Android 4.2 (Jellybean) Tips and Tricks

To remove numbers from the call log that you don’t want anyone seeing, then open your Call Log.

This will normally be found on your Apps list or you can also go to your Dialer and find Logs or Call Logs.

Then press and hold on the contact you want to remove. When the Menu appears, press Delete.

If you are not happy with your notification light, then you can change and tweak it. Go to the Android Market and download an App called Lightflow.

You might need to enable the notification light before the App works. Go to Settings – Display. Then check Pulse notification.

You can use the volume buttons to put the phone in silent mode.

Keep pressing the Down volume until it reaches 0%.

If you have ‘Vibration in Silent mode’ turned on, it will also put the phone into Vibrate mode. To change this, go to your homescreen. Press Menu – Settings – Sound – Vibration.

Warning: This will remove ALL data on the phone, but not the MicroSD card.

From the homescreen, press Menu – Settings – Privacy Factory data reset. Then press Reset phone and Erase everything.

Your phone will now be restored to its original factory settings.

At the bottom of each homescreen is your favourites tray, which consists of 5 icons. You can customise it by adding icons to the tray. If it’s full however, you will first need to remove some.

To remove an icon, simply press and hold an icon. Then drag it to your desktop.

Then to add a new one, simply drag an icon from your homescreen to the favourites tray.

If you are browsing and have zoomed in or out and the column you’re reading doesn’t fit the screen properly, you can pinch to zoom in. Then double tap on the column. The column will then be reformatted to fit the screen width.

Your phone comes with a handy widget which lets you kill all running tasks. This is great if you want to quickly free up some memory.

To use the widget, press and hold for 2 seconds on a blank part of any homescreen. Then find the Program monitor widget and drag it on to your homescreen. Once that is done, press the widget and it will show you all currently running Apps. Press End all to close all running Apps.

There are a number of ways, as below. The first two of these may be disabled on some networks/carriers or Android versions however.

1) Go to Settings – Applications – Manage Applications. Then chose All at the top. Then scroll down to Contacts Storage – Clear Data.

2) Go to Contacts. Then press Menu – Delete. Then press Select all (at the top) and then Delete again.

3) Go to Settings – Accounts and sync. Then untick Background data and Auto-sync. Then go to Gmail (or an account that your phone syncs with) and delete all of your Contacts from there. Then re-sync your phone.

4) Download an App called ‘Delete All Contacts’ and use that as a last resort.

These methods above will delete contacts from the phone only, not the SIM card.

Instead of the simple swipe gesture to unlock your phone, you can set a custom one which can be extremely difficult for a thief to guess.

From your homescreen, go to Menu – Settings – Security. Then select Screen lock. Then chose Pattern to set one up.

It is also a good idea to untick Use visible pattern. Then if someone is watching over your shoulder while you entering your pattern, it will be harder for them to remember the pattern.

If you have forgotten your unlock pattern, then after 5 unsuccessful tries a button will appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password. The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern. If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you will have to either call your carrier or factory reset your phone.

Go to the Android Market and search for an App called Spare Parts. Download and then open the App. Go to the Compatibility Mode and Uncheck it. Then re-check it (so the tick appears again). Then turn your phone off by pressing Home and then turn it on again.

Once that’s done, go back to the Spare Parts App and Uncheck the compatibility box again. This time DON’T re-check it though. Then turn your phone off and on again once more.

Once re-booted, go to Spare Parts again. If it opens in full-screen mode, then the process has worked and any other Apps that run in non-full screen mode should work.