Was I ever wrong!!
Here are 23 things I didn't know (and I know I'm just scratching the surface).
1)
Battery.
Avoid surprises: make the percentage of remaining battery life appear
next to the battery icon on the upper right corner of the iPhone screen. To do
this, tap Settings-->General-->Usage-->Turn on Battery Percentage. A
numerical percentage helps you check the battery regularly, as opposed to
suddenly being surprised by a red battery icon.
Don’t run on battery whenever possible. Plug
the device in. Battery life is finite
and is shortened every time you run completely out of charge.(Wish I'd known this one way sooner!)
2) Screen Shots. Tapping the home button and on/off button at
the same time will take a screen shot that's stored in the camera roll. You can edit the screen shot within the
camera roll and save the edited version.
3) Lock Portrait Orientation. Lock the screen in portrait
orientation to read more easily on your phone.
(Avoid the wobble between portrait and landscape this way.) To activate
the lock, tap the home button twice, then scroll right, at which point you'll
see a square gray icon with a circular arrow on the far left. Tap this to lock
the screen (A message reading “portrait orientation locked” will appear at the
bottom and you'll see a locked icon in the top right of the display now) and
unlock by tapping again (message and icon disappear).
4) Create a
Home Screen Icon for Any Website. If you regularly visit a website that doesn’t
offer its own app, you can add a shortcut for that webpage to your home
screen. Use Safari to load the page you
want to bookmark. At the bottom of the
screen, press the icon that
shows an arrow leaping out of from a square. Then choose “Add to Home Screen”.
Label it, press “Add” and a shortcut icon to the site will appear on
your home screen.
5)
Turn E-books Into Audio Books. Use
the VoiceOver feature (which reads what’s on the phone’s screen) to read ebooks
out loud. Go to "Settings," then "General," then
"Accessibility" and toggle VoiceOver to "On," at which point
you get options to tweak the settings (the speed of reading) and try out the
new controls. Once activated, if you
head over to your iBooks app, VoiceOver will read your selected texts to you.
Then open a book. Tap the first line (to get the
highlighting off the buttons at top).
Now swipe down the page with two fingers to make the iPhone
start reading the book to you, out loud, with a synthesized voice. It even
turns the pages automatically and keeps going until you tap with two fingers to
stop it. Note: I haven't tried this with Overdrive's e-books yet.
6)
So Settings has a Caps Lock After All! In the Settings menu, go to General, then Keyboard, and then slide
next to the entry Caps Lock to the left.
Mine was actually enabled, but I didn’t know enough to double-tap
the Shift key to get it to work, and tap it once again to disable. When locked, the Shift key turns blue.
7)
Dismiss Keyboard Suggested Word. To dismiss the keyboard-suggested spelling of a word, you can tap on anywhere of the screen. You do not
have to press “x” button at the end of the word.
8)
Inserting a Period. When
you are typing on your iPhone, simply double tap the “Space Bar” button at the end of a
sentence. It will automatically insert a period followed by a space. It saves
you a lot of time instead of pressing “123″ to get the numbers and symbols page
where the period located in.
9) Hold Keys for Extras. If you hold down certain letters or punctuation keys, a
pop-up appears containing other options. For example, you can hold down the dollar
sign currency symbol to get other symbols for other currencies.
10) Cut, Copy, and Paste Text. Double tap on the text and wait for an options button to
appear. Select the text to be copied or cut. Tap once where you would like to
paste the text and tap Paste to do so.
You can also ask for spelling suggestions and definitions from the
options bar. If you don’t see these
options, tap on the right arrow to reveal them.
11) Add Words to Your iPhone’s Dictionary. Open Settings, General, Keyboard, scroll down to shortcuts
and tap Add New Shortcut. Type the word into the phrase box and leave the
shortcut box empty. Tap Save.
12) Shortcut to Top of iPhone Screen. Tap on the status
bar at the top of the iPhone screen to quickly scroll to top of page in web
browser, email, or SMS message.
13)
Use
the Multitasking Bar to Move Quickly Among Apps. Press the home button twice to bring up the multitasking bar. All of your open apps will
appeal so you can swap between two recently opened apps without having to close
the one you are using.
Close
the apps you’re not using so they don’t drain your battery. Access the
multitasking bar to check for open apps, and close the apps by tapping and
holding the icons, then tapping the minus. (Wish I'd known this one earlier too.)
14)
Silence
your iPhone. Woops! Forgot to turn off the ringer on my phone. Tap
one of the volume buttons on the side of your phone to immediately silence your
phone if it is ringing or vibrating.
15)
Redial. Open the phone app and tap on the keypad icon. Then tap the Call button twice and the IPhone will redial the
last dialed number.
16)
Search
for Anything on Your iPhone – Spotlight Search Access Spotlight
search by swiping to it (left of the first screen) or pressing the home button
while on the first screen of apps. Now you can search your entire iPhone for contacts,
apps music, podcasts, video, audio-books, notes, emails, calendar entries, and
SMS messages. Use Spotlight to quickly dial a contact or launch an app, or to search the web.
17)
Too Many Icons? Create
Folders.
Group up to twelve
apps together in a folder by dragging one app on top of the other. This creates
a folder that you can name and move around. You can also place your folder on
the dock at the bottom of your screen.
18)
Not Enough Memory? Check
App Size and Delete. If your iPhone is
low on memory, open Settings, General, and then Usage. This shows you all your
apps, music, and videos with the amount of room they take up. Tap an app to see
what it is using, then delete to free up memory.
19) Shake to Undo and Redo.
Shake your phone to undo your typing in any application.
Shake again to redo. Your phone will pop up a query to double-check.
20) Photos Fuzzy? Try using the volume up button on the side of your iPhone to take pictures. This lets you hold the phone like a normal camera, which gives you
more stability to take a clear picture.
21) Move Quickly from Camera to
Camera Roll. While using the Camera app, quickly access Camera Roll by
sliding your finger left to right. Keep sliding to see recent photos. Tap the
screen, then the blue camera icon, to go back to camera and take more photos.
22) Zooming In. While using the Camera app, tap the screen on the part of
the image you want to focus on. Pinch the screen or drag the slider to zoom in. This works with iOS 4 and later.
23) Need a Scientific Calculator?
Tip your iPhone sideways while in the Calculator app to access the
iPhone's scientific calculator. Make sure you’re not locked in portrait orientation
first (see 3, above)
