Android is a great little operating system. It’s absolutely packed with great features, awesome hacks , and time-saving tricks.
But how much do you really know about your phone or tablet ?
Sure, you can make phone calls and send texts, but we bet there is something in this article that you weren’t aware of.
Read on to find out!
1) Enable Developer Mode
Ok, this is one of the more widely known tricks, but it’s important nonetheless, so we are going to include it.
Navigate to Settings > About phone and tap on your phone’s build number seven times. You’ll get an onscreen countdown, eventually followed by a message saying “Congratulations, you are now a developer”.
2) Change the Animation Scales
For the most part, the latest Android phones already feel very snappy. However, after the latest Nexus 5X only shipped with 2GB of RAM, some users were left feeling a bit underwhelmed by Google’s hugely popular product line.
There are also lots of popular entry-level phones that come with slower processors and only 1GB or 2GB of RAM
One solution is to change your phone’s “Window animation scale”, “Transition animation scale” and “Animator duration scale” from 1x to 0.5x. Granted, it won’t actually make your phone faster, but it will make it feel faster.
Go to Settings > Developer options and scroll about two thirds of the way down the list to find the necessary options (you’ll need to have first enabled Developer Mode).
3) Clear App Defaults
It’s annoying when a link opens in a certain app rather than in the browser. It could be a YouTube link, a tweet, or a Facebook page — you’ll end up waiting around while your phone shuts down Chrome (or your browser of choice) and fires up something else.
It’s easily fixed.
Go to Settings > Apps and find the app that keeps opening. Once there, scroll down to Open by default, press it, and then select Clear Defaults .
If that doesn’t work, try doing the same with your browser app as well.
4) Quickly Change Your WiFi Network
Oddly, how to quickly switch between WiFi networks is not very obvious. Sure, you can go to Settings > Wi-Fi and change it there, but there has to be a faster way, right?
Well, there is!
But how much do you really know about your phone or tablet ?
Sure, you can make phone calls and send texts, but we bet there is something in this article that you weren’t aware of.
Read on to find out!
1) Enable Developer Mode
Ok, this is one of the more widely known tricks, but it’s important nonetheless, so we are going to include it.
2) Change the Animation Scales
For the most part, the latest Android phones already feel very snappy. However, after the latest Nexus 5X only shipped with 2GB of RAM, some users were left feeling a bit underwhelmed by Google’s hugely popular product line.
There are also lots of popular entry-level phones that come with slower processors and only 1GB or 2GB of RAM
Go to Settings > Developer options and scroll about two thirds of the way down the list to find the necessary options (you’ll need to have first enabled Developer Mode).
3) Clear App Defaults
It’s annoying when a link opens in a certain app rather than in the browser. It could be a YouTube link, a tweet, or a Facebook page — you’ll end up waiting around while your phone shuts down Chrome (or your browser of choice) and fires up something else.
It’s easily fixed.
Go to Settings > Apps and find the app that keeps opening. Once there, scroll down to Open by default, press it, and then select Clear Defaults .
If that doesn’t work, try doing the same with your browser app as well.
4) Quickly Change Your WiFi Network
Oddly, how to quickly switch between WiFi networks is not very obvious. Sure, you can go to Settings > Wi-Fi and change it there, but there has to be a faster way, right?
Well, there is!
Swipe down twice from the top of your screen to open the Quick Settings menu, and instead of pressing on the WiFi icon (which disables it), instead press on the network’s name. You’ll immediately be given a list of all the networks in your vicinity.
That is, if your version of Android supports this.
5) Quickly Access the Quick Settings Menu
Speaking of the Quick Settings menu, did you know you don’t actually need to double swipe in order to access it?
Instead, a simultaneous two-finger swipe will have the same effect.
