5 reasons my phablet is fabulous

5 reasons my phablet is fabulous
Not long ago,I wrote about some trepidation I was having about giving up my iPhone and switching to an Android device for the first time. That hesitation largely disintegrated once I held my new phone in my hand. It was the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and it felt big, but good.After having gotten to know theNote 3 for a few months, I'm back to say: iPhone? What iPhone?This big new slab of tech has been much more satisfying to use than my iPhone ever was. Sure I miss some of the ease with which my old phone integrated with iTunes, but beyond that, I can't really think of a reasonI'd rather go back to Mac than forward with the Note.Now before you accuse CNET or me of being a shill for Samsung, please know this is a personal piece about a personal decision to buy the Note 3. It just happens to be the phone I own, not some kind of publicity stunt from Samsung (although I wish they had given me this monster for free!).Now that that's out of the way, here are five reasons I'm loving my phablet, and why you might consider upsizing as well.Bigger really IS better(You knew that was coming, didn't you? )Far and away the best thing about this phone is its downright huge screen size. Sure I've had to put up with jokes from friends who ask to borrow my "mini TV" when they need to look something up or make a call, but I chalk that up to jealousy.Clocking in at 5.7 inches, the Note 3's screen is big enough that I can actually enjoy a night of binge-watching "Supernatural" without feeling like I'm viewing the episodes through a keyhole. It also makes surfing the Net a super-pleasurable experience. I can actually read the text and view the photos -- no squinting needed. Lastly, I pretty much do all my e-reading on this thing now, from books to magazines. In fact, I haven't had to boot up my old iPad for use as a reader since I got the phone. Heck, it's almost the size of a small paperback anyway, so it seems natural for this purpose.So I've come to the conclusion that big is good. Sure, it can be a bit tricky to pull the phone out of the pocket of my jeans when I'm driving, but otherwise, the size has been a non-issue in terms of carrying the thing around. The fact that it's super thin means you get used to having it on your person in about two days.I will say, though, that I find Samsung's split screen feature a little silly. The screen's not THAT big, so I'm not sure you'd ever see value in having two different windows open at once on the thing, but maybe there are people out there who take advantage of the feature. I'm not one of them.The 'write' stuffI'm a writer, right? So since I got this phone, I no longer need to carry around a separate pad to write down story ideas orbits of bad poetry the world will never see. Instead, I just whip out the pen and actually write down whatever's on my mind. It's a super fast process and I find that there's a real difference between what I produce when I actually write words instead of thumbing them out. Somehow thumbing seems too utilitarian for creativity. It's perfectly suited for texts and quick emails but not so much for writing down more detailed reflections or story ideas. For that I like going old school on my new-school tech by using a pen.One of the cooler features of Samsung's S-Note app is that you can actually send your handwritten notes to someone as PDFs in an email attachment, something I discovered when a friend asked to see the reading list a bunch of us had compiled on vacation a few weeks ago. Related storiesEmotional crisis! Ditching my iPhone for a new gadget loveBye XP, hello Windows 7: Yeah, the change made me nervousPowerful new Note wields mightier pen skills Plus, I'll admit it. I just feels super cool to slide that pen out and wield it like a sword over the battlefield of my phone (can you tell I watch too much "Game of Thrones")? So few people have the Note that the pen is still a novelty that gets you noticed. The Leo in me likes getting noticed.That being said, I don't really use the pen's handwriting-to-text feature. I find it a bit awkward, sort of like the shorthand freakshow some of us tried to master in the early days of PDAs. But for jotting down actual thoughts, shopping lists, movie recommendations and stuff like that, the pen is mightier than the thumbs.Swiftly swoopingI know you can get the SwiftKey predictive keyboard on other phones, but when the keyboard is as big as it is on the Note 3, you can really fly along when you're typing text or emails. My manly pointer finger seems downright dainty swooping over those jumbo keys.Gargantuan gamingI'm a big tower defense guy, so getting to play Tower Madness and Field Runners on this thing after using the diminutive screen of my iPhone for so long was like going from an early Game Boy system straight to the arcade of the future. Puzzle games like The Room are super gorgeous, and when I play Border Siege, I can easily taken in the whole world map -- a vital component of planning world domination.Pretty as a pictureThe Note 3 takes really nice photos thanks to its 13-megapixel camera. But what good are great photos if you're looking at them on the screen that's roughly the size of a post-it note. With this generous screen size, you can really satisfyingly ogle the photos you take, enjoying many more details than you'd see with a smaller screen. I even recently downloaded the 500px app just so that I could enjoy the work of photographers who are leaps better than me on my nice big screen.You can also actually seriously edit your shots on the Note's screen without the need to get back to your computer. Samsung's sharper Note 3 (pictures)See full gallery1 - 4 / 17NextPrevBottom lineLike you, I know that Apple is promising a bigger screen for theiPhone 6, but I'm sure it's not going to be the size of the screen that graces the Note, so I'm not all that worried that I didn't wait for yet another i-iteration.Yes, at first I would have liked to have had my phone back in the i-fold with my Apple TV and MacBook Pro, but after lots of Googling, sorting through some workarounds, and finally switching over to Spotify, there's really no reason why my phone and my computer need to chat. And I can use the Streambells app to send content from the note to the Apple TV, so device harmony exists once more.After four months of phableting around, I've come to one important conclusion regarding my relationship with my phone: size really does matter. When I borrow other people's phones, I feel like I'm being a bit hobbled in my efforts to surf, text, or otherwise interact with the world in the big beautiful way the Note lets me. I have seen the future, and the future is phab. Frankly, as the world goes increasingly mobile, I don't understand why people wouldn't want to have the biggest screen possible on which to do e-everything. Why squint?Any other phablet lovers out there? Let's hear from you in the comments below. This content is rated TV-MA, and is for viewers 18 years or older. Are you of age?YesNoSorry, you are not old enough to view this content.Play


How to access a hidden autocorrect keyboard bar in IOS 5

How to access a hidden autocorrect keyboard bar in IOS 5
Apple iOS 5 users can now hack into a hidden autocorrect keyboard bar, courtesy of a few steps revealed by the folks at 9to5Mac.When the feature is enabled, you type the first few characters of a word, and then the keyboard displays a bar with a list of suggested complete words. Such an option has long been available on Android devices, but has yet to see the light of day in iOS--at least officially.Thanks to research done by self-proclaimed hacker and 9to5Mac researcher Sonny Dickson, anyone running iOS 5 on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch can now access this hidden feature by following the steps below:You'll first need to download a program called iBackupBot, which lets you modify certain settings on your mobile device through a backup and then restore that backup to the device. The software normally costs $34.95, but you can download a free trial version to test it out. Separate editions are available for both Windows and the Mac.You'll next want to connect your mobile device to your computer and run a full backup in iTunes (right-click on your device and select the Back Up command).After you've backed up your device, launch iBackupBot. The software should automatically detect and display all of the backups you've run in iTunes. Click on the backup you just ran. Among all the files listed on the right, look for one that says: Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboard.plist. Double-click on that file to open it. If you're running the unregistered trial version, you'll need to click on the Cancel button to open it.The com.apple.keyboard.plist will open as a simple text file that you can edit. Add the string <key>KeyboardAutocorrectionLists</key><string>YES</string> to the file. Dickson didn't explain exactly where to add it, but I added it before the two closing tags: </dict > and </plist >, which seemed to be the logical spot. Close and save the file.Next restore the backup from within iBackupBot (right-click on the backup and select the Restore command). Turn on your mobile device and open any app where you can access the keyboard. Type the first couple of characters of a word, and you should see the autocorrect keyboard bar appear with a list of suggestions.I tested this entire process on an iPod Touch, and it ran smoothly for the most part.I had trouble initially restoring the backup from iBackupBot as the software kept hanging. But it eventually completed the restore. So far, I haven't found any missing content or other glitches from editing the keyboard file or using iBackupBot to restore my device. But as with all hacks, you'll want to proceed with some caution.The feature itself does work, though some of the suggestions were a bit odd. Typing the letters "hell" conjured up words like "helpless," "Jekyll," "Helpline," and even "hepplewhite," but not "hello," the word I was actually trying to type. But the suggestions seem to change each time you type the same characters, a possible sign that the feature tries to learn as you use it.The autocorrect keyboard bar also appears if you choose certain international keyboards. I added and switched to a Japanese keyboard, and the autocorrect bar appeared. But of course it displayed Japanese characters as suggestions.Unless Apple has officially added such an option for English keyboards in iOS 5.0.1, which was just released today, this hack seems to be the only way to tap into it for now.


4 smaller useful tweaks in iOS 6

4 smaller useful tweaks in iOS 6
The Share buttonWhat used to be a simple list of buttons stacked on top of each other was functional, but it wasn't pretty. The number of buttons was also limited by screen real estate, and with new additions like Facebook integration, Apple needed to come up with a way to show more. Now with iOS 6 you get a bunch of icons that spring into view when you hit the Share button. The look is a lot like the home screen and offers your standard share locations like Messages, Facebook, and Twitter, but you also have the new Shared Photo Stream button handy. Yes, it's a small change, but I like how it fits in with the overall iOS aesthetic.CNETGame Center challengesAnyone who follows my weekly iOS collection on Fridays knows that I love to play games. Game Center has never really impressed me (I don't spend a lot of time using it), but a new feature is kind of cool when you want to both brag to a friend and try to get him to beat your high score in a game. With the new iOS you can now issue a challenge to a friend who shares the same game with you. Simply go to your friend's page, touch the game in question, then touch his high score. A new window will open up where you can issue a challenge for your friend to beat your high score, and you can even send a taunting message if you'd like. Your friend will receive a notification of the challenge, and a special song will play on his device.Now if Apple could just let me know what another friend is playing currently so that I could challenge or join him in a game, I'll like Game Center a bit more. Maybe in iOS 7?CNETiTunes preview historyWhenever I'm browsing the iTunes Store for music, I like to check what's new, see what's hitting the most popular lists, then maybe I'll do some searches of favorite artists. As I browse, I'll often use the Preview button to see if I like a new song. Sometimes I even listen to a clip of music I already have (you know you do it, too). But after a browsing session, I don't really keep track of what I was looking at.In the update, you'll now have a new button in the upper-right corner of the interface that shows your preview history. It's nothing fancy, but it lists all the songs I have previewed, so now I'll be able to go back later and buy a song if I want.CNETYelp-powered restaurant listingsOne of the biggest updates in iOS 6 is the new Maps app that replaces the Google-powered offering you used in previous versions of the OS. I think a lot of people will appreciate the new Yelp-powered options when you search for restaurants. Now, when you search for, say, "Mexican food," the Maps app will drop pins on restaurant locations just like before. But now when you touch the blue arrow to get more info, you'll find a little more to browse than just the address and phone number. New tabs across the top of the interface let you look at Yelp reviews for the restaurant as well as user-taken pictures of the food. It's not a big deal, and you could probably open Yelp to see these features, but it's great when you're doing a search on the road and are having trouble making a decision on what to eat.Read ourcomplete guide to iOS 6.This content is rated TV-MA, and is for viewers 18 years or older. Are you of age?YesNoSorry, you are not old enough to view this content.Play