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The Motorola Droid has quickly become the fastest-selling smartphone, giving the iPhone a run for its money. This little book is packed with big tips for getting more into, and out of, an Android OS phone than ever thought possible. You’ll learn to take full advantage of features such as the high-resolution digital camera, GPS, e-mail, Web browsing, location-based mapping, Google Calendar and Google Docs, hundreds of readily available apps, and tricks such as scanning a barcode to get product reviews or translating foreign signs.
Android Fully Loaded enables you to take maximum advantage of your Android OS smartphone.
Introduction xiv
Part I The Basics 1
Chapter 1 Android Basics 3
Which Version of Android do I have? 4
Setting Up Your Android Device 5
Getting a Google Account 5
What Makes a Good Password? 6
Synching Your Device with Your Account 7
Accessories 7
The Home Screen 11
The Applications Launcher 11
Organizing Your Applications 12
The Notifications Bar 13
The Action Bar 14
Device Settings 14
Wireless and Network Settings 15
Ringtones 20
Silencing Your Ringtone 20
Orientation and the Accelerometer 21
Lock Your Device 22
Securing with a Pattern 22
Securing with a Passcode 23
Storage 23
Text Input 25
Multitouch Keyboard 26
Swype 26
Device Information 27
Charging 27
Chapter 2 Applications 31
Using the Android Market 31
Searching for Applications 32
Downloading and Installing Free Applications 33
Paying for Applications 34
Amazon Appstore for Android 34
Downloading and Installing Applications from Other Sources 36
Keeping Applications Up to Date 37
Chapter 3 Your Home Screens 39
Adding Application Shortcuts to Your Home Screens Pre-Honeycomb 39
Adding Application Shortcuts to Your Home Screens in Honeycomb 40
Adding Widgets to Your Home Screen 40
Organize Your Home Screen Shortcuts with Folders 41
Changing the Wallpaper 42
Stock Wallpapers 42
Media Gallery 43
Live Wallpapers 43
Chapter 4 The Phone 47
Adding Contacts 47
Managing Contacts on Your Computer 49
Organizing Contacts into Groups 49
Calling a Contact 50
Manually Dialing Numbers 51
Using Favorites 51
Speed Dial 51
Using the Recent List 52
Voice Dialing 53
Calling from the Browser 53
Using the Speaker Phone 54
Conference Calling 54
Google Voice 54
Installing the Google Voice App on Your Phone 56
Google Voice Voicemail 56
Other Google Voice Features 56
Chapter 5 21st Century Communication 59
Switching to Gmail 60
Signing Up with Gmail 60
Organizing E-mail 60
Archiving Messages 63
Searching Mail 64
Spam 64
Importing Your Other Accounts 64
Accessing Gmail on Your Device 65
Viewing Your Inbox 65
Replying and Forwarding 66
Viewing HTML E-mail 67
Viewing Messages by Label 67
Composing Mail 67
Getting Other E-mail on Your Device 67
Instant Messaging 69
Texting 70
Sending Texts 70
Receiving Texts 70
Social Networking 71
Facebook 71
Twitter 73
Chapter 6 Managing Your Time 79
Google Calendar 79
Using the Google Calendar on Your Computer 79
Using Google Calendar on Your Device 83
To-Do List 85
Alarm Clock 85
Part II Maps, Music, Pictures, and the web 89
Chapter 7 Maps 91
Using Google Maps 91
Search in Maps 92
Getting Directions 93
Getting There without a Car 93
Throw Away Your GPS Device 94
View Live Traffic 94
Other Layers 95
Satellite Photos 95
Terrain Maps 95
Latitude 96
Recent Places 96
More Layers 96
Driving with Your Phone 96
Street View 99
Google Places 99
Install a Compass 99
Find Out Where you Were with My Tracks 100
Use Google Earth 100
Chapter 8 Music 105
Preparing Music for Your Phone 105
Ripping CDs 106
Change iTunes Settings 106
Download Album Art 107
Downloading Music to Your device 108
Purchasing Music via Amazon MP3 109
Listening to Music 109
Creating Playlists 110
Google Music 111
Signing Up and Uploading Your Collection 111
Listening On Your Device 112
Listening Offline 113
Adding a Home Screen Widget for Music 113
Using Songs as Ringtones and Notification Sounds 113
Listening to Internet Radio 115
Identifying Music with Shazam 116
Downloading and Listening to Podcasts 118
Find and Subscribe to a Podcast with Google Listen 119
Chapter 9 Taking Pictures 121
Using Your Device's Camera 122
Viewing Your Pictures 122
Sharing Your Pictures 123
Sharing with MMS 123
Sharing on Facebook 124
Sharing on Twitter 125
Sharing via E-mail 125
Other Sharing Methods 126
Downloading Pictures to Your Computer 126
Find Out Where You Took a Picture 127
Enabling GPS on Your Camera 127
Using Geotagging on Your Device 128
Edit Pictures on Your Device 128
Chapter 10 Video 135
Capturing Video on Your device 136
Viewing Your Videos 136
Sharing Your Video 136
Preparing a Video to Upload to Your Phone 138
Upload a Video to Your Phone 140
Watch Streaming Content on Your Device 144
Google 144
Netflix 144
Blockbuster 145
Amazon 146
Hulu Plus 146
HBO and Cinemax 147
Video Chat 148
Google Talk 149
Skype 149
GoogleTV: Android on Your TV 150
Chapter 11 The Web 153
Surfing the Web on Your device 153
Searching the Web 154
Searching the Old-Fashioned Way 154
Limiting Search Results 154
Search without Returning to Google 155
Voice Search in the Browser 155
Search Outside the Browser 155
Use Flash Player to View the Whole Web 156
Using Browser Windows on your phone 156
Using Browser Tabs on Your Tablet 157
Bookmark Sites 158
Change the Home Page 158
Installing a Different Browser 159
Dolphin 159
Opera 160
Mozilla Firefox 160
Desktop Browsing from Your Device 161
Part III Working and plying 165
Chapter 12 Documents 167
PDF 167
Working with Google Docs 169
Working with Microsoft Office Documents 171
Editing Documents in Quickoffice 171
Creating New Documents 172
Other Applications 173
Reading e-Books 174
Amazon Kindle 174
Aldiko 176
Nook 176
Buying Books from Google 177
Chapter 13 Games 179
Puzzle Games 179
Andoku 179
Rush Hour 180
Peggle 180
Chuzzle 181
Classic Board Games 182
Chess for Android 182
Checkers for Android 182
Backgammon 183
Mancala 184
Action Games 184
RoboDefense 184
Plants vs. Zombies 187
Angry Birds 187
Card Games 188
Solitaire 188
Poker 188
Games that Take Advantage of Your Phone's Abilities 189
Abduction! 189
SpecTrek 189
Classic Games 190
Pac-Man 190
Frogger 191
Guitar Hero 5 191
Web-based Games 192
Chapter 14 Other Cool Apps 105
Stargazing with Google Sky Maps 195
Finding Local Businesses 197
WHERE 198
Yelp 199
Getting Movie and TV Information with IMDb 200
Creating Shopping Lists 200
Calculating Tips 202
Taking Notes with Evernote 202
Planning Trips with Kayak 203
Keeping Track of the Weather with WeatherBug 204
Researching with Wapedia and Wikimobile 205
Finding Recipes 206
Following Your Favorite Sports Teams 206
Scanning Barcodes 207
Translating with Google Translate 208
Searching with Gesture Search 209
Getting News with Pulse 210
Taking Credit Cards with Square 210
Chapter 15 Troubleshooting 213
Killing Apps 213
Force-stopping Apps 215
Forcing a Reboot 216
Formatting Your SD Card 217
Booting into Recovery Mode 218
Rooting 219
Chapter 16 Advanced Topics 223
Managing Your Phone's Power Settings 223
Get Your Computer Online with Your Phone 225
Downloading the Android SDK 226
Turning on USB Debugging 227
Taking Screenshots 228
Index 231
Terms 231
URLs 23
Overview
The Motorola Droid has quickly become the fastest-selling smartphone, giving the iPhone a run for its money. This little book is packed with big tips for getting more into, and out of, an Android OS phone than ever thought possible. You’ll learn to take full advantage of features such as the high-resolution digital camera, GPS, e-mail, Web browsing, location-based mapping, Google Calendar and Google Docs, ...