Google offers up Gingerbread tips and tricks

Google outs Gingerbread tips
Google outs Gingerbread tips

Google has announced a few cool ways to get the most out of Android 2.3 (or Gingerbread) for owners of the new Google Nexus S.

We've covered most of these in our Google Nexus S: 11 Tips and Tricks piece, but if you've been blessed with a new Googlephone (or got one from Santa and are reading this on Christmas day) then check out a few extra helpful hints, such as:

  • Turn a Gallery stack into a slideshow: In Gallery, when you are looking at a stack of photos, put two fingers on the stack and spread them. The stack spreads out and the pictures flow from one finger to the other, a moving slideshow that lets you see all of the photos.
  • Quick replace: Tap on any previously typed word, then tap on a suggestion to automatically replace it with the suggested word.
  • Easy access to special characters (like numbers, punctuation): Press and hold any key to go to the special character keyboard. You can also press and hold the "," key for an extensive punctuation keyboard.

Christmas love for the feathers of discontent

What's more interesting is that Google has decided to 'recommend' some applications as those that users would benefit from downloading, with many not created by Google.

These include Angry Birds, Shazam and Astro - all apps that many users reach for as soon as they buy an Android phone, but interesting that Google would consider them polished enough for its own blog.

Take a gander at the full list over on Google's official blog to see the full list of handy hints.

Via Gizmodo

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.