Chapter 4
In This Chapter
Making a call
Visualizing visual voicemail
Recording a greeting
Calling hands-free
Receiving a call
Choosing ringtones
Setting up conference calls
Facing up to FaceTime
You may well have bought an iPhone for its spectacular photo viewer, its marvelous widescreen display, its multimedia capabilities, and the best darn pocket-sized Internet browser you’ve ever come across. Not to mention its overall coolness.
However, it’s easy to forget that, for many of us, the iPhone’s most critical mission is the one from which its name is derived: The iPhone is first and foremost a cellphone. And no matter how capable it is at all those other things, when push comes to shove, you had best be able to make and receive phone calls.
That requirement puts a lot of responsibility in the hands of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, the iPhone’s main (but not only) wireless carriers in the United States. As with any cellphone, the strength of the wireless signal depends a great deal on your location and the robustness of the carrier’s network.
As noted in Chapter 1, the cell signal status icon at the upper-left corner of the screen can clue you in on what your phone-calling experience may be like. Simply put, more dots supposedly equate to a better experience. What you hope to avoid are those two dreaded words: No Service. Cell coverage aside, this chapter is devoted to all the nifty ways you can handle wireless calls on an iPhone.
And when we say nifty, we mean nifty. If you and the person you're gabbing with have a good Wi-Fi or cellular connection, you can see each other. That’s right: We’re talking about video calling, through a remarkable feature called FaceTime. (FaceTime also lets you make a video call to a friend with an iPad 2 or later tablet, a fourth-generation or later iPod touch, or a Mac computer.)
The promise of video calling has been around since LBJ occupied the White House. But despite various efforts to bring video calling or video chat to computers and certain other mobile phones, video calling has only recently started to go Main Street.
With FaceTime, Apple is doing as much as any outfit this side of Microsoft-owned Skype to make video calling a more regular occurrence. Don’t take our word for it; give FaceTime a try. Sorry, but we’re going to leave you hanging until the end of the chapter to figure out how to do that. (Trust us — giving FaceTime a whirl isn’t hard.)
In the meantime, we present more conventional but no less important ways to make and receive calls on your iPhone. Somewhere, Alexander Graham Bell is beaming.
Start by tapping the Phone icon on the Home screen. You can then make calls by tapping any of the icons that show up at the bottom of the screen: Favorites, Recents, Contacts, Keypad, or Voicemail, in that order. In this section, we describe these options one by one.
The iPhone also lets you make calls by voice, using Siri or, in some cases, the aptly named Voice Control. We discuss these options in Chapter 7.
If you read the chapter on syncing (Chapter 3), you know how to get the snail-mail addresses, email addresses, and (most relevant for this chapter) phone numbers that reside inside your PC or Mac contacts into the iPhone. Assuming that you went through that drill already, all those addresses and phone numbers are hanging out in one place. Their not-so-secret hiding place is revealed when you tap the Contacts icon in the Phone app. (Okay, so Contacts also hangs out in the Extras folder.)
If you enter your Facebook credentials in Settings, your Facebook friends — and their phone numbers, if they were made publicly available in Facebook — will automatically populate your list of contacts. You can also add your Twitter credentials to populate the list with Twitter user names and photos.
Here’s how to make those contacts work to your benefit:
Think of the payout on a One-Armed Bandit with that kind of power.
Don't feel like flicking? You can find a contact by
Note that when you tap to stop the scrolling, that tap doesn’t select an item in the list. This behavior may seem counterintuitive the first few times you try it, but we got used to it and now we really like it this way.
As shown in Figure 4-1, you see a lot of fields with the individual’s phone numbers, physical and email addresses, and possibly even a mug shot. You may have to scroll down to see more contact info.
If the person has more than one phone number, the hardest decision you must make is choosing which number to call.
Your iPhone contacts reflect any groups you belong to, such as different departments in your company, friends from work, and friends from school. When you’re looking at the Contacts entry for an individual person, an All Contacts button appears in the upper-left corner. Tap All Contacts to display the roster of all your contacts, and the button at the upper-left corner changes to Groups. Tap that button to access contacts for a given group.
Among the Group listings you see is one for all your iCloud contacts and one for all your friends on Facebook. In some cases, your contacts will be linked — that is, information supplied by Facebook, Microsoft Exchange, or some other source will be combined into a single entry. An obvious benefit of this linking is that you can cut down on duplicate contact listings. If the iPhone doesn’t automatically link appropriate contact entries, you can do the job manually from the given contact. Tap Edit, scroll to the bottom, and tap the green circle with the white + inside to link contacts. Choose the appropriate entry to link with from among your entire list of contacts.
You can also initiate text messages and emails from within Contacts. Those topics are discussed in greater depth in Chapters 6 and 12, respectively.
Favorites is where you can keep a list of the people and numbers you dial most often. Consider Favorites the iPhone equivalent of speed-dialing. Merely tap the person’s name in Favorites, and your iPhone calls the person.
Setting up Favorites is a breeze. When looking at one of your contacts, you may have noticed the Add to Favorites option. When you tap this option, all the phone numbers you have for that person pop up. Tap the number you want to make into a favorite, and it turns up on the list.
If any of your chosen folks happen to fall out of favor, you can easily kick them off the Favorites roster. Here’s how:
Note that a red circle with a horizontal white line appears to the left of each name in the list.
A red Delete button appears to the right of the name, as shown in Figure 4-2.
The person (or one of his or her given phone numbers) is no longer afforded the privilege of being in your iPhone inner circle.
You can designate new favorites by tapping the + symbol at the upper-right corner of the screen. Doing so brings you back to Contacts. From there, select the appropriate person and number.
Tapping the Recents icon displays the iPhone call log. The Recents feature houses logs of all the, well, recent calls made or received, as well as calls you missed. Tap All to show all the recent calls or tap Missed to show just those you missed. Under the All list, completed calls and missed calls that have been returned by tapping the red entry are shown in black, and missed calls that haven’t been returned in this fashion are in red, along with a descriptor of the phone you were calling or received a call from (home, mobile, or location). You also get an indicator of whether the call was a phone call or FaceTime call.
By tapping the i-in-a-circle next to an item in the list, you can find out the time calls were made or missed, as well as any known info about the caller from your Contacts information. Also shown is the length of the time you spoke to the person, assuming a conversation indeed took place.
To return a call, just tap anywhere on the name.
Tap Share Contact to share a contact with a friend, family member, or colleague. You have the option to send that person an email or a message (MMS, text, or iMessage message). The contact info is already embedded in the message that you send.
You can share with people also by using the wireless AirDrop feature, which was introduced with iOS 7 and works on the iPhone 5 and later models. For more on AirDrop, read Chapter 7.
From time to time, of course, you have to dial the number of a person or company who hasn’t earned a spot in your Contacts. Or you need to access a keypad to navigate a voicemail system. In those situations, you’ll want to tap the Keypad icon to bring up the large keys of the virtual touchtone keypad you see in Figure 4-3. Just tap the appropriate keys and then tap Call to dial. If the number you're dialing appears in your Contacts list, you’ll see the name of the caller just below the digits that you've dialed.
You can use the iPhone’s keypad also to remotely check your voicemail at work or home. Come to think of it, what a perfect segue into the next section. It’s on one of our favorite iPhone features, visual voicemail.
How often have you had to listen to four or five (or more) voicemail messages before getting to the message you really want, or need, to hear? As shown in Figure 4-4, the iPhone’s clever visual voicemail presents a list of your voicemail messages in the order in which calls were received. But you need not listen to those messages in order.
You can tell if you even have voicemail in a few ways:
Whatever draws you in, tap that Voicemail icon to display the list of voicemails. You see the caller’s phone number (assuming this info is known through Caller ID) and, in some cases, his or her name. Or you see the words Unknown or Private Caller.
The beauty of all this is that you can ignore (or at least put off listening to) certain messages. We are not in the advice-giving business on what calls you can safely avoid; disregard messages from the IRS or your parole officer at your own risk.
A blue dot next to a name or number signifies that you haven’t heard the message yet.
To play back a voicemail, tap the name or number in question. Then tap the tiny play/pause icon that shows up to the left. Tap to pause the message; tap again to resume. Tap Speaker if you want to hear the message through the iPhone’s speakerphone. Tap Call Back to immediately dial the person’s number, or tap Delete to remove the voicemail from the list.
Returning a call is as simple as tapping Call Back. If the caller’s number is unknown, Call Back appears dimmed. And you can delete a voicemail by pressing Delete.
If you have no phone service, you’ll see a message that says Visual Voicemail is currently unavailable.
You have two choices when it comes to the voicemail greeting your callers will hear. You can accept a generic greeting with your phone number by default. Or you can create a custom greeting in your own voice, as follows:
You can make a call hands-free, just by opening your mouth. To read the details on voice control and Siri, the personal assistant who takes voice stuff to another level, see Chapter 5.
It’s wonderful to have numerous options for making a call. But what are your choices when somebody calls you? The answer depends on whether or not you're willing to take the call.
To accept a call, you have four options:
We’re going to assume that you’re not a cold-hearted person out to break a caller’s heart. Rather, we assume that you're a busy person who will call back at a more convenient time.
Keeping that positive spin in mind, here are a few ways to reject a call on the spot and send the call to voicemail:
Sometimes you can’t take a call because, well, you can’t take a call — you’re under the gun at work or the kids demand your attention. But you want to be polite or give callers a sense that you do care about them too. Consider replying with a text message.
When a call comes in, instead of tapping Decline or Accept, simply tap the Message icon that appears, as shown in Figure 4-6. You can select from three canned messages (Sorry, I can’t talk right now; I'm on my way; and Can I call you later?) or create a custom reply.
If your phone is locked, you’ll still have the chance to tap the Message icon and go with one of the aforementioned canned (or custom) messages. But if you want to accept the call, you’ll have to slide your finger along the Slide to Answer button instead of tapping Accept.
When you tap any of these options, the caller will get your outgoing voicemail message and receive whichever of the text options you chose to send.
If you tap Remind Me instead of Message, you can arrange to receive a reminder notification in One Hour or When I Leave (the current location). Meanwhile, the caller hears your voicemail message.
We don’t embrace every caller, not by a long shot. Perhaps the caller is an old flame turned stalker. Or the person may be a crud. Or you keep hearing from the same persistent direct marketer, who doesn’t take your “no, thank you” at face value. Fortunately, you get the last word on the iPhone. Go to the Recents list for the caller and tap the i-in-a-circle. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap Block This Caller. You will no longer receive phone calls, FaceTime calls, or messages from people on the block list. Although your phone won’t ring, the caller will continue to reach your voicemail and will be able to leave you a message. If the blocked stalker, um, caller returns to your good graces, you can tap Unblock This Caller to let the person's calls through.
In the middle of the night — or the middle of the day when you’re playing hooky — the last thing you want is to be bothered by a phone call. Apple had such potential disturbances in mind when it devised the Do Not Disturb feature. When you turn on the feature in Settings or in Control Center (see Chapter 5), your incoming calls and alerts will be silenced. A moon icon rises to the top of the status bar to remind you when Do Not Disturb is enabled.
Of course, you may be reluctant to turn on the feature, fretting perhaps about missing emergency calls or calls from family members or important associates. You need exceptions, right?
Right. Here’s how to address those situations when Do Not Disturb is enabled. From the Home screen, tap Settings⇒Do Not Disturb. Tap the Allow Calls From option (see Figure 4-7) and choose whether to allow calls from your Favorites, Everyone (kind of defeats the purpose of Do Not Disturb, eh?), No One, All Contacts, or a particular Group Name from Contacts.
You can also take advantage of the Repeated Calls option. When Repeated Calls is turned on, a second call from the same person within three minutes will not be silenced. The rationale is if somebody is trying to reach you that badly, the call must be important.
You can also schedule when Do Not Disturb is on. Tap Settings⇒Do Not Disturb⇒Scheduled, and flip the switch on. Then tap the From To time field and choose a quiet time.
From the Do Not Disturb settings, you can also silence the iPhone when you receive incoming calls and notifications, or choose to do so only when the phone is locked.
Apple now supplies more than 50 ringtones in its latest iPhones, including 25 of the original or classic ringtones heard when the iPhone was brand new. The oldies but goodies range from the sound of crickets to an old car horn. The newest ringtones carry such names as Hillside, Night Owl, and Twinkle. Read the “iTunes and ringtones” sidebar to figure out how to add more.
To choose a ringtone, follow these steps:
A check mark appears next to the ringtone you’ve just listened to, as shown in Figure 4-8. If need be, adjust the volume slider in Sounds.
If you’re satisfied, you need do nothing more. Unbeknownst to you, you have just selected that ringtone.
To change or delete the ringtone for a specific person, go back into Contacts and tap Edit. Tap Ringtone and then choose a different ringtone for the person or revert to the default.
You can do lots of things while talking on an iPhone, such as consulting your calendar, taking notes, or checking the weather. Press the Home button to get to the apps that let you perform these tasks.
Here are other things you can do while on a call:
You can field a new call when you’re already talking to somebody. Or ignore the call (by tapping Ignore).
To take the new call while keeping the first caller on hold, tap Hold and Accept. Tap End & Accept to take the new call and dismiss the current call. You can also tap Send to Voicemail to keep the status quo. Figure 4-12, left, shows these options. You can then toggle between calls (placing one or the other on hold) by tapping either the Swap icon or the first call at the top of the screen, as shown in Figure 4-12, right.
Now suppose caller number one and caller number two know each other. Or you’d like to play matchmaker so they get to know each other. Tap Merge Calls (the button appears automatically when you've added a second caller) so that all three of you can chitchat. At first, the phone number of each caller will scroll at the top of your screen like a rolling ticker. A few seconds later, the ticker is replaced by the names of the callers.
Now assume you have to talk to your entire sales team at once. It's time to initiate a full-blown conference call, which effectively takes this merge call idea to its extreme. You can merge up to five calls at a time. In fact, creating such a conference call on the iPhone may be simpler than getting the same five people in a physical room at the same time.
Start by making a call and then placing the caller on hold as noted in the preceding section, “Juggling calls.” Tap Add Call to make another call, and then tap Merge Calls to bring everyone together. Repeat this exercise to add the other calls.
Other conference call tidbits:
The only caveat is that the devices must all be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. If you’re sitting in front of a Mac or an iPad, you’ll see the name, phone number, and profile picture of a person calling your iPhone, which let us presume for the moment is buried in a bag or charging in another room. From the Mac or iPad, click (or swipe) the notification of the call to answer or reject the call.
To make a call from your Mac or iPad, click or tap a phone number in the Contacts, Calendar, or Safari app. No other setup is required. It is as simple as that. Make sure the Handoff switch is turned on in Settings under Handoff & Suggested Apps.
FaceTime video reminds us of a favorite line from The Who’s rock opera Tommy: “See me, feel me, touch me.” The “see me” (and for that matter, “see you”) part arrives with FaceTime. Think of all the people who will want to see you, such as an old college roommate living halfway around the world, grandparents living miles away (okay, they really want to see your newborn), or a former flame living in a distant location.
Fortunately, using FaceTime is as easy as making a regular call on the iPhone. Plus, FaceTime comes with at least two major benefits besides the video:
But FaceTime also has a couple of major caveats:
If you meet the requirements, here’s how to make FaceTime happen:
Or better yet, tap the FaceTime app. Use an email address instead if you’re using FaceTime to call an iPod touch, an iPad, or a Mac.
A few seconds later, the other person gets the option to Decline or Accept the FaceTime invitation by tapping the red button or the green button, respectively, as shown in Figure 4-14. If the call is accepted, you’ll need to wait a few seconds before you can see the other person.
When someone requests FaceTime with you, you’ll appreciate being able to politely decline a FaceTime call. Cool as it can be to see and be seen, ask yourself if you really want to be seen, say, when you just get out of bed or before your morning coffee.
Search for any FaceTime calls you previously made by tapping an entry for that call in Recents. The iPhone knows to take the call straight to video, though of course the person you’re talking to has to accept the invitation each time.
You can do FaceTime also by tapping a pal’s listings in Contacts.
So what is a FaceTime call like? In our experience, first-time reactions were gleeful. Not only are you seeing the other person, but also the quality of the video is typically good. You also see your own mug (and maybe whoever else is in the room with you) in a small picture-in-picture (PiP) window (as shown in Figure 4-15), which you can drag to a corner of the screen. The PiP image represents what the other person sees, so it’s a good way of knowing, short of the other person telling you, if your face has dropped out of the frame.
To toggle between the front and main cameras, tap the camera icon.
If you want to mute a FaceTime video call, tap the microphone icon with the slash running through it. The caller won't be able to hear you but can continue to see you.
Although many FaceTime calls commence with a regular AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon call, you can’t go from FaceTime to an audio-only call without hanging up and redialing. In the past, if you dropped a FaceTime call because of a Wi-Fi hiccup or some other problem, you had to redial via FaceTime or your provider, depending on whether you wanted the call to be video or only audio.
You can make FaceTime audio-only calls too. Tap the FaceTime app icon, tap Contacts, and then tap the phone icon, which indicates you want to make a FaceTime call without the face. (Tapping the video icon next to a contact listing would make a regular FaceTime video call instead.) From the FaceTime app, you can also designate FaceTime favorites (audio or video), and make FaceTime calls in the Recents log as well. Only FaceTime calls will be shown in Recents, not the regular calls you make over the cellular network.
To block all FaceTime calls, tap Settings from the Home screen, tap FaceTime, and make sure the FaceTime switch is off. If you can’t find the FaceTime button or wonder why you’re not getting FaceTime calls, go back to Settings and make sure this option is turned on. While you're in FaceTime Settings, note that you can list one or more email addresses by which a caller can reach you for a video call, along with your iPhone’s phone number.
If you want to momentarily check out another iPhone app while on a FaceTime call, press the Home button and then tap the icon for the app you have in mind. At this point, you can still talk over FaceTime, but you’ll no longer see the person. Tap the green bar at the top of the screen to bring the person back in front of you.
And there you have it. That’s FaceTime, one of the coolest features in the iPhone.
You can do even more things with iPhone the phone, as you find out when we delve deeper into Settings in Chapter 14. Meanwhile, we recommend that you read the next chapter to discover how you can grab control of your iPhone.