#tech android 13reasonswhy

[flemingtech]

13 REASONS WHY, ANDROID IS COOL.

“Welcome to your tape”.

Android is that operating system with a cool 'star-wars' name. It's also the world's most used operating system on smartphone devices. However, the coolness ends when iOS enters the party and steals all the fine girls. I won't be surprised if Android is a staunch follower of Saint Future.

 Android’s biggest advantage over other operating systems is its ability to be highly customizable. There are amazing tweaks and clever features available but the catch is you need to know how to unlock them. Back in 2012, my uncle, using his Google Ideos phone, clicked the Android version bar multiple times in the phone's settings until a hidden animation of Android's Gingerbread appeared (Zombie art by Jack Larson). The young pre-adolescent boy (me) had seen the closest thing to magic in his whole life. I ended up spending my adolescent years trying to unlock every hidden code in Android.

 Those who know how to root their Android gadgets can mould the phone in their image and likeness. It will be an honour to teach people how to turn on "god-mode", but that's an article for another day. For the rest who don't know how to root their devices, they still can customize their phones but within the boundaries of the manufacturer (Samsung, Huawei, LG, etc.). This article will mainly deal with tricks on Android within this boundary so let us begin with the 13 reasons why Android is cool.

 1. Picture in picture mode. (This feature is not in iOS)

I’m sure most of you would like to listen to YouTube content while using other apps on your phone. Google has heard our cries and have incorporated a feature called Picture in Picture (PiP). This setting shrinks the video into a small player that you can move around your home screen and position over other apps.

To turn on PiP navigate to your Android settings> Apps & notifications>Advanced> Special access> Picture in picture. Proceed and tap YouTube. Toggle “Allow picture-in-picture” on.

To start PiP playback while a video is playing in the YouTube app, tap the Android home button. The video will shrink into the PiP window. To resume playback in the YouTube app, double-tap the PiP. To dismiss the PiP altogether, you can drag it to the bottom of the screen.

Sadly, PiP mode plays musical content only for YouTube Premium users.

 2. Manual Restore Factory Settings

Android has a manual way of wiping all the phone’s data without going to the settings app. Turn off the phone and then press and hold the Volume Up key and Power key simultaneously until the Android system recovery screen appears. Use the volume down key to highlight the “wipe data/factory reset” option and then use the power button to make the selection. Whatever you do with this information is up to you.

 3. Manual Restart

There are times when your phone screen may freeze and Android gives you a Ctrl+Alt+Del type of option. Press and hold the Power button and the Volume Down button and release it when the phone begins to shut down. That combination triggers a quick restart.

 4. Screen Pinning

Suppose you want to show your friend a meme or video on your phone and you have some privacy issues. My search feed proves how dumb I am so I have privacy issues. (I can't believe I once searched what breed of cats is Doja Cat). You can limit them to only that app and they will require your lock screen passcode to access the other parts of the phone. This feature is called screen pinning.

Screen pinning is easy to set up. Go to Settings>Security, and enable screen pinning. Once you've turned on the feature, launch the app your friend needs to use. Then open Overview by tapping the square navigation button below the phone screen. On the window for the most recently opened app, you will see a pin icon in the lower right-hand corner. Tap the pin button to pin that app to the screen.

*Fun Fact: A single tap on the Overview button, the square icon in the navigation bar, brings up a view of all your open apps as tabs. However, if you double-tap on the button, you’ll immediately jump from your current app to the one you were previously using.

5. Developers Options.

This is a menu with cool features such as making the screen stay awake while charging and the ability to destroy your app activities once you leave it for those with privacy issues. To access this menu, go to Settings>About Phone. Click the Build number multiple times. It will start counting down until it says you are now a developer. Now when you go to the settings app there will be a new menu called developer’s options.

 6. Animation Scale

Once you unlock your developers option you will find some settings are useless to normal users. My favourite feature in the Developers option is the animation scale. The animation scale controls how fast animations are displayed on your phone. How fast apps are displayed on your screen is controlled by the animation scale. If you set your animation at 0.5x, each animation will take half the time it originally requires to display on your screen thus your phone will feel twice as fast. If you turn off the animations there will be no delay between app transitioning. Its downside is that apps begin to misbehave. If you set it at 5x your phone will feel slow since each animation will take five times the time to display on your phone.

 7. Notification Log Widget

I am sure most of you have ever cleared a notification pop up before you saw it and you don't know if it was important. You can still find that notification even if you have cleared it. Long-press your home screen, then go to widgets. Proceed and choose the settings shortcut. A menu will pop up and click on the one that says notification log. Technical data will be displayed and will even tell you what the notification said.

 8. Force Apps to allow split-screen mode

Some apps refuse to allow split-screen mode but then Android gives you the ability to force issues. To do this, go to the developers option that we enabled previously and enable the option called "force activities to be resizable". Now any app that refused to support split-screen will do so even though some may look weird since they don't technically support that feature.

 9,10,11,12,13. We are that cool that don’t have to explain ourselves further.

 Due to the difference of Android manufacturers and versions, older android versions mainly may not support some of these tweaks. Anyway, I hope I have ignited the thirst of learning more Android tweaks in you, the reader. I'll close this article with a message for iOS users and until we meet next time, keep it fleming.

To iOS users: Stop comparing yourselves with Android, it sounds like y'all got self-esteem issues. We are already cool and content. But if you want to sponsor me on an article on iOS my wallet is ready.