Android 7 (Nougat) Tips and Tricks

To quickly hide the on-screen keyboard, press the Back button or simply tap on any empty space on screen.

Sometimes you may get a notification from a particular App and you would like to change the settings of that App.

To do this, pull down your notifications screen. Then long press on the Notification of the App you would like to see the settings for. Then select the gear icon. This will take you straight to the App settings. Now you can change app settings as per your desire.

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 Settings – Personal – Lock screen – and security – Screen lock type and choose Pattern.

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.

Normally you can simply insert a SIM card and you will be able to browse the internet using 3G. Sometimes, this must be setup manually however. Before you start, you will need to ask your carrier or Telco for your APN settings.

Once you have those, go to Settings – Connections – Mobile networks – Access Point Names.

From here press the Plus sign at the top right and select New APN. Then fill in the details your carrier gave you. Then press the menu button and press Save.

You can backup your phone contacts either through your Google account or by exporting it as a vCard file. Here’s how:

GOOGLE ACCOUNT

Method 1:
1) Go to your Android phone settings.
2) Click account, and make sure your Google account is already logged in your device.
3) Doing this automatically syncs all your data to Google, including contact numbers.

Method 2:
1) Open the Android Contacts app.
2) Go to Settings.
3) Choose Move device contacts to Google.

To efficiently backup all your contacts, you have to make sure that these are actually saved on your device, and not just on your SIM card.

To check if your contacts are already successfully synced or backed up on your Google account, just go to contacts.google.com, and log-in to your Google account to see if your contacts are already there.

EXPORT CONTACTS AS A VCARD / VCF FILE

1) Go to your phone’s Contacts.
2) Go to Settings and export contacts as a vCard file.
3) Alternaively, in Contacts, go to Settings and select Share. Then select which contacts you want to export. Then choose a method to export to.
4) This will collate all your contacts in one .vcf file which can be saved on your SD card or uploaded into a file storage service like Dropbox.