Beginner’s Guide To Android Apps

Unlocking the true power of the Android mobile operating system, developed by Google, requires a basic understanding of how to install, manage and find applications for your phone. With tens of thousands of apps available in the Android Market from the best call blockers to the best ad blocker for android, it can be overwhelming trying to find a good place to start. But Android makes the process of adding software to your phone a simple process that can be mastered in almost no time

Installing Apps

Apps are installed using the Android Market app that comes pre-loaded on your phone. The app icon is located either on your Android home screen or in the app drawer. When you launch the Market app, you are presented with a list of popular and featured apps. You can also search Market by pressing the “Search” button on your phone. Select an app to view a description of the app and tap the “Install” button to download it to your phone.

Not all apps are free. If the app costs money, tap “Buy” instead and configure your payment type. Newly installed apps are automatically stored in the Android app drawer. Move apps from the drawer to the home screen by tapping and holding the icon and dragging it to your preferred location.

Managing Apps

Installed apps can be easily uninstalled or the cached data associated with an app can be purged from the Android settings interface. From the Android home screen, press the “Menu” button and tap “Settings.” Select the “Applications” option to view a list of all of your installed apps. Selecting an app from the list will allow you to delete stored data and cache or uninstall the app. To update apps, open the “Market” app, tap “My Apps” and then tap the “Update All” button at the bottom of the screen.

Finding New Apps

Now that you understand how to install and manage apps, the next problem is figuring out how to find the good apps. Market displays user comments and ratings for all apps, providing some guidance but there are numerous highly rated apps in every category. Websites like Lifehacker, Androinica, These are the Droids, Android Central and Android Community regularly review Android apps and are quite easy to navigate. Additionally, almost every popular website, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress and more, has a dedicated Android app, allowing you to easily connect to your Web-based accounts from your phone.

Popular Apps

The most popular Android apps connect your phone to various Google services including Gmail, Google Voice, Google Reader, Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube. These apps feature deep integration with Android and allow you to manage every facet of your Google account from your phone. As mentioned before, most websites that you use on your computer maintain Android apps that allow you to quickly connect your phone to your online account. For business users, a variety of productivity apps are available and among the most popular DocumentsToGo and QuickOffice for viewing and editing Microsoft Office files and LogMeIn for remotely accessing your computer. You can also check out our article on the best scanning apps. The Android Market also features thousands of games including the immensely popular Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. Many of these sites are also some of the best places to get started with android development. Many have tutorials for the aspiring app creator in order to get developers to create more interesting and beneficial apps for their users. And often times the training is completely free.

How to Put Live Wallpapers on the Droid

Google introduced live wallpapers for the Android mobile operating system with the release of Android 2.1 in spring 2010. Live wallpapers are animated, interactive versions of the standard Android background that add a bit of eye candy to your device. The Motorola Droid supports live wallpapers natively and putting new live wallpapers on your device is a simple process that takes only a few moments to complete.

Tap the “Market” icon on your Droid home screen.

Press the search button on your Droid and type “live wallpaper” as your search query.

Review the search results to find live wallpapers that you would like to use on your Droid.

Tap the live wallpaper to view the file details and download the wallpaper to your phone.

Depending on the cost of the live wallpaper, tap either “Install” or “Purchase” to download the live wallpaper from the market to your Droid device.

Press the “Home” button on your Droid.

Long press an empty space on your background until the “Add to Home screen” prompt is displayed.

Tap “Wallpapers.”

Tap “Live wallpapers.”

Tap the live wallpaper you installed from the market to set it as your background.

How to Add Photos on Your Motorola Droid

The Motorola Droid has a beautiful LCD screen capable of showing breathtaking images. Many people enjoy personalizing their Droids by copying pictures of their family and friends onto their phone and selecting the photos as their wallpaper. Personalize your Droid with your favorite photo, and enjoy how it is displayed on the Droid’s LCD.

Make sure you have a microSD memory card installed that is big enough to support the amount of pictures you want to copy onto your Motorola Droid.

Power on your Droid. Once it is up and running, connect the Droid to your computer. Plug it into a USB cable, and then plug the USB cable into your computer.

Select “Menu” on the Droid’s keypad.

Select “Notifications.”

Select “USB Connected.”

Select “Mount.”

Go to “Start,” “My Computer” and open the Motorola Droid’s storage drive.

Select the photos you want to transfer from your computer to your Droid by highlighting and dragging them to the Droid’s “Download” folder. This works both ways, and you can copy pictures you took with your Droid to your computer; they are stored in the “DCIM” folder under “Camera.”

Wait for the file transfer to complete and disconnect your Droid from its USB connection to the computer.

Once the USB connection is there, you don’t need to do anything else on the Droid until the transfer is complete.