What is this "*" (star shaped) icon pinned to the top right corner of my Nexus 4?
You can designate specific apps as being "Priority," and then you'll get only "Priority" notifications.Hit your volume rocker in Lollipop and you'll be greeted with the new notification options. When you choose "Priority," it plops that star up in your nav bar to remind you that you're only receiving Priority notifications.Notifications blur into Interruptions, which also blur into Downtime. Hit the little menu expander to next to "Indefinitely" and you'll get the option to switch back from Priority notifications after a certain amount of time. There's also a gear icon. Tap it, and you're taken into the "Interruptions" settings menu. (You can also get to it at Settings>Sound & Notification>Interruptions).This is where you're able to choose whether you want events and reminders, calls and messages to be "Priority" notifications. Note that alarms are always treated as a Priority notification. (You can also set Priority to individual apps at Settings>App notifications>App).Reference: Ask AC: What's that star in my notification area?
How can I restart my Android device if the power button is not working?
Is your Android on or off?The method will be different depending on whether you phone is completely switched off, or if it is switched on and is simply in sleep mode. We’ll start with phones that are completely switched off.The charging methodThe first thing to try is plugging your phone into a charger. Some phones will boot up from this action alone. If this fails, try plugging it into your laptop via USB. This doesn’t work with a large percentage of Android phones but it takes so little time that it is always worth a try.The volume and home buttonsPressing down both volume buttons on your device for a long period can often bring up a boot menu. From there you can choose to restart your device. Your phone may use a combination of holding the volume buttons while also holding the home button, so be sure to try this as well.What to do when your phone is still switched onIf your phone is on but is in sleep mode, things are a little easier. Again, plugging into a charger can wake several kinds of devices up. Getting a call from someone can also do the trick so ask a friend to ring your phone. If there is a physical home button (as opposed to a touchscreen button) pressing this will usually wake up an Android phone. If you have a physical camera button, this should also activate the phone.Once it is awake, download an app to help you out!If you’ve successfully managed to use one of these methods to activate your Android, your next step really should be downloading one of several apps that you can use to turn on your phone again without the power button. Here are a few you can use:Gravity Screen (free) – Using the in-phone sensors to detect when you have picked up the phone. It then switches on the device. The effectiveness of the app will depend on how good the sensors in your phone are, so it may not be the best option if your phone is an old or budget modelProximity Actions (free) – Using the proximity sensor to trigger a certain action. While powering on the phone is not the default action for this app, you can select it in the settings.Power Button to Volume Button (free) – Switches the function of your volume button to that of a power button. Only useful if you have a physical volume button on your Android phone.Thank you.
My Samsung phone is automatically switching off and on, why is this?
Hi, thanks for A2A.Answer below was written for the question asked like this. It will help you.If your phone is powering on or off by itself try power cycling the device.Power the phone down.Inspect the battery contacts on the phone and battery. Look for corrosion or any damaged. Check the pins to ensure they are straight and aligned and that none are missing.Inpect the water indicator on the side of the battery. (square white or red tab) If the water indicator is red, this indicates that the phone may be water damaged. Water damaged phones can not be repaired.Inspect the power button to ensure it is not stuck in a down position or that it is not damagedReplace the battery. Wait a few minutes and see if the phone powers itself up.If you continue to experience issues, perform a Factory Data Reset. Performing a Factory Data Reset will clear the phones memory and put the phone back to the original factory default state. Factory Data Reset is a tool used to remove everything that was imported, added or installed on the device. Keep in mind, when using this feature everything is deleted. Nothing stored on the MicroSD will be affected.To reset your phone to factory settings and erase all the data on your phone,Touch the app tab, in the home screen to open the app menu.Touch SettingsTouch SD card & phone storageTouch Master ClearAfter resetting the phone, follow the above steps to verify the issue.If you are still experiencing the issue after troubleshooting, your phone may have a hardware issue and will need to be analyzed by one of our Motorola technicians. Select an option below and continue to our repair submission process.Source:- My phone is power cycling or shutting itself offHope it helps!
What is Android doing when, after an upgrade, it tells you it's "optimizing" the apps?
Well when you’re booting up and Android says “optimizing”, it’s basically making your apps run faster.The long story is that when an APK file is added to your Android system, it’s not actually stored that way. It’s converted to something called an “odex” file, “dex” stands for Dalvik EXecutable, and “odex” stands for Optimized Dalvik EXecutable.But Android N introduced a ‘Quick Path to App Install’, which uses a new JIT compiler (by ART) to speed up app installs, meaning some apps can be optimized for the latest Android versions in a matter of seconds.One of the most tangible benefits of ART’s JIT compiler is the speed of app installs and system updates. Even large apps that required several minutes to optimize and install in Android 6.0 can now install in just a matter of seconds. System updates are also faster, since there’s no more optimizing step.So updating to N or greater will fix your problem.