When Google introduced Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) at Google I/O this past summer, the most popular new feature was Google Now, by a landslide. Google Now, combined with Search, turned your phone into an automated and incredibly intelligent tool. There were the beautiful cards for weather, sports, travel, and appointments, plus the knowledge graph displayed in a crystal clear way. With Google Now on your phone, you instantly became the best trivia night cheater in the building. But how can you access it? 

With the introduction of Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean, Google has enabled Android devices to notify their owners that the device has reached a set data limit. You as the owner can set this limit anywhere from 0.0MB all the way to whatever your plan is set at. If you’re unlimited, then this feature is probably something you won’t be using anytime soon. 

One of the cool things we can do with our Android devices straight out of the box is download a custom launcher and then apply icon packs that will drastically change the way an application’s icon appears. Take the above screenshot for example – I have Nova Launcher installed and have Kovdev’s Tersus icon pack applied. It gives each icon a uniformed square and minimal look. It’s clean, pretty, and super easy to do. 

When Google introduced Jelly Bean at this year’s Google I/O event in San Francisco, one of the features that struck as us as really cool was Jelly Bean’s new notifications. With Jelly Bean, some applications are able to show interactive notifications and also expandable notifications that allow you to take certain actions straight from the notification bar.

For now, only certain applications support expandable notifications. But if anything is for certain, it’s that Google will be adding more and more of these interactive notifications as time goes by. Here’s a quick rundown of the specific apps that support the new system and what they look like. 

Some time ago, back when Honeycomb 3.1 was released, Google enabled the re-sizing of some widgets on Android. It wasn’t very good and many widgets were unsupported. But as time goes by, the feature has grown and has become one of the many reasons Android shines over other operating systems.

If you use a 3rd party launcher, then re-sizing widgets is probably second nature by now, but for those who use the stock launcher, we’ll go over how to place a widget and then re-size it to fit your screen or whatever space you want it to fill. Let’s get to it. 

Why else would we be taking tons of pictures if not to share them with the people we love? Today’s smartphones are coming equipped with powerful cameras that can capture some stunning images with the quick press of a button. The one above is certainly not “stunning” but it’s cute nonetheless.

In this post, we’ll be going over how to share pictures you’ve taken to social networks, through email, and other means. 

One of the features that we tend to overlook is the ability to install custom 3rd party keyboards on our Android phones. They allow for different methods of inputting text such as swiping, pecking, speed pecking, or simply speaking into our device. The means of installing the keyboards are somewhat questionable at times so allow us to quickly walk you through it. 

Like many others, I have a few Google accounts. One which was my personal before I came to Droid Life and of course my business one that I use now. With Google allowing me to sync multiple accounts on one device, it allows me to receive emails from both accounts and also use services under different accounts as well such as Picasa, Google Play, and more.

Sometimes, you’re not the only one that uses your Android device. For example, if you have an Android tablet like the Nexus 7, maybe your children like to use it or your girlfriend. For times like these, it’s great that Google allows you to have multiple Google accounts tied to a single device. While your account can remain professional and business-centric, your other Google account can have all of the nonsense games and applications that one may download from Google Play.

Down below, we’ll go over how to set up multiple Google accounts on your Android device and you can start utilizing all of your accounts at once like a champion.