From its auspicious start as the brainchild of Internet giant Google, Android has matured into a well-rounded, extremely capable smartphone operating system. Here\’s everything it’s essential to know to master Google\’s smartphone OS.

Advocating open source, Google released Android to the hundreds, opening the doors to application developers. There were a number of growing pains, in fact, along with weak Bluetooth support and an absence of multitouch support, but today Android is knocking on the door of the iPhone mansion, and it\’s knocking hard.

Android hardware offers most of the most powerful smartphones we\’ve ever seen. The Android Market app store is growing strong, and the Android user base is growing just as fast. Android phones are flying off the shelves faster than they may be able to be created, so we predict it\’s about time we put together a guide for the Android power user. On the subsequent pages, we\’ll walk you through what it’s good to find out about Google\’s mobile OS and easy methods to exploit out of it.

General Usage Guide

Using Android\’s basic touch-screen interface is relatively straightforward. You\’ll find that many applications and functions utilize the \” long press,\” where you hold your finger to the screen in preference to just tap it. Contemplate an extended press for granted-click on a mouse; it’s going to raise additional functionality for the article you press. All of this can be familiar to anyone coming from any other touch-enabled smartphone.

When coming from an iPhone, though, the transition can also be somewhat awkward because the Android platform brings several additional buttons over the iPhone\’s single button interface. Get ok with Android\’s Menu button, as it\’s essential. You\’ll find that many settings, functions, and options can only be accessed via the Menu button. Holding some of the hard keys could also raise additional functions; for example, holding the Home button will open an inventory of recently used apps.

For the Android devices with a hardware keyboard, you furthermore mght give you the option of using keyboard shortcuts, that are done through combinations of keys. It’s also possible to create custom shortcuts under the short Launch option within the Applications portion of your phone\’s settings.

Default Keyboard Shortcuts

Quick Launch

Search + B = Browser
Search + C = Contacts
Serach + E (or) G = Email (or) Gmail
Search + M = Maps
Search + S = Messaging

Inside the Browser

Menu + B = Bookmarks
Menu + W = New Window
Menu + R = Refresh or Stop page load
Menu + F = Find on Page
Menu + J (or) K = Navigate Backword (or) Forward

Inside Maps

Menu + D = Directions
Menu + M + Change Map Mode
Menu + O = My Location

Optimize Your Android Experience

One of the major features Android offers is the power to customize nearly every aspect of your device. You’ll download widgets to keep information available right in your home screen, install custom skins and keyboards, and create notifications and ringtones.

Stay Up to the moment Using Widgets

With Android, you are able to have several home screens, each with its own unique collection of widgets.

Widgets are like small applications that run in your home screen and keep information right at your fingertips. an effortless long press on an empty space for your home screen will elevate the solution to add widgets. Because many apps inside the Android Market have widgets, there are widgets for nearly everything including texting, Twitter, and email; weather, stocks, and news information; and music controls. Because Android allows you to configure several home screens, which you could group messaging widgets on one screen, news and weather on another, your music library and Pandora on the subsequent, etc, keeping your whole important information just a finger swipe away. Widgets in your home screen are kept active and update regularly, so try to be careful not to add too many, especially on older and lower-end devices. If swiping between home screens begins to look sluggish, you might have considered trying to think about removing a number of widgets.

Stay Organized with Shortcuts

Just as with widgets, Android means that you can add shortcuts directly on your home screen. Adding a shortcut is finished the exact same way as adding a widget; just long press on an empty space and you\’ll see the method to create a shortcut. If there\’s anything you find yourself doing often together with your phone, creating a shortcut can make it even easier. Shortcuts may also be created for launching a bookmarked website, calling a particular contact, accessing settings, playing a music playlist, opening a particular inbox, and, for sure, applications. In the event you find your house screen becoming cluttered with shortcuts, you may create home screen folders that allow you group similar shortcuts together. Case in point, which you can put your entire email inboxes into one folder, your work contacts into another, and your individual contacts into another. One common practice is to create application shortcuts for your main home screen in your top four to eight apps, generally messaging, email, browser, and maps. Then, one screen over, put the runners up, like the Market, contacts, calculator, etc. It doesn\’t particularly matter where you place your shortcuts or how you group them so long as it\’s intuitive to you, and you’ll find them quickly.

Find Your Perfect Software Keyboard

One of Android\’s most criticized features is its default software keyboard, but due to Android\’s unrestrictive nature, there are several great alternatives available both on and stale the Android Market. We promote Better Keyboard (available on the Android Market for $2.99), the HTC IME modified keyboard, and Swype.

The HTC IME modified keyboard is superior to Android\’s default keyboard.

All of these keyboards offer significant improvements over the stock Android keyboard. Better Keyboard has a mess of skins in addition as many customizable settings. HTC IME modified keyboard is a well-made imitation of the keyboard found in HTC\’s popular SenseUI custom Android skin. Swype offers a novel and original text input interface that greatly improves texting speed. Installing a custom keyboard just isn’t entirely straightforward, though. You must both enable the keyboard inside the Keyboard and Language part of your phone\’s settings, in addition as long press on a text box and select the hot input method.

Use Identifiable Ringtones and Notifications

In four simple steps, you are able to organize a further custom alarm to wake you on on a daily basis.

Like all modern mobile phones, the Android platform permits you to select and create your individual ringtones. Creating ringtones and notifications shall be done manually or with the aid of an app from the Android Market. Manually adding a ringtone in your phone involves creating several specific directories for your SD card, based on the sort of ringtone you\’d desire to add. The alternative method is way easier. Simply download the Ringdroid app free from the Android Market and use it to edit and trim your audio files before saving them as a ringtone, notification, or alarm. You may customize notifications and ringtones on a per contact basis by opening the specified contact\’s information and selecting Set Ringtone. You are able to change email notifications inside the Gmail app (though it’s essential select Silent when you receive plenty of emails).It’s also possible to set one more song to wake you for every single day of the week by creating an alarm ringtone of your favorite songs, and creating an alarm for everyday of the week, then selecting the required song.

Create a singular Look

With the aHome app, you’ll apply themes that even make your Android phone appear to be OSX.

The keyboard and ringtones aren\’t the only real things Android permits you to customize. You may as well select your personal background wallpaper, which for lots of Android 2.1 devices, includes Live Wallpapers that truly move and react for your interactions. Wallpapers are just the end of the iceberg, though. Apps like aHome, found on the Android Market for $4.99, can help you apply skins to nearly every aspect of your interface. With aHome, you may download skins, themes, fonts, and widgets to make your Android phone look as unique as possible. Some themes not only change colors and add flare, but additionally make significant changes to the interface itself, allowing you to customize the way in which you interact along with your phone to exactly how you’d like it.

Under the Hood: Tweak Your Settings

With GPS, Bluetooth, 3G (even 4G), and astounding processor speeds, smartphones are smarter than ever. All of this extra intelligence signifies that the apps could be more complex, information can come faster, and battery management is much more critical. It\’s important that you simply configure your settings properly to get essentially the most out of your phone.

Sync More with Integrated Accounts

Add Accounts screen for syncing additional social networks together with your phone.

When first installing your Android phone, you have got the solution to add several kinds of accounts, including Facebook, Flickr, Microsoft Exchange, and obviously Google. Which you can always add more accounts after constructing your phone by going into Accounts & Sync under your phone\’s settings, although only Android version 2.0 and later enables multiple Google accounts. Here, you\’ll be ready to add additional Google accounts for syncing calendars and email, Facebook accounts, that could sync your contacts (including contact photographs and speak to numbers), Exchange accounts for syncing with Microsoft Exchange servers, and Flickr accounts for sharing photos.

Network Speed vs. Battery Life

Having 3G connectivity is amazingly convenient, especially when accessing large amounts of Internet data, like when streaming music or videos, but there are still some areas where 3G just isn\’t available yet. Once you live in a neighborhood where a 3G signal is poor or nonexistent, it may have adverse effects in your phone\’s battery life. When a 3G phone is on a 2G network, it significantly boosts its transmitting power in hopes of finding that faster 3G tower, which drains your battery even faster. Fortunately, Android allows you to disable your 3G antenna if you end up on the brink or outside of a 3G coverage area. You may do that by going into your phone\’s settings under Mobile Networks inside the Wireless & Networks category. You can find an option called Network Mode or Use Only 2G Networks, counting on your device. It would be best to select the GSM Only option or check the box for 2G Networks. This same concept may also be applied to 4G phones like the EVO 4G.

Configure Your Search Settings

Searchable Items category under Search often Settings menu.

Being a creation of Google, it\’s not surprising that Android offers a plethora of search functionality. When you\’re constantly using your phone to look the online, you\’ve probably found the Android Search widget and have it smack in the course of your house screen, but there\’s more to that little search bar than meets the eye. Hidden under the hunt category to your Android phone\’s settings are some very useful tools. Under the Google Search Settings, there is a check box that permits web suggestions. After you\’re typing along with your thumbs, it truly is extremely useful, as it allows you to type the first couple letters of your query and returns a listing of probable entries. You\’ll also wish to check out the Searchable Items option where you\’ll be capable of configure exactly where that Search widget looks. You can still set it to look the web, your contacts, your music, your mail, even your text messages.

Location, Location, Location

Mobile phones have had Assisted GPS for quite it slow now, nonetheless it wasn\’t until somewhat recently that true turn-by-turn directions and other location-based services came to the cellular phone platform. That being said, you\’ll notice a couple options under the position settings of your Android phone. The first, Use Wireless Networks, is a course-positioning system, which triangulates your approximate position based on tower signal strength. It\’s accurate to about 1.5 miles, which makes it useful for most any location service that goes by zip codes. The opposite, Use GPS Satellites, is the genuine AGPS setting, which are accurate up to 3 meters. This should be enabled for features like turn-by-turn direction and track recording. While using network location only will save some battery power, Android is really very adept at managing the GPS receiver to the point that you’ll not see much of a difference in battery life with both settings enabled normally.

Get More out of Maps with Google Labs

Google Labs is offered inside the Maps app via Menu > More > Labs.

Google Maps is by far probably the most used apps on the Android platform. You need to use it to look for nearby businesses, complete with addresses and speak to information. It may also provide you with directions, and for the devices with Android version 2.0 and later, live turn-by-turn instructions. While all of these features are great, there are actually more, somewhat hidden features, available through Google Labs. To access these features, hit the Menu button while within the Maps app and select More. You\’ll see the Labs option, inside that is an inventory of independently created and unreleased features, inclusive of a scale bar, some extent-to-point measuring function, and extra shortcut buttons.

Root Your Phone for additonal Functionality

Although Android is an open platform, cellular carriers still want to put certain restrictions on their devices. Wireless tethering is a first-rate example. The Android platform is more than in a position to wireless tethering, but without root access to the system, it\’s impossible. Up until the release of Android version 2.2 Froyo, you had to \” root,\” or hack, your Android phone to get wireless tethering (with several exceptions). Earlier than Froyo, running applications from the SD card was also unattainable without hacking root privileges. Rooting also enables various other functions that apps on the Android Market provide, equivalent to overclocking and taking screenshots.

Rooting has another great advantage, in addition. It helps you to install custom ROMs. While Froyo is bringing quite a lot of root-only functionality to official Android releases, it\’s hardly available on a single model. By means of a custom ROM, Froyo may be ported to devices that do not yet have Froyo or may never get it. An analogous has already taken place for 2.1 Éclair, bringing it to devices months before the manufacturers released an official update. For a more detailed guide to installing custom ROMs see our article.

Staples within the Android Arsenal

Just like the iPhone, Android is nothing without apps. We deliberate to the next applications to be essential for buying essentially the mostsome of the most out of your Android phone.

Astro File Manager

Astro file manager displays the contents of your SD card.

Today\’s smartphones are quickly approaching the capabilities of contemporary computers. They are able to already browse the internet, play music and video, take photos, and edit documents, all while streaming it up and down the net. Managing all of this information can be impossible without the aid of a file manager. Astro File Manager, available on the Android Market, is currently the top of Android file managers, and, as a minimum for now, is absolutely free. Astro doesn\’t just permit you to examine a file tree of your SD card; it supplies a whole-featured toolset for managing your files. With Astro, cut, copy, paste, and delete in addition as zip and unzip files, install apps, view photos and documents, play videos, and search and transfer files.

Add a role Manager

Android is touted as the king of multitasking, and it certainly does that alright. Unfortunately, this puts numerous faith within the developers, trusting that they’re going to manage their resource consumption fairly and diligently, but this isn\’t always the case. There are always a number of apps a good way to run unnecessarily inside the background, slowing down your phone and eating up your battery. a job manager lets you close the background processes you don\’t need, freeing memory and saving battery life. There are several great task managers which might be found in both free and paid versions inside the Android Market, the preferred of which might be Advanced Task Manager and TasKiller, which both allow for configurable automated task killing. Both are available free \” Lite\” or add-supported versions, but the whole versions are lower than $1.

Upgrade Your Messaging App

Chomp SMS provides a clean interface and handy home screen widget.

Apart from the normal keyboard, Android\’s stock messaging app, while perfectly functional, is another weak link within the platform. It\’s biggest downfall being a bland interface and barren feature list. Fortunately, all of this is remedied with a handy guide a rough trip to the Android Market where you will see Handcent SMS and Chomp SMS, both free, feature-packed messaging apps. Each offers the same feature list, in a position to sending and receiving MMS messages, saving attached files to the SD card, and customizing conversation threads. Which to make a decision is primarily a private preference. Probably the most significant difference is that Chomp SMS has a formidable widget while Handcent SMS instead has a cultured popup notification box. Both offer a fine alternative to the humble messaging app.

Locale

Available on the Android Market for $9.99, Locale is relatively expensive, nevertheless it\’s among the finest apps on the Android platform. With Locale, you’ll program your phone to pay attention to its location continuously, and adjust its settings accordingly. As an instance, after you get home or arrive at work, Locale can automatically enable Wi-Fi and turn it off again once you leave. It may well put your phone on vibrate once you walk into the conference room at work or into your favorite movie theatre. It will possibly block calls from specific people based for your location or the time of day. There are also plugins available that permit other applications to launch or perform specific actions with location or time cues from Locale. With the right setup, you can never ought to manually change your settings again.

WaveSecure Mobile Security

The WaveScreen app helps you find your phone when it\’s lost and protect your data when it\’s stolen.

Losing your cellular telephone is known as a nightmare. Smartphones are expensive to switch, and then there\’s always the worry that are meant to someone find it, they’ll potentially wreak havoc with the tips that may be on it, usernames, passwords, phone numbers, perhaps even credit card numbers. WaveSecure, a free app from the Android Market, will provide you with several lines of defense. In case you\’ve only misplaced your phone, WaveSecure can enable your phone\’s GPS and relay its exact location to you. If it turns out that your phone has been stolen, WaveSecure can lock it remotely, back up your data, and even wipe your data clean, ensuring that the thief can\’t do anything like steal your identity or rack up a big phone bill.

If Android\’s So Great, Is There Any Need for Chrome?

Android\’s adoption rate has been growing steadily, and so has the Android platform, from its humble beginnings on a single device as Android 1.0, to its numerous hardware and software upgrades in its current form as Android 2.2. In fact the updates will keep coming, introducing new features and utilizing new technologies. Only in the near past, rumors of Android 3.0 surfaced, suggesting that Android was branching out from the cell phone market. Google was quick to denounce these rumors, needless to say, as Android is and always might be a cellular phone OS, but that hasn\’t stopped the OS from spreading its wings.

Android\’s open nature has allowed manufacturers to experiment with the OS on other platforms, including tablets and netbooks. Even Google\’s newly announced Google TV is created for Android, giving method to Android-powered HDTV\’s like Sony\’s Dragonpoint. It\’s possible that Android\’s success has exceeded Google\’s original intentions and has become a potential threat to the company\’s upcoming Chrome OS, an operating system designed to be as lightweight as possible, ideal for tablets and netbooks.

Android and Chrome OS have some similarities. Both are designed to have a small operating footprint, are ideal for ultra portable devices, and utilize an app-driven interface. The similarities end there, though. Chrome OS puts a completely different spin on the operating system. In place of providing you an interface along with your hardware, Chrome OS is barely an interface with the net, basically an online browser with a couple of system management features. The goal behind Chrome OS is to alleviate the desire for local storage; everything is stored on the cloud. Its applications are almost all web-driven, able to being run in a regular web browser. As Google has stated, \” Chrome OS is being created for those that spend most of their time on the net.\”

Android, while in a position to always being connected to the net, is designed as a lot more than just an internet browser, and if Android were created to work inside the same sense as Chrome OS, every Android user would have his or her data plan revoked by using exorbitant data use. While the two operating systems overlap, Chrome OS has a far more specific target than Android, and the two need to be in a position to survive together without much issue.

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