10 Things you don’t know your android smartphone can do

1)Send a call directly to your Voicemail

There are a few people in your address book whose calls you would like to avoid. One way to do so is to let the phone ring without answering; this could be an irritating experience if the person at the other end is persistent and calls again and again. The other way is the smart way! There is an option in Android smartphones to avoid such callers. Navigate to ‘Contacts’ in Address Book. From the ‘Edit’ menu select the option “Send straight to voicemail”. On selecting this option, all the calls from that caller will be forwarded directly your voicemail without ringing. You can also install callmanager apps like Advanced Call Manager, Blacklist Plus or Call Blocker to block selected numbers or to create a profile to block numbers at times when you are busy.

2)Automate everyday functions

There are some freely available apps which can be used to automate features in an Android phone. One such app is Llama, which uses ‘geo-fencing.’ It determines your location through the nearest mobile towers. Since it doesn’t use Wi-Fi, it doesn’t drain the battery. It can then setup pre-determined settings on the phone. As an example, if you are at home (which you have geo-fences) you would like to automatically connect to the home Wi-Fi network, turn the volume level down at night or keep the phone in standby mode to conserve power. You can provide Llama access to your phone’s calendar to automatically enable silent profiles during meetings or while you are at movie halls.

3)Recognize any monument or place

Say you are on a trip and you come across a monument which you can’t recall or recognize. One way to get details about the monument is to wait for some passersby or locals who might help you. The second and the smart way is to use your Android phone. A free app designed by Google called Google Goggles can be used to identify monuments and structures. Any user can take a picture and upload on Google Goggles. If the information about the place/monument is in the database, the same would be shared by this app. Google Goggles also works well for paintings, QR code, Barcodes or an image in print.

4)Ok Maps

Google Maps is one of the most easily available free map services which help users in navigation. If you’re traveling somewhere with no network coverage, you can use a hidden feature in Google Maps. You just have to be a little proactive to use this service. Before starting the journey you have to type the phrase “Ok Maps” into the search window. Google Maps app will download that entire portion of the map. You can then use the downloaded offline available maps easily while navigating. In the new version of the Goggle Map the feature is directly available through an option “Save map to use offline.”

5)Facial recognition lock

How cool is to look at your smartphone and the phone unlocks just by looking at you! Android has a feature to set up a facial recognition lock. To access this feature the user should be running Android 4.3 or later. In the ‘Security’ tab under ‘Settings,’ go to the ‘Screen Lock’ option. Select the ‘Face Unlock’ option to activate this feature. The phone will take your selfie, and the phone is ready to go with this lock. It is a good idea to click 3-4 pictures so as to cater to different lighting conditions. It is always good to set up a PIN-based or pattern-based lock for a backup.

6)Turn off adding new icons on your phone’s Home Screen

We all want Home screen of our smartphones to be clutter-free to access the frequently used features. New apps which are downloaded from Play Store usually create an icon on the Home screen. If you have a kid who likes to download games, your Home Screen can become a mess full of icons. An android user can restrict any app from creating an icon on the Home Screen. This feature can be turned off from the Play Store settings. From the Menu button on the Play Store app select “Settings” and under “General” section unselect the option “Add icon to Home Screen.” This would restrict any new app from creating an icon on the Home Screen.

7)Connect to a USB flash drive

We all know that an Android smartphone can connect to a computer and it can be used as a flash drive. There is also an option to connect an external USB drive directly to an Android phone. This external USB drive can be used as a secondary storage.You will require a USB OTG cable to connect the USB drive to the micro USB port of the phone. Some Android phones directly support an external USB drive and you can mount the drive without any fuss. If your device doesn’t support the same you can download an app like USB OTG Helper or StickMount to mount the USB drive. Unfortunately this feature works only on rooted devices. You can use the additional storage in the USB drive to store movies, photos or songs.

8)See the notifications on PC

At times you are busy with your work on a PC and would not want to check notifications on your phone. If you are expecting some important calls or SMS there is a way to get the notifications directlyto the PC. There are apps like PushBullet which can be used to connect your Android smartphone to your PC. All the notifications like SMS, WhatsApp, Hangout, Facebook and calls received on your smartphone will be pushed to the PC.

9)Use your Android phone to host a server

Android OS is built on Linux platform, so whatever functionalities are present in Linux can be available on Android too. Today’s Android phones have enough hardware resources to run a dedicated server. If you have an old working Android smartphone, you can turn it into a web server using some apps like Servers Ultimate, KSWEB and Bit Web. The downside of using a smartphone to run a server is its limited capacity and continued power requirement. Though a smartphone is not a practical device to run a full-pledged server, it is a good option to use it for a small project.

10)Change the default Share menu

We tend to install a lot of apps in our smartphones all of which would start appearing in the Share menu. You may not want to have so many options for sharing. You may want to share a pic say to Facebook or Twitter as your preferred option only. There is an app Andmade Share which could be used to limit the sharing options on an Android phone. You can reorder the list of sharing options and keep the most preferred ones on top. You can also customize email sharing link so as to avoid typing your email id every time you use this app