1. Lock in phone borrowers
How many times do you find yourself watching over people when you’re showing them something on your phone? Whether it be a child playing games or just showing a mate something, you’re reading likelihood is they will exit the app and begin snooping around your phone. Screen Pinning on android allows you to launch and keep open a single app with no one being able to move away from it without the lock code.
All you need to do is head to settings, go to the security menu and enable screen pinning, launch the app you want to show and open the overview via the square navigation button – next to the most recently opened app you should see a pin icon. Tap this icon and that app is then ‘screen pinned’ and the rest of your phone is hidden from the user.
2. Find what is lost
Android enables you to find any ‘lost’ notifications, so if you ever accidentally swipe away a notification that you wanted to read but can’t remember where it came from, the notification log can help you.
To do this, tap and hold an empty part of the home screen and the screen adjusting mode will come up, select widgets and find the settings shortcut. Drag this into an empty space on the home screen and once dropped a list will automatically appear – choose the notification log from the list and tap the icon do display the notification history. Ta-Dah! Unfortunately, this handy trick is not available on Samsung devices – so to save some time you might be better off downloading a notification saver app…
3. Can you do it onehanded?
Google has created a custom keyboard specifically for use on ‘larger’ phones which means you can use the keyboard one handedly, this is the default keyboard on a Pixel or a Nexus but if you want this keyboard on a Samsung or LG phone you need to download the keyboard first.
Open up the keyboard and hard press on the backslash key and drag up to the right-hand icon to set one handed mode. More research may be needed to determine the correct way for this to be done for your phone model but the good news at least is that the Samsung keyboard has this feature built in!
4. Custom Icons
There are two ways which you can change your icons on your android device, both obviously require time and dedication, but who doesn’t love a custom phone!
The first is through Nova Launcher, downloadable via the play store once downloaded you can begin customising the icons on your phone!
Secondly this can be done via an app eg: icon changer free, you can design and assign the icon exactly how you want it.
5. Priority Mode
Priority mode is essentially the Android ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature. You can set specific hours for when Priority mode is to come into play and you can decide how and when you’re notified from certain apps.
Priority mode is accessed by the volume buttons under the heading ‘Priority’ on the screen. Then to decide what apps you want to allow notifications from during priority mode tap the cog icon and you can make all of these changes.
6. Zoom
First you need to make sure that you have the magnification setting activated or you won’t be able to zoom at all! Head to settings, accessibility and magnification.All you have to do is triple tap! Triple tap anywhere on the screen apart from the keyboard and you will zoom right into whatever page you’re on. You can adjust the zoom depth by pinching your fingers or just pan across the screen by dragging two fingers and simply triple tap to zoom out again!
7. Guest Users
This handy setting is basically a higher content version of ‘Screen Pinning’ much like you can with a PC you can create additional users with various levels of access to be sure no one is accessing what they shouldn’t. To do this go to settings, select users and select add user or profile – this can also be accessed via the notifications tray and the quick settings tog, allowing you to easily swap between different users, guests and profiles. Unfortunately, yet again this one depends on the make and model of your phone!
8. Lost your TV remote?
Did you know that some Android devices are fitted with infrared blasters? So, if you ever misplace your TV remote and you’re the proud owner of an Android Device, do not fret! All you need to do is download a TV remote app from the play store! Most if not all TV’s have a universal remote so until you find the real thing again your phone can act as a handy replacement.
9. Say Cheese!
Personally, I think this is my favourite Android Tip – If you launch the camera app, tap the settings cog and enable voice control you can take photos simply by saying ‘say cheese’. Even more amazingly you can actually change the phrase used to take the photos! Please note though that this only works when using the rear facing camera!
10. Swipe and Gesture Type
Typing is tiring, right? One hidden feature of Android device is the amazing swipe and gesture typing. All is required is for the user to slide and swipe their fingers from one place on the keyboard to the next without having to lift a finger off the keypad! You can get this feature on via Google Keyboard via the play store! However, we are aware that not all android device will have this feature, if not there are accompanying third party apps available on the play store that work just as well.