We were blown away by the capabilities of the new HTC One and that bodes well for the company whose new flagship has to stand up against the likes of the Sony Xperia Z and the newly announced Samsung Galaxy S4.
If you’ve decided to take up HTC on their offering of Android flagship goodness, we’ve put together a few tips and tricks to help make your experience with the HTC One as good as it can be.
Tip 1: Setting up BlinkFeed
The biggest addition to the new Sense 5 user interface which debuts on the One is BlinkFeed. In setting up the inbuilt feed aggregator you can choose from a multitude of predefined sources, add content by category and if you’ve entered in social network information, bring photos and posts from your friends and follows.
Tip 2: Google Now and app switching
With the One, HTC removed the app switching button which featured on their 2012 handsets, but they’ve kept the functionality, which is now found on home button. As with last year’s Jelly Bean handsets, pressing and holding the home button will launch Google Now; Google’s augmented search service, but a double tap on the home button will now bring up the nine most recent applications running on the One. You can tap to jump to an app or swipe up to close it completely.
Tip 3: Controlling homescreens
Navigating the user experience on the HTC One is far simpler than on previous handsets. Whether you want to add widgets, apps, shortcuts or homescreens, simply pinch together from any existing homescreen and hit the add panel button at the top or long press on any item you want to add to an existing homescreen. You can also remove, rearrange of set a default homescreen from this area too.
Tip 4: TV remote control
The black power/lock key on the top of the One is in fact an IR blaster and when used in conjunction with built in TV app, can be programmed to control your TV, home theatre system or cable box. Open the TV app and hit the ‘add a remote’ option in the menu to get started. Simply choose which devices you want to program and the HTC One will guide you through the setup process. Once your done, you won’t have to search for a remote ever again.
Tip 5: Tap-to-top
With aspects like the app drawer, gallery and BlinkFeed, you might find yourself having to laboriously scroll back up to the top of each feed with repeated flicking, but HTC have included a tap-to-top feature which removes the hassle of returning to the top of the screen. From any of these areas, simply tap the notifications bar and the One will scroll itself back to the top. Easy.
Tip 6: ZOE photos
A big talking point surrounding the HTC One is the inclusion of a 4.3-UltraPixel camera, but HTC didn’t just give it a fancy new sensor. One of the primary new features is the phone’s ZOE photo mode, which allows you the ability to snap special animated photos, as well as sequenced photos simultaneously, making sure you catch the action at a moments notice. From the camera app, simply tapping the icon on the far right centre of the viewfinder UI activates ZOE mode and from there you can tap the shutter button to take a shot.
Tip 7: Customising the apps drawer
Just as you’ll want to customise your homescreens, you can customise the phone’s app drawer too. From the top of the app menu, pull down to reveal controls for organising, searching for, downloading and even hiding apps, so that you have access to the services you want, without having to wade through the pre-installed stuff you don’t. You can also choose grid size to define how many columns of apps appear at once.
Tip 8: Slow/Fast motion video
A lesser known video function is the camera’s ability to shoot in 60fps, this can be used in one of two ways. Under the ‘video capture mode’ option, as well as Full HD, you can set the One’s camera to record video at a super smooth 60 fps or slow things down with the slow motion feature, allowing for some pretty awesome clips.
Tip 9: Music visualiser
A nice touch to accompany the impressive audio quality provided by HTC BoomSound is the music player’s Gracenote integration. Start playing a track from your music library and the HTC One will automatically search for the appropriate album and cover art. What’s more, hitting the note icon in the top right during playback will launch the visualiser, which as well as offering up a beautiful way to see your music, has the option to display song lyrics too.
Tip 10: Beats Audio
Naturally as with all of the company’s most recent handsets, as well as HTC BoomSound, the One features Beats Audio integration. This feature is on by default but is easy to toggle, for those who want a more traditional audio experience. To switch Beats Audio off, simply head to the Settings app and scroll down to the ‘Phone’ section. There you’ll be able to toggle Beats Audio on or off with a single tap.
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