Switching from iPhone to Samsung? Here are 12 Samsung Galaxy S8 Phone Hacks You Should Know

As you guys know, since I started my partnership with Verizon earlier this year, I also got introduced to the Android family with the brand new Samsung Galaxy S8.  In all honesty, I never completely left the “i-Family” just because we still have the iPods and iPads and it hasn’t been a big problem because with my Verizon service, I get to just connect my hotspot and get great service on each of those no matter where we are. 

Check out my full review of the Samsung Galaxy S8

The problem is that I still also kept my iPhone and have been teetering back and forth between that and the Samsung Galaxy just because there were still a few little nuances I’d gotten used to with my iPhone that I couldn’t figure out on the Samsung.  So, after a few months of researching and playing around, I have a few great Samsung Galaxy S8 phone hacks to share with any of you who are like me thinking of switching from iphone to Samsung. If you know of any more, please feel free to share those in the comments!

12 Samsung Galaxy S8 Phone Hacks

Keyboard Shortcuts – I’ll start with this one because it is a huge priority for me in terms of productivity. You can pre-set certain shortcuts on the phone so that simply typing a few letters or phrase you decide will automatically help you populate the whole term you are looking for.  For example, I set keyboard shortcuts for my social media pages so I can easily share those without having to type the whole address.  Here’s how to do it – Go to Settings->Language and Input-> On Screen Keyboard-> Samsung Keyboard->Turn on and Tap on Predictive Text->Text Shortcuts

Finding The Settings You Want – with all of the features of the Samsung Galaxy 8, it can be a chore looking for the settings that you want to alter. Thankfully, there’s just an easy way of doing things. Simply go to the settings menu, which is easy enough, and tap the magnifying glass icon. Just search for the settings you want to change. It can even help you with suggestions. 

More Icons On The Home Screen – if you have a lot of important apps, then adding them on the home screen makes everything easier. Keep in mind that your home screen real estate has limited icon space. To get around this, what you can do is to long press any part of the wallpaper. Then, a select the “home screen settings.” From, there you can add or limit the icon space. For example, you can either choose a 4×5, 4×6 or 5×5. 

Floating Camera – If you take a lot of pics, especially selfies, it can be a challenge to reach for the shutter button on the camera.  The Samsung Galaxy S8 gives you the option to move the shutter button to a more convenient location on the screen.  To allow for this setting, go to Settings->Apps->Camera->turn on Floating Camera button.

Resizing Widgets – not a lot of Galaxy S8 users know that widgets can be re-sized. Also, resizing the widgets is a breeze if you know how to do it. Simply long press on a widget, and lift your finger. A blue box should appear on the screen, which you can then manipulate to alter the size of the widget. With this method, you can even resize the search box widget of Google. 

Connect to 2 BlueTooth Devices at a time – The Samsung Galaxy allow users to play music on more than one speaker at a time via bluetooth. To set this up, go to Settings->Bluetooth->then click on the the dropdown menu from the top right and select Dual Audio.

Re-order the Navigation Bar – the navigation bar is a quick way of accessing the most important apps or features. Here’s what you can do to re-order the icons. Go to the settings, then display and then navigation bar. From there, you can re-order the navigation bar to your liking. 

Quick Way Of Creating A Folder – using folders is a great way to keep your apps organized. The quick way of creating a folder is to simply hold an app, and then drag it on top of another app. A folder should automatically appear, and both of the apps should be in the newly created folder. 

How To Stop Icons From To The Homescreen After Installing – this is a common pet peeve for many. Once you finished downloading an app, the icon is automatically placed on the home screens. After downloading a couple of apps, your home screens would start to look like a disorganized mess. To change this behavior, tap on the Play Store and then settings. There should be setting that you can uncheck to disable this feature. 

All Apps On Home Screen – some users don’t like the idea of an app tray. Thankfully, there’s a way you can disable it and place all your apps on the home screens. To do this, long press the home screen and then tap on the “home screen settings.” Then, tap on the “home screen layout, ” and two options should appear. The “home screen and apps screen” option is the one that removes that app tray. The “home screen only” is the default setting. 

Re-ordering Your Apps Tray – finding an app in the app tray can be tricky. What you can do is to re-order the apps to make finding an app a lot easier. To re-order the apps in the apps tray, tap the menu which is in the top-right area of the screen. Tap the “sort” option. This will give you a list of options on how you may sort the apps tray, like alphabetical.

Photo Cloud Sharing – One of my favorite iPhone features was being able to share photos and videos from one user to the other.  Android does apparently have a similar feature via Samsung Cloud.  Right now, I’m still actually in the process of trying to figure this out, but I will update once I learn a little more or if any of you have a little more experience with this, please share below!