Top 10 Cool Reasons to Use Android Device Manager

[Tweet “This is a MUST HAVE security app by Google that all android users must know about.”]

Have you ever wondered, what if you lost your phone. People lose their phones all, what if that happened to you? If you are an android user and you have a simple answer to that than you probably already know about android device manager. If you don’t, read on, this article is JUST FOR YOU.

There is one awesome device manager android application by google that you probably don’t use, even though it was released almost two years ago on December 11 2013. It’s called ‘Android Device Manager’.

You may already know that there is something out there called Android device manager, but you may not be using it?

Here’s the data that says Android has more than a billion users and the number of people who are currently using Android Device Manager is between 10-50 Million, that’s less than 1-5 in every 100. Forget about the numbers, It’s been out for two years and I am the person who needs this most. And I didn’t know that something like this is already out there until of course I stumbled upon a post on Reddit that inspired me to write this. And above all, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that in India some vendors are selling insurance policies and apps that are way inferior than ADM.

Also See: Top 10 Apple Products that changed the World

Here’s a Reddit comment from 7 months ago:

“Yet hardly anyone knows about it. Ask 10 android users and 9 have no idea about it. Google seems incapable of marketing the platform and some of its really nice features”

And true that google is partly responsible for the serious underrated-ness of this mighty helpful app. Here’s another Reddit comment suggesting what google did:

“I dont believe that for a second. my neighbor….a 40-something yr old non tech person knows about it….as does my father. Apple made a pretty big deal about it when it was announced…..google just released an app to the play store, and updated Google Play services and MAYBE threw out a note on Google+ and twitter and that was it.”

[Tweet “Only Google could tell the actual reason why almost no one knows about ADM.”]

Meanwhile, today I am gonna describe what is android device manager and 10 cool reasons why it is an awesome android app you should absolutely use it if you aren’t already using it. Hear me out and you will want to go straight to the play store. Don’t worry I have already put a link at the end of this page.

Lock:

First and foremost, what if you lost your phone or simply forgot it. You may find it back, you may not but the first thing you wanna do is ‘LOCK IT UP’. So that your data is not up for grabs if some crazy maniac or hacker happens to find it.

Here’s another redditor’s experience:

“I left my old Nexus 4 in a taxi in Singapore – got upstairs to the office and locked the sucker down, and knew it had got to the taxi company lost and found office before they called me.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.”

Reset the Pin

I don’t know if this has happened with you yet or not but I used to change my pins quite frequently when I was in college last year because many close friends in college would always know what my most likely pin would be, so just to keep it safe. And you can imagine that this one time I forgot the pin, and I only came to know about adm today, so that time I had to hard reset my phone, And I don’t think that I need to explain to any smartphone user, why hard resetting your phone is a real pain.

Erase all Data

What if you lost the phone and you have no idea where it might be, First thing you do is ‘Lock it up’, what’s next? What if someone found it and has no good intentions, there is no hope of getting it back. Since you know that getting it back is a really long shot. The next thing you wanna do is ‘ERASE YOUR DATA’. Because there is nothing worse than loosing your data to someone else who may not have the most noble intentions.

Ring

This is one of my personal favourites, I keep forgetting my phone in all the different places like under the bedsheet, in the pockets of my pants that I put into the laundry basket, sometimes even falls behind my bed. And I usually have neither the time, nor the patience to search everywhere while I am already late for work.

If you have kids or siblings who hide your phone to blackmail you then you can best understand how useful this feature is. Now I have a brother who’s not a kid but behaves like one. And each time he wants something that I wouldn’t give, this is his way. Now I am gonna see what you are gonna do little bruh!

Best part, ring works even when your phone is silent. So for kids, even that trick isn’t gonna work anymore.

Locate your Phone

You lost your phone and you are not sure where did you leave it, or if it’s stolen. There is no need to panic with ADM enabled, you can just login to the ADM page using your google account and VOLA!! You can see exactly where your phone is if it is connected to the internet and the location tracker is enabled.

The best part: Once you have set it up, it works even when the app is uninstalled.

[Tweet “There is one big problem with android device manager location tracking though”]

It sends a notification on the device being tracked. So if in case your phone is stolen and you try to track it and are lucky and the person who stole it hasn’t yet turned off the internet or location access. So you get a glimpse of the location of your device, But then google sends a notification to the phone that the device is being tracked. What’s next, the thief would quickly turn location access off and you lost access to your device forever. So I thought how dumb is that!

[Tweet “But turns out Google engineers are not so dumb after all.”]

Here’s a Reddit comment that explains it all:

“This prompt only displays if the device is unlocked. If your phone is stolen, it won’t be unlocked. This is a non issue. It works this way by design, so third parties cannot easily spy on you. That’s not what ADM is for, so they warn the logged in user.”

“I am not sure though that it solves the problem entirely. Why “Couldn’t you just use Location History to get the most recent location data without alerting anyone?” says another Reddit.

Further, I think this app relies too much on the dumbness of the thief for you to have better chances of getting your phone back. Here’s a review from play store.

“It should be force enable GPS on device I know it very easy to enable GPS & 3G/LTE from administration. But why google not add this feature? Only alarm, erase data & lock screen! It seem like not so useful. Because when we lost device, all that we want is find their device more than just lock screen and erase! Please consider this! Please vote for this feedback to let google see it! Thanks!”

Guest Mode

What if you just lost your phone just a while ago and you think you can definitely find it if you can make it to ‘RING’ right now. But you may not have your laptop to login to android device manager app page. So what do you do? Well there’s a solution for that too. ADM has a feature called ‘Guest Mode’ where it allows others to quickly login and access their phone. So don’t forget to enable guest mode while you are setting up ADM on your device.

But be careful with that if you share your google account password with friends and family members, because in that case you will end up giving them a ‘license to spy’.

Manage Multiple Devices

If you use multiple android devices then this app is a definite saviour. Managing multiple devices is really very simple and easy with this app. Just enable ADM in all your devices and you get to manage them all from one single window.

Works Even if Someone uninstalls the App

What if your phone was stolen and the thief got a chance to wipe all your apps before you took action. Once enabled, ADM works even after the app is uninstalled from the phone.

Very Useful for Elderly People.

Old people who are not necessarily tech-savvy face all sorts of problems around these gadgets and devices, from losing it, forgetting it somewhere or most commonly enabling some security lock by mistake. And ADM can be a real saviour in such cases.

Here’s a redditor’s comment that does a very good job of describing what happened to him.

“I don’t know how many of you use or are familiar with Android Device Manager but it sure saved the day for me.

My 97 year old grandfather has a Note Pro 12.2 accidentally set a PIN for his lock screen somehow, and had no idea what he set it to. (he has a terrible habit of clicking ok for everything without reading) My dad went over to help him out and couldn’t figure out how to get past the lock screen which has no forgotten PIN option anywhere. He was about to try a hard reset but called me first. I was able to log in to my grandpas Google account on ADM and lock his tablet from 100+ miles away at school and change the password allowing them to log in and remove the PIN.

A big thanks to an underrated service for making an old man very happy!”

‘The Google Family’ Advantage

Ok, that’s a phrase that I stole from the ‘apple family’ and clubbed it with Google, but come on, even an apple fanboy like me has to agree that all its products, google is slowly interweaving itself into our lifestyle. We can’t imagine life without Maps, YouTube, Google Search and Utilities like Google Docs, Sheets and Drive. And the best part, It’s just one account for all google products. Google products may not have the best UX but I am happy to sacrifice my aesthetic satisfaction while using a product/service if that means one less password to remember and one less thing to learn how to use. That is what I like to call the google family advantage, ‘The Family of Google Products’ empowering me in all the different ways. Also, Google has started providing some security features if you want to check them out.

Download Android Device Manager from the play Store