Developer Options are hidden in the settings menu. It is hidden by OEM intentionally so that you do not play with it and cause your smartphone to misbehave. Now I do not want to scare you by saying that playing with development options can harm your smartphone, but there is a possibility that it could make your smartphone misbehave if you set incorrect settings. Bad behavior, I mean to wrong settings can make your phone run really poor.
Once activated, you will have tons of new parameters that could enhance your experience with your phone if the right settings are enabled. These settings are useful for developers who create applications on Android and test it in different ways. But some of the settings in the development options could improve your day to day user experience. there are plenty of features you can enable from the Android Developer Options section.
I will share with you these four parameters in this article, but first, you need to enable development options.
Enable and Disabling USB Debugging
You have probably already noticed that most Android-related tools on your PC, you will need to enable USB Debugging for the tool to run correctly. This is because without it on, the tools can not establish a connection between your device and your desktop computer. To enable USB debugging. See here’s How to Enable USB Debugging Mode on Android.
Tweak Animation Settings
When you transition from screen to screen on your Android device, you notice that there are animated added between. You can choose to accelerate this animation or turn it off completely. The higher the number you choose, plus the animation will be.
- Go to Settings> Developer options.
- Scroll down and look for the scale of the animation window, the transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale.
- Adjust the scale of the animation you want. The higher the number, the slower the animation (and you have to wait).
See also: XBlast Tools – Visually Tweak Your Android Device using with Xposed Framework
Switch Dalvik To ART
Art is a new experimental performance by Google that is supposed to replace Dalvik in the near future because it is faster. If you want to test ART function on your device, you’ll need an Android device running at least KitKat 4.4 and above. To set this up:
- Now go to Settings> Developer options.
- Press Select and choose Use ART runtime.
- Note that ART is still experimental and not many applications support, therefore, it can transform your slowest device. If you encounter this problem, return to Dalvik.
Kill App Back Button
When you minimize an application, it continues to run in the background and there are times when it inflate your RAM usage. When enabled allows you to exit applications by long pressing the back button instead of keeping them running in the background.
Background Process Limit
You can control the background activity of your phone by selecting “Do not keep activities” and adjusting the “limit background processes” as you wish. See here’s How to stop Android apps running in the background
To enable these features, go to Settings -> Developer Options and find “Background Process Limit” and select the limit you want.
See also: Best apps for system monitoring performance on your Android device
Don’t Keep App Activities
Your Android apps & games activities are still intact even after you’ve left your application. Most of your applications based on data set local cache on Android so they can load faster and will not be faced with times forced close. “Do not keep activities” destroyed all activities of the application as soon as the user leaves and “Background process limit” offers you control the background running processes on your phone. However, there may be applications that use a lot of activities. You can choose to not keep these activities with these steps:
- Go to Settings> Developer options.
- Check out Do not keep activities.
- You can return at any time by clearing off.
Display CPU Usage Overlay
Need to keep an eye on the use of your device’s CPU? It is a way to get an overlay to show the processes that are in use by your CPU. To view the CPU usage, follow the tips below. (Note that this should not be on all the time – as the number of processes increases, it minimizes the space you can see on your screen).
- Go to Settings> Developer options.
- Check the Show CPU Usage option to activate.
- You will see an overlay of your CPU usage on the right side of the screen.
See also: Best apps for system monitoring performance on your Android device
Stay Awake While Charging
When charging your phone, the screen of the camera turns off automatically. If for any reason you want to stay awake, you can do it with these two steps:
- Go to Settings> Developer options.
- Tap Stay Awake tick, allowing the function.
Allow Mock Location
To be able to simulate your current GPS position, you need an application. But to use this application, you will need to allow first Location Mock for the application to work. Enable Location Mock in two stages.
- Go to Settings> Developer options.
- Search Allow Mock Place and check on it to activate.
Enable MSAA For OpenGL Games
If you like playing games on your Android device and you play with high-end Android devices, you can force enable MSAA to get a better rendering of your games graphics(must enabled it, when come to playing 3D games). This feature is disabled in some default games because it can drain the battery of your device quickly enough. To enable FXAA:
- Go to Settings> Developer options.
- Press the Force 4x MSAA for it.
Create Desktop Backup Password
Before creating a backup using Android tools on your desktop, you can first create a password for your backup in development options. To protect your backup to be accessible easily:
- Go to Settings> Developer options.
- Press the backup password office.
- Fill in the current password, then type and retype the new password for the full backup.
Enable Wireless Display Certifications
This is useful only if you have a loan Miracast screen , to convey your Android content to your TV. To watch Youtube videos on your Miracast-ready display, you must activate the display without Certifications wire. To do this, follow the steps below.
- Go to Settings> Developer options.
- Then look for the wireless display certification and check it.
Force GPU Rendering – is this necessary ?
Many Android devices have fast GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) and now there is no point to the CPU (Central Processing Unit) do what the GPU is supposed to do. Enabling this option forces the GPU to perform all tasks related to graphics that makes your CPU do less work than necessary.
On some Android phone or tablet, however, this can cause leakage of the battery, but it will definitely make the user interface much smoother animations and are processed faster. If some of your games lagging behind or are having a significant drain of battery, it is best to keep it off. You may be also interested in Android App Development
That’s all! If you don’t use Developers option at all we recommend you to keep them turned off.