Category: How To

For most people, user profiles in Android is a rarely thought of or configured feature of the platform.  To be fair, in Android Lollipop and Android Marshmallow, outside of a work environment configuration, profiles did not have a lot of bang or, frankly, use.  That changes for the better in Android Nougat.  Like many features in this evolution of Android, the team at Google took something already in the Operating System and improved it.  In this case, significantly.

For those who aren’t familiar, User profiles allow you to have different users use the same device.  Let say you want to have a profile for the kids and one for yourself that has different apps installed.  It is a pretty cool feature but just not something most people need.

In Nougat however there is a good reason to go and fill out the Owner user profile for your phone or tablet.  You can now add emergency information to your profile and that information can be accessed through the emergency dialer on the phone should you be incapacitated.  In this How To, I’ll show you where to access this information, how to fill out the details and how to access it in an emergency.  It could make a big difference for first responders should you be unresponsive.

One big change in Android Nougat is the ability to adjust the urgency of notification.  In Android Marshmallow, you can you somewhat have a binary decision when it came to notifications.  With Nougat, you have far more granular controls around notifications and, in fact, have six levels of notifications that you can set for applications.  The nice thing is that you can set this for each and every app on your device should you want to go through that process.

In this How To I will show you how to access the Power Notifications Controls and how to configure them for applications.

One of the more powerful features of Android is the Do Not Disturb function.  It is a feature that has grown in functionality over the life of Android Lollipop and Marshmallow (spoiler alert:  It gets further tweaks in N) for keeping your phone quite while you sleep, at the theater or in a meeting.  Did you know though that you can set up a DND for events from your calendar?  It is a feature that is handy by not requiring you to manually turn on Do Not Disturb before a meeting begins.  In this How To I’ll show you how to set it up.

There are a lot of things I love about Android, obviously, but there are a few things now-and-again that make me kinda batty.  One of these things, and it is a simple thing, is the vibration that you get when you type on your keyboard when using your phone.  Don’t ask me why it bothers me so much, but it does.  It is one of the first things I turn off when I setup a new phone or have refreshed one anew.  It struck me however that finding this setting is a bit difficult if you are new to Android or just simply haven’t dug into a least commonly accessed area in Settings, Language & input.  In this How To I’ll show you where this setting is and how you can disable it if you too don’t like the haptic feedback when you type on your Android phone.

In his second How To and troubleshooting video in as many weeks, Google Photos Top Contributor Scott Peachey has put together a great video outlining the various steps you can take when you can’t find photos in Google Photos.  The 8:30 video covers a wide range of things to investigate and research on your device if you can’t find some photos or if you can’t find any photos.  Even if you have not had the issue yourself, it is well worth watching this video so you can avoid some of the pitfalls that Scott and other contributors, me included, see often in the forums.

When it comes to photo management and editing, Google Photos is an outstanding tool and it is available for Android and iOS devices.  But for long time Google Drive users, there is a bit of confusion as to when to use Drive versus Photos and what each of them do when it comes to your photos.  Fellow Top Contributor for Google Photos, Scott Peachey, has put together an excellent video to explain how it all works together.