5 hidden features on Android that you should try out now.

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For every 10 smartphone users, 8 of those are using smartphones with Android OS. This makes it the most popular operating system across smartphone users. There’s a lot one could discover if they went tinkering about on their phones. We’ve compiled a few hidden android features that will likely blow your mind.

Also read: WhatsApp posts status to reassure users about privacy policy.

A list of hidden features on Android you can unlock

1.The split screen

One thing that’s common amongst smartphone users is having over 3 or more apps open at the same time. This is because many love to multitask. Sometimes it can be hard to navigate through apps and you have to keep going back to your home screen then choose the app you’d like.

There’s a hidden Android feature that can help with this. The split-screen feature lets you use two apps side by side.  To activate this, you can do the following:

1. Open the app that you’d like to use in split-screen mode.
2. Enter the recent apps screen by pressing the recent button if you are using 3-buttons or just swipe up from the home bar if your smartphone is running on Android 10 and you have enabled your gestures navigation.
3. From the recent apps screen, select the app that you wish to run on the first screen of split-screen view. Then select any other app from the recent menu to run on the second screen of this view.
4. To go back to normal view, simply drag the app you want either up or down.

2. Screen pinning keeps nosy people out of your business.

We all have things we’d like to hide on our phones especially when someone asks to borrow your phone for a short while. Are you worried about them scrolling through your stuff, then here is the screen pinning feature. What it does is really cool. If someone asks for your phone to make a call, this feature will keep only the phone app open and they’ll not be able to go through other apps. Go to Settings > then Security > Screen pinning or Advanced > then turn screen pinning on. You have the option of putting a pin to unlock the pin. Once you’re done, go to your recent apps view. When you find the app that you want to pin, don’t open it rather just tap the icon at the top. You’ll see a pin option and tap.

To exit just tap and hold the Back and Overview buttons at the same time. Put in your pin if required.

• 3. Choose new default apps.

One of the biggest differences between Android and iOS is the ability to choose default apps on Android for texting, browsing and viewing photos. The default app is the app that will immediately open anytime you want to do something on your phone—so when you press a hyperlink, for example, the default web browser app will open that link.

Head to Settings, then Apps or Apps and notifications, then tap the cog icon in the upper right corner or choose default apps. Select any of the categories on screen to see a list of installed apps that can take over default duties. For example, if you’d prefer to chat with friends via Facebook Messenger, rather than your phone’s built-in SMS app, you can make Facebook’s product your default messaging app. Only the listed apps in that category can be chosen.

4. Bring back lost notifications

You could accidentally swipe away your notifications before reading through them. And now there’s no way to know if someone responded to that message you’ve been waiting for. You can simply do the following.

Tap and hold on an empty part of the home screen, and a screen-adjusting mode will pop up. Choose Widgets, and find the Settings shortcut. Drag this icon to an empty space on one of your home screens and drop it in place, and a list will automatically pop up. Choose Notification log from the list and tap the icon to open up Android’s notification history.

5. Use Smart Lock

The safest way to keep your phone could be with a pin or pattern or password. While this keeps your phone safe, its quite inconveniencing when you’re in a hurry to unlock the phone. Smart Lock keeps Android devices unlocked when they’re in your pocket or you’re close to home, or in another trusted location. That means you won’t have to use your pin, pattern, or password to unlock it. To activate it, you must have a screen lock already set up.

From Settings go to Security (or Security and Privacy), and turn on Smart Lock.

These are just a few of the exciting features you can discover on your Android phone.

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