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Help BASIC A 12 tutorial for new user?

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Mike03946

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My spouse just got a OnePlus Nord N200 (free from T-Mobile) to replace an old LG G4. The gesture system and other changes have her frustrated. Need I say, she is not technical at all?

Can anyone recommend basic video tutorials for use of Android 12 or this phone in particular? I have looked at several on YouTube, but so far, they all talk mainly about changing wallpaper or how marvelous, fantastic, and revolutionary it is to change icon colors. None talk about actually using the system -- the gestures, for a big example.

Any help before she tries to flush the phone down the toilet?
 
I can't recommend a video tutorial because I have no time for such things myself. But if the Nord N200 uses a standard Android gesture interface the main ones are:

* "Home button" = swipe up from the bottom of the phone
* "Recent apps button" = swipe up from the bottom and pause
* "Back button" = swipe in from either edge of the screen

However, most phones have an option to turn these things off and go back to the "3 buttons at the bottom" interface. I do this myself simply because I find it more reliable and (in the case of the "recents" button) faster (raising and pausing is intrinsically slower and more finnicky than just pressing a button). If you look in the settings, maybe search for gestures, there should be an option to choose the on-screen buttons instead. If not there will at least be an option to tune the sensitivity of the "back" gesture.

For other features, it would help to know what she is finding difficult.

I should add that I've never owned an OnePlus device, so don't know anything about any specific features they might have. But the option to turn off the gestures can be found in Pixels (about as stock android an interface as you can get) and Samsung (about as far from that as you can get), so I'm assuming that the Nord will have it too.
 
As a reference you might find it useful to read through the user manual for her phone to help redirect your wife's apprehensions
https://oneplussupport.s3.amazonaws.com/N200+5G/OnePlus+Nord+N200+5G+User+Manual+EN.pdf

But if she finds getting used to the way her OnePlus differs from her previous LG, there's going to be an inevitable setting in period. When making a big change like that, we all have inherent, learned 'muscle memory' that gets into our brains. Using a phone every day over months or years and things just get 'set' into how we view those little icons and things. Then when a significant changeover happens, it's typical to freak out a little. All those little actions we had fluidly used before need to be relearned. Some things that LG set up in their phones may or may not be reproducible in her new OnePlus phone, and a lot of that is also going to be based on just extensively that LG phone was set up. Along with that is the OxygenOS the user interface layer that on OnePlus phones, has its own unique look and feel plus if there was an Android version change between those two phones that adds in more variables she'll need to get used to.

It might work out if you sit down with her and just go through the Settings menu in her new phone to configure things in a way she's the most comfortable using. The Settings menu will be a direct reflection on the features and capabilities of her phone so if she starts to at least get familiar with how she can control this and that perhaps she won't find using it to be so daunting.
 
I HATE the gesture controls. 90 percent of the time I want to use recents it goes home, or when I want to go home it goes to recents, and trying to switch between my two last apps by swiping sideways usually opens some app I hadn't used for weeks. It made me pull my hair out so I just defaulted to a decade old Android that made sense.

Though you can turn on 3 button navigation, who knows how long it remains available? I'm certain someone over at Google or Apple (since they're the same as the ones in iOS) assumes that a buttonless phone is the 'future' and it makes me sick. also, 3-button nav tends to burn the icons into an OLED display so be mindful of that. Tons of burned in icons on the S8/S9. Who knows when a system 'update' will just up and remove the 3-button option completely?

BTW the gestures began in Android 9 (and made more sense at least) but in Android 10+ they just copied Apple, again.

Either I'm getting old or Android or UI in general is just getting worse. To me Flat UI is a hallmark of the 1980s when computers couldn't do GUI all that well. I had hopes, high hopes that skeuo would eventually evolve to holographic like Iron Man but for some reason everyone wants to revisit the worst parts of the past these days. I honestly don't know what problem gesture navigation is trying to solve; just feels like more change for the sake of change to me. None of them make any sense. Naturally you want to tap the bottom middle icon for home, not swipe up, but oh well. Apple started this and everyone copies Apple as if they are a barometer of good design or something.
 
They've retained the option of the old 3 buttons for 3 years now. To be honest I felt the Android 9 version was fine: the only thing I'd have changed is I'd have removed the back button and replaced it with a swipe left on the pill (removing the unbalanced element of the UI and avoiding the need to reach so far across).

I'll admit that I was never convinced when Google claimed that they'd studied the ergonomics of the gestures and come up with an optimal set for A10, which just happened to be identical to Apple's setup! Though I suspect that the reason wasn't "we're copying Apple because they are so good" but rather "we're copying Apple to make it easier for iPhone owners to switch". I never believed that the combination of home and recents gestures was optimal (too similar, and having to pause means recents is slow by definition), and the back gesture (which Appple doesn't have at the system level) conflicted with Google's own recommended app UI at the time...
 
Why does Google need to bring over Apple users anyway? That was their rationale behind replacing Nexus with Pixel, which at the time looked just like an iPhone, with a launcher eerily similar to iOS. I expected a revolt but got the opposite. Never understood what happened to Android fans. The thought of locked bootloaders, losing expandable storage and copying an iPhone would be calls to war in 2011.

Android has beaten Apple globally for years. We seem to be doing fine without the need to bring Apple users over.
 
Well Android does dominate over Apple in the world market, something like 75% to 25%, but here in America iPhones have something like a 55% lead over Android's 45%. Even if you exclude the U.S. aberration with its really high profit margins and focus just on the world market don't forget that Android's bigger numbers are based on low to mid-range phones with their inherent low profit margins. Apple does adjust its pricing to be in accordance with a country's standard of living but on average Apple's profit margin numbers are still higher than with Android phones. So yeah, it's nice to know Android is leading in numbers of phones but Apple is making a lot more money just doing what it's been doing.
 
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