What are the 7 Additional Android Adjustments This New Year

January is an excellent opportunity to take stock of your digital life, make any necessary adjustments, and get ready for a year full of enjoyable accomplishments. A few easy steps can go a surprisingly long way toward improving your Android experience.

1. Enable Gestures

Incredibly, in 2023, many Android lovers still use the outdated legacy button method to navigate their Google smartphones.

That three-key configuration is so 2017 that it makes you long for the days of Android 8. Soon after, Google switched to a gesture-based system. It had a shaky beginning. However, it has since matured into a highly refined, intuitive, and surprisingly enjoyable method to navigate your phone.

If your Android device does not have the gesture system activated, you can easily switch to the current standard in less than a minute.

2. Optimize your Android System with More Intelligent Software

Here is another tweak for our friends who do not own Pixel devices. Phone manufacturers besides Google frequently load their products to capacity with clones of Google’s core applications that are both inferior and unnecessary. With few exceptions, Google’s apps are more user-friendly, feature-rich, and consistently built than their rivals. They typically come with some rather baffling asterisks and motivate you to be within the ecosystem of a single Android phone manufacturer.

If you are not using a Google-made phone, it is a good idea to remove the bundled apps and replace them with Google versions, whether your device is new or not.

3. Change How Your Quick Settings Display

The default Android home screen is where most of our attention goes. However, in addition to the traditional home screen, your phone also features a secondary, universal launchpad. It is straightforward to tailor to your needs.

It is Android’s Quick Settings panel. The row of tiles appears when you swipe down from the top of the screen. It is understandable if you have forgotten, but tweaking those settings is simple.

Swipe twice down from the top of the screen to access the navigation drawer, then hit the pencil icon (if using a Pixel phone) or the three dots (menu) followed by “Edit buttons” (if using a Samsung device).

Then, by touching and holding an icon, you may reposition it within the Quick Settings section or remove it entirely.

4. Manage Music

While Google has made great strides in syncing settings and streamlining the Android setup process, the system sound is still something you have to configure manually every time you get a new phone.

From the most fundamental, like your ringtone, to the most sophisticated, like the sounds you hear for notifications, there is a sea of options to explore. And if you take the time to set it up once, it will be significantly easier to know without looking at what kind of alert is demanding your attention. Moreover, it will work with every phone you use.

Start with the fundamentals under the Sound & Vibration part of your device’s settings, and then move on to the Notifications section to locate and modify all the possible sounds for each loaded app.

5. Improve the Efficacy of Your Alerts

One of Android’s most sanity-saving advantages is that your choices for how different notifications are handled are not often carried over from one phone to the next.

Consider every alert that pops up on your phone. Ask yourself if you need that alert. Do you not want it to arrive and take up space in your phone’s inbox?

To make changes to a notice, press and hold it until the notification changes. Then, search for the “Settings” wording or the gear-shaped icon within the notification. By clicking it, you will get a menu with choices for adjusting the behavior of the alert. You may disable it, make it silent, make it smaller, or even have it override Do Not Disturb so you never miss a notification again.

6. Increased Notification Retention

Regarding notifications further, with the 2020 release of Android 11, the operating system has had a handy built-in system for retrieving your notification history. But on most gadgets, you seek out and activate the feature before use.

Fortunately, it is as simple as it gets:

Get back into your device’s Notifications settings by clicking the button.
You may access the “Advanced settings” menu by tapping the top.
Select the “Notification history” menu item.
On the subsequent screen, ensure the switch next to “Use notification history is turned on.

7. Simplify Mobile Device Protection

Smart Lock is Google’s solution for easier sign-ins on mobile devices. Once on, your phone will automatically unlock when it detects that it is in a safe zone or is paired with a trusted Bluetooth device, such as a vehicle stereo, a smartwatch, or a set of headphones.

Going into your phone’s settings and looking for “Smart Lock” will activate the system. Alternatively, if you are using a Pixel, you may activate Smart Lock by going into the Security menu, tapping “Advanced” or “More security settings,” and then tapping “Smart Lock.”