5 Smartphone tips and tricks that everyone should know

Whether you use an iPhone, an Android phone or a Windows phone, here are some tips that may be useful. Follow these tips, and you will save a lot of time, money for just a little extra effort. Here's what you need to know to get the most out of your smartphone:

Save your photos

Avoid manual backup of your photos. Instead, set up your phone to automatically save photos online so that you will never lose memories if your phone is lost or stolen. You have many options for doing this, many of which simply allow you to define and forget about it.

The Dropbox Carousel application and Microsoft's onedrive application can automatically back up photos by running cloud storage, if you're limited to 5GB of free storage for the first and 7GB for the latter. (Windows Phone users can download the unofficial CloudSix title for the Dropbox app, or use their 'phones' top-function backup of the onedrive camera.) You can also use the Google+ app for iOS or Android, which backs up a number infinite photos if you go into settings and limit the resolution to 2048 pixels. Also try using Flickr, which gives you 1 TB of storage for high resolution photos and videos.

Here's the really important part: Bugs occur, and data is lost even if you think you're backing it up. Using more than one of these services at the same time and keeping manual backup of photos on your computer greatly reduces the chances of losing anything.

Store your Music in the Cloud

Why spend $ 50 or $ 100 more to store your phone when you can lighten the load by storing your music online? Google Play Music can store up to 20,000 free songs, which you can access through iOS and Android apps (or unofficial Windows Phone apps). Just download the Google Music Manager software, and download the music folder from your computer. If you need more storage, Amazon Cloud can store up to 250,000 songs for $ 25 a year. You can also subscribe to a service like Spotify or Beats Music for $ 10 a month, and build your own cloud music library from millions of songs.

Sort your home screen

Is your home screen turned into a messy mass of unorganized apps and folders? Take a few minutes to sort things out, and avoid headaches later.


Take your favorite apps, and place them directly on the two or three lower rows of your main screen. In this way, you can easily reach them without stretching your fingers. Above these lines, use folders for your favorite categories of apps, or add a widget or two to an Android phone.

For the following screens, try to organize them when in use, so you have a page for games, a page for reading, and so on. Ideally, you will not have to fill in each page, and your phone will have a logical way of tying out as you acquire more applications.

Use your phone as a wireless hotspot

In most cases, it is cheaper to use your phone as a wireless hotspot, which can provide Wi-Fi to any tablet or laptop. This service is already included if you have a shared data plan on AT & T or Verizon, and while it is not as convenient as having 4G built into your tablet, it is much cheaper in the long run.

Get to know your shortcuts

There is almost always a faster way to do things, it's just a matter of memorizing the necessary scans, pinches or long presses for your particular phone. For example, on the iPhone, you can drag from the bottom edge to show quick settings, or press the Home button twice to bring up a list of recent apps. You can then close an application by dragging up.

And here is a cool tip for Android: When viewing notifications, you can pinch to the outside or long press and drag down to develop a notification, showing a bigger preview of your emails or messages . In general, Android shortcuts are a little more complicated, because each phone has its own layout button, but if you make a long click or double-click on each of the main navigation buttons, you can discover some hidden features. (The Samsung Galaxy S5, for example, is filled with these shortcuts.)