How many shortcuts in S60 phones can you access with 1 key press only? How many of them can you access with 3 key presses or less? If you don’t know the answers, then keep reading…. :)

Firstly, go to the idle screen and look at the shortcuts on your left soft key and right soft key. They are accessible with one key press, aren’t they? So, these two shortcuts have to be assigned to the two applications you use most. Some people assign them to Messaging and Contacts applications. How about me? I have Messaging and Bluetooth applications (look at the picture below). Why Bluetooth? I need to switch on and switch off Bluetooth very often. I don’t want to switch on my Bluetooth the whole day to save my battery life. It’s a pity that most S60 phones don’t have Bluetooth hardware key.

One tip for your, do not assign Log application to either left soft key or right soft key. Why? Because you can access Log application by pressing Call key (the Green phone key). Best of all, you need only 1 key press to access Logs application.

Some newer S60 phones, such as Nokia 6680, N70, N71, N80, N90 and N91 have Active Idle feature. It is basically a list of applications on the idle screen. There are 5 to 6 shortcuts depending on the phone models. Look at the most left shortcut. How many key press you need to access this shortcut? Only one key press! So assign it with the next application that you use most. For me, I have Contacts application in most left shortcut.

For other applications, you need to press at least 2 key presses to access them. Look at the pictures above to see how many key presses you need to access a certain shortcut. The numbers above the circles indicate how many key presses you need. Note that you need only 2 key presses to access the most right shortcut. Press Left key and then press Scroll key. You don’t need to press Right key 5 times to go to the most right shortcut.

At the bottom of Active Idle menus, you can access Calendar and Todo applications too. That’s why I don’t assign shortcut to Calendar application in Active Idle, left soft key or right soft key.

What’s next? Press Application key (). You will see main menu as shown in the picture below. Look… you have one application selected once you press Application key. It means you have another shortcut that you can access with 2 key presses only! Press Application key and then press Scroll key.

Unfortunately, all other applications in the main menu need 3 key presses. You have to press Up, Left, Down and/or Right keys to access them.

Update (02-April-2006): You can also use ‘1′ .. ‘9′ keys to open a folder or application. For example, in the picture above, you can press ‘2′ to open Media folder or press ‘7′ to open Calculator application. Thanks to Zark.

What else? Some of the latest S60 phones, like N71 and N80, include a new hardware key, called Media key. It displays 4 additional shortcuts that be assigned to any applications (see picture below). Most of them can be accessed by 2 key presses. Press Media key and then press Up/Left/Right/Scroll key.

But wait a minute… why did I say “most”? The default application (the one in the middle) can be accessed with 1 key press only. If you press and hold Media key for about 1 second, your default application will be launched.

Now it’s your turn to configure your shortcuts. It is a simple thing, but many people simply don’t want to spend a couple of minutes configuring their shortcuts.