Many of us these days seem to use smart phones and sometimes we adapt with our phones. The way my kids seem to be used their smart phones made me write this!

If our smart phones get drenched in the rain, put them in a bag of rice. It dries out the water and the smart phone works perfectly again. I have heard this many times. However, I have not heard of other tips regarding smart phone usage. Compiling a few from my experience below.

1. If your smart phone gets heated up frequently, there may be a few reasons why that happens
   • Check how many apps are open. Too many apps heats up some smart phones
   • Check if there are any background apps running. Shutting down your device and restarting helps for most part
   • Check if there are any auto apps that start off when your phone restarts. Some virus or apps that pick on personal information tend to keep running in the background. Periodically checking and clearing your unused apps helps
   • If you are getting a lot of popup messages when you browse on your phone, you have some malicious software running in the background collecting your data
2. Volume becomes too low – Some of us who have used our phones for a very long time (few years) tend to face this problem that the phone volume tends to go low. No idea why this happens.
   • Go to your phone settings -> General -> Reset all settings (on some phones it would be under General -> Reset -> Reset all settings. This would only erase all the customization done by you, payment setup etc. With the factory settings back on, the volume levels will be back to normal
3. Clear browsing history – When you browse malicious sites and keep getting a lot of popup messages, it is important to clear your browsing history. Go to your phone settings -> Select your browser (Safari / Chrome – whichever you use frequently) -> then, click on Clear History and Website Data. This will clear all your online browsing data and cookies stored on your device
4. Charging mobile devices – Smart phones charge faster when charged using a USB device from a computer/laptop, instead of charging it over a wall outlet.
5. Keyboard shortcuts (Glide typing) – Newer phones have the features of having a glide typing feature, where one does not need to type the word, just gliding your fingers over some of the letters of the word will give you the recommendations for similar words and one can pick the words they intend to use from the choices. If you do not have one and would like to have it (or explore it), go to your phone settings and Reset all settings (Phone settings -> General -> Reset all settings). The glide keyboard choice will appear and you can choose whether / not to use the same.
6. Battery saving mode – When your battery levels are low, some smart phones use the battery saving mode and auto selects the apps that need to/not need to run, to help save the battery for emergency purposes. For iphones, this feature is not there, however, you can switch your cellular to airplane-mode to conserve battery.
7. Increase font size while browsing – Reading articles on a mobile device puts a lot of strain on our eyes. Increase the font size by clicking on the AA icon on the top left.

8. Star gazing & picture quality – If you are interested in star gazing, choose a google phone over an iPhone. Not only are the clarity of pictures distinctly better, it is easier to get pictures of the night sky, stars using a google phone. We only get to see a black screen (when pointing to the sky) on an iPhone.

Although we use smart phones, we do not spend time to figure out the best ways to solve our phone issues. Spending a few minutes helps save hundreds of dollars on new devices.