YouTube Video Quality
I think everyone has seen the Verizon commercial that shows a high quality video playing on the Motorola Droid. The first thing that crossed my mind was I want that! So I started digging around to figure out how to do it. If you’re not a person that likes to dig into menus or sub menus, you may never find the option to change the YouTube app to display high quality video. I’ve done the work for you and now I am going to share my results along with a few more tips and tricks.
In order to change this setting you must be playing a YouTube video. After clicking play on the video, do the following:
Menu | More | Watch in high quality
* You do not have to wait for the video to start playing before you adjust the video quality setting
Hide the Virtual Keyboard
Every once in a while the virtual keyboard may appear when it is not needed. It could be the result of you clicking on a text field or just a failure of it to hide at the proper time. There are multiple ways to hide the keyboard.
- Use the swiping gesture on the keyboard. Swipe your finger down on the keyboard for it to hide.
- Click the back button and the keyboard will hide
- Click on another non text field location for the keyboard to hide.
I have used the swipe gesture to hide my keyboard for some time now, but while on vacation I was showing a couple tips to another Droid user and he was floored when I did this. The funny fact is that was not a tip I was trying to show. I just assumed swipe down to hide was common knowledge.
Home Screen Folders
My wife has the Droid Eris and to be honest, sometimes I am jealous of the 7 home screens she has compared to my 3 home screens. I considered using Panda Home but instead started using Folders. For example I have a folder on my home screen Music and it contains all my music apps like Pandora. Adding a folder to your home screen is simple.
1. Press and hold on the home screen or Press Menu Add
2. Select the Folders Menu option
3. Select New Folder
Now you have a new empty folder called Folder. Drag and drop your shortcuts to the folder. When you click on a folder it is almost identical to having additional home screens. If you have added multiple folders each will be named Folder. Go to the next tip to learn how to rename your folders….
Rename Folders
Once I created my folder the first question I had was how to rename it. With the folder opened just press and hold the window title bar until the Rename folder dialog appears. For me, the combination of Folders and Renaming folders addressed the issues that had me considering Panda home.
Downloaded Apps
I almost feel ashamed to call this a tip but, I have had this question asked several times recently. If you want to know what you have downloaded to your phone via the Android Market just open the Market and click Menu | Downloads. Usually you see this list when an application updates but never again.
Stop forgetting Search
We are all to quick to forget the built in search button. Keep in mind it is context sensitive thus:
- If you click search in Gmail you get the Gmail Search dialog
- If you click search on a home screen you get the phone wide search
- If you click search in just about any app you the the apps search
Notification Overload
If your dealing with application notification overload or just and inability to distinguish an alert in GMail or Twidroid, when in the app click menu | settings and find both notification or ringtones. Here you can make the necessary adjustments. For example you can tell Twidroid to only notify for Direct Messages. Another option would be to select a different notification tone for specific apps such as Twidroid.
