HTC Desire Tips & Tricks [READ ME]

[lekky]

Source: Droid Den - Phone Guide: HTC Desire - Droid Den


Ok fella's, the Desire is a fantastic phone, probably the best on the market at time of writing, a truly desirable device!

This guide will be split up into the different logical segments of the phone, offering hints, tips and general know-how to ensure you get the most out of your new phone.

As always please either message me here, Rachid (le3ky) on Twitter or leave a comment at the source if you have a tip to add or wish to clarify something I have written here.

Useful

Droid Den - App Guide: Add Turn by Turn Navigation To Android Phones - Droid Den
Droid Den - App Guide: Add Default Android 2.1 Keyboard To HTC Sense Phones - Droid Den
Droid Den - App Guide: Add HTC Keyboard With Voice-To-Text To Android Phones - Droid Den
Droid Den - App Guide: Add Nexus One Gallery to Android Phones - Droid Den
Droid Den - App Guide: Add Voice Search To HTC Phones - Droid Den
Droid Den - App Guide: Add Google Talk To Orange HTC Desire - Droid Den

General Android Advice

• Android is a multitasking operating system. It is very smart at self-managing its memory and applications. You may hear talk of using a task killer, or another memory management tool, but this is NOT necesarry. Android will manage this task itself. You may have the question "How do I close this app?". With android this question does not need to be asked as android will take care of it in the background.
• Turn off WiFi and GPS if you are not using them. They can cause the battery to drain much quicker than if you turned them off. Toggling between these settings is easy via the default HTC widgets.
• To add a new photo album, just mount the phone via USB to a PC, create a new folder and give it a name. Add your pictures to this folder. Now browse to the “Albums” in your phone and it will automatically create an album with the folder name you specified containing the pictures you added.
• Calibrate your keyboard!!! You will find using the keyboard waaay better. Do this via:

Settings > Language and Keyboard > Touch Input > Text Input > Calibration Tool

• There are 3 types of keyboard available for the Desire built in “full QWERTY”, “Phone keypad” and Compact QWERTY”. Give them a try, one may suit you better. To change do the following:

Settings > Language and Keyboard > Touch Input > Keyboard Type

• A Class 6 micro sd card is preffered.
• If you have both WiFi and data connections turned on, your phone will default to using the WiFi connection as long as you are connected to a WiFi network. So no need to turn mobile data off using home WiFi.

Status Icons

Notification Icons

Source: Click to read the rest of the HTC Desire Phone Guide!


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[lekky]

Reserved

 

[lekky]

Please do not post questions in here, any that do will be moved out into their own thread.

 

[colrey]

just something to add while iv been working with android from day 1, and work with it everyday, if you are setting up email account(s) and the screen gets stuck on "trying to locate google server" and after 5 mins it fails, there is only one way this can be fixed, and you have to factory reset, because when you get the phone brand new, its supposed to be made that you set up your accounts there and then, but some people dont, then realise they cant access the market, then create a gmail account, and cant get any further, this is the reason. i hope this helps people out.

 

[Lukehluke]

Useful information there

 

[mrgsmith77]

top tips, cheers!

 

[reesie]

@ Lekky

sorry being thick no doubt but the barcode you scan , how do you do that ? i assume through the phone somehow.....

 

[lekky]

@ Lekky

sorry being thick no doubt but the barcode you scan , how do you do that ? i assume through the phone somehow.....

Nah, its not obvious, just download an app called barcode scanner, full instructions here:

How To Use Android Barcodes (QR Codes) Nimbu

 

[nx1977]

Power saving tips:

Dont use a live theme
Use a dark wallpaper
Turn off wi-fi & bluetooth when not in use
Stop friendstream, facebook & peep updating every 5mins. Set mine to manual.
Set email app to manual
Set screen brightness to auto or 40% (lower if you can put up with it).

 

[rhodzy]

Thank you! 3G watchdog is just what I needed!

 

[Ten10]

Running applications tip:

Press and hold the home button. You will see the six last active applications for you to easily switch back to. Can be handy if you have to go through to another home screen just to go back to what you were doing before.

 

[tuahogary]

Alternative to 3g watchdog - Netcounter

 

[lekky]

useful threads

 

[lekky]

Added:

Long press on the search key to bring up the search by voice command. Say "Call <name>" to automatically call the person called that name in your address book

 

[eske]

lekky you mention the ability to add your own mp3's to the alerts notifications
but when i attach my Desire to my pc it just shows as any other external drive

you say "browser" to the following folders

Ringtones: /sdcard/media/audio/ringtones
SMS Alerts: /sdcard/media/audio/notifications
Alarm Alerts: /sdcard/media/audio/alarms

... but I can't see any of these in the directory structure

I'm sure I'm being thick here but can you explain again

cheers eske

 

[lekky]

lekky you mention the ability to add your own mp3's to the alerts notifications
but when i attach my Desire to my pc it just shows as any other external drive

you say "browser" to the following folders

Ringtones: /sdcard/media/audio/ringtones
SMS Alerts: /sdcard/media/audio/notifications
Alarm Alerts: /sdcard/media/audio/alarms

... but I can't see any of these in the directory structure

I'm sure I'm being thick here but can you explain again

cheers eske

Typo lol, should be browse. If they don't exist then just create them

So you atach it, it becomes like a normal Drive, lets say drive E.

So you would create:

E:\media\audio\ringtones
etc

 

[eske]

@lekky cheers dude - thanks for the help

 

[Newth]

Hi Lekky, thanks for the tips.

Quick question relating to the Navigation, well, 2 actually.

I can't find the 'modified maps' to download, so downloaded from the above link. I then placed this on to the SD card. First question, have I done this right?

Next question, after downloadong & installing astro, I can browse to new folder called mapsbrut on the SD card, but can't open the app manager. I presume this is because I don't seem to have the apk file it talks about?

Sorry for the dumb questions, but I'm new to Android & am struggling with it some what still.

Hang on, found the answer to that I think...

Windows seems to rename the file as .zip file. Remaned the .zip to .apk & it seems to have installed it.

I'll let you know how it goes..... need to download a text to speech or something now.......

EDIT

Now working. Thank you very much.

 

[lekky]

Hi Lekky, thanks for the tips.

Quick question relating to the Navigation, well, 2 actually.

I can't find the 'modified maps' to download, so downloaded from the above link. I then placed this on to the SD card. First question, have I done this right?

Next question, after downloadong & installing astro, I can browse to new folder called mapsbrut on the SD card, but can't open the app manager. I presume this is because I don't seem to have the apk file it talks about?

Sorry for the dumb questions, but I'm new to Android & am struggling with it some what still.

Hang on, found the answer to that I think...

Windows seems to rename the file as .zip file. Remaned the .zip to .apk & it seems to have installed it.

I'll let you know how it goes..... need to download a text to speech or something now.......

EDIT

Now working. Thank you very much.

I guess you are using internet explorer? It does this, and adds one more reason as to why I hate it. Use a real browser like Chrome or Firefox!!!

 

[Newth]

Old & stuck in my ways. I should try chrome, everything else is google these days!

Thanks again for the help by the way, you're a star.

 

[lekky]

You're welcome

 

[Quboid]

Here's a tip, "phone" this "number" (enter this on the phone screen):
*#*#4636#*#*

It will bring up a testing menu with a few interesting bits and pieces about what's using the CPU and the battery.

 

[maxx001]

Change the primary phone number for a contact:

If a contact has more than one phone number, you can change which one of them should act as the primary phone number by holding down your finger on the one you'd like to set as the primary one.


If the facebook link button isn't available:

If there is no facebook link button in the upper right corner of your friends contact info, then you need to import all your contacts from your SIM card into your phone. The facebook link functionality is not available for SIM card contacts.

 

[ParaSitius]

Finally, a way for me to add my Tron light cycle start up mp3 as my notification. I almost cried when I found there wasn't an option in the Desire settings for custom notification sounds.

Thanks lekky.

 

[HTC_Desire]

My favourite widget is the "Power Control" one

This gives you a simple bar with 5 buttons that allow you to toggle on or off your Wireless / Bluetooth / GPS / Synch / Brightness - Brightness one has 3 settings that you achieve by simply pressing the button - DIM (Great at night for me) / Medium / Bright - Love it.

Regards
Ken................