What are some cool but underrated Android Features on Android that most people don’t know about? those little things that make life easier but don’t get talked about much. I feel like there’s so much hidden stuff in Android that we miss out on.
These might be Pixel only features, but the few that always get iPhone users envious of my phone are:
Battery sharing - Turning the phone into a wireless charger for other phones, including iPhones.
Now Playing - Display whatever music is playing on the lock screen, and keep a history. Great when you’re at a bar and don’t want to open up Shazam or want to go back and see all the music your friend was playing in the car.
Ad Guard - Block ads, even in apps.
Battery sharing - Turning the phone into a wireless charger for other phones, including iPhones.
My S10 has it. It’s not even an s10+ but a regular S10.
If you have a USB C to C cable handy, that’s also going to work to charge other devices, loses less power to the transfer, is quicker, and also more convenient since you can keep using both phones. Of course you’ll often not have a cable, but if you do it’s probably gonna be the better option
The real advantage to the battery share feature (ime) is charging shit like my pixel buds while I also charge my phone, using 1 cable
Wish it worked for my pixel watch, really dropped the ball there google.
Doesn’t work on my Pixel 9.charging it disables battery share.
You might need to check the settings for it, I believe you have to set the item on the… Fuck it I’ll go snag a screenshot of my settings app I use this daily
One of these 2 settings might be getting in your way:
You have like 30s to put the device on your phone or it won’t charge and you have to unplug/replug your phone
If you use the 3 button navigation, there are options for long press of buttons. “Kill foreground app” as back button long-press action is just indispensable when something goes wrong.
Used to use the hell outta that.
Is this only in custom ROMs, or is there a way to do it through normal settings?
No idea, I haven’t used a stock Android system for about 10 years.
Go to Settings and search for “long press action”.
Edit: this setting has been available in Developer Settings in earlier Androids, so maybe if the official rom doesn’t have the proper setting, you can find it there.
NewPipe, ReVanced patches, screen rotate with the popup, KineStop, and if you’re adventurous: dual boot different ROMs using A/B.
KineStop
Clever idea. Thank you!
iOS already has a built in accessibility option for preventing nausea in a moving vehicle, I think Google is also planning a similar feature in the upcoming Android versions. Until then, KineStop does the job.
In developers options, turning the animation speeds to .5x
Don’t know if that’s really an underrated feature, but would like to mention it anyway. Everything feels much faster after that. Pretty much the first thing i do when i have a new phone.
Fun fact if you set it to 1.5x on a samsung, it behaves like an iPhone lol.
I was just about to say this, it’s a game changer. Some OEMs (Android variants) even have options in the settings to set animation speed or disable them.
Speaking of, if your older phone is ever laggy or feels unresponsive, disable animations entirely. It made my phone feel brand new with how quickly it goes in and out of apps.
i disabled the animations on my old tablet just now. Very nice!
Same, at 1x it just takes too long for animations to complete.
Thanks for reminding, i remember that one if the older android days. Just adjusted it again, its still a really nice mod and speedbump!
I appreciate this setting still existing, especially because some custom skins/UI can be too slow, but IMHO I prefer a balanced/stock value as the animations nowadays are so polished and smooth that I’d rather use it that way than butchering them with faster speeds…
I am using MIUI right now and it has its own version of this, so I just use “balanced mode”.
When I use AOSP I always use stock because even my SD 865 feels weird when the animation is too fast but the app is still loading, I think it kills the momentum lol.
Why not just disable animations entirely?
That’s what I do as part of my initial setup on a new phone. It’s so much nicer when you tap something and it just happens instead of waiting for an animation.
Yeah, it breaks some stuff, but only like loading circle animations that try to spin at infinite speed. Nothing bad.
That’s a bit ugly, imo.
I do this mainly because I would get motion sickness from UI animation. Not trolling, see how most mainstream OS developers added disabling animation as an accessibility option.
I’ve found it can break things in some apps as well as not look nice (Spotify wrapped, McDonald’s app purchase loading, minor things I know)
Expand the list, these are apps I would never put on my phone. Is there a correlation? I am curious!
Too fast
Pin a app to the screen, so if you need to let someone use their phone they can’t get super nosy.
owner account can have a work profile, separate apps, have two versions of the same app, or just put some apps behind another fingerprint/password (can be different then the main phone unlocks)
Multiple user accounts (totally different accounts, totally different apps) : great if you want to let a kid play games, or let someone search the internet, or if you want to be really clean and keep work apps totally different. Mostly useful on tablets to let multiple people share the tablet.
The ability to run open source apps from fdroid, newpipe is an amazing game changer for anyone who watches youtube. (no ads)
How do I do the multiple account thing
You can have a work profile as well as a private space account. I think the latter is a relatively new feature. Really useful if you want your dating apps or NSFW apps not tied to your personal account.
The only drawback is that the private space cannot use background services so you can’t get notifications of hot MILFs in your area.
I use this pin feature when I give my phone to my kids. They can only use the pinned app and nothing else.
Android has support for keyboards. Both USB and Bluetooth keyboards work well and can be used for longer typing.
I use a Bluetooth numpad! I got an 8bitdo mechanical numpad and it’s so clicky and satisfying.
And a mouse too!
You’re right. This came handy when my phone’s screen broke and the touch sensor didn’t work. With USB mouse and keyboard, I could make a backup.
(Bluetooth would have worked too, if the devices are already paired).
My friend’s phone screen broke. So whenever he received an incoming call, he would take a wired mouse out of his pocket and connect it to his phone to answer the call.
And my axe!
With some apps (unsure if any open source ones exist), Android can become a Bluetooth Keyboard for a connected computer too! The keyboard isn’t very useful, but having a portable trackpad for a laptop during presentations may be helpful
There is also Impress Remote for Libreoffice Impress
Try other app stores like fdroid
That is not an Android feature…
F-Droid is available on iOS?
It really is an exclusive Android feature.
But if you can load open source apps without using the Apple app store, I’d love to learn how.
Not sure if this counts as “underrated” but Quick Share / Nearby Share. Its just Airdrop but for Android, not much to explain. It’s built in to all modern Android versions, and some older devices might also have it if they are new enough to have the “Google Play System Update” option on their phone as a separate update option from the main OS update.
Edit: Actually, its reportedly available for every android phone with Android Version 6.0 or newer.
This is not an Android feature. This is a Google feature and I believe it relies on a round-trip through their servers too.
I’ve tried it a few times and never gotten it to work. It sees both devices, but the connection times out.
Yeah it’s a shame Google dragged it’s feet so long and unlike all the crap they advertise but then release only. For the US for the next 6 years, they never went loud about this. So much the easiest way to share.
I wonder if it is too hard for Google to convince Apple to implement this with iOS, even in the form of an app…
I just used pairdrop.net a couple hours ago because I was too lazy to install LocalSend in my gf’s iPhone and it was a breeze to use to share a short video from there to my Android device…
Ah, what would we do without the EU.
Check out the eye gaze function. Also Action Blocks. They’re both cool assistive tech things that can be helpful, but trying them out shows you how difficult and exhausting it would be to have to use them for every task.
On the calendar, I can set people’s birthdays with a yearly reminder so they think I’m super thoughtful for remembering their birthdays. But the phone notified me.
Happens automatically if you put the birthday on the contact, too
Birday is a nice simple app that I like, it shows all upcoming birthdays and how many days until they happen. Just pulls the data from your calendar so no setup needed.
That’s not an Android feature, every digital calendar does that.
oops
I had a coworker that had the birthdays of his contacts at the end of each of them, so he would see that date anytime he chatted with them (us?) through WhatsApp.
I don’t question his methods, but that worked for him.
As a forgetful person this feature is absolutely essential. I put the person’s name and year of birth in the calendar event too.
Other ROMs like Lineage.
An application like tasker makes you realise the weird and amazing stuff you can do.
I’ve used Tasker a lot years ago, but really wish this was backed into the OS. Everything feels very hacky and janky setting up routines via Tasker. Some apps supported Tasker which was nice, but for ones that didn’t, using AutoInput was such a pain. Having official support on the OS level would be so nice. Apple Shortcuts is like the only thing I think iOS does better than Android.
I know Samsung phones can do something similar with a built in Modes and Routines feature. They allow you to access things that otherwise would require root from tasker.
What do you use it for?
I’ve had it for a while,
but ended up uninstalling it,
since I could not think of a good use case.I use it to play the Wii Shop Channel theme when I open the Play Store
I’m sorry I made you have to re-download Tasker again now
I have a few routines that I use.
For example,
I have one that auto rotates some apps.
One that sends a notification to my watch when the phone is fully charged.
Another that enables NFC when I open the wallet app and disables it automatically.
Another that enables auto rotate, silences phone, and enables DND when playing games.
Thank you, those are some interesting/good use cases indeed!
Some Android versions let you map the flashlight to the volume buttons and you can toggle it by pressing both at the same time. The option can be found in the system settings. If your OS does not have the setting, you can map the keys with an app like Torchie. It’s probably the feature I use the most on my phone, I couldn’t live without it at this point.
FlashDim on F-Droid can do this as well, if you look for an open source option (don’t know Torchie, maybe it’s OSS as well, then I at least brought up another option)
Thanks for the suggestion, Torchie is also on F-Droid :)
Yeah, stupidly checked after posting…
Although it shows up to be compiled for an earlier Android version and might not be compatible
Well, at least an option more… ;-)
