HTC Eris Tips, Tricks, and Easter Eggs

[172av8r]

I just discovered this, so figured I'd share.

I connected my Eris headphone jack to my car stereo's aux input jack to listen to my music in the car. When I made a phone call, the call's audio came out of the car stereo speakers! I kept the phone on my lap, and the microphone picked up everything I said clearly. Sort of a poor-man's version of hands-free speaker phone in the car.

I suppose you could to this at home with a radio or something to make speaker phone calls without using the built-in speaker in the Eris.

 

[hakoreh]

I changed mine to zero for a while. Nothing happens - it just rings sooner, and probably eats a bit more battery, as it is checking the tower more frequently. After spending a weekend in a rural spot where the signal was switching between on and emergency only, eating the battery very quickly and making the phone lag so much it was unusable, I switched it back to one.

By the way, you do not need to dial ##PROGRAM. ##PST works as well (or ##778).

yeah but the problem is the answer/decline screen doesnt come up for like 8 seconds and you want to answer it but aren't given the option, just a black screen. i kinda blame it for my accident the other day

 

[doogald]

yeah but the problem is the answer/decline screen doesnt come up for like 8 seconds and you want to answer it but aren't given the option, just a black screen. i kinda blame it for my accident the other day

I guess I neglected to add the point that changing to 1 is probably more useful than 0. I have mine at 1 now, and when I call the phone from home to test it, it rings once on the home phone before it senses the call on the Eris. It was the same for having the slot cycle at 0, so I see no benefit for 0 over 1.

Secondly, forgive the lecture, but you should not be looking at your phone when you are driving. Either get a BT device and answer the call without looking, or choose to not answer at all no matter what while you are operating a vehicle, for the benefit of the rest of the world at the very least.

 

[hakoreh]

I guess I neglected to add the point that changing to 1 is probably more useful than 0. I have mine at 1 now, and when I call the phone from home to test it, it rings once on the home phone before it senses the call on the Eris. It was the same for having the slot cycle at 0, so I see no benefit for 0 over 1.

Secondly, forgive the lecture, but you should not be looking at your phone when you are driving. Either get a BT device and answer the call without looking, or choose to not answer at all no matter what while you are operating a vehicle, for the benefit of the rest of the world at the very least.

thanks but i had a bt device but still had no clue who was calling because the screen goes black for 6 seconds before it tells who it is

 

[doogald]

thanks but i had a bt device but still had no clue who was calling because the screen goes black for 6 seconds before it tells who it is

Like I said, you should make a choice - you either answer everything without looking to see who is calling or you answer nothing and let it go to voice mail. If you have important contacts that you must answer or else (though why they would insist on this while you are driving I have no clue), then set a special ringtone for them that will alert you to those important calls.

Since you had an accident it seems strange that I actually have to give that lecture, but your next accident could end up being fatal or near-fatal (and not necessarily to you but to others), and you have a responsibility to maintain concentration on your driving (or you should not be driving at all.)

 

[hakoreh]

Like I said, you should make a choice - you either answer everything without looking to see who is calling or you answer nothing and let it go to voice mail. If you have important contacts that you must answer or else (though why they would insist on this while you are driving I have no clue), then set a special ringtone for them that will alert you to those important calls.

Since you had an accident it seems strange that I actually have to give that lecture, but your next accident could end up being fatal or near-fatal (and not necessarily to you but to others), and you have a responsibility to maintain concentration on your driving (or you should not be driving at all.)

thanks dad

 

[mikieelmo]

You can also do the ol' fashioned: press the side volume down button!

thank you that one is really helpful

 

[Yorb]

thanks dad

exactly what i was thinking

These tips are awesome. Couple things I didn't see:

1. If you have Google Voice, you can set it to use Google voicemail instead of your *86 voicemail, even for calls coming in on your regular cell line. I don't know how they do it, but it basically gives you visual VM without paying for it. Just download and use the Voice app.
2. holding the Menu button anywhere brings up (or hides) the keyboard
3. holding the Search button starts a voice search (talk very close to the phone for best results in noisy places)
4. pressing the Call button brings up the call screen (duh...i didnt figure this out at first though)

Out of curiosity, is there a way to disable the menu button for unlocking? it totally defeats the purpose of a slide to unlock. my eris has taken many black pocket photos by unlocking itself.

 

[Yorb]

Adding to the earlier mention that the Eris uses standard USB connectors for charging...

Lots of cheap dumbphones use this charger, such as the Moto RAZR. I got a car charger for $5 at the flea market. Not kidding. Don't pay for charging accessories tailored to your Eris.

 

[hakoreh]

not sure if this was mentioned

my car has a usb port but every time I connected my Eris via USB and then mounted, it would always say check device. now what i found out is you can do one of the following to get the Eris to be connected:

1) leave the connect to PC default at disk drive and then disconnect and reconnect the cable and it should read the files

2) after connecting the cable quickly change it to disk drive before check drive comes on display

the thing is once it goes to check device, its not looking for any files, its like telling you do over again

 

[licotto]

It works just fine, what are you talkin about?

##7764726 is not correct way of getting into the phone program menu.
it is actually *#*#7764726#*#* followed by the password 000000.

I just did the ## method & it did just fine. The only thing I noticed missing before was that you need to hit the Green Phone button:

1) open phone app
2) ##7764726
3) hit green phone button

 

[Adrian#AC]

Disabling Sense (or making it not your primary home screen)


From the home screen hit menu > settings > applications > scroll down to HTC Sense > clear defaults.

next time you hit the home button it will ask you to select Home(android default), or HTC Sense. Select Home.

You will now get to choose which home screens to use each time you hit home, unless you hit "Use by default for this action"


To enable HTC Sense again if you set the android Home as default, hit menu > settings > applications > scroll down to home > clear defaults

again hit home and select HTC Sense set to default if you want to make it permanent again.

just remember, Android Home default gives you only 3 screens, HTC Sense gives you 7.

Finally! Thanks for this, mate. I had looked through my Eris for an hour trying to find out how to switch to Android Home from Sense.

 

[fishguy622]

After the 2.1 update this morning the touch screen buttons (home, back) don't light up all the time. They still work when they don't light but it's annoying, anyone else having this problem?

 

[Huskee]

thanks dad

Hey I agree with doogald.

It's not you we're worried about, it's us and our kids that you could hit. Not to be rude, but people should be humble enough to realize no one goes out looking for an accident, they happen to people who never thought they'd happen.

When it happens to you, or when you're the victim, then you'll agree too and it won't be 'thanks dad', it'll be "yeah, you're right".

 

[kharper2008]

Yeah to turn 3G on and off you have 3 options. You can create a widget by holding down the touchscreen, go to HTC widgets, settings and mobile connection. You can hold down end and select mobile connection. And you can go menu - settings - wireless settings - mobile connection.

Forgive me... I'm new... but, doing this does what exactly? Does it turn off yoru data meaning I wont get any email, fb updates, etc?

 

[svzuki]

yea

 

[IzelTokatl]

Yahoo Mail IMAP Settings

didn't see this in the tips so im reposting:

to get your yahoo mail via the stock mail app, add a new account, IMAP (not POP) and use below settings.

Username: XXXX@yahoo.com
Password: yahoo password
IMAP Server: imap.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 143
Security Type: None
IMAP Path Prefix: leave blank

SMTP: smtp.mobile.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 587
Security Type: None
Username: XXXX@yahoo.com
Password: yahoo email password

 

[frankie78]

...

 

[Mibol]

Didn't work for me ... but is the "p" above case sensitive because I couldn't find how to get caps to work.

This is the code that works for me. *86ppXXXX#pp1. The x's are your password.

 

[jimethomason]

Re: It works just fine, what are you talkin about?

I did this and entered the password and said invalit password