Motorola Droid Tips and Tricks
I was asked by a reader if I had any tips and tricks about the Motorola Droid. I figured, rather than respond to just that comment, the topic would make a good post, so here are a few things you may or may not know. Many of these can be found here, right from Motorola themselves.
Many folks who are new to the Droid might not know how to go about getting files to their phone. With the excitement of having a new toy, and I include myself here, we may fail to read everything before jumping in and playing. So for any of you out there curious as to how to do it, we start with number one:
1. Mounting the Droid via USB. When you plug your phone into your computer, you may wonder why it doesn’t show right up as a drive for you to send your files to. The reason being, you need to mount it first. In order to this, you need to open up the notifications at the top of the screen, either by touching and dragging it down, or selecting the menu button at the bottom of the phone ( the one with all the lines) and selecting notifications. Then, when you select where it says ‘USB connected’ you can mount it. It will then show up as a drive letter for you to do what you want. Once you’re done, just go to the notifications and choose to ‘Turn off USB Storage’, then hit ‘Turn Off’.
2. Opening Recent Programs. If you hold down the home button for a few seconds you will notice a list. This list shows the last six programs you used. It works from any screen and is handy when switching back and forth from one or more. Like if you are browsing the internet and listening to music you can go back and forth without hitting the back button a few times and finding the program icon and choosing.
3. Adding Contacts. An easy way to add someone’s number or email to the contacts is to click and hold on it. You will then get an option to add the item to your contacts.
4. Voice search. Another way to open the voice search, as opposed to hitting the mike picture which is by the search bar, is to hold down the magnifying glass button for a few seconds. This works no matter what program you are in so you don’t have to hit the home buttong and get the the one at your home screen.
5. Hiding the onscreen keyboard. Sometimes when using the onscreen keyboard it may be in the way. You can hide it by touching it and flicking it down. It will slide away and can be brought back by selecting a text field.
6. Copy and Paste. To copy a single word, just double tap it to select it, then hold for a few seconds and you will get a menu where you can choose to copy it. This doesn’t work everywhere though, just where the text is editable. If you want to copy not editable text, or more than one word, use the external keyboard. Hit the shift key, which is the arrow pointing up with a line over it, right next to Z, and slide your finger over the text while still holding shift, this will copy it to the clip board. You can them paste it where you want by just holding on that area for a few seconds.
7. One touch dialing. If you have a number you call a lot you can set it up for one touch dialing. On your home screen touch and hold an empty space and you will get a menu. Choose shortcuts and you an choose Direct dial. There are other options as well. I do warn you though to be careful. I have called people by mistake with this. I had a number on my main home screen and hit it when placing my Droid into the dock. I also called once when swiping to another screen and held just a bit too long, rather than scroll I placed a call. Luckily they were just family members and it wasn’t late.
8. Special characters. If you need a special character, like Ű, just press and hold the letter for a bit a more options will appear. This works for both the virtual and the physical keyboard.
9. turn on or off your GPS or wireless with one click. You can hold and press an empty space on the home screen, or choose the menu button and select add, to add widgets that will allow you one touch power control of wireless or GPS. There are other widgets too and more get added with certain apps from the market.
10. Set Mp3 as a ringtone. You can make any music file on your phone a ringtone by selecting the menu button when listening to the song and choosing to set as ringtone. You can also download Ringdroid, a free app from the market. This allows you to cut out just a section and use that as a ringtone.
11. Quick silence mode. You can put your droid into slice quickly by swiping the unlock bar to the left rather than the right.
12. Save pictures from the internet. You can save a picture from the internet by holding the picture for a bit and selecting to save it
13. Website shortcuts. Like the widgets and direct dials, you can also add a bookmarked site to your home screen for one touch viewing.
14. Folders. Use folders on your home screen to organize programs. From the menu button choose add and folders. You can rename them by opening the folder and holding on the name at the top for a few seconds.
15. Keyboard shortcuts. You can bring up various applications by hitting the search button (magnify glass) and letters. These can be customized by choosing hitting the menu button from the home screen and choosing – settings>applications>quick launch
search + e: email
search + y: youtube
search + b: browser
search + c: contacts
search + g: gmail
search + l: calendar
search + p: music
search + s: messaging
As you can see, lots of these deal with pressing and holding something which brings up an alternate menu, try it on other things and see what you find.
Do you have any other tips or tricks?