1.
Equalize your music
Android's built-in Music app is pretty capable -- and for Jelly Bean
users (both 4.1 and 4.2), you'll find the ability to equalize your music
has been baked right in. Once you're playing a song, hit the three dots
in the upper-right corner and select "Equalizer." You'll be able to
select from presets such as "Folk" and "Heavy Metal," and you can even
drag the five sliders yourself to fine-tune based on what you're
listening to at the moment. Down below are extra controls: drag to
adjust the amount of bass boost applied. There’s also a "3-D effect,"
some software processing that makes the music sound a little deeper.
Those options are only available when headphones are plugged in, since
they wouldn't make much of a difference to the sound quality of your
phone's built-in speaker.
If your device isn't running Jelly Bean, check out the free "Equalizer" app in the Google Play store -- it offers many of the same features.
2. Improve Google Now cards (Jelly Bean)
Google Now is pretty useful right out of the box -- the more you use
it, the better it will get at serving up useful information in an
appropriate way (like pulling traffic and calendar information to figure
out how long it'll take you to drive to your next engagement, for
example). But if you're finding Google Now's abilities a little limited,
try enabling Web history to give it more data to pull from. Visit history.google.com and
click "Turn Web history on.” Before too long you'll be able to use
Google Now for things such as sports scores and flight information. The
service learns pretty quickly, too. For example, you'll find it letting
you know what time you need to leave your house in order to make a
flight. If the notifications become too distracting, you can adjust the
priority level of each one from the Google Now screen. Just tap the
three dots on the right side of the card to set it as normal (the phone
will alert you with updates), low priority (the information will show up
on the Google Now screen, but won't otherwise announce itself), or off.
3. Personalized voice recognition
It's not quite as robust as Siri on iOS, but Android’s
built-in voice recognition software is surprisingly capable. Try it
out: from a text input field, click the microphone button to the left of
the space bar. You'll be able to dictate text messages, fill a field,
or even search the Web without having to tap anything out with your
thumbs. (To get that last function, Froyo and Gingerbread users might
have to download Google's free Voice Search app.)
Of
course, the text recognition engine sometimes delivers
less-than-accurate, or downright comedic, results. If that's happening
more often than you'd like, try turning on personalized voice
recognition in your device’s Settings. Tap "Language and Input," then
look for the "Text-to-speech output" option under the Speech section.
Turning on Personalized Recognition on the following page will help give
you more accurate speech synthesis over time. This tip requires a
little patience – you might not notice much improvement in transcription
accuracy at first, but over time your device will adjust to your
personal inflections.
4. Enter gallery view (Jelly Bean)
Most Android phones and tablets have pretty good cameras, and Jelly
Bean makes it easier to review all the shots you've taken on your
device. From the Camera app, you can tap in the lower-right corner to
see the most recent shot you've taken. You can swipe left and right to
review other shots, but if you want an even quicker way to see what's on
the camera roll you can pinch inward to see your shots lined up in
order -- just like a film strip. Bonus: you can simply swipe up to
delete any shots you don't want to keep.5. Keep tabs on your data
Lots of Android users are on unmetered data plans – for example, the Sprint and Verizon networks in the US
have unlimited plans (though the latter, only if you've been
grandfathered in). But the rest of us has to live with only a certain
amount of data each month, and the overage charges can be pretty
punitive.
Fortunately, it's fairly easy to make sure you're living
within your means, data-wise. Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean give
you a built-in way to keep tabs on your data. Just head over to the
"Data usage" section of settings. In addition to showing you how much
mobile data each app has used, it'll also let you set a warning when
your data usage approaches a certain limit and a hard stop when it
reaches a particular threshold. Let's say you're on a standard 2GB/month
plan. You could set a warning when you reach 1.5GB, and a limit on data
when you get to 1.9GB.
For Froyo, Gingerbread, and Honeycomb, try the free Onavo
app. It actually has a few more features than Ice Cream Sandwich's data
monitor, including the ability to set limits for individual apps and/or
restrict them to Wi-Fi only.
6. Offline voice typing (Jelly Bean
One of the big improvements in Jelly Bean was the ability to let your
phone or tablet convert your speech to text. Phones have done that for a
while now, but it generally meant sending your input over the air,
doing the decoding in the cloud, and showing the result on your device.
Android can now do the text generation itself -- which makes it a
speedier process, and possible even without an Internet connection. Head
over to "Language and Input" in the Settings app, then choose "Download
offline speech recognition" under the "Voice Search" heading. You'll be
prompted to download a language pack for each language you want Android
to recognize; once that's done you'll be able to dictate text even if
Google's servers go down or you've got poor reception.7. Google Voice integration
One of the best things about Android is its tight integration with the Google Apps suite. The Gmail client, for example, is leaps and bounds ahead of its iOS
counterpart, giving you the ability to tag, filter, switch accounts,
and do just about everything you can do on the desktop version. Maybe
the most versatile member of the Google Apps squad, though, is Google Voice.
Voice gives you a new phone number (or you can carry over your existing mobile number) that is tied to your Google
account. You can do all sorts of nifty things with this number, like
setting different voicemail greetings for different callers, forwarding
the number to a separate line (or two), and having voicemails
automatically transcribed to text so you can read them like regular
messages. If you're moving to a new city, you might also consider
signing up for a Google Voice number with a local area code – that way
you can hang on to your original number, but also get the benefits of
local calling rates.
With the proper setup, you can also use
Google Voice to get free texts – even if your phone plan doesn't include
texting. Your Google Voice number can both send and receive texts for
free, and your Android phone will give you the option to use that Voice
number as the default. Alternatively, you can tell it to forward texts
as emails (you'll be able to respond to incoming texts by email, as
well). As long as you keep the data portion of your phone plan, you can
pretty safely drop the messaging part.
8. Switch between 3G and 4G network
By now, most Android phones have a 4G antenna -- but lots of 4G
networks are spotty, and sucking down data at that speed can drain your
battery or put you over your monthly data allowance pretty quickly.
What's to be done? The easiest fix is to manually select between 3G and
4G networks -- for example, maybe you only want to turn on 4G when
you're in an area that has good coverage, or maybe you want to force
your phone onto 3G to avoid draining your battery. Look for the "Mobile
networks" subsection of the Settings screen, then check "Network Mode."
You can set it to CDMA only (3G), or LTE/CDMA (3G and 4G). This setting
might vary depending on where you're living or what network you're on.9. Respond to a call with a text message
Sometimes, important calls come at inopportune times, like when
you're in a meeting or deep in face-to-face conversation. What do you do
when you can't pick up, but don't want to blow the caller off? Android
has you covered.If you have a device running Gingerbread, Ice
Cream Sandwich, or Jelly Bean, the “incoming call” screen will give you
three response options: pick up, ignore, or "ignore with text." The way
to select that option varies from phone to phone (on most Samsung
phones, you slide the call icon up rather than left or right), but the
result is a list of canned text messages like "Can't talk now. Call me
back in five minutes?" You can even include custom messages on this list
to send to your caller, presumably averting uncomfortable “Why didn't
you pick up your phone?” discussions later on.
If you're running Froyo, check out the free “Incoming Call Plus (beta)” app. It'll give you the same feature, although you'll have to put up with a different-looking “Incoming Call” screen
If you're running Froyo, check out the free “Incoming Call Plus (beta)” app. It'll give you the same feature, although you'll have to put up with a different-looking “Incoming Call” screen
10. Expand and contract notifications (Jelly Bean
11. Load Flash content on demand
One of the great things about having an Android phone is that you can view Flash content, including videos, that the iPhone
can't render (at least, not right in the browser). But if all that rich
web content is slowing down your browsing – or you're bumping against
the limit on a metered data plan – you might not want to load all the
Flash content on a page automatically. No problem.On the Settings page of the stock Android browser, tap “Advanced.” On the next page, change “Enable plug-ins” from “Always” to “On demand” and restart the browser. Now when you get to a Flash video on a page, you’ll see an arrow icon where the content would be. Tap it to load that bit of Flash. Simple as that.
12. Customize your lock scree
Android gives you a few solid options for keeping other people from
getting access to your phone. Of course, there's the trusty four-digit
PIN. But you can also set up a regular password like you'd use on your
computer. Or you can get into your phone by dragging your finger to
connect a series of dots in a unique shape. If you're running Ice Cream
Sandwich of Jelly Bean, you can also give "Face Unlock" a try. Your
phone will use its front camera to detect who's holding the phone,
unlocking only for the real owner.This isn't a particularly secure option in Ice Cream Sandwich, where it can be defeated using a picture of the owner, but Jelly Bean makes the feature a little more usable. Once you've set up Face Unlock, you can improve its reliability by taking multiple pictures of yourself in the "Improve face matching" section of the Security tab in the Settings app. (That way you won't lock yourself out of your phone if you decide to get a haircut, or if you switch from glasses to contacts.) You can also implement a "Liveness check" from the same area of Settings, which makes the phone look for blinks and facial movements when unlocking.
If you're less worried about security and just want a simple slide, you also have the option to quickly access the camera or Google Now from the lock screen. Just slide the lock to the left over the camera icon, or up to get to Google Now. And if you want to trick out your lock screen even further, you can use WidgetLocker's LockScreen app ($2.99) to get music controls and customized sliders for particular apps.
13. Google Sky Map
(Did we mention it's Android-only? iOS has a few less interesting and more expensive options.)
Oh, and it does time-travel, too. Star Maps can show you what the sky will look like in the future, or what it looked like in the past, as far back as 1900. Ever wonder what the sky looked like the night of the Apollo 11 moon landing? Now you can find out, in more detail than you probably wanted to know.
14. Put your information on the lock screen (Jelly Bean)
If you've ever found someone’s lost phone, you know that it can be a
hassle to try to get it back to him or her. Most times, you just have to
scroll through their address book for a hint of how to contact them (or
one of their family members). Android 4.1 and 4.2 users have the option
to make things a little bit easier for potential do-gooders. They let
you post your contact information on the phone's lock screen. From the
Settings app, tap "Security" and look under the "Screen security"
section for "Owner info." Tap that, and you'll be able to enter a name,
email address, phone number, or any other appropriate info that will
show up on the phone's lock screen.15. Control your computer with your phone (or tablet)
16. Edit your photos -- or grab them from a video
Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean offers another cool picture trick: taking a still frame from a video. While you're shooting, just tap the frame to take a snapshot. It'll be automatically added to your camera roll. If you're still running Gingerbread or lower, don't worry. The $2.99 Frame Grabber app will give you the same ability, albeit after the video is taken.
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