Hidden Android features in the Developer Options: 5 ''secret'' tips

Developer options are enabled by default, so many people may go their entire Android experience without knowing that they exist. Once enabled, you are greeted with a plethora of different settings and many of them may seem like gibberish to the average person. However, there are many of them that are very useful for day to day use. Check out these 5 “secret” tips to help you optimize and make your smartphone run faster. 

Enable developer options

First and foremost, you need to enable the developer options on your Android. To do this, head intoSettings > About Phone / Tablet. From there, head down to Build Number and tap it 7 times. Don’t worry about keeping an exact count of the number of times that you’ve tapped it, as when you get close a little notification will pop up. If you’ve already enabled the developer options in the past, you’ll also received a notification when you tap on the build number saying that you’ve already enabled developer options.

After you’ve completed this, head back to the Settings main menu and you’ll find the Developer options under the System subheading.

Speed up animations

This is probably one of the most talked about improvements you can tweak in the Developer options. You can completely disable the animations, which would make your phone load applications as fast as your hardware permits, or even make the animations twice as fast. In day to day usage, I prefer to use the latter since I enjoy having the animations still in place but have them load faster at the same time.

Head to Developer options and scroll down until you see Window animation scale,  Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale. If you want the fastest animations, put all three to “0.5x” and if you want no animations, put all three to “Off”. If your device has a good processor inside of it, you will see load times and general use improve drastically.

Force 4x MSAA

This option allows you to improve the quality of graphics in games and applications that run OpenGL ES 2.0. While this does increase the demand on your performance hardware and consume your battery faster, you will notice that some games and applications will run smoother. This is done by smoothing the pixels via the Multi Sample Anti-Aliasing 4x technique.

Enable USB debugging

This is another extremely handy option that can be used by anyone. It allows programs to access your device when it is connected to your PC via USB cord. It is a necessary step prior to rooting your device, unlocking your bootloader, and installing a custom ROM. As well, this will allow you to make a backup of your device information on your PC.

Password protection for computer backups

If you’ve enabled USB debugging as we talked about above and created a backup on your desktop computer, you can go a step further and make sure it is protected while it’s on your computer. By enabling this option, you can encrypt your copy with a password of your choosing. However, take note, if you forget the password, you won’t be able to access the backup information stored, so make sure that you’re using something you won’t forget or write it down somewhere.

Allow mock locations

By enabling this option and using an app such as Fake GPS Location, you can make your device “spoof” your location to different parts of the world. While somewhat impractical, this will cause all applications that use location based information in them to believe you’re near whatever location you’ve spoofed: from the deserts of the Sahara one minute to the beautiful Rocky mountains the next.

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Where's My Droid?

Misplacing your phone can be frustrating. Typically, you call your phone and find it by hearing it ring. It's especially frustrating when you realize that you silenced your ringer!

In that case, Where's My Droid becomes invaluable. With a simple text, you can activate your phone remotely and command it to do everything from ring (even in silent mode) to wiping all of your data.

Of course, you would only wipe your data as a very last resort. Where's My Droid offers more options than ever to help you recover your phone and your personal information.

With a personalized set of attention texts, you can tell your phone to ring or flash the camera light for easy location if you think it's near you.

If you're too far away to hear it ring, the app can also get the GPS coordinates and Google maps directions. If you think your Droid has fallen into the wrong hands, you can remotely lock it and conceal incoming text messages.

Where's My Droid is password protected, so if your phone was stolen the app can't be uninstalled. And your online account will let you set up a list of people who can authorize your attention texts, so your phone has an even better chance of recovery.

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HTC One Top 10 Tips and Tricks

Your HTC One is packed with features. Here's how to make the most of them – whether you're looking to prolong your battery life, upload photos or customize your Blinkfeed. Without further ado,HTC One's top 10 tips and tricks:

Ignore BlinkFeed

While you can't disable BlinkFeed entirely, you can ensure it's not the first screen you see when unlocking your phone. To do so, simply long press the thumbnail at the top of the screen. Here you'll see the option to "set as home." Select any screen other than BlinkFeed and – ta-da! – you can bypass BlinkFeed completely.

Enable HTC Car

HTC has a car mode with easy access to music, maps, navigation and phone calls. The mode launches instantly when you mount your HTC One in an HTC Car Kit. To access the voice command feature, all you need to do is tap three times on the screen then say your request out loud.

Automatically upload photos to the cloud

To ensure you never lose another photo, open up the camera, tap the three dots in the bottom-left corner of the screen and then select Camera Options à Auto upload. From there, all you have to do is pick a cloud service and your HTC One will automatically upload every photo you take.

Transfer files from your old phone

Thankfully, HTC makes switching to the One easy as pie. To transfer data - including contacts and iTunes files – from an old phone to your new One, simply go to Settings -> Transfer Content and select which device your upgrading from (iPhone, Windows Phone, Blackberry or another Android).

Customize BlinkFeed

HTC's BlinkFeed comes pre-subscribed to a number of content sources. To change them, simply pull down on the stream and click the three dot icon on the right-hand side. From here, you can choose from a variety of content services, including Facebook and Twitter.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Top 10 Tips and Tricks

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is probably the most feature-laden smartphone ever released. In addition to the wow-worthy Smart Stay and Air Gestures features, the Galaxy S4 is packed with helpful tools for increasing battery life, blocking unwanted calls and notifications and helping you stay safe when you're traveling alone. Let's take a look at some of Samsung Galaxy S4's top 10 tips and tricks.

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Google+ and Google Play Music Updates bring small improvements

Well, the update Gods at Google have blessed Google+ and Google Play Music with some updates to their apps. You’ll notice some improved notifications to Google+ and some changes to the way sets of music are streamed via Google Play Music.

Google+ Notifications

If you were like me, you were probably annoyed by the fact that Google+ notifications weren’t syncing properly across multiple devices. You’d get a notification on your phone, check it and clear it away, only to find the notification still pending on your tablet or whatnot. Simple, but frustrating.

Well, that has changed now with this update enabling notifications that are read on one device, read on all devices synced to that account. A few other updates, including the redesign of the notifications tray and bell icon, were also a part of this roll-out.

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Which micro SD card should I buy? Android for Beginners

Once you purchase your smartphone, it's important to take the first steps to make the best of it. One of these steps is the recommended micro SD card for your Android where you can store data on both the internal and external memory. Now, with such a variety of cards to choose from, you want to choose one that won't make a mess. Don't worry! Today, we will help you make the right choice.

SD stands for Secure Digital and refers to the card format invented by Panasonic and developed with SanDisk and the Toshiba Corporation in an association that was founded in 2000: the SD Card Association was created with the aim of setting standards for these memory cards for better use in portable devices.

Where does the SD card come from?

SD cards began to reach the public in 2001 and were used in digital cameras, smartphones, laptops, game consoles, PDAs, etc..... The combination of its small size (32 x 24 x 2.1mm) and its good resistance qualities make it very practical for storing memory. There are several models which are based on two types of speed: a normal operating speed and other higher speeds that offer data transfer at faster rates. Not to dive too deep into the latter, let's take a closer look at micro SD, SDHC and SDXC and see which ones are compatible with the most current devices out there, like your own Android smartphone for example.

By the way, do not confuse internal SD with SD card. There are many who believe that SD always refers to external memory, but in reality, it can also used to relate to the hard drive.

MicroSD cards

This is a smaller SD card (15 x 11 x 1 mm) and therefore ideal for smartphones and other portable devices. It has the capacity of 128 MB to 2GB and works with any card reader. The storage capacity at present is minimal, so the number of those using it has been declining.

SDHC card

The added HC refers to ''High Capacity''. Its size allows you to better manage large file transfers. It ranges in capacity from 4 GB to 64 GB and are the most common choice nowadays. The only drawback is that they aren't compatible with SD readers from before 2008.

SDXC card

XC means ''Extended Capacity'' and offers the most storage ranging from 64 GB to 2 TB (2000 GB). These cards are compatible with SD, SDHC and SDXC units and devices.

Speed Tips

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Rooting for beginners: Questions and Answers

The number of Android devices on the market continues to increase, and by association, there a ton of new Android users who are looking at the how’s and why’s of rooting their device. Here is a pretty comprehensive list that answers some of the most frequently asked questions about rooting.

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