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Most Android users often see the Android developer options as a way to enable USB debugging only but there’s more you can actually do. The options may be confusing if you’re a regular user and if care is not taken, you can mess up your device by setting the wrong options. This is why this settings are hidden by default on some devices and can only be enabled by tapping the build number 7 times.
If you’ve enabled Developer Options already, here are certain options you should enable/disable to get the most out of your device.
1. USB Debugging
Most people already use this as it’s probably the most useful of all the options you can access as a developer. If you need to root your device, you’ve probably done this already.
USB debugging allows you to run ADB commands from your computer on your device through CMD. Also, if you need to use Android management tools on your PC, you will need to enable this to allow your computer communicate with your device.
2. Force GPU Rendering
A lot of devices have fast GPUs (Graphic Processing Unit) now and there’s no point making the CPU (Central Processing Unit) do what the GPU is supposed to do. Enabling this option forces the GPU to perform all graphic related tasks thereby making your CPU do less work than necessary.
On some devices though, this may cause a battery drain but it’ll definitely make the UI a lot more smooth and animations are processed faster.
If some of your games are lagging or you’re experiencing a significant battery drain, it’s best to keep this disabled.
Also Read: Android Security Tips: Keeping Your Android Device Safe
3. Force 4x MSAA
If you play 3D games on your device and not quite satisfied with the graphic quality, enabling this option might just make the games look better. This option forces your Android OS to use 4x multisample anti-aliasing in OpenGL ES 2.0 games and applications.
You will definitely notice an improvement in graphic quality but this may sacrifice your battery life.
4. Kill App Back Button
When you minimize an application, it keeps running in the background and there are times when this inflate your RAM usage.
This option when enabled lets you quit applications by long-pressing the back button instead of keeping them running in the background.
5. Change Animation Settings
When you navigate through your Android device, you would notice there’s an animation as the screen changes. As you switch between apps, you can make the animation faster slower and if you hate drama, you can totally disable animations as it appears this makes the device faster.
The higher the the number, the slower the animation. I personally have all animations disabled.
6. Allow Mock Location
You don’t want those apps that require your location to know exactly where you are? This option is very useful when enabled and it allows you to fake your location.
Before this option becomes useful though, you need an application like Fake GPS Location installed. How is this useful? It’s only for fun and it’s a pretty cool way to fool your friends on social networks.
7. Use ART instead of Dalvik Runtime
Google is finally dropping Dalvik runtime for the all new ART and this looks promising. Dalvik is actually a JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler and this means it runs code just when it needs it. On the other hand, ART uses Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compiler and compiles code to machine language even before it’s needed and this has been proven to improve performance and save battery life.
Enabling this should improve your Android device’s performance but note that it isn’t yet optimized for all devices and apps. I had issues with NFC using this and you better keep it disabled unless you’re using a stock Kikkat ROM on a supported device. It’s not fully supported on CyanogenMod yet. It’s best disbaled unless you know exactly what you’re doing.
8. Advanced Reboot Options
If you always find yourself going to recovery or bootloader every now and then to flash a custom ROM or get something done, you might consider enabling this.
With this enabled, you can boot into recovery or bootloader without using the button combinations.
9. Stay Awake While Charging
If for some reasons, you want your screen never to go off while charging your device, you may consider turning on this option.
10. Don’t Keep Activities
This option should not be enabled actually if you want to get the best out of your device. What this does when enabled is that it kills the app and all related background activities as soon as you leave the application. Some applications that rely on cache to load faster may become rather sluggish to respond. This option is disabled by default and it’s best kept that way.