Tips and Tricks

Default apps: When you install multiple apps that fulfill the same role, such as multiple home screens or multiple web browsers, then Android might sometimes ask you which app you want to open. For example, when you press the Home button, but you have two Home screen apps, it will ask you which one you want. There's also a checkbox where you can set that app as the default, so it won't ask you again. The other app will still be there, but it won't open unless you specifically open it yourself. To reset the defaults, just open Settings, Application settings, Manage Applications, and click on the application that's the default now, and you'll get an option to make it not the default anymore.

Shortcuts: You can assign Search key + any letter on your keyboard to opening an app of your choice. It's in Settings, under the Applications section.

Toggle silent mode in the lock screen: When your phone is locked, you use a swipe gesture from left to right to unlock it. If you swipe from right to left, you can toggle silent mode on and off. TalkBack will announce the mode change if you do this successfully.

Turn off features you don't need: If you're not going to be using the display, you can save battery by reducing the brightness to the lowest setting and turning off animations. You can find both of these in the Display section of Settings. You may also want to turn off auto-rotating the screen.

TTS Extended lets you access advanced TTS features on older Android versions: You shouldn't download this if you have Android 2.2 or later. But if you have Android 2.1 or earlier, TTS Extended will allow many applications to speak using additional voices other than the built-in voice, and it gives you more options for controlling speech.

The Music app is accessible: When playing a song, either click or press the spacebar to play or pause. To skip to another track, press left or right. To seek within a track, hold down the left or right keys.

Sliders are not very accessible: If you encounter a slider or seek control, unfortunately it's not accessible. This is a known bug that will be fixed in a future version of Android. However, the control does actually move if you press the left or right arrows, there's just no way to get feedback as to the current position. Still, if it's very important to adjust something, you can always manipulate it blind and check to see if it had an effect some other way.

Turn off Gmail syncing if you don't need it: Since Gmail isn't accessible, there's no need to sync it. Go to the Accounts & Sync section in the Settings to stop syncing your Gmail email. You may want to keep syncing contacts and other Google data, though, since those are accessible. Note that you can still read your email from Gmail using a different accessible email program - you just can't use the built-in Gmail-only app.

Many apps have tabs across the top of the screen: Don't forget to check the two-dimensional layout of the screen as you're exploring.

Android has several keyboard shortcuts: Many of the text-editing keystrokes you're used to in a desktop computer will work on an Android device with a keyboard. For example, hold down Shift while moving the directional controller to select text, and press Alt+X to cut, Alt+C to copy, and Alt+V to paste in any text box. In addition, press Alt+Up to move to the top of a box and Alt+Down to move to the bottom. This also works in lists, not just in text boxes.