Cool and hidden features of
android phones
Android has almost reached the
top of smartphone market segment and day by day its user base is growing strong.These
smartphones have become part of our daily life and we use them at most of the
times but we still miss out on exploring our phone’s features completely.Many
android users do not know much about the hidden features of android phones. Here
we are sharing an article with secret android tricks and hidden features of
android phones. Different versions of android
support different set of beautiful and cool features, so try them all
and see which would work on your device.
1) Force reboot:
All of a sudden android devices
freeze on few occasions.In case your android phone is frozen, you can reboot it
instead of trying out other things and getting irritated by doing so.
Just press Power Button+ Home Key
+ Volume up button simultaneously.
2) Quick Google Access:
We can’t imagine our world
without internet and we all would love if we could access it in a single click
and in a simpler manner.Many of the android users do not know that android
phones provide a way by which we can access Google search in just a single
click:
Press menu key and hold it for
couple of seconds, it will launch the Google search.
3) Reboot Android in safe mode:
As we could reboot our computers,
we can also reboot Android phones in safe mode. The latest Android- Jelly Bean
version provides an option to reboot your device in safe mode if something goes wrong.To reboot your
android device in safe mode, follow the below given instructions.
*Long press the power button
*Long press on the power off
option. (This will help in hunting down the problem causing application)
Android phone will show a
confirmation message about rebooting it in safe mode. If we reboot android
phone in safe mode then all the 3rd party applications will be disabled. These
applications can again be enabled when we reboot our phone normally. This is a
great Android utility in case when one of your 3rd party application is causing
serious trouble and you want to hunt it down.
To know more about safe mode, read
– What is safe mode in android and how to switch it on.
4) Unlock android phones by face
detection:
In the jelly bean version and
KitKat, Android provides a way by which your android phone could be unlocked using
face detection.To make this feature more secure, Jelly Bean version added
another layer of protection in which Android phone can be unlocked only when
the face is matched and when we blink our eyes. Blinking your eyes tells the
android security system that person is live and it’s not an illegal attempt of
unlocking using a still image.
To activate this: Go to Settings >
Security > Screen lock > Face unlock.
5) Get detailed information about
phone status:
We can get the detailed
statistics related to our device like
phone information, battery information, usage statistics and WiFi information
by just dialing *#*#4636#*#*
This is a handy USSD to get the
details about battery usage, DNS check, Ping, Application time, usage time and
so on.
6) Move android apps to SD card:
It is always better to install android apps in SD card, but what
if you have installed apps in your phone
memory. Don’t worry! Android phones provide a way by which we can move our apps
to SD card. To move apps to SD card, follow these steps:
Go to settings > Application
settings > Manage application > Select the application, You will see the
option “Move to SD card”.
7) Hard Reset and Factory reset
your android phone:
Android phone can be formatted in
two ways:
a) Factory reset: In factory
reset, your phone is being formatted to factory level. Means all the settings
will go by default and all the internal data will be deleted. To factory reset
a phone dial *#*#7780#*#*.
b) Hard reset: To hard reset a
phone dial *2767*3855#, this will delete all the data (including internal and
External SD data) as well as settings of android phone. Don’t try this code for
testing purpose, until you are not sure. It will not ask for any confirmation.
8)Context menu in android:
Long press on the screen will
show you additional options for customizing android phones. This context menu
is somewhat similar to the right click menu of most operating systems.
9) Taking screen shots on android
phone:
Android phones offer a great
feature by which we can take the screen shot without using any 3rd party
application. However the procedure of taking screenshot varies from one android
version to another version.
Procedure for most of the devices:
Simply press volume down button and power button together.There are many more
tricks and benifits related to capturing screenshots in android devices.Read
them here –Benefits and tricks related to capturing screenshots.
10)Set warnings for data limits:
Navigate to Settings menu and
select the option ‘Data Usage’ to find the graph which clearly depicts the data
usage in your device by all the applications.You can find the options to set
warnings for data limits, set cycles for monitoring data usage and enable or
disable data usage in your device.
Mobile data usage has a lot to do
with device’s performance.There are many key features which need to be
monitored so as to enhance the battery life of your android device.So keep an
eye and play around with options like selective synchronization of data, selective
mobile networks, switching from 2G to 3G whenever required etc., These tips
will help you increase the battery life on your device for sure.How to get
better battery life on your smartphone.
11)See your notifications even
after clearing them:
Have you cleared all your
notifications without seeing them?There is a very simple way to see them again.Go
to widgets, grab the “settings shortcut” on to your home screen and select
notifications there. Now you can see the Notifications shortcut on your home
screen. Now open it, and you can see all
the notifications. Path is Widgets > Settings
shortcut > Notifications.
