Do you actually make full use of your Android mobile? Or is it just making calls, browse internet, social medias, gaming and watch videos? Is that it?

What is Android?

Android is based on Linux-kernel. Linux is used in our computers, web servers and even in ‘super computers’. Linux OS is made up of 8 other softwares, and Kernel is a small part of the Linux OS. So basically Android can do a lot of things. That’s why smarphones are called mini-computers.

What was it intended for and what it has become now is two different things. Or is it the same? Helping us to do things faster, from communicating to transacting and pretty much everything!

Let’s split the topic into two:

1: Making things easier with Apps

Apps make it fun and faster. We always use a computer for most of the work-related stuffs. But they are not handy. Think of mobiles- easy peasy!

There are many cool Android applications to help you out. You don’t need a computer to create a resume/cv, PDF or posters. If you have a printer you can just print anything to a paper directly from your mobile. From text editors and drawings to design and animations, almost everything.

Back when I was in college, I did a digital poster design for assignment work in DOCX format and then converted it into PDF format, all using my smartphone while everyone else used a computer. Why? Because of most them had no idea about the things that their smartphone could do!
WPS Office is a super cool app for all those works.

Most of us mainly rely on the Play Store for downloading apps. But that's not the only app store available. There are many other app stores like Aptoide , Uptodown , F-Droid, Amazon Appstore etc. You won't find these in Google Play Store because Google doesn't allow other app stores to be listed in its store obviously. All these are free and have their own apps like the Google Play Store app. You should check F-Droid, it's open source, and I bet you can find some really cool apps there.

Now to my dear coders out there, I assume you have installed a lot of apps for coding. I am talking about compilers not learning apps. Coding in mobile is hard as we use many symbols and whatnot. All things said it is better to use a pc.

But you are in a specific situation and have no access to a computer and wants to do some quick things? Then try this app called anWriter. It offers autocompletion support for HTML 5, CSS 3, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, and Angular.
Believe me, I have installed and used many apps and this is the only app that I found of good use.
It is light weight(less than 2MB), most of the tags show up when you type the first word and it automatically shows the closing tags too. The most common symbols are separately shown on the screen so you can easily select it. Good for those who are studying web designing. You can try HTML and JavaScript codes then save it as .html file and open it via any browser.

For python, use Pydroid 3. I used to play with this back in the day. It's just awesome and has many features. It has even support for TensorFlow and OpenCV (if you know ML). They also has C, C++ support. Check it out.

The main problem of mobile devices is the display size. It is difficult to work on a small display. That's why we move to computers. Of course, computers are really powerful. Some projects or apps need high graphics and other utilities which are impossible to be able to run in mobile devices currently.

2: Rooting and Custom ROMs.

This is the fun part. You don't get full access to your Android mobile by default because normally manufacturers ship them by locking the base structure of the OS. Till now you were only enjoying the berries that are sprinkled over an ice cream. The access to the below layer is gained by a method called rooting.

Android is an open source project, which means anyone can modify the codes. Android has a massive community of developers contributing to its development. In the first section we discussed about running different kinds of app. Here by rooting you can try some cool features and modifications.
Ever thought, 'Oh, if I had this option extra option to customize or If i could modify the settings'?
Rooting your mobile opens you to a plethora of customizations.
Change colour of notification bar and texts displayed on your screen, position of certain elements like clock, decide which animation you need when using app drawer and many other tweaks. You can completely disable ads shown by apps if it is too annoying(PS: ads is how the apps make money, think of all the hardwork they put to create apps), move apps to sdcard so you can save internal storage etc. all with the super power called rooting. You can even increase the performance of your mobile by using some tweaks!!

But what if you want to change your Android OS to another version? Still using the same old Android version? The new update for you hasn't come yet?

That doesn't mean you have to stick to the same OS version forever! This is where Custom ROMs enters the game.

Custom ROM is nothing but Android OS built by some other developers, not your phone manufacturer. ROM(Read Only Memory) is the place where typically the mobile OS is stored. So Custom ROM means a Custom Android OS.

These Custom ROMs let us to enjoy the latest Android versions and all its features(if they support your device). Some Custom ROMs boasts rich features and customizations, giving its users the best Android experience. They also improves the performance.

There are a quite a few awesome ROMs out there. LineageOS and Resurrection Remix are very popular among them. I'm have used both of them, Resurrection Remix has plenty of customizations while LineageOS is more on giving a pure Android experience.

Note: Rooting and flashing Custom ROM should be done by only those who really knows these stuffs. It's not a big task but one should be technically good enough to do these.

Other Hacks

Connect your keyboard to your mobile!

If you have got an article/notes to type, but say for some weird reason you can't use your computer, just connect your keyboard to your smartphone.
You need a USB type converter(It's a small stick, like your pendrive), you can find it online for just 100 bucks!

Hey, can I connect mouse? Of course, it's fun to mess around and play :)

More cool hacks? Comment it down!

That's it for now.. catch me on twitter