Total Newbie to Android

[Hightime7898]

Hello folks, first time posting so bear with me.

I just got a Note 3 the other day after having had an iphone. I must say, this Note 3 is just amazing, I can't believe how small the iphone screen looks in comparison now.

So I need help on the basics, what on earth is the difference between a widget and an app? And is it possible to get more icons on the main screen? Or am I asking that because I still have ios stuck in my head.

Anyway, I'd really like to master Android so I can exploit it fully instead of just having a powerful phone and not utilising it to its full potential, so any help would be much appreciated.

 

[kilofoxtrot]

Here's a good place to start:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/general-help-how/31622-getting-started-android-tips-tricks.html

Welcome to android and freedom!!!!

 

[AgentScribe]

Widgets are interactive and act as live tiles, allowing you to pull certain data from it.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Hightime7898]

Ok thanks! Taking a look at what's written there now.

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Aha, ok thanks.

 

[Hightime7898]

So I'm kinda getting used to it but could you explain this please.

So from the main screen, if I swipe to the right I see: S Note, then Samsung Hub, Walking Mate. These pages that are shown when I swipe are the pages where I choose to put my widgets, right?

 

[RLLangley]

Yup. You can click and hold on those and take them up to the "X" if you no longer want them on your screen. Then you can add widgets or short cuts if you want. If you take two fingers and pinch the screen together kinda diagonal you can change how many of those screens you have. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Hightime7898]

Thanks RLL, nice. So I think I get it now. I was initially confused at the sheer number of widgets there, but now realise that they're not all on display and you set up what you want to see by dragging it where you want it, this was what was confusing me. After having used the Note 3 for a few days and loving everything Apple, I honestly can't see how the iphone compares to the Note in any way. Bloody marvelous piece of technology this.

Oh, one more question, I was trying to drag the Evernote icon widget, the single green Evernote icon with the elephant pic on it, but every time I drag it to the main page, instead of actually placing the widget there it just opens Evernote. I tried dragging the other larger Evernote widget to the main page and that moved successfully, but it's the small single button icon I wanted there, and that is the one that won't go for some reason?

 

[RLLangley]

Just make sure you keep your finger on the icon for a few seconds and it will change to the main home screens. Drop it at a place there isn't a widget. You can drop it on top of another icon and it will make a folder.

Coming from the iPhone to Android can be a hard learning curve as Android pretty much lets you do want you want where as iOS is pretty locked down. Both have their pros and cons but in time you will master Android and have it set up just like you want it.

 

[karsdroid]

So I'm kinda getting used to it but could you explain this please.

So from the main screen, if I swipe to the right I see: S Note, then Samsung Hub, Walking Mate. These pages that are shown when I swipe are the pages where I choose to put my widgets, right?

i like having a pretty "clean" screen....i put on only my "always used" few and leave the rest in the app drawer. one thing i always hated about ios was all of the icons cluttering every inch of the screen....thats what the app drawer is for. first thing i do when i set my phone up is remove all of the icons from the screens until i decide what i want back in the way of widgets and apps.

 

[Hightime7898]

Hmm, there seems to be a problem. My main home screen is virtually empty, I moved the date thingy just to make more space to mess around. When I drag other widgets there, they're drop into place without a problem, like the Flashlight etc., it's just that Evernote 1x1 widget which for some reason won't sit on the main page, every time I drag it and drop it, it just opens up the program, and after I close it, it's nowhere to be seen on the main page. I must be doing something wrong for sure.

 

[Hightime7898]

i like having a pretty "clean" screen....i put on only my "always used" few and leave the rest in the app drawer. one thing i always hated about ios was all of the icons cluttering every inch of the screen....thats what the app drawer is for. first thing i do when i set my phone up is remove all of the icons from the screens until i decide what i want back in the way of widgets and apps.

Aha, so that's just given me more insight. I didn't realise that when you delete an app from a page it is still there in the Apps folder, nice. I have a few apps that I'd like to get on my main page, just the essentials, evernote is one of them.

How do you organise yours? So obviously you have your most regularly used apps on the main page, do you leave the rest of the Apps in the Apps folder or do you make, is it possible to make, a new page which you can swipe right or left to and have more apps there, organised as one likes?

Apologies for all these basic questions.

 

[Hightime7898]

Ok, I've got Evernote on there ...

 

[Hightime7898]

Wow. That was a nice learning curve. I've got my head round it totally now. Brilliant stuff.

Thanks for your replies.

 

[karsdroid]

Aha, so that's just given me more insight. I didn't realise that when you delete an app from a page it is still there in the Apps folder, nice. I have a few apps that I'd like to get on my main page, just the essentials, evernote is one of them.

How do you organise yours? So obviously you have your most regularly used apps on the main page, do you leave the rest of the Apps in the Apps folder or do you make, is it possible to make, a new page which you can swipe right or left to and have more apps there, organised as one likes?

Apologies for all these basic questions.

i tend to only have a clock/date on my "home" page, which is probably overkill since the time in on the notification bar. you can put 4 icons on the bottom of the screen that are static and stay there no matter what page you scroll to, so those 4 tend to be for me, phone, gmail, text, chrome.....then on the page to the right i put the full page calendar widget so that one swipe and i can see the months view of my calendar. the screen to the left tends to be things i use everyday, s note, dish, play store, foxfi, runkeeper..... a page to the left of that is my games page with a few games on it. i see no reason to have apps on a page that i don't use everyday, those stay in the app drawer since its just a click away

and heres a tip...you can have uup to 7 pages or few, and set whichever of those to be your homepage, the one the home button takes you back to. if you click the menu button on the homescreen and then select "edit pages" you can delete pages, add pages, and set the homepage(little house icon at the top of each page, press on the one you want, and the house icon will light up to show your selection.) you can always get to this edit pages page by "pinching" on any of the pages.

 

[Hightime7898]

you can put 4 icons on the bottom of the screen that are static and stay there no matter what page you scroll to

This is something I wanted to know. How do I do this?

and set whichever of those to be your homepage

Nice, thanks for the info.

 

[karsdroid]

Wow. That was a nice learning curve. I've got my head round it totally now. Brilliant stuff.

Thanks for your replies.

no problem, we are all here to help....the widgets you sort of have to try out and see if you like of use them...for instance my mom likes to have contact direct dial icons for individuals on one page so she can just touch them and the dialer calls..... i personally don't tend to use widgets since if im going to use an app i tend to want to open it all the way up, but to each his own, such is the beauty of android being so customizable

 

[karsdroid]

This is something I wanted to know. How do I do this?



Nice, thanks for the info.

put the icons you want on the page and then just drag them to those bottom positions...if one is there the one you drag down will kick it out.

 

[Hightime7898]

Thank you Karsdroid, much appreciated.

 

[karsdroid]

This is something I wanted to know. How do I do this?



Nice, thanks for the info.

lots of people use custom launchers, which basically replace the home screens, and some will add the ability to put more icons on the screen(yick), or i've used one that had the static apps down on the bottom but instead of 4 there were like 3 sets of 4 and you could scroll through them. fun for a while but then my need to have a super tidy screen got the best of me. i tend to like to have cool live wallpapers going instead of a ton of icons...

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Thank you Karsdroid, much appreciated.

no problem, we were all newbies once

 

[Hightime7898]

lots of people use custom launchers

Interesting, I'll look into that.

Now that I have a slightly better idea of what these widgets and apps are on about, I'm slowly getting rid of my Apple days in terms of having the whole screen full of apps and nothing else!