10 Things You Can Only Do With Your Android Phone
People seem to have gone Apple-crazy, with the release of the new iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2. In a lot of ways, the iOS is beginning to look much like the Android, with its third-party keyboards and extensions. If you have been toying with the idea of making the switch from Android to Apple, or vice versa, here are 10 things you can only do with an Android phone.
1. Make your home screen smarter
There's no doubt about it, Android is way more customizable than iOS. With it, you can install a launcher which replaces your entire home screen. Why do that, you ask? Here's why: you can customize almost all the elements of your home screen, even the number of icons in the dock, the size of the grid, also add widgets to your dock and more, with an app like Nova Launcher. You can even customize your home screen to intuitively show you the apps that you might need with apps like EverythingMe and Yahoo Aviate.
2. Make everything automated
The iPhone offers you to automate some functions by installing IFTTT, and while this is fairy neat, it is also rather limited. With Android on the other hand, there's a lot to look forward to where automation is concerned, especially with powerful automation apps like Llama and Tasker. These apps allow you to turn your phone's Wi-Fi on when you are near your office or home by setting up a geofence, and keeping it turned off the rest of the time to save battery. For easy access, you can disable the password when your phone is connected to the home Wi-Fi and re-enable it when you are outdoors, give it access to your calendar to keep it quiet in meetings, and have it automatically go silent in a cinema by using your location.
3. Make it easier to make calls
One of the primary purposes of our phones isn't to take selfies or watch cat videos on YouTube, but to make and receive calls. Calling someone from an iPhone entails dialing a number from memory or searching through your contact list. With Android, you can get access to built-in dialers with different features as well as apps like Ready Contact List and Dialer+ for added functionality. Dialer+ allows you access to a T9 dialer, which allows you to use the same keypad to either enter a contact's phone number or name. It then searches your contacts list and displays the matches while you dial.
4. Get access to smarter SMS
There are tons of Android apps that can customize your SMS service completely. Hello SMS, for instance, has a tabbed view to see messages from different senders, an automatic night mode which switches the screen to white text on a black background, and switches automatically to instant-messaging over the Internet when connecting to another Hellos user. Messages+ is a great SMS replacement app which allows you to send free IMs to other Messages+ users, and even integrates with Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and LinkedIn to allow you to see everyone's updates in one place.
5. Download movies and music on torrents
We're not encouraging piracy here, but there are many legal torrents available which allow you to download free media or software. iPhone users cannot use these torrents, however, unless they use a webapp or Dropbox to trigger their desktop torrent software via a 'watch' folder. But Android users can download torrents right on their phones itself, with the use of the official BitTorrent app on Google Play as well through Popcorn Time, the popular movie torrent service.
6. Turn your phone into a full-fledged media centre
XBMC is an efficient full featured media center for Android tablets and Smartphones which allows you to download metadata, manage your playlists, lyrics and subtitles, share media simply, and load from a variety of sources. iPhone users cannot access this, unless they have jailbroken their phone.
7. Enjoy Google Now to the max
While Apple users may not be cut off from Google Now, comparatively speaking, Android users get to enjoy bigger benefits. Google Now is one of the most intuitive Google services, which makes life a breeze. To get more bang for your buck, try integrating it with Android Wear. Other fully-functional virtual assistants such as Shifu are also only available on Android platforms.
8. Manage your files effectively
Apple introduced iCloud Drive with the iOS 8, which allows apps to share files with each other, but there is no way yet for Apple users to browse files stored on their local device. On Android, while the default file manager can be quite confusing, apps like ES File Explorer allow you to use a single swipe t find whatever you need. This awesome file management app allows Android users to browse and edit the contents of their storage, as well as lets them view all the documents and media in one place, making it super simple to keep track of data.
9. Control your phone from your computer
With apps like Pushbullet and AirDroid, having different devices working together is a breeze. You can share pictures and files between devices, send SMS messages from your computer, install apps from your desktop on your phone, or even share clipboards across devices. Apple users can use the new Continuity features in iOS 8 to experience this, but for that to work, they need to be locked into multiple Apple devices.
10. Play with the little green robot
Apple might look sleek and snazzy, but where else can you play around with the adorable little green droid?
(Image: Uthmag.com)
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