Chapter 2

iPhone Basic Training

In This Chapter

Activating your iPhone

Turning the device on and off

Locking your iPhone

Mastering multitouch

Pointing your finger at the iPhone

Multitasking with your iPhone

Organizing folders

Spotlighting search

Keeping alert through notifications

If you were caught up in the initial iPhone frenzy of 2007, you may have plotted for months about how to land one. After all, the iPhone quickly emerged as the ultimate fashion phone. And the chic device hosted a bevy of cool features.

Owning the hippest and most-hyped handset on the planet came at a premium cost compared with rival devices. To snag the very first version, you may have saved your pennies or said, “The budget be damned.”

That’s ancient history now. The iPhone is no less hip or cool, though you now get more bang for your buck. A lot more bang. Apple has lowered the price of the colorful iPhone 5c to — drumroll, please — zero dollars. Yes, you read right, zero. And the iPhone 5s, as of this writing, fetches just $99.99 for 16GB and $149.99 for 32GB.

The large iPhone 6 model costs $199 for 16GB, $299 for 64GB, or $399 for 128GB. And the behemoth of all the iPhones, the iPhone 6 Plus, fetches $299, $399, or $499 at the same storage levels, respectively.

Such are the hardware prices with two-year contracts from AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon Wireless. But the carriers also offer different deals that let you put relatively little or no money upfront, after which you’re on the hook for a monthly fee that lasts for a designated period, typically two years. At the time of this writing, T-Mobile was offering the iPhone 6 without a contract, for $649, $749, and $849. The 6 Plus goes for $749, $849, and $949. Retailer discounts and trade-in promotions sometimes lower the prices even more.

For existing iPhone customers, the upgrade price for a new model may depend on how far you’re into your previous contract, how prompt you are at paying your bill, and other factors. And as they say in the fine print, taxes and fees are extra.

Activating the iPhone

You will typically activate the iPhone where you bought the thing, just as you do with other cellphones. However, if you buy your iPhone from Apple’s online store, the folks there will ship it to you and you activate it through iTunes, just like the old days, or through iCloud. If you’re already a customer upgrading from an earlier iPhone or a different phone, you can convert your plan during the ordering process. You also choose your desired monthly bucket of voice minutes and SMS (Short Message Service) or text messages as well as your allotment of wireless data minutes right in the store.

We aren’t going to go through all the wireless options here. Suffice to say that plans vary by wireless carrier and are subject to change. At the time this book was written, two-year contracts were still the norm, but that too is starting to change, with T-Mobile in particular — “The Uncarrier” is its marketing mantra — letting you off the hook whenever you want. Of course, you’re still obligated to pay what you owe your carrier.

Unlimited data plans are also in a state of flux. Verizon and AT&T used to offer unlimited data but now typically charge based on usage, though those of you who signed up for an unlimited data plan previously are grandfathered.

If you plan on tapping into the faster 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks that the iPhone 5 and later models are capable of making nice with, you may end up consuming more data and ultimately paying more.

You may also have to fork over extra coin for a plan that includes tethering, or the capability to use your iPhone as a broadband modem for other devices you might carry, such as laptops and netbooks.

iPhones are available also from smaller regional carriers such as C Spire and U.S. Cellular.

Three prerequisites for enjoying the iPhone have been in place since the original release and remain — at least for most U.S. customers:

• One, unless you’re already in the fold, there’s the aforementioned business of becoming an AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile subscriber or a customer of any other company that subsequently sells the devices.
• Two, you may have to free yourself from any wireless contract that you’ve already entered into. The good news is that with companies such as T-Mobile leading the way, such contractual obligations are getting liberalized. And AT&T and Verizon have been willing to relax the rules if you stick with them for a new two-year deal.

  A number of retailers, including Apple, will at least give you a credit for your old iPhone that you can use toward a new model. The amount of the credit depends largely on the condition of the device. You’re not exactly discarding your old contract or carrier, and you typically have to sign another new contract. But at least you’re shifting to the latest models.

• Three, make sure you download the latest version of iTunes software for syncing with your PC or Mac. Apple doesn’t supply the software in the box, so head to www.apple.com/itunes if you need to fetch a copy, or launch your current version of iTunes and then choose iTunes⇒Check for Updates (Mac) or Help⇒Check for Updates (Windows).

  The uninitiated might not know that iTunes is the nifty Apple jukebox software that iPod, iPad, PC, and Mac owners use to manage music, videos, and more. iTunes is at the core of the iPhone as well because it has a built-in iPod. You employ iTunes to synchronize a bunch of stuff on your computer and iPhone, including apps, photos, podcasts, videos, ringtones, and (of course) music — that is, unless you eschew your computer directly and manage all this stuff through iCloud.

  Although iTunes is no longer required for the initial configuration of your iPhone, we recommend fetching it anyway, even if you don’t intend to use it for syncing with a PC or Mac. We just happen to be fans of the software.

Turning the iPhone On and Off

Apple has taken the time to nearly fully charge your iPhone, so you’ll get some measure of instant gratification. After taking the phone out of the box, press and hold down the sleep/wake button on the top-right edge of iPhones that preceded the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. On those two models, the sleep/wake button moved to the right edge. (Refer to Chapter 1 for the location of all buttons.) If the phone has been activated — and at least in the Apple Stores, a salesperson will happily handle this for you — the famous Apple logo appears on your screen.

If you have the colorful 5c, the word hello and its foreign language equivalents (hola, bonjour, ciao, and so on) take turns greeting you on a screen with a background that cleverly matches the phone’s color scheme. (The 5c is sold in blue, green, pink, yellow, or white.) If you bought a 5s, 6, or 6 Plus instead, you see the same English and foreign language hellos, only now they appear with a gray background.

If the phone is shipped to you from the Apple Store, you get a Connect to iTunes screen so that the device can connect to your provider’s servers and perform the activation. Or you can go computer-free through iCloud. Slide your finger to the right to continue the setup, and off you go. Even if the phone is activated in the store, you have several decisions to make: Do you want to set up the device as a new iPhone, restore the phone from an iCloud backup (see the next chapter), or restore it from an iTunes backup?

Over the several screens that appear, you get to choose your language (English by default) and country or region. You then choose a Wi-Fi network, if available, or proceed using your cellular connection.

Next, you decide whether to enable Location Services. Agreeing to this step means the iPhone knows where you are, which is useful for Maps and other apps that rely on your whereabouts.

You are asked to kindly sign in with an Apple ID (if you already have one) or create one. Apple ID is the credential used to set up your iCloud and iTunes Store accounts, which include such things as the iBooks Store, Game Center, and Newsstand.

As part of the setup, you’re also asked to agree to the Terms and Conditions for iOS, iCloud, Game Center, and the Apple Privacy Policy. Apple says it is important that you read this stuff and who are we to disagree? We’ll just leave it there.

After getting past all the policy mumbo-jumbo, you’re next asked whether you want to use iCloud to access your music, photos, contacts, calendars, and more on all your devices automatically. The decision is up to you, but for what it is worth, your humble authors use iCloud because sharing all that data across all the other gear that we own is darn handy.

We also take advantage of the Find My iPhone feature and think you should too. Seems like a no-brainer to us: Why wouldn’t you want to turn on a tool that can possibly help you retrieve a lost or stolen phone? (For more on Find My iPhone, check out Chapter 14.)

You also get to choose or verify the phone number and email addresses that folks might use to get in touch with you, via FaceTime video calling (see Chapter 4) or iMessage (see Chapter 6).

The next request differs by phone and has to do with security, something no one should take lightly. You’re given the option to create a four-digit passcode to prevent anyone from getting to the contents of your device without knowing that code.

But if you have the iPhone 5s, 6, or 6 Plus instead, you’re asked whether you want to set up Touch ID, Apple’s name for a nifty fingerprint authentication system. This feature is worth a deeper dive.

Pointing a finger at Touch ID

Apple wants you to give the iPhone 5s 6, or 6 Plus the finger. But only in a good way.

Setting up passcode safeguards is a good idea, and it’s something we also touch on in Chapter 14 on Settings. But we also know that passcodes can be a hassle at times, such as when you’re holding an umbrella in one hand and tapping a passcode with the other. Apple says that about half the folks with an iPhone don’t even bother with passcodes, and we and the company think that’s unfortunate because you don’t want to let just anybody get at your personal information.

Enter the iPhones with Touch ID, a fingerprint scanner cleverly embedded in the Home button. With a gentle press of any designated finger, you bypass your passcode.

What’s more, you can use your own digit (not the numerical kind) to authenticate iTunes and App Store purchases. (Go to Settings under Touch ID & Passcode to make sure that the iTunes & App Store switch is turned on.)

The 6 and 6 Plus afford you another benefit, the ability to purchase stuff at retail (and online) by using a payment technology known as Apple Pay. By holding the phone in a store near a compatible contactless reader and keeping your finger against the Touch ID button, you can complete a purchase securely. Although Apple Pay was launching as this book went to press, Apple has already forged partnerships with leading credit card companies, banks, and merchants. Check out Chapter 7 for more on this promising feature.

With the arrival of iOS 8 software, Apple opened up Touch ID to third-party app developers.

You won’t have to use your fingerprint as a shortcut to enter web account names or passwords. A feature known as iCloud Keychain keeps your credit cards and passwords encrypted and saved on your iPhone and other approved devices, and handles the autofill chores on many of the websites you might visit.

To set up Touch ID, you must first let your iPhone get chummy with at least one of your fingers, though the system can handle up to five individual fingers, yours or anyone else’s with whom you share the iPhone.

The phone instructs you to press and lift your finger against the Home button repeatedly and from different orientations. Red lines fill an animated drawing of a generic fingerprint on the screen, giving you a sense of how far along you are. The process doesn’t take long, and if all goes smoothly, the iPhone will soon enough declare your efforts to be a success.

What could go wrong? Well, you will have to make sure your designated digit is dry. The phone needs to see your entire fingerprint, so don’t try this with a bandaged finger or one that has open wounds.

To add fingers after the initial setup, tap Settings⇒Touch ID & Passcode. Type your passcode, and then tap Add a Fingerprint. Then repeat the setup drill we just described.

Whether you choose to set up fingerprint authentication now, later, or not at all, you should still establish an old-fashioned four-digit passcode as well. In fact, if you do opt to go with Touch ID, you must set up a passcode as a backup should the iPhone fail to recognize your paw three times in a row. Hey, it happens. Maybe you’re sweating profusely, or you have a cut in the wrong place, or you’re wearing gloves.

In our experience, Touch ID works mostly like a charm, but we recommend giving your pinky a try if you run into trouble, what with the small surface area of the phone and all. After we got accustomed to using Touch ID, going back and typing passcodes seemed antiquated.

Continuing the setup

Your iPhone setup continues. You get to determine whether you want to call on Siri, your loyal loquacious iPhone genie. We tell you all about Siri in Chapter 5, so we’ll skip the details here.

Apple makes another couple of requests at this stage. Apple would love for you to have your iPhone automatically send the company daily diagnostic and usage data, including your location. Armed with such information, Apple says it can better improve the company’s products and services. We think the request is harmless. In addition, you can also assist app developers by permitting Apple to share with them crash data and statistics on how you use their apps. If you find either prospect unappealing, just say no — or to be more precise, choose Don’t Send or Don’t Share, respectively.

Thanks to the extra screen real estate on the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch 6 Plus (compared to the 4-inch 5s), Apple added another step to the set-up process: You can choose a zoomed view (with larger text and controls) or a standard view that fits more items on the screen. Don’t worry too much about this setting at this stage. You can always change the Display Zoom setting later in Settings. (If you do, you must restart your phone.)

From then on, you’re pretty much good to go.

If you want to give your phone a quick nap, you can put it to sleep by pressing and quickly letting go of the sleep/wake button. To turn the device completely off, press and hold down the sleep/wake button until a translucent Slide to Power Off button appears at the top of the screen. Drag the button to the right. Tap Cancel (X) if you change your mind.

Locking the iPhone

Carrying a naked cellphone in your pocket is asking for trouble. Unless the phone has some locking mechanism, you may inadvertently dial a phone number. Try explaining to your boss why he or she got a call from you during your 4 a.m. jog. Fortunately, Apple makes it a cinch to lock the iPhone so this pocket-dialing scenario won’t happen to you.

In fact, you don’t need to do anything to lock the iPhone; it happens automatically, as long as you don’t touch the screen for one minute. (You can change this duration in iPhone Settings, a topic in Chapter 14.)

Can’t wait? To lock the iPhone immediately, press the sleep/wake button. To unlock it, press the sleep/wake button again. Or press the Home button on the front of the screen. Either way, the words Slide to Unlock appear near the bottom of the screen. To unlock the device, drag your finger to the right and then, in some cases, also enter a passcode, another topic reserved for Chapter 14. If you set up the iPhone (5s, 6, or 6 Plus only) to use Touch ID, you can merely press your finger against the Home button to unlock it.

The iOS 8 software upgrade brought greater customization to Notification Center, which was introduced a few software generations earlier. Notification Center clues you in on, well, notifications. These include, but are not limited to, missed calls, texts, emails, and the weather. What’s more, Apple is kind enough to serve up notifications right on the iPhone’s Lock screen.

You can act upon notifications by swiping your finger. More on notifications later in this chapter — and more on the Lock screen in Chapter 9. We’ll give away the ending now: You can launch the Camera app from the Lock screen.

Mastering the Multitouch Interface

The iPhone, like most smartphones, dispenses with physical buttons in favor of a multitouch display. (The iPhone was a pioneer in popularizing multitouch.) This display is the heart of many things you do on the iPhone, and the controls change depending on the task at hand.

Unlike other phones with touchscreens, don’t bother looking for a stylus. You are meant, instead — at the risk of lifting another ancient ad slogan — to “let your fingers do the walking.”

It’s important to note that you have at your disposal several keyboard layouts in English, all variations on the alphabetical keyboard, the numeric and punctuation keyboard, and the more punctuation and symbols keyboard. Three keyboards are shown in Figure 2-1 in the Notes app and three in Safari.

The layout you see depends on which toggle key you tapped and the app that you are working in. For instance, the keyboards in Safari differ from the keyboards in Notes, sometimes in subtle ways. For example, note in Figure 2-1 that the Notes keyboards have a Return key in the lower right, but the Safari keyboards have a Go key in that position.

What’s more, if you rotate the iPhone to its side, you’ll get wider variations of the respective keyboards. A single example of a wide keyboard in the Notes app is shown in Figure 2-2.

Discovering the special-use keys

The iPhone keyboard contains a number of keys that don’t type a character (refer to Figure 2-2). These special-use keys follow:

• Shift key: Switches between uppercase and lowercase letters if you’re using the alphabetical keyboard. If you’re using keyboards that show only numbers and symbols, the traditional shift key is replaced by a key labeled #+= or 123. Pressing that key toggles between keyboards that have just symbols and numbers.

  To turn on caps lock mode and type in all caps, you first need to enable caps lock. You do that by tapping the Settings icon, then tapping General, and then tapping Keyboard. Tap the Enable Caps Lock item to turn it on. After the caps lock setting is enabled (it’s disabled by default), you double-tap the shift key to turn on caps lock. (The shift key turns black when caps lock is on.) Tap the shift key again to turn off caps lock. To disable caps lock, just reverse the process by turning off the Enable Caps Lock setting (tap Settings, General, Keyboard).

• Toggle key: Switches between the different keyboard layouts.
• International keyboard key: Shows up only if you’ve turned on an international keyboard, as explained in the sidebar titled “A keyboard for all borders,” later in this chapter.

  Note: When you select a keyboard in a different language — or English for that matter — you can select different software keyboard layouts (QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTX) and a hardware keyboard layout (if you connect a hardware keyboard via Bluetooth).

• Emoji key: Displays smiley faces and other emoticons, along with a gaggle of other tiny symbol options, from pictures of bells and boats to balloons and animals. If you’ve chosen an international keyboard, you won’t see the emoji key, not at first anyway. In this instance, keep tapping the international keyboard until the emoji keys appear.
• Delete key: Erases the character immediately to the left of the cursor.

  If you hold down the delete key for a few seconds, it begins erasing entire words rather than individual characters.

• Return key: Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next line. As mentioned, the Return key becomes a Go key on the Safari keyboard.
• Dictation: Lets you use Siri to dictate your words. More on Siri in Chapter 5.

The following set of keys appear in landscape mode on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as shown in Figure 2-3:

• Arrow keys: These two keys let you move the cursor in either direction without wiping out the letters, numbers, or characters that it crosses.
• Cut, copy, paste: Dedicated keys turn up only on the iPhone 6 Plus in landscape mode when you’ve selected the standard display zoom view.
• Undo key: This key undoes your last action.
• Exclamation point, question mark, comma: The iPhone 6 Plus in landscape mode offers dedicated keys for these punctuation marks.

The incredible, intelligent, and virtual iPhone keyboard

Before you consider how to actually use the keyboard, we’d like to share a bit of the philosophy behind its so-called intelligence. Knowing what makes this keyboard smart will help you make it even smarter when you use it. The iPhone keyboard

• Uses a bundled English dictionary that even includes words from today’s popular culture.
• Adds your contacts to its dictionary automatically.
• Uses complex analysis algorithms to predict the word you’re trying to type.
• Suggests corrections as you type, and then offers you the suggested word just below the word you typed.
• Reduces the number of mistakes you make as you type by intelligently and dynamically resizing the touch zones for certain keys. The iPhone increases the zones for keys it predicts might come next and decreases the zones for keys that are unlikely to come next, though you can’t see these changes.

Anticipating what comes next

The keyboards on your iPhone became more useful with the arrival of iOS 8. Now the keyboard takes an educated stab at the next word you mean to type and presents what it surmises to be the best possible word choices front and center. Say you’re in the Messages app and the last message you received was an invitation to lunch or dinner. Above the row of keys in the iPhone keyboard, you’d see buttons with three word suggestions: Dinner, Lunch, and Not sure (as shown in Figure 2-4). If one of those were the appropriate response, you could tap the button to insert its text into your reply.

Of course, if you wanted to respond with something different than the three options presented by Apple, just type your response with the regular QWERTY keys. As you type additional letters and words, the three suggested word choices above the keyboard change in real time. For instance, if you start by typing That is a in your message, the new trio of word choice buttons that show up might be good, great, and very.

Such QuickType keyboard predictions vary by app and by whom you are communicating with. So the predictive text choices that show up in Messages when you’re involved in an exchange with a friend are likely to be more casual than the those in an email to your boss.

Such suggestions don’t appear only in English. If you’re using an international keyboard, suggestions are presented in the appropriate language.

Finger-typing on the virtual keyboards

Apple’s multitouch interface just might be considered a stroke of genius. And it just might as equally drive you nuts, at least initially.

If you’re patient and trusting, you’ll get the hang of finger-typing in a week or so. You have to use the virtual keyboard that appears when you tap a text field to enter notes, compose text messages, type the names of new contacts, and so forth.

Apple’s recommendation on the early iPhones — with which we concur — is to start typing with just your index finger before graduating to two thumbs. We think the advice is sound on newer models too.

As we’ve noted, Apple has built a lot of intelligence into its virtual keyboard, so it can correct typing mistakes on the fly and take a stab at predicting what you’re about to type next. The keyboard isn’t exactly Nostradamus, but it does a pretty good job in coming up with the words you have in mind.

As you press your finger against a letter or number on the screen, the individual key you press gets bigger, as shown in Figure 2-5. That way, you know that you struck the correct letter or number, a capital B in this case.

Sending a message to an overseas pal? Keep your finger pressed against certain letters, and a row of keys showing variations of the character for foreign alphabets pops up, as shown with the letter e in Figure 2-6. Just slide your finger until you reach the key with the relevant accent mark, and release it.

Meanwhile, if you press and hold down the period key on the Safari or Mail app keyboard, you get your choice of .com, .net, .edu, and .us. Pressing and holding down the period key in certain other situations, such as in Messages, Notes, or Pages, gives you a choice of a period or an ellipsis.

If you enabled any international keyboards, you’ll see more choices when you hold down the period key. For example, if you enabled a French keyboard, pressing and holding down the period will also give you options for .eu and .fr.

Alas, typing mistakes are common at first. Say that you meant to type a sentence in the Notes app that reads, “I am typing a bunch of notes.” But because of the way your fingers struck the virtual keys, you actually entered “I am typing a bunch of npy.” Fortunately, Apple knows that the o you meant to press is next to the p that showed up on the keyboard, just as t and y are side-by-side. So the software determines that notes was likely one of the words you had in mind and offers the word as one of its three top suggestions, as shown in Figure 2-7. To accept a suggested word, merely tap it. And if for some reason you actually did mean to type npy, just resume typing.

When you’re typing notes or sending email and want to type a number, symbol, or punctuation mark, tap the 123 key. The keyboard morphs into an alternative virtual keyboard with numbers and symbols. The 123 key is now the #+= key. Tap it to display keys with additional symbols. Tap the key (now the ABC key) to return to the alphabetical keyboard. These extra steps are not hard to get used to, but some may find them irritating.

As mentioned, you can rotate the iPhone so that its keyboard changes to a wider landscape mode in certain apps, including Mail, Messages, Notes, and Safari. The keys are slightly larger in landscape mode, a boon to those who do a lot of typing or have largish fingers.

Correcting mistakes

It’s a good idea to type with abandon and not get hung up over mistyped characters. The iPhone’s self-correcting keyboard will fix many errors and, as mentioned, will help you reduce mistakes in the first place by predicting which words you have in mind. Still, you may have to make some corrections manually.

If the iPhone thinks you’ve made a mistake while typing, it may underline (or highlight) the suspect word. For instance, in our earlier example, npy is not a recognized English word, so the iPhone will flag that possible error by placing a red line under it in the body of your message. Tap the word to see possible alternatives (not, nay) just above the suspect word.

If you want to decline the suggestion and type your own replacement, you can do so. And of course you can keep the word that the iPhone thought you typed in error.

Sometimes misspelled words appear with an underline and no suggested alternative. If you tap the misspelled word, a suggestion for another spelling may appear. Tap the new word to accept it. Sometimes when you tap the underlined word, you instead see the note No Replacements Found.

A neat trick when manually correcting text is to hold down your finger against the screen to bring up the magnifying glass shown in Figure 2-8. Use it to position the pointer to the spot where you need to make the correction.

Choosing an alternative keyboard

As part of iOS 8, Apple for the first time permits you to choose an alternative keyboard from a third-party app developer, a welcome change to the producers of SwiftKey, Swype, Ginger, and Fleksy keyboards that debuted on the rival Android mobile operating system. Some third-party keyboards let you use swipe gestures — that is, gliding rather than lifting your finger from one key to the next. If you’ve tried and liked this input method on other phones, you’ll appreciate being able to employ it on the iPhone.

In the App Store, you can fetch new keyboards — some are free and others require a modest sum. After you download a keyboard, visit Settings⇒General⇒Keyboard⇒Keyboards⇒Add New Keyboard and select your keyboard. Then, press and hold down on the globe key on the iPhone’s own keyboard and select your new keyboard in the list that appears. Alternatively, keep tapping the globe key until the keyboard you want takes over.

Cutting, copying, pasting, and suggesting

Apple adds pizzazz to the usual cut, copy, and paste functions, and provides another helpful remedy for correcting errors: a Suggest pop-up option that appears when you double-tap a word. (A Define option is here too.)

Here’s how to exploit the copy-and-paste feature. Say you’re in the Notes app, jotting down ideas that you want to copy in an email message. Double-tap a word to select it, and then drag the blue grab points or handles to select a larger block of text, as shown in Figure 2-9. (You can use the handles to contract selected text too.) After you’ve selected the text, tap Copy. (If you want to delete the text block, tap Cut instead.)

Now open the Mail program (see Chapter 12) and start composing a message. When you decide where to insert the text you just copied, tap the cursor. Up pop commands to Select, Select All, and Paste, as shown in Figure 2-10. Tap Paste to paste the text into the message.

Here’s the pizzazz part. If you make a mistake while you’re cutting, pasting, suggesting, or typing, shake the iPhone. It gives you the option to undo the last edit.

Or suppose that you notice a typo in what you’ve entered. Select the word, and you’ll see a Replace option along with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Define, as shown in Figure 2-11, left. Tap Replace and the iPhone serves up a few suggested replacement words, as shown in Figure 2-11, right. If the word you have in mind is shown as a substitute, tap it and the iPhone automatically makes the switch.

Of course there’s a good chance that the iPhone will suggest the replacement word in the row on top of the keyboard as one of the three words it predicts you want to (or meant to) type.

If the iPhone has already highlighted a word in red, you need not go through tapping Replace first. Instead, merely tap the word and the iPhone will provide alternatives. Say you inadvertently typed Freek. When you tap the word, the iPhone presents alternatives such as Creek, Freak, and Freed.

Meanwhile, if you want to know exactly what a word means, double-tap the word and choose the Define option instead. The first time you tap Define, you’re presented with the option to download the dictionary.

As mentioned, the iPhone 6 Plus has dedicated cut, copy, and paste keys when the phone is in landscape mode and using a standard display zoom view. Thus, you have an alternative way to handle these basic functions.

Multitasking

Multitasking simply lets you run numerous apps in the background simultaneously or easily switch from one app to another. For example, music from a third-party app such as Slacker can play in the background while you surf the web, peek at pictures, or check email.

But that’s not all. If you use an Internet voice-calling app such as Skype, you’ll be able to receive notification of an incoming call even if you haven’t launched the Skype app. The multitasking feature also lets a navigation app employing GPS update your position while you’re listening to an Internet radio app such as Pandora. From time to time, the navigation app or Apple’s own Maps app will pipe in with turn-by-turn directions, lowering the volume of the music so you can hear the instructions.

We’ve also been able to leave voice notes in the Evernote app while checking out a web page.

Multitasking couldn’t be easier — and it has gotten a lot smarter through the years. Now your iPhone can anticipate your needs. If it detects over time that you tend to turn to your social networking apps around the same time every morning, it will make sure the feeds are ready for you.

Double-press (and not double-tap) the Home button. You’ll see preview pages with icons just below them for any open apps, as shown in Figure 2-12, left. Scroll to the right or left to see more apps (see Figure 2-12, right). Tap the icon or preview screen for the app you want to switch to; the app remembers where you left off. (Scroll all the way to the left and you’ll also see a preview screen for the last Home screen you opened.)

At the top of Figure 2-12, note a cool new iOS 8 shortcut: circular snapshots of the people with whom you most recently communicated. Your Favorites contacts are represented as well. Tap the circular picture to call a person (by phone or FaceTime) or to send him or her a message. (For more on calling, we gently recommend a visit to Chapter 4.)

Apple insists (and our experience generally leads us to believe) that multitasking will not drain the iPhone battery or exhaust system resources. The iPhone conserves power and resources by putting apps in a state of suspended animation. Your phone will schedule updates only during power-efficient times, such as when your device is connected to Wi-Fi.

To remove an app from the multitasking rotation, swipe up the app’s preview. Poof, it’s gone.

If you hold the phone sideways in landscape mode, the previews for your apps appear sideways on the smaller iPhones but on the top of the screen on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Navigating beyond the Home Screen

The Home screen, which we discuss in Chapter 1, isn’t the only screenful of icons on your phone. After you start adding apps from the App Store (see Chapter 15), you’ll likely have multiple screens.

Initially, you see two tiny dots above the Phone, Mail, Safari, and Music icons. Each dot denotes an additional screen, containing up to 16 additional icons on handsets that predate the iPhone 5, up to 20 on the iPhone 5, and up to 24 on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The icons can represent apps or folders of apps. The first dot, which is all white, represents the Home screen, or the screen you’re currently viewing. The next dot to the right, in gray, is the first additional screen on which you can park icons. You get to it by flicking right to left (assuming you’re on the first screen) or by tapping the dot. You can have 15 screens in all; as you add screens, you add dots.

You must be precise when tapping a dot. Otherwise, you’ll open one of the app or folder icons instead of switching screens.

The four icons in the bottom row — Phone, Mail, Safari, and Music — are in a part of the screen known as the dock. When you switch from screen to screen as just described, these icons remain on the screen.

You can easily move icons within a screen or from screen to screen. Simply press and hold down on any icon until all the icons on the screen begin to jiggle. Then drag the icon you want to park elsewhere to its new location. The other icons on the screen kindly step aside to make room. To move an icon to a new screen, drag it to the right or left edge of the screen. When you’re satisfied with the new layout, press the Home button to stop the jiggling.

Want to jump back to the last Home screen of icons you had open? Simply press the Home button. Want to jump to the first screenful of icons, assuming you’re not already there? Press Home again.

If you press two times in rapid succession, you invoke the multitasking feature, which is described in the “Multitasking” section. Pressing twice in rapid succession used to bring you to a handy Spotlight search feature. Don’t worry: The feature is still available (and also discussed later in this chapter) but is now summoned in any Home screen by swiping down.

Be careful not to swipe down from the very top edge of the screen. That gesture pulls down Notification Center instead of Spotlight search.

Press and hold down the Home key for more than a second or so to summon Siri (unless you turn the Siri feature off in Settings) or to summon Voice Control on even older models …

Organizing Icons into Folders

Finding the single app you want to use among apps spread out over 15 screens is a daunting task. But Apple felt your pain and added a handy organizational tool called Folders. The Folders feature enables you to create folder icons, each holding dozens of apps. You might want to create folders for social apps, photos, travel-related apps, and any number of other categories.

To create a folder, press your finger against an icon until all the icons on the screen jiggle, as shown in Figure 2-13. Decide which apps you want to move to a folder, and drag the icon for the first app on top of the second app. In Figure 2-13, we’re dragging the Withings app on top of the Health app. The two apps now share living quarters inside a newly created Health folder, as shown in Figure 2-14. Apple names the folder according to the category of apps inside the folder, but you can easily change the folder name by tapping the X in the bar where the folder name appears and substituting a new name.

To launch an app that’s inside a folder, tap that folder’s icon and then tap the icon for the app that you want to open.

Apps can be dragged into and out of any folder. You can stash up to 9 apps per page in a folder and have as many as 14 pages. That’s a grand total of 126 (more, we suspect, than you’d possibly ever want to tuck away in a folder). If you drag all the apps outside the folder, the folder automatically disappears.

Folders are a great organizational tool. But if you have numerous apps on the phone, it’s a lot easier to create and arrange folders not from the phone but when syncing your phone in iTunes.

Searching

Using the Safari browser (see Chapter 11), you can search the web by using Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing, and DuckDuckGo — as well as Chinese search engines if you add a Chinese keyboard. But you can also search for people and programs across your iPhone or within specific apps. We show you how to search within apps in the various chapters dedicated to Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, and Music.

Spotlight became even more useful in iOS 8 by taking on an additional search load. These days, you can search for news and trending topics, local restaurants, movie times, and content in Apple’s own iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store.

Searching across the iPhone, meanwhile, is based on the Spotlight feature familiar to Mac owners. As we mention earlier, to access Spotlight on an iPhone, swipe down from any Home screen.

At the top of the screen, in the bar that pulls down like a window shade, enter your search query by using the virtual keyboard. The iPhone starts spitting out results the moment you type a single character, and the list narrows as you type additional characters.

The results are pretty darn thorough. Say you entered Bell as your search term, as shown in Figure 2-15. Contacts whose names contain Bell will show up, along with folks who work for companies named Bell. If your iTunes library has the song “One Last Bell to Answer” or music performed by violinist Joshua Bell, those will show up, too. Same goes for any third-party iPhone apps with the word Bell in the name. And if bell is mentioned in a note, a message, an email, an event, and more, such references will also appear. Tap any listing to jump to the contact, ditty, or app for which you’re searching.

You have some control over the type of search that Spotlight conducts. From the Home screen, tap Settings⇒General⇒Spotlight Search. Make sure a check mark appears next to each bundled app on the iPhone that you’d like searched automatically. On the list: Applications, Spotlight Suggestions, Contacts, Music, Podcasts, Videos, Audiobooks, Notes, Events, Mail, Voice Memos, Reminders, Messages, and Bing Web Results. Tap to remove the check mark from any app that you don’t want automatically included in your search. To change the search order in which results appear, press your finger against the three bars to the right side of the category you’d like to move up or down, and drag it to a preferred spot on the list.

Notifications

When you stop to think about it, a smartphone is smart because of all the things it can communicate, from stock prices to social-networking friend requests.

Notification Center gives you an at-a-glance, timely view of everything you want to keep on top of: new emails, texts, the current temperature, appointments and reminders, tweets, and more. To display Notification Center, drag it down like a window shade from the top of the screen — even from the phone’s Lock screen.

Notifications are grouped by category, such as Mail message notifications, missed phone call notifications, and notifications from apps (with your prior permission). For example, all USA TODAY notifications — typically headlines of breaking news — are with other USA TODAY notifications, rather than being mixed in with the financial tidbit notifications you might get from, say, CNBC.

Notification Center and the notifications processes improved in iOS 8. For starters, notifications are now interactive or actionable; that is, you can respond to them immediately. For example, you can accept or decline a Calendar invitation. Without leaving the app you’re working in, you can reply to an email or message. Inside Notification Center, meanwhile, you can mark off reminders from your to-do list.

The today view in Notification Center displays only notifications pertaining to the day you are viewing. Makes perfect sense. That way, you’ll know whether to don a raincoat or run out and buy a last-minute birthday gift for your officemate who is celebrating the big Four-O. The today view can also give you a quick summary of what you’ve got going on tomorrow.

In iOS 8, if you scroll to the bottom of the today view, you can tap a new Edit button that gives you a bit more control over the items listed in your today view and the order in which those listings appear. You can remove the notifications you see in this view (or not) and rearrange the order in which the Stocks, Calendar, and Reminders appear, but not the order of the Today Summary, Traffic Conditions, or Tomorrow Summary. You can add notifications to the today view from some third-party apps as well.

The today view is especially useful for the here and now, but you can still tap the Notifications tab to see your other notifications, even the long-term ones.

Meanwhile, with iOS 8, Apple also opened up Notification Center to third-party developers, enabling you to respond to notifications from some of your favorite apps.

To dismiss notifications, tap the circled X in a notification category or group, such as the aforementioned USA TODAY or CNBC notification, and tap Clear. And to dismiss individual notifications within a group, swipe the notification from right to left and tap either Mark as Read or Trash.

Although it’s useful to keep tabs on all this stuff, you don’t want to be hit over the head with information, thus distracting you from whatever else you’re doing on the iPhone. So Apple delivers notifications unobtrusively by displaying banners at the top of the screen that then disappear until you actively choose to view them. And when you want to do just that, you can summon Notification Center, shown in Figure 2-16, just by swiping down from the top of the screen.

You can also choose which notifications you will see. Tap Settings⇒Notifications and then tap the notifications you want to see. What’s more, you can customize the way those notifications appear. For example, in Settings, tap Reminders under the list of apps and widgets that you can include in Notification Center. Figure 2-17 displays some of your options.

You can decide whether reminders should appear in Notification Center and indicate whether you want to see just a single reminder item, up to five reminders, or up to ten of these items. Next, choose an alert style: whether such reminder notifications appear as a banner at the top of the screen that disappears automatically or as an alert that requires your response before you can do anything else.

You also get to decide whether to receive reminder notifications when your phone is locked.

If you don’t want to be bothered with notifications at all, turn on the Do Not Disturb option in Settings or via the Control Center (see Chapter 5). When enabled, alerts that would otherwise grab your attention will be silenced. You can even schedule the time that the Do Not Disturb feature is turned on. As you see in Chapter 4, you can also turn on Do Not Disturb to silence incoming phone calls.

And with that, you are hereby notified that you’ve survived basic training. The real fun is about to begin.