The Android operating system has been developing fast since the release of Version 2.x (ranging from Eclair, Froyo to Gingerbread) for smartphones and Version 3 (Honeycomb) for tablets. It achieves another great milestone with the latest Version 4 (Ice Scream Sandwich or ICS), a universal system suitable for running on both smartphone and tablet devices.
If you're using a smartphone running on the Android version 2.x, you will be familiar with the four hardware buttons—Back, Menu, Home and Search—to interact with the system. Borrowing the design built for the tablet, Google's flagship smartphone Galaxy Nexus running on Android 4.0 now has no hardware buttons on the front, not even one. These hardware buttons turn virtual, leaving only two physical buttons—Volume and Power—on the left and right sides of the device.
Like the screenshot, the three buttons Back
 , Home and Recent Apps often appear on a home screen and the Menu button only shows up when an app needs it. When you playback a video, the default media app hides all these onscreen buttons and takes up the whole screen area for your video. A pretty good idea.
If you've just got a new Android device running on Version 4.0, these tips and tricks might be of help to you. Some relevant information on older versions of Android is added for ease of reference where applicable.
Note: These tips and tricks work best with Android 4.0 on Galaxy Nexus. Some steps here may differ from your Android system if it is of a previous version or has been modified by the device supplier.
How to Switch between Open Apps
 When running an app, you can minimize it by simply tapping the Home icon. Getting back to it is not just one click on the taskbar like the way you do in Windows. But the Android way is pretty straightforward too.
Note 1: You can clear the recent apps from the list by swiping them sideways one by one.
Note 2: On Android 2.x, touch and hold the Home button to reveal recent apps.
The Android system doesn't need you to close a running app for every instance. But in some cases you may need to force stop an app that's misbehaving, or like playing a game, you may need to actually close the app in order to start a new level rather than continuing the last. Here are the steps to follow:
 In Android, you can set a file to open with a certain program by default as you do in Windows. For example, if you have installed an image viewer such as QuickPic, the system will ask you to select an app when you try to open an image file (See the screenshot).
The next time you tap an image file, it will always open with the app you've selected without asking you again.
What if you need to clear the default app?
 Installing apps from the Google Play store to your Android device is convenient, likewise removing them is pretty straightforward.
Alternatively, you can run the Settings app, tap Apps under DEVICE then select the app you want to uninstall from the list.
When you install an app, the system often adds an app icon on your home screen. This icon works as a shortcut to run the app. In case you need to manually add an app icon or a widget icon yourself, it's pretty easy.
To remove an icon from your home screen:
Note: On Android 2.x, you can add a shortcut icon by touching and holding an empty location of a home screen or press Menu then tap 'Add'; On Android 3.0, touch the customize button
 at the top right of a home screen to add a shortcut icon. When you install new apps to your Android, the system stacks up the icons automatically without asking you to select a home screen. But you can subsequently re-arrange the icons on the home screens and on the tray.
Other than the apps on the tray, sometimes it's difficult to quickly look for an app to open if you have many icons spreading across a few home screens. Why not create a folder to group similar apps together? It's much easier than you might think.
You can rename a folder at any time—tap a folder then tap its name to rename.
While the system auto creates a folder for you, it does the same to removing a folder automatically—tap a folder to expand it, then clear all grouped items inside the folder—just touch and hold, then drag them out from the folder one by one.
Note: Older Android system doesn't support this feature, but you can rely on a third-party app such as GO Launcher EX to achieve almost the same effect.
Instead of typing a period at the end of each sentence and follow by a space, you can tap the space bar twice to get the same result.
If you often need to switch between the on-screen Alphabet and Number keyboards just to type a comma in a sentence, then why not check out below to find out more?
 While on the Alphabet keyboard:
While on the Number keyboard:
 This looks simple but can be tricky sometimes when you use different apps. In general, these steps can be used in Email or some other apps:
Note: When working in a web browser such as Android's Browser, use touch-and-hold to select a word since "double-tap" has been used to enlarge or reduce a webpage.
 When you're typing through, the system checks your spelling and suggests a few words. Unless you've selected one of them, the highlighted suggested word overwrites your word when you finish typing it followed by a space, punctuation mark or return character. If you feel that's annoying, you can turn off Auto-Correction.
Note: As an alternative, whenever a word is replaced not to your liking, you can tap the Delete key immediately after which and the system returns the word you've typed.
The Android screen switches to either the portrait or landscape view in response to the way you hold the device when you run certain apps. What if I want to lock the screen orientation to one view so that the screen doesn't rotate to another? Easy.
Your screen will then lock to the portrait mode. To unlock it, check the above option.
Where’s the PrintScreen button when you need to take a screen shot of your Android device? Instead of using one button, try a combination of two:
Note: Older Android system doesn't support this feature, but it has a more complicated way to take screenshots using Android SDK such as this without rooting the device.
 You can easily select a wallpaper from a collection of a few in your system and set it as wallpaper for your Home screens.
Alternatively, you can run the Settings app, then go to DEVICE > Display > Wallpaper, and continue with the step 2 above.
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The Best Android Tips and Tricks
on the tray and select the Apps tab on the top.
Touch and hold the icon you want to create a shortcut.
Touch and hold any icon for a second.
next to 'Android keyboard'.
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