Getting to Know Your HTC One
In this chapter, you become familiar with the external features of the HTC One and the basics of getting started with the HTC version of the Android operating system. Topics include the following:
→ Your HTC One’s external features
→ Fundamentals of Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) and HTC Sense 5.0
Let’s start by getting to know more about your HTC One by examining the external features, device features, and how Google’s operating system, Android 4.1.2 (or Jelly Bean) and HTC Sense, works.
One important thing to remember about versions of the Google Android operating system is that Google releases a new version of Android and makes it available to its Nexus line of smartphones and tablets. That version of Android is then taken by different manufacturers and modified (sometimes quite extensively) to differentiate their model of Android smartphone or tablet. Your HTC One is running HTC’s version of Android, which is Android 4.1.2 plus HTC Sense 5.0.
Your HTC One’s External Features
Becoming familiar with the external features of your HTC One is a good place to start because you will be using them often. This chapter also covers some of the technical specifications of your HTC One, including the touchscreen and camera.
Front
Ambient Light sensor—Adjusts the brightness of the screen based on the brightness of the ambient light.
Proximity sensor—Detects when you lift your HTC One to your ear to talk on a call. When it detects this, it turns off the screen and disables touch to prevent accidental actions.
SIM card tray—The SIM card tray is located on the left side of your HTC One. Use the included SIM card tray ejection tool to eject the tray and insert or replace the Micro-SIM card.
Earpiece and left speaker—Hold to your ear when on a phone call. This area also houses the left speaker when playing audio or video.
Notification LED—Positioned on the bottom row of holes, the third hole in, the Notification LED indicates that you have a pending notification (like new SMS, new email, new Facebook update) by flashing green. It also indicates when your HTC One is connected to a power source (computer or power adapter) and the battery is fully charged by showing as solid green. It flashes orange when the battery is very low, and is solid orange when the battery is being charged.
Front camera—2.1 megapixel front-facing camera with a wide angle lens that you can use for video chat, taking self-portraits, and even unlocking your HTC One using your face.
Touchscreen—The HTC One has a 4.7-inch, 1080×1920 pixel Super Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) 3 screen that incorporates capacitive multitouch and is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 2.
Back button—Touch to go back one screen when using an application or menu. This button is touch sensitive and does not require pressure.
Home button—Touch to go to the Home screen. The application that you are using continues to run in the background. This button is touch sensitive and does not require pressure.
Right speaker—This is the right speaker that is used when playing audio or video.
Volume up/down buttons—Located on the right side of your HTC One, these buttons control the audio volume on calls and while playing audio and video.
Back
LED camera flash—Illuminates the area when taking photos or recording video. It has five levels of brightness that are automatically selected based on distance to the people or objects in the frame.
Rear camera—4-megapixel rear-facing camera with a 28mm lens and an aperture of F2.0.
Rear microphone—This microphone works in conjunction with the microphone on the bottom of your HTC One while on phone calls to cancel out any background noise. This microphone is also used when recording videos.
Top
Headphone jack—This is a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack that can be used to plug in headphones and earbuds.
Power button/Infra Red Blaster—Press once to wake your HTC One. While it is still locked, press and hold for six seconds to restart your HTC One. When your HTC One is unlocked, pressing and holding the power button for two seconds reveals a menu of choices. The choices enable you to put your HTC One into airplane mode (all radios off), power off your HTC One, restart it, or enable Kid mode. When in Kid mode, your HTC One will allow access only to age-appropriate games and more. We cover setting up Kid Mode in Chapter 2, “Customizing Your HTC One.” The power button is also an Infrared Blaster, which means that your HTC One can be used as a TV remote control. We cover more on how that works in a later chapter.
Bottom
Micro-USB port—The micro-USB 2.0 Port with Mobile High Definition Video Link (MHL) allows you to charge your HTC One and synchronize media and other files to your computer. It also allows you to plug your HTC One directly into a High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port on your A/V Receiver or TV to watch movies or other content. This requires a special micro-USB to HDMI cable.
Microphone—This microphone is used when you are on the phone.
Other Sensors and Radios
Your HTC One includes a Wi-Fi (WLAN) radio that supports 802.11 a/ac/b/g/n for connecting to your home or office networks or to Wi-Fi hotspots in airports, coffee shops, and even on planes. In addition, it has a Bluetooth V4.0 radio with aptX enabled for connecting Bluetooth accessories, such as headsets. The aptX technology provides a superior audio quality when playing audio using Bluetooth. Your HTC One also includes a Near Field Communications (NFC) radio for mobile payments and swapping information between other Android devices, and a Global Positioning System (GPS) radio for detecting your exact location on planet earth. On the sensor front, it has an accelerometer for detecting movement and a gyroscope for assisting with movement detection and gaming.
First-Time Setup
Before setting up your new HTC One, it is advisable (but not required) that you have a Google account. This is because your HTC One running Android is tightly integrated into Google and enables you to store your content in the Google cloud, including any books and music you buy or movies you rent. If you do not already have a Google account, head to https://accounts.google.com on your desktop computer and sign up for one.
You Need Wi-Fi or Cellular Data to Set Up Your HTC One
You need to be able to connect to a Wi-Fi network or cellular data network when you set up your HTC One.
Set Up Your HTC One Before Taking It Out of the Box
HTC allows you to pre-setup your HTC One using its website (http://start.htcsense.com). Visit the website, and either create a new HTC account for yourself or log in to an existing HTC account. When you are logged in, click Get Started, and you will be taken through a series of steps to choose your HTC phone model. Then you can use pre-setup for many settings and features, including news feeds you want to subscribe to, apps you want to preinstall, sounds and ringtones you want to include or upload, web browser bookmarks to prepopulate, wallpapers, and lock screen configurations. You will also be able to use pre-setup to specify accounts you want on your HTC One, such as Facebook, Twitter, email, and more. After this setup is complete, it will be available to use when you reach step 8 in the following steps, or if your HTC One is already set up, the new setup or changes to the setup will be automatically sent to your HTC One to be applied.
1. Touch and hold the Power button until you see the animation start playing.
2. Swipe the lock icon up to start the setup process.
3. Touch to change your region and language if needed.
4. Touch Start to continue with the setup.
5. Touch the Wi-Fi network you want to connect to; if you don’t want to connect to a Wi-Fi network, touch Next and skip to step 8.
6. Type in the Wi-Fi network password.
7. Touch Connect.
8. Touch to choose Set Up from Scratch.
9. Touch Next.
How Can I Transfer My Old Settings and Content?
If you choose to restore, transfer, or import, you will be able to transfer content and settings from either an older HTC Android smartphone, another Android smartphone running Android version 2.3 (Gingerbread) or newer, an Apple iPhone 3G or newer, a BlackBerry smartphone, and other smartphones, feature phones, and “dumb” phones made by manufacturers such as LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. If you previously set up your HTC One using the HTC Sense UI website (http://start.htcsense.com), you will also be able to download that setup. Finally, you will be able to restore from an HTC backup that was previously made from your old HTC Android smartphone.
Set Up Using Your Computer
If you choose to set up your HTC One using your computer, the process will be very similar to the one described in the earlier margin note titled “Set Up Your HTC One Before Taking It Out of the Box,” but a code will be provided that pairs your HTC One to your HTC account.
11. Check the box if you want apps to be able to download data even when they are inactive.
12. Choose one or more accounts to set up on your HTC One. You can set up these accounts later if you like.
13. Touch Next.
14. Touch Sign in.
What Is Dropbox?
Dropbox is an online service that provides 2 gigabytes of free storage (this is enough to store about 600 pictures or about 500 songs) that you can use to store anything you like. If you invite a friend to Dropbox and the friend signs up, you are given an extra free 500 megabytes. Just for being an HTC customer and buying your HTC One, Dropbox gives you 25 gigabytes free for two years, which is a great deal and provides a huge online, free repository for all your pictures, music, video, HTC backups, and much more.
15. Touch to enable a feature that automatically saves your pictures and videos to your Dropbox account.
16. Check this box if you are okay with Google collecting information about your geographic location at any time. Although Google keeps this information safe, if you are concerned about privacy rights, you should uncheck this box.
17. Check this box if you are okay with Google using your geographic location for Google searches and other Google services such as navigation.
18. Touch to go to the next screen.
19. Choose how you want to synchronize your Facebook friends’ contact pictures, their status, and contact info from Facebook to the Contacts app on your HTC One. You can also choose not to synchronize this info.
20. Touch to go to the next screen.
21. Choose how you want to log in to your HTC account if you chose to synchronize Facebook content in the previous step. You can log in using your HTC Account or your Facebook account.
22. Touch to allow a backup of your HTC One to be saved in your Dropbox account.
23. Enter a name for your HTC One.
24. Touch to choose a method for locking your HTC One, if you want to use a locking method. You can choose from a numeric PIN, an onscreen pattern, a password, or you can use your face to unlock your phone. You can also choose to use no lock method.
25. Touch to start using your HTC One.
Fundamentals of Android 4.1.2 and HTC Sense UI
Your HTC One is run by an operating system called Android. Android was created by Google to run on any tablet or smartphone, and quite a few tablets and smartphones run on Android today. Your HTC One uses a recent version of Android, called Android 4.1.2 (or Jelly Bean), in conjunction with modifications that HTC has made to Android, which it calls HTC Sense UI. Let’s go over how to use Android 4.1.2 and HTC Sense UI.
The Lock Screen
If you haven’t used your HTC One for a while, the screen goes blank to conserve battery power. Here is how to interact with the Lock screen.
1. Press the Power button to wake up your HTC One.
2. Slide the padlock icon up to unlock your HTC One.
3. Slide the Phone icon up to unlock your HTC One and launch the Phone app.
4. Slide the Messages icon up to unlock your HTC One and launch the Text Messages app.
5. Slide the Globe icon up to unlock your HTC One and launch the web browser app.
6. Slide the Camera icon up to unlock your HTC One and launch the Camera app.
7. Touch to clear all notifications.
8. Touch to go to Settings on your HTC One.
Work with Notifications on the Lock Screen
With Android 4.1, you can work with notifications right on the lock screen. If you see notifications in the Notification bar, pull down the Notification bar to view and clear them. Touching a notification takes you straight to the app that created it. Read more about the Notification bar later in this chapter.
BlinkFeed
BlinkFeed is a feature of your HTC One and provides quick access to the information you are interested in. When you unlock your HTC One, you are taken directly to the BlinkFeed screen.
1. Scroll up to see all feeds in your BlinkFeed.
2. Touch a story to read more about it.
3. Swipe to the right to go to your HTC One’s Home screen.
4. Touch the Phone icon to launch the Phone app.
5. Touch the Messages icon to launch the Text Messaging app.
6. Touch the Launcher icon to go to a list of all apps installed on your HTC One.
7. Touch the Web Browser icon to launch the Web browser.
8. Touch the Camera icon to launch the Camera app.
2. Touch the Menu button to reveal the menu choices.
3. Touch Topics and Services.
4. Check the box next to all services you want to see featured headlines from.
5. Swipe left to choose which services and apps to add to your BlinkFeed.
6. Swipe right to choose the categories you are interested in for your feeds.
7. Touch to return to BlinkFeed.
The Home Screen(s)
After you unlock your HTC One and swipe to the right on the BlinkFeed, you are presented with the main Home screen. Your HTC One has two Home screens (you can add more). The Home screens contain application shortcuts, a Launcher icon, Notification bar, Shortcuts, Favorites tray, and widgets.
Notification bar—The Notification bar shows information about Bluetooth, Near Field Communications (NFC), Wi-Fi, and cellular coverage, as well as your Sound Profile, the battery level, and time. The Notification bar also serves as a place where apps can alert or notify you using notification icons.
Notification icons—Notification icons appear in the Notification bar when an app needs to alert or notify you of something. For example, the Phone app can show the missed call icon, indicating that you missed a call.
Working with Notifications
To interact with notifications that appear in the Notification bar, place your finger above the top of the screen and drag it down to reveal the notifications. Swipe each individual notification off the screen to the left or right to clear them one by one. Using two fingers, drag down on a notification to expand it.
Widgets—Widgets are applications that run right on the Home screens. They are specially designed to provide functionality and real-time information. An example of a widget is one that shows the current weather or provides search capabilities. You can move and resize widgets.
App shortcut—Touching an app shortcut launches the associated app.
Creating App Shortcuts
Touch the Launcher icon to see all your apps. Touch and hold on the app you want to make a shortcut for. Drag it up to the word Shortcut on the top left of the screen. Keep holding the icon when the Home screen appears. Drag the app shortcut to where you want it on the Home screen, drag it to an App folder to add it to the folder, or drag it left or right off the screen to move it between Home screens. If you change your mind, just drag the icon to the word Cancel and release it. After you have found a home for your App Shortcut, release the icon.
App Folders—App Folders are groups of apps that you can use to organize apps and declutter your screen.
Creating App Folders
To create a new App Folder, drag one app shortcut onto another one. An App Folder is created automatically. To name your new App Folder, touch the folder to open it and touch the word Folder to enter your own name.
Launcher bar—The Launcher bar is visible on all Home screens and when you touch the Launcher icon. You can drag apps to the Launcher bar so that they are available no matter which Home screen you are looking at. You can rearrange and move apps in the Launcher bar.
Managing the Launcher Bar
The Launcher bar is one of those things that is different from the regular version of Android. The regular version of Android calls this area the Favorites tray, and you can drag apps to it and off it while on the Home screen. However, on your HTC One, you can only drag apps to the Launcher bar and drag apps off it after you first touch the Launcher icon to see all apps.
Launcher icon—Touch to show application icons for all applications that you have installed on your HTC One.
Using Your Touchscreen
Interacting with your HTC One is done mostly by touching the screen—what’s known as making gestures on the screen. You can touch, swipe, pinch, double-tap, and type.
Touch—To start an application, touch its icon. Touch a menu item to select it. Touch the letters of the onscreen keyboard to type.
Touch and hold—Touch and hold to interact with an object. For example, if you touch and hold a blank area of the Home screen, a menu pops up. If you touch and hold an icon, you can reposition it with your finger.
Drag—Dragging always starts with a touch and hold. For example, if you touch the Notification bar, you can drag it down to read all the notification messages.
Swipe or slide—Swipe or slide the screen to scroll quickly. To swipe or slide, move your finger across the screen quickly. Be careful not to touch and hold before you swipe, or you will reposition something. You can also swipe to clear notifications or close apps when viewing the recent apps.
Double-tap—Double-tapping is like double-clicking a mouse on a desktop computer. Tap the screen twice in quick succession. For example, you can double-tap a web page to zoom in to part of that page.
Pinch—To zoom in and out of images and pages, place your thumb and forefinger on the screen. Pinch them together to zoom out or spread them apart (unpinch) to zoom in. Applications such as Browser, Gallery, and Maps support pinching.
Rotate the screen—If you rotate your HTC One from an upright position to being on its left or right side, the screen switches from portrait view to landscape view. Most applications honor the screen orientation. The Home screens and Launcher do not.
If you are familiar with previous versions of Android, you know there used to be a Menu button. This Menu button provided contextual actions for the app you were using. In Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), the Menu button has been moved and is mostly found in the upper right of the screen when it is needed within an app. It can also sometimes be found in the bottom right or elsewhere on the screen as is needed by the app. The Menu button is now three vertical dots.
Using Your Keyboard
Your HTC One has a virtual (onscreen) keyboard for those times when you need to enter text. You might be a little wary of a keyboard that has no physical keys, but you will be pleasantly surprised at how well it works.
Some applications automatically show the keyboard when you need to enter text. If the keyboard does not appear, touch the area where you want to type and the keyboard slides up ready for use.
Keyboard Quick Tips
If you are typing an email address or a website address, the keyboard shows a button labeled .COM. If you touch it, you type .COM, but if you touch and hold it, you can choose between .EDU, .GOV, .ORG, and .NET. If you touch and hold the Return key, the cursor jumps to the next field. This is useful if you are filling out forms on a website or moving between fields in an app. If you touch and hold the microphone key, you can use dictation instead of typing.
Using the virtual keyboard as you type, your HTC One makes word suggestions. Think of this as similar to the spell checker you would see in a word processor. Your HTC One uses a dictionary of words to guess what you are typing. If the word you were going to type is highlighted, touch space or period to select it. If you can see the word in the list but it is not highlighted, touch the word to select it.
Add Your Word
If you type a word that you know is correct, you can add it to your personal dictionary so that next time you type it, your HTC One won’t try to correct it. To do this, after you have typed the word (in this case, we typed “StreetTalk”), you see it as the highlighted word. Touch the word once. Your word is now added to your Personal Dictionary and will be used in the future as you type.
To make the next letter you type a capital letter, touch the Shift key. To make all letters capitals (or Caps), double-tap the Shift key to engage Caps Lock. Touch Shift again to disengage Caps Lock.
To type numbers or symbols, touch the Symbols key.
When on the Numbers and Symbols screen, touch the Symbols key to see extra symbols. Touch the ABC key to return to the regular keyboard.
To enter an accented character, touch and hold any vowel or the C, N, or S keys. A small window opens, enabling you to select an accented or alternative character. Slide your finger over the accented character and lift your finger to type it.
To reveal other alternative characters, touch and hold any other letter, number, or symbol.
Want a Larger Keyboard?
Turn your HTC One sideways to switch to a landscape keyboard. The landscape keyboard has larger keys and is easier to type on.
Instead of typing on the keyboard in the traditional way by touching each letter individually, you can swipe over the letters in one continuous movement. This is called Continuous Input. It is enabled by default so to use it just start swiping your finger over the letters of the word you want to type. Lift your finger after each word. No need to worry about spaces because your HTC One will add them for you. To type a double letter (like in the word hello), loop around that letter on the keyboard. As you swipe over the letters, a yellow trail will follow.
Dictation: Speak Instead of Typing
Your HTC One can turn your voice into text. It uses Google’s speech recognition service, which means that you must have a connection to the cellular network or a Wi-Fi network to use it.
1. Touch and hold the microphone key, releasing it when you see the microphone icon appear.
2. Wait until you see Speak Now and then start saying what you want to be typed. You can speak the punctuation by saying “comma,” “question mark,” “exclamation mark,” or “exclamation point.”
3. Touch to return to the regular keyboard after you have stopped speaking for a few seconds.
Editing Text
After you enter text, you can edit it by cutting, copying, or pasting the text. Here is how to select and copy text and then paste over a word with the copied text.
1. While you are typing, touch and hold a word you want to copy.
2. If you want to select more text, slide the blue end markers until you have selected all of the text you want to copy.
3. Touch to copy the text.
4. Touch and hold the word you want to paste over.
5. Touch Paste.
Simpler Copy/Paste
You might want to copy some text and paste it somewhere else, instead of pasting it over a word. To do this, after you have copied the text, touch once in the text area, and then move the single blue marker to where you want to paste the text. Touch the blue marker again and touch Paste.
Menus
Your HTC One has two types of menus: Regular menus and Context menus. Let’s go over what each one does.
Most applications have a Menu button (menu). This enables you to make changes or take actions within that application. The Menu button should always appear in the top right of an app; however, it can sometimes appear in the bottom right, or elsewhere in the app.
A Context menu applies to an item on the screen. If you touch and hold something on the screen (in this example, a web link in an email), a Context menu appears. The items on the Context menu differ based on the type of object you touched.
Switching Between Apps
Unlike other Android devices, your HTC One does not have a Recent Apps button; however, you can still access the Recent Apps list where you can switch between apps, close apps, and force them to quit if they have stopped responding. Here is how:
1. Double-tap the Home button.
2. Touch an app to switch to it.
3. Swipe an app up off the screen to close it.
Installing Synchronization Software
Because your HTC One is tightly integrated with Google and its services, all media that you purchase on your tablet is stored in the Google cloud and accessible anywhere and anytime. However, you might have a lot of music on your computer already that you need to copy to your Google cloud. If so, you need to install the Google Music Manager software.
HTC Sync Manager
Although Google does provide its free cloud service so you can keep all of your music, music, and pictures in Google’s cloud, you may not want to use it, or it may not be available in your country. As an alternative, you can install HTC Sync Manager on your computer, which will allow you to synchronize content between your computer and your HTC One without needing to use the Google cloud. HTC Sync Manager also allows you to move information from your old phone to your HTC One. To download and install HTC Sync Manager, visit www.htc.com/www/software/htc-sync-manager/ on your computer.
Installing Google Music Manager (Apple Mac)
Don’t install Google Music Manager unless you plan to upload files from your computer to the Google Music cloud.
1. Visit https://play.google.com/music/listen#manager_pl from your desktop web browser and log in to your Google account if prompted.
2. Click to download Music Manager.
3. Click the downloads icon to reveal your downloaded files.
4. Double-click the musicmanager.dmg in your Safari Downloads.
5. Drag the Music Manager icon to the Applications shortcut to install the app.
6. Double-click the Music Manager icon in the Applications folder.
7. Skip to the “Configuring Music Manager” section later in the chapter to complete the installation.
Installing Google Music Manager (Windows)
Don’t install Google Music Manager unless you plan to upload files from your computer to the Google Music cloud.
1. Visit https://music.google.com/music/listen#manager_pl from your desktop web browser and log in to your Google account if prompted.
2. Click to download Music Manager.
3. Double-click the musicmanagerinstaller app in your Downloads folder.
4. See the “Configuring Music Manager” section later in the chapter to complete the installation.
2. Enter your Google (Gmail) email address.
3. Enter your Google (Gmail) password.
4. Click Continue.
5. Choose where you keep your music.
6. Click Continue.
7. Choose whether to upload all your music or just some of your playlists. Remember that you can upload only 20,000 songs for free. Skip to step 12 if you choose to upload all music.
8. Check if you want to also upload podcasts.
9. Click Continue.
10. Select one or more playlists of music.
11. Click Continue.
12. Choose whether you want to automatically upload any new music that is added to your computer.
14. Click Close.
