Many people do not know but Android KitKat (or any other version of Android) has advanced options called Developers options well hidden from the view of common user. These options can be made visible by performing a special maneuver in Android. You may wonder why they decided to hide these options in the first place? The reason is simple – these options are very advanced and should be used only by Android apps developers and highly advanced users. These developers options, once made visible, can be used to flash custom ROMs and kernels, root your Android device or control it from PC through Android Developer SDK.
Before you jump start and enable the developer options in your Android device, you should know that these options cannot be disabled or made invisible unless you perform a factory reset of your device.
Here is how you can enable developer options in Android KitKat (and some other versions as well):
- In your Android device open the Settings screen. There are many ways to do this. One common way is to press the menu button (left button of the three buttons given at the bottom), and then select Settings from the options.
- On the Settings screen, scroll down and tap on About phone or About tablet depending on whether you are using a smartphone or an Android tablet.
- The screen that opens shall display information about your device. Scroll down and tap seven times on the Build number information. As you start tapping, it will show a message that “You are no x steps away from being a developer”. After the seventh tap, it will show a message that reads “Now you are a developer”.
- Go back to the Settings screen, scroll down and you will be able to see the Developer options near the bottom of the list. You can now explore various features and advanced settings that these options provide.
Developer options give access to some low level settings and through these you can perform functions such as rooting your device, installing stock Android ROMs, custom ROMs and more.