Technologies

Make Your Android Phone Feel New Again With These 5 Tips

Give your Android device a good spring cleaning.

This story is part of 12 Days of Tips, helping you make the most of your tech, home and health during the holiday season.

Your Android phone is like a car — it requires regular maintenance so that you can identify any major issues, address them and help prevent future problems. That’s how you keep your phone running at its best.

To start, you should give the exterior of your phone a good clean, since you’re likely putting it close to your face every day. Dust, dirt and gunk can quickly collect in the charging ports and speakers, and it’s not only bad for your hygiene — it can also shorten your phone’s lifespan.

But the most important upkeep work is under the hood, and it includes changing phone settings you may never have touched before.

An investment of just a few minutes can turn your Android phone into something that looks and feels new — at least until you’re able to upgrade. Read on to find five simple tips for decluttering, reorganizing and customizing your Android phone to keep it in tip-top shape.

And if you’re interested in getting a completely new device, check out the best Android phones for this year.

Delete all of your forgotten apps

Take a few minutes to go through your home screen or app drawer and delete any and all apps you no longer use. Not only do those apps take up precious storage, but they potentially have access the personal information or permissions you approved when the app was first launched.

How you go about deleting an app can vary based on who makes your device, but I covered all the bases in this post. Give it a read if you don’t see an uninstall option after long-pressing on the app’s icon.

Eliminate old files to free up storage

After removing any old apps, free up more storage by going through the files saved on your Android phone. It’s far too easy to forget about all of the files you’ve randomly downloaded — like the takeout menu of the new place down the road or a GIF a friend sent. And those files add up. The quickest and easiest way to manage your phone’s storage is to use the Files app that comes preinstalled.

Actually, some phones use a variation of that same app. On Samsung, for example, it’s called My Files. On the Pixel lineup, it’s just Files. On the OnePlus 10 Pro, it’s File Manager — you get the point.

I recommend opening the app drawer on your phone and reaching for «files.» Odds are that will reveal whatever your phone-maker calls the app.

Start with checking the Downloads folder, where you can either delete the files you no longer want or move them somewhere like Google Drive.

Most file apps will also reveal any large files that are saved on your device. For instance, the OnePlus 10 Pro’s File Manager app has a dedicated section in the app for files that are taking up a lot of space.

Tweak home screen settings for a new look

One of the best parts of Android is how much you can customize the entire look of your phone. From installing app icon packs to completely replacing the launcher your phone uses, there are plenty of options to personalize your phone.

While you can definitely jump into tweaking launchers and installing app icons, start by digging into the home screen settings your phone already provides. I do this once in a while and it’s surprising how subtle tweaks to aspects like app layout can make it feel like an entirely new phone.

Long-press on a blank area of your home screen, then select Home settings (or some variation of that). That will open the options for your home screen, where you can customize various settings.

Settings like the size of the app grid. It may seem like a small change to go from a grid of 4×5 apps to 5×5, but that extra column can make a big difference (the same can be said about shrinking the grid).

This is also where you’ll find settings for things like swiping down on the home screen to view notifications instead of having to swipe from the top of the screen.

Go through the respective settings your phone has and experiment with your home screen setup.

Optimize your device settings

Speaking of settings, now is a good time to go through and change any settings that have been annoying you. I have a roundup of settings you’ll want to change and customize on any Android phone to get the most out of it.

For example, turning on dark mode not only makes the app look better, but it saves battery life. And yes, I even show you how to stop app icons from automatically appearing on your home screen.

Customize your privacy options

Before you take a break, do yourself and your Android phone one last favor — double-check your privacy settings.

Open the Settings app then tap Privacy > Permissions Manager. Go through each category to see which apps currently have access to which treasure trove of your personal data. Find an app you don’t want to have access to your location? Turn it off. The same goes for contacts, calendar or camera.

It doesn’t take long to go through each section, and even if it did, it’s well worth the effort.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, April 18

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 18

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s the super-long one as always on Saturdays, and a few of the clues are tricky. But if you play all the other New York Times games, 13-Across will be easy. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: What people pay Extra for?
Answer: GUM

4A clue: Pre-meal prayer
Answer: GRACE

6A clue: Physicist Bohr
Answer: NIELS

7A clue: Line up a shot
Answer: AIM

8A clue: Photo ___ (P.R. events)
Answer: OPS

10A clue: «Zootopia,» but not «Zoolander»
Answer: PGMOVIE

12A clue: TV show with the initials «TV»
Answer: THEVIEW

13A clue: New York Times game with weaving, interconnected answers
Answer: STRANDS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: More bleak
Answer: GRIMMER

2D clue: Dubai’s country, for short
Answer: UAE

3D clue: Nickname of Seth and Evan’s friend in «Superbad»
Answer: MCLOVIN

4D clue: «See you in the mornin’!»
Answer: GNIGHT

5D clue: Fancy term for «noticed»
Answer: ESPIED

7D clue: Many N.Y.C. addresses: Abbr.
Answer: APTS

9D clue: Uses a needle and thread
Answer: SEWS

11D clue: Egg cells
Answer: OVA

Technologies

AI Trusted Less Than Social Media and Airlines, With Grok Placing Last, Survey Says

More Americans are concerned about the loss of personal interaction from AI than they are about potential job loss.

Google Gemini is the most trusted AI platform among its competition, but many people still have concerns about the technology, according to an American Customer Satisfaction Index poll released Thursday.

In ACSI’s results, AI scored an overall customer satisfaction score of 73 on a scale of 0 to 100, which the authors noted was slightly below social media (74), airlines and mortgage lenders, but in line with energy utilities.

Of the five platforms mentioned in the survey, Google Gemini led with 76, followed by Microsoft Copilot (74), Claude and ChatGPT (both 73), and Grok and Perplexity (both 71). Meanwhile, TikTok (77) and YouTube (78) both scored better than the AI platforms.

Gemini is one of the most prolific AI services, with access via smart speakers, TVs, phones and computers, while most ChatGPT users access the AI tool via the ChatGPT website or mobile app, and Grok via social media platform X.

The ACSI poll found that 43% of respondents said reduced human-to-human interaction is their main concern, followed by job loss for future generations (37%) and their own job risk (31%), based on interviews with 2,711 US adults.

Baby Boomers were the most skeptical generation in the poll, with 35% saying they are very concerned about AI’s effects, compared to just 6% who view it extremely favorably.

Disconnect between AI adoption and perception

While platforms such as ChatGPT have up to 1 billion weekly users, there is still a disconnect between AI’s adoption and public perception of it, which is driven by concerns over privacy, the spread of misinformation and the loss of jobs.

«Consumers spent the last decade learning to distrust how social media platforms handle their data, and AI’s privacy scores suggest they’re carrying that skepticism forward,» said Forrest Morgeson, associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University and director of research emeritus at the ACSI.

21% reported an «extremely favorable» outlook toward AI, while an equal 21% said they are «very concerned about the consequences.»

These results were in line with another poll published by YouGov this week, which found that only 29% think the positive effects of AI outweigh the negative ones, while 36% think its net effects are negative.

It’s worth noting that more than half of the people interviewed (56%) had no recent experience with AI, but of the 44% who did, half of them use AI at least once a day, and the usage went up with people who earned over $100,000 a year.

Last month, an NBC poll suggested that AI was one of the least-liked things in America, but it was still more popular than the Democratic Party.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for April 18, #1042

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for April 18, No. 1,042.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle features a fun purple category that’ll require you to spot certain beverage names. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Wow!

Green group hint: Plug it in.

Blue group hint: Cinderella team.

Purple group hint: Drink up.