Android 4.3 (Jellybean) Tips and Tricks

To change the homescreen or lock screen wallpaper, press on a blank part of the homescreen. Next, choose Wallpapers. Then choose Live (animated / moving wallpapers) or standard wallpapers (images) and choose whether you want the wallpaper on the homescreen or the lock screen. Then crop the wallpaper and press Ok in the top-right corner.

You can also use images Gallery images taken with the phone’s camera for your wallpaper.

If you’re worried about your sensitive data falling into the wrong hands then Jelly Bean has a great new encryption feature that scrambles every pieces of content on your device.

Go to Settings – Security settings – Encrypt device or Encrypt external SD card.

In the Calendar App there is no Year view along the top of the App. You can however use pinch to zoom gestures to zoom in and out of Month and Year view however.

This is useful if you want to quickly jump backwards or forwards through a few months at a time.

By default, the phone will recognise swear words, but insert x’s instead of the word. To change this, go to Settings – Voice input & output – Voice recognition settings. Then untick Block offensive words.

There is a hidden Easter egg on the phone. If you go to your Homescreen, then press Menu – Settings – About device, then tap on the Android version option 5 times you will be surprised.

Once you see something on the screen, you can then rub the screen with your finger to produce another surprise.

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.

To silence the phone when ringing there are two methods:

Either press the Volume Down (or Up) button or if the phone is on a surface facing up, simply flip it over so it is facing down.

A handy feature of Android is to quickly clear your notifications.

Simply pull down your notifications bar by swiping your finger from the top of your phone downwards.

Then when you see each individual notification, swipe your finger left or right to clear each one. You can do this with your Apps too – press and hold the home button. Then swipe left or right to close Apps.

If you want to go to settings, then normally you would go to your home screen, then press the Menu key and select Settings.

There is however a quicker way of getting to your Settings. Simply drag your notification bar down from the top of the screen and press the Gear icon. It should be the second right icon in the top right corner.

To save an image in an email or in the browser, long press on the image and a menu will appear allowing you to save it.

For images inside text messages, you might have to press and hold on the message itself, rather than the image.

From the Homescreen press Menu – Settings – Sound.

From here you have various options including Haptic feedback, Vibration intensity and so on.

You can also adjust notifications for various functions.