Link Safe

If you’re planning on rooting and hacking your Nexus device you’ll need to unlock the bootloader first. It’s a good idea to do this straight away as the process will completely wipe your storage.

Install the SDK
Download the Android SDK to your desktop computer from developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. Open a command line or Terminal window and use the cd command to change the directory to
the platform-tools directory in the SDK download folder.

Enter the command
Connect your Nexus (you’ll need drivers for Windows from developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb) and
boot into fastboot mode by holding the power and volume down keys. The command to unlock is fastboot oem unlock. On a Mac or Linux machine it is ./fastboot oem unlock.

Check it’s unlocked
The process will now begin. It will only take a few seconds, but make sure you don’t interrupt it. Once done you can reboot your device. On the boot screen you should now see an unlocked padlock icon – this means the unlocking was a success.

Play the keyboard
Jelly Bean Keyboard is available for free on Google Play. Search for ‘Jelly Bean Keyboard’ and then tap on the entry made by Johntanmi. Tap ‘Install’ and it downloads and installs on your device. You don’t get the usual ‘Open’ option because it installs directly into the keyboard options of your device.

Ready for this Jelly
Press the ‘Home’ key on your Android device, then tap the ‘Menu’ key and choose ‘Settings Scroll down to ‘Language & Keyboard’ and check the tick box next to ‘Android keyboard (AosP): It warns you about collecting data, but this isn’t an issue because Jelly Bean Keyboard doesn’t communicate with the internet.

Aisha... I’m vibrating
We need to set Jelly Bean Keyboard as our default keyboard, so tap ‘Default’ and choose ‘English (UK)’ Next, tap on the slider settings to the right of ‘Android keyboard (AOSP) Here you can set vibrations, sounds and other preferences. Once you’ve set it up as you want it, tap the ‘Back’ key.

As easy as ABC
Now compose a new text or email to get the hang of Jelly Bean Keyboard it pops up as soon as you begin entering text. Tap some random words into the keyboard and it automatically predicts the word you’re typing, with three options displayed above the keyboard.

So predictable
Tap one of these options to enter it. If you’re typing a word that isn’t in the dictionary, it is displayed in the centre box. There may be multiple suggestions, so just tap the correct word to enter it into your message, and then tap the word once more to save it to your dictionary, so it will be recognised next time.

As easy as 123
You’ll see numbers to the upper-right of the letter keys. Long-hold on these to enter the numbers. Press and hold the’.’ key to see commonly-used punctuation marks and symbols. You can also tap ‘?123’ to see more symbols and numbers. Tap ‘ABC’ to return to the main QWERTY keyboard.

The great dictator
 A handy feature included in Android is voice-recognition, so you can dictate your texts and emails. Tap the microphone icon to the lower-left of the keyboard and speak into your phone. When you’ve finished. tap ‘Done: It’s not perfect. so it may take a couple of attempts to get it right.

Dictionary corner
You’ve just got one of the best Android features on your device well done! The more frequently you use Jelly Bean Keyboard, the better it gets at remembering words and predicting them, so try not to be lazy about saving words to the dictionary, and you will quickly have a more intuitive and natural keyboard.

As with previous Nexus devices, the Nexus 6 includes a RGB notification LED,but strangely it’s not an option that is enabled by default-here’how to fix that..

Prepare your device
Enabling the RGB LED on the Nexus 6 is straightforward, but you do need to ensure that your device is rooted. This is because Lollipop provides no normal access to the LED  it needs to be controlled using root shell commands sent from an application with notification access, for instance an app like LightFlow.

Install LightFlow
LightFlow LED&Notifications is a £1.49 download from the Play Store which offers the ability to customise LED notifications on any Android device, enabling you to set the colour and sequence for any app/system event (hardware allowing). It also supports repeating notifications and sleep/charge modes

Enable root mode and the mixer
When you first load LightFlow, it will prompt you to enable notification access. In addition, to support the Nexus 6, you need to enable the Root mode, ‘Run every command as root’ and Direct mode options. You will also need to ensure you grant superuser access for all requests that pop up

Disable ambient screen mode to save power
The reason the LED is disabled on the Nexus 6 is because it includes Ambient Mode, which displays
notifications on the screen when the device is in standby. There is an option in system settings to disable this when using the LED instead, which will improve battery life.

Ambient Display is a new display setting exclusive to the Nexus 6. When ambient display is enabled, the device shows a slick black-and-white lock screen whenever a new notification comes through to your device. If you want to take a closer look at a notification, just tap the screen to launch the full colour version of the lock screen. From here, you can jump straight to the app or screen that a particular notification relates to simply by double-tapping that notification. Ambient Display notifications also appear automatically when you pick the device up, thanks to the  Nexus 6's nifty ‘lift to wake’ functionality., Although the Lollipop update brought many new features for Nexus 5 users, it  didn't include Ambient Display.

However, it is possible to get Ambient Display on your Nexus 5, either by flashing a custom ROM
with support for the feature or by flashing an Ambient Display ZIP, both of which work well. But neither of these mods replicate the stylish ‘lift to wake’ feature, but you can still add this to your Nexus 5 by installing the Gravity Screen On/Off app.This tutorial shows you how to get the full Ambient Display experience on your rooted Nexus 5, by flashing the custom ROM or the ‘ Ambient Display zip and then installing Gravity Screen. It also explores some additional Gravity Screen settings that can help you get more out of your Ambient Display experience.

Flash Android Lollipop
If you’ve rooted your device, it’s possible your Nexus 5 is no longer recognising Over-The-Air (OTA) software updates. If this is the case, you’ll need to install Lollipop manually. Download the Nexus 5 update from https://developers.google.com/nexus and then flash it to your device. Flash Android

Flash Ambient display ZIP
Once you’ve installed stock Lollipop on your device, either fl ash a custom ROM or flash theambient
display zip. To flash the zip, download the file from http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus5, then boot into your custom recovery and select ‘Install update from zip card’. Flash Ambient

Enable Ambient display
Select the Ambient display ZIP file and select Yes Install. Once installed, reboot your device. You
should now have Ambient display on your Nexus 5. If you aren’t seeing Ambient display notifications, ensure it’s enabled by going to Settings>Display>Ambient display. Enable Ambient

Flash xTrasmooth
Another option is to flash the xTraSmooth for Nexus 5 ROM which includes Ambient display. On
your device, go tohttp://forum.xda-developers.com/xTrasmooth. Then download the ROM and boot
your device into custom recovery. Flash and reboot your device you should now have Ambient display on your Nexus 5.

Turn off automatically
Tap the Activate button and read the on-screen warning, tap OK and relaunch the app. You can now edit your Gravity Screen On/Off settings to your liking. Start by telling the app what angle your phone needs to be at for the screen to automatically turn off.

Set pocket sensor
Use the Pocket Sensor slider to set the desired angle think about how you angle your phone when you’re popping it into your bag or pocket. To start using this feature properly, tap the On/Off button in the app’s upper-left corner so that it is in the On position.

Lift to wake
If you are after the ‘lift to wake’ functionality, enable ‘Turn Screen ON by Motion’ and your device will wake up automatically when it’s moved and facing upwards. You can also enable ‘Turn Screen ON by Proximity,’ so your device wakes up whenever the proximity sensor is uncovered.

Sensitivity and Timeout
To save battery, you can tweak how sensitive your screen is to being turned on by motion. Drag the Sensitivity slider to the desired position. You can also limit how many times your device is woken by motion within a certain time period using the Timeout slider. Sensitivity and

I’ve just downloaded the FireFox  browser on  my Nexus 7 and have discovered how to save web pages as PDFs. This is useful if you want to keep shopping receipts or forms, for example,but it also means you can save web pages to read offline later.

Open the web page you want to save, select Menu, Tools and choose ‘Save as PDF’. A small download arrow will appear in the top right-hand corner of your screen and you will be notified when the download has finished.

Go to Menu again. Tools and Downloads, and open the PDF you’ve just saved. You need to have a PDF reader installed on your Android device to read these documents, but not all built-in PDF readers are compatible with PDFs created in FireFox. If you can’t open your saved web pages with your current app. download the Adobe Reader app (http://bit.ly/YEnLOk) instead.

One of the best things about owning a Nexus device is that the bootloader can be unlocked and relocked very easily. There are a couple of downsides though. The first is that when you unlock the bootloader, the device is wiped for security reasons, which can be rather annoying. The second is that
although you can relock from fastboot, for warranty purposes it’s not clear if this is seen as a revert to
factory state or a re-lock. An application by the name of BootUnlocker can solve both these problems. In order to use it, you need root access, gained by an exploit such as TowelRoot. With the app, you can unlock and lock the bootloader to your heart’s content. Aside from the warranty aspect, a locked bootloader is a good idea to prevent malicious access to your device if it is stolen by an Android savvy thief! BootUnlocker can be downloaded free play.google.com/Bootunlocke.