A new Gingerbread update to version 2.3.4 began rolling out on August 18 for devices like the HTC Sensation 4G and the HTC Evo 3D. Of the numerous changes made to android, which can be found here, there was a feature that was not listed on any of the websites that I perused, namely the ability to take a screenshot with the touch of a button (or 2, as the case may be). Let me show you how this works.
Native Screenshots
I discovered this quite by accident a few days after I received the OTA update. I was sitting at dinner with my parents, and some of my dad’s co-workers, and as I was pulling out my phone and going to the home screen I saw the following message: “screenshot saved to Camera shots”
I was confused, as the only way that I knew of to capture screenshots on an Android phone involved rooting, a 3rd party app, and a USB connection to your computer or Wi-Fi. No matter what I tried after that, though, I couldn’t seem to find the magical button combination that would allow me to recreate what had happened seemingly at random.
Several days later, when it happened again, I was able to deduce the secret. Press the power button then tap the home button, that simple. You need to tap the home button before the menu for powering off your android device appears. Your screen will flash and you will see the message that the screenshot has been saved. That’s it! Tap two buttons and you have a screenshot from anywhere! No need to be stuck at your computer when you feel the burning desire to share someone’s predictive text mishaps.
The screenshots are stored in the camera shots section of your gallery. This has been confirmed to work on the European and US versions of the HTC Sensation 4G and the HTC Evo 3D, as well as the Nexus One and Nexus S 4G.
For any of you rooted folks running a build of 2.3.4, I’d be very interested to know if this works for you, as well.
