10 BEST ANDROID ICE CREAM SANDWICH TRICKS | ANDROID 4.0 |
close apps quickly, should you suspect one’s gone rogue. A Long-press within the Recent Apps listing lets you visit the app’s info page, from where you can easily force close it.
Stop app icons automatically appearing
One of the many new ICS features is the way Google lets apps automatically add shortcuts to themselves on your Home screen when they’ve finished installing . It’s useful, but if you’re a control freak and wish to remain 100% in charge of your Home layout, head to the Google play app’s settings tab and untick the Auto-add Shortcuts toggle.
Set a custom rejection text message
When your Twitter action is rudely interrupted by someone actually telephoning you, there’s a polite way to give the caller the boot. Android 4.0 lets users ping a rejection text message to callers – and you’re able to customise this too. Just answer call and ping the lock screen notification up to access to custom rejection messaging area.
There’s a Settings shortcut in the Notifications pane
That little settings icon in the ICS notifications area is n’t just art to fill the space. It’s a shortcut to your phone or tablet’s settings area. So use that instead of giving it a Home screen icon slot all to itself.
Remove the lock screen
It’s possible to entirely bin your Android 4.0 lock screen, making the phone instantly turn itself on when you press the power button. It’s a security nightmare, but if your phone lives entirely on your desk and you demand instant access without any unknowing, head to Security > Screen lock and select none. Then be very careful.
Take photos while recording video
The Android 4.0 camera app that arrived with the Galaxy Nexus has one cool little extra feature – the ability to fire off still photos while recording video clips. Simply tapping the screen takes a shot at full resolution, which is saved to the phone’s gallery while the video’s still happily recording away.
Bin animations and transitions
Hidden within the Developer Options section of the Ice Cream Sandwich software are quite a few nerdy ways to adapt your phone. Most won’t be of any use to those who are just using their phone as a phone, but if you want it to feel faster, or at least look a little different, the scrolling, zooming effects on windows and menus can be edited in many ways.
Long-press dotted words
When typing on the Android 4.0 keyboard, you may see some suggested words appear with the “…” icon beneath. Doing a long-press on this one will pop up a much bigger window of suggested words, letting you bail out on some of that tedious typing a little quicker.
Nick wallpapers off the internet
Found a lovely photograph of some stars, a pretty computer generated planet or even the mighty Professor Brian Cox himself? Long-pressing on any image in the web browsers lets you instantly set it as your wallpaper, without the hassle of saving it, finding it, and setting it the long way.
Limit background process
If you fancy an even more serious bit of fiddling, the same ICS developer area contains the option to “limit background process” demands by the OS. You can use this to stop your phone or tablet storing so many apps in memory. Whether this has any effect of the actual battery life of us users is up for debate, but again, it’s something to play with and see if it suits your phone use patterns.
Quickly access Notifications
Here’s a simple yet huge change Google’s made in Android 4.0 – the Notifications pane can be accessed from the lock screen.Press power, touch the Notifications area, then scroll down to read your latest messages. Obviously it’s a bit of a security risk and lets anyone access your messages, so best be careful.
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