Customise your app icons Samsung

Expand creativity by choosing from thousands of alternative app icons with the glim lite UI icon pack

Change your launcher 
Download Nova Launcher and Glim from Play. Set Nova as your default launcher by selecting Settings> Home and Nova.

Increase dock icons
Open Nova Settings, then select Dock>Dock Icons. Once that’s done, whack up the number into your dock.

Apply Glim icons
screen, scroll toNova and tap the red Apply text. Read the pop-up window; tap OK.

Customise your icons
On your home screen, long-press each app icon, select Edit and tap the app’s icon in the pop-up that appears.

Browse for icons
Tap Glimand choose a new app icon from Glim’s huge catalogue. Give that icon a tap, then select Done.

Change your wallpaper
Finish things off with a Glim wallpaper. Long-press on your home screen, then selectWallpapers>App &Themes and then

Hide notifications Android displays
information about your notifications on the lock screen. If you don’t want this, open Settings, selectSound& Notification, then tap ‘Whenyour device is locked,’ followed by ‘Don’t show notifications at all’.

Don’t add to home 09 screen
Whenyou install an app, Play adds a shortcut to the home screen by default. To prevent Play from creating these shortcuts, open the Play app and tap the menu icon. Select Settings and then deselect ‘Add icon to Home screen.’

Try Android M
If you own a Nexus 5, 6 or 9and you’re feeling adventurous, you can flash an early release of AndroidM to your device (http:// goo.gl/Yok2Xv) . However, this is only a developer preview release somake sure you read Google’s disclaimer carefully!

Hexy Launcher
Free Hexy displays your apps as hexagonal tiles, arranged in a grid on your home screen. Hexy organises your apps automatically, with the most frequently used ones appearing in the centre, but if you can’t spot the one you’re after you can filter the apps in your grid using Hexy’s useful search bar.

Launcher 10
Beta Free This unique launcher adds integrated live weather effects, sowhen the forecast says snow, expect to see snow falling on your home screen and settling on your app icons. This launcher also adds a sidebar containing recent and favourite apps, plus other useful shortcuts such as toggling Wi-Fi functionality on and off.
Action Launcher 3
Free + IAPs This launcher gives you an additional way of accessing apps. Swipe from the left of your home screen to see a complete A-Z of all apps installed on your device. If you upgrade to the Plus version, Action Launcher also automatically extracts colours from your wallpaper and then uses them as a basis to customise your layout.

Yahoo Aviate Launcher Free
Aviate is a contextually-aware, ‘personal assistant’ launcher that gathers your favourite apps together and arranges them based on different activities, such as Social, Productivity and Photography. If you tell Aviate your home and work location, it will also offer you different apps that are based on your current location.

Buzz Launcher
Free If you’re a fan of theming your device, then you may want to take a look at Buzz Launcher, which gives you easy access to a user-created library of thousands of themes. To see what’s available before you install the app, view details at homepackbuzz.com.

9 things you didn’t know about phone signal

It’s all about frequency 
Carriers all have their own bandwidth that they use to carry signal. A carrier such as EE operates a high frequency, resulting in stronger signal outdoors as the wavelengths are bunched closer together. However, once it passes through materials such as brick, higher wavelengths get absorbed by the brick and scattered, making signal indoors much weaker. The reverse is true for lower-frequency bandwidths, which struggle outdoors, so this is something to consider when choosing a network provider.

Hide-and-seek
Mobile phone masts are not popular with communities, partly due to health concerns but also due to the look of the masts. In order to continue expanding their network coverage, carriers are getting smarter. Mobile signal antennae can now be found hiding inside flagpoles, fake trees and even fake chimney pots. arrangement with both private and public building owners to add a mast to the top of their building.

Water is the enemy
Signal arrives at your phone in the form of wavelengths and nothing disrupts them quite like moving water. As the wave enters the water it will get refracted in all different directions. It is estimated that you’ll get no phone signal at all at a might be academic anyway, as hearing a ringtone or a person’s voice relies on vibrations that would also struggle underwater as they would get absorbed by the liquid and scattered.

Portable masts
For the majority of the year, farms and rural areas don’t need a lot of mobile signal. However, during festival season when thousands of bandwidthhungry music lovers descend on them, there is a much greater demand on the masts. To combat this, carriers will bring temporary masts mounted on vans to the site. Vodafone, for example, took four such vans to last year’s Glastonbury to ensure its users got the best possible signal strength.

Volume is key
Places where thousands of people regularly gather, such as sports stadiums and theatres, need to be able to cope with huge numbers of phones trying to access the network all at the same time. To cope with this, carriers will install ceiling – in the building that adds many more channels to the area. The signal won’t be particularly strong or quick, but it will make it more likely that you can actually get on your network.

Ain’t no mountain high enough
Mobile signal radiates outward so you can comfortably get signal at the top of a mountain as long as you’re within sight of a mast. Areas that are built up, or towns where there are lots of hills struggle to send signal over a wide area because objects get in the way. However, signal can happily travel for a good couple of miles in uninhibited area. Indeed, climbers of Mount Everest can get 4G, 5,200m up at Base Camp.

VoLTE is coming
VoLTE stands for Voice over LTE, where you can make voice calls using your phone’s LTE signal, rather than the usual voice channels. This will be very handy for those times you don’t have any normal phone signal but can get online through 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi. This could make calling from rural areas much easier if you have some kind of mobile Wi-Fi device that you can plug in to create that essential Wi-Fi signal. EE has been experimenting with VoLTE since 2014, while Vodafone, Three and O2 are rolling out VoLTE soon.

4G isn’t always best
Even though 4G is generally considered the holy grail of mobile signal, in some scenarios 3G can actually be faster. A weak 4G signal on one carrier, maybe if a mast is a long way away or there are objects obscuring it, will give you slower upload and download speeds than a good 3G signal. Signal strength will always be the most important factor in your mobile speeds so don’t feel you absolutely have to get a 4G phone in order to keep up.

Automatic retuning
If your phone is capable of getting 4G it will try to use it wherever possibl it has the potential to be the fastest way of u loading data. However, mode phones are capable o realising if using a 3G connection might b faster, due to a stro signal. If it detects that is the case, it will automatically drop down to us the 3G signal instead, improving the user experien without them having to touch a single set

Samsung looks to take on Apple’s next iPad with its super-bright new tablet

Samsung has announced the Galaxy Tab S2 as its latest high-end tablet, boasting the thinnest and lightest specs of any tablet on the market. Available in 8-inch or 9.7-inch versions, both will run an incredible 2,048 x 1,536 Super AMOLED screen that enables 94 per cent of natural colour tones to be seen. We are expecting big things in terms of visuals from the Tab S2, especially when it comes to viewing photos. The Adaptive Display automatically adjusts the screen according to application or ambient light, reducing the risk of eye strain when used over long periods. Both models are just 5.6mm thick, while the 9.7-inch option will weigh a mere 389g. Using what Samsung describes as the world’s “thinnest and lightest metal frame of its size”, the Tab S2 is thinner and lighter than the iPad Air 2. The 9.7-inch model is powered by a 5,870mAh battery,

the 8-inch uses a 4,000mAh battery and both run an octa-core Exynos 7 processor that combines a quad-core A57 1.9GHz processor and a quad-core A53 1.3GHz processor, so it should have some serious power. Samsung hasn’t upgraded camera from the Tab S, as both models have an 8 rear camera and 2.1MP on the front, although both are missing the fl ash. The storage has been upgrad though, so you can now get 32GB or 64GB storage, which can be extended up to 128GB with a microSD Samsung is clearly hoping the Tab S2 will get th march on Apple, ahead of the anticipated iPad Air 3 and mini 4 launch in October, and with these specs there seems a good chance of that. The price is at the top end of the market, with the LTE version of the 8-inch model coming in at €469 / $508 and 9.7-inch at €569 / $616. To fi nd out more, visit samsung.com.

Honor’s latest handset sold 200,000 phones in two-minute fl ash sale

Honor, the smartphone brand from Chinese manufacturer Huawei, has sold a staggering 200,000 units of its Honor 7 phones in just two minutes during an online fl ash sale. Honor and rival manufacturer Xiaomi have made their mark in the smartphone industry by providing top-quality phones at bargain basement prices. However, it’s the method of selling that has really helped chang the game. Rather than selling phones through stores and offering free handsets on contracts like the traditional powerhouses such as Samsung, LG and HTC do, Honor sells the phones itself online, meaning it cuts out the costs of being stocked in the high street and can therefore sell the handsets much cheaper. The stock also tends to be limited, which coupled with fl ash sales, helps to increase hype and excitement. “Over 9 million people in China have already registered to buy the new Honor 7, whichmarks a great success,” commented Lars-Christian Weisswange, chief engagement and communication offi cer for Europe. The event, which was only available to the Chinese market, saw the three models available sell at an astonishing rate of 1,667 every second. This business model of low costs, low surplus and keen consumer interest clearly leads to results and has helped Honor carve a sizeable chunk out of the market share over its rivals in China. At the moment that success is still yet to translate to the rest of the world. But the new Honor 7 handset could help with that.

It boasts a 1080p 5.2-inch display, a 64-bit Kirin 2.2GHz octa-core processor and 3GB RAM. There is a massive 20.7MP rear camera and an 8MP front camera; comparable to the advanced phone cameras found on Sony mobiles. The only difference between the three models in the range is the storage. There is a choice between 16GB, 32GB or 64GB. However, all models come with microSD support, which provides users with up to 128GB of extra storage. The 16GB version sold for around £210, the middle dual-SIM version for around £230 and the 64GB version sold for approximately £260. This is excellent value for the specs the handsets offer. The Honor 7 will be making its way to the European market later this year, and it will be interesting to see whether the Honor business model will work as well in other countries as it is proving to do in China. If you would like further information about Honor and keep updated as to when the Honor 7 is to be released where you live, or maybe just to learn about the other phones in the Honor range, pay a visit to the company’s site at hihonor.com or its Facebook page at facebook.com/HonorEurope.