Android 10 Tips and Tricks

There is a hidden Android Easter egg on the phone that Google has built into your device.

Go to Settings. Then scroll down to About device. Then tap on the Android version option 5 times.

Once you see something on the screen, you can then rub the screen with your finger to produce another surprise. If rubbing doesn’t work then try tapping with your finger. A combination of the above should work.

By the way don’t expect to see an actual Easter Egg. That is just the name given to things hidden inside software or operating systems.

If you are browsing a website and want to see the HTML source code behind the page, then Android doesn’t offer you the ability to do this by default.

There is however a handy App called View Web Source which can be installed. Whenever you want to view the HTML of a web page, you just press the Menu – Share – View Web Source.

You can then browse the code or copy the content into the clipboard.

Android manages your applications so if the phone is running low on memory, it will close the oldest running App.

If you do need to manually close an application go to Settings – Applications – Application manager. Then swipe the screen from right to left until you are on the Running screen.

Then choose the application you want to stop and select Force Stop.

Having notifications come through on the lock screen can be handy because you don’t have to unlock your phone to see what the notification is about.

The problem with this is that someone may see the content of a notification (a text message for example) which you would like to keep private.

To change this setting to only display that the notification has arrive (rather than the actual content), then go to Settings – Sounds and notifications.

Then under the Notifications section, select Notifications on lock screen.

Select Hide content to only show the notification and not the content itself.

You can also select to turn Lock screen notification ‘ON or OFF’ from this menu.

Depending on how your device is setup, sometimes when Apps are installed, a shortcut icon is automatically placed on your homescreens.

This can be annoying for users who want to keep their homescreens clutter-free.

To stop this, Long press on the Home screen. Then choose Home Settings from the popup options and untick Add icon to Home Screen.

Like all previous versions of Android Pie has hidden easter egg. Easter eggs are always fun to check out on newly-named Android builds, and this one is no different. However, this may be the first one that actually might be a little hard to look at for long periods of time. Android P’s first Easter egg features a P with a very colorful animation.

To access this follow these instructions:
Drag down the notifications screen and go to Settings.

Then scroll down to About Phone. Then tap on the Android version and a popup will appear with more options (such as baseband version etc..). From there, tap on the Anroid version option at least 5 times.

You should now see a vector tracing Pie logo for Android 9 Pie. You’ll always get a different pattern from the last, as evidenced from jumping to recent apps and back to the Easter egg. As time goes on, more and more rings will appear. You can also pinch to zoom on it. Just don’t stare at it for too long unless you want to get a headache.

To adjust your screen brightness, there are two options:

1) Simply drag your finger from the top of the phone down to pull down your quick settings screen. Then at the top there will be a brightness bar. Drag this left or right or press Auto.

2) Drag your notifications screen down and select Settings. Then under Device, select Display – Brightness. Then choose the desired brightness setting.

You can also select Automatic brightness to let the phone decide for you.

With the recent versions of Android you can now take photos while recording video by simply pressing the screen.

This will save that particular frame to the gallery while continuing to record video.

While viewing your list of Contacts you can swipe from Right to Left to send a text message to the selected contact.

This might not work on all models.

Here are the top 5 tips to make your phone run faster:

1) Use only essential widgets on your homescreen – each widget consumes memory and processing power which can slow your down your phone.

2) Uninstall apps that you don’t use – after awhile your phone can get cluttered as some Apps are designed to always run in the background. If you rarely use an App, then uninstall it to free up memory and CPU resource.

3) Install Apps to your phone memory – if you have an SDCard, always install Apps to the phone memory, which can be accessed faster. If you have Apps on the SDCard, then move them back to the phone memory with an App called Move2SD available from the Play Market.

4) Use Static rather than Live wallpapers – Live wallpapers consume processing power and memory. Unless you really must have them, uninstall them.

5) Kill tasks occasionally – Some Apps will run in the background indefinitely unless you kill them. Most of them won’t cause a problem, but it pays to check your running tasks from time to time. Hold down your Home key and check the Task Manager.

One last thing: Don’t use Task Killers. Android manages tasks very well and Task Killers just make your phone unstable and can slow it down further.