Droid Incredible Tips & Tricks Thread

[Groucho]

If this has been mentioned before I apologize. I searched the forums to see if there is anyway to turn the soft button backlight on when it is off. Not sure if this is intentional but if the backlight is off after you unlock it will turn on if you rotate left as if going to landscape. Rotate back to portrait and it stays on until you hit the top button or the screen times out. I know the backlight is sensor controlled so maybe this is unintentional however if it is a bug it is a bug it is a good one for my needs.

 

[jasonvancouver]

The Inc. won't send SMS pictures to another phone if the Resolution is too high

I was trying to send SMS pictures to other phones and wasn't having success.

I discovered that it is because I had the camera set on a resolution that was too high.

To change your settings for the camera, open the camera, then :

1. pull out the > icon
2. check settings ( looks like to gears)
3. select standard ( not widescreen)
4. set resolution to 1 M 1280 x 960.

This didn't seem to make too much of a difference is picture quality.

If you have the resolution set too high, you will get an error message that the file is too large.

 

[Alpharho]

...
If you have the resolution set too high, you will get an error message that the file is too large.

Regardless of the size of the photo, the phone should automatically create a compressed version of the photo suitable for sending. There should be no need to actually change settings before taking the picture.

 

[beef5stew]

When I go to "send" a picture I just took, the phone puts up a message "Picture is too large, would you like to resize?" I say "yes" and it goes.

 

[bobstudent3]

If you have someone's birthday entered in their contact information, a red circle will appear next to their name on their birthday. Tapping on the contact will bring up a pop-up to call them, email them, or SMS.

This covered in other threads, but worth mentioning: if you hook up your Incredible to your car speakers through the aux or cassette deck adapter, it turns into a giant speakerphone. You can listen to streaming internet music (Pandora, for example) and use Navigation at the same time. If you get a phone call, Pandora will stop and you can talk on the phone. I've heard Navigation will continue during a phone call, but I haven't tried it yet. Bluetooth speakerphone isn't all that necessary.

 

[BTSee]

Former Blackberry users will especially appreciate this: hitting the space bar 2x while typing a message will automatically place a period after the last typed letter.

 

[beef5stew]

When I go to "send" a picture I just took, the phone puts up a message "Picture is too large, would you like to resize?" I say "yes" and it goes.

UPDATE: The Handcent SMS application is doing this re-size for me.

 

[bobstudent3]

Pressing and holding an address in Gmail or the internet will bring up a pop-up to show the location on Maps.

If you are trying to import contacts manually from a Palm Treo (mine was a 700p), you can use Google Goggles to scan in the contact. Just bring up any single contact in your old Palm, bring up Goggles, use the crop tool in Goggles and take a picture. Select Add Contact.

It's not perfect, but it could save you a lot of typing.

 

[douger]

When you connect your Droid Incredible to your PC and mount as "Disk drive" to copy files to and from your SD card, make sure you select the proper "Removable Disk (x" folder on your computer to copy to because there are actually two removable disk folder options that show up from your phone; one is your phone's internal storage (the <8 gb or so) and the other is your SD card.

I renamed each as to what it was..."sd card" or "phone mem" using the Windows rename drive protocol.

From your Windows desktop, left click computer>right click on the appropriate drive listed, then rename.

 

[anon(21359)]

Email Auto-delete after one day

This works with any POP3 email account. I like to monitor my email for the day but then have it auto deleted.

- Click the Mail icon (find it in all programs or on your home screen usually)
- Click Menu /More /Settings
- Click Send & Receive (provides more options)
- Click Download options
- Set to "By days" and "Today's"

Your mail will download all day but the next day it will be gone (even from the Trash). Great to keep track of things and not have to manually manage the mail.

 

[bark8015]

In other threads I've seen a few people ask about an app that would prevent the screen from timing out while in a dock (as the Moto Droid apparently does natively).

If you go to Settings > Applications > Development, there is an option to "Stay Awake" while the phone is charging.

It may or may not be a setting you want to have enabled all the time, but it will allow the screen to stay unlocked while docked (assuming the dock is charging the device).

Note: the screen does dim slightly after a short time of no user input, but just tapping it brings it back to full brightness without needing to swipe-unlock.

Quoting myself because after several days I began having issues with the phone not sleeping even when not plugged in. Removed this setting and rebooted to fix it.

 

[JF]

If you downloaded Robo Defense, make sure you stop the program when not playing. The game keeps the phone from sleeping and will cookie monster your battery.

 

[Nicholbert#AC]

Without selecting any emails within your email folder, press menu --> delete. You can then select all the emails you would like to delete. Prior to choosing any, you can select Menu one more time and "Mark All" if you like.

Great tip. I was really starting to miss my multi select from my Storm. That was about the only thing I was missing from it. But this works great. I do wish there was a multi select on messages.

Former Blackberry users will especially appreciate this: hitting the space bar 2x while typing a message will automatically place a period after the last typed letter.

I don't know which BB you had, but BBs from the 8730 and newer had this feature.

Here is a tip I just learned:

If you want your email accounts to update as items arrive, ensure you have Auto-sync enabled. If you don't, it will default to manual. Huge PIA if you don't know what is going on. I was | | this close to winging the phone out my top floor window. But we have made up and are friends again.

Here is how to get to Auto-sync:

Settings > Accounts & Sync > Auto-sync (make sure the box is checked)

 

[TBolt]

Originally Posted by BTSee
Former Blackberry users will especially appreciate this: hitting the space bar 2x while typing a message will automatically place a period after the last typed letter.

I don't know which BB you had, but BBs from the 8730 and newer had this feature.

That was his point. BB has the feature; therefore, BB owners will be happy to know that Android has the same feature.

 

[XXI]

Doe anyone know how to set a custom (imported) ring tone for sms, email, and other notifications

 

[rpfarrah]

Doe anyone know how to set a custom (imported) ring tone for sms, email, and other notifications

Yup, it's all available in settings, depending upon which apps you're using for messaging.

 

[bogeyx5]

I cannot figure out how to save music, video etc to my 16gb sd card... it just goes to the phone. I use double twist.

Just drag and drop files into the SD card, that's.the easiest way.

 

[Stormhead77]

All I saw at the settings was stock ring tones.
My question is how do I get my ring tones from my SD card on to
The phone so I can use it.

When I slapped my sd card from my old Storm into the DInc it automatically grabbed the ringtones and made them available in the list where you select the tone under Settings. I didn't have to do anything like create another folder, etc.

 

[Revolutionary]

Since I've seen a few references to the cumbersomeness of the Manage Applications menu...

If you want to find a specific application in Menu> Settings> Manage Applications, load up that view and then click menu and select "sort by size," then click menu again and select "sort A-Z." Much easier to find the app in question that way.

 

[ghess517]

i keep getting the message 'video too large' if i try to send any video file. even a 5 second video i get this. any suggestions???