The Samsung Galaxy S 3 may have come closest to recreating that “quick app launching” experience with the shortcuts on the lock screen and the innovative way of activating them.
The Galaxy S 3 Lock screen
Turn on your Galaxy S 3 and (unless you have made changes to the Lock screen) you see the familiar dandelion image with four icons at the bottom.
Typically, you swipe across the screen to unlock it and then go into whichever app you want. So, that’s one swipe to unlock, then one tap of the App drawer and then a few swipes of the screen to find the app and then you tap and launch the app.
Alternatively, perhaps you have apps saved in folders (as I do) and just swipe over one Home screen to find the folder with the app you want. Again, too many swipe and taps to really be efficient.
Quick launch Lock screen icons
Those four icons on the Lock screen are there for a reason; you can simply quickly swipe up from any of those four icons to immediately launch the associated app. So, swipe up from the Phone app to launch it. If you use S memo often, just swipe up from the lock screen starting with your finger on the S memo icon and move upwards and S memo with launch.
Quick launch Camera app from Lock screen
One thing that users have asked about is the ability to quickly launch the Camera app from the Lock screen. Fortunately, this is a pretty easy thing to “unlock” in your Galaxy S 3 Settings app.
- Pull down the Notification drawer
- Touch the Settings icon (or touch the Settings app icon)
- Scroll down to Security and tap
- Tap on Lock screen options
- Toggle the switch next to Camera quick access to the ON position
- To use the Camera quick access feature:
- Tap the power button to get to the Lock screen
- Touch the screen and keep holding (you will now see a new icon of a screen lock on the screen)
- While holding your finger to the screen, rotate your phone left or right (to a landscape orientation) and the Camera will automatically launch
To edit or change the Lock screen icons
Fortunately, you are not stuck with the four Lock screen icons that ship with the Galaxy S 3; you can edit them to any four apps on your phone. To edit the Quick launch icons:
- Launch your Settings app
- Scroll to Security and tap
- Tap on the Lock screen options tab
- Tap on the Shortcuts tab at the top
- Touch and hold any of the four icons and drag it down to the Trash icon
- You will now see a + icon at the right
- Tap the + icon
- Choose from any of your installed apps to be the new Shortcut app
- You should now see the icon for that app in the shortcuts
In this example, I wanted to replace the Messaging icon with a Gmail icon.
Using Quick launch icons with Security enabled
These quick launch features are great and work beautifully if you don’t use any sort of real “security” on your phone. If you choose either the Swipe (standard) or Motions unlocking methods – which offer no security – you can use the quick launch procedures outlined above to launch apps and the Camera.
If you do use security, however – either Face Unlock, Password, Pin or Pattern, you need to enable one other feature to have access to the quick launch features. Otherwise, you will enter you PIN, Password or other security method and simply unlock the phone and go to the main Home screen. You need to enable the Swipe lock on top of the other security method.
In this example, I have PIN security enabled, but want access to the quick swipe up and launch feature.
- Go to your Settings app
- Go to Security
- Under the Screen lock tab notice the With swipe lock tab
- Put a check mark in the With swipe lock box
- Now, when you tap the Power button, you get the Swipe to unlock screen as the first screen. You can:
- Swipe to unlock
- Swipe up on one of the Quick launch icons
- Touch and hold and rotate to use the Camera
After you perform one of those options, you then need to either input your PIN, Password or use the other Security method that you have set. This does add one more step to the process, but it still gives you the benefit of having these Quick launch features on your phone and maintain the security you need.
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i wish this article useful for you all, thx for reading this article i hoe you enjoy it . . .
