iPhone Tips and Tricks thread

[arn]

How To: Use your iPhone to store your documents for later reading!

How to log into AIM via SMS

[docc]

Originally Posted by exNavy

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.

You're absolutely right but then again, you gotta think how many people actually read the manual, that too one thats not in print!

Cheers.

[BWhaler]

Some typing tricks:

1. Type "welll" (3 L's) and the iPhone will auto correct to "We'll"

2. Type "Helll" (3 L's) and the iPhone will auto correct to "He'll"

3. Type "itsa" and the iPhone will auto correct to "It's"

4. Type "weree" (2 E's) and the iPhone will auto correct to "We're"

(In general, repeating the last letter will tell us its a contraction. The "itsa" is an exception since it could go either way. Think "it's a..."

No need for jumping over to the secondary keyboard at all for the apostrophe.

[tom@bluesky.org]

point the iPhone browser at this page:

http://pointatme.com/keyboards/

(Does French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Czech, Greek, Brazilian, and Swedish)

[spyz]

Just incase anyone didnt know. If your playing the iPod and its locked. Instead of unlocking it and lowering the volume via the touch bar, your can just use the volume keys on the outside of the iPhone INSTEAD!!! I did not know this till today LOL

[voicegy]

If you have multiple apps open like Safari, iPod, Youtube, stocks etc., the iPhone may feel "warmer" as you are running all the apps in the background - when you press Home it does NOT actually clear or close apps., and this may affect battery usage.

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.

(this very helpful tip was shamelessly stolen by me from user 'djmx', original post can be found here)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=325921

[irnpop]

I want to choose more than one person to send a text to. Maybe I'm missing something but i've read the users manual and watched the iphone video on apple and nothing's mentioned.

[beeber]

This is a google maps trick that is even more helpful when using the iPhone. 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

[CarpetRyd]

you can get on the internet DURING a call! You can only do this if your connected to a WIFI network (it wont work via edge), just hit the home key and click on Safari. Now your surfing while talking! The person on the other end can't hear the keyboard clicks either!

found this out randomly last night

[schulzmc]

When the alarm (Clock) wakes you up in the morning, touching the sleep/wake button will "snooze" and sliding the wake up slider will turn off the alarm.

Those are a lot easier than trying to hit the right touch point on the screen when you are half awake, especially for the snooze.

[poppe]

I just received an MMS on my iPhone... well sort of.

If someone sends you an MMS a text message comes in saying - "I sent you a multimedia message. You can view my message via the internet at viewmymessage.com using MSG ID ******* Password *******

In case anyone was wondering about receiving MMS

[elistan]

Set up a bookmark at the top of Safari's list (just below History, which can't be moved) that points to "about:blank" (In fact "about:ANYTHING" works just as well, I'm not sure if there's some keyword I can put in to get anything special.) Anyway, I use the bookmark to switch to a blank page once I'm done browsing.

This helps by stopping Safari from trying to reload the last page I visited when I switch to it next time, thereby saving some time when I try to bring up whichever site I want to go to next.

[lee1210]

I don't want to cross post, so I will link here w/ summary.

I was having some issues with having album art display in coverflow on the iPhone. It was fine in iTunes on OS X. It turns out that iTunes tries to be smart about grouping songs/displaying art. If one song in a group has art it is displayed, whereas on the phone art only displays if every song in the group has this art.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...=1#post3932435

[aaryana]

If you touch the green/red boxes outlining the +/- movement of the stocks, it changes to displaying the %.

[psister2]

I found this little blog that has an article about surfing the web five times faster with the iPhone using the Edge Network. It Works!!!

Hello speedy iPhone. This method makes edge usable.

it's kinda lengthy, but basically you use google as a proxy server, check out the link for full details...

http://www.iphonepov.com/2007/07/sur...es-faster.html

[vinhmen]

Just to clarify, you are not surfing the "real" internet five times faster with this method, but rather web pages designed for mobile access. In other words, the "kinda, sorta, feels like the internet."

[brooker]

Ok, i have a few hints i figured out and some comments on previous posts...

We all know that the bulge on the headphones cord can pause/play the current song. Double-squeezing also skips to the next song... But here's the cool thing: If you aren't using iPod at all (or if it crashes when you try to send a txt or use the web), and want some music, you can start up iPod mode with a double-squeeze --> then a single squeeze to start the music playing. It will automatically start playing the first song in your Songs list, and work it's way through. I wish it would pick up where it left off, but hey, something is better than nothing!

Originally Posted by docc

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!

Actually, you can double-tap a link, without linking it. Double-tap anywhere to zoom in.

Originally Posted by docc

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)

This also shows the URL bar, and makes it easy to enter a new address.

Originally Posted by docc

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.

It doesn't matter if the picture is linked or not. double-tapping will zoom, and that is all.

Originally Posted by beeber

This is a google maps trick that is even more helpful when using the iPhone. Typing in the three letter airport code while in maps will bring the airport up on the map.

The Maps app seems to be pretty smart in general. I do a lot of searching for things in town without adding my city, state, or zip. I'm not sure it searches in relation to your last search, or what is currently in the view port, but it seems to check the "local" listings first! That saves a ton on typing.

Also, after a restore, the Maps app seems to know where you are. We need to find a way to be able to do this at will...


OK, here's a few more that i think are obvious, but someone may have missed...

when browsing photos, you can flick a photo to the right or left to advance through the album, as long as you are zoomed out. You can do it slowly, and see the next photo coming in.

You can flip through your notes using arrows at the bottom -- you don't have to keep going back to the main list screen (like i was doing for 2 weeks).

If you need to save a number when on a call, you can kinda use the calculator. It will save the last number you put in, even if you open other apps... however, the Memory feature doesn't save values if you go home, and then back to the calc. also, it only holds 9 numbers, so don't put in the area code, if you can help it! --- of course, the Notes app works too, but i like the bigger buttons if i just need to jot a number.

[eescabar]

Wirelessly posted (ipwn: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3)

I went through this thread last night and did not see this tip. If it has been add since then I'm sorry for the duplicate.



If you are in the iPod app and viewing the cover art the one tap on the art will show you the tracks progress bar.

[iFerd]

Originally Posted by BWhaler

Some typing tricks:

1. Type "welll" (3 L's) and the iPhone will auto correct to "We'll"

2. Type "Helll" (3 L's) and the iPhone will auto correct to "He'll"

3. Type "itsa" and the iPhone will auto correct to "It's"

4. Type "weree" (2 E's) and the iPhone will auto correct to "We're"

(In general, repeating the last letter will tell us its a contraction. The "itsa" is an exception since it could go either way. Think "it's a..."

No need for jumping over to the secondary keyboard at all for the apostrophe.

This is a really useful tip, right up there with the one to hold the .?123 key and drag to the desired punctuation mark. Since this thread also just reminded us all to RTM, I tried to find this there, but I failed. Where did this come from? Is there somewhere typing tips are collected?

[BWhaler]

Originally Posted by iFerd

This is a really useful tip... Where did this come from? Is there somewhere typing tips are collected?

My employer. ;-)

[Noumenon]

If you use Yahoo Yellow Pages, touching a phone number brings up a dialog asking if you want to call the number.

[technomom]

So I am terrible at anything techno.....and need all the help I can get, daughter could not stop talking about her latest gadgets and thought an educational surf on the net is just what mom needs.....Stumbled upon a site that she thought was great for iphone downloads....thought I'd sharewww.iphonenova.com/?hop=webwiz2Let me know what u think.....maybe I can teach my girl a thing or two then

[ctakim]

Originally Posted by technomom

So I am terrible at anything techno.....and need all the help I can get, daughter could not stop talking about her latest gadgets and thought an educational surf on the net is just what mom needs.....Stumbled upon a site that she thought was great for iphone downloads....thought I'd sharewww.iphonenova.com/?hop=webwiz2Let me know what u think.....maybe I can teach my girl a thing or two then

Wow, talk about a commercial site. You sure you are not just an internet huckster instead of a technophobe mom?

[brooker]

I don't think anyone mentioned it yet...

a two finger tap in google maps zooms out. this doesn't really work anywhere else. one finger tap to zoom in, two to zoom out.

I think i saw this on Pogue's site originally.

[askripko]

«Now iPhone breaks language barriers and helps you to communicate with all world!» This is how approximately possible to characterise the sense of new project CoolGorila.com. Specially for iPhone they have made audio compiler.

Read more HERE