Why should you enable developer options on your Android phone?
Android phones hide a set of useful tools and settings, such as those that fall under the "Developer Options" menu, which allows the user to adjust a number of additional settings. Through it, the user can, for example, change the appearance of his phone or use a fake geographical location, and other features.
In this report, we review the most important features available on Android phones using the developer options suite, which enables you to take advantage of Android options as much as possible and enjoy more tools on their phones.
A set of tools built into the Android system to help developers debug the problems of various applications and address the system's response to them to make them run on Android, or make some changes that may affect the performance of the phone. And because it is not intended for ordinary users, it is not recommended to use one of these options without knowing the exact action it does and without a specific goal, so as not to affect the performance of the phone.
To enable developer options, go to Settings, then head to the About phone section. From there, go to Software information and tap 5 times on Build number until you see the [Developer mode is enabled] message. You can then go back to the settings menu to notice that a new section called “Developer options” has appeared, so enter it and make sure that it is activated by activating the button located in the upper left.
Developer options menu and how to show them
A set of tools built into the Android system to help developers debug the problems of various applications and address the system's response to them to make them run on Android, or make some changes that may affect the performance of the phone. And because it is not intended for ordinary users, it is not recommended to use one of these options without knowing the exact action it does and without a specific goal, so as not to affect the performance of the phone.
To enable developer options, go to Settings, then head to the About phone section. From there, go to Software information and tap 5 times on Build number until you see the [Developer mode is enabled] message. You can then go back to the settings menu to notice that a new section called “Developer options” has appeared, so enter it and make sure that it is activated by activating the button located in the upper left.
Advantages of using developer options
The main purpose of adding developer options to the settings of Android phones is to debug applications and process system responses to them, and to allow the customization of additional settings through which networks, applications, input, accelerated display of devices, media, monitoring, etc. can be controlled, and the following is an explanation of some of the advantages available through the developer options menu:
Install modified ROMs and activate root privileges
If you feel bored with the interface of the phone, you can install a modified ROM such as LineageOS, which adds a new look to the phone as well as new great features. Steps to install a modified ROM require a set of steps, most of which are done by developer options.
You can get root privileges which act as a key to access all the system settings that are hidden by default, allowing the installation of more advanced applications and customization of the graphical interface in a professional way. In general, developer options must be enabled in order to activate the OEM unlocking option in order to allow the required commands to be executed.
Rooting the phone or installing a modified ROM is a risky process and will significantly affect the performance of the phone (sometimes) and also void the warranty, so please be careful before taking this step.
You can get root privileges which act as a key to access all the system settings that are hidden by default, allowing the installation of more advanced applications and customization of the graphical interface in a professional way. In general, developer options must be enabled in order to activate the OEM unlocking option in order to allow the required commands to be executed.
Rooting the phone or installing a modified ROM is a risky process and will significantly affect the performance of the phone (sometimes) and also void the warranty, so please be careful before taking this step.
Acceleration of animation rendering
The developer options menu allows you to control the speed of displaying animations on the device by changing the specified values on three scales: the window animation scale, and controls the speed of opening and closing applications. The transition animation scale and the speed of switching between different applications also increases.
Animation acceleration speeds up the performance of the device, which contributes to speeding up the daily tasks that can be accomplished using the phone, and applications stopping problems can be treated by resetting the animation speed at the level of 0.5x.
The Developer Options menu provides a set of additional tools specifically included for advanced graphics processing that allow controlling the speed of game animations to give them more dynamic movement. This set of tools can be activated through the “4x MSAA chances” option in the developer options menu. This set of tools contributes to speeding up advanced games on Android and gives the user a smoother visual experience in which advanced games and applications appear better.
Animation acceleration speeds up the performance of the device, which contributes to speeding up the daily tasks that can be accomplished using the phone, and applications stopping problems can be treated by resetting the animation speed at the level of 0.5x.
Improve phone performance with advanced games
The Developer Options menu provides a set of additional tools specifically included for advanced graphics processing that allow controlling the speed of game animations to give them more dynamic movement. This set of tools can be activated through the “4x MSAA chances” option in the developer options menu. This set of tools contributes to speeding up advanced games on Android and gives the user a smoother visual experience in which advanced games and applications appear better.
The disadvantages of accelerating games also lead to faster draining of the phone's battery, and the phone's battery consumption rates may vary in this case from one device to another.
Fake location
Mobile applications use GPS to access your current location, and some users may sometimes want to hide their actual location information and replace it with information of geographical locations that they are not actually in so that it appears to applications instead. Through developer options, it is possible to change and control the phone’s geographical location data. This will require you to first install an application dedicated to spoofing a GPS location, and there are many such applications available to install on phones for free such as "GPS Emulator", "Fake GPS location", and others.
The process of spoofing geographical locations is useful in overcoming access bans and usage restrictions imposed by some applications and programs to block their services from some specific regions and regional domains.
The developer options menu includes many tools and features that can help the developer in detecting and correcting errors. Among the most important of these features is the ability to display the consumption of RAM by all applications installed at the present time, where there is an option called “Memory Usage” that displays an overview of the consumption of RAM by applications, but you can click on “Memory used by applications” to display detailed information.
The process of spoofing geographical locations is useful in overcoming access bans and usage restrictions imposed by some applications and programs to block their services from some specific regions and regional domains.
Check the application's RAM consumption
The developer options menu includes many tools and features that can help the developer in detecting and correcting errors. Among the most important of these features is the ability to display the consumption of RAM by all applications installed at the present time, where there is an option called “Memory Usage” that displays an overview of the consumption of RAM by applications, but you can click on “Memory used by applications” to display detailed information.
The developer options menu allows the user to view the RAM consumption of all applications during the last 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours or 24 hours.
If your phone supports inserting an external storage “SD Card”, you may notice that there is an option “Move to external memory” in the settings of some applications, which allows application data to be transferred to the memory card to reduce the burden on the internal memory. However, if you want to forcefully make this option available in all apps, you can do so by activating the Force allow apps on external option under the developer options menu.
Force move applications to external memory
If your phone supports inserting an external storage “SD Card”, you may notice that there is an option “Move to external memory” in the settings of some applications, which allows application data to be transferred to the memory card to reduce the burden on the internal memory. However, if you want to forcefully make this option available in all apps, you can do so by activating the Force allow apps on external option under the developer options menu.
Conclosion
The Android phone settings menu includes a hidden set of tools and features known as the “Developer Options” menu, which is a group of tools, customizations, and additional settings that are included specifically to serve the goals of developers, not other than ordinary users, and help them discover and correct faults and process the system response to various applications.
The developer options menu provides a useful set of actions that allow the user with great features such as spoofing GPS, rooting, the ability to accelerate graphics performance and speed up games on the device, and the ability to check applications for RAM consumption to find out those that affect its performance. In any case, you should be careful in using the developer options group, and not use one of these options without knowing the exact function of this option, given that the developer options provide a set of actions that may make changes and affect the performance of the phone.
The developer options menu provides a useful set of actions that allow the user with great features such as spoofing GPS, rooting, the ability to accelerate graphics performance and speed up games on the device, and the ability to check applications for RAM consumption to find out those that affect its performance. In any case, you should be careful in using the developer options group, and not use one of these options without knowing the exact function of this option, given that the developer options provide a set of actions that may make changes and affect the performance of the phone.
