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iPhone Top Bar not useless after all

A

ajarnfalang

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 27, 2010
201
0
As you know I've been using the iPhone 4 for a couple of weeks and very happy with it.

The one thing I always hear from Android users is that they get notifications on the top bar and on the iPhone the top bar is sitting there doing nothing.

Well, it just so happens that I discovered a feature that I never saw mentioned anywhere. Not even in the Apple website.

When you are in any app, contacts, mail, settings, your favorite news app, I mean anywhere, the top bar acts like the T shortcut in the blackberry.

So, go to say, your Photos app. Scroll down some. Doesn't matter. Now, go ahead and tap right on top of the time.

See! It snaps you back all the way back to the top!

You can also use this while looking at websites or anywhere really.

Tapping the top bar will always snap you back to the top of whatever app you are using.

Now you can tell those Android fan boys that your top bar is more useful than theirs.
 
D

Dias

macrumors 6502
Sep 16, 2007
281
0
I guess "Hold Home button till Voice panel appears" would be new as well? :)
 
S

SL4VE

macrumors 6502
Aug 19, 2010
454
10
you can also tap the title banners in some apps to go to home page try it on facebook for example
 
A

ajarnfalang

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 27, 2010
201
0
SL4VE said:
you can also tap the title banners in some apps to go to home page try it on facebook for example
Click to expand...

Yes. This one I discovered by accident as well.

Not obvious for us newbies so I thought I'd bring it up.
 
TheMacBookPro

TheMacBookPro

macrumors 68020
May 9, 2008
2,133
3
Well known feature.

Still, wouldn't having notifications on the top bar be more useful than just popping the page back to the top? IDK, maybe that's just me.

LockInfo ftw. It adds an Android-like notification panel which slides down.
 
bruinsrme

bruinsrme

macrumors 604
Oct 26, 2008
6,661
2,429
great feature,

I find myself clicking on the top bar in windows to unsuccessfully do the same thing.
 
A

ajarnfalang

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 27, 2010
201
0
Honestly, I don't see how my experience will be better with notifications up on top.

I got used to my Blackberry T to go to the top and B to go to the bottom, so I was glad I found that.

I don't need things popping up on top telling me I have an email. I know I have one, I'll get to it when I want to. The circle badge thingy is good enough for me.

You can also fit 48 apps in your dock, so you can have all the apps you need the notifications for all the time on your dock without losing track of them.

Actually, with 192 apps per page, you can keep everything in one page or two at the most. And you can organize it anyway you want to.

Android people look at it as clutter. They think having 3 or 4 icons and a useless weather widget is better. Then go to the Applications menu and scroll down 200 apps in alphabetical order that have no relation to each other, other than the first letter of their name.

I'll stick with Apple's way. It works for me.
 
Watabou

Watabou

macrumors 68040
Feb 10, 2008
3,424
753
United States
The first time I ever tried an Android phone, my first impression was "Damn, Androids have better top bar than my iPhone".

In my opinion, that's the only feature that I do like about the Android. But then again if I think about it, you're absolutely right. I don't want notifications bugging me all the time. I think adding a notification bar on top will just clutter up the iPhone and might even slow down the older models.

I like the Apple's way of doing this. It works for me too. :)


Oh and I knew about the scrolling feature. I just wished there was a shortcut to scroll to the bottom of the page. It would save a lot of time for me.
 
Mike225

Mike225

macrumors 6502a
Jul 15, 2010
521
0
SF BAY
Watabou said:
The first time I ever tried an Android phone, my first impression was "Damn, Androids have better top bar than my iPhone".

In my opinion, that's the only feature that I do like about the Android. But then again if I think about it, you're absolutely right. I don't want notifications bugging me all the time. I think adding a notification bar on top will just clutter up the iPhone and might even slow down the older models.

I like the Apple's way of doing this. It works for me too. :)


Oh and I knew about the scrolling feature. I just wished there was a shortcut to scroll to the bottom of the page. It would save a lot of time for me.
Click to expand...

You dont like notifications bugging you so you opt for the ones that pop up and stop whatever you are doing versus the ones that appear on the top bar. Makes sense I guess.
 
iPhone1

iPhone1

macrumors demi-god
Apr 2, 2010
1,136
407
Watabou said:
The first time I ever tried an Android phone, my first impression was "Damn, Androids have better top bar than my iPhone".

In my opinion, that's the only feature that I do like about the Android. But then again if I think about it, you're absolutely right. I don't want notifications bugging me all the time. I think adding a notification bar on top will just clutter up the iPhone and might even slow down the older models.

I like the Apple's way of doing this. It works for me too. :)


Oh and I knew about the scrolling feature. I just wished there was a shortcut to scroll to the bottom of the page. It would save a lot of time for me.
Click to expand...

You can have just that on an iPhone. Just jailbreak it and then install Notifier+.
 
Carlanga

Carlanga

macrumors 604
Nov 5, 2009
7,112
1,392
ajarnfalang said:
As you know I've been using the iPhone 4 for a couple of weeks and very happy with it....
Click to expand...
I didn't know this^, but I knew about the mentioned scrolling feature...:cool:
since you didn't know about it then I'm gonna tell you a more 'obscure' one: You can do a screenshot (saves it in the photos roll) if you press the wake and home button at the same time... :eek::cool:
 
Watabou

Watabou

macrumors 68040
Feb 10, 2008
3,424
753
United States
Mike225 said:
You dont like notifications bugging you so you opt for the ones that pop up and stop whatever you are doing versus the ones that appear on the top bar. Makes sense I guess.
Click to expand...

I have push notification enabled but for only Google Voice. That's it. I do my texting through that so I don't get pop ups from my messages even, except for rare ocassions. I don't want to have to go unlock the phone and pull open the top bar just to view I got a message.

Like I said, I prefer the iPhone's way of doing things.
 
TheMacBookPro

TheMacBookPro

macrumors 68020
May 9, 2008
2,133
3
ajarnfalang said:
Honestly, I don't see how my experience will be better with notifications up on top.

I got used to my Blackberry T to go to the top and B to go to the bottom, so I was glad I found that.

I don't need things popping up on top telling me I have an email. I know I have one, I'll get to it when I want to. The circle badge thingy is good enough for me.

You can also fit 48 apps in your dock, so you can have all the apps you need the notifications for all the time on your dock without losing track of them.

Actually, with 192 apps per page, you can keep everything in one page or two at the most. And you can organize it anyway you want to.

Android people look at it as clutter. They think having 3 or 4 icons and a useless weather widget is better. Then go to the Applications menu and scroll down 200 apps in alphabetical order that have no relation to each other, other than the first letter of their name.

I'll stick with Apple's way. It works for me.
Click to expand...

Not trying to flame you here- just want to clear up your misconceptions about Android.

You can put all the app icons on the homescreens in Android like iOS, if you want. Android does not, despite what you may think, force you to use widgets. Many third-party launchers can also enable you to place any application in the bottom bar a la iOS.

The search widget can, in addition to searching the Web, perform system searches (SMS, email, apps etc).

I do realize that you prefer iOS, and that's nice. Some of your misconceptions really bug me though, and I hope that this post clears it up for you :)
 
D

Dias

macrumors 6502
Sep 16, 2007
281
0
Watabou said:
The first time I ever tried an Android phone, my first impression was "Damn, Androids have better top bar than my iPhone".

In my opinion, that's the only feature that I do like about the Android. But then again if I think about it, you're absolutely right. I don't want notifications bugging me all the time. I think adding a notification bar on top will just clutter up the iPhone and might even slow down the older models.

I like the Apple's way of doing this. It works for me too. :)


Oh and I knew about the scrolling feature. I just wished there was a shortcut to scroll to the bottom of the page. It would save a lot of time for me.
Click to expand...


If you want to disable notification, you can do it on both devices, but if you need them, Android's implementation is objectively less intrusive (for the simple fact that it doesn't force you to stop doing whatever you're doing just to close notification dialog).
 
M

milamber

macrumors regular
Jun 18, 2008
173
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Um I'm pretty sure this is a well documented feature.
 
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