Nougat tips and tricks to help you know what your device is exactly capable of.

Either it’s about pecking out direct replies to the notifications, or using the split screen for the two app access, Nougat is a crowd-pleaser in general.

With Nougat, you get a quick-to-reach settings panel, a better working overview button and lots more, which only spell efficiency for your Android device.

Luckily, we have got down to bring you the best Android Nougat tips and tricks, so as to get you a better grip of your Android device. Reading this manual, you will be learning about the revamped settings, hidden features and great timesavers on Nougat, all in all.

Be ready, as you’ll be using your Nougat device with all the difference from this point onwards.

Configuring The Quick Settings Panel

An Android device has a Quick Settings panel, accessible when you swipe down from the top of the screen twice. It’s how you can quickly adjust the basic settings on your device without having to reach the main Settings tab inside. Nougat, being the latest and the smartest Android edition in the town, allows you to personalize the quick settings panel and add/subtract tiles as per your preferences.

To configure the settings, you need to:

1. Swipe down twice from the top of the screen to open settings panel.
2. Hit the ‘Edit’ option in the bottom-left.
3. Drag and drop items to add new and replace existing ones.

This way, you keep settings you frequently reach out for, and hide those you don’t have a thing for.

Launching Split-Screen Mode

Split Screen is becoming popular with Android users, for it allows you to access two apps simultaneously. In Nougat-powered devices, a tap on the overview button provides you an option to enter the split screen. Your phone’s screen is halved and you get to run two apps concurrently.

To get started with it, you need to touch and hold an app’s window and drag it to the section at the top. The app pushed to the above will appear on the first-half of the screen (in the portrait view) or at the left hand side (in the horizontal view). Choose the other app from the overview tab again, which will show up in the remaining portion of the screen in both portrait and the horizontal view.

Clearing Recent Apps in One Single Action

The stock Android users kept wailing for a feature that would clear ‘Recents’ in one go. Seems, Google heard them all when it did piece Nougat 7.0 together. As things stand today, you can kill all your recent apps, appearing in the overview tab, by simply scrolling to the above and hitting the ‘Clear All’ option. Quite handy!

Multitasking

The Overview button, the square size icon you see along the bottom of the screen, lets you do multitasking on Android. Tapping this button, you prompt all the recently used apps to appear on the screen, out of which, you pull up a single one to the full screen and use it again.

Now, Nougat offers you a way to open the most recent app you’ve used. How? By double tapping the overview button on the navigation bar. For instance, if the last app you’ve reached is WhatsApp, a double-tap on the overview tab will launch WhatsApp instantly.

Activating the System UI Tuner

This perhaps would be a complete new knowledge for most of the Android users.

There is a System UI Tuner on your Android device that offers extra features to customize the user interface in a whole new way. While trying to enable it, you will be given a warning, saying – fun for some but not for all. It will give you a caution against the experimental features that may change, break or disappear in the future releases.

Acting on it, you’ll find options to create your custom Status Bar, enable the Do Not Screen feature, and activate split-screen swipe-up gesture.

Explore it!

Enabling Power Notification Controls

If you’ve added the System UI Tuner to your settings, you’ll find ‘Power Notification Controls’ tab inside the ‘Others’ option. With power notification controls, you get the power to set an importance level from 0 to 5 for an app’s notifications. Each level has its own specifics. For instance:

Level 5 will show the app notifications at the top of the list and allow full screen disruption. Going down by a number, you will prevent full screen disruption at level 4, which is going to be the same till Level 2. At Level 1, your app notifications will show at the bottom of the list with no sound and vibration, and be hidden from lockscreen and status bar.

Level 1 will block app notifications, one and all.

Google Easter Eggs

With Android Nougat 7.0 comes a couple of easter eggs, good enough for raising a cheer. By tapping on the software version in the settings tab, you will see a N logo. And, if continue tapping on the screen, you will be directed to Google’s Flappy Bird knock-off. This is the same game you find on Marshmallow with an addition of multiplayer gaming.

To launch the multiplayer mode, tap on the plus shaped icon at the top of the screen and throw up a challenge to up to 5 friends to engage themselves in the nerve-tingling, uber-crazy gaming.

Setting Different Wallpapers For Home and Lock Screen

This feature, in all candidness, had us smiling.

Nougat allows you to select two different wallpapers for Home and Lock screens. A long-tapping on the home screen shows up three options – Wallpapers, Widgets and Settings. By clicking the wallpaper option, you can either choose a picture from the gallery, or the in-built recommendations for setting a wallpaper on your device. Selecting the one you like, you will be asked whether you wish to set the selected picture as only your wallpaper for home screen, lock screen or both.

Make a choice according to what you like.

That’s a wind-up!

So, these are some of the cool Android Nougat tricks you can try out. For anything more you wish to include here, write it down in the comments section below. Don’t forget to tell us about your experience while reading this article.