How To Access Google’s Secret Easter Eggs In Android 9 And Android 10

Google, in its infinite capacity for silly, has dropped a fun hidden feature into Android 10 that you should spend a little time exploring. (At the very least, you’ll be a hit at your next party when you pull out your updated phone and show off your secret knowledge.)

To get started, pull up your Android 10 device’s Settings app. Tap on About phone, and look for the “Android version” line. When you find it, tap on it, and then start frantically tapping on the “Android version” listing on the next screen. When the secret loads, you’ll know, because your device’s screen will turn into this:

Neat, but we’re not done. Oh, no. Double-tap on each of the elements (Android, 1, and 0) and revolve them to create the old Android Q logo, which looks something like this:

You’ll know you’ve nailed it if the grey lines on the background start moving from the lower-left corner of your phone’s screen to the upper-right. From there, tap on the word “Android” until you pull up a second puzzle. Congratulations; you’re in Nonogram Land.

A nonogram, for the curious, is a logic puzzle for pictures. The numbers at the top represent how many squares are filled in within the column. So, “2″ would mean there are… two. Hyphenated series of numbers — like 1-4-2 — mean that there are groupings of coloured squares in the column (one, followed by a unknown number of blanks, followed by four coloured squares in succession, then blanks, then a group of two coloured squares, et cetera).

If you see green in a cell within the left-most column, that means you’ve solved the puzzle for that row. Similarly, green in a cell a the very top row means you’ve solved the puzzle for that specific column. These are the ground rules; the puzzles, while a little tricky, all come with one important caveat: They’re all related to Android in some capacity.

How to access Android 9’s trippy Easter egg

If you’re still bummed that your device has yet to receive Android 10, don’t worry. While you wait, don’t forget about this version of the operating system’s Easter eggs. To access them, you’ll perform the same trick as before: pull up your Android 10 device’s Settings app, tap on About phone, tap “Android version,” and start tapping on the next instance of “Android version” you see. Eventually, this will happen:

Drugs are bad, mmkay? Again, we’re not quite done. Keep tapping the “P” of this colourful little Android P logo, and you’ll eventually be taken to a simple drawing app that you can use to doodle the day away. This isn’t as captivating as a nonogram, but it’s a lot less stressful.