Technologies

How I Feel One Year After Ditching My Android for an iPhone

There are some iPhone features I now can’t live without, and some Galaxy features I still miss.

It’s been a year since I abandoned my decade-long relationship with the Samsung Galaxy and switched to the iPhone 14 Pro, and I’m happy to report I don’t regret a thing.

I loved my Galaxy devices and was always a proud Android user, but a series of factors — namely, my eagerness to try Apple’s hardware and software, as well as a desire to no longer be bullied for green texts (which is Apple’s fault) — enticed me to switch teams. It’s been smooth sailing since then, and I’ll be bold enough to say I don’t see myself ever going back.

One of the main reasons is my love for iMessage. It’s been surprisingly seamless to stay in touch with friends (due in no small part to the fact that they actually want to include me in group texts now without giving me crap about it), and the messaging experience is just more enjoyable with reactions and hi-res images and videos.

I had and loved RCS messaging on my Galaxy, which, like iMessage, shows typing indicators and read receipts, supports sending high-quality media and lets you react to messages. But few of my friends had phones that supported RCS messaging, or if they did, they just never cared to enable it. And until very recently, Apple resisted pressure to adopt RCS on iPhones, but shockingly reversed course in mid-November. That means that while I had an Android, I could hardly reap the benefits of RCS, while I apparently made my (dramatic) iPhone-using friends’ lives more difficult.

I’ve also become a sucker for AirDrop. Because I shoot a lot of videos on my phone for work as well as my personal social media accounts, it’s been a game changer to be able to instantly share videos between my iPhone and MacBook.

Sharing pictures and videos after a hangout is painless, too. Yes, third-party apps like WhatsApp and Google Drive exist, but WhatsApp still reduces video quality, and using Google Drive is relatively slow and feels like actual work. So, AirDrop is the clear winner here.

Speaking of videos, the quality on my iPhone is unmatched; regular shots as well as Cinematic mode videos are crisp and clear, and better supported by apps like TikTok. While I’ve always admired how vibrant images on the Galaxy look, and admittedly think some iPhone photos look too dark and shadow-y, that video quality has me hooked.

An iPhone feature that took me by surprise when it won me over is MagSafe. I initially didn’t understand the appeal of this: Why charge using MagSafe if it takes two seconds to plug in a cable? But little did I know that it was less about the charging, and more about the accessories. I’ve become reliant on my MagSafe portable charger, which is much easier to carry around than my massive power brick, as well as my MagSafe wallet. Safe to say (see what I did there?), I get it now.

There is one feature I admittedly still miss, even one year into ditching my Android: Object Eraser. This is a Galaxy feature that lets you remove any person or object from your photos by drawing a line around what you want to get rid of, then tapping a button to make them disappear. This was great for when I had an almost perfect image, but someone was photobombing or there was something distracting in the way.

The Google Pixel lineup has a similar feature called Magic Eraser, as well as a next-level tool called Magic Editor, which, in addition to removing anything from your photo, lets you move people and objects around and change the background. It’s cool and creepy all at once.

Sadly, Apple still doesn’t have a similar AI-based editing feature built into Photos. If I wanted to remove anything from an image, I’d need to go into Photoshop, and Lord knows I’m not doing that. So I’d love for that capability to be added in a future software update.

Check out the video above for more iPhone features I can’t live without (and to see whether I now condone bullying people for having green texts).

Technologies

Tesla Has a New Range of Affordable Electric Cars: How Much They Cost

The new, stripped-back versions of the Model Y and Model 3 have a more affordable starting price.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Oct. 22, #1586

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Oct. 22, No. 1,586.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle features some letters I don’t often guess, but it’s not terribly difficult. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with S.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with T.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to an action displaying spectacular skill and daring.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is STUNT.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Oct. 21, No. 1,585 was DETOX.

Recent Wordle answers

Oct. 17, No. 1,581: GROSS
Oct. 18, No. 1,582: HAVEN
Oct. 19, No. 1,583: IDEAL
Oct. 20, No. 1,584: LIMBO

Quick tips for Wordle

#1: Check our list ranking the popularity of all the letters in the alphabet and choose your starter words accordingly. (TRAIN, STERN and AUDIO are good.)

#2: Don’t forget that letters can be used more than once.

#3: Many words are similar. You don’t want to use up multiple guesses that don’t advance your cause. So if the puzzle is STA_E, don’t guess STARE, STATE and STALE. Guess something that uses that R, T and L, like TWIRL.