You don’t have to wait until April 1 to prank your friends. These five hilarious technical jokes are sure to make your friends scratch. Please note that we are using a Samsung Galaxy phone, but most of these pranks can be done on any Android phone. Let’s start.
1. Slow down your friend’s phone
The first joke is to make their phone incredibly slow to the point where it’s absurd. One way to do this is to slow down device animations. Follow these steps:
- Go to Settings > About phone > Software information and tap repeatedly Build number to enable developer options.
- Go back to Settings > Developer options And set Window animation scale, Transition animation scaleand Animator Duration Scale until 10x.
You can also slow down their device by making their phone take an absurdly long time to long press. We do this by increasing the delay when touching and holding. Follow these steps:
- Go to Settings > Accessibility > Interaction & Dexterity > Touch & Hold Delay and tap Amended.
- Tap and hold for at least five seconds. The longer you hold on, the more trouble you create for your friend. When you’re done, tap Save.
Keep in mind that not all Android phones allow a custom touch and hold delay, so this prank may or may not work on your friend’s device.
2. Ruin the UI
The next joke is to screw up their phone’s user interface. There are a number of ways to do this. For example, you can invert system colors, set any color correction mode, and increase the font size to a ridiculous amount. Here’s how to do it all:
- Go to Settings > Accessibility > Visibility Enhancements and switch on Color inversion.
- Go to Color correctionenable the function and select any correction mode.
- Go back and scroll down to find Font size and style and drag the slider all the way to the right. You can also enable Bold font and change the font style to something arbitrary.
You can also customize the Quick Settings panel in any order, such as:
- Swipe down from the status bar and swipe again to see the full page.
- Go to the last page and tap Add (+) knob.
- Drag the icons to random locations; you can also add more buttons from the top to make it more confusing.
You can even hide their favorite apps from the app drawer by going to Settings > Home screen > Hide apps and select and tap their most used apps Done.
And just in case you’re feeling extra naughty, you can also make the app icons small so they’re hard to see. Third-party Android launchers usually have an option to change the shape and size of app icons, but they also change the look of the UI so your friend can immediately see what’s wrong.
However, on Samsung phones, you can do this with the Good Lock customization app that keeps the look of One UI so your friend never knows what went wrong. Follow these steps to perform this prank on Samsung phones:
- Download the Good Lock (free with in-app purchases) app and install the Theme park module.
- In Theme Park, go to the icon menu and tap Create new.
- Tap the down arrow and drag the Size slider all the way to the left.
- You can also change the shape and color of the icons to something arbitrary.
- Press to install button at the top and give this theme a name and tap Okay.
- Go back, open the new theme and tap Apply.
You can also apply icon packs and set incorrect icons for all their apps.
3. Spam their phone with your funny selfies
While you’re making a mess of your friend’s phone, why not spam your funny selfies in it too? Here are three ways to do this that we like best.
First, set your funny selfie as their contacts’ profile picture:
- Take a selfie (preferably while making a face) with your friend’s phone.
- Go to the Contacts app and select a contact.
- Tap edit and tap the profile picture, then select Gallery.
- Find and select your selfie, crop it and tap Done to set it as the new profile picture.
- Do the same for all their favorite contacts.
Then set your funny selfie as the background image for their video call:
- Go to Settings > Advanced Features > Video call effects.
- Enable the feature and tap the Add button (+) button under Background Image.
- Find and select your selfie and tap Done.
Finally, set your funny selfie as their Gboard theme:
- Open the Gboard app to open Settings, then go to Theme and tap the To add icon under My Themes.
- Find and select your selfie, place your face in the frame and tap Next one.
- Set the brightness slider to 100% and tap Done.
And you’re done! As soon as they start typing, getting a call, or taking a video call, they’ll see you make a face and greet them in the funniest way.
4. Ruin the audio and calls
So far, you’ve screwed up their device animations, app icons, system colors, background images, and more. To add another cherry to this, you can mess up their audio and calls.
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Hearing Enhancements and turn the Connected audio slider all the way to the left or right to create an imbalance in the sound when listening through headphones. You can also enable Mute all sounds instead so they can’t hear anything.
You can also go to Settings > Privacy and switch off Microphone Access so they think their microphone is broken. You can also switch contact names in the Contacts app; they will inevitably find out, but it is more than worth it to see their initial panic at calling the wrong person.
5. Rename paired devices
Go to Settings > Connections > Bluetooth and enable it. You’ll see a list of their paired devices. Tap the settings icon and tap rename. From here, you can let your creativity run wild and come up with all sorts of funny names for their earbuds, smartwatch, and other paired devices.
For example, you can rename their earbuds as “Peer Pressure Pods” and their smartwatch as “Low-Battery Belt” or something similar.
Android Pranks to mess with your friends
You can use all of these pranks to have some harmless fun with your friends, but make sure to revert all these settings after you’re done making fun of them so their phone will start working normally again.