Web Surfing
- Get a bigger keyboard. As with any other iPhone function requiring data
entry, tapping on Safari's address bar summons an on-screen keyboard. If you
rotate the iPhone horizontally before tapping on the address bar, the Safari
window will switch to horizontal mode. Then, when you tap on the address
bar, the on-screen keyboard will also appear horizontally. More important,
it will also be much larger than the standard, vertical keyboard, making
data entry a little easier. Unfortunately, Safari is currently the only
iPhone application in which this horizontal keyboard appears. If you want to
use the keyboard in its standard vertical orientation, summon it before
rotating your iPhone.
- Create a home page. When you're using the regular version of Safari that
runs on your Macintosh (or Windows-based PC), setting a particular site as
your home page is as simple as going to the General tab in System
Preferences and typing in an address. You can't do that on the iPhone, but
you can use this work-around: Add your would-be home page to your bookmarks
list, and then move it to the top of the list. Yes, it requires an extra tap
-- first on the Bookmarks icon and then on the bookmark itself -- but it
will get you to your favorite Web page with a minimum of fuss.
- Share URLs. If you want to send a friend the URL of a Web page you're
viewing, tap on the address bar, and then tap on Share. A new e-mail message
containing the address will open in Mail; just choose one or more
recipients, add your comments, and tap on Send.
- Scroll in boxes on a Web page. If you encounter a scrolling box or list
while surfing on your iPhone in Safari -- say you're responding to a post at
the Macworld.com forums -- and you try to scroll with your finger, you'll
find that the entire page scrolls, instead of just the box. The trick is to
scroll such areas with two fingers.
- Make a call from Safari. If you find a phone number in Safari that you'd
like to call -- perhaps the phone number of a restaurant where you'd like to
make a reservation -- you needn't jump to the phone component. Just tap on
the number, and the iPhone will dial it for you. (This also works with phone
numbers and URLs embedded in e-mails and Short Messaging Service chats.
Tapping on either one will place a call or open a Web page, respectively.)
- Investigate links. In Safari, if you hold your fingertip down on a link
instead of tapping, you'll summon an information balloon that displays the
underlying URL. The same thing happens in Mail when you hold on a link. Now
when those "account update" e-mails arrive, you can press and hold on the
link to find out if you're really going to be taken to the site the e-mail
indicates it'll take you to.
- Go straight to the top. When viewing a long Web page, if you want to get
back to the top or access Safari's address field, you don't have to scroll
all the way up. Instead, just tap on the gray status bar at the top of the
iPhone's screen. You'll be immediately transported to the top of the current
Web page.
E-mail
- Avoid mail confusion. Don't give two e-mail accounts the same name,
because Mail will get confused and copy the settings from one account to the
other. And you can't fix the situation by simply renaming one account;
you'll need to delete one of the accounts and then re-create it.
- Recover "lost" e-mails. If you try to send an e-mail but the iPhone
can't get network access, you might think your message has disappeared
completely. But don't worry -- a temporary Outgoing folder is created to
hold the message. You can access this folder from the main screen of the
sending account. It will disappear once network access is available and the
message is sent.
- Create e-mail folders. Well, actually, you can't create e-mail folders
on the iPhone. But what you can do with an IMAP e-mail account is create
folders on the IMAP server -- for example, if you have a .Mac account, using
the .Mac Web -- mail interface. Those folders will then appear on the iPhone,
and their contents will -- eventually -- be synced between the iPhone and
the server.
- Mark read messages as unread. There doesn't appear to be any way to mark
read messages as unread on the iPhone -- but there is. While viewing a
message, tap on Details, which reveals a Mark as Unread option. Tap on it,
and the next time you view your in-box, the message will display a blue dot
that indicates that the message has not been read.
- Save e-mail drafts. If you want to save a message you're working on so
you can come back to it later, tap on Cancel. Instead of deleting the
message immediately, Mail pops up a dialog box with the options Save, Don't
Save or Cancel. Tap on Save, and the message will be placed in your Drafts
folder. (If your account doesn't currently have a Drafts folder, Mail will
create one.) Don't be alarmed if the message doesn't appear in Drafts
immediately; it sometimes takes several minutes for the draft message to
show up.
Other Programs
- Store files. One benefit of the iPod is that it can store files as well
as play music. An out-of-the-box iPhone can't -- unless you have the help of
a Mac and a $10 utility. The program, Ecamm Network's iPhoneDrive, lets you
view files on your iPhone in a Finder-like interface. You can copy files to
and from your iPhone via drag and drop, some simple buttons, or the
program's File menu.
- Choose how you listen to voice mail. If you have a Bluetooth headset,
incoming calls get routed there automatically. But that doesn't happen when
you call up Visual Voicemail. However, an Audio button on the Visual
Voicemail screen lets you specify how you want to listen to your message:
via a handset, the built-in speaker or a Bluetooth headset.
- Scroll through contacts another way. Everyone knows that you can scroll
through the list of contacts on your iPhone two ways -- either flick your
finger on the list to scroll up or down, or tap on one of the letters in the
alphabet running down the right side of the screen to jump to contacts
beginning with that letter. But there is a third way: Hold your finger on
the alphabetical list, and then slide up and down -- you'll be able to
scroll through your contacts in a more controlled manner than by flicking
your finger.
- Get driving directions fast. One of the primary uses for the iPhone's
Maps application is to get driving directions. Both the starting and
destination fields offer a Bookmarks icon, so you can quickly use a
bookmark, a recent location or a contact when searching for directions. The
first thing you should do in Maps is find your own address and bookmark it
-- this will make finding directions to and from locations much easier.
- Use Favorites and Recents for more than calls. Favorites and Recents are
part of the iPhone's main Phone screen. Favorites is the iPhone's version of
frequently called numbers, and Recents is a list of the numbers of people
you've called recently and calls you've missed. You can tap on any number in
these lists to place a call quickly. But this is not just a phone feature.
Assuming that a number or name in Favorites or Recents belongs to a mobile
phone, you can also send it an SMS message. Just tap on the right angle
bracket (>) icon next to the contact name or number, and then tap on the
Text Message button at the bottom of the contact listing.
- Sync Notes. One of the major limitations of the iPhone's Notes
application is that you can't sync it with data from any program on your
Mac. There's a work-around, however. Each contact has a notes field. So you
can create a fake contact and paste any info you like in the notes field for
that contact in Address Book. One sync later, all that information will be
at your fingertips.
- Reboot your phone. Pretend for a moment that your iPhone suddenly stops
responding. Pushing the Home button does nothing. Pressing the sleep/wake
button is equally ineffective. What do you do? Apple Inc.'s first reset tip
is to press and hold the Home button for about six seconds to quit any
application that might have locked up your iPhone. But if that doesn't work,
try pressing and holding both the Home and sleep/wake buttons. After about
10 seconds, the Apple logo should appear. (This reboot trick takes a little
bit longer than the iPod equivalent -- holding down the Select and Menu
buttons usually restarts your music player after just four seconds.)
iPod
- Re-create iPod audio controls. If you listen to audio books on an iPod,
you probably know that, since the fourth-generation iPod's release, you've
had the option to make the playback speed faster or slower, as you prefer.
The iPhone shares that feature. Just tap on the Settings button and then on
the iPod option. Tap on the Audiobook Speed entry, and in the resulting
screen, choose Slower, Normal or Faster. Other iPod features also appear on
the iPhone: You can use the Settings screen to turn on Sound Check (to make
volume more consistent from one track to another) and to select any of 22
included equalization presets.
- Delete already-viewed videos. Even 8GB can feel confining when it comes
to storing videos; a single full-length movie can take up 1GB of storage. To
ease the storage crunch, the iPhone offers to delete videos after you've
finished watching them. Just tap on the Delete button, and Pirates of the
Caribbean will disappear from your iPhone, freeing up more space.
- Change iPod icons. By default, the buttons at the bottom of the iPod
screen are Playlists, Artists, Songs, Videos and More. You can change those
first four in the same way as you would the commands that appear on an
iPod's main screen. Simply tap on the More icon, and then tap on the Edit
button in the upper-left corner of the resulting screen. A Configure screen
will appear with icons for Albums, Podcasts, Audiobooks, Genres, Composers,
Compilations, Playlists, Artists, Songs and Videos. To substitute one of
these icons for one that appears at the bottom of the iPod screen, just tap
and hold on the icon you prefer and drag it over the icon you want to
replace. Tap on Done when you're finished.
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