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I'm Back! (Google Maps Discovery)

newyorksole

newyorksole

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 2, 2008
5,278
6,600
New York.
I've been at a university for the past few days. I have been trying to keep up with info for the past few days on my iPhone, but haven't posted anything. Anyways, I'm back to posting!

Since there is all of this info. available now I decided to watch the guided tour of the iPhone. I didn't ever realize that you could use 2 fingers to zoom out of maps! This whole time that I've had the iPhone, to zoom out I would just pinch my 2 fingers toward the center of the screen.

Anyone else not know this?
 
newyorksole said:
I didn't ever realize that you could use 2 fingers to zoom out of maps! This whole time that I've had the iPhone, to zoom out I would just pinch my 2 fingers toward the center of the screen.

Anyone else not know this?
Click to expand...

Use 2 fingers to zoom out of maps AND pinch my 2 fingers toward the center of the screen BOTH SOUND THE SAME.

I'm not sure I understand what you are stating.
 
Last night I couldn't sleep and decided to watch the 30 minute version and noticed that also.. Seems like it was in the 1st gen tour also.. just forgot about it .. felt dumb too haha
 
Scooterman1 said:
I'm not sure I understand what you are stating.
Click to expand...

He's saying you have always had the ability to zoom out of a map by placing two fingers together, and tapping, as oppose to a one finger double tap or the pinch technique.

Well done, good find. :cool:

I didn't realize you could do this either, and i've watched the guided tours. :confused: :p

R-Fly
 
Count me among those of you who didn't know about the two-finger tap in Google maps until I saw the 3G guided tour two evenings ago. I've been trying it elsewhere, but I haven't found another use for it.

I'm in an area without 3G (promised by year's end), but the moving pin on the map enabled by GPS in that tour looks pretty nice. I'm wondering how many apps I'll be able to store in 8GB too.
 
I was playing with maps and discovered it. It was just recent though like two weeks ago. It amazes me the little things you can stumble upon while playing with the phone.
 
Really? I never knew that... must try it.

Does it work in Safari too? (OK I'm lazy and just need to get off my ass and actually try). Edit: No it doesn't.
 
+1 for me having no clue you could do this. Cool. I did notice during the guided tour, but had already forgot about by the time it was over. Trying it now.
 
something else I noticed in the tour was where he mentioned you can double tap the shift key while typing to lock it on caps, instead of having to tap the shift key before every character you want capitalized. I'm not sure if that's something that has been introduced in one of the latest versions of the OS or just 2.0, as I'm still using 1.1.2 on my jailbroken iPod touch and it doesn't work in that version.
 
elbirth said:
something else I noticed in the tour was where he mentioned you can double tap the shift key while typing to lock it on caps...I'm still using 1.1.2 on my jailbroken iPod touch and it doesn't work in that version.
Click to expand...
It does work in 1.1.4, but I don't remember when it arrived. Probably at the same time as they added the period-after-doublespace, which I know was not there originally. I switched from a BlackBerry, and that was one thing I missed.
 
Also if u tap on the the menu bar at the top of the phone where the time is it will bring u to the top of the page. This is already in Safari but in 2.0 it will work for all apps.
 
+1 here too. I had no idea about the two-finger tap zoom out. It sure would have come in handy with the all traveling I've done over the past months with my iPhone as my only guide.

I also didn't know the "tap in the menu bar to get to the address field in safari" shortcut. I didn't think that menu bar did anything except tell the time.

And I thought I knew my phone...makes me wonder what else I'm missing. :eek:
 
southyde4eva said:
And I thought I knew my phone...makes me wonder what else I'm missing. :eek:
Click to expand...

Ah. If you didn't know about the Safari address bar tap, then you probably don't know that you must use two fingers to scroll within textarea fields or frames on web pages. (Because a regular scroll moves the whole page around.)

Heck, there are people who don't know why their icons now wiggle if they hold them too long. Can you just imagine the confusion if Apple put in copy/paste gestures?

Instead of pretending that their UI is totally intuitive, Apple should include a help facility on the phone itself, or at least a link to the ...

iPhone manuals

Read the User Guide at least. Never know what you'll find!
 
Same here.... I had no idea until I saw the new guided tour. Would have been nice to know about this from day one.
 
Also, I didn't know you could hold the shift key if you only want to capitalize certain letters instead of enabling caps lock. I remember trying that and it not working.

I'm excited about the zoom out 2 finger touch though haha.
 
iFerd said:
It does work in 1.1.4, but I don't remember when it arrived. Probably at the same time as they added the period-after-doublespace, which I know was not there originally. I switched from a BlackBerry, and that was one thing I missed.
Click to expand...

Ah, it must be fairly new then, because my touch with 1.1.2 actually does do the "period-after-doublespace" bit. So it has to be either 1.1.3 or 1.1.4. Doesn't really matter though, I was just curious as to if that was new to 2.0 or not.


kdarling said:
Ah. If you didn't know about the Safari address bar tap, then you probably don't know that you must use two fingers to scroll within textarea fields or frames on web pages. (Because a regular scroll moves the whole page around.)

Heck, there are people who don't know why their icons now wiggle if they hold them too long. Can you just imagine the confusion if Apple put in copy/paste gestures?

Instead of pretending that their UI is totally intuitive, Apple should include a help facility on the phone itself, or at least a link to the ...

iPhone manuals

Read the User Guide at least. Never know what you'll find!
Click to expand...

I don't mean this towards any one person in particular, but it seriously annoys me that there are so many "basic" features of the iPhone that so many people don't know about. Do people not research larger purchases in their lives at all? I mean, seriously... do people buy the first shiny new car they see and then later complain when they find out it had backup sensors, or A/C, or power door locks, or an alarm, etc because they weren't informed of that from the beginning? Hopefully they would have done their research and found out all of the features of it before buying. Similarly with the iPhone, you're buying a phone that will theoretically last you at least 2 years of your mobile phone using life, and you don't know the most basic of the features? Honestly, people, do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes to browse the iPhone website and watch the videos (you don't even have to go through the ridiculous hassle of having to read for yourself- it's a video that is shoving it into your brain... all you have to do is listen, if you're capable of doing so for more than 10 seconds). They tell you almost everything being discussed here. The only thing so far mentioned that I haven't seen documented anywhere is the bit about 2-finger scrolling in text areas and frames. I found this out from a friend- otherwise, I've seen every other feature in one of the tour videos.
 
kdarling said:
Ah. If you didn't know about the Safari address bar tap, then you probably don't know that you must use two fingers to scroll within textarea fields or frames on web pages. (Because a regular scroll moves the whole page around.)
Click to expand...

What's funny is that I actually knew about that one! Backwards huh? :D

@elbirth - I know you said your post wasn't pointed at anyone in particular but as one who that post could be pointed towards, I have to say I did do my research before purchasing my phone as well as reading the manual and watching all the videos. I knew of all the features, learned many things from the videos and manual and still I'm not ashamed to admit I don't know/remember every nuance the iPhone possesses. And yes, as an educated person, I can listen for more than 10 seconds.

Personally, there are many things I saw in the "guides" that made me say "Cool!" or "I'll have to remember that". However memorizing every single thing from the documentation about the iPhone's UI is not something I've done (nor really care to do). As long as my phone does what I want/need it to do, when I need it to do it, I'm cool. (No knock on you for having completed that memorization, it's just not my cup of tea). Yeah, you're probably completing tasks more efficiently, but again...no skin off my back!

Now, having said that, there are certain features of the UI I believe should be known, no questions about it (and shame to those who don't! ;) ) But just because I didn't know a second method to zooming out on the maps app doesn't mean I didn't do my research.

Respect :apple:
 
kdarling said:
Instead of pretending that their UI is totally intuitive, Apple should include a help facility on the phone itself, or at least a link to the ...

iPhone manuals

Read the User Guide at least. Never know what you'll find!
Click to expand...

Seeing as Apple has a patent out on something like this for multi-touch gestures t might be possible - that or someone could set up a neat web site with iPhone friendly videos to show off these features...

I think with the ease of use of the iPhone, you can forget to resort to some bed time reading of the http://support.apple.com/manuals/#iphone

It's a balance between overwhelming the customer, and not providing enough information of useful features. It kind of depends on the level of the user - phones cater from the simple user to the power user. Apple does have limitations and design considerations due to the size of the device, luckily they seem to be doing a better job of it than some, and don't mind altering things if there is a better solution sometimes.
 
I think the double-tap, zoom out feature in Google Maps is listed in the paper instruction book in the box. I didn't know about it either at first, but then I read the book and I think it is in there. If not there, I found it in Pogue's secret manual or whatever they call it.
 
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