Surfin’ Dude

A version of the Apple Safari web browser is a major reason that the Net on the iPhone is very much like the Net you’ve come to expect on a computer. Safari for the Mac (and for Windows) is one of the best web browsers in the computer business. And in our view, Safari is one of the very best cell phone browsers.

Exploring the browser

We start our cyberexpedition with a quick tour of the Safari browser. Take a gander at Figure 11-1: Not all browser controls found on a PC or Mac are present. Still, Safari on the iPhone has a familiar look and feel. We describe these controls and others throughout this chapter.

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Figure 11-1: The iPhone’s Safari browser.

Before plunging in, we recommend a little detour. Read the “Living on the EDGE” sidebar to find out more about the wireless networks that let you surf the web on the iPhone in the first place.

Blasting off into cyberspace

We told you how great web pages look on the iPhone, so we bet you’re eager to get going. We won’t hold you back much longer.

When you tap the address field (as you will in a moment), the virtual keyboard appears. You may notice one thing about the keyboard right off the bat: Because so many web addresses end with the suffix .com (pronounced “dot com”), the virtual keyboard has a dedicated .com key. For other common web suffixes — .edu, .net, .us, and .org — press and hold the .com key and choose the relevant suffix.

Of equal importance, both the period (.) and the slash (/) are on the virtual keyboard because you frequently use them when you enter web addresses. And because spaces aren’t allowed in URLs, the keyboard does not have a space bar.

The moment you tap a single letter, you see a list of web addresses that match those letters. For example, if you tap the letter s (as we did in the example in Figure 11-2, left), you see web listings for CNN Sports Illustrated (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com ) and CBS SportsLine (http://cbsportsline.com ), among others. Tapping U or H instead may display listings for USA TODAY or the Houston Chronicle (shameless plugs for the media properties where Ed and Bob are columnists). Scroll to see more suggestions and the virtual keyboard slides out of view, as shown in Figure 11-2, right.

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Figure 11-2: Web pages that match your search letter.

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Living on the EDGE

You can’t typically make or receive phone calls on a wireless phone without tapping into a cellular network. And you can’t prowl the virtual corridors of cyberspace (or send e-mail) on a mobile phone without accessing a wireless data network. In the United States, the iPhone works with Wi-Fi, AT&T EDGE, AT&T 3G, and an AT&T network called HSDPA, which is an even faster network that many consider 4G, or fourth generation. The iPhone also works with an advanced variant DC-HSDPA.

Few dispute that the even speedier LTE (Long Term Evolution) network is 4G. And the iPhone 5 is the first model to tap into LTE, from AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless. Verizon has the most built-out LTE network in the U.S. by a long shot, as of this writing, followed by AT&T. Sprint is still a relative LTE newbie.

The iPhone is also compatible with slower Verizon and Sprint 3G CDMA networks. (And it works also with another wireless technology, Bluetooth, but that serves a different purpose and is addressed in Chapter 14.)

The iPhone automatically hops onto the fastest available network, which is almost always Wi-Fi, the friendly moniker applied to the far geekier 802.11 designation. And “eight-oh-two-dot-eleven” (as it’s pronounced) is followed by a letter — typically, b, g, or n. So you see it written as 802.11b, 802.11g, and so on. The letters relate to technical standards that have to do with the speed and range you can expect from the Wi-Fi configuration. But we don’t want you to lose sleep over this issue if you haven’t boned up on this geeky alphabet.

For the record, because the iPhone adheres to the 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n standards — as well as the dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrums — you’re good to go pretty much anywhere you can find Wi-Fi. These days, Internet hotspots are in lots of places: airports, colleges, coffeehouses, libraries, public parks, and elsewhere. If you have to present a password to take advantage of a hotspot because it costs money or you have to authenticate your credentials, you can enter the password by using the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.

Still, Wi-Fi isn’t ubiquitous yet and neither is 4G, which leads us, at times, right back to CDMA or EDGE or 3G. EDGE is shorthand for Enhanced Datarate for GSM Evolution (good to know only if you’re on a million-dollar game show) and is based on the global GSM phone standard. And 3G stands for third generation; 3G websites typically download two times faster than EDGE, in our experience, and sometimes even faster. But, again, Wi-Fi downloads are even zippier.

The bottom line is this: Depending on where you live, work, or travel, you may feel like you’re teetering on the EDGE in terms of acceptable Internet coverage, especially if Wi-Fi or true 3G is beyond your reach. We’ve used the iPhone in areas where web pages load extremely slowly, not-so-vaguely reminiscent of dial-up telephone modems for your computer.

But the picture is indeed brightening. Wi-Fi and 3G are in more places than ever before. Better yet, the same can be said for 4G. The iPhone not only loads web pages a lot faster but also manages to do so with longer-lasting batteries.

The iPhone has two ways to determine websites to suggest when you tap certain letters. One method is the websites you already bookmarked from the Safari or Internet Explorer browser on your computer (and synchronized, as described in Chapter 3). More on bookmarks later in this chapter.

The second method iPhone uses when suggesting websites when you tap a particular letter is to suggest sites from the History list — those cyberdestinations where you recently hung your hat. Because history repeats itself, we also tackle that topic later in this chapter.

You might as well open your first web page now. It’s a full HTML page, to borrow from techie lingo. Do the following:

1. Tap the Safari icon at the bottom of the Home screen.

This icon is another member of the Fantastic Four (along with Phone, Mail, and Music).

2. Tap the address field (refer to Figure 11-1).

If you can’t see the address field, tap the status bar, or scroll to the top of the screen.

3. Begin typing the web address on the virtual keyboard that slides up from the bottom of the screen.

The web address is also called the URL (Uniform Resource Locator, for trivia buffs).

4. Do one of the following:

• To accept one of the bookmarked (or other) sites that show up on the list, merely tap the name.

Safari automatically fills in the URL in the address field and takes you where you want to go.

• Keep tapping the proper keyboard characters until you enter the complete web address for the site you have in mind, and then tap Go in the lower-right corner of the keyboard.

It’s not necessary to type www at the beginning of a URL. So, if you want to visit www.theonion.com (for example), typing theonion.com or even just onion.com is sufficient to transport you to the humor site.

tip_4c.eps To erase a URL you’ve erroneously typed, tap the address field and then tap the circled X to the right of the field.

new_iphone4s.eps When you rotate the iPhone sideways, you can tap the full-screen icon and display a web page in full-screen landscape mode. For example, check out Figure 11-3, which shows the landscape view of Figure 11-1.

warning_4c.eps Even though Safari on the iPhone can render web pages the way they’re meant to be displayed on a computer, every so often you may run into a site that serves up the light, or mobile, version of the website, sometimes known as a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) site. Graphics may be stripped down on these sites. Alas, the producers of these sites may be unwittingly discriminating against you for dropping in on them by using a cell phone. Never mind that the cell phone in this case is an iPhone. You have our permission to berate these site producers with letters, e-mails, and phone calls until they get with the program.

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Figure 11-3: Tap the two opposite arrows to go full screen.

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