Chapter 14

Setting You Straight on Settings

In This Chapter

Taking off in airplane mode

Brushing up on Bluetooth

Preparing networks

Seeking sensible sounds and screen brightness

Uncovering usage statistics

Keeping the clan together through Family Sharing

Keeping your privacy

Dealing with disabilities

Tinkering with telephone options

Finding a lost iPhone

Are you a control freak? Do you have to have it your way? Boy, have you landed in the right chapter.

Throughout this book, you have occasion to drop in on Settings, which is the makeover factory for the iPhone. For example, we show you how to open Settings (by tapping its Home screen icon) to set ringtones and text tones, change the phone’s background or wallpaper, and specify your search engine of choice. We also show you how to alter security settings in Safari, tailor email to your liking, and get a handle on how to fetch or push new data.

The Settings area on the iPhone is roughly analogous to Control Panel in Windows and System Preferences on a Mac.

But you won’t have to visit Settings in every case because Control Center grants you immediate access to some of the settings and controls that used to require a separate visit to Settings, including airplane mode and display brightness, which we’ll address in this chapter. But even with Control Center, we expect to run into you in Settings from time to time. Because we cover some settings elsewhere, we don’t dwell on every setting here. But you can still discover plenty to help you make the iPhone your own.

Sky-High Settings

When you first open Settings, you see the scrollable list shown in Figure 14-1. In all but airplane mode (at the top of the list), a greater-than symbol (>) appears to the right of each listing. This symbol tells you that the listing has a bunch of options. Throughout this chapter, you tap the > symbol to check out those options.

If you scroll down toward the bottom of the Settings list, you'll see settings that pertain to Twitter and Facebook and settings that pertain to some of the specific apps you’ve added to the iPhone. (See Chapter 15 for the scoop on third-party apps.)

Airplane mode

First off, even though you’re reading about airplane mode here, we're obliged to tell you that you can turn this setting on or off also in Control Center. But because you’re here anyway, come, um, fly with us.

Using a cellphone on an airplane is a no-no. But nothing's verboten about using an iPod on a plane to listen to music, watch videos, and peek at pictures — and the rules that used to make you wait to do so until the craft had reached cruising altitude have been relaxed. So how do you take advantage of the iPhone’s built-in Music player (among other capabilities) while temporarily turning off its phone, email, and Internet functions? The answer is, by turning on airplane mode. To do so, merely tap airplane mode on the Settings screen to turn the switch on (so that green is showing). That act disables each of the iPhone’s wireless radios (Wi-Fi, EDGE, 3G, 4G, LTE) and Bluetooth. While your iPhone is in airplane mode, you can’t make or receive calls, surf the web, or do anything else that requires an Internet connection. The good news is that airplane mode keeps your battery running longer — particularly useful if your flight is taking you halfway around the world.

The appearance of a tiny airplane icon on the status bar in the top-left corner reminds you that airplane mode is turned on. Just remember to turn it off when you’re back on the ground.

Since many flights now offer Wi-Fi, you can go into airplane mode and then separately turn on Wi-Fi, using the method addressed in the next section.

Wi-Fi

As we mention in Chapter 11, Wi-Fi is typically the fastest wireless network you can use to surf the web, send email, and perform other Internet tricks on the iPhone. You use the Wi-Fi setting to determine which Wi-Fi networks are available to you and which one to exploit based on its signal.

Tap Wi-Fi, and you see any Wi-Fi networks in range, as shown in Figure 14-2.

A signal-strength indicator can help you choose the network to connect to if more than one is listed; tap the appropriate Wi-Fi network when you reach a decision. If a network is password-protected, you see a lock icon.

You can also turn on or off the Ask to Join Networks setting. Networks that the iPhone is already familiar with are joined automatically, regardless of which one you choose. If the Ask feature is on, you’re asked before joining a new network. If it’s off, you have to select a network manually.

If you used a particular network automatically in the past but no longer want your iPhone to join it, tap the i-in-a-circle next to the network in question (in Wi-Fi settings), and then tap Forget This Network. The iPhone develops a quick case of selective amnesia. If you haven’t yet selected a given Wi-Fi network, you'll see the option to Join Network instead Forget This Network.

In some instances, you have to supply other technical information about a network you hope to glom on to. You encounter a bunch of nasty-sounding terms: DHCP, BootP, Static, IP address, Subnet Mask, Router, DNS, Search Domains, Client ID, and HTTP Proxy. Chances are that none of this info is on the tip of your tongue — but that’s okay. For one thing, it’s a good bet that you’ll never need to know this stuff. What’s more, even if you do have to fill in or adjust these settings, a network administrator or techie friend can probably help.

Sometimes, you may want to connect to a network that’s closed and not shown on the Wi-Fi list. If that’s the case, tap Other and use the keyboard to enter the network name. Then tap to choose the type of security setting the network is using (if any). Your choices are WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA Enterprise, and WPA2 Enterprise. Again, it’s not exactly the friendliest terminology, but we figure that someone nearby can provide assistance.

If no Wi-Fi network is available, you have to rely on a cellular network. If a cellular network isn’t available either, you can’t rocket into cyberspace until you regain access to a network.

You can re-enable Wi-Fi even in airplane mode. Turn on airplane mode, tap the Wi-Fi switch to turn Wi-Fi back on, and select your network.

Bluetooth

You can use Bluetooth, a short-range wireless technology, to communicate wirelessly with a compatible Bluetooth headset or hands-free car kit. These optional headsets and kits are made by Apple and numerous others. They’ve become more of a big deal as a number of states and municipalities around the United States make it illegal to hold a phone to your mouth and ear to gab while you’re driving. To ensure that the iPhone works with one of these devices, it has to be wirelessly paired, or coupled, with the chosen device.

If you’re using a third-party accessory, follow the instructions that came with that headset or car kit so that it becomes discoverable, or ready to be paired with your iPhone. Then turn on Bluetooth in Settings so that the iPhone can find such nearby devices and the device can find the iPhone. You also can turn Bluetooth on in Control Center. The technology works up to a range of about 30 feet.

You know Bluetooth is turned on when you see the Bluetooth icon on the status bar. If the symbol is black or white, the iPhone is communicating wirelessly with a connected device. (The color differences provide contrast to whatever is behind the icon.) If it’s gray, Bluetooth is turned on in the iPhone but a paired device isn’t nearby or isn’t turned on.

In some instances, you'll also see a tiny Bluetooth battery status icon at the upper-right corner of the screen, a convenient indicator that lets you know when it’s time to recharge your Bluetooth device.

To unpair a device, tap it from the device list shown in Figure 14-3 so that the word Connected becomes Not Connected. Tap the device again to reconnect.

To divorce a Bluetooth device from the iPhone, tap the i-in-a-circle to the right of the Bluetooth device you’re unceremoniously dumping. On the next screen, tap Forget This Device. At least you won’t have to pay alimony.

iPhones support stereo Bluetooth headphones, car kits, and other accessories, so you can stream stereo audio from the iPhone to those devices.

The iPhone can tap into Bluetooth in other ways. One is through peer-to-peer connectivity, in which you can engage in multiplayer games with other nearby iPhone users. You can also do such things as exchange business cards, share pictures, and send short notes. And, you don’t even have to pair the devices, as you do with a headset or car kit. What’s more, you can use an Apple Wireless Keyboard or other Bluetooth keyboard to more easily type on the iPhone.

You can use Bluetooth to share data with certain apps, even when you’re not using those apps. To see which app(s) have requested the capability to take advantage of Bluetooth, tap Settings from the Home screen and then tap Privacy⇒Bluetooth Sharing. If there’s an app on the list that makes you feel uncomfortable, tap the switch to just say no.

You still can’t use Bluetooth to exchange files or sync between an iPhone and a computer, though Bluetooth technology helps you swap files wirelessly via AirDrop. Nor can you use it to print stuff from the iPhone on a Bluetooth printer. That’s because the iPhone doesn’t support the Bluetooth profiles (or specifications) required to allow such wireless stunts to take place. Of course, the iPhone does support Apple’s wireless AirPrint technology as well as Wi-Fi printing.

Although you can’t use Bluetooth to sync, you can take advantage of Wi-Fi sync, as Chapter 3 expounds on. A dedicated iTunes Wi-Fi Sync setting lets you sync wirelessly whenever you are on the same network as the iTunes installation with which you want to sync.

You may also see devices that communicate with the iPhone through a newer flavor of Bluetooth called Bluetooth Low Energy and sometimes Bluetooth Smart or Bluetooth Smart Ready.

Cellular

A few major controls appear under the Cellular setting, as follows:

• Cellular Data: Turn off this option if you don’t want to exhaust your cellular minutes. Of course, turning off this setting means you can access the Internet only through Wi-Fi.
• Enable LTE: If you have an iPhone 5 or later, you’ll appreciate the zippy speeds that LTE (Long Term Evolution) is capable of delivering. But if you’re concerned about consuming too much data or overtaxing the battery, you may want to turn off LTE sometimes. Here’s where you flip the switch for that purpose.
• Data Roaming: You can unwittingly rack up lofty roaming fees when using Safari, exchanging emails, and engaging in other data-heavy activities while traveling in a foreign country. Turn off data roaming to avoid any excess charges.
• Personal Hotspot: If your provider offers tethering, when it's turned on you can share the iPhone’s Internet connection with a PC and iOS devices via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB. A fee may be involved; check with your carrier for rates. Depending on your phone model, you may see the Personal Hotspot listing under the Cellular setting or as a standalone setting.
• Call Time: As the name suggests, Call Time lets you know how many hours and minutes you’ve spent gabbing on the phone for the current period as well as for as long as you’ve had the device.
• Cellular Data Usage: Get a handle on how much cellular data you’ve consumed for the current period (including while roaming).
• Use Cellular Data For: Turn cellular data on or off for specific apps (Apple’s own and third-party apps). You see how much cellular data each app is consuming. You can see how much cellular data is being employed for system services, but you can't turn off cellular data for such a purpose. Tap Reset Statistics at the bottom of the screen to reset back to 0 everything except lifetime call and usage statistics.

Report, Sound, and Appearance Settings

The next bunch of settings control what the iPhone reports back to you, what the phone sounds like, and what it looks like.

Notifications

By swiping down from the top of the screen, you can receive a variety of notifications in the aptly named Notification Center, from missed calls and texts to appointments.

Under Notifications Settings, you can choose which apps report information in Notification Center and choose whether these apps should be sorted manually or by time — that is, the order in which they come in. After you determine which apps belong in Notification Center, tap the app listing in the Include roster and choose an alert style (a banner, which appears at the top of the screen momentarily before it disappears, or an alert, which requires you to do something before it goes away).

With iOS 8, Apple moved the settings for the today view from Settings to Notification Center. Drag down from the top of the phone to summon Notification Center and tap the Today button. Scroll down and tap Edit. You get to decide what to include in the today view — Today Summary, Traffic Conditions, Calendar, Reminders, Stocks, and Tomorrow Summary — and the order in which these items appear. To the today view, you can also add compatible third-party apps, such as a weather app you might prefer over the iPhone’s built in Weather app.

App developers can send you alerts related to the programs you’ve installed on your iPhone by exploiting the Apple Push Notification service. Such alerts are typically in text form but may include sounds as well. Or they may appear in a little circle affixed to the app icon as numbered badges. You can receive such alerts even when the app isn’t running.

Many of the notifications delivered in iOS 8 are interactive, so you can respond to them on the spot. For example, you can reply to an incoming email or message without having to pay a visit to the underlying app.

You can turn off notifications for individual apps. Simply tap an app in the Include list, and turn on or off the app’s sounds, alerts, or badges. Figure 14-4 shows available notification options for the Epicurious app.

Control Center

Even Control Center, which in many cases lets you bypass Settings, has its own place in Settings. Here, you get to choose whether to allow access to Control Center on the Lock screen and whether to allow access from within apps.

Do Not Disturb

When the Do Not Disturb feature is turned on (from here in Settings or more conveniently from Control Center), the iPhone is respectful of your wishes to not be bothered by needless phone calls or alerts. The moon icon in the status bar reminds you that the feature is turned on. You can schedule the time that the Do Not Disturb edict is in effect and customize it to allow calls from favorites, designated contacts, or designated groups. You can also turn on a Repeated Calls option that bypasses Do Not Disturb if the same caller rings you twice within three minutes. Another decision involves choosing whether to silence incoming calls and notifications whenever Do Not Disturb is enabled or only when the phone is locked.

Privacy

Location, location, location. The iPhone makes good use of knowing where you are in the Maps app and several other apps and by geotagging photos taken with its camera. The iPhone exploits built-in GPS but can also find your general whereabouts by triangulating signals from Wi-Fi base stations and cellular towers.

If your iPhone knowing your location creeps you out a little, don’t fret. To protect your right to privacy, individual apps pop up quick messages (similar to the one shown in Figure 14-5), asking whether you want them to use your current location.

You can turn off Location Services also by tapping Settings⇒Privacy⇒Location Services. Not only is your privacy shielded, but you also keep your iPhone battery juiced a little longer. Among the options you find in here is one for sharing your location with family and friends through the Messages app and Find My Friends app.

You can also allow individual apps to determine your approximate location. Apps that are using location data are listed in Location Services. You can choose to always allow such apps to use your whereabouts, even when using the app in the background. Or choose to never allow location access. You can make these determinations individually. If an app in Settings has a Location Services icon (as shown in the margin), note the icon's appearance. If the icon is

• Purple: The app recently used your location.
• Gray: The app used your location within the past 24 hours.
• Outlined: The app is using a geofence, or virtual perimeter, around a location. The Reminders app, for example, uses geofencing to remind you when you arrive at or leave one of these locations.

If you scroll all the way down Location Settings and tap System Services, you’ll see a bunch of location settings tied to your cell network, your compass calibration, motion calibration, diagnostics and usage, Spotlight suggestions, things popular near you, location-based iAds, time zone settings, traffic, and Wi-Fi Networking. You can turn any of these on or off as well.

If you’re the least bit curious about the places you frequent, tap Frequent Locations to see a history of your whereabouts and the number of times that a given location has been reported. With your permission, Apple collects the GPS coordinates obtained through the Frequent Locations feature to improve the Maps app.

When an app is using your location, you’ll also see the Location Services icon in the status bar at the top of the screen.

If you back out of the Location Services section of Privacy Settings to the main Privacy Settings screen (see Figure 14-6, left), you’ll see a list for Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Photos, Microphone, Motion Activity (iPhone 5s or later), Camera, Health, HomeKit, Twitter, Facebook, and, as noted earlier in this chapter, Bluetooth Sharing. Tap any one of the items to see the other apps that have requested access to the selected app. In Figure 14-6, right, for example, you can see the apps requesting access to Photos.

A couple more things to note in Privacy settings: If you scroll down near the bottom, you’ll see Diagnostics & Usage. At your discretion, you can send daily diagnostic and usage data to help out Apple. This data may include location information. Next, you’ll see the option that lets you disable an Advertising Identifier that apps may use to serve you targeted ads. If you decide to limit ad tracking, which you can do here, apps are not permitted to use the Advertising Identifier. As Apple warns, though, turning Limit Ad Tracking on doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see fewer ads, just that they may be less relevant because they aren't based on your interests.

Sounds

Consider the Sounds settings area as the iPhone’s soundstage. There, you can turn on or off audio alerts for a variety of functions: new voicemail messages, new text messages, new mail, sent mail, tweets, Facebook posts, calendar alerts, reminder alerts, and AirDrop. You also set the default ringtones and text tones here (as described in Chapter 4).

That’s not all. Want to hear lock sounds and keyboard clicks or not? The Sounds settings area is where you make that decision. In addition, you can determine whether the iPhone should vibrate when you receive a call. And you can drag the volume slider to determine the loudness of your ringer and alerts. Note that you can instead use the physical volume buttons on the side of the iPhone to change the volume of the ringer and alerts, as long as you’re not already on a call or using the iPhone to listen to music or watch video.

Brightening up your day

Who doesn’t want a bright, vibrant screen? Alas, the brightest screens exact a trade-off: Before you drag the brightness slider shown in Figure 14-7 to the max, remember that brighter screens sap the life from your battery more quickly. You’ll find the brightness slider under the Display & Brightness setting.

We recommend tapping the Auto-Brightness control so that it’s on. This control adjusts the screen according to the lighting conditions around the iPhone while being considerate of your battery. You can find a similar brightness slider in Control Center, but you’ll have to visit Settings to turn the Auto-Brightness switch on or off.

If the app you’re spending time in supports dynamic type, you can adjust your type size by dragging a slider. Under Display & Brightness, you’ll also find a slider for making text bold. Before iOS 8, the Text Size option warranted its own separate setting, but now the setting for adjusting the text size has been folded into this setting.

Back when you set up an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, you had the option to change the Display Zoom setting from a standard (normal-sized icon) view to a zoomed (larger icon) view that claims more onscreen real estate. If you’re not satisfied with your first choice, you can change it here. You’ll have to reboot the phone whenever you make such a change.

Wallpaper

Choosing wallpaper is a neat way to dress up the iPhone according to your taste. You can sample the pretty patterns and designs that Apple has already chosen for you by tapping the thumbnails shown in Figure 14-8.

Among your choices are colorful dynamic animated wallpapers with floating bubbles that add a subtle dizzying effect. But stunning as they are, these images may not hold a candle to the masterpieces in your own photo albums (more about those in Chapter 9). After making a selection, tap the image, and then tap Set. You can set wallpaper for the Home screen, the Lock screen, or both by tapping the appropriate button. The Home and Lock screens can have the same or different images.

You can toggle Perspective Zoom on or off while setting wallpaper. This setting turns the motion effect on or off.

In General

Certain miscellaneous settings are difficult to pigeonhole. Apple wisely lumped many of these under the General settings moniker. Figure 14-9 gives you a look at them all.

About About

You aren’t seeing double. Within Settings is a setting called About, full of trivial (and not-so-trivial) information about the device, from the number of applications on the phone to its serial number. You can find out more about About at www.dummies.com/extras/iphone.

Software update

If there’s a software update to be had, you can find it under the Software Update setting. Otherwise you’ll be informed that your software is up to date.

Usage

Think of the Usage setting as one of the places to go on the iPhone for statistics about how you employ the device. You find other information in the About setting (under General on the Settings screen). You can scroll up or down the Usage list to discover the following information:

• Battery usage or the amount of time since you last fully charged your iPhone: Indicated in days and hours, for the time when the iPhone has been unlocked and in use and also when it has been in standby mode.
• Battery percentage: You can turn on a gauge that reports how much of your battery is charged in percentage terms. The percentage appears just to the left of the battery gauge at the upper-right corner of the iPhone.
• Storage: A list of all the apps taking space on your iPhone appears under Manage Storage. Ask yourself if you really need all the apps that are hogging the most space. If not, tap the name of the app and then tap Delete App. You can always sync again if you find that you can’t live without the bloat that the app provided. You also see your total iCloud storage and how much is available, not only on the iPhone, but also across all your iCloud-capable devices. If you need to buy more storage, under the iCloud section, tap Manage Storage⇒Change Storage Plan, which brings you to a Buy More Storage screen.

Background App Refresh

When this setting is on, apps are allowed to freshen their content in the background whenever you have a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. You can cherry-pick which apps can get this automatic refresh. Although this feature is a nice convenience, turning it off may bolster the battery life of the device.

Siri

Apple’s voice assistant (see Chapter 5) gets its own dedicated place in Settings. Choose the language Siri works in, determine whether you always want voice feedback or only in a hands-free situation, let Siri know your own information, and decide whether Siri will kick in when you bark out the words “Hey Siri” (for which you must be connected to power). Oh, and choose whether you want Siri to use a male or female voice. We revisit another setting relevant to Siri later in this chapter, in the “Touch ID & Passcode” section.

Handoff and Suggested Apps

The Handoff feature added with iOS 8 lets you start a task — such as typing an email — on your iPhone, on another iOS 8 device, or on a Mac computer running OS X Yosemite, and pick up on another iPhone, iOS 8 device, or Mac. All the devices have to be running the identical iCloud account. On the phone, you’ll be able to resume with the app from your Lock screen or app switcher. On a Mac, you’ll see the appropriate app on the dock.

In the Suggested Apps section, you can flip on a setting to showcase installed apps or App Store suggestions that are relevant to your current location. Such suggestions appear on the Lock screen and in the app switcher.

VPN

A virtual private network, or VPN, is typically a way for you to securely access your company’s network behind the firewall — using an encrypted Internet connection that acts as a secure “tunnel” for data. The iPhone software supports the protocols L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol), PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol), and IPSec, which apparently provides the kind of security that satisfies network administrators.

You can configure a VPN on the iPhone by tapping VPN under General, tapping Add VPN Configuration, and then tapping one of the aforementioned protocols. Then, using configuration settings provided by your company, fill in the appropriate server information, account, password, encryption level (if appropriate), and other information. Better yet, lend your iPhone to the techies where you work and let them fill in the blanks on your behalf. After you configure your iPhone for VPN usage, you can turn that capability on or off by tapping (yep) the VPN on or off switch under Settings.

iTunes Wi-Fi sync

Through the magic of wireless, you no longer have to connect a cable to a PC or Mac to sync your iPhone with your iTunes account. If you’ve set up Wi-Fi syncing with iTunes, you can click a Sync Now button here to commence a Wi-Fi syncing session. For more on syncing, consult Chapter 3.

Spotlight search

You can designate which apps on your phone are searched when you take advantage of Spotlight. (As a reminder, you initiate a Spotlight search by dragging down on any Home screen.) By default, all the options on the list shown in Settings will be part of a search. Tap to remove the check mark next to any app that you don’t want the iPhone to include in its search mission. You can also change the order in which items are searched. Press the three bars to the right of any item and drag that item up or down the list.

Spotlight shines its search beam beyond your phone. You can get Spotlight search suggestions from the Internet, iTunes, and the App Store. Among other suggestions, you might receive showtimes for movies and info on nearby attractions.

Auto-lock

You can set the amount of time that elapses before the phone automatically locks or turns off the display. Your choices are 5 minutes before, 4 minutes before, and so on, down to 1 minute. Or you can choose to have the iPhone never lock automatically.

If you work for a company that insists on a passcode (see the next section), the Never Auto-Lock option isn’t on the list your iPhone shows you.

Don’t worry if the iPhone is locked. You can still receive calls and text messages, adjust the volume, see notifications, access Control Center (if you made it accessible here in Settings), take pictures, call upon Siri’s services, access Passbook and transact through Apple Pay, and reply with a message when you can’t answer an incoming call.

Touch ID & Passcode

You can select a passcode to prevent people from unlocking the iPhone. Tap Touch ID & Passcode, and then use the virtual keypad to enter a 4-digit code (or skip a few paragraphs to see how to set up a more complex code). During this setup, you have to enter the code a second time before it’s accepted.

The iPhone can be set to automatically erase your data if you (or someone else!) make ten successive failed passcode attempts. Your settings will be reset to their defaults and all your media and information might as well be dust.

You can also change the passcode or turn it off later (unless your employer dictates otherwise), but you need to know the present passcode to apply any changes. If you forget the passcode, you have to restore the iPhone software, as described in Chapter 16.

The iPhone has two kinds of passcodes — or three if you count the fingerprint authorization feature known as Touch ID on the iPhone 5s, 6, and 6 Plus. In fact, the Passcode Lock setting is called the Touch ID & Passcode setting if you have the 5s, 6, or 6 Plus.

A simple passcode is a four-digit number. If you require a more stringent password — one that is much harder to guess — turn off the simple passcode and come up with something much more difficult to crack, a longer combination of letters, numbers, punctuation, and special characters.

Siri can send an email, send a message, or dial the phone even from the Lock screen. In fact, having Siri at the ready from the Lock screen is the default. Although that’s a convenience for some, others might construe this as a security risk because an intruder would not need to know the phone’s passcode to make a call or send an email or text. If this notion bothers you, turn off Siri.

You can choose to allow Today notifications and the Notifications view to appear on the Lock screen. Relevant Passbook passes (such as airline boarding passes and location-based gift cards) can also appear at your discretion on the Lock screen, as can the capability to reply to a message.

If you have the iPhone 5s, 6, or 6 Plus, we strongly recommend that you at least try Touch ID, the clever fingerprint authentication scheme that not only lets you bypass the Lock screen by pressing your thumb or another finger against the Home button but also lets you purchase stuff in the iTunes and App Stores and through Apple Pay (as of October 2014) in certain physical retail locations. You can store up to five fingerprints (yours and people you trust with whom you share the phone). To do so, tap Add a Fingerprint and go through the training session that you likely encountered back when you set up your phone (consult Chapter 2 for details). If the iPhone doesn’t recognize your finger, you see Try Again at the top of the screen. You get three wrong tries before you're forced to use a traditional passcode instead, at least for this session.

As an added security measure, a regular passcode is required the first time you try to get past a Lock screen after restarting the phone.

If you want to delete an authorized fingerprint, tap the listing for the finger in question, and then tap Delete Fingerprint. Excuse our French, but you’ve just given the finger to the finger.

Restrictions

Parents and bosses may love the Restrictions tools, but kids and employees usually think otherwise. You can clamp down on — um, provide proper parental guidance to — your children by preventing them at least some of the time from using the Safari browser, the camera, FaceTime, iTunes, Siri, AirDrop, and CarPlay, which is Apple’s way to integrate an iPhone into your vehicle’s entertainment and information systems. As of this writing, CarPlay was set to launch on select 2014 models.

You also might not let the kids remove old apps, install new apps, or make purchases in the apps you do allow. You can try to avoid exposing them to explicit language. When restrictions are in place, icons for off-limit functions can no longer be seen.

You can allow Junior to watch a movie on the iPhone but prevent him from watching a flick that carries an R or NC-17 rating, for example. You can also restrict access to certain TV shows, music, podcasts, iTunes U courses, books, and apps, based on explicit content or age-appropriate ratings, and stop the kids from engaging in multiplayer games or adding friends in Game Center. Websites that feature adult content can also be restricted. The same goes for Twitter and Facebook.

Among the other limits that can be imposed here: the capability to make changes to accounts, cellular data usage, refreshing background apps, and volume limits. You can also access the various Privacy settings we address earlier in this chapter, including settings for Location Services, Bluetooth sharing, and more.

So poke around, employ an iron fist where necessary, and don’t feel guilty: You have your users' best interests at heart.

Date & Time

In our neck of the woods, the time is reported as 11:32 PM (or whatever time it happens to be). But in some circles, it’s reported as 23:32. If you prefer the latter format on the iPhone’s status bar, tap the 24-Hour Time setting (under Date & Time) to turn on the setting.

This setting is just one that you can adjust under Date & Time. You can also have the iPhone set the time automatically, using the time reported by the cellular network (and adjusted for your time zone).

If you’ve turned off the option to set the time automatically, you’re asked to select the time zone and then set the date and time manually. Here’s how:

1. Tap Set Automatically so that it’s off.

   You see fields for setting the time zone and the date and time.

2. Tap the Time Zone field.

   The current time zone and virtual keyboard are shown.

3. Tap out the letters of the city or country whose time zone you want to enter until the one you have in mind appears. Then tap the name of that city or country.

   The Time Zone field is automatically filled in for that city.

4. Tap the Set Date & Time field so that the time is shown. Then roll the carousel controls until the proper time is displayed.
5. Tap the date shown so that the carousel controls pop up for the date. Then roll the wheels for the month, day, and year until the correct date appears.
6. Tap General to return to the General settings screen.

Keyboard

Under Keyboard settings, you can turn on or off autocapitalization and turn on or off Enable Caps Lock. Autocapitalization, which the iPhone turns on by default, means that the first letter of the first word you type after ending the preceding sentence with a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point is capitalized. If Cap Locks is enabled, all letters are uppercased LIKE THIS if you double-tap the shift key. (The shift key is the one with the arrow pointing up.)

You can also turn on a keyboard setting that inserts a period followed by a space when you double-tap the space key. Additionally, you can choose to use an international keyboard (as discussed in Chapter 2), which you select by tapping Keyboards under the Keyboard setting and then choosing Add New Keyboard.

With iOS 8, Apple gives you the power to substitute the default keyboard on your phone for a custom alternative. Among the choices that you might consider are Swype, SwiftKey, Fleksy, Adaptxt, Ginger, and Minuum. For more on adding a third-party keyboard, consult Chapter 2.

If you’re sticking with Apple’s default keyboard, you can turn on or off the keyboard’s autocorrection smarts here.

And you can add keyboard shortcuts such as omw for On my way! To do so, tap Shortcuts, and create a shortcut that will automatically expand into the word or phrase you have in mind as you type.

If you like the fact that Apple is now making predictions as you type (as discussed in Chapter 2), leave the Predictive setting here turned on. If you prefer things the old-fashioned way, flip the Predictive switch off. You can also turn on a setting that lets your chosen keyboard check your spelling.

Language & Region

The iPhone is an international sensation. It’s sold and used around the world by people of all nationalities. In the Language & Region section, you can set the language you type on (by using a custom virtual keyboard), the language in which the iPhone displays text, and the language in which it speaks. Heck, you can even select a different region format (from among numerous countries) and a different calendar type, among Gregorian, Japanese, and Buddhist.

Accessibility

The ever-comprehensive Accessibility tools are targeted at people with certain disabilities, though anyone can benefit from some of the following features:

• Voice over: A screen reader describes aloud what’s on the screen. The screen reader can read email messages, web pages, and more. As you dig into these settings, you’ll see that you can use phonetics, change the pitch, alter the speaking rate, and so on.
• Zoom: This tool is a screen magnifier for those who are visually challenged. To zoom, double-tap the screen with three fingers, and drag three fingers to move around the screen. Double-tap the screen with three fingers again to zoom back out. You can summon a zoom controller for quick access to zoom controls, and reduce the visibility of this controller when it is otherwise idle. You can adjust the zoom level to a maximum of 15 times the non-zoomed size.
• Larger text: Yes, you see the Larger text setting listed here even though the aforementioned Text Size setting slider (under Display and Brightness) functions the same way.
• Bold text: Not everyone took kindly to the design changes brought by iOS 7. Some people don’t think the text is bold or bright enough. These people should consider turning on the Bold Text switch. Note that doing so (or turning it off again) requires that you restart your iPhone.
• Button shapes: Turn this setting on, and the left-pointing arrow at the top-left corner of the screen (next to General) disappears and the word General is inside a pencil-shaped button.
• Increased contrast: The settings are another effort to bolster legibility. You can reduce the transparency of the screen to improve the contrast on some backgrounds. You can darken colors. And you can reduce the intensity of bright colors. Play around with these to see whether they make a difference.
• Invert colors: The colors on the iPhone can be reversed to provide a higher contrast for people with poor eyesight. The screen sort of resembles a film negative.
• Grayscale: With this new iOS 8 setting, you can eliminate color altogether and go gray.
• Speech: When the Speak Selection setting is on, you’ll see a Speak button when you select text. On the other hand, if you tap to turn on a new Speak Screen setting, you can swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen and have everything on the screen read aloud. You can also change voices (for different languages) and adjust the speaking rate by dragging a slider. You can even have the iPhone highlight words as they are spoken. The Speak Auto-Text option allows the iPhone to automatically speak autocorrections and capitalizations.
• Reduced motion: We think the parallax effect of icons and alerts is cool, but your neighbor may not agree. By turning this switch on, you can reduce the parallax effect and be fairly confident that your wallpaper will remain still.
• On and off labels: Throughout this book, you read that when certain switches are on, you’ll see green. If you turn on this particular switch, you’ll still see green, but you'll also see a nerdy 1 when the setting or switch is on or a little 0 when the switch is off.
• Hearing aids: The iPhone can communicate with hearing aids through Bluetooth. And Apple has designed a new Bluetooth technology for use with custom Made for iPhone hearing aids.
• Subtitles and captioning: Aimed at people who are deaf or hard of hearing, this setting lets you turn on a Closed Captions + SDH switch to summon closed captioning or subtitles. You can also choose a style for the subtitles. A new Video Descriptions toggle enables the phone to play video descriptions when available.
• LED flash for alerts: This tool lets those who are hard of hearing know when an alert arrives. The setting works only when the phone is locked or asleep.
• Mono audio: Handy for those suffering hearing loss in one ear, the iPhone can combine the right and left audio channels so that both can be heard in earbuds, EarPods, or any speakers connected to the iPhone’s audio jack. You can drag a volume slider left or right to raise or lower the volume, respectively, in one channel or the other.
• Phone noise cancellation: Noise cancellation reduces the ambient noise on calls when you’re holding the iPhone up to your ear.
• Guided access: Parents of an autistic kid know how challenging it can be to keep the child focused on a given task. The Guided Access setting can limit iPhone usage to a single app and restrict touch input to certain areas of the screen. You can also create a passcode to use when Guided Access is at work (or on a compatible device using Touch ID). You can also display any accessibility shortcuts when Guided Access is turned on and impose time limits for its use.
• Switch control: Several controls are represented under the Switch Control setting. The general idea is that you can use a single switch or multiple switches to select text, tap, drag, type, and perform other functions. However, turning on Switch Control changes the gestures that you use to control your phone and are presumably already familiar with. Switch Control makes use of different techniques. For example, the phone can scan by or highlight items on the screen until you select one. Or you can choose to take advantage of scanning crosshairs to select a location on the screen. You can also manually move from item to item using multiple switches, with each switch set to handle a specific action.
• Assistive touch: Turn on this setting if you need to use an adaptive accessory such as a joystick because of difficulties touching the screen. When this setting is on, you can create your own custom gestures.
• Home-click speed: Slow down the speed required to double- or triple-click the Home button, which is next on the list of Accessibility options.
• Accessibility shortcut: As you know by now, double-pressing the Home button launches multitasking. But you can set up the iPhone so that triple-pressing the button (pressing three times really fast) turns on certain Accessibility features. By doing so, you can turn on or off VoiceOver, Invert Colors, Grayscale, Zoom, Switch Control, and AssistiveTouch.
• Call Audio Routing: You can route phone calls or FaceTime audio through a headset or the iPhone speaker.

Reset

As little kids playing sports, we ended an argument by agreeing to a do-over. Well, the Reset settings on the iPhone are one big do-over. Now that we’re (presumably) grown up, we’re wise enough to think long and hard about the consequences before implementing do-over settings, which is probably why you must enter a passcode before proceeding. Regardless, you may encounter good reasons for starting over; some of these reasons are addressed in Chapter 16.

Phoning In More Settings

We cover most of the remaining settings in earlier chapters devoted to calendars, music, photos, Safari, and email. Still, we didn’t get to a few other settings — ’til now.

iCloud

The iCloud settings are where you let iCloud know which of your apps, plus Photo Stream, ought to be turned on or off. You can also check on your storage and iCloud Backup options here, and if worse comes to worst, delete your iCloud account.

Within iCloud settings, you can turn on the iCloud Drive feature added with iOS 8. Think of iCloud Drive as a place to upload and store a gaggle of documents, spreadsheets, pictures, and more. You can access and work on any of these Drive-based files from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC. Make changes from one device and those alterations are reflected on all the other devices you use to visit iCloud Drive.

Consider carefully before deleting your iCloud account. If you do decide to delete your account, all your Photo Stream photos and documents stored in iCloud will be removed from your phone.

Promoting harmony through Family Sharing

While in iCloud settings, consider setting up Family Sharing. Up to six members of your family — adults and kids — can partake. One grown-up must take on the role of family organizer, and we figure it might as well be you, the person reading this book. That means you’ll be the person presenting your iCloud Apple ID username and password, and the one on the hook for paying for iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases. As the family organizer, you can turn on Ask to Buy so that you can approve (or deny) any purchase or download requests from other members of your clan.

When Family Sharing has been implemented, you can all share a calendar, photos, reminders, and your respective locations. Family Sharing may also help find a missing device through Find My iPhone.

Should you leave Family Sharing, your account is removed from the group and you can no longer share content with everybody else. You won’t be able to use DRM-protected music, movies, TV shows, books, or apps that another member purchased. And you won’t be able to access the family calendar, reminders, or photos.

Family Sharing works with iOS 8 devices, OS X Yosemite, and Find My Friends 3.0, Find My iPhone 3.1, and iCloud for Windows 4.0.

Twitter

In Twitter settings, you can add a new Twitter account and update your contacts so that Twitter uses their email addresses and phone numbers to automatically add their Twitter handles and photos. You also can choose yay or nay on whether you can use various apps with Twitter.

Facebook

Most of us know Facebook as a great service to help you stay in touch with relatives, associates, and old pals, rekindle those relationships, and make new friends. But some people collect Facebook friends like baseball cards. If it seems like you’re acquainted with all 1.3 billion and counting members of the mammoth social network, we know what you mean.

Fortunately, Apple kindly organizes your Facebook relationships on the iPhone. If you turn on the Calendar and Contacts settings under Facebook settings on the iPhone, your Facebook friends automatically populate your Contacts list, complete with their profile pictures as well as their email addresses and phone numbers (if they made them public on Facebook). Birthdays and calendar appointments appropriately turn up in the iPhone Calendar app.

Think of these Facebook entries as live synced contact entries. If a person changes his or her phone number and email address on Facebook, that change will be reflected on your iPhone, provided you have Wi-Fi or cellular coverage or the next time you do have coverage. And if your friends de-friend you — what did you do, anyway? — their contact info will disappear altogether.

If the iPhone can correctly match a Facebook friend entry with an existing contact entry, it will try to unify that contact under a single view. Meanwhile, the Update All Contacts option under Facebook settings on the iPhone serves a slightly different purpose. It tries to add Facebook profile information to your contacts who are on Facebook but are not among your Facebook friends.

Sorting and displaying contacts

Do you think of us as Ed and Bob or Baig and LeVitus? The answer to that question will probably determine whether you choose to sort your Contacts list alphabetically by last name or first name.

Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars; scroll down to the Contacts section; and peek at Sort Order. Then tap Last, First or First, Last. You can determine whether you want to display a first name or last name first by tapping Display Order and then choosing First, Last or Last, First. You can also go with a Short Name that lets you fit more names on the screen. You can choose a first name and last initial, first initial and last name, first name only, or last name only. If you prefer nicknames, you can choose those too.

Meanwhile, tap Show In App Switcher so that when you double-click the Home button, you can quickly access your phone favorites and the recent people you’ve been schmoozing with (via phone calls and other conversations.) We think Show In App Switcher is a terrific iOS 8 addition and leave its button on.

In My Info, make sure your own name is chosen so that Siri knows where you live, among other reasons.

You can also import any contacts that may be on a new SIM card that you inserted into the phone.

Nothing phone-y about these settings

In Chapter 4, we tip our hand and indicate that we save a few more phone tricks — those found in Phone settings — for this chapter. Tap Phone now to review some of the choices we don’t get to in that chapter. Be aware that certain options may vary by carrier and that you have to scroll down the screen to find Phone settings:

• Respond with text: If you’re tied up and can’t take a call but don’t want the caller wondering whether you’re avoiding him or her, you can respond with such canned responses as “I’m on my way” and “Can I call you later?”
• Call forwarding: If you expect to spend time in an area with poor or no cellphone coverage, you may want to temporarily forward calls to a landline or other portable handset. Simply do the following:
  1. On the Settings screen, tap Phone⇒Call Forwarding.
  2. Tap the switch to turn on Call Forwarding.
  3. Use the virtual keypad to enter the number where you want incoming calls to ring.
  4. Tap Back to return to the main Call Forwarding screen.

  To change the forwarding number, tap the circle with the X in the Phone Number field to get rid of the old number, and then enter a new one.

  Remember to turn off Call Forwarding to receive calls directly on your iPhone again. You must have cellular coverage while setting the Call Forwarding feature.

• Call waiting: Tap the Call Waiting button to turn the feature on or off. If Call Waiting is off and you’re speaking on the phone, the call is automatically dispatched to voicemail.
• Show My Caller ID: Don’t want your name or number displayed on the phone you’re calling? Make sure to tap Show My Caller ID and turn off the setting. If privacy isn’t a concern, you can leave this setting on.
• Blocked: By adding people from your contacts to the Blocked list, you'll no longer receive phone calls, messages, or FaceTime calls from them.
• TTY: Folks who are hearing impaired sometimes rely on a teletype, or TTY, machine, to hold conversations. You can use the iPhone with standard TTY devices by plugging a cable from the TTY device into an optional $19 iPhone TTY adapter, and then plugging the adapter into the iPhone. Make sure the TTY setting on the phone is turned on.
• SIM PIN: The tiny SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card inside your iPhone holds your phone number and other important data. Tap to turn on SIM PIN and enter a password with the keypad. Then, if someone gets hold of your SIM, he or she can’t use it in another phone without the password.

  If you assign a PIN to your SIM, you have to enter it to turn the iPhone off and on again.

• Change voicemail password: This setting is straightforward enough. Tap Change Voicemail Password, type your old 4-digit password, and tap Done. Then type the new password and tap Done twice. Your new password is saved until, and if, you change it again.
• Carrier services: A major difference between the iPhone and most other Apple products you might buy is that you enter into a relationship with not only Apple but also the phone company when you have an iPhone. Under this setting, you can check your bill balance and pay your tab; view your data and messaging limits; and access other services your wireless carrier may provide.

Find My iPhone

We hope you never have to use the Find My iPhone feature — though we have to say that it’s pretty darn cool. If you inadvertently leave your iPhone in a taxi or restaurant, Find My iPhone may just help you retrieve it. It helped Ed retrieve a phone he left on a bus.

To turn on Find My iPhone, open Settings and tap iCloud. Make sure the Find My iPhone setting is turned on. Now suppose that you lost your phone — and we can only assume that you’re beside yourself. Log in to your iCloud account from any browser on your computer, and click Find My iPhone.

Apple now supplies a free Find My iPhone app in the App Store. So you could use an iPhone loaded with this app to locate another iPhone (or iPad, iPod touch, or Mac computer).

Assuming that your lost phone is turned on and in the coverage area, its general whereabouts should appear on a map, as shown in Figure 14-10. In our tests, Find My iPhone found our iPhones quickly.

The truth is that even seeing your iPhone on a map may not help you much, especially if the phone is lost somewhere in midtown Manhattan. Take heart. At the Find My iPhone site, click Lost Mode to bang out a plea to the Good Samaritan whom you hope picked up your phone. The message appears on the lost iPhone’s screen. You’ll get to enter a phone number so that the person can reach you.

Meanwhile, the phone will automatically be locked with its existing passcode until someone (you, we hope) enters that passcode. But the person who found the phone can still call you at the designated number (but only that number).

To get someone’s attention, you click Play Sound to sound an alarm that plays for two minutes, even if the phone was in silent mode. Hey, that alarm may come in handy if the phone turns up under a couch in your house.

We also recommend turning on the Send Last Location setting in Find My iPhone because it automatically sends the phone's location to Apple when the device's battery is critically low. That way, you still have a puncher’s chance of getting back a lost phone even when the battery is dead.

After all this labor, if the phone is seemingly gone for good, click Erase iPhone at the site to delete your personal data from afar and return the iPhone to its factory settings. You can also turn off Apple Pay for this phone remotely and not worry about a thief using your phone to pay for stuff. For starters, the bad guy doesn’t share your fingerprint — and there are other security measures. And, if you ever get your phone back afterward, you can always restore the information with an iTunes or iCloud backup on your PC or Mac and turn Apple Pay back on.

We trust that you control freaks are satisfied with all the stuff you can manage in Settings. Still, the iPhone may not always behave as you want. For the times when things get out of control, we highly recommend Chapter 16.