PC Advisor

Feature: Android Marshmallow tips and tricks
10
Android Marshmallow’s hidden System
UI Tuner settings screen
to-reach place. It takes a little trickery to get
to this feature, but it’s easy enough to get to.
First, you need to enable Android
Marshmallow’s System UI Tuner. To do so,
first swipe down from the top of the screen
to open the notification drawer, then swipe
down again to open the Quick Settings tray
(or, swipe down with two fingers). Next, press
and hold the gear icon in the upper right
corner for a few seconds until the gear icon
starts spinning. Release your finger, and
you’ll be presented with a message telling
you that System UI Tuner is up and running.
Open the Settings app if it isn’t already,
scroll down, then tap System UI Tuner under
the System subheading. If this is your first
time using System UI Tuner, you’ll get a
message warning you that System UI Tuner
features are ‘experimental’ and ‘may change,
break, or disappear in future releases’. Read
and dismiss the message, then tap Quick
Settings. At this point, you can rearrange,
remove, or add items to the Quick Settings
tray quickly and easily. To rearrange items,
simply drag them around. If you want to
remove an icon, drag it from its location in
the Quick Settings tray to the Delete icon.
If you want to add (or re-add) an item, tap
Add tile, then tap the name of the setting
you want quick access to.
The Quick Settings customisation
tool works reasonably well, but it’s still a
little rough around the edges. That said,
it works well enough that we can see
Google building it out a little more and
making it easier to access.
You can quickly and easily add, remove,
or rearrange shortcuts that appear in
the Quick Settings tray
How to toggle
app permissions
in Android
Marshmallow
In Android Marshmallow, Google has totally
revamped how you manage app permissions:
it’s a change that’s apparent every time you
download an app from Google Play. You’ll get
a new, more detailed permissions notice, but
it goes much deeper than that.
Don’t want Chrome to be able to see
your location? Not a problem. With Android
Marshmallow, You can pick and choose
what sorts of information and which system
resources any given app can access. Here’s
how to find and use this new feature.
Open the Settings app, then tap Apps
under the Device subheading. Next, tap the
Gear icon in the upper-right corner, and
then tap App permissions on the following
screen. From here, you’ll get a list of all the
sensors, information, and other features of
your phone that apps can access. Tap on
any of these to see which apps can get at
that particular feature. For the sake of this
tutorial, we’ll take a look and see which apps
can access my phone’s camera and snap
photos, so we’ll tap Camera.
To revoke an app’s permission, tap the
toggle switch to flip it to the Off position
– it’ll switch from blue-green to gray. To
re-grant permission, simply tap the toggle
switch again. By default, you’ll only see
apps here, not Android system services. To
see which system services have permission
to access something, tap the Options button
– those three dots in the upper right – then
tap Show system.
If you prefer to view permissions on a
per-app basis rather than a per-feature basis,
go to Settings > Apps, tap an app’s name,
then tap App permissions. From there, you’ll
be able to see what features and information
that particular app can access, and toggle
permissions accordingly.
Here you can see every app that can
use your phone’s camera
When you download an app from Google
Play, you’ll get a message that explains the
permissions an app requires, just as it has
before, but it’ll now provide a little more
information on the privacy implications.
Unfortunately, most Android apps still
don’t specifically say how they’re going to
use your information up front, but Android
Marshmallow’s improved permissions
features do make it easier to make sense of
what had been a confusing state of affairs.
Note that some applications haven’t been
adjusted to account for Android’s new pickand-choose
permission model. You can still
toggle individual permissions, but it could
cause those apps to behave weirdly. If you
have an app that isn’t working right, you
may want to revisit its permissions. J
Viewing permissions on a per-app basis
110 www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features February 2016