iPhone Tips and Tricks thread

docc · Jul 3, 2007

Now that we have had our iPhone's for more than 3 days, i thought it would be a good idea if we could compile all the little things that make our iPhone experience even better than it already is. There will be a lot more people purchasing iPhone's in the future so it would be great for new owners to stop by here and get acquainted with the iPhone's features straight off the bat.

Start posting your findings! Findings will be indexed as and when updated.

Cheers.

Indexed by CyberGreg:

iPhone Tips

Phone: To stop an incoming call from ringing, press the sleep / wake button. To send the call immediately to VoiceMail, press the sleep / wake button twice.

Email: To delete email by just swiping left to right on the email in the list and press the delete button that pops up on the right

Caller ID: If you select a photo for a contact from the iPhone, the selected photo is shown full screen for the caller ID

Caller ID: If a contacts photo is transferred with the contact's info from the Address Book, the contact's photo is shown as a thumbnail (just like with the commercials) for the caller ID

Keystroke Saver: The trick David Pogue mentions for entering a period (hold down the punctuation key and then slide to the period and release) will allow you to enter anything on the non-alpha keyboard and return to the alpha keyboard in one swipe

iPhoto: The phone shows up in iPhoto (turn off in image capture)

iPhoto: You can use 'Camera is not Apple iPhone' in a smart playlist

iPhoto: A contacts picture folder /album is a good idea

iPhoto: A wallpaper folder / album is a good idea

iPhone: Keeping the favorites screen open allows you to unlock the screen then dial with three motions

iPhone: The home button can be used to access unlocking instead of sleep wake

iPhone: To use the CAPS LOCK feature, make sure it is enabled in the General Settings. To use it, simply double-tap on the shift key. The shift key will turn blue

Google Maps: Typing in the three letter airport code while in maps will bring the airport up on the map. So if you are trying to view a map of say Renton, WA. Typing SEA (or sea) will bring up the Seattle airport. It's relatively quick to zoom out, recenter over Renton, and zoom in again. It seems to recognize all primary and secondary US airports and many overseas airports as well.

A link to find airport codes: http://www.orbitz.com/App/global/airportCodes.jsp#USK

Safari: When you've scrolled down to the bottom of a page, and you want to go back to the top- just tap on the top bar of the phone (where "AT&T" and the time are) and the page jumps right back up to the beginning

Safari: Doesn't provide scroll bars for text area form fields and scrollable areas in a text page. An example of this is the field I'm using to type this message in. Dragging a single finger on the page scrolls the page. If you want to scroll one of the areas I just described, use two fingers

Safari: To email a page to someone tap on the address bar. The Share button on the top left will create a message for you!

Safari: Page down. When not using a zoomed-in display, double-tap towards the bottom of the screen. The page will re-center around your tap. Make sure not to tap a link!

Safari: Jump to the top. Double-tap the very top of the screen, just below the time display to pop back to the top of the page

Safari: Zoom onto a single picture. Double-tapping images in Safari zooms them to fit your iPhone display. If the picture is linked to a URL, this can prove a little tricky but it works great for non-linked images. Double-tap again to return to the unzoomed display.

Safari: Zoom a column. You can zoom text columns as well as pictures. Double-tap on the column to fit it to the display. Double-tap again to return out of the zoom. Not only does Safari zoom block-quoted text independently of regular text but if you move your finger after the first double-tap-to-fit, it interprets the next double-tap as a re-center page command rather than a return-to-previous-zoom. Smart.

Safari: Stopping a scroll. After flicking a page to get it to scroll, you can tap the page at any time to stop that movement. Don't forget, you can also manually drag the screen display to reset the part you're viewing.

Safari: Manual zoom. This is probably one of the most-advertised Safari features (along with the flip-the-phone-on-its-side-trick) but it's worth mentioning again. To zoom into a Safari page, put your thumb and forefinger on the screen and move them apart. To zoom out, pinch the fingers together after starting with them apart.

Safari: Examining the URL. To peek at a link's destination, touch and hold the link for a few seconds. You can also do this with images to see if they are linked. If a link appears and you don't want to activate it, just slide your finger away until the destination text disappears.

Safari: Well just point your iPhone browser to a Video on google video and choose download for iPod/PSP and you can watch it right there in safari. This also shows that you can also watch videos in the vertical position not just landscape.

-------------
Bookmarks: Create a separate folder / section for all your iPhone web sites. This makes is easy to locate them while browsing the we on your iPhone.

iPhoto / Photos: Create an Album (folder) called iPhone Wallpaper and load up your favorite 320x480 wallpapers. This makes it very easy to pick a new wallpaper on your iPhone.

Address Book: Create several subgroups, this can speed up the location of a contact given the lack of an actual search function. I use Work, Family, iPhone and it automatically puts the All Contacts group. Unfortunately I do not know how to do this on a PC. Hopefully someone can post.

Web Usage: If your favorite 'news' sites offer an RSS feed, bookmark and use that on your iPhone (not update your bookmarks because your iPhone will need to revise the link and use the .mac reader). This can make browsing, even while on EDGE much faster.

Force Quit: To actually close (or Quit) an application, HOLD the Home button for about 4-8 seconds while in the application. Apparently this will save battery usage and will also keep it cooler.

keithos27 · Jul 3, 2007

From user dharrison9 that I found https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/324293/

I just found this today and thought it was a really useful feature. I was reading TUAW on my iPhone and got to the bottom of their news feed and wanted to go to another site. I was beginning to scroll back up to the top to get to the URL entry field and accidentally hit the top bar, the one with AT&T and signal strength and the time and battery life and found myself at the top of the page staring right at the URL field. So amazingly simple and brilliant.

In short:

1. You're at the bottom (or anywhere) of a webpage on your iPhone and want to go to the URL field.
2. Tap the top bar with the time and battery life indicator.
3. Boom! You're at the URL entry field!

I hope this isn't a repeat post and that you find this useful!

elistan · Jul 3, 2007

Here's another one from a different thread:

When typing, here's a quick way to input a period. Click on the .?123 button and slide your finger over to the period (or comma) and release. A period will be written, and the keyboard will go back to letters. Alternatively, click the .?123 button with your left thumb and tap the period button with the other. Again, you'll get the period and the keyboard will switch back to letters.

transamman1999 · Jul 3, 2007

this may not interest everyone, but it definitely interested me:

Adding FULL SCREEN Pictures for Each Contact:

you can go into the Address Book application on a Mac and drag and drop every contact's picture, BUT doing so will only show up as a TINY icon when that person calls you. it is useless to try to figure out who's calling using this method.

SO, there are two ways to make the picture show up on the entire screen when they are calling. but first, you must have some-what good resolution pics of the contacts you want to add photos for. i'm younger, so i used facebook to gather all the pics of my friends and then used old pics for family and such.
i suggest just getting pics of as many contacts as you can and copying them into a separate folder and be sure you sync that folder to your iPhone thru iTunes.

Easy way: after you sync and transfer the pics to your phone, go to the "Photos" app and select the folder you added (i used "Contact Pics"). click the first pic so it goes into single photo view, and then click the button on the lower left. if you dont see any buttons, touch anywhere on the screen ONCE and they will show up. now click "Assign to Contact" and choose the contact you wish to assign it to. now you can move, scale, resize the pic to your needs, and then click "Set Photo".
then proceed to the next pic and repeat. i was able to go thru all 211 of my contacts fairly quickly surprisingly enough.

or

Harder way: go to the "Contacts" tab while in the Phone application. click on the contact you want to change, and click "Edit" in the top right corner. now click "Add Photo" in the upper left. click "Choose Existing Photo", choose the pic you want, resize and move it to your liking and click Set Photo. rinse and repeat.

and you're done. now whenever someone calls you you can easily see who it is even if you cant read their name.
this works especially well for people you know by face but maybe not by name, or, like in my case this past Saturday, you're at a party and you meet a chick and get her number, but wait, you dont remember her at all. well, go to your iPhone's camera's photos and find out, then add her pic to the number she gave you, and bam, you wont forget what she looked like in 3+ days when you call her back. (luckily she was a 8.5-9 WITHOUT beer goggles)

hope this helps, i was worried at first that all my contact pics were showing up tiny as he!!, but now i'm really happy that they are all fullscreen.

ps: its really cool when showing off your iPhone to your friends and you say "call me" and when they do you can show them that their pic shows up real big! adds more WOW to the iPhone's wow-ness

nicoboss · Jul 3, 2007

I don't know if it is an official, documented function, but when you want to delete emails, instead of pressing "edit" and then go on to delete whichever email you don't want to keep, just drag it off the screen - than is point to an email message, and drag your finger off the screen - it will ask you to confirm deletion and voila!

pretty fast edit option IMHO....

sparkomatic · Jul 3, 2007

From safari, you can type a website address without adding the '.com' just like on safari on a mac.

OT2000 · Jul 3, 2007

Text Magnifying Glass

When typing a text message, hold your finger over the text field and it will enable a small magnifying glass that lets you move back and forward through text and spaces.

I'm not sure if it works in other apps.

transamman1999 · Jul 3, 2007

Awesome iPod functionality discovery!!

when you're listening to the iPod and u put your iPhone to sleep you can still use the volume rocker switches to change your iPod's volume

jstennis1591 · Jul 3, 2007

When you are doing something in landscape mode, and a text message comes through, the text message is displayed in landscape mode too

And, if you are in Settings->Phone->AT&T Services, you can have a text message sent to you with information about your account instantly

That's it for now

FreeState · Jul 3, 2007

This may be documented elsewhere but I have not seen it.... (to be honest I just skimmed the Finger Tips manual)

To wake the phone up you can hit the home button on the face of the unit - you do not need to hit the top sleep/wake button.

iprincess · Jul 3, 2007

to expand on your keyboard tip above, the iphone is smarter than you think. you can type a space after the punctuation and it returns to the alpha keyboard automatically. if you are typing a sentence and want a period (or anything else on that keyboard) and then to continue on, you hit the key to toggle to the new keyboard, type your period and then a space and it automatically returns to the alpha keyboard.

i actually prefer this to the "easy" punctuation multi-touch drag thing that is going around. once you know this trick, punctuation is no problem.

i sent it to david pogue this morning and now he is sending me a free book!

Bunsen · Jul 3, 2007

I just found this one today. In safari, tap and hold on a link for a second, and a bubble will pop up showing you the URL it links to, like the status bar in desktop safari.

technocoy · Jul 3, 2007

Sent this to Arn last night...

When you are in a page with frames such as the iPhone Chat web app or your online .mac mail account. you can put your thumbs both on the screen fairly close together, drag, and it scrolls the content within the frame.

You can also do it with two fingers side by side, but sometimes it glitches a bit for some reason.

Hadn't seen this documented anywhere.

lom8104 · Jul 4, 2007

In safari, the bouble tap zoom recognizes a column of text / picture width and zooms in accordingly to fill up the screen. REALLY useful for browsing macrumors forums!

docc · Jul 4, 2007

New tip posted by Me1000:

If you are playing a song (and are in the now playing screen) you ca swip the album art left to right and it will take you ba k to the last menu in the ipod you were viewing.

Clicking on an RSS feed link within the iPhone browser automatically opens the RSS feed within .Mac reader (reader.mac.com) which you can bookmark. An alternative to this would be to open your favorite sites within google mobile browser and clicking on the RSS button will allow you to add a feed (if available) to Google reader (which is byfar the best feed reader!).

P.S. Google mobile browser can be accessed at http://google.com/gwt/n. If you happen to be on EDGE and don't want to load full pages, you can use this to access this lo-fi version of the web (can even exclude images).

Since there is no iChat application currently, you can use Meebo (http://www.meebo.com) to chat with your buddies on MSN/Yahoo/AIM/Google talk.

billyw · Jul 4, 2007

Workaround to sync simple text between Mac and iPhone

As a former Palm user I am used to syncing text notes between multiple PCs and a Treo; I have around twenty covering random things such as frequent flyer mileage plan IDs, future travel itineraries, restaurants I like, etc. The iPhone Notes app is clearly a work in progress and doesn't come close to being useful, and online alternatives require an online connection which isn't always available (eg. on a plane or in the subway).

However, I've found I can replicate the old feature. Taking a text file I have with my frequent flier membership IDs as an example:
- create a new address book group called 'Notes'
- create a dummy address and give it company name "Frequent flier"
- populate the "Note" field of this contact entry with plain text - in this case, my memberships for the different programs
- add this new "address" to the "Notes" group
- save it and repeat for other files.

This will now sync between multiple Macs/PCs and always be available on iPhone, even when it is offline. Simply look in the address group Notes for these items - not ideal but it works.

Hopefully this true, elegant syncing of notes with the desktop will be provided in a future revision, perhaps in tandem with Leopard - hope this helps in the meantime.

Billy.

specops · Jul 4, 2007

if your typing with the keyboard and want to use thumbs ( this can easily cause errors)

just touch AND hold down on the keyboard, which magnifies the buttons, and makes it so you can read them better, then let go of the keyboard when your on the correct key. this makes it MUCH easier and accurate typing.

hope this helps!

ScottW-CO · Jul 5, 2007

For albums that you've set up to sync to your iPhone through iTunes - check the "Album Artist" data field. Make sure it's consistent throughout the album's tracks.

If it's not, the track listing for your album on the phone may display out of order.

The "Album Artist" field is also used in Cover Flow - the info in this field for the first track is displayed under the album cover, just above the album title. If it's an album of a single artist, not a huge deal - but if it's a compilation, put "Various Artists" or somesuch in that field for that album's tracks.

swdesignr · Jul 5, 2007

Typing in ALL CAPS

This one may be really obvious, but it escaped me for a while -- maybe because I disabled it in Settings...

To type in all caps, go to Settings>Keyboard and make sure 'Enable Caps Lock' is ON.

Then when you're typing a message, just double tap the cap key on the keyboard and it locks.

Peace · Jul 5, 2007

Here's a tip specific to MR.
If you're like me I set up the number of posts to view per page at 40.
When using the iPhone set it up to 10 posts per page.This way you don't have to keep flipping to get to the bottom of a page .

docc · Jul 5, 2007

Tapping on the address in your contacts opens it up in Google maps.

badtzmaru · Jul 5, 2007

Safari: To email a page to someone tap on the address bar. The Share button on the top left will create a message for you!

Kinmar · Jul 5, 2007

You can send ghetto MMS messages to people by doing the following.

- Start a new email with the photo you want to send
- put their 10 digit phone number followed by @mobile.att.net in the To: field
Example: 2345678910@mobile.att.net

(im not sure if you need to include the 1 at the beginning or not.)

If you have put it all in correctly it will arrive to their phone in the form of an SMS/MMS.

docc · Jul 5, 2007

TUAW: iPhone Safari tricks

Page down. When not using a zoomed-in display, double-tap towards the bottom of the screen. The page will re-center around your tap. Make sure not to tap a link!

Jump to the top. Double-tap the very top of the screen, just below the time display to pop back to the top of the page. (Thanks John C)

Zoom onto a single picture. Double-tapping images in Safari zooms them to fit your iPhone display. If the picture is linked to a URL, this can prove a little tricky but it works great for non-linked images. Double-tap again to return to the unzoomed display.

Zoom a column. You can zoom text columns as well as pictures. Double-tap on the column to fit it to the display. Double-tap again to return out of the zoom. Not only does Safari zoom block-quoted text independently of regular text but if you move your finger after the first double-tap-to-fit, it interprets the next double-tap as a re-center page command rather than a return-to-previous-zoom. Smart.

Stopping a scroll. After flicking a page to get it to scroll, you can tap the page at any time to stop that movement. Don't forget, you can also manually drag the screen display to reset the part you're viewing.

Manual zoom. This is probably one of the most-advertised Safari features (along with the flip-the-phone-on-its-side-trick) but it's worth mentioning again. To zoom into a Safari page, put your thumb and forefinger on the screen and move them apart. To zoom out, pinch the fingers together after starting with them apart.

Examining the URL. To peek at a link's destination, touch and hold the link for a few seconds. You can also do this with images to see if they are linked. If a link appears and you don't want to activate it, just slide your finger away until the destination text disappears.

exNavy · Jul 6, 2007

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for uncovering and sharing secrets and tips on how to use the iPhone.

But after reading many of these "tips", I find that all of them are already clearly documented in the user's manual at Apple's site. I'm pretty darn sure I haven't found one that isn't in there. So, if you just RTM, you might find your "tips" faster there, than having to wait for someone to "discover" them and post them in a forum somewhere.

Just trying to speed up the learning process here is all.

iPhone Tips and Tricks thread

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