Android Lollipop is here at last. You’ll get it automatically if you buy a Nexus 6 or Nexus 9, and the coming weeks will see it come to a range of other devices - indeed, updates are rolling out for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 as we speak.
So to celebrate the new Android, we're bringing you 20 of our favourite Lollipop tricks and tips. Don’t forget to bookmark these for when Lollipop comes to your Android handset.
Use a Guest login
If you use your Android device in a family and share it with children, you might really like the Guest user. Switch over to it and whoever you hand your device to can’t see your emails, Facebook and other stuff.
To switch to Guest user mode pull down the notification bar, tap the user icon that’s in the top right of the screen and select the Guest user. Use the same procedure when you are ready to revert to you as the device user. If you want to add a named user ‘Add user’ instead, and let the person sign in with their own Gmail.
Use Profiles
A guest login works for some situations, but at other times you might want to be very specific about what access is and is not allowed on your device. For such occasions, you can set up a profile. Go to Settings > Users and pick ‘Add user or profile’. Next pick ‘Restricted profile’ and run through the full list of apps and services on the device deciding which will be allowed in the profile. Where there’s a tool icon tap to access additional settings. Tap ‘New profile’ at the top of the page to give your profile a name.
Double tap to wake
This is a very simple feature Google has taken from third party handsets and made its own (though it is only available on some devices such as the Nexus 6 as it needs compliant hardware). You no longer have to hit the power button to wake your device up. You can do that if you want to, or you can just double tap the screen instead.
Cut down on notifications
Notifications are fantastic, but you don’t necessarily want to get notifications from every app you have installed. Lollipop makes it very easy to customise what you do and don’t see. Go into Settings > Sound and notification. Here you can make general notification settings, but tap App notifications and you can pick all the installed apps and make specific settings for each one.
Manage lock screen notifications
By a similar token, you might not like the lock screen notifications that are present when you power up. You might not like to see any notifications at all, or to see some but not those Lollipop thinks of as ‘sensitive’. To tell it which notifications to consider as sensitive go to Settings > Sound and notification > App notifications then pick an app and turn on the Sensitive setting. Then go to Settings > Sound & notification then tap ‘When device is locked’ and make your choice with a tap.
If you are not getting the ‘Hide sensitive notification content’ option it is because you don’t have a lock screen swipe, pattern, pin or password set up.
Act on notifications
When you are getting precisely and only the notifications you want, the next thing to do is act on them. Sweep a notification to the left or right to dismiss it or give it a double tap to head off to the relevant app and deal with it.
From lock screen to camera
There’s a camera icon on the bottom right of the lock screen of the Nexus 9, and a phone icon is added to the bottom left of the Nexus 6. Make a horizontal sweep inwards from either of these to launch into their app.
Search Lollipop settings
Even a seasoned Android user can forget where the setting you want to tweak is hiding, and there’s nothing more annoying than having to run through screens and screens of stuff you don’t want in order to find the thing you need. Thankfully you can now search the settings app. Go into Settings then hit the search icon top right of the screen and tap what you want to find. Voila!
Get the best sound output
If you want the best quality sound output for films through Play Movies then make sure‘Enable surround sound’ is ticked.
Save power
Google says you can extend battery life by up to 90 percent by using its battery saver features. To see how your battery is doing pull down the notification tray and tap the icon next to its percentage charge indicator. You’ll see a battery usage graph. Tap the menu icon – as usual this is three dots at the top right of the screen – and tap ‘Battery saver’.
Now you can turn this mode on. You are reminded it is switched on by orange bars top and bottom of the screen and a battery icon in the top left corner. You can set it to turn on automatically at 5% or 15% battery charge. There’s no need to turn it off when you plug in the charter – it switches itself off automatically.
Multitask with the Overview button
What used to be called the Recent Apps button is now the Overview button. It’s a square at the bottom of the screen. Tap it and you see a carousel of open apps – but sometimes you’ll see more than one instance of an app. If you are in the middle of composing an email you’ll see the mail and the Gmail app separately.
Unlock with Bluetooth
Being able to tap in a PIN to unlock your device gives you a measure of security but it is not always convenient. Suppose you are driving, for example. That’s where letting another device do the unlocking comes in. First pair your Bluetooth device. Then go to Settings > Security > Smart Lock. Enter your security code, e.g. your PIN, then tap ‘Trusted devices’, hit the plus icon, select ‘Bluetooth’, tap your device and you are done. You can add a Bluetooth device as a trusted device when you pair it for the first time too.
Face unlocking
Face unlock is not new to Android, but it does seem to be better implemented now. You set up your face as trusted in a similar way to setting up a Bluetooth device. So go to Settings > Security > Smart Lock and enter your security code, e.g. your PIN. Now tap ‘Trusted face’, then ‘SETUP’ Go to a well lit indoor place and hold your device so its front camera can see your face, then tap ‘NEXT’ and hold the device so your face fits into the frame on screen. Now you can stare at your device to unlock it.
Do not disturb
We all know that the volume rocker can be used to silence your Android device as well as send it into vibrate mode. Lollipop adds a new selection when you hit the volume rocker – priority mode. This mode gives you granular control over what notifications can get through. You can jump into it from the volume rocker as well as setting it up to kick in automatically at certain times of the day. To make priority mode settings to go Settings > Sound & notification > Interruptions.
See in the dark
Flashlight apps which use the camera LED have been a popular Android add on for ages, and are often pre-installed. They are not always accessible though. Now you can turn the camera LED on just by pulling down the notifications area. Do a two finger swipe down into the top of the screen and there it is, Flashlight.
Pin a screen
While this is called ‘Screen pinning’ by Android it is more like screen locking. You can lock Lollipop into a single app that can’t be escaped unless a button press combo and/or PIN code is used. It could be really useful if you share your device with a child for game playing or video watching and don’t want them getting to all your other stuff.
First you need to enable the feature in Settings > Security > Screen pinning. Just use the toggle to turn the feature on. Next open the screen you want to pin, tap the Overview button (the square one at the bottom of the screen), pull the app up so you can see its entire thumbnail, then tap the pin icon at its bottom right. To unpin hold the Back and Overview buttons at the same time. You can ask for a PIN to be set as part of the reverting process too, just to doubly secure access to the rest of your device.
Change screen colours to suit colour blindness
If you are among the 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women who have a form of colour blindness then this feature should be really useful. It can correct the use of colour to help people with each of the three types of colour blindness known as deuteranopia, protanopia and tritanopia. To make the setting you need go to Settings > Accessibility > Colour correction.
Automatically add calendar events
If you like the idea of events automatically going into your calendar when you get a Gmail about them go into the Calendar app, tap the top left menu button and on the tray tap ‘Settings’. Then on the left side tap ‘Events from Gmail’ and use the slider to turn that feature on.
Cast a screen
OK, you can’t do this without having a Chromecast handy, but if you have one, it is powered up and in range, then it is easy to cast whatever you can see on screen simply by pulling down the notifications menu and tapping ‘Cast screen’ and picking your Chromecast from any that are listed.
Play the game
There’s a game hidden inside Lollipop – one of the so called Easter eggs that application developers have liked to provide for us since before apps were called apps. Go to Settings > About tablet then keep tapping ‘Android version’ really fast till the screen changes and has a large dot in its centre. Tap that and it becomes a lollipop.
You can tap the lollipop to change its colour, but instead long press it and the game pops up. It is a Flappy Bird clone. Good luck!
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