The great Chinese teacher Confucious once said that by three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. The tips section on our website is hopefully a simple and easy guide to help you discover quick productivity hacks to do things more efficiently. We'd like to say a special thanks to Gillian Roylance who shared a neat trick with us on how to take a screenshot on Android.
If you have a useful tip to share with our readers, perhaps an app that you used that you found to be highly useful in your work, please drop us a line at editor@theapptimes.com so we can share it with the community.
Tech Tips We Shared in April 2015

iOS and Android Tips
- You can switch between keyboards on Your iPhone by going to Settings->General->Keyboard and either adding a new keyboard or selecting one from the list. Then go to Messages to compose a new message. On the keyboard, tap the smiley to the left of the space bar, and then long press the globe icon and tap on a keyboard to make the switch.
- You can disable auto updates on your Android 5.0 device by heading to the Play Store, tapping the menu icon (3 vertical lines) and selecting Settings. Tap Auto-update apps. Then select Do not auto-update apps and click OK.
- You can set a volume limit on your iPhone by going to Settings->Music. In the Music page tap Volume Limit and move the slider to adjust the maximum volume your phone outputs through its speaker or headphones.
- You can prevent Google Play from automatically adding app icons to your home screen by going to the Play Store settings and unchecking the option Add icon to Home screen.
- This tip is for newbie Android owners from Gillian Roylance who struggled the first time around taking a screenshot. To take a screenshot on Android press the On button simultaneously with the Volume Down button and Voila! - Thanks for the tip Gillian!
WhatsApp Tips
- Don't want WhatsApp to send you a preview of incoming messages as a push notification? Go to Settings->Notifications and toggle the Show Preview button to OFF.
- To backup your iOS WhatsApp chats automatically go to Settings->Chat Settings->Chat Backup and choose Auto Backup. Chats will be stored in your iCloud account on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
- You can send a WhatsApp contact your location by tapping the arrow icon to the left of the text box and selecting Share Location. If you haven't set up permissions to access your location data follow the prompts to do so. If you have, just send the map data or choose from a list of nearby Google Map locations.?
Google Tips
- You can check the sunrise and sunset times in any city in the world by doing a Google search for sunrise Tokyo or sunset California.
- You can now download your entire Google search history by heading over to https://history.google.com/history/, clicking the Cog icon at the top and selecting Download-> Create Archive. A copy of your downloaded file will be saved in the Takeout folder in Google Drive.
- You can de-clutter your Chrome tabs bar by right-clicking the tabs and selecting Pin Tab. This pins the tab to the left of the browser and removes the title of the page, leaving room for other tabs that you need to use right away.
Other Tips
- Tired of typing out the same email responses? Make use of the prewritten templates at http://www.cannedemails.com/ to send quick canned responses to anyone.
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