Unlike iPhones, Android phones come in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, physical layouts, and have many different versions of the software running on them. Some of what is listed here may not apply to your specific phone, or what is on your phone may look slightly different in layout or color schemes. This post will help to give a basic description of a fairly standard layout. This is not a comprehensive guide but will teach some of the terminology used in Android.
The Home Screen
The home screen is your home base, where you choose which app or task you want to use. An app is a computer program designed to run on your phone that generally performs a specific task. Apps you will find on every phone include a clock, calendar, web browser, camera, phone, picture gallery, text messaging, file browser, and settings. Apps you will find on most phones include game and social media.
Icons
The small pictures with names are called icons, and they open the app they name when you touch them. Modern touch screens do not require hard presses on the screen, light touches are enough.
Long Press
If you press on these icons hard, you may keep your finger on them long enough to activate what’s called a long press which will give you a small list of options instead of opening the app. This can be frustrating for some users if they don’t understand the long press.
Dock
The most commonly used apps are found in the dock. Most likely, you will find a web browser, your phone and text messaging apps, and a camera app. Usually there will be a button to pull up a larger list of all your apps as well. On the phone in the picture, swiping your finger upward across the dock will show all apps.
Navigation Buttons
Your phone may or may not have these buttons on the screen, some phones have capacitive physical buttons for these. The order may vary by phone, and some phones don’t have them at all but use a swiping motion from where the buttons normally are. On this phone, the left button is the back button, the middle button will bring you back to the home screen from any app, and the button on the right brings up a list of currently running apps so you can switch between them.
Status Bar
The status bar will usually have a clock, show your battery’s charge level, and give you a quick glance at which apps have notifications you may want to address.
Notifications
To access the notifications, put your finger on the status bar and drag it downward. Inside notifications you can see previews of emails you’ve received, see that someone posted something new in Facebook, or anything an app may think you want to know. Once you open the notifications menu, you can either touch a notification to open its corresponding app to deal with the notification or you can swipe them to the right to dismiss them.
- Basic concepts – Android
- Basic concepts – iPhone
- Managing contacts – Android
- Managing contacts – iPhone
