Convenient Tips for Android Pie

Although Android Q is coming, Android Pie still has a lot to offer a user, a lot of which many users may not be aware of. Below we listed a few ways that Android Pie permits you to customize your phone to be the productivity machine you need.

Let's go over a few of these business-friendly features so you can make the most of your Android device.

Predictions to Help Enhance Productivity

With Android Pie, your phone pays attention, in a way, to what you are doing and try to predict what you will want to do next based on past experience. These predictions will then appear at the top of your application drawer. You’ll find that these predictions can get pretty granular… It isn’t that Android will open the phone application, Android will suggest that you call a specific person; convenient, if you usually need to report in or call someone for a status update.

You also have the option to take these predictions and drag them to your home screen for even more simplified, continuous access.

These Predictions Aren’t Required

Naturally, not everyone will find these predictions so helpful, especially if your phone detects patterns that aren’t really there. Luckily, you can eliminate rid of these suggestions. Press and hold the suggestion you want to get rid of until you are able to drag it around. Dragging it to the Don’t show text that appears at the top of the screen will prevent that particular suggestion from appearing again. You also have the option to disable any suggestions from showing up. Pressing an open area on your home screen, select Home settings and from there, Suggestions. Selecting Suggestions, find the toggle switch next to Apps and deactivate them. This will prevent suggestions from showing up in your App Drawer and Overview screen.

Leveraging Shortcuts

Recall how we turned a prediction into a shortcut above? You can create shortcuts out of other things as well. Many applications will have shortcuts baked in, accessible by long-pressing the application in the App Drawer. Doing so will cause a menu of options to appear. Not only can you quickly access your options from this menu, you can drag these menu items to your main screen to make a shortcut as well.

Swiftly Editing Screenshots

With Android Pie, mobile screenshots are easy to take and, perhaps more importantly to your purposes, edit and mark up. Capturing a screenshot is as simple as holding down the power button and volume-down button simultaneously, or simply holding the power button and using the screenshot option in the menu that appears (alas, this option isn’t present in Samsung phones). Once you’ve taken your screenshot, a notification will appear with an Edit option. This editor will let you crop, highlight, and annotate your screenshot, which you can then share with those who need to see it.

Adaptive Brightness

We each have a preferred brightness for our device’s screen and, most likely, the environment we’re in will cause that to vary. With Android Pie, your phone can actually “learn” your screen brightness preferences in different light conditions and adjust its own settings to match. This can be activated in the Display section of your settings, just turn on “Adaptive brightness”. Once you’ve done so, you’ll need to teach your phone how you like your brightness by manually adjusting it in different lighting conditions.

What are some of your favorite Android tricks?