How To Play Same Song on Multiple Phones Simultaneously

Play Same Song on Multiple Phones Simultaneously

Let’s say you’re with your friends and want to groove to a particular song. Unfortunately, no one has got a speaker; though, each of you has got a smartphone. Now, if you can play the same song on all the smartphones, the sound will be amplified, and all of you will have a good time rocking to your favorite music.

Seems like a brilliant idea. Only, it’s not easy to play a song in sync on multiple devices. The song you want to play might not be available on your friend’s device. Even if it is, hitting the play button at the same time on multiple devices is hardly possible. The more the number of devices, the more the possibility of playing out of sync. In the end, all you hear is some out of rhythm “noise”, which kinda ruins the party mood.

Well, you no longer need to be worried about playing songs in sync on multiple devices. AmpMe is here to help. AmpMe is a mobile app available for iOS and Android that syncs audio/video playback on an unlimited number of devices, turning them into one big speaker system.

How does AmpMe work?

The idea of playing the same music in sync on multiple devices sure sounds exciting. But how does AmpMe pull it off?

First off, AmpMe uses your device’s location to detect other nearby devices. If all the devices are connected to the same WiFi Network, the app uses that to stream audio across all the devices; otherwise, it uses the devices’ Internet connection.

Note: AmpMe may consume cellular data, if all the participating devices are not connected to the same WiFi network.

Play same music on multiple devices

The below steps will guide you to play audio simultaneously on multiple devices:

1. Download and Install AmpMe from the App Store or Google Play Store.
2. Open the app and click on the appropriate option under “Start a new party” (Spotify, YouTube, Music Library, SoundCloud) to host a party.
3. Tell your friends to open the AmpMe app and join your party. Alternatively, you can also join other parties hosted by your friends nearby.
4. Wait for the devices to sync up and start playing.

That’s it! In a few seconds, all the connected devices will start streaming the song in sync.

Note: In case one or more of the devices are not in sync, you can tap on the Sync button and manually adjust the offset to match the others. You need to wait a second or two after adjusting the offset, for the changes to take effect.

AmpMe also works with Bluetooth speakers. If you are the host, you can connect your device to a Bluetooth speaker to play music through it, along with other devices synced via AmpMe. It’s a really handy app to take your friendly get-together to the next level.

How To Convert videos to GIF on iOS and Android

Convert videos to GIF on iOS and Android

The Internet has overwhelmed us with a lot of trends on social media; animated GIFs being one of them. Many a times, you may come across short videos that you may wish to share as GIF, on platforms such as WhatsApp or Telegram. The advantage of the GIF over a regular video file, is that it plays inline within the conversation screen, while videos usually play in a separate window.

In this article, we’ve put together a few decent iOS and Android apps that help you convert short, usually 10 – 30 second videos, into GIFs and share them on social media & messaging platforms.

ImgPlay – iOS

ImgPlay allows you to create animated GIFs from Live Photos, Burst Photos, multiple photos and videos. Once you import the particular file(s) for editing, you can crop the frame, trim the duration of the GIF, add text captions, control playback speed, reverse playback and much more.

After your editing has been finalized, it’s now time to export your creation as a GIF or video or directly share it on social media via the Share menu. You’ll get an option to select the output as GIF or video, and also control the output quality. You could save the output as a GIF in your Camera Roll, but in most cases, you’d likely share it directly on social messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Telegram.

ImgPlay has a user friendly UI and you can create GIFs of any duration using the app for free. The only catch here is that the free version embeds a watermark at the bottom right corner of the videos & GIFs that you create using the app. But that should not be much of a distraction in our opinion. If you still want to remove the watermark, you can opt to purchase the Pro pack via in-app purchase, which costs $1.99.

Alternatively, you could try using the below free app, which does not include any watermark.

Gif Maker – iOS & Android

Gif Maker is a free app available for both iOS and Android, which enables you to create GIF from a set of photos or videos. You can also shoot a video within the app and create a GIF out of it. Later, the app allows you to set the playback speed, play in reverse, and add filters, text captions, etc. to enhance it. Finally, you can save the GIF to Camera Roll (iPhone, iPAd) or Downloads (Android), or upload the same to your preferred social network without saving it.

The free version of the app lets you share up to 10 second long videos or GIF without any watermark. But the app is ad-supported, which could be pretty annoying considering the fact that video ads often interrupt your actions. But it’s a small tradeoff if you want to convert videos to GIF for free without any watermark. The 10 second limitation should not be much of a concern, as most of the popular GIFs are less than 10 seconds long.

Gif Maker also has a paid, ad-free Pro version for iOS, which additionally increases the GIF duration limit to up to 20 seconds long. Gif Maker Pro can be purchased from the App Store for $3.99. The Android version of the app is free and ad-supported, without any limitations.

Android users can additionally try another video to GIF converter app, known as Video to GIF, which is available as a free download on Google Play Store.

Send WhatsApp message without saving receiver’s phone number

For most part of it, WhatsApp may have been able to replace SMS on your phone. It’s lightweight, instant and free, hence taking a significant advantage over conventional SMS. And with over a billion users a day, the app is likely used by everyone in your social circle.

But there’s one small feature that WhatsApp lacks, which has been one of the core features of conventional SMS, that is, sending messages to someone who’s not on your contact list. If you wish to send a WhatsApp message to someone, they should be already present in your contacts. If not present, you have to create the contact first before you can send them a WhatsApp message.

Now, that’s fine, if the particular person is a regular contact. But sometimes, you might just want to send a message to a person for one-time purpose, and may not prefer to add their contact due to the temporary nature of the communication.

Moreover, you might prefer to just chat with a person without giving away your personal details (Profile Picture, Status, etc.). And a specific privacy setting in the app, allows you to hide such information from people who are not on your contacts list.

But unfortunately, WhatsApp does not allow you to send messages without saving the phone number. In this article, we’ll explore a few workarounds and solutions to send WhatsApp messages to a phone number without adding it to your contacts.

WhatsApp Direct (iOS, Android, Windows Phone)

WhatsApp Direct is a simple web app that allows you to send WhatsApp messages, directly to a phone number, without having to create a contact first. WhatsApp Direct is a multi-platform app that works on the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone devices.

The web app interface is quite simple and self explanatory. The following steps will guide you to send a WhatsApp message via WhatsApp Direct:

1. Open WhatsApp Direct on your iPhone, Android or Windows Phone device.
2. Select the receiver’s country code.
3. Next, enter the receiver’s phone number (without the country code), and the message (optional) that you want to send, in the respective spaces provided.
4. Hit the Send button.

The app will now redirect you to WhatsApp (Click OK if it asks for your permission), with a new chat open corresponding to the entered phone number, and the entered message ready to be sent. To send the message to the phone number, just tap on the Send button on the chat screen.

If you do not have WhatsApp installed, it will prompt you to install it from the App Store or Google Play.

Note: Ensure that the phone number that you’re entering is already registered to WhatsApp, otherwise the message won’t reach the receiver, even though it is sent successfully to WhatsApp servers.

Install WhatsApp Direct

On iPhone and Android, you can install WhatsApp Direct to the Home Screen by using the Add to Home Screen option. This way, you can launch WhatsApp Direct just like any other app on your device. To add WhatsApp Direct as a web app on iPhone or Android, do the following:

On iPhone

1. Launch WhatsApp Direct using Mobile Safari.
2. Tap on the Share icon at the bottom of the screen.
3. From the Share Menu, select Add to Home Screen and then tap on Add in the top right corner.

On Android

1. Launch WhatsApp Direct using Chrome browser.
2. Tap on the Menu button (hamburger icon) from the top right corner of the screen.
3. Scroll down and tap on Add to Home Screen and then tap on Add in the pop up.

WhatsApp will now behave as an independent app that can be launched directly from the Home Screen of your iPhone or Android smartphone.

How To Save WhatsApp Status photos & videos to iPhone, or Android

Save WhatsApp Status photos & videos to iPhone, or Android

Earlier this year, WhatsApp launched its Snapchat Stories clone called Status, which has become quite popular over the months. The Status feature lets you upload multiple photos and videos of your whereabouts throughout the day, such that they come together to tell your story. Your Status is automatically reset after 24 hours.

If anyone in your contacts has updated their Status, it becomes visible in the new Status tab. And you can tap on a particular contact’s icon to view their status. But, WhatsApp doesn’t currently allow you to download Status photos and videos directly to your phone.

Even so, you might still want to download a photo or two from a friend’s status update someday. Here, we’ll explore a few tricks to download WhatsApp Status photos and videos of your friends, directly to an iPhone or Android devices.

Download WhatsApp Status Photos & Videos on iPhone [without jailbreak]

The official WhatsApp app for the iPhone doesn’t have any button to let you download someone’s WhatsApp Story. But a third party WhatsApp tweak, called WhatsApp++ has added the facility to download photos and videos, as you’re viewing other peoples’ stories. Your downloads get saved to the Camera Roll in the Photos app, so that you have no problem accessing them later.

Since WhatsApp++ is an unofficial tweak, it’s not available on the App Store. And normally, you have to jailbreak your iPhone in order to install it. But because of BuildStore, you can install WhatsApp++ (and many other out-of-store apps) on your iOS device, without having to jailbreak it. All you need is a $9.99/year per device subscription to BuildStore.

Note: Installing WhatsApp++ from BuildStore requires you to uninstall the original WhatsApp app.

1. Uninstall the original WhatsApp app from your iPhone if it’s already installed.
2. Sign up for a new BuildStore account and register your iOS device.
3. On your registered iOS device, open Safari and navigate to the WhatsApp++ app page.
4. Tap on the Install button.
5. Once installed, register WhatsApp++ with a valid phone number.
6. Open WhatsApp++, tap on the Status page and view the particular Status that you want to download media from.
7. When the particular photo or video that you want to download, is playing, just tap on the Download button in the bottom right corner. The file will be downloaded to your Camera Roll.

Note: There are other ways to install iOS apps from outside of the App Store without jailbreak, for free. But, in these cases, you usually need to reinstall the app every 7 days to keep using it. Moreover, it’s quite difficult to find a reliable, unaltered installer (IPA) for specific iOS apps on the Internet.

BuildStore is a preferred solution because of its ease of use and trustworthiness. All apps and tweaks found on the BuildStore repository are updated and uploaded by their developers.

Download WhatsApp Status Photos & Videos on Android

On Android, whenever you View a user’s status in WhatsApp, the media files present therein get automatically downloaded to the hidden .Status folder located in WhatsApp/Media/ directory of your Internal Storage.

You can manually save those files by browsing to the WhatsApp/Media/ directory using an advanced file manager like ES File Explorer, and then enable hidden files to view the .Status directory. From there, you can just copy the contents of the .Status folder and paste it in a location of your choice.

If you do not want to do this manually, there are several apps available on Google Play Store that offer to let you save WhatsApp Status photos and videos. In this demonstration, we’ll use an app called Story Saver for WhatsApp. Here’s how it works.

Note: It is assumed that you already have WhatsApp installed on your Android device.

1. Download and install Story Saver, if you haven’t already done it.
2. Open WhatsApp and navigate to the Status section.
3. View the Status of the person, from which you want to download media files. While being viewed, WhatsApp will automatically download the containing media files in its internal hidden “.Status” folder.
4. Now open Story Saver and tap on Recent Stories.
5. Browse the downloaded photos and videos from viewed WhatsApp Statuses, and select the ones that you want to download.
6. Click on the Download button at the top-right corner.

The selected Story Photos & Videos will be downloaded to your Photos Gallery. You can also tap on individual photos and videos and use the Share menu to transfer them to other apps.

How To Send a message to yourself on WhatsApp

Send a message to yourself on WhatsApp

Sometimes, you might want to use a chat conversation for personal use, for example, taking notes, bookmarking Internet URLs, saving attachments, maintaining to-do lists, etc. And what better way to do this than to create a chat thread for yourself. WhatsApp stores messages and attachments on the user’s device, rather than the server. Moreover, it recently started supporting all types of attachments, hence making it an ideal app for the above purpose.

But how do you send a message to yourself on WhatsApp? Previously, it was possible to create a WhatsApp chat by picking your own contact from the Favorites tab/Contacts tab. But WhatsApp has since replaced the Favorites tab/Contacts tab with the Status tab, and it is no longer possible to send a message to yourself, unless you have another phone number, also registered on WhatsApp.

In this article, we’re going to explore a workaround that allows you to create a WhatsApp conversation thread with your own number.

If you follow our blog, you might already be aware of our web app called WhatsApp Direct, which allows you to send WhatsApp messages to any phone number without saving it to your contacts. And the same app may in fact be used to send a WhatsApp message to your own number.

The below steps will guide you to send a WhatsApp message to your own number, and create a personal chat thread that you can use for bookmarking or reference purposes.

1. Open WhatsApp Direct on your smartphone.
2. Select the appropriate country code from the dropdown. Your selected code will be remembered by the app for future usage.
3. Enter your registered WhatsApp phone number and a test message to initiate the chat.
4. You will be redirected to a new WhatsApp chat with your phone number on it.

Now that your personal chat thread has been created, it will remain on your chat list, even if you close the app. Whenever you want to bookmark a URL or attachment, or refer back to a text at a later time, just send it as a message in your personal thread.

And that’s it, you can continue using the chat thread just as any other WhatsApp conversation, as long as you don’t delete it, or uninstall WhatsApp without having a chat backup.

Note: WhatsApp Direct works on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone devices.

Did you like this little trick to send WhatsApp messages to your own number? Let us know in the comments below.

Disclosure: WhatsApp Direct is a home-brewed app created at 7labs for the benefit of all our readers. As such, we built this app keeping the privacy of our readers in mind. Any information that is shared on WhatsApp Direct (phone numbers, messages, etc.), is sent directly to WhatsApp using their APIs. We do not store this information, nor do we forward this to other third parties.

How Truecaller’s Caller ID works on Smartphones

How Truecaller’s Caller ID works on Android and iOS

Truecaller is a useful app for identifying who that phone number belongs to, and is a major hub for the protection, against spam calls. If you’re here, you might be wondering how Truecaller works and how it operates. In this article, we’ll explore the same.

Truecaller drives its power from its user community. Anyone signing up for the first time has to provide their permission to the app to let it upload the entire list of contacts. The uploaded contact information then merges with the existing database of phone numbers.

Once signed up, the user can search by either phone number or name, and find out their corresponding contact information from the Truecaller database. A user can look up the associated contact name by providing a phone number for free. However, if someone wants to find the phone number associated to a name, he/she requires premium membership in order to ask for it from the particular person (provided, both parties are using Truecaller).

Apart from manual search, one of the major features of Truecaller is live caller identification, which allows a user to know the identity of his/her caller during an incoming call. Truecaller achieves this in a two-fold approach.

It keeps a local list of known spammers (marked by the Truecaller community) stored in the on the users’ phones. This allows users to identify and block spam calls locally from their iPhone and Android devices, even without an Internet connection. And if a caller is not in the predefined spam list, Truecaller can perform a live lookup during an incoming call, and provide the caller’s identity to the user.

How Truecaller Live Caller ID works on Android

Truecaller on Android can directly perform a live lookup of phone numbers as soon as an incoming call comes in, as the platform provides the required permissions to do so. So, as long as the caller’s phone number is in the Truecaller database, the app will show the caller’s name as a popup on the incoming call screen, regardless of whether the caller is a Truecaller user or not.

However, the time it takes for Truecaller to fetch the caller’s identity may vary, depending on certain factors.

For instance, if the caller is also a Truecaller user either running an Android phone, or initiating the call from the Truecaller app on iPhone, the identification may be instant on the receiver’s phone. However, if the caller is not a Truecaller user or calling directly from the Phone app on iPhone without using the Truecaller dialer, it might take some time to load his/her identity, depending on the receiver’s Internet connection.

This is because, in the first case, Truecaller can send a direct notification to the receiver’s device, letting them know about the caller’s identity, and there’s no actual lookup involved. In the second case, such direct notification isn’t possible, and Truecaller has to resort to its database lookup, which takes relatively longer.

How Truecaller Live Caller ID works on iOS (iPhone)

Because of iOS’s restrictions, Truecaller on iOS was only limited to manual phone number lookups for a very long time. However, recently the updated app has become much more usable for the live caller identification feature. However, that being said, there are still some limitations of the iOS app, when it comes to live caller identification.

In order for live caller identification to work on iOS, it is mandatory for both the (caller and receiver) devices to have the Truecaller app installed and also be connected to the Internet as well.

If the caller is an Android user, the receiver will get a caller ID notification for incoming calls. If the caller is an iPhone user, the receiver will only get the caller ID notification, when the caller uses the Truecaller dialer to initiate the call.

In the above scenario, when the caller initiates a call from an Android phone having Truecaller installed, or using the Truecaller dialer on iPhone, Truecaller takes the caller’s information and sends them directly to the receiver’s device as a push notification.

Due to such implementation, you might notice that sometimes, the caller ID notification is pushed to your iPhone before the actual call comes in. This is because, push notifications are often faster than the time it takes for the PSTN to connect the two parties (may not be applicable for VoLTE calls).

Alternatively, if the caller doesn’t have the Truecaller app, or calling from an iPhone using a different dialer (not Truecaller), there’s no way for Truecaller to detect the call due to iOS’s restrictions. And so, no caller ID notification is sent to the receiver in this case.

Note: If the SIM card for your Truecaller registered phone number is installed on a different phone than the iPhone on which Truecaller app is installed, you’ll only get live caller ID notifications for calls to your registered phone number. On the other hand, the spam call identification feature will only work for calls to your iPhone. This is because spam calls are detected locally using the native “Call Blocking and Identification” feature on iOS.

How To Access external hard drive on Android

Access external hard drive on Android

In today’s world, mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets help us to carry and access data on the go. With larger screens, nowadays they also prove to be good for watching HD videos and movies. But HD videos and other high quality media often take up significant storage space, a factor that is usually limited on smartphones and tablets. Thus, if you have a large media collection, you probably would have to make a choice about which ones to keep on your mobile devices.

Portable external hard drives, on the other hand, allow us to carry several gigabytes of data in our pockets. With such storage devices, you can carry your entire media collection along with you. Now, if you could access this data from your mobile device, it would considerably remove its storage limitation. In this article, we’ll explore different ways to expand the storage of Android tablets and smartphones, by connecting and accessing data stored on USB storage devices (such as external hard drives, flash drives, pen drives, etc.).

Here, we’ll be considering two different options for accessing data from USB drives on Android devices:

• Over a wired connection.
• Over a wireless connection.

Wired connection is suitable if you want to access from an external hard drive when there is not much movement involved, or if there is no suitable way to set up a wireless network. Wireless connection is more preferable if you need quick access to data on the go.

Connect USB drive to Android (Wired)

If you want to access an external hard drive from an Android device using a wired connection, the first thing you should ensure is whether your device supports USB OTG (On The Go) or not. USB OTG is a special feature available on some Android devices that allows you to mount a USB storage drive on an Android device using a USB OTG cable.

OTG cables have a female USB jack on one end, while on the other end, there is a microUSB connector. To connect to a phone or tablet, just plug in the USB connector of external drive to the female USB jack of the OTG cable, and connect the microUSB end of the cable to the phone/tablet.

Several factors determine whether an Android device is OTG-capable. First, the device needs to have suitable OS and drivers installed in order to identify and mount storage devices over OTG connection. Second, the device must be capable of providing sufficient power to the USB device in order to keep it active. Many external hard disks require external power to keep the disk running. If external power is provided (using a power USB hub, for example) in this case, the USB disk will draw less power from the smartphone battery.

Access external hard drive on Android using USB OTG

Once you have an OTG supported device along with an OTG cable, you are almost ready to connect your external hard disk to your phone or tablet. At this point, you have three options to mount and access an external hard drive on Android depending on your preferable situation.

Connect external hard drive to Android (Wireless)

For this method, you need a wireless external hard drive that can share data over WiFi, or even a wireless router that supports USB data sharing. You can then connect your Android phone or tablet to the shared WiFi network and stream data from the external drive to the device.

Typically, the wireless external drive is accessible to all WiFi enabled devices connected to the particular WiFi network. You can also set up a network password to prevent unauthorized access. Some wireless external drives provide dedicated Android apps to access data, while others allow you to navigate to a specific address on the local network to access the data on the external drive.