Smartphones And Mobiles
35 HTC One tips and tricks
 
Introduction
The HTC One  is the most desirable new phone in the world right now. Metal-bodied,  great-looking and a seriously powerful gadget, this is the mobile that  could turn things around for HTC.
Interface
How to change keyboardsOne  of the few software criticisms we made about the HTC One was that its  keyboard isn?t exactly the slickest in town. However, one of the neatest  bits of Android is that you can swap-out things like keyboards. The  first thing to do is to head to the Play Store to find your perfect  Android keyboard. The most popular third-party one is Swiftkey. 
Once  you?ve downloaded your keyboard, you need to select it to act as your  main keyboard within the Settings menu, from the Language & Keyboard  submenu. However, many third-party keyboard apps have their own setup  wizards anyway.
Enabling Swype-style input on the keyboardThere  are ways to customise the standard HTC keyboard too, though. The most  important is gesture-based input, which we find speeds-up typing no end.  Instead of tapping away on keys, you draw a line between the characters  and the HTC One calculates which word you want. It works a charm too.  To turn this mode on, go to the HTC Sense Input menu within Settings  > Language & Keyboard and tick the Trace Keyboard checkbox.
How to customise the apps menuThe  HTC One lets you fiddle with the look of the apps menu a little. You  can choose how icons are organised, and how many appear in each row. As  standard, it displays just three in each row for a chilled, spread out  look. To bump this up to four, drag the apps ?scroll? down to reveal the  app menu?s Settings bar. Tap the 3-pip icon and you?ll see an option  for Grid Size. The organisation options are found in the drop-down menu  to the left of the 3-pip button. 
How to change icons in the HTC Sense dockThe  easiest-to-access app shortcuts of all are those in the shortcut dock,  which stays on-screen in both the apps menu and your home screens. You  can choose what?s in this dock on the apps screen. Just hold a finger  down on an icon, whether in the dock or not, until the screen zooms out a  little then drag it on, or off, the bar.  
You can add app folders to the Sense dockFolder  functionality lets you keep boxes of apps on the apps menu ? just like  those of the iPhone iOS software. These folders can sit in the main  shortcut dock just like a single app shortcut. They?re added in the same  way too.
How to take a screen grabUnlike  most older Android phones, the HTC makes it dead simple to take a  picture of whatever?s on-screen. It?s the perfect way to capture an  amazing score in a game that doesn?t have some of form of brag function  as standard. To take a grab, press the power button and the Home soft  key at the same time. The pic will be then saved to the phone?s gallery.
Installing a custom UIDo  you outright hate the Sense UI? Do not fret as you can swap it out for  another one. Whenever you press the Home button, it?s actually directing  you to a home screen ?app?. Install another and you?ll get the option  to be directed to one other than HTC?s. Top candidates include Nova  Launcher and ADW.Launcher. To find a bunch, just search for ?Launcher?  in the Play Store. 
Adding widgets to a home screenHere?s  a nice basic one that most of you probably know already. To add a  widget to a home screen, just find a bit of empty space on a screen and  hold a finger down on it. This will bring up the widget control panel.  Two-thirds of the screen will be made up of a box of widgets, with the  other bit left for teeny versions of your homes screens, onto which you  can drag widgets.
How to customise the lock screenThe  HTC One lets you control what your phone?s lock screen looks like, but  you don?t do this from the lock screen itself. Instead, dive into the  Personlize menu within Settings. Here you?ll find options for home  screens that incorporate music players, your calendar or photo album.  You can even turn off the lock screen entirely.
Modifying LED notificationsA  neat little hardware feature that barely gets any attention is the HTC  One?s LED notification light, which sits behind the top speaker grille.  You can control which types of notifications earn the notification LED  flash within Settings > Display, Gestures & Buttons >  Notification Flash. You can?t control its colour though, sadly.
BlinkFeed
How to get rid of BlinkfeedYou  can?t get rid of Blinkfeed entirely on the HTC One. HTC is clearly that  bit too proud of it. However, you can hide it from view. To do this,  you need to create another home screen to use as the face of your phone.  HTC veterans may want to include the classic HTC clock, which you?ll  find in the HTC One?s treasure trove of widgets. 
Next we need to  set this screen as the default home screen. Hold a finger down on an  empty bit of home screen, waiting until the widget drop screen pops up.  At the top of this screen you?ll see teeny versions of your home  screens. Hold a finger down on one of these and a Set as Home Screen  option will appear. Tap it and Blinkfeed will be gone. Well, more or  less. 
Adding sources to BlinkfeedLike  Blinkfeed? It works best if you customise it with the sorts of info you  want ? whether that?s tweets, Facebook updates or articles from the  internet. To do this, head to your Blinkfeed home page and drag down on  its panels to reveal the settings bar. The triple dot button here takes  you to an area where you can add Blinkfeed sources, while the drop-down  bar to the left lets you pick between types of active source.
Camera
The filter button The  HTC One?s camera filters selection is so up-front that it?s actually  pretty easy to miss. The filters button is the icon that looks a bit  like a colour venn diagram, sitting below the camera/video select  buttons within the camera app. HTC offers a bunch of filters, including  creative ones like a distorting warp and customisable vignetting. 
How to turn on Zoe ModeZoe  mode is one of the key features of the HTC One. It takes a short video  clip that can also be sliced up into twenty still images. One of the  neatest parts of Zoe mode is that once it?s shared through HTC Share, a  short URL is produced that makes sharing the video with friends dead  simple.  It also allows re-touching, including removing objects from the  video. We?ve had trouble getting this to work properly, but you can  find the feature by inspecting a Zoe vid in the gallery, tapping Edit  and then Retouch. You?ll find Object Removal in this menu.
Best settings for general useTo  get photos with the most detail, we recommend at least trying out using  HDR as your go-to photo mode. HDR stands of High Dynamic range, and it  combines three exposures to eke out as much detail as possible. As the  HTC One is so powerful, the processing only takes a second or two ? it  doesn?t slow you down too much. Unfortunately, we can?t see any way to  get the HTC One to save both standard and HDR shots at the same time, as  you can with an iPhone. 
How to auto upload photos to FlickrIf  you?re a big photo sharer, you can set the HTC One to automatically  upload your songs to the ?net. You?ll find this option right down the  bottom of the camera app?s Settings menu. As standard, the only option  is to upload to Flickr for HTC Sense. 
Wireless camera shutterA  neat hidden feature of the HTC One is that you can use a Bluetooth  headset to take photos you?re when within the camera app. Hold down the  central button on your remote and the camera will take a shot.
Audio
When to use Beats Audio Beats Audio is  a signal processing mode that?s used in a fistful of HTC phones. It?s  designed to mimic the style of the Beats by Dre headphones ? that means a  lot of bass for that booming club sound. It works wonders on the  internal speakers of the phone, cutting out the harsh mids, but with a  decent pair of headphones you?re best off without it unless you have a  craving for more bass. 
How to turn off Beats AudioDon?t  like the sound of Beats Audio? You can switch it off ? as standard I?ll  turn on automatically when you play music. You?ll find the switch for  the feature on the top layer of the settings menu, under the Phone  subhead.
Quick music navigationIf you have a big music collection on your HTC One,  flicking through all your tracks or albums can be laborious. To make it  quicker, use a two-fingered scroll. This cycles through letters of the  alphabet rather than entry-by-entry. 
Video
How to play any video on the HTC One The  integrated video player of the HTC One offers much less than flawless  video codec support. If you have a library of videos downloaded from the  net, many of them probably won?t play. To fill the gaps you?ll need a  third-party app, preferably one with its own hardware acceleration. Our  go-to pick is mxplayer.
How to transmit video to a TVThe  HTC One does not have a dedicated video output socket. However, there  are a few different ways to get your videos over from the phone to your  TV. The neatest of the lot requires a special accessory, the HTC Media  Link, a box that connects to your TV. This lets you swipe any content  over to your TV using a three-fingered swipe. Alternatively, the  microUSB socket on the phone is MHL compliant, letting you use it as an  HDMI port with the right connector. You'll find these online.
Hardware
How to reset the accelerometer/gyroscopeThis  is one most of you shouldn?t really need, but is useful if you find  accelerometer games are way out of whack. You can re-calibrate the  accelerometer and gyroscope manually ? these sensors can tell what angle  the HTC One is being held at. The calibration works much like a spirit  level, and is the G-Sensor Calibration option within Settings >  Display, Gestures & Buttons. You?ll find it right down at the bottom  of the menu.
One way to diagnose touchscreen issuesIf  your HTC One?s touchscreen has gone a bit dodgy, you can try to  diagnose the problem using the phone?s Developer Mode. This is a set of  options you?ll find in the Developer Options menu within Settings. The  one we?re after is called Show Touches, which shows little circles where  the screen is sensing points of touch. 
Hard-soft resetSoftware  misbehaviour can often be cured with a simple reset. You can turn the  phone on and off again, but getting the good old ?pull the battery out?  effect requires an HTC special move. You could rip off the back, but  it?s not something we?d recommend. Instead, hold the power button down  for ten seconds to simulate the cutting of power. A prompt should pop-up  warning you that the hard-soft reset is about to happen.
Battery 
Sleep mode is keyThe  HTC One has a battery saving mode that?s crucial if you want to have a  phone that?s able to last more than 24 hours. Sleep Mode, an option  found in the Power sub-menu of Settings is one of the most important to  switch on, as it turns of 3G when it?s not needed. 3G is a real  power-sucker. 
You can also select how intensive the Power Saving  mode is in other respects. Turn Power Saver mode off in the Power menu,  then tap the Power Saver menu option (not the slider) to select which  parts of the phone are throttled by the mode ? CPU, display, vibration  feedback and the data connection.
Apps and Games
Enable non-Google Play apps downloadsUnlike  iPhones, Android phones can install apps other than those downloaded  from the official app store. However, this feature is disabled as  standard ? mainly because some (well, many) apps from the net will be  infected with malware. To turn off this security measure, tick the  Unknown Sources box in the Settings > Security menu. Android apps  online are shipped as APK installer files. To install them, transfer  them to the internal memory then find and run them using a file browser  app like ES File Explorer.
Enabling offline speech recognitionVirtually  all top-end phones offer pretty serious voice recognition these days,  but you generally need to have internet connectivity for it to work. The  HTC One lets you download a pack of offline voice recognition data to  let you use it when you have no Wi-Fi or mobile internet reception.  You?ll find the option to download the pack in Settings > Language  & Keyboard > Voice Search.
How to stop the phone auto-creating app iconsThe  HTC One automatically creates home screen app icons and widgets for  downloaded apps. It?s a way to stop you having to curate your own home  screens, but some of you may not like the clutter. To stop the HTC One  from doing this, go to Google Play, head to its Settings menu (accessed  through the 3-pip button at the top-right of the screen. Here you?ll  find a tick box for auto-add.
If screen brightness goes down while you?re playing a game?One  curious thing we?ve noticed while playing games on the HTC One is that  the screen brightness can unexpectedly dip. The reason why is simple ?  the placement of the ambient light sensor means it?s easy to cover the  thing up, or shade it, with a hand when the phone?s held in landscape  orientation. To avoid this, try turning your phone around. Simples.
Security 
Backing up to the cloudThe  HTC One comes with an allocation of HTC online cloud storage. You can  set the HTC One to automatically back up your data to this storage, or  you can use Google?s cloud servers. You?ll find this option in Settings  > Backup & Reset. You can also make the phone auto-upload  pictures taken to Flickr. You?ll find the auto upload function in the  Settings section within the camera app. 
Lock screen securityA  lock screen security layer is hardly the height of security  sophistication, but it?s the best way to stop being stitched up on  Facebook if you?re in the habit of leaving your phone lying about when  with friends. We?ve all been there. Within the Screen lock menu of  Settings > Security you?ll find options to use a Pattern unlock, a  password, a PIN number or Face Unlock. Our top tip is not to use Face  Unlock as it?s pretty useless as security measures go. And it makes you  look silly. 
Browsing
Get straight to Google The  quickest way to get to a web search on the HTC One is using a clever  Google shortcut. Hold a finger down on the phone?s Home soft key and  you?ll be taken directly to the Google search page. 
Using Google NowGoogle  Now is a recently-introduced Google service that?s designed to pre-empt  what you?re going to look for. It does this using info cards that  appear on the Google Search page. If you?ve been searching for places in  a certain location, Google Now might offer up directions as to how to  get to that place. 
How to go full screen in the stock browserIf  you want to make the full use of the HTC One?s 4.7-inch screen when  browsing the web, you need to enable full screen browsing. This hides  the address bar, giving you that extra bit space for web sites. To find  the setting, pull down the address bar and tap the three-pip button to  bring up the menu. Scroll down to Settings, tap General and select the  Fullscreen tick box.
Next: Read the full HTC One review or find out what's new in the smartphone world.  
  
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