10 Basic Tips & Tricks Every Android User Should Know

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In the world of Android, many things are possible. But just like our world, where there are so many aspects of life still unexplored, Android too is intriguing. It only takes a bit of tweaking your explorative senses and it is all there for your to tap. It could a minor feature, while some are indeed of great relevance, but when you unlock a new aspect of your phone which you never knew, there is indeed a sense of achievement. Here are ten basic tips and some tricks to unleash the unexplored potential of the Android.

1. Saving the battery
You can enhance you battery in your Android gadget. The brightness of the screen takes up a lot of its life. So, you can manually set the brightness by going to Settings>>Display>>Brightness. If you go to Settings>>Display, there is a ‘˜Screen timeout’ option. This shuts off your screen once you are not using your phone. There are other settings as well. Like the ‘˜Smart screen’ keeps the screen on as long as you are looking at it. You can also try the Battery Saver app which has many power-saving tips and tricks, like shutting off power-sucking programs. It will also tell you which apps take up the most power.

2. Data Monitoring & USB
Android helps you track your data use and set limits before you go overboard on your billing. Go to Settings>>Data Usage. You can set your billing cycle and data limits. You can also see how much data you typically use and which apps use the most. Go to Data Usage>>Settings>>Restrict Background Services>>On. This forces the gadget to do updates over Wi-Fi instead of cellular.
With Android, you don’t need to carry a USB flash drive. Just plug it into a computer with the supplied USB cable and select ‘˜Media device’. This will be shown in the pop-up in your notification panel.

3. Accidental apps
If you accidentally download an unwanted app, just go to Settings>>Application manager. Tap on the particular app and then hit the Uninstall button. The inbuilt apps that come from the factory cannot be uninstalled using this option. For those, all you can do is remove them from the home screen. To do this, tap and hold an app icon on the home screen until a trash can appears at the top of the screen. Drag the icon into the can.

4. Finding your phone
If you misplace your phone, the Android Device Manager can help. It tracks down your gadget with GPS. You can cause it to ring at full volume or display a message on the lock screen. If you don’t lock your phone, you can lock it remotely with a new password. You can also wipe the personal information from your gadget. And if you are too sensitive about your privacy and the information stored in your phone, you can permanently encrypt your Android device. Go to Settings>>Security>>Encryption>>Encrypt phone. Create a pin, which will be needed to turn your phone on whenever you want to use it. It might take a while and can only be undone through a factory reset.

5. Disable Notifications & A Secret
If you want to do away with any unwanted notifications, long press on the notification for a message box to appear. Tap on App Info>>Untick Show Notifications>>OK. If you want to understand any app before automatic updates, you can do so manually. First disable your automatic app updates. Go to Play Store>>Settings>>Auto-update apps>>Do not auto-update apps. To update apps manually, go to Play Store, and on the main page, swipe in from the left and tap on ‘˜My apps’. You can tap on apps with pending updates and update them manually.
You can easily customize your device. One feature is: the ‘˜secret’ developer mode. Go to Settings>>About phone>>Build number. Tap seven times. Your device should tell you something like ‘˜you’re now a developer!’. Now, return to system settings and you might see ‘˜Developer options’. Here, one of the things you can do is reduce the time taken for animations to execute. Go to ‘˜animation scale’ options and turn them off. There are many other customizations you can do on this page.

6. Google Magic
While you need a Google account to use an Android phone, you can choose to run more than one Google account on your Android device. To add multiple Google accounts, Go to Settings>>Add account. Select Google and setup your new or existing Google account. Once added, choose what you want to sync. Repeat all the steps, if you want to add more accounts.
There is a shortcut in the Google Maps app that comes pre-installed. When travelling to a poor cell coverage area, or to avoid hitting your monthly usage, pull up the area where you are headed and type ‘˜Ok Maps’ in the search box. Google Maps downloads that portion and stores it so you can pull it up later without using any data.

7. Auto-correct off
Auto-correct is essential but there are times when you do not need your phone to assume a particular word, which could lend a completely different meaning. At such times, you can turn off auto-correction. Using the stock Google keyboard, go to Settings>> Language & Input >> Google Keyboard >> Text Correction >> Auto-correction and turn it off.

8. Screenshot capture
Useful for illustrating, screenshots are a favourite. In latest versions of Android, the action for taking a screenshot has been simplified. Just push Power and Volume Down at any time to take a picture of what is on the screen. It will be saved to your Gallery and then you can do what you want with it.

9. Launchers & Sending calls
Try ‘˜launchers’, which are apps that allow you to make edits to your device’s homescreen. Especially, the Nova Launcher, which allows to change just about anything. There are several other launchers too. They can often make your phone perform faster.
And you can configure your phone to send calls straight to voicemail without the phone even ringing. To do this, open a contact in the Contacts app, tap Edit, scroll down to ‘˜Additional info’ and select ‘˜Send straight to voicemail’. You can also create canned messages in the phone or call settings. You can just swipe the screen when your phone rings and send a text message stating you are busy.

10. Voice Search & Music Scrub
Your voice can help you search for anything. To activate the vocal control over Google searches, go to your app page and find the Google app. Tap it and scroll down till you see the icon ‘˜Voice’. Tap on ‘˜Ok Google Detection’ and activate the ‘˜From any screen’ setting. You can go for Google search by speaking the phrase, ‘˜Ok, Google’.
When playing music, the lockscreen gets taken over with some amazing album art and media controls which allow you to go back, play/pause, or skip to the next song. But it also has the ability to scrub through a song from the lockscreen. While the music plays, long-press on the media control buttons and Scrub through the song.

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