T ips for iPhone 3GS and OS 3.0

Tips & Tricks
Tips
for iPhone 3GS
and OS 3.0
Hidden features that make the iPhone,
iPod touch, and iPad more powerful
T
by Rich Hall & Benjamin Katz
he iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad are very easy to use and
the basics are well covered in the user manuals that come
with the devices. If you’ve misplaced your manual, you
can download a PDF version from Apple’s support Web page
(apple.com/support).
You’ll master the basics pretty quickly. Once you do, you’ll
begin to discover that these iPhone OS (now called “iOS”) de-
vices have some powerful but less obvious features that can
make the devices easier to use. This article contains tips that
will let you access some of that hidden power. (Note: We include
dedicated iPad tips at the end of the article, but most of the
tips relate to all three devices. The new iPhone 4 had not been
released when we finished this article. We will incorporate tips
relating to it in subsequent issues.)
NOTE: Each Tip below applies to all devices (iPhone, iPod touch and iPad) unless otherwise specified.
Calling
Dial a number and save it to Contacts (iPhone)
You can dial a phone number from your Contacts, Recents, or
Favorites lists, or use the built-in keypad to place the call. If
you’re using the keypad, you can save the number to your Contacts list by following these steps:
1.
Enter the phone number with the keypad, but do not hit
the call button.
2. Tap on the “Add-to-Contacts” icon (the head-and-shoulder
silhouette with a plus symbol next to it) that appears under
the asterisks key.
3. Tap on the “Create New Contact” button and fill in the
person’s name, address, etc., or tap on the “Add to Existing
Contact” button and select an existing contact name.
4. When you’ve finished adding the number to your Contacts
list, hit the “Call” button to place the call.
5. You can also create a new contact, or add a number to an
existing contact, after you’ve placed or received a call by
clicking on Recents and then the blue arrow to the right
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i P h o n e L i f e S eptember-October 2010
of the number. This will bring up a screen with all of your
options.
Camera
Adjusting exposure and taking close up
photos (iPhone 3Gs)
When you have the Camera app open and the desired image
displayed on the screen, you can change the focus area of the
image before you take the picture. Simply tap on the portion of
the image on which you want the camera to focus. The camera automatically adjusts the focus and exposure for that area.
You can use this to your advantage if you don’t like the lighting
(darkness or brightness) of the image. Simply tap on different
areas until it looks the best. Then tap on the camera icon to
take the picture.
You can also use this feature when you are taking close-up
photos (i.e. photos of people or objects less than a foot from
the camera). Align the photo and tap on the image until the
foreground image looks best against the background. Then take
the photo.
Tips & Tricks
If this feature does not work, you’ll
need to activate it by going to Settings
>General >Keyboard and turning the “.”
Shortcut switch on. This screen also
lets you turn on/off the following:
Contacts
Locate your friends in Maps by selecting their address from their contact info.
Get map to Contacts address quickly
If you need a map showing you the location of a person in your
Contacts manager, go to the desired contact and tap on his or
her address—Maps opens and shows you the location.
Keyboard
Forget entering apostrophes—
rely on autocorrect instead!
When you enter a short contraction (I’m, I’d, etc.) or a longer
one where there is no ambiguity (don’t, aren’t, etc.), don’t bother
entering the apostrophe. The autocorrect feature will “know”
that you’re trying to enter a contraction and offer you the correct
word as an alternative. So, for example, when you enter “im” it
will offer “I’m” and when you enter “dont” it will offer “don’t”.)
When this happens, all you have to do is hit the space bar to
enter the correct word.
Rely on auto-correct for typing contractions.
Unfortunately, you can stump autocorrect with words like “well” and
“were” (words that are legitimate with
or without apostrophes). In cases like
these, if you mean to enter the contraction, duplicate the last letter of the
word when entering it and autocorrect
will offer you the contraction. For example, if you mean to enter “we’ll”
key in “welll” and hit the space bar. If you mean to enter “we’re”
key in “weree” and hit the space bar.
This technique saves you from having to go to the symbols
keyboard to manually enter the apostrophe.
Double tap spacebar to end sentence
When you’re entering text into a note or e-mail message,
you can end a sentence by going to the Symbol or Numeric
keyboard and hitting the period. A faster way is to double tap on
the spacebar. It will enter a period followed by a space.
•
Auto-Correction: Suggests words
based on the characters you’ve
entered.
•
Auto-Capitalization: Capitalizes
the first word in a sentence.
•
Enable Caps Lock: Lets you tap
the Shift key twice to lock it into
all-caps mode; tap it twice again to unlock.
Mail
E-mail attachments that will or won’t open
If you receive an e-mail with an attachment, you can tap on
the attachment to view it. If it won’t open, the file is corrupted
or it is a type that is not supported by the iPhone, iPad or iPod
touch.
The following formats are supported: Microsoft Word (.doc),
Microsoft Word XML (.docx), Web page (.htm, .html), Keynote
(.key), Numbers (.numbers), Pages (.pages), Adobe Acrobat
preview (.pdf), Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt), Microsoft PowerPoint XML (.pptx), Plain text (.txt), Contact information (.vcf),
Microsoft Excel (.xls), Microsoft Excel XML (.xlsx).
Note also that the file attachment must have the correct
file extension or you won’t be able to view it. So, for example, if
someone sends you a Word document without the .doc extension, you won’t be able to view it.
Turn off SMS preview (iPhone)
When you receive an incoming SMS
message on your iPhone, a preview
of the message is displayed on your
screen. For security reasons, you may
not want even a small portion of the
message displayed. To disable SMS
Preview, go to the Settings app and
select Messages, and turn the “Show
Preview” switch off. You’ll still receive
a notice, but it will be a generic “New
Text Message.”
Delete e-mail messages individually or as a
group
You can delete individual e-mail messages in the Inbox view by
swiping your finger across the message left to right and hitting
the “Delete” button.
If the message is open in full-screen view, you can tap on
the garbage can icon at the bottom of the screen, but be careful with this—tapping on the garbage can deletes the message
i Phone Li f e S e pte m be r-O c tobe r 2 0 1 0
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Tips & Tricks
immediately without giving you a confirming pop-up menu.
nately, there’s a quicker way to do it.
Finally, you can delete multiple messages in the Inbox view
by tapping on the “Edit” button in the upper right corner of the
screen, tapping on the buttons next to the messages you want
to delete, and hitting the “Delete” button in the bottom left corner of the screen. If you accidentally delete a message, by going
into the trash can in the main menu of your email you can put
the message back into your inbox or any of your other folders.
From the default keyboard, press and hold the comma key.
When the blue alternate key pops up above the comma key,
simply release the key and an apostrophe is entered. You don’t
have to move your finger to the blue key to select it.
Other Stuff
iPad Tips
Add Up to Six Apps to the Dock
Although larger than the iPhone’s display, the basic layout of the iPad’s Home
screen is the same: Icons for the installed
apps are arranged in rows and columns,
with four of the most used apps appearing in a “Dock” at the bottom of the main
Home screen. As you install more apps,
additional Home screens will appear to
accommodate their icons; the Dock appears at the bottom of all of them.
The Dock on the iPhone and iPod touch accepts up to four
app icons, but the iPad has a larger display and can accept up to
six. To add apps to the iPad’s Dock, press down on the icon of
the desired app until all the app icons begin jiggling. Then drag
the app icon to the Dock, and press the Home button when
you’re done.
Quick Mute
The mute button on the iPhone is located on the left edge of
the device above the volume up/down rocker switch. On the
iPad, the button above the volume switch performs a different
function—locking screen rotation. You can mute the iPad by adjusting the volume all the way down in the Settings >General
>Sounds screen. But there’s an easier and quicker way to this.
Simply hold down the volume rocker for a couple seconds. The
iPad’s volume will jump to zero. (Sharon Zardetto, author of
Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon gets credit for pointing
out this tip.)
Type an Apostrophe from the Basic Keyboard
Layout
The iPad’s onscreen keyboard approaches the
dimensions of a full-size
keyboard (in landscape
orientation, at least), but
the layout of the keys is
not completely standard. One of the most maddening things
about the default keyboard is that it lacks an apostrophe key. I’m
used to the apostrophe’s position on a standard keyboard—all
the way to the right just before the Enter key. I keep reaching
for it with my right “pinkie” finger and end up hitting the Return
key instead. I can enter an apostrophe from the “symbols” keyboard, which is accessed by tapping on the “.?123” key. Fortu10
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Name and trim voice memos (iPhone, iPod touch)
The iPhone OS 3.0 software adds the ability to save short voice
memos on your iPhone. In addition to saving them, you can
rename them and trim them down (like you can with videos
taken with the 3GS).
To rename a voice memo, go to the app’s list view and
tap on the right arrow symbol next to the memo you want to
rename. This takes you to the info screen for that memo. Tap
on the right arrow in this screen and you are presented with a
list of labels you can attach to the memo. The “Custom” option
at the bottom of this list lets you create a more specific name
for the memo.
To edit the memo, tap on the “Trim Memo” button on the
Info screen and you are taken to screen with a yellow trim bar.
Slide the left and right edges of the bar to change the beginning
and ending points of the memo. To preview your changes, tap
the small arrow icon to the left of the trim bar. When you’re sure
you like the edits, hit the large yellow button labeled “Trim Voice
Memo.” Note that you cannot go back to the original memo after
you hit this button.
See percentage of battery life (iPhone 3GS, iPad)
If you want to see a more precise measure of the amount of
power remaining in your battery, activate the Battery Percentage
feature on the iPhone 3GS.
1.
Open the Settings app and go to General >Usage.
2. Flip the “Battery Percentage” switch to the “On” position.
This causes
the percentage of
remaining power
to be displayed
next to the battery
power icon in the
upper right corner
of the screen. �