Top 20 Secrets Tips And Tricks Your Android Phone or Tablet

Unlock the real potential of your Android phone or tablet with these tweaks, Tips and techniques.

Install a Custom Rom

A custom ROM will radically change your Android device. They're a great way to get a 'pure' Android experience, with the latest OS version, excellent performance and access to tweak and adjust settings to your heart’s delight. And installing them has become much easier, thanks to efforts by some of the bigger custom ROM makers like CyanogenMod (www.cyanogenmod.org) which has a dedicated Installer app that

walks you through the process. The catch: vendors don't want you changing your device so radically, so installing a custom ROM will void your warranty. But if you’ve got an older device that's feeling sluggish, this is a great way to give it a new lease on life.

Replace Your Launcher

If installing a custom ROM sounds a bit too risqué for you, the alternative is to switch to a different launcher. Launchers are basically the interface that runs on top of Android they’re the reason different Android phones’ front ends look different from each other. You’re not stuck with these default launchers, however, and switching to a third-party one can unlock a good deal more customisability, including fitting more apps on a page, changing themes and speeding up the interface as a whole. Check out Nova (novalauncher.com), Apex (apexlauncher.com) or GO (bit.ly/Go) to get started

Get Location Aware

The GPS chips in all our smartphones and tablets are great for getting directions, but they can also be useful for enabling or disabling settings and other elements. There are multiple ways you can create custom, location-based actions (like say, turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off when you're away from home), but our favourites are Tasker (it’s a paid app, but you can download a trial at (tasker.dinglisch.net), which is a self contained tool that's great for adjusting device settings, or the IF by IFTTT app (ifttt.com), which can tie into other systems services including smart home gear like Belkin’s Wemo and Philips Hue.

Unlock Developer Options & Enable Unknown Sources

These are both advanced features that are critical if you want to root your phone or flash a custom ROM (in the case of ‘Developer Options') or install apps and games from outside the Play Store (so-called ‘Unknown Sources'). The latter is key if you want to use the Amazon Appstore, mentioned below. To enable Developer Options, open ‘Settings > About phone/device’ and then tap the ‘Build number’ element seven times; Developer Options will then appear under the System or Device area of the Settings app, depending on the device. For Unknown Sources, head to ‘Settings > Security’ and check the relevant box, after which you’ll be able to download and use third-party .apkapp installers.

Get Apps And Games For Free

There’s a heap of free games and apps for Android, but the vast bulk of those are, frankly, pretty rubbish. For better free apps, start by installing the Amazon Appstore (www.amazon.com/getappstore), which offers a free commercial Android app or game every day. You can also head to the XDA forums (bit.ly/xda) to grab some of the community-developed tools and utilities there, many of which are also for sale on the Play Store, but are offered free to other XDA community members.

Get Free Play Store Credit

Google has its own market research app, called Opinion Rewards, that doles out Play Store credit to users for simply completing surveys  it can be used to purchase anything on the Play Store from apps and games to movies, TV and ebooks. Surveys usually consist of 3-5 questions and take a few minutes to complete, with rewards generally varying from $0.10 to $1, depending on survey length.

Reply To SMSs On Your PC

If you want to make working across multiple devices a little more frictionless, we're fans of Pushbullet. Install an app on your phone, which then pushes notifications to a PC or Mac app (or Chrome extension), from there you can open links and quickly draft and send replies to emails, SMSs and other messages. A great way of getting your Android and 'real’ PC to work in harmony with each other.

Enter Owner Info

If you lose your phone, this trick could help you get it back more easily it lets you write a short message that’s displayed on your phone or tablet's lock screen. That could be your name and email (or a secondary phone number), for example, the idea being that if someone finds your lost device, they can easily contact you to arrange its return. The ‘Owner info’ page is hidden away in different areas depending on your phone; on Nexus devices, you can generally find it under ‘Settings Personal > Security > Owner info'. On a newer Galaxy device, look under ‘Settings > Device > Lock screen > Show information > Owner information’.

Track Your Phones Location

Android Device Manager is a Google-made tool designed to be the Android equivalent of Apple's 'Find My iPhone’ app and it's a must-have in our book. Install it on your phone or tablet and, provided its turned on and has a data connection, you can track the device’s location just by logging into your Google account in any web browser. There are options to call phones, remotely change your PIN or even wipe a device completely... although doing so will obviously mean you can't track it any more. Get ADM from the Play Store at bit.ly/Adm.

See Whats Drainng Your Battery

While most major apps are fairly good when it comes to power use, the occasional runaway app can sometimes drain the heck out of your battery. To track down the culprits, on Nexus devices open ‘Settings > Device Battery‘ (on Galaxy phones you can likelv find it under ‘System > Power saving') and scroll down to below the battery graph to see a list of both system processes and apps/games, sorted by their power use. Your screen should usually be at the top of that list.

Customise The Quick Settings

Pretty much every Android device offers a bunch of what are known as Quick Settings' in the notification area toggles that let you do things like turn Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on and off or adjust brightness and so on. Some phones let you choose what toggles you want, but many frustratingly don't. There's a handful of apps that can get around this, though, by creating a permanent notification with your own custom selection of toggles. Our favourite is Settings Extended, which you can find at bit.ly/Extended.

Better Led Notifications

One of Android’s oft-touted benefits over iOS is that many devices have LEDs to alert you of notifications. Most phones don't make full use of their LED’s capabilities though these little lights can display millions of colours, so why not set specific colours for specific apps? That’s exactly what apps like Light Manager (bit.ly/Light) do letting you select colours and light patterns for notifications on a per-app basis. Make Gmail notifications red with slow blinks, chats green with faster blinks and work emails blue with medium blinks and you’ll know exactly what’s demanding your attention without having to wake your phone.

Customise App Notifications LolliPop

While we’re on the topic of notifications, if you're lucky enough to have a phone or tablet with Android 5.0 (aka Lollipop), you’ll find you have much finer control over how aggressive apps are with notifications. This includes being able to set priority notifications, which always appear at the top of your list, whether notifications should be shown on your lockscreen, and a new ‘silent mode’ called Downtime that silences notifications for specific hours. Go to ‘Settings > Sound ) notification’ to set it all up to your liking.

Lock Users To A Single App LolliPop

Don't you hate it when you lend your phone to a friend and they use it to post lewd messages to your Facebook account. (OK, maybe that's just *our* friends...) Android 5.0+ offers a new feature to prevent that, called ‘Screen pinning’. To enable it, open ‘Settings Security’ and find the ’Screen pinning' toggle and turn it on. Next, to pin an app, open it up, then hit the Overview button (it’s the square one on the bottom bar) then tap the ’cork board pin' icon at the bottom right of the app Window. You'll be prompted as to whether you want to require a security code/pattern to exit the app. Finally, click Start to pin the app.

Use A Guest Account LolliPop

If you want to let someone have slightly more open access to your device, Lollipop lets you quickly log into your device as a guest user, so none of your account or app settings are messed with. To switch to a guest account, pull open the notifications pane, tap the user icon once and then tap it again. Tap Guest and you’ll immediately be switched to a temporary account that you can safely let anyone else use. If desired, you can also create permanent additional users by tapping the ‘Add user'button. 

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