Android’s share of the business smartphone market continues to grow, accounting for more than two-thirds of global corporate purchases in the first quarter of 2017, according to research by overseas companies. Still, Android phones have room to improve productivity. Boot up a popular Android phone and you’ll find an inefficient home screen, a poorly designed keyboard and lots of undeveloped features. With just a few tweaks, you can make your Android phone a lot more productive and business-ready. So, follow these eight steps.

1. Optimize the home screen The home screen is the embodiment of the integration of all mobile phone functions, so setting the home screen is the starting point of improving the efficiency of mobile phone. You can think of the home screen as a tool box, a tool box, to save time. Unlike iOS, Android doesn’t limit your ICONS to neat static squares, and you can make your app look anything you want, as long as it’s easy to use. Sift through the apps you open every day, such as phone, email, calendar, Web browser, and so on. Place frequently used ones at the bottom of the screen where they can be easily touched, and less frequently used ones at the middle or top of the screen. Of course, all your favorite note-taking apps, music apps, photo apps, home control apps, etc., should be organized.

If your home screen is cluttered with ICONS, it can be hard to find what you’re looking for. Try to keep the number of ICONS down to 10-15. The rest of the apps are arranged alphabetically on your phone, so you can scroll to find the ones you need. This will put your most used tools right at your fingertips, and you’ll be able to find them without even looking at the screen. For useful information like the weather, for example, you might consider putting in a nice widget that makes the data readily available without more clicks. Remember that less is more. If your home screen reaches the point where it’s jammed with excess information, it becomes an ineffective toolbox for your mobile productivity. If it takes 10 minutes to type a sentence on your phone, it’s obviously not going to work. This requires you to find and install the right keyboard and learn how to take advantage of it. There are plenty of good keyboard apps out there. I recommend Google’s GboardAPP, which is comprehensive, easy to use, and has a lot of attractive add-ons. First, there are keyboard shortcuts, which allow you to type numbers or special characters quickly, for example. Button 1/2/3 in the lower left corner of Gboard, and then slide up; That will bring up the selected symbol, and you can then simply move your finger to select the symbol you want. When you need to reposition your cursor, slide your finger along the space, and for finer control, click on the menu symbol (>) in the upper left corner of the Gboard, then click on the I letter that appears in the center of the TopBar. This produces a control panel with a precise positioning cursor and a button for selecting text.

Speaking of the TopBar menu, you’ll find some of Gboard’s more advanced features there: the search icon, for example, lets you search Google from your keyboard and share news, weather, and location information; You can also set a number of items including font size, interface style, and number of lines displayed. Gboard also makes it less awkward to use the big screen. Just hold down the comma key and do it with one hand. This will change the keyboard into a one-handed mode of constant size; You can then position it to the left or right of the screen, or manually float it to any area you like. 3. Remember to use reminders Your Android device has great memory capabilities, and Google maintains a cross-platform reminders system that integrates directly into your phone, which can be an invaluable productivity tool. For example, when you want to remember something trivial, through your phone, type in any search prompt or speak out loud (voice activated prompt or Google Assistant via the microphone icon “OK Google “on your home screen). Either way, just use the “remind me” format and follow the time and place you want to remind. Location-based reminders are also useful. When you get back to the office, you can prompt your phone to remind you to write a report, or remind you to email your older version when you get to the Chicago airport. Whenever you arrive at a set location, either later in the day or in the next few weeks, your phone will sound an alert. (Google automatically knows about any business or public place by tagging their custom locations on Google Maps, such as “home” and “business.”)

That’s the really powerful part. Because the alert system is connected to your Google account and automatically syncs, you can receive notifications on both PC and mobile devices. Just type your reminders into the Google search box, go directly to the Chrome address bar, or type “Show my reminders” to see a list of upcoming and past projects. The same system exists on all of Google’s platforms, where you can create reminders for Notes and lists, and Google Inbox, where you can create reminders for email and tasks, as well as manage all existing reminders. 4. Control notifications Smartphone notification systems aren’t always smart enough for business use. So take some time to take control of your notification system, and the first step is to perform personal notification filtering: carefully consider each notification that appears on your phone and whether they tell you what you need to know right away. Social media apps, news apps, shopping apps and other notifications are distracting rather than really useful. Turn them off! Make your phone a better business tool. For those applications that must remain, we can consider disabling or reducing their notifications. If you don’t know how to do this yourself, you can ask Android to help you out by holding down the notification the app sends you and setting it, either to silent or vibrate mode.

Similarly, notifications in email need to be set up. If you use Gmail or Inbox, you can configure the app to only notify you of certain types of high-priority messages, which can greatly reduce noise and allow you to focus on work. To take advantage of Android’s Do Not Disturb feature, in the “Sounds” section of the system Settings, set the parameters for how to work and the “Priority” mode. Usually the priority only involves your “whitelisted” contacts, such as family numbers, high frequency contacts, etc. You can also set the function not to disturb for a certain period of time. On the desktop, users rely on The Windows Alt+Tab hotkey to switch between apps. In the version of Android 7 released last year, you can switch back and forth between recent processes by double-clicking the home button, with no other action required. Sometimes when you’re working on your phone, you need to open several Windows at once, whether it’s a chat window and a browser, a document and a web page, or some other combination of assistive tools. On devices running Android 7 or later, the native split screen mode makes this level of multitasking possible. One application opens, hold down the home button, and then select the second application you want from the list. When finished, press the Home button again to end the split screen operation.

Google’s Chrome browser can make your mobile work a natural extension of your office job, saving you tons of time. The Android app syncs with the PC, so bookmarks you open on the PC can be traced to the phone. You can also see pages opened in Chrome on other devices — say, you opened something on your desktop and now you want to open it on your phone, click the “Recent Tabs” feature in the Android Apps menu. On the PC side, you can find the same information in the sidebar of the history page. Chrome on Android has some hidden Settings that can make it more efficient. Be sure to take a few minutes to find these features. Android differs from other mobile operating systems in that it allows a lot of interface customization through third-party applications and, with the right tools, can create all sorts of opportunities for productivity gains. For example, you can install an application that puts small tabs in your notification bar, or capture a utility that creates a generic “task bar” for easy application access. These are some of the tips I’ve collected to increase your Android business productivity. I hope they’ll help you increase your Android phone productivity.


Translated by Nina Liu

Source: 51 cto