If you've ever owned a BlackBerry phone in the past then we'd be willing to bet you loved the convenience of that Convenience Key. Who could ever have thought that one simple button could be so useful?
Fast forward to the present day and smartphones are cutting back on physical inputs rather than adding them in, and these days the existence of a customisable key on your phone is very much a rarity – and when one is present, chances are the handset maker forces you to use it for something stupid (the Bixby button on the Galaxy range, for example).
If you're the proud owner of a shiny new BlackBerry Key2 LE then you'll be pleased to learn that the Convenience Key is back with a vengeance in 2018. The best thing about it is that it's totally customisable, so you can use it to launch pretty much any application you want – which means the cut-price Key2 LE has an unexpected advantage ove the likes of the Galaxy S9 and Note 9.
Here's how to adapt that lovely, lovely button to your own personal needs. Firstly, drop to the Settings menu of the phone itself, then find Shortcuts & Gestures.
In this menu, you'll find Convenience Key as an option - tap it. From here, you'll see a series of profiles (more on that in just a second) but to begin with, tap Normal Profile. If the profile is set to 'off', then turn it on and select some shortcuts.
You can assign up to three shortcuts to the key, and pressing it when more than one shortcut is assigned will bring up an on-screen menu with those shortcuts displayed - like below.
However, if you only select one shortcut, pressing the key will take you directly to that app or function.
You can also use profiles to alter the designated shortcuts depending on where you are or what you're doing. For example, when you're in a meeting you may wish the shortcuts to be set to various serious-type functions, such as email, calendar or calculator. However, when you're at home and connected to your home WiFi network, you may wish to access entertainment apps, such as Google Play Music or Netflix instantly. You can set up these context-sensitive shortcuts and make the Convenience Key even more useful.
Our personal favourite is setting the key to Google Assistant, so we're never more than a button press away from the power of Android's best AI helper.
by dmcferran via Featured Articles
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