By clicking on the Power button most Android smartphones, you will see chaotic home screens, uncomfortable keyboards and annoying notifications. To bring the system in order, only minor changes are required.
Android operating system is used for most of the commercial smartphones, which is what the statistics of the analytical company IDC. On Android in the first quarter of 2017, the enterprises bought more than two thirds of smartphones. By default, these smartphones are unsuitable for productive work.
If you include most popular devices, you will find ineffective home screens on them, mediocre keyboards and many unscrewed potential. To fix it, only minor changes are required. Below will be written how to do it.
Optimization of the home screen
One of the most simple and useful Methods to improve the efficiency of the smartphone affects the basis of the Android interface, namely the home screen. The home screen you see the first when unlocking the smartphone, everything else is started from here. Most users have a home screen is a chaotic journey of the icons, which does not contribute to productive work.
Home screen can be represented as a tool box. If you are preparing to do at home repair, you need to quickly find tools for it. If everything lies in the box with tools, it will have to spend time on finding the necessary tool at the moment.
The same applies to the home screen. Unlike iOS, Android does not limit the user with a static grid square icons. You can place objects at your discretion, set a combination of icons of different applications, widgets and empty space.
You need to carefully approach what applications you run daily. The home screen must contain shortcuts of these applications and only them. Most users include the phone, messenger, email, calendar and browser. All of them must be placed in the dock at the bottom of the screen.
There may also be useful applications for creating notes, playback of audio, home appliances management, photo viewing. For the rest, if you do not run the app every day, you should not keep it in sight. Extra labels on the home screen make it difficult to find the desired applications, so it is desirable to reduce their number to 10-15. When something else is needed, it will be possible to find it in the list of applications, where they are placed in alphabetical order.
As a result, the necessary tools will always be at your hand, they will easily look easy. If the location of the icons does not change, you can remember it and click automatically, without looking.
If you still need to look, for example, to weather forecast, use widgets that show information without having to press them. The main rule here is the smaller the better.
If the home screen provides redundant information, your box with tools becomes ineffective.
Allow GBOrD to speed up the text set
It is difficult to work on the smartphone when each proposal has to be recruited for 10 minutes and then it needs to be decrypted. A set of text should not cause feelings of disappointment. If you set the right keyboard and you will take advantage of its advantages, this will not happen.
In this article, we recommend installing Google GBoard application. On some devices, it is pre-installed as the default keyboard, but many manufacturers, such as Samsung, put their own keyboards not better quality. There are other good keyboards, but the Gboard seems most worked and simple, and also have interesting functional advantages.
For example, shortcut shortcuts. You can dial a digit or a special character if you hold your finger on the button? 123 in the lower left corner and pull up. A set of characters will appear, you need to move your finger to the desired one.
If you need to change the position of the cursor, swipe along the space. For more accurate selection, press the symbol> in the upper left corner and on the I symbol, which will appear in the center of the top panel. After that, the control panel will appear with the buttons to accurately position the cursor and select text.
Continuing the description of this top panel, here you will find the most advanced GBOard capabilities. This is a search icon that allows you to search for Google directly from the keyboard and insert objects like news, weather and location data to any text field. Google Translator Icon will make it possible to quickly translate text from one language to another. The settings icon opens access to different keyboard parameters, including height, appearance and availability of a dedicated digital series.
GBoard improves the convenience of setting text on large screens. Press and hold on the semicolon, then click on the hand icon with the phone. This will start a one-handed mode, after which the keyboard can be transferred to the left or right side of the screen, where it is convenient to reach it. You can also place the keyboard in any place on the screen.
Use reminders
Android smartphones have a memory, and we are not talking about RAM or flash memory. Google supports an impressive system of cross-platform reminders, which is integrated into the smartphone. It can be an invaluable tool to increase performance labor if you do not forget to use it.
When you need to remember something, tell me about it with your smartphone, or by typing the text on the keyboard in the search query, or by saying it out loud while clicking on the microphone icon on the home screen. Use the format "Remind me something", tell me the time or place when you should get a reminder.
Location-based reminders are especially useful. You can force your smartphone to send the report when you come to work, write an email to the authorities when you get to the house. When you stay in the specified location, the smartphone sends an alert. Google must automatically recognize public places and organizations, manually you can set your own places such as a house or work, marking them on Google map.
further more interesting: Since the reminder system is associated with Google account and automatically synchronized between different devices, you can install and view reminders on the desktop, If you log in to Google account. Type a reminder in searching Google or in the address bar of the Chrome browser or type "show my reminders" to see a list of future and reminders.
The same system is available on different platforms in the Google Keep application, where you can create reminders for notes and lists, as well as in Google Inbox, where you can install reminders for emails and Tasks, as well as manage existing reminders.
Control of notifications
Notifications on smartphones are not so smart as we would like. Smartphones constantly distract us, which does not contribute to the efficiency of labor.
Find a few minutes to manage notifications and they will become truly useful, and not interfering. First, check personal notifications. Within a few days, carefully analyze each notice on the smartphone and think about whether they show what you need to find out right now. Most likely, most of the notifications from social networks, news programs, shops and other unimportant sources are more distracted than they help. Their shutdown will make a smartphone with a more useful working tool.
View each application and look if you can turn off the notification from it or at least reduce their frequency. If you do not see the desired setting, let Android make it all. Press and hold on the following notification from the application, it will be possible to block notifications from the program completely or make them come in silent mode and without vibration.
Think about basic notifications, like an email. Do you need to know when each letter comes? If you are using Gmail or Inbox, you can configure them to notice only about entering letters with a high priority, which will help reduce extra noise and focus on affairs.
Use the "Do not disturb" function. It is in the audio settings section and allows you to set the priority of notifications. You can make calls or messages from important contacts to a white list, and all the other drown. You can set the rules for automatically launching the "Do not disturb" mode at a certain time or under certain circumstances. This feature is available, starting with the Android version 6.0.
Switching between applications
On computers. Experienced users use the Alt-Tab key combination for moving between different programs. In Android 7.0, a similar possibility appeared: you need to press the overview button twice, which usually has a square shape and is located next to the Back and Home buttons. This will switch between current and previous applications.
Screen split
Sometimes it is more convenient to perform work when two applications are visible on the screen; For example, if you simultaneously see chat and browser, document and webpage, etc.
On Android 7.0 and newer versions, the screen separation is supported between two applications. When one program is running, press and hold the view button and select the second application from the list. When the need for two applications dropped, press and hold the Overview button again to close one of them.
Some manufacturers, such as Samsung, have previously offered their own implementation of this feature and continue to offer so far.
Cross-platform capabilities Chrome
The Google Chrome browser will help save a lot of time, thanks to him the smartphone will be an add-on of the office computer. The version of the Android browser automatically synchronizes the data with the browser on the computer, so all your bookmarks will be available in both places. Any page that opened on the computer is available on the smartphone in the browser history. Naturally, in both cases, the browser must be associated with Google's account.
You can see which pages are open now in Chrome on other devices. You need to click on the "Recent Tabs" feature in the Android browser menu. On the computer, the same information can be found on the Story page.
Chrome on Android has some hidden settings that can make it even more efficient.
Improving the efficiency of Android
Android differs from other mobile operating systems by the fact that it gives a large selection of interface settings using third-party applications. If you choose the right tools, you can create different opportunities to increase productivity.
You can install an application that will place live widgets in the notifications panel, or utility that create a universal taskbar to quickly access applications. The description of these additional features is already beyond the scope of this article.
