Using the HTC Desire

Last week I received an HTC Desire running Andriod 2.1 from Orange in the UK. It took me (and is still taking me) a while to understand how to use it properly. This article is intended to help others who are new to Andriod phones.

Questions and answers

How do I start the screensaver?

Tap the power button.

How do I stop the screensaver (wake the phone)?

Tap the power button the flick downwards on the bottom third of the screen. This is not as simple as the iPhone's single swipe and I don't think you can easily change it.

How do I view all active/recent applications? How do I switch between active applications?

Press and hold the Home button.

How do I kill or close an application?

Android applications are supposed to run until the operating system requires the memory in which case it will close the application. For more information see this introduction to application lifecycles. If you want to save battery power, just make sure that mobile networking, WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth are turned off. You can turn all these off by: clicking on the up-arrow icon (to see all apps); clicking on Settings; then Wireless & networks; and making sure they are not ticked.

If you really want to kill processes manually, you could try a third party app like TasKiller.

How do I uninstall a pre-installed application?

You can’t. This is frustrating because the apps pre-installed by Orange are rubbish and expensive. If I had wanted to be told which apps I can and can't have, I would have bought an iPhone.

How do I turn GPS etc. off?

Click on the up-arrow icon (to see all apps); then on Settings; then Wireless & networks; and make sure the networking options not ticked.

You can add the switches to your home page as widgets for easier access.

How do I change micro-SD cards?

Connect your phone to a computer using the USB cable.
On the phone, set the connection to the mass storage or disk setting.
Copy the files from the phone's SD card to a folder on your computer desktop.
Use the computer operating system to safely eject/unmount the USB connection.
Unplug the USB.
Turn the phone off.
Take the battery out.
Remove the old SD card.
Insert the new SD card.
Turn the phone on.
Plug the phone into the computer using the USB.
On the phone, set the connection to the mass storage or disk setting.
Copy the files you want from your computer desktop folder to the new SD card.
Use the computer operating system to safely eject/unmount the USB connection.

How do I syncronise music (for example with iTunes)?

You have a few options:

You can use iSyncr to syncronise with iTunes. The songs from the playlists appear on the phone's SD card, and the playlists themselves do, which is great. The first time you synchronise, you might have to wait a minute or two for the playlists to register.
You can replace iTunes and use DoubleTwist.
You can try iTunesAgent but it does not support playlists.

Notes

More information can be found at HTC's Desire support page. The most useful document is the User Manual.

Don't bother using the apps from Orange. They're much worse than the default apps like Google Maps and you have to pay for them. You can normally recognise them because they have a lot of the colour orange in their icons.

Don't even think about opening TrafficTV. Just opening the app once automatically subscribes you to a paid monthly service! It is quite difficult to find how to unsubscribe. I have complained to Orange about this deceitful trick.