From starting people are asking why they
should go for android. What is specialty of android? So today I will tell you,
open source factor makes android very special. Due to its open source you can
customize it to any limit. Without doing rooting we can change so many default
features of android with the third party applications. In iOS you can do
customizations after jailbreak but some customizations are there which you
can’t do after jailbreak also. So these are the small-small things which makes
android great.
Every loves to personalize or customize
according to his needs and style. So for android you can nearly customize
everything. If you want to do full android customizations like customized ROM,
customized ringtones, customized home screen, customized lock screen,
customized notifications, customized widgets, customized icon packs and so on.
Then you should read this article How to Customize Android Phone | Learn Android Customization. In today’s article I will only list out those android
customizations which iOS or iPhone users can dream about it.
Change
Your Keyboard
First thing which android users can easily customize it
and iOS or iPhone users can’t is “Keyboard”. For this customizations you need
not root your mobile. Only you have to install third-party applications. Then
you can switch between them from the Language and input screen in your device’s
settings.
This gives the way to developers to experiment with new
and unique keyboards that may be more useful and beautiful than default android
keyboard. One of the most famous keyboard include ‘swipe’, which is included by
default in some android smartphones and tablets. But you can get its free beta
version from Swype’s website. Another popular keyboard is ‘Swift Key’,
available for $4 from Google Play. Using Swype you can type words by just
swiping over their letters with your fingers. Swift key use natural language
processing to guess the words you are going to type and the words you will type
next. When you typed ‘Ameri’ on Swift key keyboard it itself show the ‘America’
and ‘American’ words.
Swap Home Screen Launchers
Default Home Screen are the second things which you can
customize but iOS or iPhone people can’t. Default home screen of android can be
easily swapped out for third party applications. If you want your home screen
different and in your own style you can install launchers from Google play. In
present time there are many superb launchers are there on Google play namely GoLauncher EX, Nova Launcher, 7 launcher, Nexus Launcher and Next launcher. One
of the most popular among them is GO Launcher EX. It include 1000+ themes, skins, widgets, app
locker, app drawer, lock screen and much more. But if you are the one
with Gingerbread or Froyo, older versions of Android, but want the Android 4.0+
Ice Cream Sandwich look and style, you should go for Holo Launcher.
If you want default launcher or default Home Screen, then
press Home button for some time after installing a launcher. You will be asked
to select a launcher for your android phone or tablet.
Choose a
Lock Screen
Lock screen are the most important part to customize.
Because it looks cool when you unlock you device with different means. If you
want to show –off. This is the best thing you can do. You can swap your default
lock screen with third party lock screen applications. Other Lock Screen
provides different themes with additional functionality. There are many cool
lock screen applications like Fingerprint lock, voice lock and so on. One of
the most popular is Widget Locker, which will allows you to add widgets to
your lock screen and then you can move them around to design your own ideal
lock screen.
Set Your
Default Browser
You can install third party browsers and make them
default browsers for you android tablet and phones. After installing your third
party browser just tap a link then you will be asked to choose your default
browser.
One of the best thing of Google is that he does not put
restrictions on developers as Apple and Microsoft do. Some third part browsers
are very good and proper because they use their own rendering engine. Like Firefox for android mobile or tablet use
the same rendering engine that Firefox on your laptop does. Opera is also the
main and fast third party software and it has its own rendering engine. But on
the iOS these third party browsers must be shells around the built in browser.
The famous Chrome browser also need to be shell around the built in safari
browser. Chrome for iPhone is not fast enough because in iOS third party browser
can’t access safari’s optimized library and can’t include of its very own.
Although you can switch browsers on a jail broken iOS device, iOS browsers like
Chrome and Firefox will remain shells over Safari with inferior performance.
Switch Email Clients
In iOS you can’t install email clients or email apps from
third party. You have to live on default email client. But in Android you can
install as many email clients as you want. After installing your email client
or email app, you have to tap an email address. Then you will be asked to
choose the default email client. I know till know you haven’t changed your
email app. But have you done something out of box. Guys waiting for what wake
up and install the other email clients. They are very useful and good. At
present there are many good email clients namely K-9 Mail, Aqua mail, Droid
mail and so on. If you want to know the best email client apps for your androidphone then click on this link. If you are the person who love freebies, then
you should go for this link- 5 Best free email apps for your android phone andtablet.
Install a
New Operating System (Custom ROM)
Here comes the main thing- Android is open source. You
can take the android OS source code and modify it to get additional features –
this customization is called custom ROMs.
One of the most famous custom ROM is Cyanogen Mod. It is
a custom ROM that can replace the default Android OS on a wide variety of
devices like Nexus, Samsung galaxy s3, Samsung galaxy s4, Samsung galaxy s2 and
much more. Cyanogen Mod is based on android OS and provide features and options
not available in Android. They had started with android source code and later
developed their community product.
Conclusion:
These are the few android customizations I had listed against
iOS customizations. But you can do a lot more. You can entirely change your
mobile from what you have bought. So if you are interested in fully customizing your
android phone then go for this article - How to Customize Android Phone | Learn Android Customization.
Ansh Yadav
I am Founder of TechieOasis specializing in web Development, Designing and Quality content creation. I love to go deep into technology and then give reviews to readers. I consider readers’ comments even more than my own posts. To contact me: Google+ |Facebook|Twitter|Mail
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