Chapter 14
In This Chapter
Waking up to your Android tablet
Making tablet calculations
Keeping your appointments
Reading digital books
Playing games
Watching junk on YouTube
Buying or renting films and TV shows
Even given the variety of things your Android tablet can do, you will find some limitations. For example, you cannot use an Android tablet as a yoga block. It makes a poor kitchen cutting board. And despite efforts by European physicists, the Android tablet simply cannot compete with the Large Hadron Collider. Still, for more everyday purposes, I believe you’ll find your tablet more than up to the task.
This chapter corrals many (but not all) of the things you can do on your Android tablet. Among the devices it replaces are your alarm clock, calculator, day planner, game machine, eBook reader, and even your TV set. That’s not even the full list, but rather everything I could legally cram into this chapter without violating the For Dummies chapter length regulations.
Your Android tablet keeps constant, accurate track of the time, which is displayed at the top of the Home screen as well as on the Lock screen. That’s handy, but it just isn’t enough, so the tablet ships with an app that tells the time and also may double as an alarm clock.
The app may be called Clock or Alarm. If it’s called Alarm, it’s probably nothing more than a basic alarm clock. The Clock app, on the other hand, is more of a chronometric app, featuring a timer, stopwatch, alarm, and world clock functions. Of these activities, setting an alarm is pretty useful: In that mode, your tablet becomes your nightstand companion.
Here’s how to set a wake-up alarm in the stock Android Clock app:
Tap the Add icon.
A card appears, which you use to set the alarm time, days, name, and so on.
Fill in details about the alarm.
Set the alarm’s time, decide whether it repeats daily or only on certain days, choose a ringtone, and complete any other settings as shown on the card. The alarm name appears when the alarm triggers.
Set the alarm.
Alarms must be set to activate.
When the alarm triggers, tap the Dismiss icon to tell the tablet, “Okay! I’m up!” Or you can tap the Snooze icon to be annoyed again after a few minutes.
Your tablet keeps its clock accurate by accessing an Internet time server. You never have to set the time.
The next time you do math, don’t bother whipping out your brain. Instead, whip out your Android tablet and summon the Calculator app. The stock Android Calculator app appears in Figure 14-1. Most Android tablet manufacturers mess with this app, so what you see on your tablet might look subtly different, although the basic operation remains the same.
Type your equations by tapping the various buttons on the screen. Parentheses buttons can help you determine which part of a long equation gets calculated first. Use the DEL, CLR, or C key to clear input.
Long-press the calculator’s text (or results) to cut or copy the results. This trick may not work in every Calculator app.
Your Android tablet is the 21st century version of the old ball-and-chain of the busy person’s world: the date book. Thanks to the Calendar app and the Google Calendar service on the Internet, you can toss out your date book.
www.google.com/calendar
Before you throw away your date book, copy into the Calendar app any future appointments and recurring info, such as birthdays and anniversaries.
To see what’s happening next, to peruse upcoming important events, or simply to know which day of the month it is, summon the Calendar app. Figure 14-2 shows the Calendar app’s Month and Week views. Choose a view by tapping the Action Overflow icon, as illustrated in the figure.
The current day is highlighted in the Calendar app, as shown in Figure 14-2. For some views, the current time is shown as well. To return to the current day, tap the Show Current Day icon, illustrated in the figure.
I check Week view at the start of the week to remind me of what’s coming up.
To see more detail about an event, tap it. When you’re using Month view, tap the date with the event on it to see Week view. Then choose an event to see its details, similar to what’s shown in Figure 14-3.
The details you see depend on how much information was recorded when the event was created. Some events have only a minimum of information; others may have details, such as a location for the event, the time, and with whom you’re meeting.
Tap the Close icon to dismiss the event’s details.
The best way to review upcoming appointments is to choose the Schedule view from the Action Overflow.
The key to making the calendar work is to add events: appointments, things to do, meetings, or full-day events such as birthdays or colonoscopies. To create an event, follow these steps in the Calendar app:
Select the day for the event.
Or, if you like, you can switch to Day view, where you can tap the starting time for the new event.
Touch the Add Event icon (refer to Figure 14-2).
The New Event card or Add Event card appears. Your job now is to fill in the blanks to create the new event.
Add information about the event.
The more information you supply, the more detailed the event, and the more you can do with it on your Android tablet and on Google Calendar on the Internet. Here are some of the many items you can set when creating an event:
The new event appears on the calendar, reminding you that you need to do something on such-and-such a day with what’s-his-face.
For events that repeat twice a week or twice a month, create two repeating events. For example, when you have meetings on the first and third Mondays, you need to create two separate events: one for the first Monday and another for the third. Then have each event repeat monthly.
If you forget to set the time zone and you end up hopping around the world, your events are set according to the time zone in which they were created, not the local time.
Printed books are O so 14th century. These days, reading material is presented electronically in the form of an eBook. The great Googly way to read eBooks is to employ the Play Books app. Still, if you’re a Kindle fan, you can also get the Amazon Kindle app from the Play Store (see Chapter 15). Why not use both?
Begin your reading experience by opening the Play Books app. You’ll see any recent books you’ve read; otherwise, you can view your entire book library: Tap the Side Menu icon (shown in the margin) and choose the My Library command from the navigation drawer.
The library lists any titles you've obtained for your Google Books account, similar to what’s shown in Figure 14-4.
Scroll through your library by swiping the screen.
Tap a book’s cover to open it. If you've opened the book previously, you're returned to the page you last read. Otherwise, you see the book’s first page.
Figure 14-5 illustrates the basic book-reading operation in the Play Books app. You turn pages by swiping the screen right-to-left, assuming that you’re reading English or other languages that read in that direction.
The Play Books app also works in both vertical and horizontal orientations. You can lock the screen by choosing the Settings command from the navigation drawer: Choose the Auto-Rotate Screen item and select how you want the screen locked or not.
Tap the A icon to display a menu of options for adjusting the text on the screen and the brightness.
http://books.google.com
website.Nothing justifies your expensive, high-tech investment in electronics like playing games. Don’t even sweat the thought that you have too much “business” or “work” or other important stuff you can do on an Android tablet. The more advanced the mind, the more the need for play, right? So indulge yourself.
It used to be that your tablet’s manufacturer would toss in a few sample games to whet your appetite. That’s no longer the case; however, you can obtain an abundance of games, free or not, from the Google Play Store. Look for the “lite” versions of games, which are free. If you like the game, you can fork over the 99 cents or whatever the full version costs.
See Chapter 15 for details on shopping at the Google Play Store.
Don’t worry about your tablet controlling too much of your life: It harbors no insidious intelligence, and the Robot Uprising is still years away. Until then, you can use the tablet’s listening abilities to enjoy the feature called Google Now. It’s not quite like having your own personal Jeeves, but it’s on its way.
The preferred method to summon Google Now is to swipe your finger upward from the bottom center of the touchscreen. This technique is supposed to work on the Lock screen, the Home screen, or in any app, although your tablet may not support that technique. Otherwise, you can open the Google app in the Apps drawer.
The main Google Now screen looks similar to what’s shown in Figure 14-6. Below the Search text box, you’ll find cards. The variety and number of cards depend on how often you use Google Now. Though you can’t manually add cards, the more the app learns about you, the more cards appear.
You can use Google Now to search the Internet, just as you would use Google’s main web page. More interestingly than that, you can ask Google Now questions; see the nearby sidebar “Barking orders to Google Now.”
Someday, it may be possible to watch “real” TV on an Android tablet, but why bother? You’ll find plenty of video apps available on your tablet to sate your television-watching desires. Two of the most common are YouTube and Play Movies. So although you may not be able to pick up and enjoy the local Action News Team every day at 5 p.m., you’re not bereft of video enjoyment on your tablet.
YouTube is the Internet phenomenon that proves that real life is indeed too boring and random for television. Or is it the other way around? Regardless, you can view the latest YouTube videos by using the YouTube app on your Android tablet.
Search for videos by tapping the Search icon. Type the video’s name, a topic, or any search terms to locate videos. Zillions of videos are available.
The YouTube app displays suggestions for any channels you’re subscribed to, which allows you to follow favorite topics or YouTube content providers.
To view a video, touch its name or icon in the list.
Use the YouTube app to view YouTube videos, rather than use the tablet’s web browser app to visit the YouTube website.
You can use the Play Movies & TV app to watch videos you’ve rented or purchased at the Google Play Store. Open the app and choose the video from the main screen. Items you’ve purchased show up in the app’s library.
The actual renting or purchasing is done at the Google Play Store. Check the Store often for freebies and discounts. More details for renting and purchasing movies and shows is found in Chapter 15.
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