Chapter 2. Customizing Your HTC One
In this chapter, you learn how to customize your HTC One to suit your needs and lifestyle. Topics include the following:
→ Wallpapers and live wallpapers
→ Sound and display settings
→ Setting region and language
→ Kid Mode
Your HTC One arrives preconfigured to appeal to most buyers; however, you might want to change the way some of the features work, or even personalize it to fit your mood or lifestyle. Luckily, your HTC One is customizable.
Change Your Wallpaper
Your HTC One comes preloaded with a cool wallpaper. You can install other wallpapers, use live wallpapers that animate, and even use pictures in the Gallery application as your wallpaper.
1. Pull down the Notification bar and touch the Settings icon.
2. Touch Personalize.
3. Touch Wallpaper.
4. Touch the type of wallpaper you want to use. Use the steps in one of the following three sections to select your wallpaper.
1. Select the photo you want to use as your wallpaper.
2. Move the crop box to the part of the photo you want to use.
3. Adjust the size of the crop box to include the part of the photo you want.
4. Touch Done to use the cropped portion of the photo as your wallpaper.
Live Wallpaper
Live wallpaper is wallpaper with some intelligence behind it. It can be a cool animation, an animation that keys off things such as the music you are playing on your HTC One, or it can be something simple, such as the time. There are some very cool live wallpapers in Google Play that you can install and use.
1. Touch the live wallpaper you want to use. In this example, we will use the ST: Red Alert Live Wallpaper.
2. Touch to see and change the live wallpaper settings, if it has settings to change.
3. Touch Set Wallpaper to use the live wallpaper.
Find More Wallpaper
You can find wallpaper or live wallpaper in Google Play. Open Google Play and search for “wallpaper” or “live wallpaper.” Read more on how to use Google Play in Chapter 11, “Working with Android Applications.”
1. Swipe left and right to see all the wallpapers.
2. Touch a wallpaper to preview it.
3. Touch Apply to use the wallpaper.
Changing Your Keyboard
If you find it hard to type on the standard HTC One keyboard, or you just want to make it look better, you can install replacement keyboards. You can download free keyboards or purchase replacement ones from Google Play. Make sure you install a keyboard before following these steps.
1. Touch Settings.
3. Touch to flip the switch to On next to the keyboard you have previously installed from the Google Play store (in this example, we used GO Keyboard) to make that keyboard available for use.
4. Touch the name of the keyboard to start the keyboard’s custom installation process.
Do Your Research
When you choose a different keyboard in step 3, the HTC One does not warn you that nonstandard keyboards have the potential for capturing everything you type, but the truth is that they do. Do your research on any keyboards before you download and install them.
5. Touch Step2:switch to GO Keyboard.
6. Touch the name of your new keyboard to select it.
What Can You Do with Your New Keyboard
Keyboards you buy in Google Play can do many things. They can change the key layout, change the color and style of the keys, offer different methods of text input, and even enable you to use an old T9 predictive input keyboard that you may have become used to when using an old “dumb phone” that only had a numeric keypad.
Adding Widgets to Your Home Screens
Some applications that you install come with widgets that you can place on your Home screens. These widgets normally display real-time information, such as stocks, weather, time, and Facebook feeds. Your HTC One also comes preinstalled with some widgets. Here is how to add and manage widgets.
Adding a Widget
Your HTC One should come pre-installed with some widgets, but you might also have some extra ones that have been added when you installed other applications. Here is how to add those widgets to your Home screens.
1. Touch and hold in an open area on your Home screen.
2. Touch the drop-down menu and choose Widgets.
3. Touch and hold a widget to select it. Keep holding the widget as you move to step 4. In this example, we are using the Calendar widget.
4. Drag the widget to the Home screen panel you want to place it on.
5. Drag the widget to where you want to position it on the Home screen panel.
6. Release your finger to place the widget. Some widgets ask you a few questions after they are positioned.
How Many Widgets Can I Fit?
Each part of the Home screen is divided into four blocks across and four blocks down. When you see the list of widgets, you’ll notice that each one shows its size in blocks across and down. From that, you can prejudge if a widget will fit on the screen you want it to be on, but it also helps you position it in step 4.
Some widgets can be resized. To resize a widget, touch and hold the widget until you see an outline, and then release it. If the widget can be resized, you will see the resizing borders. Drag them to resize the widget. Touch anywhere on the screen to stop resizing.
Edit or Move a Widget
Sometimes you want to remove a widget or edit its configuration. Here is how:
1. Touch and hold the widget until you see a blue shadow, but continue to hold the widget.
2. Drag the widget to the word Remove to remove it.
3. Drag the widget to the word Edit to change the widget’s settings.
4. Release the widget.
System Language
If you move to another country or want to change the language used by your HTC One, you can do so with a few touches.
1. Pull down the Notification bar and touch Settings.
2. Touch Language & Keyboard.
3. Touch System Language.
4. Touch the language you want to switch to.
What Obeys the Language Setting?
When you switch your HTC One to use a different language, you immediately notice that all standard applications and the HTC One menus switch to the new language. Even some third-party applications honor the language switch. However, many third-party applications ignore the language setting on the HTC One. So, you might open a third-party application and find that all of its menus are still in English.
Accessibility Settings
Your HTC One includes built-in settings to assist people who might otherwise have difficulty using some features of the device. The HTC One has the capability to provide alternative feedback, such as vibration, sound, and even the speaking of menus.
1. Pull down the Notification bar and touch Settings.
3. Touch to enable or disable TalkBack. When enabled, TalkBack speaks everything, including menus.
4. Touch to set the font size used on your HTC One. You can choose sizes ranging from tiny to huge.
5. Touch to choose whether to use the power button to end calls.
6. Touch to enable automatic screen rotation. When disabled, the screen will not rotate between portrait and landscape modes.
7. Touch to enable or disable the feature where your HTC One speaks your passwords as you type them.
8. Touch to enable or disable showing the magnifier when selecting text.
When you enable the Show Magnifier option, anytime you select text on the screen, and you move the blue markers (known as anchors) to select more or less text, the text around the marker you are moving will be magnified to make it easier to see what text you are selecting.
9. Scroll down for more settings.
10. Touch to choose which text-to-speech service to use (Google or ones you have installed from the Google Play store), and rate of the speech.
11. Touch to set the touch and hold delay, which is the amount of time your HTC One will wait between when you touch something on the screen and the time it decides you are trying to perform a touch-and-hold gesture.
12. Touch to allow or disallow websites from installing scripts on your HTC One to make accessing their website more accessible.
13. Touch to save your settings and return to the previous screen.
More About Text-to-Speech
By default, your HTC One uses the Google Text-to-Speech service to speak any text that you need to read. You can install other text-to-speech software by searching for them in the Google Play store. After they are installed, they will show as a choice in step 10.
Sound Settings
You can change the volume for games, ringtones, and alarms, change the default ringtone and notification sound, and you can control what system sounds are used.
1. Pull down the Notification bar and touch Settings.
2. Touch to enable or disable Beats Audio.
What Is Beats Audio and Can I Control the EQ?
Beats Audio is functionality built in to your HTC One that has preset Equalizer (EQ) settings to make audio sound great on the front-facing BoomSound speakers. Your only option is to turn Beats Audio on or off, and you have no way to change many EQ settings to fine-tune the sound to your taste. If you want to go beyond how Beats Audio sets the EQ settings, try downloading an app like Equalizer (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartandroidapps.equalizer) from Google Play. It provides access to the built-in Android settings that go beyond what Beats Audio offers. Or if you like the way your audio sounds out of the box, leave Beats Audio enabled.
3. Touch Sound.
4. Touch to choose the Sound Profile to use. You can choose between Normal, Vibrate, and Silent.
5. Touch to change the volume levels for games and media, such as videos and music, ringtones and notifications, and alarms.
6. Touch to choose whether your HTC One must vibrate when a phone call you have made connects.
7. Touch to choose the default notification ringtone or add new ones.
8. Touch to choose if the volume of the ringtone should get softer when it detects you picking up your HTC One.
9. Touch to choose if you want the ringtone volume to be increased if your HTC One detects it is in your pocket or in a bag.
10. Touch to change the sound that plays when you receive a new notification.
11. Scroll down for more settings.
12. Touch to choose what sounds play when the alarm is triggered.
13. Touch to choose whether touch tone sounds are used when using the phone dial pad.
14. Touch to choose whether a sound is played when you touch items on the screen.
15. Touch to choose whether a sound is played when you lock and unlock your HTC One.
16. Touch to choose whether a sound is played when you receive updated content, like news feeds.
17. Touch to choose whether your HTC One provides a short vibration when you successfully touch a virtual button on the screen.
18. Touch to save your changes and return to the previous screen.
Display, Gestures, and Buttons Settings
1. Pull down the Notification bar and touch Settings.
2. Touch Display, Gestures & Buttons.
3. Touch to enable or disable autorotate, which is when your HTC One uses the acceleromoter to detect its orientation and rotate the screen to match it.
4. Touch to choose the font size of all text. Choices range from Small to Extra Large.
5. Touch to change the screen brightness manually or set it to automatic. When on automatic, your HTC One uses the built-in light sensor to adjust the brightness based on the light levels in the room.
6. Touch to choose a sleep timeout or use Auto.
How Does Sleep Timeout Work?
In step 6, you can choose the sleep timeout or leave it set to Auto. This means that you can choose a period of time to elapse of no usage before your HTC One turns the screen off and goes to sleep. If you set it to Auto, your HTC One uses its internal sensors to detect if you are holding it in your hand. If it detects that you are holding it in your hand, it waits for one minute of no activity before putting itself to sleep. If it detects that it is lying on a desk, it puts itself to sleep after only 15 seconds.
7. Touch to choose which notifications the LED will flash for.
8. Touch to set the double-click speed for the Home and Back buttons. This really should read “double-tap speed” because it refers to the period in-between taps when you want to double-tap the Home or Back buttons. Refer to the Prologue to read why you would want to double-tap these buttons.
9. Touch to choose whether you want to allow apps to recognize the special HTC three-finger gestures. Disable if you have games or other apps that use three or more finger gestures or controls.
What Is the Three-Finger Gesture?
Actually there is only one three-finger gesture, and it is for sharing media content with speakers and other devices using DLNA. If you want to send media to another device that is using DLNA, swipe up on the screen with three fingers. The only issue with enabling this gesture is that it interferes or overrides the regular gesture recognition mechanism, which means that if you use apps or games that use three or more fingers for gestures or controls, they will not work. You will need to turn off the HTC gestures to regain use of those apps or games.
10. Scroll down to calibrate the G-Sensor.
The G-Sensor is the Gyroscope. It detects spatial movement, and it is the primary way your HTC One detects whether you are holding your device vertically or horizontally. If it detects a switch, it rotates the screen to match. If you are finding that the screen rotation is not working properly or not at all, you can calibrate the Gyroscope, or G-Sensor.
11. Touch to calibrate the G-Sensor.
12. Touch to save your changes and return to the previous screen.
Kid Mode
Your HTC One has a built-in feature that allows you to put it into Kid Mode. While in Kid Mode, your HTC One will not allow visits to non-age-appropriate websites and allows access only to the games and apps that you have set up for them.
First-Time Setup
1. Touch the Kid Mode icon.
3. Enter your email address.
4. Type a password that you want to use when setting up and configuring Kid Mode.
5. Touch Save.
6. Type the name of your child.
7. Choose your child’s birth month and year.
8. Touch to add a picture of your child if you want to.
9. Touch Done.
10. Touch to edit the list of apps your child has access to.
11. Touch to turn on Child Lock (or enable Kid Mode).
12. Touch Begin to start enabling Kid Mode.
13. Select Kid Mode.
14. Touch Always to complete the enablement of Kid Mode.
15. Your child will touch on his or her picture to open content specific to them.
How Do I Start Kid Mode in the Future?
Each time you run Kid Mode, you will need to perform only steps 12 to 15. Steps 12 to 15 tell your HTC One that the Kid Mode app should take over control of your phone and even control what happens when you touch the Home button.
Give Control Back to HTC Sense
When you exit Kid Mode, you are again prompted to choose which app should now take over control of your HTC One. You must always choose HTC Sense and touch Always, unless you have been told otherwise. In this example, I have installed Divide, which I use for my work email. Divide is one of those apps that must be in control of your device, so I would choose Divide and touch Always.
Further Kid Mode Configuration
You can use your desktop computer to browse to http://Zoodles.com to log in to your Zoodles account and manage Zoodle. You can also use the Parent Dashboard app to set up many of the features right from your HTC One.
1. Touch Parent Dashboard.
2. Choose one of the basic features to configure.
3. Choose one of the premium features to configure.
4. Touch to exit the Parent Dashboard.
