Yes, it's sometimes called the notification panel (usually when it's open). It's also sometimes referred to as the notification shade (also mostly when it's open). When it's closed, it's generally called the notification bar.
Once you get used to opening it, you'll find that it's not really necessary to swipe it that slowly.
The best the guide can do is show you the icons that the manufacturer put in for their specific functions/warnings/etc.
As soon as you start using apps (like email/gmail as you figured out), those apps will have their own icons. When you open the notification panel/shade/bar, most of them will have a brief description of what they are.
Hope that helps clarify a little, and feel free to ask more questions as you're getting into the groove.
Also, if you press/hold the power button and volume down button at the same time, it should take a screenshot on that particular phone, if you'd rather that than snapping a pictures with another phone/camera. Handy.
The fact that you're getting a popup about USB debugging intrigues me though. Did you get this phone used?
And one more thing, Welcome to the forum!
Thanks for the welcome, Jonny!
Your explanation of the various names for the bar/panel/shade makes sense, but our evolving language makes it really difficult at times! This is one of those times for my wife and me.
We have come from a long experience with iPhones [shudder] and both got quite disgusted because iOS doesn't let users do diddly. I decided to try Android. At the moment, I'm in the doghouse because my wife is struggling to come to terms w/ our new phones. Sure, it's only 4 days now, but neither of us had done ANYTHING except try to do "simple" things on our new phones. We have dishes and clothes to wash. It's gonna get cold in 2 days and we have plants to move inside and others to cover. In short, we have let life slide while we struggled with Androidism. :-(
The contrast between iOS and Android is vast. I personally wish there was something in the middle. iOS is too locked down. Android is too broken open. Apple introduces too few models of iOS devices; the Android world introduces too many! I get the impression from reading and watching on the Internet that an Android phone is more of a "toy" than an iOS phone. An Android phone is to a great extent a "hobby" as users "play" w/ them. I have other hobbies and don't really have time for another one.
My wife stayed up late last night futzing w/ the HTC1. This morning she told me that she had to reset it and start over; it had gotten so screwed up, NOTHING worked anymore. Thank goodness we have separate offices in the house!
I'm learning a lot from helpful people, like you. For example, that "trick" about holding volume-down and power to take a screenshot is typical of the devious nature of the Android world. Saturday night, I sat beside the son of an old friend; he's a 20-something "kid" w/ an Android phone. He showed me a "trick": Instead of pressing keys on the keyboard, he moved his finger in a complex way...he drew a yellow line on top of the "keys". The phone interpreted the keys under the yellow line as a word and it appeared in the text box! I was astounded, not at the fact that it did this, but 1) that I had not read about it anywhere and 2) that anyone would spend time to write the code to do something useless like this! If it has any practical value, it escapes me.
About the USB debugging...
Our phones are brand new from the AT&T store. When I called HTC CS [which BTW have been spectacular!], Matt told me to click on "OK". He said that I wanted this turned on. I have read elsewhere that a dumb guy like me wants it OFF. I don't have a clue. It is apparently something that happens when I connect the phone to my PC? It apparently doesn't really have anything to do with "debugging"? I get stressed when my tools are not understandable!
I want a phone that does only 10% of what the HTC1 will do. I want it to get out of the way and let me live my life. For example, both my wife and I have tried MANY ways to emulate the simple "Notes" app on our iPhones. We both use it to store the list of drugs that we take daily. SO far, we haven't found anything that works the way we want it to [or even works at all]. Yes, we have tried Evernote. I've gotten it to the stage where I think I must trash it [again] and start over; has to do with e-mail addresses and passwords not being accepted! All of the apps we find are much too feature laden! I want something that will:
- Let me create notes on the PC, which has a much better human interface than a smart phone.
- Not store my notes on a Cloud; I want them stored in the SD card on the phone.
- If I make occasional changes to the notes on the phone, I want to be able to xfer them to the PC.
So far, we have found nothing like this. I'm shocked that an Android phone doesn't have a native facility much like this! BTW, when we used the HTC Sync Master, it didn't transfer the Notes to the HTC1 from our old iPhones. I researched how to do this online. Several sites had the same process. It involved using iTunes and Windows Explorer together. Nope, didn't work. The result was that ALL of my notes vaporized. I recreated one important note on the PC, but have not yet found a way to transfer it to the SD card or found a way to look at it on the phone.
Day-by-day, the old iPhone looks better and better. Sigh...
Sorry for the long, rambling reply...I needed to vent.
