Steve Jobs once said that “no one is going to buy a big screen phone,” but with the release of the iPhone 6 Plus, it seems that the latest trend for mobile devices is to have a screen as large as possible and still able to hold in one hand. Android smartphone manufacturers have been coming up with some of the really large phones lately. Take a look at the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and you will know what I mean. When you buy one of these really large devices, the first thing that you notice is that they are a bit difficult to use with one hand. Unless you have really long fingers, you usually have to use another hand to navigate around the screen. If you have a rooted Android device, here is one way that allows you to use your big screen phone easily with one hand.
In this case, there is an Xposed Module that lets you use your Android device more comfortably with one hand. What the module does is let you move the content on your screen to the specified area so that you can easily tap any of the corners and do whatever you want to do.
Things You Should Know
Before you can install the module:
1. Your device must be rooted. You can check out our Android rooting guide to learn what rooting is.
2. You must have installed the Xposed Framework on your device. You can check out our Xposed Framework guide to learn what Xposed is and how you can install it on your device.
Once you are done with both of the above things, you can proceed to the following steps.
One-Handed Xposed Module for Android
There are a few steps you need to follow to install and activate the aforementioned module on your device. Here’s how you can do that:
1. Launch the Xposed Installer app from your app drawer.
2. When the app launches, tap on the option that says “Download”. It lets you download new modules to your device.
3. On the screen that follows, tap on the search icon on the top and search for and tap on “One-Handed Mode for all devices.” This is the module that you are going to install on your device.
4. Tap on the “Versions” tab on the top to download the module.
5. You can see various versions of the module on this screen. Tap the “Download” button for the most recent version, and it should begin downloading on your device.
6. Once the module has been downloaded, follow the on-screen instructions to install it just like any other app on your device.
7. Before you can use the module, you need to activate it. To do that, follow these steps:
7.1. Launch the Xposed Installer on your device.
7.2. Tap on the “Modules” button on the main screen of the app.
7.3. Check the box that is next to “OneHand Mode” module. It should activate the module for you.
You are now one step away from using the module. You need to reboot your device so that Xposed can recognize the newly installed module. To do that, tap on “Framework” on the main screen of the app.
8. On the screen that follows, tap on the “Reboot” button, and your device will reboot.
When your device boots back up, launch the OneHand Mode app from the app drawer.
Tap on “Settings for Apps” on the first screen of the app. That is where you can modify settings for using your device one-handed.
Here, you can enter values for the margins. If you are not yet sure what margins would be the best for you, you can choose from the predefined ones by tapping on the drop-down menu given beneath the margin boxes. You have a number of margins to choose from. I have chosen Bottom Right for myself.
When you are done specifying the margins, tap on “Apply” to apply the changes.
You should see that your current app has moved to the specified margins. In my case, it’s moved to the bottom-right corner.
That’s all there is to it.
Since the app screen moves to the specified corner on your screen, you can easily use your device one-handed. You should be able to access all the corners of the app to perform actions.
Conclusion
Steve Jobs is not wrong when he said that large screen phones are difficult to use as they cannot be easily controlled with one hand. But this doesn’t equate to a problem that cannot be solved. With the above modification (and of course, the “open-ness” of Android), we can now easily use our large screen phones with one-hand.
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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