The deafening problem with the FreeStyle Libre 3 app for Android
People with diabetes use the app to monitor glucose levels and trigger alerts when it goes critical. Unfortunately, it raises the volume to uncomfortable levels.
Mobile Apps
Phone Link relays your personal data through Microsoft servers
The Phone Link app doesn’t transfer data directly between your devices over the local network. Instead, it allows Microsoft to peak at your personal data.
Sync issues finally drove me away from the Joplin note-taking app
Joplin for Android stopped supporting local file syncing and Syncthing. I tried cloud-storage alternatives, but the other sync methods are slow and unreliable.
A Sony Headphones app feature kills your phone’s battery life
Adaptive Sound Control auto-adjusts your noise-canceling and ambient-awareness levels based on detected activities and location. At a significant battery cost.
Overriding Bedtime mode with priority alerts
Is Bedtime mode on Android using Do Not Disturb mode to silence alerts and notifications? That’s unclear, if you’ve got the Samsung Digital Wellbeing app.
Kitty Letter word-scrambled my brain
Who knew an enchanted letter vortex could cause you trouble falling asleep? How a mobile game engraved a repeating pattern into my brain.
Be wary of file sync conflicts with KeePass apps on Android
An investigation and comparison into how KeePass-compatible password manager apps for Android handle external changes to an unlocked password vault database.
Review of Firefox “Daylight” for Android
The new Firefox version for Android comes with big changes under the hood, but also drops support for thousands of extensions, and is less configurable.
Google Authenticator enables device-transfers, but no export options
Two-factor authentication requires users to commit to storing a secret code indefinitely. Popular apps lack tools to back up and data transfer those secrets.
FreeStyle Libre Reader device versus the LibreLink app
The pros and cons of using Abbott’s dedicated Reader device or the LibreLink mobile app to read your levels with the FreeStyle Libre flash-glucose Sensor.
What is Samsung Secure Wi-Fi for Android?
Secure Wi-Fi is a paid VPN network service from Samsung and McAfee. What it does and how to stop its adverts and remove it from your Android phone.
Review: Joplin note-taking app
The open-source note-taking app Joplin supports encryption and choose-your-own-cloud. Desktop app gets the job done, but the Android app is slow and clunky.
Unobtrusive sleep tracking app for Android
Sleep Debt Tracker is a simple Google Fit-compatible Android app that assumes you’re sleeping in the hours when you don’t use your phone at night.
How to get to the Microsoft Feed in your web browser
Get access to the Microsoft Hummingbird personalized news feed in your web browser (and outside the US.) No side-loaded apps required, just your web browser.
Use Xiaomi Mi Band as a continuous heart rate monitor with Google Fit
How to sync your continuous heart rate monitoring data collected by the Xiaomi Mi Band 4 or 3 fitness tracker to the Google Fit app.
Contour Diabetes app, Bluetooth, and why we can’t have nice things
The Contour Next glucose monitor and its companion app communicate with each other over Bluetooth. Well, they try to anyway.
Not getting much done with Microsoft To-Do
Microsoft To-Do app is slow and requires frequent reloading. It doesn’t sync with Outlook, Cortana, and other Microsoft task list apps.
Replaced the default Google Now Launcher app to save my Nexus 5X
My Android device struggled with high-memory usage from the Google Now Launcher app. Moving to a different launcher app gave my phone a new lease on life.