MIUI advertisements are commonplace. They are pervasive, invasive, and the user experience is labelled. For this exact cause, some folks walk away from Xiaomi phones. Still, since it is the key source of Xiaomi ‘s income, MIUI is married to advertising.
Lei Jun, the company’s CEO, announced last year that MIUI would clamp down on advertising , especially lewd ones. Well, we finally have a function for getting rid of the ads in the new MIUI 12. Today , the new version is being released internationally. In a swarm of functionality, the one that many of us are excited about is the latest ad treatment.
Now, you just have to follow these three simple steps to get the same thing done:
Open the Settings page and click on the account option, followed by Privacy Policy.
2. Within Privacy Policy, you’ll see an option called “System Ads”.
3. Toggle off that option to disable the ads.
Disable Ads
You had to opt-out of the User Interface Program in earlier MIUI models, reject automated diagnostic data transfer, and turn off recommended / personalized content settings on all Mi apps. The measures are now truncated to just three.
OnePlus runs one of the most public-facing app testing activities among the handset manufacturers we cover at Android Police and it is not shocking to see another beta testing community launch, this time for its newest handset, the Nord.
The company invites up to 200 Nord owners who are willing to provide timely input through a OnePlus Slack channel on features on future OxygenOS builds for the Nord. Ideally, already involved and vibrant, prospective participants would need to have a OnePlus Forum account and need to be comfortable with backing up their data for occasional picture flashing. They would also need to sign a contract for non-disclosure.
This survey can be filled out by those who are involved. Setting up the closed beta community would pave the way for more secure open beta photos that can be flashed on their own by any user.
It’s very odd to see such a commonly available beta structure for a €300 handset, regardless of the fact that we are dealing with OnePlus here.
After years of making (and breaking), Google confirmed earlier this month (then removed the tweet) that its Duo video calling service would soon be available for screen sharing. The feature did not instantly go live, but is finally making its way to users now. My husband’s OnePlus 7 Pro was considered worthy of getting it by the server-side switch gods, but my Pixel 4 XL with Android 11 is not nice enough (no, I’m not bitter). But all you need is for it to be live to do the sharing on one unit, so we took it for a ride. Prepare for the relentless Ritas, you were warned.
It is as easy to toggle on screen sharing as pressing the overflow button (three dots) at the bottom right of the mid-call Duo screen, then selecting Screen share. Since this is an update from the server side, not everybody has it yet. If you want to reveal confidential information during the call, a pop-up will ask you to choose Start now and you’re good to go. What’s on your screen is going to be shared with another person.
While you’re still in Duo, the outcome is a funny beginning, but you can quickly back out of the app and use your phone as usual. The PIP window is not activated, so when sharing your screen with them, you can’t see the other person, but that’s all for the better, because you don’t want the PIP to appear on their side and thus further confuse them. The only signs that you are in this mode are the red Chrome icon in the status bar (similar to when the screen is being registered or cast) and the Duo notification with the options to terminate the call or simply interrupt the screenshare. A pop-up will ask if you would like to go back to using your front camera if you select the latter one. (Note: this dialog may be the product of my brother using a OnePlus 7 Pro with a pop-up camera that required confirmation to spring up. It may not be seen by phones with no pop-up cam.)
At the end of the receiver, when the sender’s screen sharing is enabled, the video will briefly cut off to a blue screen, but if it works, you can see their screen and can follow along with what they do. The only difference is that your own tiny video stream window on the top right is already open to you. This produces another inception-like impact for the first few seconds of the share, of course.
And that’s the gist of it, basically. In our experience, even though we were on a slow connection, it worked well. When you are both on a good Wi-Fi or 4 G link, the output should be higher.
Screen sharing is an integral part of any video calling service, not just for those who want to demo stuff to other users, but also if a friend or family member needs to provide fast tech help. For that reason alone, I needed this feature because I’m tired of asking my parents to “describe what you see” or “take a screenshot and send it to me” when trying to help with a problem remotely on their computer. Through this, I should be able to clarify how the screen is shared and I can see all from then on and thus provide anyone involved through rapid and frustration-free support.
As this is still a server-side rollout, the functionality is not yet available to all. Duo v105.0.331 (APK Mirror) is run by both my husband and I, but he has it and I don’t. Make sure you’re on this or a newer update to boost your chances, and keep testing. Soon we can all have it, hopefully.
We have a boatload of sales to share with everyone today, including a range of Basic Mobile Tools names, it would seem. Of course, if you’re looking for sports, then, along with King of Dragon Pass and Icewind Dale, Bendy and the Ink Machine is a strong pickup today. As always, to make exploration simpler, I’ve highlighted all the interesting titles in bold. So, without further ado, for the start of the week, there are 24 temporarily free and 89 on-sale applications and games.
Are you struggling to save battery life on Android devices?
Both of us hate being fined regularly. When we intend to purchase our latest smartphone, battery backup still matters now.
There are plenty of Android smartphones on the market with decent battery backup, but they don’t have an unlimited battery life, unfortunately. So here are some easy hacks on your Android devices to save battery life.
Over the past few years, a variety of factors have conspired to decrease gadget stamina. Thinner designs have less battery space, larger and brighter displays, faster quad-core processors, more background applications, and all share responsibility for power-hungry GPS radios. The move from 3G to 4G networks a few years ago—particularly of the LTE variety—has also taken its toll.
Why black wallpaper? — Because most smartphones in the market AMOLED screen which only illuminate the colored pixels. And black pixels are unlit, so the more black pixels you have, or the darker pixels, the less power is needed to light them up.
Who drains your battery
It is necessary to find this strategy, just find the culprit who is responsible for draining your battery.
You can do it by going to “Settings > Battery“.
This choice breaks down what your phone’s battery absorbs. Applications and features will be seen in a chart of battery hogs below. You’ll want to uninstall the software or turn off the feature if you find an application that you rarely use or a feature you never use.
Widgets and live wallpaper
It is necessary to find this strategy, just find the culprit who is responsible for draining your battery.
This choice breaks down what your phone’s battery absorbs. Applications and features will be seen in a chart of battery hogs below. You’ll want to uninstall the software or turn off the feature if you find an application that you rarely use or a feature you never use.
Turn off automatic brightness
Automatic Brightness — sounds useful feature, but don’t go for it.
Automatic brightness is actually typically much brighter than you really need. It’s easier to set the brightness to a low yet comfortable level manually, and bump it up when appropriate. This is one of the easiest ways to conserve battery life, since one of the main battery suckers is the screens.
Apps refresh frequency
The next method is controlling refresh frequency of some apps. Apps checking for new emails and other data in the background updates frequently to fetch new information. This frequent background fetching of data will drain your battery fast.
So to disable this just go to “Settings > Accounts” and uncheck Auto-sync data to prevent your Android device from automatically syncing with your Google accounts (and other accounts) in the background. Uncheck Auto-sync data to prevent your Android device from automatically syncing with your Google accounts (and other accounts) in the background. And also force off apps that work on background.
Shorter sacreen timeout setting saves battery life
Set the screen timeout of your monitor to as short a time as is feasible for you.
Just imagine, if your screen timeout is set to a minute, four times more power will be used than if your screen timeout was set to 15 seconds. The average smartphone user turns their smartphone on 150 times a day, studies say, so the difference between a long screen timeout and a brief one easily adds up. This reduction would help keep the battery going for longer.
Switch Off Vibrate
Turn Vibrate off. Switch off vibration warnings for incoming calls unless you really need the added sensitivity. To vibrate your phone, it actually takes more power than it does to ring it.
Use lock screen notifications or widgets
Battery life can also be protected by locking screen alerts or locking screen widgets. This is because without having to turn the entire computer on, you can display the updates at a glance. This is particularly useful if you get loads of updates that are not immediately worth following up on.
Stay offline
You don’t have to be wired 24/7 to the internet, which enhances the use of data and drains the battery as well. So use the internet when you need to, including shutting it off during your hours of sleep and office hours.
Original batteries
Use only original batteries directly from the manufacturer. This one is significant. It is indeed a poor option to save a few bucks on a battery that could harm your beloved smartphone, which may also offer sub-standard battery efficiency.
Apps lite version
Opting lite versions of Android apps over the main edition there would certainly help you reduce the battery usage. Since lightweight Android apps are slipped versions of the main app, but to save your Android device battery life, you can have to sacrifice certain features for the greater good.
Turn off animations
Another ideal way to maximize battery usage on Android devices is to adjust animation settings. But you have to access “Developer Choices” to change the animation settings, a choice that is concealed within your Android settings.
To enter into Developer mode, go to “Settings>>About phone” and tap on “Build number” a few times and then go back to the main settings page to find the activated “Developer Options”. Now go to enabled Developer Options, and scroll down to find three options namely “Window animation scale“, “Transition animation scale” and “Animator duration scale” and turn them off.
Turn off unwanted services
After their use, we often forget to disable such services such as WiFi, GPS, NFC, Bluetooth without understanding their negative effect on the battery life of your Android device. Most of these services are constantly surveying routers for your knowledge, to find nearby Bluetooth devices or WiFi connections or GPS satellites, even if they are not accessible at that time.
So swipe down your notification bar and disable all these services after their use to save your device battery life.
Greenify
Unlike any other third-party apps which claim to save battery life on Android — Greenify is the trusted one. Greenify saves your battery life by pushing apps into a kinda hibernation mode and stop them from running background until you reopen them again. Since some of the advanced features of Greenify work only on the rooted device — though still works well on non-rooted devices too.
What are the most commonly asked questions from Android users? Like, how is Android getting faster? How can I make my Android phone faster? Well, it is the hope of every Android user that their phone defies all the boundaries of fluidity and rapidity.
But do you believe this is true? Can you make your Android phone faster than it can? At most, what we want is to make the Android system function as if it’s new, because our smartphone is slowed down by downloading apps and using them everyday. These apps run in real-time and consume the device’s memory, energy , and other resources.
So, what could be the many ways to use our Android devices efficiently, in such a way that we could reduce the lags and freezes as much as possible if not completely?
Keep the apps you use
Nearly every guide to Android tips and tricks you could read will suggest that you keep only those apps you use on a daily basis. Doesn’t that sound apparent? Will you store your house with unnecessary items only because they are free? Yeah, our homes are always loaded with items like that, but do we have to do the same with our smartphones?
In order to keep running, numerous apps that live inside our smartphones run all the time and need to connect to the Internet. Even if we don’t benefit from these applications, they will just place a burden on the hardware even raise our data bills. It would be a smart step in the direction of speeding up Android to get rid of such software.
Clear the cache
On a daily basis, there are some applications that you don’t need, but they are relevant enough to have a place on your computer. Like, you book flights, hotels, and order food with the apps you use. Try to delete the cached data for such apps in the Settings to make Android quicker, to ensure that they do not take much space when they are not in use. Often learning the cached data helps to make the app faster as it eliminates old data that might make it slow and cause freezes and crashes. The application will maintain newer versions of the same stuff when the data is removed.
Clear the memory several times during the day
Android has exceptional abilities for task management. It can, whenever needed, close unwanted processes on its own. But I can tell you this old-school thing would be of great help if your system had a RAM shortage.
Nearly every launcher nowadays provides the option of freeing up system memory. If there is no memory cleaning application, you should consider downloading any. And I am not talking about the apps here that claim to make your Android phone faster by running cleaning operations in real-time. And all they do is make it even slower on the computer.
Check if there are lighter versions of apps
Many of the popular apps like Facebook, Twitter, Messenger, and Opera also have versions of their ‘lite’. These lightweight applications are also designed for smartphones at the entry-level and for consumers needing to keep things simple.
The efficiency of your Android phone can be enhanced by using Lite versions for applications. And they also decrease your data bills, and it’s one of the reasons that there are such games.
Update your device
Each newer version of Android comes with different performance enhancements. So, updating your computer will do wonders and accelerate Android if your vendor is good enough to release one.
Alternatively, you can head over towards custom ROMs for your Android device if you think the device maker built the phone and just forgot the fact that it exists anymore. That is the case of the Mi Pad my friend brought more than a year ago. Even though the device has capable hardware, it still runs Android KitKat. Please note that using customs ROMs usually comes in the category of Android performance tips for experienced users.
Before you install an app
It’s almost a decade since Android came into existence and the number of apps for the platform has now grown into millions. But out of these uncountable number of apps and games, not all of them are designed by developers with good intentions.
Many Android apps are fake and want to take control of your device, steal valuable data and send it to their masters. For instance, the System Update malware lived in the Play Store for three years, undetected.
Google has recently rolled out Play Protect tool for scanning such apps. Indirectly, you can make your Android device faster by this option. However, you should check the authenticity of an unknown app before you install it, even if you’re downloading it from the Play Store.
Format your SD Card to improve Android performance
If you experience frequent crashes on your Android phones, one of the explanations might be a corrupt SD. Formatting the SD card would not only delete the unnecessary junk of files generated by the Android framework and various apps, but could ultimately lead to a boost in performance.
Update only over WiFi
In order to keep the information fresh all the time or do other things such as uploading files, images , videos, several apps need to update themselves in the background. Disabling background data can thus render an Android computer, to an extent, faster.
That’s because it bars apps from linking to the internet and from using device tools. Turning off background data for mobile networks will also be helpful in saving your internet bills.
Alternatively, you can turn off auto-sync on your Android device if you want to keep your device from being synced by Google.
And turn-off auto update in Google Play by visiting Settings > Auto-update apps > Select Auto-update apps over WiFi only.
Restart is what your Android phone needs sometimes
For our computers, this applies; restarting the machines will help them find their way through tough times. Similarly, Android devices may be the case too. It deletes temporary files to speed up Android when you reboot your computer and also cleans up the memory of the device.
Use the cloud, free your storage
Files are being transferred to the cloud in the latest 2017 storage fashion. Not only does this make our data available across devices, it also frees up precious internal storage on the Android phone that applications installed on the device can use. Keep in mind that internal storage plays a significant role in your Android phone’s output.
Keep your home screen clean
It sounds good to fill your Android home screen with live wallpapers and loads of widgets. However, all these things put additional load on the hardware under the hood and affect the output of the system.
Often, when you use a heavy app or play games, you may see your Android device struggling to load the contents of the home screen.
One of the many ways you can make your Android phone quicker is to keep your home screen as clean as possible. Every time you return to the home screen or wake the computer from sleep, it doesn’t have to load all the content.
Try other launchers made for Android
android launchers
Custom launcher is a perfect way to turn your Android computer into a whole new version of itself. It might not be feasible for a custom launcher to have a major performance boost related to hardware, but some of them suck much less memory and Processor than others. Installing a lightweight custom launcher will thus make your Android phone functionally faster.
In addition, the variety of shortcuts, customizations, and other options will help to make your Android device run faster, if not faster. These applications will reduce the time that people would possibly spend in searching different apps and settings on their devices.
What to do when your Android phone freezes?
It’s hard to digest, but some evil apps and processes make our device experience the temperatures of hell. But repeatedly tapping the screen or pressing buttons would only make things worse when your Android freezes due to an app crash or when all RAM gets consumed.
Under such cases, strive to show some calmness and maturity. Most of the time, it’s just the app, and pressing the home button will take you to home screen. After that you can destroy the affected app from the Recent apps section to make Android faster.
When you press the home button, if nothing happens, press the power button gently and try to ‘reboot’ or ‘turn off’ the system. If the system is stubborn enough to resist a restart you may remove the battery. If your mobile has a non-removable battery, you can have all the time, but you may have to wait until the battery is discharged.
Developer options
There is a much popular way to make an Android device faster by tweaking some settings in the Developer Options. However, I personally don’t like this suggestion as it leaves the device without any special effects.
You can enable Developer Options on Android by going to the About section and tapping the build number five times consecutively. Then, you’ll be able to see Developer Options in the Settings. You can disable animations on the device. Set Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale to off.
This change reduces the time wasted on rendering various visual effects on the screen when you operate, making it work quicker in some sense. Go ahead if you’re fine that your device appears to be running a decade old software when it’s not.
Reset your device
Last and but not least, the ultimate option to make your Android phone faster is to perform a factory reset. You can consider it if your device has slowed down to the level that can’t do basic things.
There are two ways to reset on your Android device. First is to visit Settings and use the factory reset option present there. This would perform a soft reset of your device which involves resetting device settings and wiping all the data like your photos, videos, apps, cache, etc.
For deeper cleaning, you’ll have to boot into recovery mode and hard reset the device. After you turn off the phone, on most Android devices, recovery mode can be accessed by pressing Power and Volume Down button for around 5 to 10 seconds.
You will need to boot into recovery mode for deeper cleaning, and hard reset the computer. On most Android devices, after you turn off the handset, you can access the recovery mode by pressing the Power and Volume Down buttons for around 5 to 10 seconds.
In most situations, though, you should stick with the first process, as it will fix problems for you. And, try to back up the data before you do something.
So, these were some of the Android tips and tricks for your phone with a hope that you’d be able to give it some adrenaline rush.
On our Android smartphones, the list of settings and features is very comprehensive and most of them either just pass by unnoticed when we see them, or we happily ignore them. One of those was Wi-Fi Direct, but we will clarify to you what it is and why you should use it. Click here to set it up.
What is Wi-Fi Direct?
When anyone discusses Wi-Fi most people would think about browsing the internet instantly, but there is more to it than just that. Wi-Fi Direct is a certificate issued by the Wi-Fi Alliance of more than 600 members, including Apple, LG, Intel , Microsoft and Dell. These days a range of devices are compliant with Wi-Fi Direct – most notably smartphones , laptops and digital cameras. One of the first smartphones to have this feature was the Samsung Galaxy S (launched in 2010), and as for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, all Android smartphones have this feature included native.
Wi-Fi Direct can be regarded as a kind of second-generation Wi-Fi, as it allows compatible devices that do not have their own internet connection to create a connection between them (hotspots, modems or routers). You can create a wireless network between multiple devices, thanks to Wi-Fi Direct. Additionally, in conjunction with Miracast, you can use Wi-Fi Direct to screen on another device with a monitor. Wi-Fi Direct’s newest generation is also compliant with NFC.
Wi-Fi Direct settings
Why should you use Wi-Fi Direct?
As already mentioned, Wi-Fi direct allows devices to connect to one that does without their own internet connection. In the case of Android smartphones and tablets, you can connect them and pass files easily without the cable hassle. So, is Wi-Fi Direct just a glorified Bluetooth version? Oh , yeah, yes and no. The benefit of using Wi-Fi Direct over Bluetooth is that the range and upload rates of Wi-Fi are considerably greater than those of Bluetooth. So in short-use Wi-Fi Direct to send files from one device to another, if you want a better way.
Set up Wi-Fi Direct
Each Android smartphone that uses Android 4.0 and above has Wi-Fi Direct features (some very rare exceptions are available). Although the user interfaces of the systems can differ, setting up this functionality for all devices is relatively easy and standardized. At the moment, Wi-Fi Direct does not allow file transfers natively, so you will need to install a third-party plugin. We suggest “Send Wherever”
Unlike with Bluetooth, there is no button or anything that you need to tap to turn Wi-Fi Direct on. Wi-Fi Direct is enabled the moment you have a stable internet connection. This doesn’t mean that Wi-Fi Direct is on all the time. Your smartphone only starts scanning for nearby devices to connect to when you tap on the Wi-Fi Direct tab.
Important: You also need to turn on Wi-Fi direct on your laptop, television, printer, or whichever device you are connecting to as well as having activated it on your smartphone using the steps above.
We’ve all deleted pictures on our phones by mistake before, but what if you delete anything absolutely irreplaceable? You don’t have to panic, but to retrieve your files, you do need to act quickly. Just follow our instructions below and you should be able to jiffy your pictures back.
Do not be concerned, it is not too late! If you’re just morbidly curious about what could happen to your pictures, then we can also advise you how to back them up so you never have to feel the panic again.
First, head to the Play Store and grab DiskDigger photo recovery and then run the app. There are a few apps on the Play Store that claim to recover deleted photos, but after our investigation, DiskDigger was not only more reliable, but was less intrusive when it came to serving up ads, too.
When you have the app, it’s helpful to turn off your phone’s Wi-Fi and data connections. The explanation for doing this is that when data is removed, whether images, music or documents, it is not completely removed until something in the device’s memory has been written over it. In addition, it ‘s important that you quickly uninstall all of your phone cleaning applications, since they will permanently erase the files you inadvertently deleted, making them impossible to restore.
NOTE: DiskDigger is limited to retrieving images from your thumbnail caches on a non-rooted computer, meaning the images are likely to be of poorer quality than the original photos or videos. It is only possible to restore the original full-resolution versions of the images or videos by rooting your computer and getting the app’s Pro version. If you don’t know how to root your phone, then refer to our full guide on how to get started with rooting Android.
If you’ve recently deleted your photos, DiskDigger should be able to find those photos, and you’ll be given the option of whether to restore them to a folder on your device, or back them up to a cloud service.
At first, it didn’t look like DiskDigger could locate our images, but our deleted pictures were discovered by a fast dip into its settings and unchecking the minimum file size factor. Like we said above, if you want to recover your images, you’ll need the App’s Pro edition, which can be found at the link below. Less than $4 to get your memories back is a small price to pay.
Be careful if you use the cleanup feature in the app, as some users have deleted all their photos because they didn’t understand that it would delete everything, not just the images they deleted on purpose to save space.
Once you’ve recovered your photos, you’ll want to make sure this never happens again. And we all know prevention is better than the cure.
Back up your photos on Google Photos
Now that we’ve explained how to recover deleted photos on Android, the next step is to prevent this situation from happening again. To do this, we recommend using an app such as Google Photos. It offers unlimited photo storage (so long as the files aren’t too large) and the backup function is easy to set up.
If the app has been enabled, just go to its Settings, then Backup & Sync, and you can choose how much – and by what process – you want your images backed up to. Of course we suggest that you back up as soon as possible.
Now that the weekend is almost here, it’s time once again to check out all of the app and game sales currently available on the Google Play Store.
Rest assured, we still have a few standouts to share with everyone, including the idle clicker A Dark Room. If you’re looking for something a little more relaxing, then perhaps the hidden object game Hidden Through Time is more your speed. Of course, if you prefer puzzle-based adventure games, Robot Gentleman’s 60 Parsecs is definitely worth picking up. As always, I’ve highlighted all of the interesting titles in bold to make discovery easier. So without further ado, here are 11 temporarily free and 49 on-sale apps and games for the end of the week.
As you might well be aware by now, Android 11 ‘s stable version has now been released to the public. Google’s Pixel phone series and a handful of Xiaomi devices have entered the upgrade train so far, while official beta builds are available for the OnePlus 8 lineup, the Samsung Galaxy S20 series, and many other smartphones from various OEM’s.
The source code for the newest Android version is also available on AOSP, which is undeniably a critical ingredient for compiling custom ROMs based on Android 11. In reality, the Redmi K20 Pro / Xiaomi Mi 9 T Pro has already been given a fairly functional AOSP 11 ROM for vanilla.
Now, more Android 10 custom ROMs have begun popping up in our forums for devices like the Xiaomi POCO F1, OnePlus 5/5T, Essential Phone, and the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1; and we expect even more to come along the way in the coming weeks. We’ll add and update this list with some of the first set of Android 11 builds and custom ROMs for a wide range of devices!
Apart from the above mentioned ROMs, we will see a lot of custom Android 11 builds released in the weeks to come. Not all custom ROMs ship with Google apps pre-installed though. If you’re looking for an acceptable delivery of GApps, then you’ll be pleased to know that Nikhil, XDA Senior Member, has stepped up and launched an updated version of the NikGapps kit.
The SetupWizard module within this Gapps distribution is known to be problematic, but you can remedy this by skipping the module using nikgapps.config or flashing the variant without SetupWizard.
