You told us: Readers are heavily split over OEM accounts on their phones
The majority of readers are logged in to their Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, and other accounts.
Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
Android phones will prompt you to log in to a Google account to install apps and download updates. Some OEMs, however, offer up their own accounts and services, too. Usually, users can avoid logging in to these entirely at the expense of some additional features. But often, these features are pretty useful.
To this end, we asked readers in a recent poll their feelings towards OEM accounts and whether they use them at all. Here’s what they told us.
Locked Folder for Google Photos has an understandable restriction
Google Photos is getting a Locked Folder feature, but it s only available on your phone s local storage.
This will let you hide photos behind a fingerprint or PIN.
The feature is restricted to your phone only.
Update: May 20 2021 (7:42 AM ET): We wondered whether Google Photos’ new Locked Folder feature would be accessible on your computer or if it would only be available on your phone. Now,
Android Police reports that it’s indeed only available locally on your phone.
This isn’t a surprise really, as cloud storage/computer access would make the Locked Folder feature significantly more complicated. Nevertheless, we’ve seen the likes of Samsung tout cloud backup functionality for its Secure Folder feature, so it doesn’t seem impossible to implement.
We asked, you told us: Most of you leave auto-rotate disabled
Credit: Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
The quick toggle section of the notification shade is one of the more convenient features on a smartphone today, giving you seamless access to a variety of important settings. And auto-rotate is one of the options you’re guaranteed to find in the quick toggle section.
But is auto-rotate (i.e. via the quick toggle or system settings menu) actually used by many people though? Well, we asked
Android Authority readers, and here’s how you answered.
Do you use auto-rotate on your smartphone?
Poll: Are you logged into an OEM account on your Android phone?
Credit: Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
A Google account is basically a must if you want to seamlessly use an Android phone (unless you’re living that Google-free life). The account allows you to download apps from the Play Store, back up your photos to the cloud, use Google Drive for storage, and much more.
We’ve also seen Android manufacturers allow you to log into an OEM account on their devices too. For example, Samsung users can log into their Samsung accounts, people with Xiaomi devices can log into their Mi accounts, and those with Huawei devices have a Huawei ID.
Credit: Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
Smartphones these days do so much more than just make and receive calls. Most of us escape into our phones for instant messaging, media consumption, surfing the web, or just aimlessly scrolling through social media. But when a call actually comes through, does your phone ring?
We recently conducted a poll on our website asking our readers about their preferred sound profile on their phones. Here’s are the results of that poll.
What sound profile do you primarily use on your phone?
Results
As you can see from the chart above, most of our readers 48.3% of the 1,426 respondents prefer to keep their phones on ringing mode.