Thoughts From a Clicker
By Tiny Ruisch
Did you know that Android has many hidden advanced settings that you can use? Most people don’t. Android has an impressive hidden settings menu called “Developer Options”. These options contain a number of advanced and unique features.
In order to access any of these menu options, you first need to unlock the hidden Developer Options Menu on your device. To begin, go to the main Settings menu. Then select About Phone (or Tablet or About Device). Next find the “Build number” entry. Tap it seven times in rapid succession. You’ll get a message informing you that the Developer options menu has been unlocked.
Here are just a few of the options you might want to consider enabling or changing.
1) When you move between apps and screens in Android, some of that time is spent looking at animations and waiting for them to go away. You can disable these animations entirely by changing the Window animation scale, Transition animation scale and Animator duration scale options. If you like animations but just wish they were faster, you can increase the speed.
2) The first option I always enable is Stay Awake While Charging. Android will keep your device’s screen on while charging. It won’t turn off unless you hit the power button.
3) If you find that you are often running short on memory, you can limit the number of background processes that run. The “Limit Background Processes” option allows you to limit the number of background processes that are allowed to run or not allowed to run. For example, you can select “At most 2 processes” in the dialog box. Then the current app and the two most recent apps you ran and switched away from are the only processes that can run at one time. This should free up a memory on your device.
4) The Force allow apps on external setting allows you to install any application to the SD card, whether it was programmed to do so or not. Keep in mind that sometimes there is a good reason the developer of an app blocked the ability to install the app to an SD card. Some apps look for files in a specific place and the app won’t be able to find those files if it’s installed in an unexpected place. If the app doesn’t work when installed on the SD card, be prepared to uninstall it and reinstall it on internal storage.
5) The “Force activities to be resizable” setting forces applications that don’t normally work in split screen to do so. Split screen view might cause some apps to not work correctly. This is usually because they have not been optimized for split screens. Once you turn on this setting, you have to restart your device. Theoretically all your apps will work in split screen mode. Be prepared for some of them to not look too great or to crash.
6) The “Force Peak Refresh Rate” forces your phone to refresh at the highest possible speed. This may increase battery usage.
These are just a few of the things you can do after enabling Developer Options. If you are curious about the myriad of other options, do an internet search. You will find many sites that will explain in detail what each option does.
Thanks for reading.