Tips and Tricks #2

This isn’t mind blowing, but it is a two for one.

Want to easily filter your list of tacts in the Contacts app?  Just start typing on the keyboard.

What if you only have a virtual keyboard?  Hold the “Menu” key until it appears, you can bring up the virtual keyboard in almost any situation by doing this.  To close it, just hit the “Back” button.

Note added Tue, Oct 10:
The Contacts app filtering was tested on two physical devices, one running a stock Android 1.5 build, the other Android 1.5 with HTC’s Sense UI, and one virtual device running stock Android 2.0 build.

Megapixels

Click on the picture for more detail.

So megapixels aren’t everything, but they aren’t nothing either.

Obviously you can take a kickass pic with the Droid.

Random tip: Don’t forget the icons!

I was fumbling around the Calendar app, looking for a way to switch from day view to month view. I wanted to find the date for Thanksgiving. I couldn’t figure out how to switch, so I closed the app and went on with my business.

Then while I was driving home I remembered — it was probably in the menu!

There are four icons at the bottom of the device, they’re all super-important, and I’m always forgetting to use them (because the iPhone doesn’t have three of them).

The first is the Back button, it takes you back to the previous level, just like the Back button in the browser. The iPhone’s single button at the bottom is something like this, it takes you back to the Desktop. It means that the the UI of the iPhone can only be two levels deep. Probably not a terrible thing, btw. The Droid has more levels.

The second is Menu, and it’s what I was looking for in the Calendar app. If you click it you can choose between Day, Week or Month view, and various other options.

The Home button does what the iPhone’s single button does, it takes you all the way out to the Desktop. If you hold it down, I found out, you get a group of the last six apps that you’ve launched (I think). I learned about this in a tip right here on the Droidie blog!

And the spyglass is Search, which you’d expect to be always easy to get to cause this is Google after all. 🙂

Press Up to Play? Huh?? Wazzat!?

One thing is great about getting a new computer toy like the Droid is there is a whole universe of new things to bitch about!

I’m sure if anyone from Google, Motorola or Verizon are listening they must hate that sentence.

I’ve been in their shoes too and when I am, I remind myself that if they didn’t use it they wouldn’t criticize it. I tried to explain that to an editor at TechCrunch the other day, without much luck.

The good news is we love your product.

And the bad news is we love your product. 🙂

Anyway, I downloaded a free game called Snake. I have no idea what it is, but its icon looked interesting. Launched it and was presented with a screen that says: Snake (newline) Press Up To Play. That’s like All Your Base etc etc. I’m sure someday soon that will make perfect sense. But today it makes absolutely no sense.

I suspect it has something to do with the keyboard.

Which reminds me, I never use the keyboard. The onscreen keyboard is much more useful.