Phone and Tablet Tips
Stop downloads eating up your mobile data
ANDROID & IOS
Measure distances on a map The latest version of Google Earth (Android www.snipca. com/28856; IOS www.snipca.com/28857) lets you measure the distance between any two locations and the perimeter of an area.
To measure the distance between two points, tap the search bar at the top, type the name of your first location, then zoom into the map. Next, tap the three dots at the top right, then tap the Measure option. You’ll now see a dot on the map. Move this to select your location, then tap ‘Add point’ at the bottom right. You’ll now see a white line. Move the line to the second location on the map, then tap ‘Add point’. You’ll now see the distance between both points in metres or kms at the bottom.
To find the perimeter of a selected area, repeat this process to add and position two more points to your map, then join the fourth point to the first one. You’ll see the length of the perimeter and total area at the bottom (see screenshot below left). Tap the icons next to both measurements to copy them to your device’s clipboard.
ANDROID
Identify space-hogging Whatsapp chats If you regularly exchange photos, videos and audio messages with friends and relatives on Whatsapp Messenger (Android www.snipca. com/28858; IOS www.snipca.com/28859) it can start to eat into your phone’s storage space. There’s an easy way to find out which conversations are the biggest space hogs, then delete their media files to recover storage space.
Tap the three lines at the top right, Settings, ‘Data and storage usage’, then tap ‘Storage usage’. You’ll now see a list of all your conversations - with those that take up most space at the top. Tap to select a conversation, and at the top you’ll see how much space it takes up, with a breakdown of how much storage space each media file consumes (see screenshot above right).
To delete unwanted files, go back to Whatsapp’s main section (listing all your conversations), then select the contact/group name. Next, tap the three lines at the top right, then ‘Group media’. You’ll now see all the media files as thumbnails. Tap and hold the first one to delete until a tick appears on it. Now select the other files you want to remove, tap the bin icon at the top right, select ‘Delete media from my phone’, then tap Delete For Me.
ANDROID & IOS
Turn off distracting keypress pop-ups Whenever you tap a key on your device’s onscreen keyboard, it will be briefly magnified as a pop-up. If you find these pop-ups distracting and instead prefer seeing what you’ve typed by looking at the text field, there’s an easy way to switch them off.
We’ll first show you how to do this using Google’s Gboard keyboard app (default on Android; IOS www.snipca. com/28862). Open any app that requires you to type (such as email) to display your keyboard. Now tap the small
left-pointing arrow at the top left of your keyboard, the three dots, Settings (see screenshot above), Preferences, then scroll down and untick ‘Pop-up on keypress’. To turn off keypress pop-ups on ios’s default keyboard, open the Settings app, tap General, Keyboard, then switch off Character Preview.
To disable the feature on Swiftkey Keyboard (Android www.snipca.com/ 28863; IOS www.snipca.com/28864). Tap the ‘+’ icon at the top left, the cog (Settings) icon, then the cog icon at the top right. Next, tap Typing, Keys, then scroll to the bottom and untick ‘Key pop-ups’.
ANDROID
Stop app downloads eating up your mobile data Installing large apps and games can make a dent in your mobile-data allowance. To combat this, Google has added a useful new feature to the latest version of the Play Store.
Open the Play Store, tap the three lines at the top left, scroll down, tap Settings, then tap the new ‘App download preference’ option. You’ll then see three more options (see screenshot below).
The first option lets you download apps using your Wi-fi and mobile data. Select this if you have a generous mobile data package. The second option limits you to downloading apps on Wi-fi only. With this option if you try to download apps when not connected to Wi-fi, it will be queued up to download the next time you connect. The ‘Ask me every time’ option displays a prompt whenever you try to download apps when not connected to a Wi-fi network. You can then choose to download the app using your mobile data.
IOS
Use Firefox’s new Night Mode Mozilla has added three new features to its Firefox browser on IOS ( www.snipca.com/28868). You can now search all your open tabs to find the one you want, drag and drop tabs to rearrange them, and use the new Night Mode.
To search for a specific tab when you have many open, tap the number at the top right (see screenshot above). You’ll see all your tabs as tiles with a new search bar at the top. Type a keyword that identifies the tab you want to open (BBC, for example), then tap to open it.
To use the new Night Mode, tap the three lines at the top right, then tap the Enable Night Mode slider at the top right.
Installing apps from the Microsoft Store on your PC is fairly straightforward. But now you can simultaneously install these apps on other PCS that use the same Microsoft account. However, you can only do this by accessing the Store via Microsoft’s Edge browser.
Open Edge, type get, then the name of the app, followed by microsoft store in the URL bar. For example, type get save to pocket microsoft store, press Enter, then click the relevant website link. The app’s page in the Store will open in a new window with the option to install. Click the three dots to the right of the Install button to see a new ‘Install on my devices’ option (see screenshot below). Click this to see a list of PCS where you’re logged in with your Microsoft account. Select those you want to install the app on, then click ‘Install now’.