show photos on Galaxy S9 home screen

How to lock Galaxy S9 home screen layout on Galaxy S9 and S9+ with Android Pie update?

Android Pie update for Galaxy S9 and S9+ allows you to lock Galaxy S9 home screen layout so that you will not lose you customization due to accidental touches.

Although it sounds trivial and can be found in some other Android phones, many Galaxy S9 and S9+ owners will find this is one of the very useful features of Android Pie update for Galaxy S9 and S9+.

This Galaxy S9 Android Pie update guide shows you how to lock Galaxy S9 home screen layout on Galaxy S9 and S9+ with Android Pie update, and what the caveats are if you lock the home screen layout.

Why you may need to lock the home screen layout?

You can customize the Galaxy S9 home screen in many ways. You can use third-party themes, remove Bixby Home from the home screen, change wallpapers, adjust the grid layout, add app folders, pin individual files to the home screen, show photos on Galaxy S9 home screen (using widgets), and manage home screen panels.

Besides, Galaxy S9 and S9+ also support landscape mode of the Galaxy S9 home screen.

But very easily, the customization can be instantly wiped by accidental taps. For example, your kids may delete the widgets from the screen if they get their hands on the screen.

Many Galaxy S9 and S9+ owners want to lock the customization after the initial setup because most owners seldom change the home screen after one or two months.

Now, in the Android Pie update for Galaxy S9 and S9+, you can lock Galaxy S9 home screen layout so that you will not lose your customization so easily.

Of course, it only locks the layout. You cannot add or delete app icons or widgets once you lock Galaxy S9 home screen layout. But you can still use Galaxy S9 home screen edit mode to customize the home screen.

How to lock the Galaxy S9 home screen layout?

As other new features of Android Pie update for Galaxy S9 and S9+, the lock home screen layout feature is not enabled by default.

You need to enable this feature to lock the home screen layout.

In Galaxy s9 Settings, tap Display as shown below.

In the display settings page, as shown in the screenshot above, tap Home screen.

In the home screen settings page, you can then find … Read the rest

How to show photos on Galaxy S9 Home screen?

You can use the picture frame widget to show photos on Galaxy S9and S9+ home screens.

simon · Leave a Comment

Many Galaxy S9 or S9+ owners want to show photos on Galaxy S9 Home screen so that they can easily see the slideshow of their loved photos without opening the Gallery or other photo apps.

Samsung made it easy to pin photos to the always-on display as explained in this guide. But showing photos on Galaxy S9 Home screen does not work out of the box.

Although there are many solutions for you to show photos on Galaxy S9 Home screen, using Samsung's picture frame widget probably is the easiest way to show photos on Galaxy S9 and S9+ home screen.

This Galaxy S9 guide shows you how to show photos on Galaxy S9 home screen using the picture frame widget provided by Samsung. You can also tweak the slideshow by including or excluding photos, adjusting slideshow timing, the layout of photos, and how the photos fill the spots.

The picture frame widget was available in Galaxy phones with Android Marshmallow 6.0 or earlier. Samsung removed it in Android Nougat firmware and offered it as an optional feature in Galaxy Apps.

So, this guide applies to most Samsung Galaxy phones. For Galaxy S9 and S9+, you need to install the widget from Galaxy Apps.

You may follow the steps to install the widget and show photos on Galaxy S9 Home screen. These steps als0 are applicable for Galaxy S8, S8+, S7, S7 Edge, Note 9, Note 8 and Note 5. If you have an older Samsung phone, very likely, you can skip step 1 (as the widget was part of the old Gallery app).

On Galaxy phones (e.g., Galaxy S10, S20, S21, S22, and S23, Note 10, and Note 20) with Android 12 (One UI 4), Android 13 (One UI 5), or Android 14 (One UI 6), the Picture Frame widget was replaced with Gallery Widget. Please check this guide on using the new Gallery Widget to show photos, albums, and stories on the Home screen. You can even use stackable widgets to stack multiple copies of the Gallery Widget to display different sets of photos concurrently.

Step 1: Install Picture Frame from Samsung Galaxy Apps

Galaxy Apps is preinstalled on Galaxy S9 and S9+. You cannot remove it.

Samsung now puts many optional features on Galaxy Apps.

In Galaxy S9 or S9+, tap the Galaxy Apps icon in the home screen or … Read the rest

How to use Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures?

Seven Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures: tap, double tap (and triple-tap), long tap, swipe, drag, pinch and spread, are explained and illustrated.

simon · 2 Comments

You have to use some Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures if you want Galaxy S9 or S9+ to do anything for you.

Although most Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures work on all other Android phones, you may not be aware of some gestures that help you use Galaxy S9 and S9+ effectively.

This Galaxy S9 how-to guide illustrates the 7 Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures with animations, explains the features of these gestures and gives examples of using these gestures.

What are Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures?

As Galaxy S9 and S9+ do not have a physical keyboard or other input devices, you have to interact with the phone either through the touchscreen or voice (e.g., Bixby or Google Assistant).

In addition to the on-screen keyboard or keypad, Galaxy S9 and S9+ also accept some touchscreen gestures.

When your finger(s) or other capacitive pens (please note S Pen on Galaxy Note devices does NOT work with Galaxy S9 or S9+ screen) move on the screen, Galaxy S9 and S9 can recognize certain patterns and therefore responds accordingly.

These moving patterns are usually referred to as Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures.

So, understanding and correctly using Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures are essential if you want to use the phone efficiently.

Similar to other Android phones, there is nothing special in Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures. These gestures can be used in almost all other Android phones.

Although most of Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures are used on the screen, some can also be used on the physical buttons. e.g., the power button accepts press, double press and long press gestures.

List of Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures in Galaxy S9 and S9+

You can use the following 7 Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures on Galaxy S9 and S9+ for various operations.

1. Tap gesture (press)

Tap is one of the most used Galaxy S9 touchscreen gestures.

As shown in the animation below, you need to tap an icon or a specific area to activate something, for example, to start an app, or to open a menu item.

The tap gesture actually mimics “click” of a mouse (e.g., when using Samsung DeX with Galaxy S9 or S9+).

Of course, the action or response of the tap gesture depends on what was tapped, or where you tapped.

Some example of using tap gesture includes:

You can open an app by tapping an app icon in Galaxy S9 home screen or

… Read the rest

How to use Galaxy S9 home screen landscape mode?

simon · 8 Comments

Samsung added the Galaxy S9 home screen landscape mode in Galaxy S9 and S9+.

You can change Galaxy S9 home screen to landscape orientation when you hold Galaxy S9 and S9+ horizontally. Of course, this also applies to Galaxy S9 apps screen (app drawer), which essentially is a special home screen.

This Galaxy S9 guide explains what Galaxy S9 home screen landscape mode is, how to enable and disable Galaxy S9 home screen landscape mode, and how to use Galaxy S9 home screen landscape mode.

Update: in Android Pie update for Galaxy S9 and S9+, you can use the rotation toggle button to quickly change and lock screen orientation, including the home screen. You may check this guide on using the rotation toggle to change and lock the Galaxy S9 screen orientation.

In addition, you can also lock the layout of Galaxy S9 home screen in Android Pie update as explained in this guide.

What is Galaxy S9 home screen landscape mode?

By default, the home screen (and apps screen) was always in portrait mode on most Android phones even if you hold the phone horizontally, and if you turn on auto-rotate.

So, it is hard to use the home screen in landscape mode, and you may have to hold the phone in portrait orientation to use the home screen and apps screen.

Please do not confuse this limitation in home screen with the auto-rotate.

Most apps including system apps like Settings support landscape mode for a long time. When you turn on auto-rotate, you can use most apps in the landscape orientation.

In Android tablet, since Android Honeycomb 3.0, the home screen landscape mode has been supported.

However, on the phone, the home screen landscape mode is still new.

The larger screen aspect ratio beyond 16:9 in many recent flagship Android phones exacerbates the implementation of landscape mode for the home screen. The screen simply looks too narrow for the icons.

Anyway, Samsung now offers the option to use Galaxy S9 home screen landscape mode in Galaxy S9 and S9+.

This means the Galaxy S9 home screen can automatically rotate to landscape mode when you hold the phone in landscape position.

Undoubtedly, the app icons and widgets in Galaxy S9 home screen will be re-organised in landscape mode. Simple rotation is not enough due to insufficient height in the landscape mode.

In a nutshell, Galaxy … Read the rest