The Motorola Xoom: Visual QuickStart Guide

V I S UA L Q U I C K S TA R T G U I D E The Motorola Xoom BART G. FARKAS Peachpit Press Visual QuickStart Guide Th...

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V I S UA L Q U I C K S TA R T G U I D E

The Motorola Xoom BART G. FARKAS

Peachpit Press

Visual QuickStart Guide

The Motorola Xoom Bart G. Farkas Peachpit Press 1249 Eighth Street Berkeley, CA 94710 510/524-2178 510/524-2221 (fax) Find us on the Web at www.peachpit.com. To report errors, please send a note to [email protected]. Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education. Copyright © 2011 by Bart G. Farkas Executive editor: Clifford Colby Editor: Kathy Simpson Production editor: Danielle Foster Compositor: Danielle Foster Indexer: Valerie Haynes Perry Cover Design: RHDG / Riezebos Holzbaur Design Group, Peachpit Press Interior Design: Peachpit Press Logo Design: MINE™ www.minesf.com

Notice of Rights All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact [email protected].

Notice of Liability The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.

Trademarks Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book. ISBN-13: 978-0-321-79263-1 ISBN-10: 0-321-79263-7 987654321 Printed and bound in the United States of America

Dedication For Derek, Tasha, and Adam

Acknowledgments I need to say a huge thanks to both Cliff Colby and Kathy Simpson for their excellent work and patience. These are good people, and I cannot think of a higher compliment. I also want to thank Danielle Foster for her work laying out this book, and I thank everyone else who worked on the book for their diligence and expertise. Last, I want to thank Tamara for putting up with the process of writing a book, which produces a certain amount of crankiness and long hours that can strain even the most dedicated spouse.

Contents at a Glance Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Chapter 1

Introducing the Xoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Chapter 2

Customizing with Apps, Widgets, and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 3

Xooming on the Highway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Chapter 4

Snap!: The Xoom’s Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Chapter 5

The Multipurpose Xoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Chapter 6

Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Chapter 7

Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Chapter 8

Special Tools and Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . 157 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Contents at a Glance v

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Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Chapter 1

Introducing the Xoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Xoom Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Activating data service on a 3G Xoom . Configuring the Xoom for Google . . . Xoom Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Home screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . App screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screen personalization . . . . . . . . . Settings and Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . Computer Connection . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 2

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.2 .2 .4 .6 .7 .7 10 . 11 .13 .17

Customizing with Apps, Widgets, and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Acquiring Apps . . . . . . . . . . Managing Apps . . . . . . . . . . Moving apps . . . . . . . . . Removing and deleting apps Adding Widgets . . . . . . . . . . Setting Wallpaper . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 3

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20 26 26 30 34 35

Xooming on the Highway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Using the Xoom’s Web Browser . . . . . Finding a Web page . . . . . . . . . Opening new tabs . . . . . . . . . . Managing Web History and Bookmarks Searching a Web Page . . . . . . . . . . Configuring the Browser App . . . . . . Managing Privacy and Security . . . . . Security warnings . . . . . . . . . . Cookies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Form autoentry . . . . . . . . . . . . GPS feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Passwords. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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40 .41 43 44 48 49 52 52 53 54 55 56

Table of Contents vii

Chapter 4

Snap!: The Xoom’s Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Exploring the Xoom’s Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . The rear-facing camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . The front-facing camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . Opening the Camera App . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Configuring Camera Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . Accessing the Xoom’s Camera Settings panel Setting effects and balance . . . . . . . . . . . Taking Still Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shooting Video on the Xoom . . . . . . . . . . . . Creating Movies with Movie Studio . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 5

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58 58 58 59 60 60 61 64 66 70

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76 84 89 92 97 101

Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Reading Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Watching YouTube Videos . . . . . . . . . . Playing Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transferring music from your computer via USB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transferring music from your computer via Music Beta . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizing Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 7

. . . . . . . . . .

The Multipurpose Xoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Managing the Xoom’s Clock and Alarm. Using the Calendar App . . . . . . . . . Working with Contacts . . . . . . . . . . Handling Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chatting with Google Talk . . . . . . . . Working with Documents . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 6

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. . . . . . . 110 . . . . . . . 120 . . . . . . . 124 . . . . . . . 124 . . . . . . . 127 . . . . . . . 132

Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Using the Maps App. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Configuring Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Using Google Latitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

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Table of Contents

Chapter 8

Special Tools and Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . 157 Flying in Airplane Mode. . . . . . . . . Using Speech Recognition . . . . . . . Pairing Bluetooth Devices . . . . . . . Making Your Xoom a Mobile Hotspot . Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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. 158 . 163 . 171 . 176 . 182

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Table of Contents ix


Introduction Back in the early 1990s—1993, to be exact—Apple Computer launched a handheld computer product known as the Newton. Interestingly, the Newton was the first device to be called a personal digital assistant (PDA), a term that lives on today. Essentially, it was the first tablet computer. The one thing that most folks agreed on at the time was that tablet computers would never replace desktop computers and that their usefulness would never evolve beyond certain niches. Boy, were they wrong! Last year, Apple came out with the iPad, and within a few short months, the utility and style of tablet computers were plain to see. Now Motorola has jumped into the tabletcomputer pond with both feet. Its Xoom is a technological wonder that can stand toe

to toe with—and indeed surpass—many of its competitors in both functionality and raw horsepower. Coupled with Android’s Honeycomb 3.0 operating system, the Motorola Xoom is a fantastic device that’s taking the world of tablet computing by storm. Currently available in two models (3G/Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi only), the Xoom is capable of functioning as a stand-alone computer, albeit one with a few limitations. Probably the most glaring limitation is the lack of a physical keyboard, but of course the keyboard is onscreen. (It works wonderfully but lacks the tactile feedback that standard keyboards supply.) Otherwise, the Xoom has it all: color; sound; a large touch-sensitive screen; a snazzy operating system; and hundreds upon hundreds of very cool apps that make it sing, dance, game, and teach.

Introduction

xi

The Xoom is fantastically intuitive, and its basic functions don’t require a great deal of instruction, but it has some nuances that you may not know about if you aren’t particularly computer-savvy. Here’s where you can find the information you may be looking for: ■

To set up and get started with your Xoom, Chapter 1 is your guide.

■

To get a handle on what apps are, where to find them, and how to install them, check out Chapter 2.

■

For Internet connectivity and details about surfing the Web, Chapter 3 is the resource you’re looking for.

■

Camera and video aficionados will want to glance at Chapter 4 to learn about some of the coolest features of the Xoom’s two cameras.

■

Chapter 5 is for those who want the Xoom to be a practical tool, covering the calendar, clock, and email functions; communication by chat; and document handling.

■

Chapter 6 focuses on the lighter side of the Xoom, with an eye on videos, music, and books.

■

Chapter 7 examines the Xoom’s navigational functions, made possible by the device’s built-in GPS receiver.

■

Chapter 8 covers a few special tools (including airplane mode, mobile hotspots, and Bluetooth devices) and troubleshooting.

All in all, this book has a little something for every Xoom owner. I hope that you can find what you need as quickly as possible so that you can get on with enjoying your Xoom.

xii

Introduction

1 Introducing the Xoom With the success of tablet computers in the past year, it’s clear that these specialized devices have found a place in the lives (and wallets) of users the world over. The Motorola Xoom is one of the first Android tablets to get pundits to sit up and take notice. Certainly, it’s a wonderful machine that’s capable of bridging the chasm between highly functional smartphones and the clunkier (and heavier) laptop computers of old.

In This Chapter Xoom Setup

2

Xoom Screens

7

Settings and Security

13

Computer Connection

17

Xoom Setup The beauty of technological wonders like the Motorola Xoom is exquisite ease of use and intuitive utility. In the Xoom’s case, you need not fumble with a lot of cables and such. You need only take the device out of the box, plug it in, and turn it on. The Xoom has five ports on its exterior: a Micro USB port, an HDMI out port, a power port (for charging the battery or for running off the grid), a headphone jack, and a memory expansion port. All these ports are shown in A and B.

A The headphone jack and expansion port sit on the top of the Xoom.

B The bottom of the device includes the USB

connectors, the power connector, and the cradle connector.

Charging To charge the Xoom, you simply need to connect the power cord C and let the Xoom soak up the juice. The Xoom can run while it’s actively charging and while it’s asleep as well.

To power up for the first time (3G): 1. Press the power button on the back of the unit.

C The power cord

ends in a very thin tip that connects to the bottom of the device.

The Xoom asks a couple of basic questions, including “What language do you want to the Xoom to use?” 2. Answer the language question. For a 3G-enabled Xoom (a Xoom that works on the cell-phone network), the Activate Mobile Data Service screen D appears. 3. Touch the Activate button to start the process of activating the Xoom, or if activating on a 3G network isn’t something you want to do at this time, touch the Cancel button.

2

Chapter 1

D Activation on a 3G network is usually done in

the store where you bought the Xoom. If not, the Xoom searches for a network automatically.

To power up for the first time (Wi-Fi): 1. In the Wi-Fi setup screen E that lists the available wireless networks in the area, select the network you want to attach your Xoom to. 2. If the wireless network uses security, enter its security code F and then touch Connect. or If the network doesn’t have security, touch Connect to be connected immediately.

E Activating a Wi-Fi network.

If a wireless network doesn’t have security, no security requests are made, and connection occurs when you touch the Connect button. Security requests for WEP or WPA passwords are made only when the Wi-Fi system has security in place.

F Enter security information if needed.

Introducing the Xoom

3

Activating data service on a 3G Xoom If the Xoom wasn’t activated in-store (as usually is the case), it can still be activated on a cellular network—provided that it’s been set up to be on a network, which only your provider can do. You can take the final steps to activate the Xoom from within the device itself.

Notifications bar

G Touch the notifications bar in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

To activate mobile data service (3G): 1. Touch the notifications bar G in the bottom-right corner. 2. Select the Settings icon H. 3. Select Settings in the resulting list of options I.

H The Settings icon looks like an equalizer board (with knobs on little lines).

I Select Settings from the list. 4

Chapter 1

4. In the new list, select Mobile Networks J. The Mobile Network Settings panel appears. (See the nearby sidebar “Mobile Network Settings” for more information.) 5. Select Activate Device K. 6. Follow the onscreen instructions to activate your Xoom on a cell-phone network. To activate your Xoom on a cell-phone network, you have to purchase a cell-phone plan for your Xoom and have your Xoom activated on the network by the provider.

Mobile Network Settings

J Touch the Mobile Networks option.

In the Mobile Network Settings panel K are four options: .

Data Enabled. This option simply tells your Xoom whether it can accept data over a mobile (cell-phone) network.

.

Data Roaming. If you select Data Roaming, your Xoom will automatically roam to other networks if it strays from its mother network. Remember that roaming charges are the main culprits for super-high cell-phone bills, so it’s a good idea to keep this option turned off unless you need it.

.

System Select. This option allows the Xoom to select roaming mode. If you’re roaming, leave the setting on Automatic.

.

Activate Device. This selection takes you to the device activation screen for activating the Xoom on a cellphone network.

K Touch Activate Device.


5

Configuring the Xoom for Google The last bit of setup that you must complete before you start enjoying your Xoom involves answering a few questions for Google and setting up your Google email account (if you don’t already have one).

To set up the Xoom for Google services: 1. In the Use Google Location Service screen, specify whether you want to use Google’s location service feature.

L Setting up a Google account (if you don’t already have one) is highly recommended.

You have two options: > Allow Google to collect anonymous location data. Collection will occur even when no applications are running. > Allow Google to use location for improved search results and other services. After you make the decision on location data, the Sign in with Your Google Account screen L appears. Because the Android operating system that runs the Xoom is made by Google, it’s not a bad idea to create a Google account, because Gmail, backups of your tablet, and several other key features require the presence of a Google account.

2. Touch the Sign In button to sign in to Google. or Touch the Create Account button to go to the Account Setup screen M, and follow the onscreen instructions.

6

Chapter 1

M Setting up a Google account is painless; you need only fill out the fields in this form.

Xoom Screens The Motorola Xoom has a default screen that greets you each and every time the Xoom is unlocked from a sleeping or off state. It’s important to understand the various symbols and doohickeys that present themselves, so in this section, I show you what each icon lets you do, from opening a menu of specific apps to searching for something with text or even your voice. There are no buttons on a Xoom’s screen, because the device uses touchscreen technology. If you want to activate a button or icon, just touch the screen where the icon resides to get it to do your bidding.

Home screen The home screen of the Xoom is the sandbox where you can manage your applications, widgets, favorite Web pages, and countless other goodies. The main area really is five areas, with the central area shown in A and two areas to the left and right shown in B and C. To get to these other screens, touch the screen in an open area (not occupied by an icon of any kind) and move the entire page to turn to the next page. The process is very similar to turning pages in a book, so it won’t be unfamiliar to you. There are blank screens (one each) to the left and right of the secondary screens, making a grand total of five screens in the main display that you can modify, massage, and manipulate to your heart’s content. I get to that topic in a few more pages.


7

Voice search

Customize home screen

Text search

Back

Open apps

Recent apps

App icons

Home

Notifications Quick settings

A If you’re not used to touchscreen computing, the Xoom screen can seem a little different, but it doesn’t take long to master these simple controls.

B The screen to the left includes icons for the

Movie Studio, Camera, Gallery, and YouTube apps.

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Chapter 1

C The screen to the right includes a panel of Web pages, the Calendar app, the Contacts app, and the Maps app.

Don’t Be a Drag—Pinch Me! Perhaps the most exciting thing about tablet computers like the Motorola Xoom is the touchscreen technology. These screens are sensitive to the touch of a human finger or fingers. As a general rule, these pads don’t respond well to other input, such as a pen. This arrangement is very handy (pun intended) because it means that only specific touches by a user’s hand(s) will make the tablet spring into action. A few key gestures are important in using a Xoom. These gestures are your ticket to smooth, intuitive navigation of the Internet, your Xoom’s operating system (Android), and the various apps that end up on your tablet computer: .

Touch. Touch an icon or button to activate it.

.

Touch and hold. Touch an icon and keep your finger on it to initiate some action.

.

Drag. Drag occurs in conjunction with touch and hold. You drag an item around the screen to move it or perform an action with it (as in a game).

.

Double tap. A quick double touch activates a feature.

.

Pinch. Place two fingers far apart on the screen and then move (pinch) them together. This gesture universally causes an image to shrink. This gesture is used most often in the Gallery and other photo-related applications.

.

Spread. Spread is the opposite of pinch. Put your thumb and index finger on the screen and then spread them open to cause the image to zoom in dramatically.

.

Swipe. Simply swiping a finger from left to right or right to left causes the screen to move in that direction, moves to the next picture in a roll, and so on. In some Web browsers, a left/right swipe brings up control panels on either side of the Web page.

.

Two-finger swipe. This gesture is just like a regular swipe but uses two fingers instead of one. It’s used in various applications but doesn’t have a significant use in everyday navigation of the Xoom.

.

Rotate. This gesture isn’t used in the basic Xoom operating system (Android) but is used in some apps. To rotate, put a thumb and index finger on the screen and then turn them in a circular motion.


9

App screen When you select the Apps button in the top-right corner of the main screen A, it takes you to the app screen D, which shows only the apps installed on your Xoom. In other words, you see no widgets, YouTube screens, or Web pages in this screen—only apps. There are two tabs at the top of the screen: All and My Apps. If All is selected, as in D, every single app on the Xoom is presented, including apps that you’ve installed and apps that came with the Xoom. If My Apps is selected, only the apps that you’ve personally installed appear on the screen, as in E. This feature is a handy way to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to apps. Like the home screen, the app screen can be scrolled left or right to show other pages of apps that are available. The screen can show 35 total apps, so if you have more than 35 apps on your Xoom, other pages automatically become available to the left and right of the main app screen.

D The app screen.

E If My Apps is selected, only the apps that you’ve installed show up.

10

Chapter 1

Screen personalization When you select the plus sign F in the top-right corner of the app screen, the personalization screen G comes up.

Notice that this screen G has a top and a bottom half. The top half shows the five home screens available for you to place apps, widgets, and other goodies in. The bottom half has four tabs: Widgets, App Shortcuts, Wallpapers, and More.

F Touching the plus sign takes you to the personalization screen.

G This screen lets you put whatever you want wherever you want.


11

To move an app shortcut, wallpaper, or widget to another screen: 1. Touch and hold the item you want to move (you don’t have to press hard) until the icon pops up off the screen H. 2. Simply drag the icon to the place you want it to go. Yes, it’s that easy! If you hold the icon you’re dragging over its destination screen for a few seconds, the Xoom zooms in to show you the entire screen, complete with a grid I that shows exactly where the icon can sit. (This grid, which consists of faint plus signs, is hard to see in the figure.)

H Touch and hold an icon to move it.

I Hold an icon, and a faint grid appears to help with placement.

12

Chapter 1

Settings and Security The Xoom is a powerful computing device, and as such, it has many settings and capabilities that make it both a secure device and a useful tool. In this section, I describe some of the key features of the Settings screen.

To access the Settings screen: Settings icon

1. Touch the bottom-right corner of the screen to bring up the notifications panel A.

2. Touch the Settings icon A to bring up the Settings menu B. 3. Touch the Settings icon at the bottom of the menu.

A Notifications panel.

B Settings menu.

The Settings screen C opens, giving you access to a huge array of settings for the Xoom.

C The list of available settings is considerable.


13

To set a pattern login: 1. Open the Settings screen C (refer to the preceding task). 2. Select Location & Security D. 3. Configure Lock Screen in the Lock Screen section E. 4. Select Pattern. 5. Draw the unique pattern you want to use to open your Xoom F. When you’re drawing a security pattern, you can’t lift your finger off the screen while drawing. To re-create the pattern on login, your finger must follow the same path each time. If you draw a letter T, you must draw it the same way each time—drawing the top of the T from right to left or left to right every time, for example.

D The Location & Security tab gives you several options for creating logins.

E Select Configure Lock Screen. 14

Chapter 1

F Now it’s time to draw the pattern you want to use.

6. Draw the pattern a second time to set it as your password for the Xoom G.

To set a personal identification number or password login: 1. Open the Settings screen C.

2. Select Location & Security D. 3. Scroll down the screen, and touch PIN or Password H. 4. Enter the PIN or password, and touch the Continue button I. A PIN must be purely numbers, whereas a password can be a combination of letters and numbers or even words.

5. Reenter the PIN or password when you’re prompted to do so.

G Enter the pattern again.

H Choose PIN or Password.

I Enter the PIN or password you want to use.


15

To set a screen timeout: 1. Open the Settings screen C.

2. Select Location & Security D. 3. Select Timeout J.

Selecting this setting displays a list of timeout times ranging from immediately to 30 minutes. 4. Select the amount of time you want your Xoom to stay active before locking or shutting down. The window closes to confirm that your new setting is accepted.

J Choose the Timeout setting.

16

Chapter 1

Computer Connection A The Xoom’s

USB cable is proprietary, so be careful not to lose it. It’s not the kind of cable that you can pick up in a dollar store.

The Motorola Xoom comes with a special USB cable A that allows you to connect the Xoom to a Mac or PC.

To connect to a Windows PC: 1. Turn the Xoom on. 2. Plug the USB cable into the Xoom. 3. Plug the other end of the USB cable into your PC. A dialog box B asks whether you want to use the Xoom as a mass storage device or whether you want Windows Media Player C to open so that you can transfer files between the two devices. 4. Make your choice in the dialog box.

B Windows asks you how you want to treat the Xoom.

C Windows Media Player can be used to transfer movies, pictures, audiobooks, and music files between your PC and the Xoom.


17

To connect to a Mac: 1. Download Android File Transfer D. You can find this small piece of free software on the Web by searching for Android File Transfer Mac. 2. Turn the Xoom on. 3. Plug the USB cable into the Xoom. 4. Plug the other end of the USB cable into your Mac. 5. Drag files back and forth between the Mac and the Xoom as desired, as shown in E.

D The Mac crowd needs this special Android File Transfer program to enable smooth file transfers.

I cover exchanging files and data between the PC and the Xoom in Chapters 5 and 6.

E Android File Transfer is simple software, but it works very well.

18

Chapter 1

2 Customizing with Apps, Widgets, and Wallpaper What drives a tablet? Technically, what drives a tablet computer is the operating system—in this case, Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). But the real driving forces behind a tablet like the Xoom are the apps that the user installs to make the device do exactly what’s needed. Apps can be anything from games to workout programs that help you lose tummy flab. Installing and updating apps is an important part of getting your Xoom to be the best it can be for you personally. Currently, thousands of apps are available in the Android Market. For most users, the biggest problem isn’t finding an app that does what they want, but choosing one of the hundreds of apps available for that purpose. Refer to the user ratings and reviews in the Android Market to get some idea just how good or bad a particular app is.

In This Chapter Acquiring Apps

20

Managing Apps

26

Adding Widgets

34

Setting Wallpaper

35

Acquiring Apps The simplest way to get apps is to touch the Market icon A in the home screen. This icon looks like a shopping bag with a green Android on it. Touching it takes you to the front page of the Android Market B, where you can begin to look for the perfect apps for your Xoom.

Market icon

A The Market icon is in the bottom-right corner of this screen.

B The Android Market home screen. 20

Chapter 2

Although the Market is the most convenient place to look for apps for your Xoom, it’s certainly not your only alternative. Several other app stores are out there, including the Web-based version of the Market C; the Amazon Appstore for Android D, accessible through the Amazon.com Web site; and the AndAppStore E at www. andappstore.com.

C You can use a Web-based version of the Android Market.

If you’re letting your children buy apps, be aware that there aren’t always tight controls on the content of apps. Because Android apps are sold in multiple places, you can be fairly sure that some contain inappropriate subject matter for children. Buyer/parent beware. To enter the Market, you must have an active Google account—something that you should have taken care of when you first booted the Xoom (see Chapter 1). If you haven’t created a Google account yet, you’re going to have to do that now to use the Market.

D The Amazon Appstore for Android is very inclusive.

E AndAppStore is another great alternative to the standard Market.

Customizing with Apps, Widgets, and Wallpaper 21

To search for apps: 1. Touch the Market icon A to enter the Android Market F. 2. Select one of the categories on the right side of the screen G. At writing, the Market has 27 categories ranging from Games to Widgets. When you select a specific category, the Market displays further category breakdowns, such as Featured Apps and Top Free Apps.

F Enter the Market.

Free vs. Pay You’re likely to notice quickly that apps fall into two main categories: free and not free. Most apps that have a cost associated with them are very inexpensive, costing no more than a few dollars. Indeed, the majority of apps come in at 99 cents, but a few cost $1.29, and fewer still cost $2.99. If you don’t know whether a pay app will be useful, look around for a “light” version of the app. Light versions are available for free so that users can see whether they like the apps before paying for the full-featured product. When you search for an app, you may not always see a light version right away, so it’s worth digging with a search engine to make sure that any pay app doesn’t also have a free version.

G A partial list of the categories available for apps.

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To find and download a free app: 1. Touch the magnifying glass at the top of the Market home page F. The virtual keyboard H appears.

2. Enter the search text. For this example, search for the popular game Angry Birds.

H Touch the magnifying-glass icon to initiate the search.

3. In the results screen I, touch the icon of the app you want. For this example, several apps come up, but you want the original Angry Birds, so simply touch that icon. The app’s information screen appears. continues on next page

I Select the app you want.


4. Touch the Install button J. You’re taken to a confirmation screen K. 5. Touch the OK button to install the app. The app turns up on your home screen, as shown in L.

J Touch Install to install the app.

K Confirm your choice to install.

L A new app is displayed on your home screen.

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To purchase an app: 1. Touch the Market icon A to enter the Android Market F.

2. Touch the magnifying-glass icon F, and search for an app. 3. In the results screen I, select a paid app.

M Select an app.

4. In the app’s info screen, touch the Buy button M. The Google Checkout panel opens. 5. Fill out the usual credit-card fields N. 6. Touch the OK button to pay for and install the app.

N Fill in your financial information.


Managing Apps As I mention in Chapter 1, newly purchased/ downloaded apps can be placed anywhere on the five home screens that are available to you. By default, the Xoom puts new apps on the center home screen; when that home screen is full, the Xoom starts putting the new apps on the screen to the left A.

Moving apps You can move apps in several ways, as I discuss in this section. First, I show you how to move an app from one spot to another on the home screen. Then I show you a second method that involves using the personalization screen. This method is more desirable because you have a full (if tiny) view of all five home screens and access to all apps, widgets, and wallpapers.

A When the center home screen is full, apps are placed on the screen to the left by default.

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To move apps onscreen: 1. Touch and hold an app’s icon until it pops off the screen B and is suspended by your finger (which will make sense when you do it). Notice the subtle grid B that shows where the icon can be placed. 2. Move the icon to a new spot, and remove your finger.

Held icon

As soon as you remove your finger from the screen, the icon is in its brand-new location C.

B Touch and hold an icon until it pops up.

C The app icon slips into its new location.


To drag an app to a new home screen: 1. Touch and hold an app’s icon until it pops off the screen B. 2. Drag the icon left or right, toward the home screen where you want it to go. Notice that the home screens actually turn as shown in D as you move the icon toward a screen’s edge. A subtle grid D appears to show where the app icon can be placed. 3. When the icon is in the desired spot, remove your finger. The app snaps into its new location.

To move an app with the personalization screen: 1. Touch the plus sign (+) in the top-right corner of the home screen E. The personalization screen appears.

D Drag the icon to a new home screen. E Touch the plus sign.

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2. Touch the App Shortcuts tab F so that you have access to all the apps on the Xoom. 3. Scroll through the apps (if necessary), and find the app you want to move or place. Scroll through apps by flicking through the screens with your finger.

4. Touch the app you want to move, and drag it to the screen where you want to place it G. When the app’s icon crosses over the screen boundary, the screen in question zooms up, giving you a close-up view to place the app icon where you want. 5. Release the icon to let the app drop into place H.

F Touch the App Shortcuts tab.

G Drag the icon to the screen where you want it to go.

H The grid again appears to show you the open spots where you can drop your app.


Removing and deleting apps You have three ways to uninstall an app on the Xoom: ■

Removing its icon from the screen

■

Deleting it from the Applications area

■

Uninstalling it in the Android Market

I Drag an app’s icon to the Remove icon.

J Drag the app’s icon to the Uninstall icon.

In this section, I show you all three methods.

To remove an app icon from a screen: 1. Touch an app’s icon until it pops up B. 2. Drag the app’s icon to the Remove icon in the top-right corner of the screen. The Remove icon turns red I. 3. Release the icon. Poof—it’s gone! Removing an app from a screen isn’t the same as deleting an app from the Xoom, which I cover in the next three tasks. Removing an app icon from a screen just means that access to that app has been removed from the screen—not that the app is gone from your Xoom.

To delete an app (method 1): 1. Touch the Apps button in the top-right corner of the screen E. 2. Touch and hold the app’s icon until it pops up B. For this exercise, pick Angry Birds. 3. Drag the app to the Uninstall icon in the top-right corner J and then release it.

4. When you’re asked K, touch OK to confirm that you want to delete the app.

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K Confirm that you want to delete the app.

To delete an app (method 2):

Settings icon

1. Touch the bottom-right corner of the home screen, where the battery icon is A. The Notifications and Quick Settings box pops up. 2. Select the Settings icon L. 3. Select Settings at the bottom of the list that pops up M.

L Touch the Settings icon.

4. In the resulting screen, select Applications N. continues on next page

M Touch Settings.

N Choose Applications.


5. In the resulting Applications screen O, select Manage Applications. 6. Select the app you want to uninstall P. 7. In the resulting screen, touch the Uninstall button Q. If an app has crashed or is behaving strangely, and you can’t seem to stop it or quit it, complete these steps, but touch Force Stop in step 7. For more information, see Chapter 8.

O Choose Manage Applications in this screen.

P Choose an app to ax. 32

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Q Touch Uninstall.

To delete an app (method 3): 1. Open the Android Market (refer to “Acquiring Apps” earlier in this chapter). 2. Search for an app, and select it in the search-results screen (refer to I in “To find and download a free app” earlier in this chapter). The app’s info screen opens.

R Touch Manage.

3. Tap the Manage button R.

4. In the resulting screen S, touch the Uninstall button.

S You’re given the option to uninstall. Select it.


Adding Widgets In the personalization screen (refer to F in “To move an app with the personalization screen” earlier in this chapter), you can set up widgets—little pieces of software that allow you to access a larger piece of software in a novel way—wherever you want them. This feature is very handy, as many widgets give a great deal of extra functionality and power to existing apps on the Xoom.

A Select the Widgets tab.

To add a widget: 1. Touch the plus sign in the top-right corner of the home screen. 2. In the personalization screen, touch the Widgets tab A. 3. Touch the Gmail widget, and drag it up to the center home screen B. When the home screen is breached by the Gmail widget’s icon, it zooms in and shows you the grid.

B Moving the Gmail widget.

4. Find some open real estate onscreen, and pop the widget down where you want it to be. Now a Gmail widget sits on your home screen C.

C A Gmail widget sitting on the home screen.

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Setting Wallpaper Wallpaper has been around since 1984, when the Apple Macintosh computer and its now-famous graphic user interface came to town. Today, you have access to some pretty snazzy wallpapers. In this section, I show you how to do two things: ■

Set one of your own pictures as the Xoom’s wallpaper

■

Set up one of the Xoom’s fancyschmancy moving wallpapers

To set a picture as wallpaper: 1. Touch the plus sign in the top-right corner of the home screen.

A Touch the Wallpapers tab.

2. In the personalization screen, touch the Wallpapers tab A.

3. Touch Gallery (the far-left option in A) to go to your collection of pictures, many of which you may have taken on your Xoom’s cameras. 4. Select the picture you want to use as wallpaper B.

continues on next page

B Choose the picture you want to use as your wallpaper.


5. Touch the highlighted window C to adjust the cropping for the image. 6. When the picture is just right, touch the check/OK box in the top-right corner. The next time you go to your home screen, the image you just selected is your new background wallpaper D.

C Choose which portion of the photo to use as wallpaper.

D The selected photo is the wallpaper on your home screen.

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To set moving wallpaper: 1. Touch the plus sign in the top-right corner of the home screen. 2. In the personalization screen, select the Wallpapers tab E.

3. Touch the Live Wallpapers option E.

At this point, you’re given the three standard Live Wallpaper choices: Holo Spiral, Maps, and Spectrum F. 4. Select the option that you want to form your backdrop. For this exercise, choose Holo Spiral. 5. In the resulting screen, touch Set Wallpaper G. continues on next page

E Touch the Wallpapers tab.

F You have three choices for moving wallpaper, as shown here.

G Select Set Wallpaper.


6. Move back to the home screen by touching the Home button H.

H Touch the Home button.

Enjoy the moving wallpaper that now resides on your home screen I! The Xoom comes with only a few widgets and wallpapers, but plenty of third-party creators make handy-dandy widgets and cool designs for your Xoom. To get them, shuffle over to the Android Market (refer to “Acquiring Apps” earlier in this chapter).

I Your wallpaper now moves behind your home screen.

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3 Xooming on the Highway For many users, the Xoom isn’t going to be a front-line computing device. It won’t be the go-to computer that they use to get a presentation ready for an important business meeting (although it’s technically capable of doing that), and it won’t be the main repository for an avant-garde music collection. What the Xoom will most likely be used for is good ol’ Web surfing. Yep, take off your shoes and put some zinc on your nose, because the Xoom is designed to be the awesome water-cruising, Webwave-riding boogie board of the ages, and this chapter is going to show you how it’s done!

In This Chapter Using the Xoom’s Web Browser

40

Managing Web History and Bookmarks

44

Searching a Web Page

48

Configuring the Browser App

49

Managing Privacy and Security

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Using the Xoom’s Web Browser At this writing, the Xoom certainly doesn’t have a plethora of alternatives to the Web browser that comes with the device. There’s good news, however, because the built-in Browser app A is actually a fantastic feature that does very well. It’s certainly more than powerful and functional enough for the vast majority of users to accomplish what they want to accomplish. It includes HTML 5 support and even an Adobe Flash 10 player. Forward Back

Refresh

A The Browser app.

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Bookmarks Current URL

New tab

Search

Menu

Finding a Web page

B Touch the Browser icon.

To get you acquainted with the built-in Xoom browser, the following task shows you how to do a Google search for a particular Web page.

To find a Web page: 1. Touch the Browser app’s icon on the home screen B.

C The first time the Browser app starts, this message pops up.

The first time the app starts, expect to get the message shown in C as Google finds your personal settings and applies them to the Xoom browser. When the settings are loaded, you’re taken to the default home page—in this case, Google D. continues on next page

D By default, Google is the Xoom’s home page on the Web.

Xooming on the Highway 41

2. Touch the search field, and use the onscreen keyboard E to enter what you want to search for. As you type, a list of suggested links appears below the search field E. 3. Touch the Search button to display search results, or touch a suggested link to open that page. If you want other options, hold a link for a few seconds, and you’re greeted by an impressive list of options F.

E Enter your search term.

F Touch and hold a link to display this option window.

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Opening new tabs The Xoom browser (like most modern browsers) supports tabs, which let you have multiple Web pages open at the same time and move among them quickly and easily merely by touching the tabs. Creating new tabs is easy, as you see in this section.

To open a new tab: 1. Touch the plus sign (new tab) at the top of the screen A. The default page D opens.

2. Hop between the two pages by touching the tab for the page you want to be active G. The only practical limits to the number of tabs that can be open at one time are your Xoom’s memory and the amount of space in the browser bar. After more than three or four tabs are open, it can become difficult to see which tab represents which page, because the screen real estate doesn’t allow for each page’s full name to be displayed G. Active tab

Inactive tab

New tab

G Touch the tab of the page you want to view.


Managing Web History and Bookmarks

A Touch the

Bookmark icon.

When you’re surfing the Web, it doesn’t take long to visit tens or even hundreds of pages in a single day. What if you want to revisit a page you were looking at earlier? Read on.

To navigate the bookmark/ history area: 1. If the Browser app isn’t already open, touch its icon on the home screen (refer to B in “To find a Web page” earlier in this chapter. 2. Touch the Bookmark icon A in the topright corner of the screen. You’re taken to the Bookmarks/History screen. 3. Touch the Bookmarks tab at the top of the screen to see a grid of recently visited pages B.

B Touch the Bookmarks tab to see this grid of recent Web-page visits.

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4. Touch the History tab at the top of the screen C.

You’re greeted by a menu D that allows you to see your Web-surfing history for several time periods, as well as your most-visited sites.

5. To return to a particular Web page, select it in the list on the right side of the screen.

C Touch the History tab.

D This menu lists the Web sites you visit most often.


If you touch and hold a page’s link, a detailed menu appears E, displaying options that allow you to do more with the link. Selecting Share Link, for example, displays the options shown in F.

Going Incognito One of the Xoom’s more-obscure options lets you keep your browsing history under wraps. To turn it on, touch the Menu icon in the top-right corner of the screen (refer to A in “Using the Xoom’s Web Browser” earlier in this chapter), and choose New Incognito Tab from the menu. Pages viewed in an incognito tab don’t appear in your Xoom’s browser and search histories, and they don’t leave other traces (like cookies) on the device. If you don’t want an obvious record of what you’ve been doing on your Xoom, you can use this option. Be aware, however, that it doesn’t stop other Web sites from logging your IP address; all it does is keep the history on the Xoom itself clean.

E Touching and holding a link brings up this dialog box.

F Select Share Link to get these sharing options.

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To add a bookmark: 1. Go to a Web site in the Browser app. 2. Touch the Bookmark icon A. 3. Touch Add Bookmark at the top of the screen G.

You’re greeted by a dialog box H that allows you to bookmark the page, as well as change the bookmark’s label and location.

4. Select Add To. A menu drops down. 5. Select Other Folder I if you want to put the bookmark somewhere other than your home screen or the standard list of bookmarks.

G Touch Add Bookmark.

H This dialog box allows you to bookmark the page and change the bookmark label.

I If you want to put the bookmark somewhere other than the default locations, touch Add To > Other Folder. Xooming on the Highway 47

Searching a Web Page It can be very handy to search a Web page for a particular word or phrase. The following task shows you how.

To search for content on a Web page: 1. With a Web page displayed in the Browser app, touch the Settings icon to open the Settings menu A. 2. Choose Find on Page.

A Open the Settings menu by touching the Settings icon.

3. Use the onscreen keyboard to type what you’re looking for on the Web page. What’s very cool about this search feature is that the letters you type are highlighted in the document as you type B.

B Search words are highlighted as you type them.

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Configuring the Browser App In the top-right corner of every Browserapp screen is the Settings icon. Touch this icon to open the Settings menu A, which contains options that let you configure the browser in various ways.

To configure browser settings:

A The Browser app’s Settings menu.

1. Touch the Settings icon to open the Settings menu A. 2. Touch Settings at the bottom of the menu. The Xoom opens the Settings screen for the Browser app B. continues on next page

B The Settings screen for the Browser app.


3. In the list on the left side of the screen, touch the category you want to change: > General. The settings in this category let you set the home page (the page your browser automatically opens to), sync with Google Chrome, and autofill forms. > Privacy & Security. If you’re concerned about turning cookies on or off, or clearing cookie data, the Privacy & Security screen C is where you need to be. This screen is also the place where you can tell the Xoom to remember your Web passwords (or not), show security warnings, and enable or disable data about your current location. > Advanced. To toggle JavaScript, block pop-up windows, or disable the automatic loading of Web images (among other things), the Advanced screen D is the place.

C Touch Privacy & Security if you want to

turn cookies on or off (among other things).

> Labs. The Labs screen has two settings: Quick Controls, which lets you swipe your thumb from the left or right edge of the screen to access quick controls for the Web page; and Most Visited Homepage, which I cover in the next section. 4. Touch the setting that you want to change. 5. Follow the onscreen instructions to configure the setting the way you want.

D The Advanced screen lets you do things like block pop-ups.

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To set your most-visited sites as your home page: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To configure browser settings” earlier in this chapter. 2. Select the Labs category on the left side of the screen. 3. In the resulting screen, select Most Visited Homepage E. 4. Return to the Browser app’s home page, and check out your handiwork F.

E Select Most Visited Homepage.

F Now your home page shows a selection of the Web sites you visit most often.


Managing Privacy and Security Privacy and security are of paramount interest to those who inhabit the Internet. Fortunately, the Xoom gives users a fair bit of control, as I discuss in this section.

Security warnings Some folks out there are interested in hurting you or stealing from you while you surf the Web. Fortunately, most Web browsers have built-in security, and in this section, I show you how to activate security in the Xoom’s Browser app.

To turn on security warnings: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To configure browser settings” earlier in this chapter. 2. Select Privacy & Security A.

A Touch Privacy & Security.

3. Touch Show Security Warnings B. This option is a toggle, so if you ever want to turn off security warnings, just repeat these steps.

B Select Show Security Warnings.

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Cookies Cookies are little pieces of data that are recorded and stored on a user’s computer by a Web browser. Many people think of cookies as being evil, but they usually contain shopping-cart information, passwords, name and address data, and/or previousvisit settings. Whether you want cookies to be active depends on how much interaction with the Web you do on your Xoom. If you’re mostly just reading Web pages—never shopping, buying stuff, or posting forum or blog posts—you can turn cookies off. If you like to do any of these activities, however, turning cookies off could make your life a real pain in the patootie.

To turn off cookies: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on security warnings” earlier in this chapter.

C Clear all cookies here.

2. In the Privacy & Security screen A, touch Accept Cookies. This option is a toggle, so if you ever want to turn cookies back on, just repeat these two steps.

3. If you also want to take all cookie data off your Xoom, touch Clear All Cookie Data C.


Form autoentry If you fill out a lot of forms on the Web, such as name and address information or surveys, you may want to have the Xoom remember the form data so you don’t have to type this information again and again. Form autoentry is turned on by default, but you can turn it off if you want.

To toggle form autoentry: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on security warnings” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Privacy & Security screen A, depending on what you want to do with the autofill settings, touch Clear Form Data or Remember Form Data D.

D Select Clear Form Data or Remember Form Data.

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GPS feature Your Xoom is equipped with a handydandy GPS receiver, which is a doubleedged sword. It can help you find your way around the complicated downtown core in a foreign city, but it can also allow evil organizations to find you and send fleets of black helicopters after you. Whether you want GPS to be on or off is entirely up to you, but from where I’m sitting, the upside of leaving it on far outweighs any known potential downsides.

To toggle GPS: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on security warnings” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Privacy & Security screen A, select Enable Location to let the GPS satellites know where you are E.

E Select Enable Location.


Passwords You can store passwords for various Web sites, blogs, forums, and shopping areas on the Xoom to make it easier to conduct your business online. That said, if your passwords are stored, they could be stolen. The Xoom is set to remember passwords by default, but you can turn that setting off and clear the password data.

To set a password: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on security warnings” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Privacy & Security screen A, select Clear Passwords F.

F Touch Clear Passwords.

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4 Snap!: The Xoom’s Cameras About ten years ago, someone decided that digital cameras should become standard in cell phones. Seemingly overnight, and probably due to the relatively low cost, digital cameras became basic cell-phone features. This one simple change altered the way that news was gathered. Today, anyone with a cell phone in hand can capture a still picture—or, better yet, video—of any event that occurs in front of him or her. Now fast-forward through multiple generations of phones and other small devices to the Motorola Xoom tablet computer, which has not one but two fancy cameras for your enjoyment. Why does a tablet need two cameras? That’s a good question, and I’m not sure that I can answer it adequately here. Suffice it to say that the dual cameras let you use the Xoom as a video recorder, a still camera, and a webcam (showing off your pearly whites as you use the device). In this chapter, I look at the Xoom’s cameras and their built-in software.

In This Chapter Exploring the Xoom’s Cameras

58

Opening the Camera App

59

Configuring Camera Settings

60

Taking Still Photos

64

Shooting Video on the Xoom

66

Creating Movies with Movie Studio

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Exploring the Xoom’s Cameras The Xoom has two built-in cameras: one front-facing and the other rear-facing. These two cameras allow you to take pictures and capture video by using the screen as a viewfinder, as well as take pictures of yourself using the screen as a viewfinder (because the camera is pointing right back at you). What’s more, the frontfacing camera lets you stream video to the Web or engage in video phone calls over the Internet or via Skype.

The front-facing camera The front-facing camera sits dead center along the top edge of the Xoom. It faces you so that you can project your face to someone you’re communicating with over the Internet via Skype or some other communication program. This camera is also very handy for taking pictures of yourself, of course, or even for seeing what’s behind you while you’re looking into the Xoom’s screen. With 2-megapixel capability, the frontfacing camera isn’t as powerful as the rearfacing camera. Also, it doesn’t have a flash, which means that it can capture pictures only when there’s adequate light.

Skype is a free online service that allows users to talk over the Internet from anywhere in the world. It also supports video chat so that people can speak face to face. You can obtain Skype through the Android Market or at www.skype.com.

On/off button

The rear-facing camera The rear-facing camera is the deluxe one of the Xoom’s two cameras. Its 5-megapixel capability means that it’s possible to take some reasonably nice pictures with it. That said, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be winning any photo contests using the Xoom as your primary digital camera, but a 5-megapixel camera is good enough to capture some decent shots. The rear-facing camera also has a dual LED (light-emitting diode) flash A so that it can take pictures in the dark.

Flash

Rear-facing camera

A The camera lens and dual LED flash.

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Opening the Camera App As straightforward as the Xoom’s camera software is, the various icons in the Camera app A have particular functions.

To open the photo software:

A The Camera app’s icons.

1. Touch and hold an open area of the home screen B. 2. Pull the screen to the left, as shown in C, so that a new home screen slides over. 3. Touch the Camera icon D.

Voilà! The Camera app E opens.

B Home screen.

C Pull the home screen to the left. Camera icon

D Find the Camera icon, and touch it.

E The Camera app opens. Snap!: The Xoom’s Cameras

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Configuring Camera Settings Although the Xoom’s cameras are never going to be mistaken for state-of-the-art photojournalism devices, they do have some remarkable capabilities when you consider just what they are, not to mention where they are (in a thin but powerful computer). This section shows you how to get the most from your Xoom’s cameras through adjusting the various photographic parameters available. Settings icon

Accessing the Xoom’s Camera Settings panel The settings portion of the Xoom’s camera controls deal with basics like picture size and quality, as well as where the photos are stored in memory, how the exposure is set, and whether you focus the camera yourself or let the Xoom do it for you.

A Touch the

Settings icon.

To open the Camera Settings panel: 1. If the Camera app isn’t already open, complete the steps in “To open the photo software” earlier in this chapter. 2. Touch the Settings icon A.

The Camera Settings panel B opens. This panel displays five categories: > Store Location. This option is a toggle (On or Off). > Focus Mode. You can set this option to Auto, Infinity, or (for those close-up shots) Macro. > Exposure. Set this option from –2 to +2 to adjust for lighting.

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B Camera Settings panel.

> Picture Size. Your choices include VGA and 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 megapixels. The VGA option sets the lowest resolution; the 5M Pixels option sets the highest resolution. > Picture Quality. Your choices are Normal, Fine, and Super Fine.

Setting effects and balance Several effects and balance settings are available to you:

Scene Mode icon

C Touch the Scene Mode icon.

■

Scene mode. The Xoom’s Camera app has some cool preset scene modes available. Scene modes make taking pictures easier because they automatically adapt the camera to the lighting that’s expected in each setting.

■

Color effect. You can apply color effects applied to a picture before you take it. (Very cool.)

■

White balance. The white-balance setting allows you to adjust the white balance of a shot before you take it.

White balance is the process of removing unrealistic colors so that white colors that look white to human eyes (and brains) look white to the camera too.

D The Scene Mode panel lists 12 categories.

To set a scene mode: 1. If the Camera app isn’t already open, complete the steps in “To open the photo software” earlier in this chapter. 2. Touch the Scene Mode icon C. The Scene Mode panel opens, as shown in D. Your choices are Auto, Action, Portrait, Landscape, Night, Night Portrait, Theatre, Beach, Snow, Sunset, Steady Photo, and Fireworks.

Snap!: The Xoom’s Cameras

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To set a color effect: 1. If the Camera app isn’t already open, complete the steps in “To open the photo software” earlier in this chapter. 2. Touch the Color Effect icon E. The Color Effect panel opens, as shown in F. It lists six options: None, Mono, Sepia, Negative, Solarize, and Posterize.

Color Effect icon

E Touch the Color Effect icon.

F Color Effect panel.

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To set white balance: 1. If the Camera app isn’t already open, complete the steps in “To open the photo software” earlier in this chapter. 2. Touch the White Balance icon G. Depending on what white-balance mode is active, this icon changes. In automatic mode, the icon reads A/W; in manual mode, the icon looks like a sun (G).

The White Balance panel opens, as shown in H. This panel lists four categories: > Auto > Incandescent (warm feel) White Balance icon

G Touch the White Balance icon.

> Daylight (deep colors) > Fluorescent (cool feel)

H White Balance panel.


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Taking Still Photos The Xoom’s built-in camera software is highly intuitive and very usable, letting you take both still pictures and video, including HD video. In this section, I cover taking still photos.

To take a picture: 1. If the Camera app isn’t already open, complete the steps in “To open the photo software” earlier in this chapter.

Last picture taken

A Line up a shot.

2. Line up a shot in the Xoom’s viewfinder, as shown in A.

Flash icon

The small picture in the bottom-left corner of the screen A is the last image you took. Also, you can touch this image to go straight to the Gallery if you want to look at your pictures.

3. Touch the Flash icon B to open the Flash Mode panel, and set the appropriate option (On, Off, or Auto). 4. Touch the plus (+) and minus (–) buttons at the top of the screen B to set the exact level of zoom needed. In C, for example, zoom is set at 2.5x.

B Touch the Flash icon to set a flash option. Zoom setting

C Adjust the zoom.

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5. Touch the button in the center of the circle D to capture the picture. When the picture is taken, you hear a camera shutter open and close— a recorded sound, but realistic.

To view a photo you’ve taken:

Touch to take the picture.

D Snap the shot.

1. Touch the thumbnail image in the bottom-left corner of the screen D to go to the Gallery E. 2. To find the photo you want, scroll through the pictures in the Gallery by touching a picture and sliding it left or right, as shown in F.

E The Gallery holds all your recent shots.

F Scroll through the pictures in the Gallery by sliding them with your finger.


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Shooting Video on the Xoom As I mention earlier in this chapter, the Xoom’s rear-facing 5-megapixel camera can record HD video. This section goes over this procedure. The video software uses the same controls as the photo software (see the preceding section), plus a few extra ones that I cover in this section. You can record video or take pictures on either the front or rear camera. To switch between these cameras, touch the Switch Camera button in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

To open the video software: 1. Open the Camera app by completing the steps in “To open the photo software” earlier in this chapter. 2. Move the slider in the bottom-right corner of the screen from the Photo icon to the Video icon, as shown in A. The video software uses the same controls as the photo software, with the exception of video quality and time lapse, which I cover in the following section.

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Camera slider Video icon

Photo icon

A Set this slider to Video.

To set video options: 1. Touch the Video Quality icon B to set video quality. Your choices are High, Low, and YouTube. 2. Touch the Time Lapse Interval icon C to set time-lapse intervals (how often a frame is captured).

Video Quality icon

B Touch the Video Quality icon to set video quality.

Time Lapse Interval icon

C Touch the Time Lapse Interval icon to set the amount of time between frame captures.


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To record video: 1. Touch the red Record button D.

Recording time

Record button

As you record, the elapsed time appears in the top-right corner of the screen D. 2. Touch the red and white Stop Record button E.

D Touch the red button to start recording.

Touch to stop recording.

E Touch the button in the middle of the circle to stop recording.

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To play back your video: 1. Touch the thumbnail image in the bottom-left corner of the screen D to go to the video player F.

2. Use the player’s controls F to play your video.

The controls are simple. Touch the right-facing arrow to start the video and the pause symbol to stop or pause the video.

F You can view your video right away.


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Creating Movies with Movie Studio The folks at Motorola have made sure that the Xoom is an extremely capable device right out of the box. Indeed, the Xoom includes a piece of software called Movie Studio that allows you to create and edit movie masterpieces. This software allows you not only to edit video, but also to create slideshows or incorporate still photos into a video.

A Switch between home screens to find the Movie Studio icon.

This section shows you to how to start a Movie Studio project and tinker with some of the settings of Movie Studio. Entire books have been written on the subject of video-editing software, but this section gives you enough info to start you on your way to becoming an auteur. Everything in Movie Studio is touchbased. If you want to move a clip or a photo from here to there in the flow of the movie, just reach out and touch it until it pops up and then move it where you want to move it. In this respect, Movie Studio is highly intuitive.

To start a new project in Movie Studio: 1. Slide the home screen to the left to see the Movie Studio icon A.

2. Touch the Movie Studio icon A to activate the program. When Movie Studio starts, you see a New Project icon B.

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B New Project icon in Movie Studio.

3. Touch the New Project icon. The Project Name panel appears.

C Enter the name of your project, and touch the OK button.

4. Enter a project name on the onscreen keyboard, as shown in C, and touch the OK button. The Movie Studio app opens a project screen D. Add Video icon

D New project screen.


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To import video into a Movie Studio project: 1. In the project screen D, touch the Add Video icon (the filmstrip with the plus sign). Movie Studio displays two import options, as shown in E. 2. To import video that’s already on your Xoom, touch the Camera icon; to download video from the Web, touch the Download icon.

E Import options.

3. Select the video you want to import F. The video file shows up in the main screen of Movie Studio G.

F Select the video you want to import from the videos available on your Xoom.

G Your video appears in Movie Studio, ready to be edited.

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4. If you want to import music, change the name of the project, or export a finished movie, touch the Settings icon in the top-right corner H. continues on next page

Settings icon Gallery icon

H Touch the Settings icon to import music, change the project’s name, export the project, or delete it.


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5. If you want to import a still photo, touch the Gallery icon H, and select a photo to insert into the movie I.

I Choose a photo from the Gallery to insert into your movie.

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5 The Multipurpose Xoom Tablet computers are relatively new, and as with all new computing devices, many people initially think that they’re only gaming devices or novelties. Indeed, plenty of users probably view tablet computers as being toys at worst or as adjuncts to desktop or laptop computers at best. I wouldn’t disagree with that view, actually, but if you want to make a tablet computer like the Motorola Xoom your main computing device, you certainly can. In this chapter, I look at basic computing tasks that most users perform on their desktop or laptop computers but that you can do on a Xoom: alarms, contacts, calendars, email, documents, and chat.

In This Chapter Managing the Xoom’s Clock and Alarm

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Using the Calendar App

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Working with Contacts

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Handling Email

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Chatting with Google Talk

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Working with Documents

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Managing the Xoom’s Clock and Alarm What would a computer be without basic clock functions? In this case, the Xoom would still be a fantastic tablet computer, but a built-in alarm is a basic necessity for computing. The folks at Motorola haven’t let us down; the Clock app is simple to use and easy to manage.

A Touch Apps.

B Touch Clock.

To set an alarm: 1. Touch the Apps icon A in the top-right corner of the home screen. The Apps page appears. 2. Touch the Clock app’s icon B on the Apps page. You’re greeted by a full screen showing the time C.

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Set Alarm icon

3. Touch the Set Alarm icon C to bring up the Alarms panel D. 4. Touch Add Alarm E.

The Set Time panel opens F.

5. Touch the up and down arrows for the hour and minute F to select the time when you want the alarm to go off. continues on next page

D Alarms panel.

E Select Add Alarm.

F Set the alarm time using the arrows. The Multipurpose Xoom

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6. Touch the Set button to set the alarm G. The Set Alarm panel opens. 7. Touch the appropriate options to turn the alarm on and off, set the repeat or the ringtone, and even label the alarm; then touch the Done button H.

You return to the Alarms panel D, where the alarm time you just added is displayed I.

8. Touch Done to finish the process.

G Touch Set to activate your alarm.

H Touch Done to lock in your settings.

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To set the Xoom’s time and date:

J Touch Settings.

1. Touch the Apps icon A to open the Apps page. 2. Touch the Settings icon J to open the Settings page. 3. Select Date & Time K near the bottom of the left column. continues on next page

K Touch Date & Time.

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4. Do one of the following: > Touch Automatic Date & Time and Automatic Time Zone L on the right side of the screen to have the Xoom set this information for you.

L If you want automatic date/time and time-zone settings, check those boxes.

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> Touch Set Date M to set the date with the help of a calendar N. continues on next page

M Touch Set Date to set the time manually.

N Use this calendar to set the date.

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5. Touch Use 24-Hour Format O to toggle 24-hour time format.

O Touch the Use 24-Hour format to set this option.

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6. Touch Select Date Format P to set the date format (mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy). 7. Touch the Home icon Q to exit the Settings screen.

P Set the format you prefer.

Home icon

Q Touch Home to complete this task. The Multipurpose Xoom 83

Using the Calendar App The Xoom’s Calendar app is tied to Google Calendars, so whatever you enter in the calendar on your Xoom is reflected in Google Calendars online. Likewise, if you’ve set up Microsoft Outlook on your Xoom (see “Handling Email” later in this chapter), your Outlook events calendar synchronizes with the Xoom’s Calendar app via Microsoft Exchange Server. It’s way cool, to say the least.

To open the Calendar app: 1. Touch and hold an empty area of the home screen, and sweep it to the right A.

A Move to the screen that’s right of the home screen.

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2. Touch the Calendar app’s icon B to open the Calendar app C.

B Touch Calendar.

C The calendar appears full-screen.


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To add a calendar event: 1. In the Calendar screen C, touch the Add Event icon in the top-right corner D. 2. Enter the event’s name in the space provided E. Add Event icon

D Touch Add Event. Type a name for the event.

E Name the event.

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3. Touch the From, To, or Time Zone field E to open the Set Date/Time dialog box F. 4. Set the date and time for the event, using the appropriate controls F, and touch Set when you finish. You return to the screen shown in E.

F Set the date and time.

5. Add guests by touching the plus sign to the right of the Add Guests field E and then entering their email addresses G. If a guest’s email address matches a contact in the contacts list on your Xoom (see the next section) or an entry in your Gmail address book (see “Handling Email” later in this chapter), the field autofills. This feature cuts your typing chores dramatically. continues on next page

G Add as many guests as you like by entering their email addresses.


6. When the event is set up to your satisfaction, touch Done in the top-right corner of the screen H.

You return to the Calendar screen C, where your new event is in place.

To display the calendar in week view instead of month view, touch Week in the topleft corner I.

H Touch Done.

I Touch Week to view the calendar in week view. 88

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Working with Contacts A Touch Contacts.

The Xoom automatically populates your contacts list with contacts from your Google account. If you don’t have a Google account or are new to Google, your contacts from Outlook can still show up after you add your Outlook account to the Xoom, as I show you how to do in this section. After you add a contact, it synchronizes with your Google and/or Outlook account within a few minutes.

To add a contact: 1. Touch and hold an empty area of the home screen, and sweep it to the right (refer to A in “To open the Calendar app” earlier in this chapter). 2. Touch the Contacts app’s icon A to open the Contacts app. 3. Touch New in the top-right corner B to open the New Contact screen. continues on next page

B Touch New. The Multipurpose Xoom

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4. Fill out the contact information, using the onscreen keyboard C.

C Enter contact information.

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5. (Optional) To add a photo of the contact, touch the picture icon C to open a drop-down menu D; then choose Take Photo to shoot a photo of the contact right now on your Xoom’s camera, or choose Select Photo from Gallery (see Chapter 4) to do just that. 6. When all the information is in place, touch Done in the top-right corner to add the contact to your contacts list E.

D Set a picture for the contact, if you want.

E The contact appears in the contacts list. That’s it! The Multipurpose Xoom

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Handling Email The Xoom is powered by the Android operating system, developed by Google, so it stands to reason that using a Google mail (Gmail) account is the easiest, most painless choice with the Xoom. It’s not your only choice, though. Setting up an Outlookbased email account on your Xoom isn’t difficult, as I show you in this section.

To send and receive email: 1. On the home screen, touch the icon for the email app you want to use: Gmail A. For this example, touch Gmail. When you touch the icon, the app opens B.

B The Gmail app opens to the inbox.

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A Touch Gmail.

2. Touch the Refresh icon in the top-right corner C.

Gmail’s Autocheck Although most mobile email programs allow you to set how frequently the device checks for new email, the Xoom’s Gmail app checks email accounts at different rates, according to how often you fetch or read/send email in that account. The frequency appears to be at least every five minutes, but it varies with your viewing and email habits. The current software doesn’t allow you to change this setting manually.

A little animated circle appears for a split-second; then any new emails that have arrived appear at the top of the screen D.

Refresh icon

C Touch Refresh to send and receive emails. New email

Rotating Refresh icon

D New emails appear at the top of the screen. The Multipurpose Xoom 93

To add an Outlook email account: 1. Touch the Apps icon in the top-right corner of the home screen to open the Apps page. 2. Touch the Settings icon E to open the Settings screen. 3. Touch Accounts & Sync on the left side of the screen F. 4. Touch Add Account in the top-right corner of the screen F. The Add an Account panel appears.

F Touch Accounts & Sync.

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E Touch Settings.

5. Select Corporate at the top of the list G. The Add an Exchange Account screen opens. 6. Enter your Outlook email address and password H; then touch Next to proceed. continues on next page

G Touch Corporate.

H Enter the email address and password.


7. In the next screen I, enter the server information; then touch Next. The Xoom checks the settings J. It’s always a good idea to have the IT people at your workplace set up your business mail on your personal devices.

I Enter the server settings.

J When the Xoom confirms the settings, you’re set up.

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A Touch this icon to open Google Talk.

Chatting with Google Talk For many people, communication via online chat has become a popular choice (after email) for both business and personal communication. The Xoom stands ready for this purpose with its Google Talk app. Google Talk allows you to chat with anyone you know who has a Google account. It also allows you to make voice and video calls, which are free beyond the cost of your Internet connection.

To log on to Google Talk: 1. On the home screen, touch the Google Talk icon A. 2. In the Google Talk launch screen, select or enter the account you want to use B. continues on next page

B Touch the account you want to use. The Multipurpose Xoom

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Your Gmail contacts are listed on the left side of the screen, and those who are currently online (including you) appear at the top of the screen C.

C You are logged on and ready to chat.

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To text-message in Google Talk: 1. Complete the steps in “To log on to Google Talk” earlier in this chapter. 2. To chat with one of your contacts via text messaging, touch his or her icon on the left side of the screen. A chat window opens on the right side of the screen. Unlike the screen shown in D, which shows a chat in progress, this window will be blank. 3. Touch the Type to Compose field at the bottom of the screen D to bring up the onscreen keyboard E.

D Touch the icon of the person you want to chat with.

E Touch Type to Compose to access the keyboard. The Multipurpose Xoom 99

To voice or video chat in Google Talk: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To textmessage in Google Talk” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the chat window D, touch the camera icon (for video chat) or the microphone icon (for voice chat) F. Google Talk places the call G.

When the person you’re calling accepts the call, a new chat window opens. 3. Chat away! 4. To end the session and close the chat window, touch the X in the top-right corner of the window F. If the other party ends the session, your chat window closes automatically.

Touch to end the chat. Touch to chat by video. Touch to chat by voice.

F Touch the appropriate icon to initiate a chat (here, video).

G Placing the call. 100

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Working with Documents

A Open Android File Transfer. Documents folder

The Xoom doesn’t come with any built-in text editors, but you can transfer text documents to it and then view and edit those documents with one of several excellent third-party apps. In this section, I show you how to transfer documents to your Xoom from a Mac or a PC and then show you how to use a third-party app to view those documents. These file-transfer methods work for all kind of files, including PDFs, movies, and music.

To transfer a document from a Mac: 1. If you don’t already have it, download the Android File Transfer app to your computer. You can obtain this app at www.android. com/filetransfer.

B Find the Documents folder on your Xoom in Android File Transfer.

2. Connect your Xoom and your Mac via USB cable. 3. On your Mac, double-click the app’s icon A to open it. 4. In the Android File Transfer window, locate the Documents folder on your Xoom B. continues on next page


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5. Browse to and select a document that you want to transfer to the Xoom C. 6. Drag the document file to the Documents folder in Android File Transfer D. The file copies to the Xoom E.

C Select a document on your Mac you want to transfer.

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D Drag the file to the Documents folder.

E The file is on the Xoom, and your job is done.


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To transfer a document from a PC: This task applies to a PC running Windows 7.

1. Connect the Xoom to your PC via USB cable. The window shown in F opens on your PC. 2. Click Open Device to View Files. An Organize window opens. 3. Double-click the Device Storage icon in the list on the left side of the screen. Your PC calculates the free space on your Xoom G and then displays a list of folders.

F Connection window.

G Checking free space.

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4. Double-click the Documents folder H to open it. 5. Browse for and select a document that you want to transfer to your Xoom, and drag it to the Xoom’s Documents folder I.

A confirmation dialog box pops up J.

6. Click Yes to complete the file transfer to the Xoom.

H Open the Documents folder.

If you need to use Microsoft Office or comparable document files on your Xoom for business, I suggest purchasing some good third-party software. Your options include OfficeSuite Pro (trial version covered in the next section), Quickoffice Pro HD, and Documents To Go. All these programs are priced below $20.

Drag to Documents folder.

I Transferring a document.

J Confirm your decision.


To open a document with OfficeSuite: 1. Download and install OfficeSuite on your Xoom. A trial version of this app is available from the Android Market (see Chapter 2). 2. Open OfficeSuite by touching its icon K. The OfficeSuite window opens, listing three options: Device, Memory Card, and OfficeSuite Pro. 3. To open a file on your Xoom, select Device L. A list of folders on your Xoom opens.

L Touch Device.

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K Touch OfficeSuite.

4. Select the sdcard folder M. 5. In the resulting screen, select the Documents folder N. continues on next page

M Touch sdcard.

N Touch Documents. The Multipurpose Xoom 107

6. Select the Sample Files folder (your only choice). 7. Select the document you want to view O. The file opens P.

If you spend a few dollars for the OfficeSuite Pro version (around $15), you can edit these files as well.

O Touch a document.

P The document opens. Happy viewing! 108

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6 Entertainment For many users, the Xoom is an entertainment device for reading books, watching YouTube videos, catching a movie, playing a game, or listening to large libraries of cool tunes. This chapter takes a look at various aspects of entertainment on the Xoom.

In This Chapter Reading Books

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Watching YouTube Videos

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Playing Music

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Organizing Games

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Reading Books Plenty of e-book readers are available for the Xoom, including the popular Amazon Kindle, but the Xoom’s built-in Books app is a great feature that gives you access to plenty of free reading material. In this section, I look at both readers. Project Guttenberg (www.gutenberg.org) also has thousands of books available for free.

Books are available through the cloud, which is to say that the content is downloaded a bit at a time as you read. If you’re going to be away from Internet access for a while, it’s important to make the books you want to read available offline so that you can read them anywhere—and I show you how to do that in this section, too.

To read a book with the Books app: 1. Touch the Books app’s icon A on the home screen. The Books app opens B, displaying some of the available free books.

B Books greets you with a display of free books. 110

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A Touch Books.

Touch and hold a book’s icon to learn more about it or make it available offline C.

2. Touch the book you want to read. The book opens. 3. Turn pages by touching a page and pulling it from right to left, as shown in D. Book options

C Touch and hold a book for more info or a menu of options.

D Pull from right to left to turn a page, just as you would in a physical book. Entertainment

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To read a book offline in the Books app: 1. Touch the Books app’s icon A to open the Books app B. 2. When you’ve found the book you want to read, do one of the following: > Touch and hold the book’s icon, and choose Make Available Offline from the pop-up menu C. > Touch the Menu icon in the top-right corner of the screen, and choose Make Available Offline from the dropdown menu E. Menu icon

E Touch Menu to see book options.

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To set reader options in the Books app: 1. Tap the screen anywhere. The reader controls appear F.

2. Touch the Text icon F.

A bar of text controls appears at the bottom of the screen. continues on next page

Search Title and author

Page slider

Text

Chapters

Menu

Chapter and page number

F The Books app’s reader controls.

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3. Set the changes you want. To change the font, for example, touch the Typeface menu (open in G) and choose a new font from the pop-up menu. 4. When your changes are complete, touch the Done button G. You can’t change the reader settings for a book that you’ve set to read as a scan.

To read a book with the Kindle app:

G Choose a new font from the Typeface menu.

1. If you have the Kindle app installed on your Xoom, touch the app’s icon to launch it. 2. Touch and hold the icon of the book you want to read. A pop-up menu displays start-page options H.

H Touch and hold a book’s icon to see this menu.

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3. Touch an option to begin reading at that point. If you’re reading a book in this app for the first time, a Reading Tips dialog box appears. 4. Touch Dismiss I to move on.

I Dismiss the dialog box.

5. To turn pages, touch and hold the page, and then slide it in the direction in which you want to turn J. continues on next page

J Pages slide instead of turn in the Kindle app.

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Menu

6. If you want to change the text display, tap the screen to display the reader controls K.

Bookmarks Search Text size Brightness

Location slider

K The Kindle app’s reader controls.

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To bookmark a page, touch the Bookmarks icon in the top-right corner K. To highlight a block of text, touch and hold the text for 2 seconds; drag your finger over that text L; and then touch Highlight in the top-right corner of the page.

L Drag to highlight certain passages.

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To annotate text in the Kindle app: 1. Complete steps 1–3 of “To read a book in the Kindle app” earlier in this chapter. 2. Select the text you want to annotate L, and touch Note in the top-right corner of the page. An onscreen keyboard and blank text box appear. 3. Type the note and then touch the Save button M.

M Type the note you want to make and then touch Save.

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A small number appears in the text you selected. The first note you make in a book is 1, the second note you make is 2 (as in N), and so on. When you touch a highlighted note number, the note text appears O.

Note marker

N A small number denotes where you placed a note.

O Touch a note number to see what the note says.

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Watching YouTube Videos One part of the Internet that has become synonymous with surfing is YouTube, an online service that allows users to upload (and subsequently view) videos of all kinds. YouTube content includes everything from homemade music videos to hard-hitting news commentary to TV commercials from 40 years ago. There’s a great deal of content on YouTube, and the Xoom has the app to bring you that content.

To play a YouTube video: 1. Touch and hold an empty area of the home screen, and pull the screen to the right A.

A Pull the home screen to the right.

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2. Touch the YouTube icon B (a stack of video screens) to open the app. A wall of videos opens C. continues on next page

You Tube icon

B Touch YouTube.

C YouTube initially shows you a wall of videos. Entertainment

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3. Do one of the following: > Select a video’s thumbnail C to view that video. > Touch Browse at the top of the screen C to display a list of categories D; touch a category; then touch a video’s thumbnail to play it. Category list

D Select a category to browse.

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The selected video opens in a play window E. Touch the screen to see the play controls. To play a video full screen, touch the Full Screen icon in the bottom-right corner of the play window F. This button is a toggle, so touch it again to turn full-screen display off.

E A video play window.

Full Screen icon

F Touch Full Screen to see a video that way. Entertainment

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Playing Music The Xoom comes with a Music app that can manage all your music on the device. The Xoom can behave much like an iPod, and if that’s the way you intend to use the Xoom, it rises to the occasion admirably. At this writing, Google has just added Music Beta (which probably will be called Google Music eventually), which allows you to place all your online music in the cloud and then access it anywhere at any time. Although Google will eventually release a Music Beta app for the Xoom that you can use to play and manage your online music library, for now, you must use the Internetbased interface.

Transferring music from your computer via USB The best way to transfer music from your computer to your Xoom is to connect the two devices via USB cable and then use Windows Media Player (PC) or Android File Transfer (Mac) to drag music files to your Xoom. The process is explained in Chapter 8 and is very simple. But this process is only one way to get music on the Xoom, as you see later in this section.

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To play music from your Xoom’s music library:

A Touch Music.

1. Touch the Music app’s icon A on the home screen to open the app. What you see when the app opens depends on what happened last: > If you’re opening the app for the first time (which I assume in this exercise), the New and Recent screen opens in Album view B. > If you’ve used the Music app before, it opens to the last screen you used. continues on next page

B Touch an album to select it.

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2. Touch the album you want to listen to. You see a list of all the songs from that the album that you have on your Xoom. If you have only two songs from one album, for example, the Music app lists just those two songs for that album. 3. Touch the song you want to listen to C. The song begins to play D.

C Select a song by touching it.

D Enjoy your song. The controls are right in front of you now. 126

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Transferring music from your computer via Music Beta

E Touch Browser.

Music Beta is a paradigm-shifting idea that makes all your legally acquired music material from your computer(s) available online, ready for listening on the Internet whenever you want. This section shows you how to sign up for Music Beta and make all your music available online. By the time you read this book, Music Beta may have a slightly different name, but the process of installing and using the software should be fundamentally the same. To use Music Beta, you must have a Google account.

To set up Music Beta on the Xoom: 1. Touch the Browser app’s icon E on the home screen to open the app. 2. Type music.google.com in the URL field at the top of the browser screen. continues on next page

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3. Select the program in the search results. When Music Beta opens, you may get a warning that Adobe Flash isn’t installed on your Xoom F. If so, touch Install the Flash Plugin; follow the onscreen directions to install Flash; and repeat steps 1–3.

F Flash installation warning.

Otherwise, you see the screen shown in G. 4. Enter your Google-account login information, and touch Sign In. 5. Proceed to the next section.

G Music Beta’s opening screen.

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To set up Music Beta on a computer: 1. On your computer, complete steps 1-4 of “To set up Music Beta on the Xoom.” The welcome page opens H. 2. Click Next. The terms-of-service page opens I. 3. Touch Agree.

H Music Beta welcomes you.

4. In the next page, select the genres of music you like, and click Add Free Music J. continues on next page

I Music Beta’s terms of service.

J Choose the types of free music you want. Entertainment

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5. In the next page, click Download Music Manager K, and follow the onscreen instructions to install it. 6. Sign in to Music Manager L, using your Google login information. 7. In the Select Music page M, choose the location of your music library on your computer, and click Continue.

K You must download Music Manager to get music off your computer.

L Log in to Music Manager here.

M Select the location of your music on your computer.

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8. In the Preparing to Add Music page, click Continue. Music Manager starts uploading your music to Music Beta N. If you have thousands of songs on your computer, it can take a while to upload them to your Music Beta account. The upload happens in the background, however, so the process won’t slow your other surfing.

9. When the upload is complete O, select what you want to listen to and then click the Play button in the bottom-left corner of the screen.

N Your music starts uploading.

Play button

O Music Beta is ready to go!

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Organizing Games Because games are such a big part of tablet use for most users, it’s a good idea to organize your game software in one panel of your home screen. In this section, I show you how to create a section for all your game apps in one of the five pages of your home screen.

To create a games page: 1. Touch the plus sign in the top-right corner of the home screen A. The personalization screen opens. 2. Select App Shortcuts in the middle of the screen B.

B Touch App Shortcuts.

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A Touch the plus sign.

3. In the resulting screen, drag an app’s icon one at a time to the home-screen page where you want it to reside C. When you drag the app over the destination screen, the screen zooms in D so that you can place the icon exactly where you want it. continues on next page

C Drag a game-app icon to a new location.

D Place the app where you want it. Entertainment

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4. Repeat step 3 for each app you want to move E. Although moving apps one at a time may be tedious, there’s no way to move apps en masse, and it’s better to have the control you get when you move apps one at a time.

If necessary, touch the bottom half of the screen and scroll to the right through your app list to find more games you need F.

E Keep moving game icons.

F Scroll to find more game apps. 134

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5. To finalize the placement of the app icons in your games page, go to that screen, and organize the icons the way you want them G. Now you have a home-screen page with nothing but games on it H, and you know exactly where to go to release some gaming tension. You can set up any group of apps in this manner—not just games. The only limit is your imagination.

G Do the final organization of your games.

H Your games page is ready! Entertainment

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7 Navigation When you think of the Global Positioning System (GPS), you may think of handheld or in-car devices. But the technology has fallen in price to the point at which GPS receivers are becoming ubiquitous in electronic devices such as cell phones (especially smartphones). Heck, even some wristwatches have GPS receivers built in. For this reason, it shouldn’t be a surprise to you that the Motorola Xoom has a built-in GPS receiver—one that’s capable of making your Xoom much more useful and powerful. Whether you’re using the Xoom as an in-vehicle navigation device or keeping it in your backpack as you walk the streets of downtown San Francisco so that your friends can see exactly where you are via Google’s Latitude software, the Xoom’s GPS feature is powerful enough and useful enough that it merits a chapter all its own.

In This Chapter Using the Maps App

138

Configuring Maps

148

Using Google Latitude

153

Using the Maps App Maps is the Xoom’s built-in navigation app, ready to spring into action whenever you need directional advice. Maps is a very powerful tool that can behave just like an automotive GPS, but because of its large screen and vast map database (when the Xoom is connected to the Internet), it can also serve as a sort of virtual guide. This section shows you how to open Maps, how to get Maps to take you to a specific address, and how to find and get to a particular attraction. It even shows you how to get transit information for the bus ride home. At this writing, Maps is still in beta form, so some changes may occur by the time you read this book.

To open the Maps app: 1. Touch and hold an open area of the home screen, and swing the screen to the right, as shown in A.

A Swing to the screen that’s to the right of the home screen. 138

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2. Touch the Maps icon B.

The Maps app opens C.

B Touch Maps. Perspective change Speech input

Back

Directions Settings Places

Layers

Home

C Note the various icons in Maps.

Navigation

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To navigate to an address: 1. In the Maps main screen C, touch the Directions icon D. The Directions dialog box opens E.

2. Type the address in the end-point field E. 3. Touch the Go button. Maps displays directions to that address.

Directions icon

D Touch Directions. Start-point bookmarks

Start point

Flip from/to locations End point

Driving directions Public-transportation directions

End-point bookmarks

Walking directions Bike-path directions

E The Directions dialog box has a lot of little buttons in it. 140

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To find directions from your current location: 1. In the Maps main screen C, touch the Directions icon D. The Directions dialog box opens E.

2. Do one of the following:

F Choose My Current Location as the start point.

> If the start-point field has the phrase My Location in it, as shown in E, skip to step 3. > If the start-point field is empty, touch the start-point bookmarks icon E and choose My Current Location in the menu that pops up F. Next, you must choose the end point of your trip. 3. Touch the end-point bookmarks icon G.

The Choose End Point menu pops up H. continues on next page

G Touch the icon to the right of the end-point field.

H Choose End Point menu.

Navigation

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4. Choose Contacts to find the end point in your contacts list, or choose Point on Map to point to a location on the map. For this exercise, choose Point on Map. 5. Select the point on the map for which you want to get directions I. You must touch this spot twice to do the job.

The second time you touch the end point on the map, the Directions dialog box E opens.

I Choose the end point by touching the destination on a map.

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6. In the dialog box, touch the Go button J, which is now orange. The Maps app takes a moment to calculate the directions, as shown in K. When the calculation is done, Maps displays step-by-step directions to your destination L.

J Touch Go.

K The directions are being calculated.

L Directions to the specified location.

Navigation

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To navigate to an attraction: 1. In the Maps main screen C, touch the Places icon M. The Places window pops up N.

Places icon

M Touch Places.

N Places window. 144

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2. Select an attraction.

O Wait for Maps to find the local restaurants.

For this exercise, select Restaurants. Maps searches for nearby restaurants O. When the search is complete, a list of restaurants appears on the left side of the screen P. continues on next page

P A list of restaurants comes up.

Navigation

145

3. Select a restaurant. Maps gives you an amazing amount of detail about the restaurant you selected Q, from its address and distance from your current location to the menu and local reviews. 4. Touch the Directions icon D to get directions. A pop-up menu asks whether you want driving navigation, walking navigation, or directions.

Q Maps provides a large amount of information about your choice.

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5. For this exercise, choose Get Directions R. Maps displays directions to the restaurant S.

R Choose Get Directions.

S Your directions appear.

Navigation

147

Configuring Maps Maps is a very easy-to-use and intuitive program, but a few features are worth pointing out for first-time users or for users who haven’t had time to explore the app’s full capabilities.

To change the map view: ■

To change the default view A, touch the Compass icon B.

A The default view is flat 2D. Compass icon

B Touch Compass. 148

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The map changes to a chase-style 3D view C. A chase-style view (also called an isometric view) is best described by the analogy of flying behind a car in a helicopter 1,000 feet off the ground. Whereas a 2D map provides a straight-down viewpoint, a 3D chase view shows you a perspective looking in one direction from a point above the terrain.

C A chase-style view.

Navigation

149

To change to satellite view: 1. In the Maps main screen (refer to C in “To open the Maps app” earlier in this chapter), touch the Layers icon D. The Layers window appears. Layers icon

D Touch Layers.

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2. Select Satellite E. Maps overlays a satellite image of the area on the map F.

E Choose the Satellite option.

F Satellite view. Navigation

151

To see more layers: 1. In the Maps main screen (refer to C in “To open the Maps app” earlier in this chapter), touch the Layers icon D to open the Layers window E.

2. Touch the More Layers button G.

The More Layers menu pops up H.

The Wikipedia layer shows little W icons that mark specific Wikipedia data located on the map. If you’re interested in learning about a city, turning on the Wikipedia layer gives you access to information that normally isn’t displayed on a map.

3. Touch the layer you want to see.

G Select More Layers.

H This menu gives you even more layers to choose among.

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Using Google Latitude The Google Latitude app lets specific people in your contact list see exactly where you are at any given time. Plenty of folks aren’t crazy about the idea of letting their friends knowing where they are 24/7, but for many people, Google Latitude has utility. If you’re traveling in a foreign country, for example, you can use Latitude to broadcast your location to friends and family abroad. If you’re a social butterfly, it can be handy to let friends know where you are so that they can catch up with you in a bar or at a restaurant. On the Xoom, Latitude is tied in with the Maps app and can even be used as a layer in Maps so that you can see where your friends are anywhere in the world.

To activate Latitude in Maps: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To open the Maps app” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Maps main screen, touch the Layers icon A to open the Layers window. continues on next page

Layers icon

A Touch Layers. Navigation

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3. Select Latitude B.

Latitude opens C. You should see your own picture on the map, as well as a bar in the top-left corner labeled Latitude.

4. Touch the Latitude bar to open the Latitude window.

B Touch Latitude.

C Latitude shows your location. 154

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5. Select a friend you want to add to Latitude by touching the icon next to his or her name D.

Add a friend Delete a friend

6. In the pop-up dialog box E, touch the Yes button to send a Latitude friend request.

Each person to whom you send a request must say yes before you can see him or her in Latitude.

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 to invite all the people you want to see in Latitude.

D Add a friend here.

When your friends have accepted your Latitude requests, their locations will appear on your maps. To delete a friend from Latitude, complete steps 1–4, and when the Latitude window opens, tap the X icon next to his or her name D.

E Send a friend request.

Navigation

155

To turn Latitude off: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To activate Latitude in Maps” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Layers window, touch Latitude to deselect it (remove the green check).

Watching the Sky Beyond navigation, the Xoom’s GPS feature comes in handy for hundreds of teeny-tiny reasons, which tie into individual apps that are interested in knowing your exact position. One such app is Google Sky Map F, which lets you use the Xoom’s camera and screen to search for planets and stars in the night sky.

F Google Sky Map uses the Xoom’s location to do its job.

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8 Special Tools and Troubleshooting This chapter examines a few special tools that the Xoom has to offer, including speech recognition, Bluetooth connections, mobile hotspots, and airplane mode. All these tools allow you to access or use the Xoom in ways or places that otherwise wouldn’t be feasible. The chapter also examines a couple of troubleshooting issues.

In This Chapter Flying in Airplane Mode

158

Using Speech Recognition

163

Pairing Bluetooth Devices

171

Making Your Xoom a Mobile Hotspot

176

Troubleshooting

182

Flying in Airplane Mode Although the Xoom is designed to be accessible to wireless networks, sometimes you want to use the Xoom without connecting to a network. The most obvious case is during flight on a commercial airplane, when passengers are forbidden to use any wireless communication technology. At such a time, you can put the Xoom in airplane mode, which turns off access to networks, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cell phone. Knowing how to move in and out of airplane mode is handy if only for this reason: A Xoom that’s using or searching for wireless networks uses a heck of a lot more power than a Xoom that’s locked down in airplane mode.

To turn on airplane mode (method 1): 1. On the home screen, touch the Apps icon A.

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A Touch Apps.

2. In the resulting Apps screen, touch the Settings icon B.

The Settings screen opens C. The first category in the list on the left side of the screen—Wireless & Networks—is already selected. continues on next page

Settings icon

B Touch Settings.

C The Wireless & Networks category is preselected. Special Tools and Troubleshooting

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3. Touch Airplane Mode on the right side of the screen D. When you activate airplane mode, all wireless connections automatically turn off.

4. Touch the Home icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen to return to the home screen E. The Airplane Mode option is a toggle. To turn it off, repeat these steps.

D Touch Airplane Mode to activate the feature. E Touch Home to exit Settings.

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To turn on airplane mode (method 2): 1. Touch the Quick Settings icon in the bottom-right corner of the home screen F. The Quick Settings menu and notifications panel pop up G. continues on next page

Quick Settings icon

F Touch Quick Settings.

Settings icon

G Quick Settings menu.

Special Tools and Troubleshooting

161

2. Touch the Settings icon G.

The Settings menu opens H.

3. Touch the Airplane Mode slider at the top of the menu H to set it to on. 4. Touch anywhere on the home screen outside the Settings menu to go back to the home screen. The Airplane Mode option is a toggle. To turn it off, repeat these steps.

H Settings menu.

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A Touch the microphone.

Using Speech Recognition Speech recognition on the Xoom has two built-in functions: ■

It can recognize spoken search requests. You don’t have to type a search string; instead, you can just say a search word to the Xoom and have the device look for it on Google.

■

It can reverse the process and read onscreen text to you.

In this section, I discuss both functions.

B Say the word or phrase you want to search for.

To search with speech recognition: 1. On the home screen, touch the microphone icon A. The Speak Now box opens B.

continues on next page


163

2. Say what you want to search for. The Xoom tells you that it’s working on finding that phrase or word C. When the search is complete, the Xoom opens a Google search-results page for your search term D.

C The Xoom starts searching.

D Your search results are presented.

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To use text to speech: 1. Download a text-to-speech engine from the Android Market, and install it on your Xoom. For this example, I’m using the free app Classic Text To Speech Engine E. continues on next page

E Install the app Classic Text To Speech Engine on your Xoom. It’s free.


165

2. Touch the app’s icon F to launch the app G. 3. Touch the icon representing the voice you want to use G.

F Touch this icon...

In this case, you must buy a voice, so you’re taken to the Android Market (see Chapter 2).

G ...to launch Classic Text To Speech Engine.

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4. Follow the onscreen instructions to purchase the voice; then touch the Open button H to install the voice on the Xoom. 5. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on airplane mode (method 1)” to open the Settings screen. 6. Select Language & Input I. continues on next page

H Touch Open to download the voice.

I Touch Language & Input. Special Tools and Troubleshooting

167

7. On the right side of the screen, select SVOX Classic TTS J. 8. In the resulting screen, select Default Engine K. The Default Engine panel pops up.

J Touch SVOX Classic TTS.

K Touch Default Engine. 168

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9. Select SVOX Classic TTS to make it the default engine L. 10. Back in the Language & Input screen, select Install Voice Data M.

L Touch SVOX Classic TTS.

You return to the Classic Text To Speech Engine app, which displays the voice you purchased in steps 3 and 4. continues on next page

M Touch Install Voice Data.


169

11. Touch the icon that represents the voice you want to use G.

Enter sample here.

12. Return to the Android Market, and download the free app Talk to Me Classic. 13. Back in Classic Text To Speech Engine, enter some sample text in the text field N. The app reads the text back.

N Enter sample text to test the chosen voice.

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Pairing Bluetooth Devices Bluetooth is a wireless technology that connects devices without the bother of cables and wires (obviously). Bluetooth devices come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from telephone earpieces to remotecontrol boxes. Pairing these devices with your Xoom can be a problem if you don’t know how. This section shows you how.

To turn on Bluetooth: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on airplane mode (method 1)” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Wireless & Networks screen, touch the Bluetooth option A. continues on next page

A Touch Bluetooth.


171

It can take a few seconds for Bluetooth to activate, so you may see a Turning on message during the process. When you see the green check next to the Bluetooth option’s name, as shown in B, Bluetooth is activated on your Xoom. The Bluetooth option is a toggle. To turn it off, repeat these steps.

B Bluetooth is on.

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To find and connect a Bluetooth device: 1. Complete the steps in “To turn on Bluetooth” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Wireless & Networks screen, select Bluetooth Settings C. The Bluetooth Settings screen opens. continues on next page

C Touch Bluetooth Settings.


173

3. Select the Find Nearby Devices option D. The Xoom scans the area for Bluetooth devices (which can take a minute) and then displays available devices below the Found Devices heading E.

D Touch Find Nearby Devices.

E A list of available Bluetooth devices. 174

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4. Touch the name of the device that you want to pair with your Xoom. The Xoom asks you to confirm your choice. 5. To confirm, touch the Pair button F.

F Touch Pair.

The device you’re trying to pair with also requests confirmation G. The numbers that Bluetooth devices use to confirm pairing are arbitrary security numbers produced by those devices.

6. Touch Yes. When pairing is complete, the device appears in the Paired Devices section of the Wireless & Networks screen H.

G Pairing request. Paired device

H Pairing is complete.


175

Making Your Xoom a Mobile Hotspot A mobile hotspot is a Wi-Fi network that broadcasts from a mobile device and allows other people to connect to the Internet through that device as though they were connecting to a regular Wi-Fi network. Sometimes, it’s advantageous to create a mobile hotspot so that your friends or co-workers can connect to the Internet through your Xoom. Suppose that you’re in a car on the highway. You have 3G cellular Internet access on your Xoom, but your partner has an iPod with Wi-Fi access and nothing else. If no Wi-Fi networks are available, you can set up a mobile hotspot on your Xoom and allow your partner to attach to the Internet through it. Depending on the fees you pay your service provider for data service, you may want to keep a very close eye on total data use in a mobile hotspot. If multiple people are connected to it, all the data they’re streaming into their devices is going through your data connection.

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To create a mobile hotspot: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on airplane mode (method 1)” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Wireless & Networks screen, select Tethering & Portable Hotspot A. continues on next page

A Touch Tethering & Portable Hotspot.


177

3. In the resulting screen, select the Configure Wi-Fi Hotspot option B. The Configure Wi-Fi Hotspot panel opens, along with an onscreen keyboard. 4. Type a name for your hotspot in the Network SSID field.

B Touch Configure Wi-Fi Hotspot.

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5. Touch Security to drop down the Security menu C. The three security options are Open (no security), WPA PSK, and WPA2 PSK. 6. Choose WPA PSK. 7. Enter the password you want to use, and touch Save D.

C Make a choice from the Security menu.

D Touch Save to complete the setup process.


179

To connect through a mobile hotspot: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on airplane mode (method 1)” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Wireless & Networks screen, select Wi-Fi Settings E to see a list of available Wi-Fi hotspots.

E Touch Wi-Fi Settings.

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3. Select the hotspot you want and then touch Connect to Network F.

F Touch Connect to Network.

4. If the hotspot has a password, and a security panel pops up, enter the password and then touch the Connect button G.

G If a password is required, enter it, and touch Connect.


181

Troubleshooting Although the Xoom, being a computer, is capable of having computer problems, the only real troubleshooting solutions available are a forced reboot or a reset. Resetting a device is a drastic step, so you’re far more likely to employ a forced reboot when software problems cause the Xoom to lock up or behave strangely. You usually do a factory reset only before you sell or give your Xoom to someone else. This section shows you how to do a forced reboot of the Xoom as well as a complete reset of the Xoom to return it to factory condition. A factory reset erases all apps and data on a Xoom, so you should do it only if you’re willing to lose everything on your machine. Make sure that you back up your files first!

To force a reboot: ■

182

Hold down the power button, the up volume button, and the down volume button simultaneously for 3 seconds.

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To reset the Xoom: 1. Complete steps 1 and 2 of “To turn on airplane mode (method 1)” earlier in this chapter. 2. In the Settings screen, select Privacy A. 3. In the resulting screen, select Factory Data Reset B. continues on next page

A Touch Privacy.

B Touch Factory Data Reset. Special Tools and Troubleshooting

183

A screen of dire warnings appears C. 4. Touch Reset Tablet. That’s it. Your tablet is erased and set back to its factory condition D.

C Heed these warnings.

D When the reset is complete, your Xoom is brand-new again (in terms of software). 184

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Index 3G Xoom activating data service, 4 activating mobile data service, 4–5 powering up, 2 24-Hour Format option, selecting, 82

A Activate Device setting, explained, 5 Activate Mobile Data Service screen, 2 activating on cell-phone network, 5 data service on 3G Xoom, 4 mobile data service on 3G Xoom, 4 address, navigating to, 140 airplane mode Quick Settings icon, 161 turning on, 158–163 Wireless & Networks category, 159 alarm displaying time for, 76 setting, 77–78 Amazon Appstore for Android, 21 AndAppStore, 21 Android File Transfer app, 18 downloading, 18 opening, 101 Android Market, 19 accessing, 20 home screen, 20 icon, identifying, 20 Angry Birds app, searching for, 23 app icons identifying, 8 removing from screen, 30

app screen accessing, 10 All tab, 10 maximum capacity of, 10 My Apps tab, 10 app shortcut, moving, 12 App Shortcuts tab, touching, 29 app stores, availability of, 21 apps acquiring, 20–21 Android File Transfer, 18, 101 Books, 110–114 Browser, 40–52 Calendar, 8, 84–85 Camera, 8, 58–67, 89–91 categories, 22 Clock, 76 confirming installation of, 24 Contacts, 89–91 crashing, 32 deleting, 30–33 deleting vs. removing, 30 displaying on home screen, 24 downloading (free), 23–24 dragging to home screen, 28 finding (free), 23 free vs. pay, 22 Gmail, 92–93 Google Latitude, 153–156 Google Sky Map, 156 Google Talk, 97–100 Install button, 24 Kindle, 114–117 managing, 26–33

Index

185

apps (continued) Maps, 8, 138–141, 144–145, 148–152 moving, 26 moving onscreen, 27 moving with personalization screen, 28–29 Music, 125–126 parental advisory, 21 price range of, 22 purchasing, 25 quitting, 32 removing, 30 scrolling through, 29 searching for, 22 selecting, 23 stopping, 32 uninstalling, 30, 32 user ratings and reviews, 19 YouTube,121

B battery port, 2 Bluetooth Find Nearby Devices option, 174 pairing devices, 175 turning on, 171–172 Bluetooth devices connecting to, 176 finding, 173–175 Bluetooth option, toggling, 172 bookmark/history area, navigating, 44–45 bookmarks, adding, 47 books, reading with Kindle app, 114–117 Books app chapter number, 113 Chapters icon, 113 Menu icon, 113 page number, 113 page slider, 113 reading books offline, 112 reading books with, 110–111 Search icon, 113 setting reader options, 113–114 Text icon, 113

186

Index

title and author, 113 Browser app adding bookmarks, 47 Advanced settings, 50 Back icon, 40 bookmark/history area, 44–45 bookmarks, 40 configuring settings, 49–50 finding Web pages, 41–42 Forward icon, 40 General settings, 50 History tab, 45 incognito tabs, 46 Labs screen, 50 menu, 40 Most Visited Homepage, 51 opening tabs, 43 Privacy & Security settings, 50, 52 Refresh icon, 40 search icon, 40 setting home page, 51 Settings icon, 49–50 tabs, 40, 43 touching and holding links, 46 URL, 40 browsing history, hiding, 46 buttons, activating, 7

C calendar displaying in month view, 88 displaying in week view, 88 Calendar app identifying, 8 opening, 84–85 calendar event adding, 86–88 adding guests, 87 setting date and time, 87 Camera app, 58 balance, 61 color effect, 61–62 effects, 61

Gallery feature, 65 home screen, 59 icon, 59 opening photo software, 59 scene mode, 61 taking pictures, 64–65 video options, 67 video software, 66 white balance, 61, 63 Camera icon, identifying, 8 Camera Settings panel Exposure option, 60 Focus Mode option, 60 opening, 60–61 Picture Quality option, 61 Picture Size option, 61 Store Location option, 60 cameras flash, 58 front-facing, 58 on/off button, 58 rear-facing, 58 charging Xoom, 2 Classic Text To Speech Engine Default Engine panel, 168 Install Voice Data, 169 Language & Input, 166 testing voice, 170 using, 165–170 voice selection, 166 Clock app, 76 connecting to Mac, 18 to Windows PC, 17 Contacts app adding photos, 91 entering information, 90 identifying, 8 opening, 89 cookies clearing, 53 explained, 53 turning off, 50, 53

D Data Enabled setting, explained, 5 Data Roaming setting, explained, 5 data service, activating on 3G Xoom, 4 date, setting, 81 Date & Time option, selecting, 79 date format, setting, 83 deleting apps, 30–33 directions driving, 140 finding, 141 walking, 140 documents opening with OfficeSuite, 106–108 transferring from Macs, 101–103 transferring from PCs, 104–105 double-tap gesture, 9 drag gesture, 9 driving directions, getting, 140

E email Gmail app, 92–93 Gmail widget, 34 Outlook email account, 94–96 sending and receiving, 92–93

F factory reset choosing, 183 effect of, 182 Force Stop option, using, 32 form autoentry Clear Form Data option, 54 Remember Form Data option, 54 toggling, 54 free space, calculating on Xoom, 104

G Gallery, 65 icon, 8 importing photos from, 74

Index

187

games page creating, 132–135 dragging apps to, 133–134 finding apps for, 134 organizing icons, 135 gestures double tap, 9 drag, 9 pinch, 9 rotate, 9 spread, 9 swipe, 9 touch, 9 touch and hold, 9 two-finger swipe, 9 Gmail app autocheck, 93 opening, 92 receiving, 93 refreshing, 93 sending, 93 Gmail widget, 34 Google Account Setup screen, 6 signing in to, 6 Google account, setting up, 6 Google Latitude app activating in Maps, 153–155 adding friends, 155 deleting friends, 155 sending friend requests, 155 turning off, 156 Google services, configuring Xoom for, 6 Google Sky Map app, 156 Google Talk app chat window, 100 icon, 97 logging in to, 97–98 text messaging, 99 Type to Compose field, 99 video chat, 100 voice, 100 GPS feature, toggling, 55

188

Index

H HDMI out port, 2 headphone jack port, 2 history hiding, 46 navigating, 44–45 home page, setting in Browser app, 51 home screen app icons, 8 Calendar app, 8 Camera icon, 8 Contacts app, 8 Gallery icon, 8 Maps app, 8 Movie Studio icon, 8 notifications, 8 open apps, 8 recent apps, 8 text search, 8 voice search, 8 YouTube icon,8 hotspots configuring, 178 connecting through, 180–181 creating, 177–179 naming, 178 Security menu, 179 Tethering & Portable Hotspot, 177 Wi-Fi settings, 180 WPA PSK Security option, 179

I icons activating, 7 Android Market, 20 displaying grid with, 12 moving, 12 Settings, 60 Install button, using with apps, 24

K Kindle app annotating text, 118–119 bookmarking pages, 117 Bookmarks icon, 116 Brightness icon, 116 choosing fonts, 114 Dismiss button, 115 highlighting text, 117 location slider, 116 Menu icon, 116 note marker, 119 reading books with, 114–117 Search icon, 116 start-page options, 114 Text Size icon, 116 turning pages, 115

L Latitude app activating in Maps, 153–155 adding friends, 155 deleting friends, 155 sending friend requests, 155 turning off, 156 Location & Security tab, 2, 14 Lock Screen, configuring, 14 login, setting pattern for, 14–15

M Macs connecting to, 18 transferring documents from, 101–103 Maps app Back icon, 139 chase-style view, 149 Directions icon, 139–140 driving directions, 140 end point, 140 finding directions, 141–143 finding restaurants, 145–147 Home icon, 139

layers, 152 Layers icon, 139 map view, 148–149 My Current Location, 141 navigating to addresses, 140 navigating to attractions, 144–147 opening, 138–139 perspective-change icon, 139 Places icon, 139, 144 satellite view, 150–152 Settings icon, 139 showing current location, 153–155 speech-input icon, 139 start point, 140 walking directions, 140 Web page, 8 Market, 19 accessing, 20 home screen, 20 icon, identifying, 20 memory expansion port, 2 Micro USB port, 2 mobile data service, activating on 3G Xoom, 4 mobile hotspot configuring, 178 connecting through, 180–181 creating, 177–179 naming, 178 Security menu, 179 Tethering & Portable Hotspot, 177 Wi-Fi settings, 180 WPA PSK Security option, 179 Mobile Network Settings Activate Device, 5 Data Enabled, 5 Data Roaming, 5 System Select, 5 month view, displaying calendar in, 88 Motorola Xoom tablet. See also 3G Xoom activating on cell-phone network, 5 calculating free space on, 104 charging, 2 configuring for Google services, 6

Index

189

Motorola Xoom tablet (continued) erasing, 184 resetting, 183–184 Movie Studio Gallery icon, 73 icon, 8, 70 importing music into, 73 importing still photos, 74 importing video into, 72–74 moving clips in, 70 moving photos in, 70 naming projects in, 71 project screen, 72 Settings icon, 72 starting projects in, 70–71 moving app shortcuts, 12 apps, 26 apps onscreen, 27 wallpaper, 12 widgets, 12 moving wallpaper, setting, 37–38 music importing into Movie Studio, 73 playing from music library, 125 transferring from computers, 124 transferring via Music Beta, 127–131 Music app opening, 125 playing albums, 126 playing songs, 126 selecting albums, 125 Music Beta downloading Music Manager, 130 Flash installation warning, 128 opening screen, 128 setting up on computer, 129–131 setting up on Xoom, 127–128 Music Manager downloading, 130 logging in to, 130

190

Index

N notifications, identifying, 8 notifications bar, identifying, 4 notifications panel, 13

O OfficeSuite, opening documents with, 106–108 open apps, identifying, 8 Outlook email account adding, 94–96 entering server settings, 96

P pages finding, 41–42 searching content on, 48 password login, setting, 15 passwords clearing, 56 setting, 56 pattern login, setting, 14–15 PCs, transferring documents from, 104–105 personalization screen accessing, 11 App Shortcuts tab, 11 home screens, 11 More tab, 11 Wallpapers tab, 11 Widgets tab, 11 photo software, opening, 59 photos adding to Contacts app, 91 taking, 64–65 viewing, 65 pictures. See also photos setting as wallpaper, 35–36 taking, 64–65 PIN (personal identification number), setting, 15 pinch gesture, 9 ports HDMI out, 2 headphone jack, 2 memory expansion, 2

Micro USB, 2 power, 2 power port, 2 powering up 3G Xoom, 2 Wi-Fi Xoom, 3 Project Guttenberg, 110

R reboot, forcing, 182 recent-apps icon, identifying, 8 Reset Tablet option, choosing, 184 rotate gesture, 9

S screen timeout, setting, 16 screens app, 10 default, 7 home screen, 7–8 personalization, 11 personalizing, 11 security information, entering, 3 security pattern drawing, 14–15 re-creating, 14 security warnings, turning on, 52 Settings icon, identifying, 4, 31, 60 Settings menu, 13 Settings screen, accessing, 13 Skype, features of, 58 Speak Now box, opening, 163 speech recognition functions, 163 searching with, 163–165 Speak Now box, text to speech, using spread gesture, 9 still photos Flash Mode panel, 64 importing into Movie Studio, 74 taking, 64–65 zoom settings, 64 swipe gesture, 9 System Select setting, explained, 5

T tablet. See also 3G Xoom activating on cell-phone network, 5 calculating free space on, 104 configuring for Google services, 6 erasing, 184 resetting, 183–184 text search, identifying, 8 time, setting, 81–82 time zone, setting, 80 Timeout setting, choosing, 16 touch-and-hold gesture, 9 touch gesture, 9 touchscreen technology, 9 troubleshooting forcing reboot, 182 resetting Xoom, 183–184 two-finger swipe gesture, 9

U USB cable using, 17 using to transfer music, 124 user ratings and reviews, accessing, 19

V video. See also YouTube videos importing into Movie Studio, 72–74 playing back, 69 recording, 66, 68 stopping recording, 68 Time Lapse Interval icon, 67 viewing, 69 video options, setting, 67 Video Quality icon, identifying, 67 video software, opening, 66 voice search, identifying, 8

W walking directions, getting, 140 wallpaper moving, 12 setting (moving), 37–38 setting pictures as, 35–36

Index

191

Web browser adding bookmarks, 47 Advanced settings, 50 Back icon, 40 bookmark/history area, 44–45 bookmarks, 40 configuring settings, 49–50 finding Web pages, 41–42 Forward icon, 40 General settings, 50 History tab, 45 incognito tabs, 46 Labs screen, 50 menu, 40 Most Visited Homepage, 51 opening tabs, 43 Privacy & Security settings, 50, 52 Refresh icon, 40 search icon, 40 setting home page, 51 Settings icon, 49–50 tabs, 40, 43 touching and holding links, 46 URL, 40 Web history, managing, 44–45 Web pages finding, 41–42 searching content on, 48 week view, displaying calendar in, 88 white balance Auto category, 63 Daylight category, 63 Fluorescent category, 63 Incandescent category, 63

192

Index

widgets adding, 34 moving, 12 Wi-Fi network, activating, 3 Wi-Fi settings, choosing, 180 Wi-Fi Xoom, powering up, 3 Windows Media Player, using, 17 Windows PC, connecting to, 17 Wireless & Networks category, 159

X Xoom tablet. See also 3G Xoom activating on cell-phone network, 5 calculating free space on, 104 charging, 2 configuring for Google services, 6 resetting, 183–184

Y YouTube icon, identifying,8 YouTube videos displaying categories, 122 playing, 120–123

Z zooming in, 12


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