Hey friend, Brandon here. So maybe you or someone that
you know recently got your hands on a google pixel 4 or
google pixel 4 xl and you've watched quite a few videos on
tips and tricks and you really haven't learned anything yet.
Well this video will hopefully change that. Here are my top 21
tips and tricks hidden in advance features for iPhone
switchers or novice users. Of course, if there's something
that I haven't covered that you personally love go ahead and
leave a comment down below. To help the community let's
maximize your use of the Google Pixel 4.
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There are more videos coming out on the google pixel 4 and
other types of tech. And if you picked up the google pixel 4 or
are looking for some accessories there are some
links down below in the description to find the
best deal.
So tip number one is my go to it's my favorite and it may be
a little bit daunting if you're not really hardcore into
the Android community, but I promise you it'll be OK.
Let's first swipe down on the
notification shade two times.
You're going to click on this little gear icon in the bottom
right corner. Now scroll all the way down to the bottom and
click on "About phone". And scroll down all the
way again. And you're gonna click on build number and keep
tapping on that until it asks for your pin. Now this pin
number is your own PIN number, it's the one that you set up
it's not mine. There's no secret one out there it's what
you chose. So I'll put mine in. OK. So now it states that
you're a developer. Let's go back and click on "
system," and click on advance and then go down to
developer options.
Scroll all the way down until you find drawing so you'll find
an animation scale setting, click on View animation
scale and click on 0.5, 0.5, etc.
Point five for all three of them. So what's happening
here is it's accelerating the animation so it feels really
snappy and smooth. So if I swipe up that's
what looks like..
See how fast it is? So lets actually turn it back to one x
just so you can see what it looks like normally
So you swipe up. So this is what the animations normally
look like. So let's go back to the point five and then see
it again
Way faster right? I love this.
So tip number two kind of goes along with that. If you go back
to your settings you're in the developer options there.
We have this 90 Hertz panel, It makes everything look way
smoother than like a 60-hertz panel like you'd find on
the iPhone. Well, you can actually force it to run at 90
Hertz at all times because it's actually adjusting it's going
lower at certain times when it doesn't need it. But if you
really want to make sure that's going at all times you can turn
it on so you'll scroll up and there's this option right here
says force 90 Hertz refresh rate and you would make sure
that's on.
So I had it on already. Now keep in mind this does
impact your battery life so you'll have to determine if
that's worth it to you. For me, I'm oftentimes next to a
charger and things like that. So it doesn't really bother me
but if it impacts your battery life a lot, you may want to
turn this off so that the system automatically scales on
its own.
So one of the great things about this new version of
Android is this mode called dark theme. So this is my third
tip go to your settings click on the gear icon and then go to
display so you'll see this option.
Here it says dark theme. So go ahead and turn it on and see.
It goes completely black. So all of your settings even
your notification shade it becomes black. So what's really
great about that is that this is an OLED Panel or AMOLED and
when you have an OLED panel, when the pixels are completely
black, that means that the pixels are completely off.
So that helps you save some battery life. So that may
compensate for that force to 90 Hertz setting that we turned on
in the previous step.
So tip number four is unique to the pixel four and on this new
version of Android. So let's go back to your settings and go to
a display and then you'll see this option for styles
and wallpapers.
So if you go here you'll see there are different options
you're seeking actually change the way that the icons are
shaped what colors there are things like that. You can even
change your wallpaper. It's really cool just a little
bit more customization if you want it. For me, I think Google
did a great job with the default settings so I'll stick
with that.
So tip number five is kind of similar. If you just go back
and you click on advance and you'll see an option for
font size. Now I like everything super duper small.
So you make it small there and can fit more on your screen
but even more, you can choose your display size.
So I like going down to small. I feel like you can see so much
more on my screen. Now of course if you have a hard time
seeing text that small you can actually make it bigger.
So there's something there to fit your taste.
Tip Number Six is actually something that makes it a
little bit easier for us to get to the notifications.
So normally you have to swipe down two times to get to your
quick toggles where you can do and says take two fingers and
swipe down the same time and you go straight there
And for Tip Number Seven while we're there, you can
actually click on this little Edit icon right here and you
can adjust it and can put in different types of quick
toggles there or remove some if you want to.
Now you're probably wondering " why does my Google pixel 4 look
different?" It's because I have a skin that looks like concrete
by the channel sponsor dbrand. They have a bunch of different
options and colors on their Web site. There's an orange one
that you can pick up if you weren't able to get the
eliminated edition. Oh so orange color or maybe you just
want to feel what that panda life is like or maybe you want
a matte black one because Google did make a matte Black
version for some reason, but you can get your own by
clicking the link down below in the description.
So tip number eight is really great. See what I did
there? So if you happen to have some media up maybe it's
something on Twitter if you're not following me
on Twitter it's @thisistechtoday,
or maybe you're watching YouTube video and you just kind
of want to see what they're saying without distracting
people around you. There is this option called Live
transcribe. So if you just click on your volume button
there's a little box down at the bottom. If you click on it
it starts transcribing what is playing in the video.
So you see how it's transcribed right here? It's doing this
live and on your device. So even if you're in airplane
mode it'll start during this, which is crazy.
And of course you can click on it and drag it around. Now if
you want to turn off your life transcribe it's as simple as
just hitting the volume button and then at the bottom hitting
the live transcribed button again and you shut it off just
like that. That's it. I love this and I think it's amazing
especially for accessibility.
So tip number nine is it really cool. It's the recorder
app and I know you're probably thinking what's so interesting
about that. Well, let me explain. Let's hit
record and you can see that it's recording my voice right
now like normal but what's really interesting if he is if
you go over the transcript and right now it's recording,
it's dictating exactly what I'm saying life right now, on the
phone without any internet connection which is
really cool.
Now if I hit pause and hit save and type in something in the
search where I like really cool which is what I just said.
It'll find it here. In that recording, if you click
on it it'll show you the exact spot where that shows up.
Isn't that crazy? This is nuts and they can even show you the
whole transcription. I'm, I'm just blown away
by this. It's really great if you're in the media you're
student you're going to a meeting. Man,
the possibilities are just endless.
So tip number 10 has to do a lot with the new gestures there
on your phone. So it's kind of like an iPhone but if you swipe
along the bottom right or left you can actually go to the
different apps that you've been using. So it's a fast
app switcher. By the way if you're not following me on
Instagram you can follow me @thisistechtoday.
There's a post by my friend Jason.
Now if you're not a big fan of the whole gesture thing on here
you can actually go back to the old three-button
navigation option. So that changed that.
Let's just go to settings to finger swipe down the gear icon
and then we'll click on system click on gestures and then
click on System navigation and then you have the option for
the three button navigation
Look familiar, right? I happen to really really like the
gestures I've gotten really. So I'm going to go back to that
With the new version of Android and the pixel for you have this
option of continue conversation,
or the new Google assistant but you can't use that if you're
using a G Suite account. That's that's a bummer. I don't
know why Google did that. So in order to use a new Google
assistant and the continued conversation option you have to
be in the. Gesture navigation and then you have to remove
your other accounts that are G Suite accounts.
So let me show you what I mean. When I activate the
Google system with a squeeze option. This version is
the old version of the Google assistant and takes up the
whole screen. So the fix this whole issue with the G suite
account you're going to go to your settings go to the gear
icon and go down to accounts and I'm going to remove my
business account. Once you squeeze and it's actually
transcribing live you can see it at the bottom.
It's really cool. When did the pixel 4 come out? You notice we
don't have continued conversation on yet. So let's
actually activate that. I'm just going to type in a
continued conversation click on that and then just check that
little tab there to activate it. Now when you
squeeze it you can continue to ask it questions like your
Google home if you happen to have one of those.
So tip number 13 is really great for multitasking. So if
you swipe up into the right and hold it brings up these
app cards. Now if you click on the actual app icon at the top
there is this option for split screen. So and
choose that. And then this one down here. Now you can actually
look at two different apps at the same time which is really
great if you have like an email and you're trying to type up
something from some notes elsewhere and to exit out of
split screen just click and direct all the way down and
that's it.
So tip number 14 is really great. If you have kids
and you want them to just play a game and not mess with your
phone or maybe you're letting someone borrow your phone to
make a phone call and you don't want them to start snooping
around on your phone. Go to your settings and then type in
pin and click on screen pinning. Then turn that on
swipe up into the right for the card view and tap on the icon
and there's an option to pin. So once you pin it you can't
exit out of it. I can't leave now in order to get out of the
screen pinning view if you have the three-button navigation you
just hold down on the home button and the back button at
the same time.
But if you're using gestures you just kind of hold down on
the home button and swipe up
And then it'll go to your lock screen and unlock and
that's it.
So number 15 is really great if you have your screen lock turn
on so it's not rotating a bunch when you happen to be laying
down like in bed. If you rotate your phone. This little icon in
the bottom shows up. And you can manually rotate your phone.
And then it locks it in. So if you want to go back to the
vertical view and have horizontal you can just rotate
it and I can choose again
And that's it. It's really great super simple and easy.
This doesn't really matter too much if you have your screen
rotation option on already it'll you'll do it for you.
But if you lock it,hat's where you can manually toggle it.
Number 16 is really helpful if you want to find out how your
battery is doing. If you go to your settings click on battery.
You can actually enable the better percentage in the top
right corner. Now along with that maybe you want some more
information for your clock so maybe you want to see more than
just the hour in the minutes you might see the seconds.
If you go to the app store and you look up Nova Launcher it's
a free app that you can download.
So once you've installed Nova Launcher go ahead and hold down
on your home screen and click on widgets and then go to Nova
Launcher and install an activities or add an activity.
So you just hold it drag and drop and go into this menu and
load a whole bunch of activities that you can
choose from. And we're going to find the options as system UI
go all the way down to the bottom of that one and choose
system UI demo mode. We'll just click on that. And it's a
little wrench there so click on it and then you have this
option here to adjust a few things.
So their status bar you can choose what icons are showing
in the top. You can even choose, for the time
to show, hours, minutes, and seconds.
I really like this. But maybe you don't want to have all
these other things like Do not disturb and volume and internet
and all these other things showing up in your menu bar and
you can actually remove that. So even like Bluetooth can
be gone. So maybe you like a cleaner experience.
So number 17 is really helpful for the Google Assistant if you
squeeze it and then click on this little icon in the bottom
left corner and then click on your icon on the top
right corner. You can add your places and this is where you
can add the address for your home or your work or any other
spots are important to you.
And when you do that you can simply ask it give me
directions to work or home and I'll give you results based
upon that.
It's number 18 is really helpful for security and
protecting your personal information if you know your
settings type in lockdown.
And there's this option to show lockdown options what's
enabled that. Now when you hold on your power button. You can
just simply hit lockdown. So no one can get into it. Even with
your face unless you have the PIN number.
That's the only way that you can get in.
So number 19 is another really amazing feature for safety.
If you go to your apps and click on their safety
It's a personal safety app so you have the option to add
people that you have for emergency contacts. You can add
a medical information as well. And then there's this option
for Crash detection if you get in a car accident let's check
out the demo. Let's start it. So it seems and here's what
happens when your phone detects a car crash make sure your
volume is up so turn up the volume. So it's vibrating a
lot right now. *alert noise* So you can hear how it
starts to make a noise.
"Car crash. Say. Emergency. Call nine one one
now. Otherwise, say cancel."
So you can tap okay or say cancel and then it'll cancel
it. But it'll ask what happened. So maybe here
there's no crash so it'll probably learn a little bit
more so it doesn't have false alarms or say that's just a
minor crash or you can simply hit 9 1 1 if you don't respond
at all it will call nine one one for you or you can ask it
to call 9 1 1.
That is really cool. And then a ton of information is available
but just by holding the power button and
clicking on emergency.
Now face unlock it's really great because it's super fast.
You just look at it and logs you in right away. But you also
don't have the opportunity to look at your notifications.
So if you actually like looking at those notifications and you
don't want to go straight into your phone you can turn
that on. So let's go into the settings and type in
face unlock.
It'll ask you to put in your PIN and then we can do is you
can uncheck the skip lock screen option.
Now when I turn it off and then look back at it you can see
information like your media that's playing right now your
any other notifications are there. So maybe that's
really helpful if you like to quick toggle different things
here and then you can swipe up and go right into your phone.
So a lot like an iPhone because when you unlock it doesn't go
straight into your phone you have to swipe up in order
to enter
And number 21 is a common one that I have for all of my tips
and tricks videos. How in the world mm I recording my
screen? Well, it's a free app called AZ screen recorder.
This is not sponsored or anything but it works
really well. When I go into it there are a ton of different
settings here you can change the resolution the frame rate
the bit rate all of these different things they're
super helpful. So it's absolutely free and it's great
if you ever need to teach anyone anything on a phone.
So do you have any other tips and tricks that you'd like to
share with the community. Go ahead and leave a comment
down below and join the This is Tech Today community
discord chat server. There's a link down below in the
description next to a link for the dbrand skins to pick up for
your Pixel 4 XL or any other phone really.
And I would really appreciate if you share this video with
anybody else that you think might find it helpful.
And don't forget to hit subscribe
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Thank you so much for watching This is tech today where we
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lives and business and all things creative.
Until next time