I recently wrote a post about how to set up your iPhone for your real estate business.  However, having been a former owner myself, I know that many people have circumvented the Apple revolution (and iPhones) by embracing Android technology instead.  Not wanting to leave out those of you who are using Android phones as part of your life and real estate business, here’s your own post about how to set up your Android phone.

Unlike an iPhone, an Android phone comes in many different flavors straight out of the box.  Therefore, the home screen may look different depending on which breed of Android you’ve purchased.  One of the great things about Android is that they want to walk you through set-up.  So, the first time you turn on your Android phone, you should be prompted to go through a set-up process, including entering in your various accounts to link to your phone.  If you don’t have a GMail address, you may want to get one before you start setting up your Android phone.  Androids are Google technology, and therefore are handiest when used with the plethora of Google products out there.

If you’re not prompted, or if you’ve owned the Android phone for a while and want to make sure you’ve got all the settings correct, no worries – you can choose Menu, which are sometimes illustrated as lines:

which will lead you to Settings.  You may also see an icon that specifically says “Settings.”  Whichever way you access Settings, click on that.  You’ll want to look for something called “Accounts and Sync.”

Under “Accounts and Sync,”  you’ll see sync settings , plus any accounts associated with the phone (hopefully none if it’s new!).  Under Manage Accounts is where you’ll want to choose the “Add Account” selection at the bottom of the screen.  You’ll get a number of options, including Facebook and Google.  This is where you can add in your email and account information.  If you don’t have a GMail address, you can choose “Corporate Account” instead.  You’ll need the exchange mail settings for the non-GMail account, but those should be easy to find on Google.

Under Settings, you’ll also find options allowing you to Personalize, adjust Call and Sounds options, set your Display and enable/disable Location options.

Once you’ve got your Accounts set up the way you want them, you’ll want to do the fun part – get Apps!  Android has an App store that they’ve sneakily renamed “Google Play.”  One of the benefits of Android phones is that their app store is open source, meaning that anyone who develops an app gets to submit it to the store, and the consuming public gets to rate whether it’s a good app or not.  This is why looking for ratings in the Google Play store is important when you’re choosing an app for your Android phone.

Some of the apps you should consider downloading on Google Play for your real estate business would be: a calendar app, a note-taking app, and a camera app.  You might want to also consider something for cloud storage, an expense tracker, and also to be sure to explore all the possibilities Google has to offer (Google +, Google Search, etc.).

As always, if you have any questions about how to set up your Android phone for your real estate business, or questions in general, please feel free to contact me at: training@c21redwood.com.