1. Easier Keyboarding
To avoid switching from
Android’s letter keyboard to its number and symbol keyboard, hold down
the period key to see commonly used punctuation marks and symbols. Slide
your finger to the menu that appears, lifting it to select the right
key.
If you can’t stand tapping on glass to type on a virtual
keyboard, try not lifting your fingers as much. Many Android devices
come preloaded with Swype, which lets you type by dragging your finger
from one letter to the next; lift your finger up when the word ends.
It’s remarkably accurate. To see if Swype is running on your device,
spell out a word without lifting your finger. If connecting lines don’t
appear between each letter, tap and hold the space bar to see the Select
Input Method screen and choose Swype. You can still type the old way,
tapping one key at a time.
2. Unlock With Your Face
Instead of tracing a
pattern on a screen or typing in a PIN, hold your Android device up and
stare into its front-facing camera for a second to unlock it. This isn’t
as secure as other methods and doesn’t always work, but it can be fun
to use. To set this up go to Settings, Security, Screen Lock and choose
Face Unlock. Set a backup PIN or pattern to trace for those moments when
face detection doesn’t work.
3. Screen Shots Made Simple
Capture a still
image of any screen you’re looking at by simultaneously pressing the
power button and the volume down button. Find your screen shot in your
Gallery under Screenshots or in the Notifications shade, which pulls
down from the top of the screen. This feature only works in Android
devices running Ice Cream Sandwich or later.
4. Manage Screens
In Android, app icons and
widgets are organized on several Home screens. There are two ways to
rearrange or remove these screens. One way on certain phones is to swipe
from right to left to get to the last screen on your phone, tap at the
bottom of that last screen (an option may say Manage Pages) and then
touch and hold a screen to rearrange its order or remove it. For a
shortcut, tap and hold the phone’s Home button for a second to jump
directly to this.
5. Shortcut to Contacts
There’s an easier way
to get in touch with your favorite people: Pin their faces to a Home
screen. Go to All Apps, Widgets, select the Contact widget, which will
prompt you to choose a person’s name from your contacts list. That
person’s photo and contact information will be pinned to Home, for
faster texting, calling and social networking. A Favorite Contacts
widget pins four together on the Home screen.
6. Save the Battery With a Widget
Stop digging
through menus to quickly turn off features that suck up your battery.
One tool will do the trick: the Power Control widget. Find this by
opening the All Apps page and tapping Widgets at the top. You may have
to flip through a few screens to find the Power Control widget, but when
you do, tap and hold it to anchor it on any of your pages. Once this
bar is on a page, it will let you tap once to turn five features on or
off: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, automatic account syncing (for Google,
Facebook, LinkedIn and others) and screen brightness (low, medium, high
or auto).
7. Auto-Update Apps
Avoid the nagging update
notices that appear in your drop-down Notifications shade and set your
apps to automatically update as updates become available. If you’re
worried about conserving data, set this to update only over Wi-Fi. Open
the Google Play store, Settings, Auto-Update Apps by Default and check
the Wi-Fi option.
8. Sync Photos and Videos on the Go
If you’ve
signed up for Google’s social network, Google+, you can automatically
save any photos or videos you capture on your device to a private (by
default) folder in Google+ called Instant Upload. See these back at your
desktop by accessing Google+ and looking at Photos, Instant Upload.
(Videos are there, too.) Conserve data usage by adjusting when these
photos and videos get uploaded, like only in Wi-Fi or only when the
device is plugged in and charging. Adjust these settings from your
mobile device in Google+, Settings, Instant Upload
9. Smarter Web Browsing
Google’s Chrome
browser comes preloaded on Android devices and works on PC or Mac
computers, iPads, iPhones and other devices. If you own a few devices
and use Chrome on each, instantly access the tabs you left open on one
from another device by tapping Menu, Other Devices and tapping on an
opened website in another device’s list of opened tabs. Browse in Chrome
without leaving any history by using Incognito Mode on your Android
mobile device. Turn this on in Menu, New Incognito Tab.
10. Back Up and Restore Settings, Apps
If
you’re upgrading from one Android device to another, you can start using
your new device with your old settings and apps if you follow these
steps.
First, on the old device, go to Settings, Privacy Settings
(for devices running Android version 2) or Settings, Backup and Reset
(for devices running Android version 4 or 5). Place a check mark beside
the Back Up My Data option. Give it a few minutes to back up and then
when you start the new Android device, a setup option will let you
restore settings and apps from backup.
