Droid Tips and Tricks

M

michaelkahl

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
433
So I've had my Motorola Droid for a few days and thought it was time to post some of my findings.
1. Open Home is awesome and will open up your available space. It supports 2.0 but can still be a bit buggy on the Droid. I've had a couple of crashes, but it restarts quickly.
-7 home screens
-Support for a large library of skins
2. Better Keyboard is a much better virtual keyboard that you can set to replace the stock keyboard.
-Feels similar or better than the Hero's keyboard
-Skins available on the Market
3. Get the accessories. Even if you don't use the navigation app, the car dock is awesome for mounting your device if you use it to play music while in the car.
4. Manage your radios with the provided widget, this gives you quick and easy access to disable and enable your wifi, bluetooth, gps, and much more.
5. Take time to get used to the physical keyboard, it gets better.
6. The camera is good, once it focuses. Just keep trying and be patient, it appears an update is in the works. See below for more information.
7. Want to tether, PDAnet works. See another post I made.

Rumored updates are coming on December 11th that will fix many of the early bugs that have been reported so far. Verizon is really on the ball it appears. Via Phandroid

I'll add more as I think of them, if others in this forum have this device or any other general Android tips please post them.
 
Here's some of my own:

- Wallpapers should be 960x854 to show up properly in both portrait AND landscape. In portrait, the wallpaper will be split into three sections, with each home screen showing one third. In landscape, it'll display just the top half or so of the wallpaper on all three screens.
- It can play back DVD-resolution video files at 1mbit, and probably higher.
- If this is your first smartphone, figure out the mobile versions of your favorite web sites- it saves on loading time and they're just easier to view. For Facebook, use touch.facebook.com instead of m.facebook.com.
- If you're not happy with one of the default apps, then look in the Market! That's the whole point of Android- you can do whatever you want with it.
- Install Locale and set it up.
- When in doubt, tap and hold and see if anything pops up. This is how you move icons, cut and paste, etc. It's a learning experience!

Oh, and:
5. Take time to get used to the physical keyboard, it gets better.
Click to expand...
SERIOUSLY DO THIS
I know, the size of it may seem annoying at first, but I'm a tall guy with big hands and although I do occasionally hit two keys every now and then, the fact there's just so much on the physical keyboard more than makes up for it. The entire range of alt options is worth it alone- and there's so many alt options! Pressing alt twice will "alt lock" the keyboard, and pressing shift twice will caps lock. Furthermore, learn to use the d-pad for correctional purposes- it's much faster than trying to touch where you want to correct. Also, Alt + Del = delete the entire line you're one. Alt + left/right = go to beginning/end of the line. D-pad enter = select current option (in text entry, selects all text). Mess around and see what else does what.
 
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Hold down the Magnifying Glass to get a voice command prompt
Hold down the Home button to get a task switcher (only shows 6 running programs)
 
Exchange FAQ and Troubleshooting
Android 2.0 (and the droid) will not penetrate most corporate environments due to its limited exchange functionality. There are many threads already posted about exchange problems and questions. Hopefully this will centralize some of the info!

What works:
Direct Push Calendar, Email, and Contacts

What doesn’t work:
Tasks, Notes, Global Address Book
Accept/Decline invitations
Auto-signatures in email
Advanced security requirements: Remote wipe, PIN requirements
SSL: This works, but often interferes with attachment downloads.
Push updates are sometimes delayed (especially calendar updates)

FAQ

Do I need the $45 data plan to make it work?
No! The $30 plan works just fine.

HTML email does not show up properly.
This is a limitation of Exchange 2003, not the phone. You need Exchange 2007 or newer if you want to see HTML email.

I can’t download attachments.
Uncheck “Accept All SSL Certificates” and/or “Use secure connection (SSL)”. You may need to have your IT guys remove the SSL requirement from your phone.

I can’t connect to my exchange server or I can't sync with (calendar, contacts, email).
Confirm with your IT dept that Security policies (PIN requirement, remote wipe) are not being enforced on your account.
In the “Domain\Username” setting try entering your username only without the domain (“\myusername”).
Try using variations on your Exchange Server address like “mail.myserver.com” or “myserver.com”. Never use the HTTP or https in the address.
Try connecting with and without the SSL options checked.
Confirm that your exchange server is set up properly at https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/Default.aspx
Delete your corporate account on your device and re-add it.

Can I just sync directly with Outlook?
Not at this time.

What you can do:
Install a third party app (like touchdown).

Let google know that these issues are critical. Visit google's own issue list and promote these issues by following these links and clicking the star!

Support for Global Address List
Support for ActiveSync provisioning protocol
Support for signatures

Updates are scheduled to be coming on December 11th and early next year. So far they are not scheduled to include many improvements to the Exchange functionality. Full details here.
 
I have a G1 running 1.6 so hopefully some of these will apply to you guys. Had my G1 since last Nov.

Reality Browser 2.2 from layar owns. With the Droids specs you guys should be able to fully appreciate the app. Try it out it's free. Pretty damn sweet too.

Get Dolphin off the market 10000 times better browser than googles browser. Also allows you to change the agent to desktop or iphone. It feels similiar in use to Firefox.

Handcent Sms for texting very good improvement over the G1's texting. Havent seen Droids so I can't compare.

Tap Dialer Awsome app. Allows you to program phone numbers to a widget depending on the number of times you tap it you will call a different person. For example I have 1 tap for the wife 2 for home 3 for work etc...

If you have a Google voice acct. the Google Voice app is a must. You can change on the fly from calling from your cell # to your google voice acct.

The more widgets you have out the more memory you take up. Probably won't affect Droid too much but you can bring the G1 to it's knees. Same goes with open home.
 
I was in Best Buy today and looked at their fake Droid demo that was on display. The keyboard keys were INCREDIBLY hard to press down and get a click. I am hoping that this is a faulty demo unit and that a real Droid isn't as hard to press the keys, am I wrong?
 
Layar isn't supported for 2.0 just yet.

The keys don't travel far at all on the keyboard. Just part of being thin.
 
What other commands are available for speech commands? "Call" and "Directions to" work. What else can be done via voice?
 
jazzman161 said:
What other commands are available for speech commands? "Call" and "Directions to" work. What else can be done via voice?
Click to expand...

Open <App name>
Mainly works with the built in apps. like the browser, calandar, contacts etc..

Sucks about Layar and 2.0 shouldn't be too long though.
 
Erasmus354 said:
I was in Best Buy today and looked at their fake Droid demo that was on display. The keyboard keys were INCREDIBLY hard to press down and get a click. I am hoping that this is a faulty demo unit and that a real Droid isn't as hard to press the keys, am I wrong?
Click to expand...

The keyboard is nothing like the Best Buy dummy phone. It's actually very nice and I like it better than any blackberry I've ever used, though I've only briefly used friends blackberrys and never had the time to get used to it.
 
Erasmus354 said:
I was in Best Buy today and looked at their fake Droid demo that was on display. The keyboard keys were INCREDIBLY hard to press down and get a click. I am hoping that this is a faulty demo unit and that a real Droid isn't as hard to press the keys, am I wrong?
Click to expand...

the demo is only good for an indication of the size of the keys.. the feel is nothing like the non-functional demo unit.
 
-when in the browser hit the space bar on the qwerty and it will scroll a whole pane down on a webpage.

thought that was neat.
 
I went to a Verizon store and checked out a functional unit, and everyone was correct. The fake demo unit is a horrible way to get a feel for the phone.
 
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