The Galaxy S5 has secret passage ways and shortcuts all over the place. There’s back doors and hidden entrances all designed to get you to your stuff quicker and easier.
That’s the way it should be. Right? I mean, its your stuff and it should be quick and easy to get to.
So here are some shortcuts that can make your day-to-day activities on your Galaxy S5 easier.
1. Quick Message or Call
This tip is helpful for those people you need to call or text and they’re not one of your “Favorites”. Because you wouldn’t need to locate a favorite contact. You would just go to the favorites tab.
To use this tip open the Contacts App. Start typing the name of a contact in the search field. Your Galaxy S5 does a real time search as you type. So it shouldn’t take long to find the contact.
Once you find the person you want to text swipe from right to left to open the texting app.
Your Galaxy S5 will start a new text message with this contact already in the “To” Field. The cursor will be sitting in the “Message” field waiting for you to start typing.
Back at the contact search page; swipe from left to right to open the phone app and automatically call this contact. Just make sure you actually want to talk to them. Just sayin’
2. Note to Self
You know when you’re out running errands and you think of something that you know you should write down. Usually you won’t have a pen and paper available.
So what do you do? You tell yourself, I’ve got to remember this. 5 minutes later you have no idea what you needed to remember. That’s where Note To Self comes in.
To use this tip open Google Now. You can do that by Saying “OK Google” from your home screen. You can also open Google Now by long pressing on the Home Button and then saying “OK Google”.
When you hear the ding, you should see a red pulsing microphone (sounds gross when you say it out loud) and the words “Speak Now”. This means you Galaxy S5 is waiting for your voice command.
Say “Note To Self” and the note you want to remember. For example, “Ok Google! Note to Self. KY jelly may be from Kentucky but it does not go well with peanut butter”
Google Now will record and transcribe the note for you and send it to your choice of destinations. It will assume you want it to go to your Gmail account. But you can choose to send it to a Note taking app instead. Like Google Keep or Evernote if you have them installed. Very handy when you’re out and about and remember something that you need to do.
3. Silence the Ringer
Your in a meeting with the whole company. Its like a library, no one is talking except the CEO. Right then you get a call and your ringer is on full blast.
Everyone turns to look at you. You fumble with your phone. Your trying everything you can to silence it. You think “Why is it still ringing?!!!” You feel your body temp go up and your face is the color a freshly boiled lobster. You’re thinking “Please just stop ringing!!!”
Well, if a call comes in and you’ve forgotten to put your Galaxy S5 on silence. You can immediately silence the ringer (even in vibrate mode) by pressing on the down volume button on the left side of your Galaxy S5. The call will not be sent directly to voicemail but the ringer or vibration will stop immediately.
4. Assign Quick Responses to Number Keys
Look through your most recent text messages. Do you send the same text to certain people often? Maybe the text is just a status update with where your at. Or maybe you’re just checking in. I sent short little updates to my wife all the time like “On my way” or “I need a drink” or “My head is stuck!”
If so then you might love this tip. I only wish I would have learned it years ago.
In your messaging/texting app long-press on the microphone icon just to the left of the comma key.
Tap on the gear icon in the pop-up menu.
Tap on My Shortcuts
Type a message into one of the numbered boxes.
Tap the back arrow on the bottom of your phone to save and exit.
To try it out; go into your messaging/texting app. Long-press on one of the numbers you entered a message for. When you lift your finger the message will be in the text box for you.
Cool right?
Like I said, I wish I would have know about this years ago.
5. Priority Contacts in Messaging App
Do you have a few people that you text with more than others? Your closest friend, a coworker maybe? This shortcuts puts those people right at the top of your texting app. One tap away from sending your thoughts across the airwaves directly to them.
In your messaging/texting app tap on the circle with a Plus sign in the middle of it.
Tap on Inbox to select from contacts you’ve recently sent or received text messages from. Or tap on Contacts to open the contact app and select your priority senders from there.
Tap on a checkbox to add the contact as a priority sender
Now they are at the top of your Texting app for easy access to start the next text. A great little shortcut for those you text with the most.
6. Uninstall/Disable Apps in the App Drawer
There are a number of apps installed on your Galaxy S5 by your service provider (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc) or from Samsung themselves that cannot be uninstalled (bloatware!!!). These apps could be using memory or battery because they might be running in the background. Even though you’re not using them. Most apps you can uninstall. Not these guys.
So Samsung provided a way for you to disable and hide the apps that you do not want on your Galaxy S5. Open the App Drawer and tap on the 3 dots menu in the upper right corner
Tap on Uninstall/Disable Apps
Tap on the little red dash to disable an app. This will not uninstall the app; but will prevent it from using memory, cache, and battery resources. Its not a good as unistalling but I think its a good alternative.
7. Quick Switch between Cities Weather Forecast
Do you like to keep you eye on the weather in other cities? Maybe you travel to the same cities for work on a regular bases. Or maybe you have a favorite vacation spot. Maybe you just want to keep an eye on your home town.
If you’ve added more than one city to the weather widget on your Galaxy S5. Then you can quickly switch between cities in the Weather Widget right on your home page.
Swipe down on the weather widget (like the arrow above) to quickly switch between cities
This is the weather widget switching between cities. Notice the transition point in the middle of the image below.
8. Direct Call from Phone App
This is a tip that I’ve known about for a while and is available on most Android Smartphones. It wasn’t until recently however that I realized how useful it was. In the last couple of weeks I’ve used this shortcut probably every other day. That’s surprising considering how hard I try to keep from calling someone.
Open the Phone/Dialer App instead of the Contacts app. Start typing the name of the person you’re calling by using the letters on each button key.
Notice I typed 224 because that corresponds to BAI. Tap the 3 with the down arrow that is circled above to see the other 2 contacts that could match based on the letters assigned to 224.
Tap on the green phone button to call the contact.
9. Replace Camera Shortcuts
In my house we use the camera’s on our smartphones for everything. In fact my brother-in-law calls my wife an asian tourist. She’s always taking pictures. I’ll tell you more about that later.
Photography is an art and about personal style. The shortcuts that come as a default on the Samsung Galaxy S5 might not be the settings and features you use most often. And as you use your camera more and more you’ll discover which settings work best for you.
To change the shortcuts on your Galaxy S5’s camera open the camera app. The default shortcuts are located on the left side of the screen. I’ve circled them in yellow in the picture below.
Long-press on one of the existing shortcuts to bring up the camera shortcut menu and then drag the shortcut you want to remove out of the shortcut area. Just lift your finger to drop it anywhere. It’ll disappear.
Long-press on the setting you want to add to the shortcut area and then drag it into place.
Next time you open the camera app the settings you use most will be right there on the screen for easy access.
10. Reject a Call with a Message
Have you ever had a call come in that you just couldn’t take at that time? Maybe it was from a close friend or a loved one. Either way you felt a little guilty about having to reject the call. Especially, since you sent them directly to voicemail. Here’s a little tip that will help ease that guilty feeling in the pit of your stomach.
I’m honestly surprised I haven’t used this tip more often. Probably because my go to reject method is tip #3.
Anyway, next time you receive a call that you can’t take, reject the call and send the caller a text message for follow up. Letting them know you couldn’t take their call but you’re not ignoring them either.
While the call is coming in slide up on the “Reject call with message” arrow to select from the quick response messages.
Here are the default quick response messages that come on your Galaxy S5. Tap on the Plus sign and Compose new message bar above the first message to create your own messages.
There you go. 10 incredibly helpful, daily use type shortcuts and tips. I hope you found a gem or two that will help you enjoy your Galaxy S5 even more.
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