Enable System UI Tuner on Android 11 and 10

System UI Tuner is gone from Android 11 and 10? Long-pressing config gear gives no effect? You no longer can control what (and how) is displayed in your status bar in Android device?

Well… not quite. It is still there. Only some weird person decided to remove access shortcut to it.

And you need to recreate it:

• an activity in Nova Launcher, if you’re using it,
• a Tasker script, if you are using it,
• a standalone app, if none of above works for you.

The need of installing a 3rd party app only to enable some existing feature is as weird as it can be.

But, hey!, it Android, right?

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Listen to YouTube’s audio with screen turned off

It is impossible to use YouTube like an audiobook or audio source because a moment after your turn off your screen or after it is dimmed off due to timeout the playback is stopped and audio is cut-off.

To workaround this problem you can either consider or another YouTube client app:

• NewPipe: here or here,
• YouTube Vanced: here, here or here (the last one is in Polish),
• any other,

or you can consider some other browser (namely Firefox).

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Tasker: An ultimate automation tool for Android

Meet Tasker, a state-of-art automation tool for Android that can:

• turn on GPS when Google Maps starts; turn it off when Google Maps closes,
• show a list of your music apps when you plug in headphones,
• turn off pattern lock while on home WiFi,
• read incoming text messages aloud,
• even more,
• a lot of more,
• even a lot of more.

It isn’t free (of course!). I costs… 5 bucks. But it is worth every damn cent spent on it!

And, if above is still not enough for you…

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Limit Android-based device functionality to an absolute minimum

If you ever need to turn some Android-based device (like a spare tablet) into single-function device (like auto-started browser with precisely selected website and all other functions disabled) then there’s a great article at Android Enthusiasts that explains in quick, sharp words, what you need to achieve this (some time and cash).

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Portable Storage vs Internal Storage in Android 6.0 Marshmallow

Differences: Motorola Support.

Card is encrypted and not accessible outside given device. Thus, for example, you can’t take it off, connect it to your computer and copy files that way, in case you couldn’t do this via USB cable (due to completely poor MTP protocol). For the same reason, if Android fail to recognise your SD card (happens awfully often under 6.0 Marshmallow) then you can’t access your files (i.e. download your pictures etc.) at all.

For security reasons (right!) card is encrypted, but for some strange reasons sometimes Android doesn’t work to well with its own encryption. This means that sometimes your files may become simply broken.

I had this problem with MP3 ringtones. From one day, without any particular reason, my phone started to emit some sound garbage as ringtones instead of my favorite songs. Quick analysis proven that poorly supported encryption plus even more poor MTP protocol plus broken connection between PC and Android resulted in files being broken.

Failures: Quora.

Dealing with ‘No external storage available’ error in Android 4.3

I’ve been cleaning internal storage (the only one, that I have) on my Google Nexus phone and it seems that I remove a bit too much… My storage stopped responding and when I went to gallery or photo camera I saw a beautiful message, saying:

If you’re facing the same or similar problem, you may find solution in this post. However, I must warn you that most likely you’re going to loose everything on that storage!

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Can’t install any application from Google Play

If you’ll ever get some cheap Chinese crap, called tablet, you may face up a strange issue. Though device is most likely equipped with Android 4.0 or newer, it still has old Android Market (not Google Play) installed. Opening Android Market does not perform automatic update to Google Play. And attempt to install any application ends with hang-up. If you’re experiencing this or similar problems, you may find solution here.

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Minimal installation of ADB

ADB stands for Android Debug Bridge and it is a toolkit included in the Android SDK package, used mostly for debugging problems with Android applications and Android system itself. This is a must for Android developers, even if you’re using PhoneGap or PhoneGap Build to develop them. But in this case, you don’t have to install entire SDK. This post shows minimal approach for getting your hands on Android debugging along with some side-effect issues, you my run into.

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Real APK Leecher

Real APK Leecher is a great tool that allows you to download offline versions (installers) of all your Android’s (Google Play) applications, even paid ones. As good as any other free. For what purpose? Why this is obvious. You can finally install any APK you want on any Android-based device without need to provide your Google login and password. You won’t be able to update them automatically though, but who cares? You can always use this piece of software again to get the newest version as offline installer.

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Downloading Google Play applications directly to your PC [updated]

Yes, it seems, that with a little bit help from Vietnameese developers, there is a fairly easy way to download Google Play applications to your PC. Why you would like to do this? There are at least few reasons.

It is a faster way, that does not require Internet connection. You copy a bunch of *.apk files from your PC to your Android-based device, and install them directly from there, without touching Google Play.

If you have ever read this article before then read it again and notice extremely important security update.

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Taking screenshots on Andorid 4.0 or newer

To make a screenshot of your current screen state you don’t need any extra software under Android 4.0 or newer. Simply press and hold both Power button and Volume Down button in the same time. On some devices it may be necessary to press Power and Volume Up button instead.

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Transfering files from Galaxy Nexus or other device with Android 4.0

Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and Samsung Galaxy Nexus 7 tablet, as good as probably all other devices with Android 4.0 or higher on-board, are missing USB Mass Storage mode, which allowed you (under older Android) to use your mobile device as external hard drive and copy files directly via Windows Explorer.

Here you’ll find some alternatives to transfer files from Android 4.0-based device.

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Taking screenshots on Galaxy Tab

If you simultaneously hold Power and Home at the same time, your Galaxy Tab will capture the screen for you. Images will be available right in gallery. Tip is comming from androidcommunity.com.

HDC S2 secret enginiring menu

To go into the phone’s secret EngineerMenu type this combination: *#*#3646633#*#*.

Correct wallpaper dimensions for different Android-based devices

Even prettiest wallpapers looks pretty ugly when stretched by Android to fit different device screen size. Either used algorithm is poor or I have too high expectations, but most of my Windows wallpapers look like a real crap, when copied to Android and used there as that system wallpaper. Some idea is to prepare own set of wallpapers, especially fit to your device screen size. For this purpose it is good to know, how to calculate it.

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