16 Tips to Take Your iPhone to the Next Level
Here's some great tips for becoming a power user of your iPhone. I've thought offering a class for beginners. Let me know if you are interested and we'll set something up!
Barry
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16 Tips to Take Your iPhone to the Next Level
By SAM GROBART
Published: April 27, 2011
The iPhone has been around for nearly four years. And in that time, millions of people have bought and used iPhones, swiping and tapping their way through life. Most of those people believe they know how the iPhone works.
But dig a little deeper into the iPhone’s latest operating system, iOS 4.3 — available for the iPhone 3GS and the AT&T iPhone 4 — and there’s another layer to master. (Sorry, Android users, but that OS has so many versions and skins that a quick guide would be neither very quick nor much of a guide.) Beyond the realm of those basic iPhone controls is an advanced level of shortcuts and tweaks, some of which even hard-core users may not know exist.
DOUBLE-TAP Even while your iPhone is locked, you can access the audio controls by double-tapping on the home button when the lock screen appears. This saves you the time it takes to unlock your phone, open a music-playing app like iPod and get to the volume and track controls. This feature is not limited to Apple’s iPod app. If you are using Pandora, for example, the same technique will bring up its controls.
VOICE ACCESS If you press and hold the home button while the phone is locked, you can still access Voice Control to place a phone call (or FaceTime call) or get to any of the iPhone’s other voice commands.
TELL TIME Voice control can dial phone numbers (“dial 212-555-1212”) or people (“Dial Mom, mobile”), and it can control music (“Play music,” “Play artist Earth, Wind & Fire,” Play album “That’s the Way of the World,” “Play more songs like this,” “Shuffle,” etc).
But did you know that it can also tell you what time it is? Say “What time is it?” and your phone will say the time back to you. It may sound silly, but it comes in handy if you are rushing and do not have the time or inclination to pull out your phone. (And who wears watches anymore?)
SHORTCUT TO SEARCH Swiping to the right from your first home screen pulls up the search window, where you can pull up any contacts, apps, e-mails, calendar appointments and media that have the word you are seeking.
But the search screen is also a shortcut to Google and Wikipedia. The last two search results for any entry are always “Search the Web” and “Search Wikipedia,” saving you the time it takes to open browsers or apps.
FORCE-QUIT APPS Double-tapping the home button while your phone is unlocked reveals a panel of most recently used apps. Swiping to the left moves through the apps in reverse chronological order to aid in quick app switching. This is advanced-beginner stuff.
But serious iPhone ninjas know that pressing and holding an app icon in this panel will cause minus signs to appear beside each app. Touching an app in this state forces it to shut down, a useful move if you have an app that is running in the background and causing trouble.
MUSIC SHORTCUTS Swipe that same previously used app screen to the right and you get another shortcut to music-playing controls. If you have the latest operating system, iOS 4.3, you will also see a button that will call up controls for AirPlay, Apple’s wireless audio feature.
It is here that you also gain access to the screen rotation lock button, so you can turn on or off the iPhone’s ability to switch from portrait to landscape mode. Swipe once more to the right from this screen and the iPhone’s volume control appears.
VOLUME LOCK If you want to limit the iPhone’s volume (because it is being used by your children, for example), you can go into Settings, then iPod. Under “Volume Limit” you can adjust the maximum volume and set a code to lock the setting. This code can be different from the lock code for the entire phone, if you have set one of those.
SAVE WEB IMAGES When you’re looking at Web pages in Safari, tapping and holding any image will call up buttons that can save the image to your camera roll or copy it to the clipboard.
FIND WORDS Safari’s search bar will not only look up sites, it can also be used to find a word or phrase on a Web page. Type in your search term and scroll to the bottom of the results; the last result is always “On This Page”; tap that and you can see where that term appears on the page you are viewing.
MULTIPLE KEYBOARDS You can add keyboards in other languages. Go to Settings, then General, then Keyboard, then International Keyboards. Add as many keyboards as you like. The next time the keyboard appears, it will have a small button next to the space bar with a globe icon on it. Tapping that will cycle through the languages you have selected (the name of each language will appear on the space bar).
Tap and hold the globe icon, and a menu will pop up showing all your selected languages. You can then tap whichever one you want and jump right to that keyboard. Bonus: If you’ve downloaded an app for emojis, those little happy faces and icons, you can add it to your list of keyboards in this panel.
ACCENT MARKS In the plain-Jane United States English keyboard, tapping and holding a letter will bring up other permutations of that letter for expressing yourself with aigus and macrons. Hold down the letter “e,” for example, and you will see diacritical-marked versions of the letter “e.”
QUICK ERASE In a nod to the Etch A Sketch toy, shaking the iPhone when typing something brings up the option to undo it.
WI-FI ALOFT Since in-flight Wi-Fi is growing, but cellphones still must be disabled on planes, the iPhone’s airplane mode does not control the Wi-Fi switch. You can still get on the plane’s network without running afoul of federal regulations.
SCREEN GRAB Tapping the home and sleep buttons at the same time will save a picture of whatever is on your iPhone’s display to your camera roll.
FORWARD AND REWIND When listening to audio or watching video, you probably know that you can move through the song/movie by sliding your finger left and right across the progress bar. But if you slide your finger down and then across, you can move at different speeds, allowing you to advance or rewind with increasingly fine control.
RESTART If your phone is acting sluggish or buggy, do what the pros do: initiate a “hard reset” by holding down both the home and sleep buttons until the phone powers down completely and restarts with the mirrored Apple logo appearing on the display. Do not let go until you see this logo. Doing this will often solve a number of small to medium-size glitches; it’s a good idea to do it periodically if you do not regularly sync your phone.
Knowing tricks like these will not necessarily earn you a job at one of Apple’s Genius Bars. But knowing them means you will not have to go to the Genius Bar nearly as often.
