How to change the default home screen on the Samsung Galaxy S3

With the Samsung Galaxy S3 having 7 different home screens a nice hidden feature is that the the user can select which home screen can be used as the "default" home screen.

Firstly let me explain what a "default" home screen actually is. The default" home screen is the one the phone will revert to when you press the phone's "home" button, it's also the screen that new app shortcuts will be added to when you download them.

To change the default screen you will need to go on to any of the home screens and pinch the centre of the screen to change the screen to something like the image at the top. From this screen you will see your 7 home screens with 1 in particular having a little blue home icon in the top right corner (in the top picture it's in the top left screen, which we will call "screen 1").

To change the default screen you merely need to click in the little house icon on which ever screen you would like to become your new default screen. For the sake of this example I've selected the screen on the bottom right corner (or "screen 7"), though you can select any screen there.


Now when you press on the phones home button, from any app or screen you will then be taken to the screen you selected as the home screen (as you can see "screen 7" in the image on the side).

As mentioned above any apps you now install will install their app icon on to your new default home screen (see the icon for "New Gold Minder" on the top line of apps in this second screen shot).

Whilst this is just another way for a person to personalise their phone it's a nice feature and one that some really will make the most of, whilst others will just ignore another feature that they don't need, though it is nice to see that it is available.

How to change the dock icons on a Samsung Galaxy S2

On all of the screens shots of my home screens you'll have noticed same 4 shortcuts along the bottom on all the images, "Phone", "Contacts", "Messages" and "Applications". I've noticed some people have been asking on forums if it was possible to change them and it is indeed possible to change 3 of them. This illustrated guide will hopefully help you if you ever wish the change them (personally I like them there and find them to be most useful there).

Firstly you need to click on the "Application" icon which will open up the application draw and can easily be over 10 pages of applications in size. When in the applications draw press on the phone's menu button. After doing that you will see something like the screen on the left with three options along the bottom "Edit", "List View" (or "Grid View" and "Share app". From this menu you need to select on the "Edit" option.

After clicking on "Edit" you will see a that the bottom icons have a sort of shadow around them and that "Applications" becomes "Home". Aside from the "Home" icon the other 3 can be dragged away from the bottom and put into one of the App pages. As well as being able to remove the the "Phone", "Contacts" and "Messages" icons you can pull down other icons.

If you look at this screen shot to the left hand side  you can see I've replaced the Contacts, Phone and Messages icons with "Camera", "Gallery" and "Videos" though you can replace those 3 slots with anything you wish so you could, for example place a browser there instead of the "Messages" icon.

Again this is just one of the more advanced (non-rooted) methods to personalise your phone and give it your own touch so use it to make the phone suit what you do with it.