Android Honeycomb (Tablet) Tips and Tricks

This tip is relatively obvious, but some users overlook it.

At the top of your homescreen you should see a row of 5 dots. This indicates which of the 5 homescreens you are on. Rather than flick between each screen, you can simply press one of the dots and you will jump to that homescreen.

While in the Music Player, long press on the song title of the music and you can search Youtube for more music

If you are viewing a website and you see a URL, you can long press on it and then choose to open the site in a new tab

Android has a feature allowing you to update Applications automatically. This is turned off by default, but you can turn it on.

Open the Android market, then Menu – My Apps.

Then you need to open up each installed App and tick Allow Automatic Updating at the bottom. Unfortunately you do need to do this for each App.

To soft reset your tablet press and hold the Power/Lock button for a 2-3 seconds and the tablet will restart. Wait about 10 seconds and then press and hold the Power/Lock button again to restart.

If that doesn’t work, then remove the battery. Wait 30 seconds and put the battery back in. Then press the Power/Lock button to turn the tablet on.

While in your email App, a handy trick is to pinch and zoom out to see a ‘day view’ of your emails. This is handy if you have a lot of emails and want to quickly sort them by recency.

To stop the Photo app or the Music player from indexing your files, place a blank text file called .nomedia in the folder

If you have forgotten your custom unlock pattern, then don’t panic.

After 5 unsuccessful tries a button should appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password.

The tablet will then ask for a new unlock pattern. If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you might have to either call your carrier or factory reset your tablet.

Go to the Android Market and search for an App called Spare Parts. Download and then open the App. Go to the Compatibility Mode and Uncheck it. Then re-check it (so the tick appears again). Then turn your tablet off by pressing Home and then turn it on again.

Once that’s done, go back to the Spare Parts App and Uncheck the compatibility box again. This time DON’T re-check it though. Then turn your tablet off and on again once more.

Once re-booted, go to Spare Parts again. If it opens in full-screen mode, then the process has worked and any other Apps that run in non-full screen mode should work.

In your browser go to Menu – More – Settings. Then select Clear Cache / Clear all cookie data / Clear history / Clear form data