The Launcher, which you open from the Home screen, holds icons for all of the applications on your phone, including any applications that you downloaded and installed from Android Market or other sources. When you open an application, the other applications you’ve been using don’t stop; they keep on running: playing music, opening webpages, and so on. You can quickly switch among your applications, to work with several at once.

The Android operating system and applications work together to ensure that applications you aren’t using don’t consume resources unnecessarily, stopping and starting them as needed. For this reason, there’s no need or facility for quitting applications.

To open and close the Launcher, touch the Launcher icon on the Home screen. If you have more applications than can fit on the Launcher in one view, you can slide the Launcher up or down to view more.

You can add an application icon to the Home screen by touching & holding it on the Launcher until it vibrates and then dragging it to a location on the Home screen.

Touch the Home icon on the Launcher or the Home button to close the Launcher. The Launcher closes automatically if you touch an icon to open its application or if you move an icon from the Launcher to the Home screen.

To open an application, Touch the application icon on the Launcher or on the Home screen.

To switch to a recently used application Press & hold the Home button. To switch between opened applications, just open the Notifications panel, Drag the Status bar down from the top of the screen.

You can lock your screen so that only you can unlock it to make calls, access your data, buy applications, and so on. You may also be required to lock your screen by a policy set by an email or other account you add to your phone.

Google Android 2.2 User’s Guide