The Droid – Part Deux
Posted by Gabe on January 1, 2010 under Droid | 
5 Comments to Read
My Home Screen
I admit it. I really rushed my first post on the Droid. I did that on purpose because I think it honestly did show the things that are likely for people to struggle with at first if they are a little slow like I am. Now that I have taken a breath, read extensively, discussed on forums and played with it I am ready for another post. This one I hope will not be edited as many times as I did the first. The first post had to be changed many times as I uncovered sometimes false solutions which I outed and ultimately real ones. Something as feature rich as the Droid has to engender some sort of learning curve. I am just hoping to shorten that curve for others just a bit.
In this post I hope to provide just a few tips that would have been nice if I had them when I first played with it. Next I will give you a list of apps I particularly like and finally my decision on whether or not I am keeping it.
The first tip I will repeat from the first post is that in order to view the Notifications you must drag them down with your finger. I am repeating this because several people told me they appreciated the tip and didn’t know about it previously. I want to make sure everyone who reads this knows about it. The second tip is regarding your home screens. You have three of them (I believe there is an app to extend that but I am not covering that here). Your main screen is what you see when you unlock your phone. (Mine is shown above). You have a screen to the left (drag the home screen to the right) and a screen to the right (drag your home screen left). The first thing that took me a while to discover is how to organize these screens. If you “pull up” your main applications screen all you need do is touch and hold an application to place it on the screen that is showing. For example, If you want to put an application on your “left” screen, drag your home screen right, pull up your applications screen, touch and hold the app and you will be able to drag it to whatever spot you want on the left screen. It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of room, so that’s why they have those apps that extend them. When I fill up what I have and need more I will figure out how to use that.
Adding Shortcuts
One of the handiest shortcuts you can have is a Navigations shortcut that will get you back home from wherever you are. From any home screen touch and hold a blank area. Click “Shortcuts”, then “Directions”. Type in your address, choose the other options and click Save. You can move it around the screen by touching and holding the icon. To delete the shortcut, drag the icon to the applications folder arrow at the bottom — when you do that it will turn into a Trash icon. To add shortcuts to web sites, do the same thing as before but instead of choosing “Directions” choose “Bookmarks”.
I know these are fairly basic things but we all need to learn them at some point. If you are seeking something more specific and/or more advanced, feel free to ask in the comments and I ‘ll see what I can do to help.
The Menu Key
I just read the manual (Hey – there’s a manual!) and discovered the name of the key with all the lines going across it at the bottom of the phone. It’s called the Menu key. Not knowing what that key was for gave me all kinds of grief at first. If you are stuck in an app and don’t know what to do hit that button – it will give you lots more options.
Ok I believe these are the basic tips that you need to start being productive. Now for the apps.
