Follow us on a journey to discover the Developer Options that will change your Android experience and make you discover another aspect of your smartphone. No root, do not worry!
How to activate the Developer Options
First of all, you should know that the Developer Options menu is not normally visible in the device settings, but you have to make it appear magically. This is not a complicated procedure, but neither could you have already activated it by mistake.
- Go to Settings> System> Developer Options and activate the option. Otherwise, following the same path, under System, Go to About Phone and scroll down to Build Number and select this entry several times (8), until a message appears informing you that You are now a developer.
From now on you can access these functions directly from your smartphone settings. But let’s see together why it is worthwhile activating this hidden menu and what are the most useful functions within it.
Protect backups via USB
If you are a maniac of security, among the first options in the menu dedicated to developers will find the function of your life. It’s called Desktop backup password and will allow you to set a password (up to now you could get there) to encrypt backups made via USB on your computer. But be careful because if you ever forget this password you will not be able to access the backup. To perform this type of backup, however, you must activate the USB debugging function, present in the same menu. Do not worry, we’ll talk about it soon.
Keep the screen awake
The option naturally refers to the smartphone display and is very simply called Stay awake. But why is it in the developer options menu as well as in the normal menu for display settings? Because in this case the screen will always remain awake but only when you put the smartphone on charge. Every evening, when you put the device in charge and you go to bed to read the Facebook wall or you will update on the latest news, you no longer have to fight with the standby.
Keep the app consumption under control
Meaning? It seems a complicated option designed, in fact, for the most experienced developers. Instead it is not that of a section dedicated to Android applications and their consumption of memory, WIFI, data and so on. This section is essential to keep the RAM of your Android under control and to check which applications weigh the most on the system, slowing down its performance.
Allow PC and smartphone to interact
How many times have you heard of this function? In any article dedicated to root or modding in the first steps to follow you will find the phrase “now enable USB debugging”. But what exactly is it for? This feature allows your computer to access the smartphone system once connected via USB cable.
This is a necessary function in case of root, flash ROM of cooked or full backup via USB. There is no need to activate it for simple data transfer functions or firmware upgrades.
Speed up the system
We arrive at one of the most useful features present in this hidden menu. It’s called window animation scale, takes up 3 items within this section and serves to make the interface more fluid by speeding (or slowing according to your needs) the Android animations. The smaller the number you set, the faster the animations will be, so the system will take less time to switch from one screen to another.
Limit active applications in the background
How many times have you heard of “active processes in the background” and how many times have you participated in long debates about the resources that applications open in the background consume endlessly? Before downloading dedicated applications or spending the day accessing the dedicated menu to soften the active Android applications that you are not currently using one by one, take advantage of this hidden function. It’s called Background process limit and will allow you to select the number of apps you want to keep active in the background.
Enhance the graphics of 3D games
Do you have one of the latest top-of-the-line Android, perhaps equipped with a 5.5-inch QHD display? Well, you can not miss the option Force 4x MSAA, which will allow you to improve the graphics of OpenGL ES 2.0 games and applications. The abbreviation stands for Multisample Anti-Aliasing and the function, once activated, only optimizes images in games and applications that support Anti-aliasing.
Keep the GPU under control
A function called Profile GPU rendering, which is located in the Monitoring section of developer options, will allow you to view all the processes of the chip implemented in real time on the smartphone display. By activating this option you will see some writing appear at the top right of the screen that will show you the hard work done by the processor of your Android at any time.
Change the layout directions
An option that will temporarily make you lose sense of orientation. It is called Force RTL Layout directions. It is not a radio or a music program but this feature will change the interface of the smartphone by moving everything that was on the right, left, and vice versa. Confused?
Try to select the option and you’ll be even more. I advise you to activate the option on the smartphone of your friend/relative if you want to make an original joke.
Did you already know the Developer Options? Which of these are exploited more often?