, AI isn't bring used to fix anything. AI is sold with the goal of efficiency, but AI services end up replacing qualified workers with black box machines that need copious amounts of babysitting from underpaid contract or gig workers. As Hanna put it in our interview, "AI is not going to take your job, but it will make your job shittier."Be dubious of the phrase 'super intelligence'If a human can't do something, you should be wary of claims that an AI can do it. "Superhuman intelligence, or super intelligence, is a very dangerous turn of phrase, insofar as it thinks that some technology is going to make humans superfluous," Hanna said. In "certain domains, like pattern matching at scale, computers are quite good at that. But if there's an idea that there's going to be a superhuman poem, or a superhuman notion of research or doing science, that is clear hype." Bender added, "And we don't talk about airplanes as superhuman flyers or rulers as superhuman measurers, it seems to be only in this AI space that that comes up."The idea of AI "super intelligence" comes up often when people talk about artificial general intelligence. Many CEOs struggle to define what exactly AGI is, but it's essentially AI's most advanced form, potentially capable of making decisions and handling complex tasks. There's still no evidence we're anywhere near a future enabled by AGI, but it's a popular buzzword.Many of these future-looking statements from AI leaders borrow tropes from science fiction. Both boosters and doomers — how Bender and Hanna describe AI enthusiasts and those worried about the potential for harm — rely on sci-fi scenarios. The boosters imagine an AI-powered futuristic society. The doomers bemoan a future where AI robots take over the world and wipe out humanity.The connecting thread, according to the authors, is an unshakable belief that AI is smarter than humans and inevitable. "One of the things that we see a lot in the discourse is this idea that the future is fixed, and it's just a question of how fast we get there," Bender said. "And then there's this claim that this particular technology is a step on that path, and it's all marketing. It is helpful to be able to see behind it."Part of why AI is so popular is that an autonomous functional AI assistant would mean AI companies are fulfilling their promises of world-changing innovation to their investors. Planning for that future — whether it's a utopia or dystopia — keeps investors looking forward as the companies burn through billions of dollars and admit they'll miss their carbon emission goals. For better or worse, life is not science fiction. Whenever you see someone claiming their AI product is straight out of a movie, it's a good sign to approach with skepticism. Ask what goes in and how outputs are evaluatedOne of the easiest ways to see through AI marketing fluff is to look and see whether the company is disclosing how it operates. Many AI companies won't tell you what content is used to train their models. But they usually disclose what the company does with your data and sometimes brag about how their models stack up against competitors. That's where you should start looking, typically in their privacy policies.One of the top complaints and concerns from creators is how AI models are trained. There are many lawsuits over alleged copyright infringement, and there are a lot of concerns over bias in AI chatbots and their capacity for harm. "If you wanted to create a system that is designed to move things forward rather than reproduce the oppressions of the past, you would have to start by curating your data," Bender said. Instead, AI companies are grabbing "everything that wasn't nailed down on the internet," Hanna said.If you're hearing about an AI product for the first time, one thing in particular to look out for is any kind of statistic that highlights its effectiveness. Like many other researchers, Bender and Hanna have called out that a finding with no citation is a red flag. "Anytime someone is selling you something but not giving you access to how it was evaluated, you are on thin ice," Bender said.It can be frustrating and disappointing when AI companies don't disclose certain information about how their AI products work and how they were developed. But recognizing those holes in their sales pitch can help deflate hype, even though it would be better to have the information. For more, check out our full ChatGPT glossary and how to turn off Apple Intelligence.