Android Fully Loaded

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 Andropid 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.

• Motorola Droid sales are booming, fueled by the Android OS’s amazing versatility and open access to apps
• This book shows how to put anything on an Android phone: old movies, TV shows, music, spreadsheets, presentations, Word documents, and much more
• Covers all the basic features such as Web browsing, using Facebook and Twitter, taking photos, playing music, and using e-mail
• Offers dozens of high-level tips and tricks for maximizing turn-by-turn navigation, using an Android as a broadband modem, scanning a barcode to access product reviews and comparing prices, syncing with Google services, and photographing objects for Google to identify

Android Fully Loaded enables you to take maximum advantage of your Android OS smartphone.

Check Out Tips and Tricks from the Author

App: Turn Your Phone into a Powerful Flashlight

I don’t know about you, but I am not the type who always carries a flashlight with me. Like everyone else, though, I have had plenty of times when I wished I carried one. Now, I do, thanks to my phone.

You may have seen apps before that attempt to make a phone into a flashlight by filling the screen with a blank white box, but that provides faint light at best. Many newer phones, however, include a powerful light: the flash on the camera. Because you can also take videos on the camera, you can turn the flash on and keep it on, providing a very bright light. You can of course do this without an app: open the camera app, switch it to video mode, and then select the option to turn on the light. That is kind of a pain, though. So instead, search the Market for one of the many apps that turn on the light by themselves.

One great app is DroidLight, although as its name implies, it may only work on Droid phones such as the DroidX and Droid 2. The app is fantastically simple to use: open it, and it automatically turns on the flash; tap the lightbulb to turn it back off. Note that few things on your phone will drain your battery faster than leaving that light on. So, you should only plan to use this in short intervals. Still, it provides a great alternative to carrying some bulky flashlight with you.

Addictive Game: Air Control Lite

Angry Birds is without question the most addictive game out there, but I recently came across another that is great for killing time waiting in line: Air Control Lite. As with more addictive games, the concept is simple. You are an air traffic controller at an airport. A variety of aircraft, including helicopters, small personal planes, cargo planes and jets, fly in and it is your job to land them all safely. Each type has a specific place to land, and they all travel at different speeds, so you have to keep them out of each other’s way.

What is great about the game is that it is simple to play: you use your finger to draw a path from the airplane to the runway. Air Control Lite is free; a commercial version adds additional maps, including an aircraft carrier.

App: Turn Your Phone into a Level

Bubble is one of those apps that makes it hard believe you are still using your phone. Thanks to the phone’s accelerometer, Bubble turns your phone into a level. Simply turn the app on and you will see a bubble level, exactly as you would see on a real physical level from the hardware store.

You can either place the phone on its side or lay it down flat. Pressing the menu button on the phone and selecting Settings allows you to turn on extra features such as showing the angle and enabling a beep to let you know when you are level.

Find Apps with StumbleUpon
You may already be familiar with StumbleUpon, the Web-based service that allows you to discover cool new things on the Web by randomly directing you to Web sites based on preferences you set. StumbleUpon is now available on your Android phone, allowing you to randomly find pages on your phone just as you would on your computer.

The app, however, goes one step further, by also providing a way to randomly find apps. It begins by looking at the apps you already have on your phone, and then based on what types you have installed, it will show you random apps from the market. So far, it has worked very well for me: it is actually how I found out about Air Control Lite, mentioned above. Best of all, just like the Web site, the app is free.