How to optimise your mobile device

Traditional stock browsers on your devices don’t always give you the best of functionality. While you can surf the net with ease on the Android, it’s a relatively bare-bones browser app. iOS has a good Safari browser as well. But you can experiment and find better browsers off the apps marketplace. A few popular ones in the alternate browser space include Dolphin, Firefox and Skyfire.

 

Skyfire with Facebook Connect for iPad 

You’ll find widgets on Android and Windows Phone devices. They give  you a quick glance/preview of apps and provide an access point to your favourite apps. With the Facebook widget, you can get a quick view of status updates. The clock widget on the Android platform lets you put an analog or digital clock along with various world times on your home screen. In Android to add a new widget, tap and hold on top of the home screen and select the Widgets menu. A lot of apps have in-built widgets, but it’s also possible for you to download more widgets from the Android Market. A very useful widget to check out is the 3G Watchdog, which gives you a summary of data usage on your home screen.

 

Widgets on Android 

 

In case you were thinking that viruses only infect computers, you couldn’t be more wrong. Mobile devices (especially Android devices as they allow third-party installation of apps)can get easily infected through open Wi-Fi networks or apps. To better equip yourselves against malware, suspicious access and privacy intrusion, you can look for and install an anti-virus app after downloading it directly from the marketplace. A few examples for mobile anti-virus apps are Lookout and AVG. They’re free, scan all your apps and back up your contacts.

 

AVG anti-virus for a mobile device 

 

Having a vibrator on the phone is always a heavy strain on the phone’s battery but considering the fight for battery life by the processor and screen as well, it’s necessary to save power wherever possible. Disabling vibration is not that simple in the iOS. To work with this feature, go to Settings  > General > Accessibility. At the very bottom, you’ll see an option to customise the vibration setting. 

 

The most important function of most mobile devices amidst all their functionalities is making a phone call. For iOS devices to be able to get a notification for messages or calls missed is very easy. Just go to Settings > General > Accessibility and select the LED flash for Alerts option.

 

 

Make sure that only the features you use are running in the background and not any unnecessary apps like location-based services which use up a lot of battery. For an iOS device this feature can be accessed at Settings > Locations Services

 

If you’re not sure about the data or storage consumption of apps on your mobile device, information can be found on an iOS device from Settings> General > Usage and for Android devices you can use additional apps like Onavo.