Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Top 18 Apple iPhone Tips

Here are several Apple (AAPL) iPhone tips that I recently discovered during the last six months since I've owned my iPhone. Many new iPhone owners may find these of interest, and even long term (six month) owners of iPhones might find something new here.

1. Make Your Icons Jiggle
Want to scare your friends when you show them your iPhone for the first time? Hold down your finger on one of the icons for a few seconds and they will all start to jiggle. Then hand the iPhone to your friend. They will think something is going wrong with their eyes. (By the way, to turn the jiggling off, just press the indented Home button at the bottom of the phone.)
2. Move Your Icons Around
As long as you are jiggling your icons, you can move your icons around on the screen, then when you press the Home button, the icons will stop juggling and will stay in place.
3. Umlauts and Other Neat Symbols
Need to type an umlaut or a letter with an accent mark, such as a tilde? No problem, just hold down your finger on the letter similar to the one you are looking for (try it with the a, the c, the e, the i, the l, the n, the o, the s, the u, the y, and the z). Then just slide your finger over the accented letter. How about an upside down question mark or upside down exclamation point for typing in Spanish? Of course it is possible; just hold your finger down on either of those symbols.
4. Quick Period
Need to type a period quickly? Press the .?123 button, and holding your finger down, slide it to the period. As soon as you take your finger off, the keyboard reverts back to the alphabet keyboard. This saves an extra step.
5. Period-Space-Revert
As an alternative to the above, and as long as you are typing periods, and don't like the hassle of clicking on the .?123 button to revert back to the alphabet keyboard, all you need to do is type a space after the period, and the alphabet keyboard will appear. This works with any punctuation, by the way.
6. Unfreezing
I've had to use this a couple times, when I've had two phone calls with one on hold and I drive under a bridge; I end up not being able to talk to either call or do anything else with the phone. If your phone ever freezes, hold down the button at the top of your iPhone for 10 seconds, and it will completely power off your phone. Press the button at the top and it will restart.
7. Zooming
Have a hard time reading the notes you've typed on your Notepad? Just hold your finger down on the words and your words will be magnified.
8. Wider Keyboard
If you need a wider keyboard when using Safari, turn your iPhone sideways first, before clicking on the URL (web site address) box. A larger keypad will appear all the way across the screen.
9. Throwing Out Junk Email
This is one of my favorite tips. Have you ever seen email that you know is spam but you don't want to open it in order to delete it? Just drag it off the screen to the right, a Delete button will popup asking you to confirm that you really want to delete it, then just click on Delete.
10. Scrolling Frames
Ever got stuck in a web page on Safari with a scrolling frame that you couldn't scroll? Just do the scrolling with two fingers.
11. Caps Lock
If you ever need to use Caps Lock, you have to activate it first (one time only) by going to Settings > General > Keyboard > Enable Caps Lock. Then to get Caps Lock, hold your finger down on the Shift and it will turn blue, indicating Caps Lock is on.
12. Quick Phone Call
If you see a phone number in Safari, just click on it to make a phone call (no need to write it down or remember it for entering in the phone mode).
13. Jumping to a City
When you are looking at Google (GOOG) Maps and you want to get to a city quickly, you can just type in the airport code, such as LAX or SFO. It's a lot quicker than typing the name of the city.
14. Verify the Link
Ever get an email from eBay (EBAY) or Amazon (AMZN) that you couldn't be sure was real? Wanted to check the link where it says Click Here? Just hold your finger down on the link and the true link will appear.
15. No Need for .Com
If you are typing in the URL for a .com web site address on the iPhone's Safari, you don't need to type in '.com'. You don't even need to click on the .COM button. Just type the first part of the web site address, such as www.Stockerblog, and click the GO button. Safari will automatically put in the rest of the URL, the '.com' part, in this case www.stockerblog.com, and it will bring you to the web page. (This obviously won't work if you are trying to get to a .net, .org, or .gov web site.)
16. Scroll Home
To quickly scroll to the top of a web page in Safari, just double-click on where it says ATT (T) at the top of the screen.
17. Page Down
As a follow-up to the previous tip, to do a Page Down, double-click near the bottom of the page. The same works in reverse, double-click near the top of the page (but don't accidentally double-click on a link) to do a scroll up.
18. Mark as Unread
If you have just read an email, but you want to mark it as unread, click on Details in the upper right, then just below the subject line, click on Mark as Unread.

Author owns AAPL and EBAY.

By Fred Fuld at Stockerblog.com

2 comments:

Hongyi said...

Thank you so much for the tips. They are very helpful to me.

Hongyi said...

Thank you so much for the tips. They are very helpful to me.