Android tips and tricks: Menus and Screens

These menus, screens, and settings aren’t exactly hidden, but they’re easy to miss.

1. Extra Wi-Fi Settings

In the Wi-Fi Settings menu, hit Menu > Advanced for extra settings, and to find your MAC and IP addresses. This is also the place where you can change the Wi-Fi sleep policy (the point where it switches back to 3G).

2. More Camera Options

The little kitchen timer icon in the Camera app hides a lot of options: metering mode, ISO, color effects… it’s not just for focus and exposure settings!

3. Bigger Battery Graph

For a detailed analysis of how your phone is losing battery, go to Settings > About Phone > Battery Use and tap the graph at the top of the screen. The screen that appears contains a visual timeline of the phone’s signal strength, Wi-Fi connection, sleep status and charging status since the last time the phone was 100% charged.

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4. Change Default Apps

If you have an application set as the default for some action – for example, a particular browser is the default for opening web pages – you can change that. Find the app in Settings > Manage Applications, then tap Clear Defaults.

This also applies to launchers. If you want to try another one, then remove your current selection as the default; whenever you press Home it’ll let you choose between all the launchers you have installed, until you select a new default.

5. Get the Date With a Tap, Anywhere

You can quickly see the day of the week and month by tapping and holding the notifications bar, without having to pull it down.

6. Access Your Contacts on the Computer

Assuming you’ve linked your phone to a Google account, you can view all your phone contacts (with their numbers, email addresses, and any other info you have about them) at google.com/contacts.

7. Silence the Ringer

When someone calls you, you can mute the incoming call ringer without hanging up or accepting the call by pressing the volume rocker.

On HTC handsets, you can open Settings > Sound and Display and enable “Quiet ring on pickup” to make it fade to silent as soon as you pick it up.