Gadget of the Week
Goldstuck on Gadgets: Secrets of your Android device
Think you know your smartphone? Many people don’t realise how many cool and powerful features are literally at their fingertips, writes ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK.
Most people think they know their smartphones inside out, yet the true revolution in our pockets remains largely invisible. In both entry-level devices and glittering new models, hidden features buried in menus and settings have the power to transform daily existence. On Android phones especially, these are often overlooked, because most of us use only what we need when we think we need it.
Yes, these secret weapons could mean the difference between thriving and merely surviving in our digital lives.
The journey of Android from a basic mobile operating system to a full-blown personal empowerment platform has been almost accidental. When Google bought Android in 2005, it was reacting to what it saw as an attempt at mobile dominance by Microsoft.
They needn’t have worried: Microsoft fumbled its acquisition of Nokia so badly, it destroyed the brand as a phone business. But just as well it did worry because, 20 years later, Android forms the nervous system of billions of lives. Along the way, an ecosystem of features has developed, driven by a mixture of necessity, competition, and experimentation. South Africa alone boasts well over 30-million Android users, and across Africa the figure is probably heading for the billion mark.
It is astonishing, then, that few users are aware of Android’s most life-altering tools. Here are just a few of them:
Digital Wellbeing and Focus Mode
Hidden within Android’s menus is a feature called Digital Wellbeing. It reveals how time is spent across various apps and provides users with tools to reshape their relationship with technology. Daily limits on app use can be set, allowing users to curb endless social media scrolling without external discipline. Focus Mode deepens this capability by silencing distracting apps entirely during selected hours, helping users reclaim attention spans. Bedtime Mode adds another layer, switching the screen to greyscale and muting notifications overnight, subtly steering users towards healthier sleep.
Live Transcribe and Live Caption
Among the most transformative Android features are those designed for accessibility. Live Transcribe turns spoken words into on-screen text in real time, making conversations, meetings and lectures accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. It also picks up environmental sounds, offering visual alerts for events like alarms or doorbells. Alongside it, Live Caption automatically captions any media playing on the phone without needing an internet connection. This has profound significance not just for the differently-abled, but also for users in noisy, multilingual, or low-bandwidth environments across the continent.
Nearby Share and Quick Share
Moving files between devices often feels like an awkward ritual involving USB cables or Bluetooth links. Nearby Share, now expanded through collaboration with Samsung into Quick Share, changes the equation. Files, photos, videos and whole folders can be sent instantly between Android devices, Chromebooks and Windows PCs with minimal friction and no internet connection. Where data costs are still punitive and network access can be patchy, this functionality becomes a critical enabler for education, work and community connection.
Gemini and On-Device Intelligence
The quiet arrival of Google Gemini inside Android devices signals a deeper evolution underway. No longer a mere voice assistant, Gemini operates as a multi-modal generative AI capable of understanding complex instructions, summarising documents, drafting messages, and stitching together actions across different apps. Importantly, much of this processing now happens on-device, ensuring faster responses while preserving privacy. For everyday users, it reduces friction when juggling multiple information sources. For those overwhelmed by the flood of digital demands, it offers a calmer, more structured experience. While Gemini is still evolving, its role as an orchestrator rather than just a responder marks a profound shift in what a smartphone can be.
Safety Check and Emergency Sharing
The addition of safety tools has turned Android phones into silent guardians. Safety Check enables users to schedule check-ins with trusted contacts and automatically shares the location if no response is received. Emergency Sharing goes further by transmitting critical data to chosen recipients during distress, providing potentially life-saving situational awareness. These tools, embedded within Google’s Personal Safety app, respond to the harsh realities faced by many users, offering a measure of control in unpredictable circumstances.
Screen Pinning and App Locking
Handing a phone to a child to watch cartoons or to a colleague to show a document no longer has to feel like a breach of privacy. Screen Pinning allows users to lock the device to a single app, requiring a password to exit. It is an understated but highly effective privacy feature, protecting sensitive information with a few taps. Many Android brands extend this idea with App Locking, enabling fingerprint or password protection at the individual app level, offering layered control over personal data.
One-Handed Mode and Voice Access
As devices have grown physically larger, usability for smaller hands has shrunk in tandem. Android’s One-Handed Mode responds with a simple solution: it compresses the usable area of the screen for easier thumb reach. What seems like a small tweak has an outsized impact, particularly for mobility-impaired users or for anyone juggling physical tasks while using the device. Voice Access, another overlooked feature, allows full phone navigation using only spoken commands. Originally conceived for users with limited dexterity, it now supports a broader spectrum of multitaskers who benefit from hands-free control.
Beneath the surface of marketing campaigns and product showcases, Android’s unsung features carve out quiet revolutions in how people live, communicate and protect themselves. Progress is increasingly defined by how intuitively technology serves human needs, rather than how aggressively it demands attention.
Gemini’s arrival accelerates this evolution, quietly turning the smartphone from a collection of apps into a cohesive, intelligent companion that adapts to its user’s life.
* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Bluesky on @art2gee.bsky.social.
