Showing posts with label iphone Tricks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iphone Tricks. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
It seems as if Apple dodged a bullet. Ever since the Steve Jobs press conference a couple of weeks ago, in which Apple offered free carrying-case bumpers (or full refunds) to anyone whose iPhone 4 exhibited the “signal drops when you hold the phone a certain way” problem, the jeering and mockery online seems to have gone into hibernation.
Meanwhile, enough time has passed, and enough millions of people have been playing with their iPhones, that a critical mass of tricks and tips have started to pile up. Here’s a look at three cool iOS 4 features that nobody, including Apple, seems to be talking about.
* Unified Contacts. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) can sync up with different accounts. The Contacts app might list three different sets of names and numbers: one stored on your phone, one from a MobileMe account and a third from your corporate Exchange server at work. In the old days, certain names might show up in the All Contacts list two or three times, which isn’t helpful.
* Unified Contacts. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) can sync up with different accounts. The Contacts app might list three different sets of names and numbers: one stored on your phone, one from a MobileMe account and a third from your corporate Exchange server at work. In the old days, certain names might show up in the All Contacts list two or three times, which isn’t helpful.
In iOS 4, the iPhone displays each person’s name only once in the All Contacts list. If you tap that name, you open up a Unified Info screen for that person. It includes all the details from ALL of the underlying cards from that person. All of the phone numbers, for example, are tidily rounded up into a single list.
To see which cards the iPhone is combining, scroll to the bottom of the card. There, the Linked Cards section shows you which cards have been unified.
Here, you can tap a listing to open the corresponding card in the corresponding account. You can also unlink one of the cards. For that matter, you can manually link a card, too; Tap Edit, tap Link Contact, and then choose a contact to link to this unified card — even if the name isn’t a perfect match.
In general, the iPhone tries to do the right thing. For example, if you edit the information on the Unified card, you’re actually changing that information only on the card in the corresponding account. (Unless you add information to the Unified Info card. In that case, the new data tidbit is added to all of the underlying source-account cards.)
* FaceTime tricks. FaceTime is the feature that lets the iPhone 4 make free, high-quality video calls to other iPhone 4 owners, providing both of you are in a Wi-Fi hot spot with a good signal. Now Grandma can see the baby, or you can help someone shop from afar, or you can supervise brain surgery even from thousands of miles away. (If you’re a brain surgeon, of course.)
Once the chat has begun, here’s some of the fun you can have:
First, you can rotate the screen. FaceTime works in either portrait (upright) or landscape (wide-screen) view; just turn your phone 90 degrees. (Of course, if your calling partner doesn’t also turn her phone, she’ll see your picture all squished and tiny, with big black areas filling the rest of the screen.)
Second, you can show what’s in front of you. Sometimes, YOU are not the important thing; sometimes, you’ll want to show your friend what you’re looking at. That is, you’ll want to turn on the camera on the back of the iPhone, the one pointing away from you, to show off the baby, the artwork or the broken engine part.
That’s easy enough; just tap the camera-rotation icon on your screen. The iPhone switches from the front camera to the back camera. Now you and your callee can both see what you’re seeing. (It’s a lot less awkward than using a laptop for this purpose, because the laptop’s camera always faces away from you–so you can’t see what you’re showing.)
Third, you can mute the audio by tapping the little microphone icon. Great when you need to yell at the kids.
You can also “mute” the video — just switch into any other program (press the Home button, for example). Now the other guy’s screen goes black. He can’t see what you’re doing when you leave the FaceTime screen. He can still hear you, though.
This feature was created to let you check your calendar, look something up on the Web or whatever, while you’re still video-chatting. But it’s also a great trick when you need to adjust your clothing, pick your nose or otherwise shield your activity from whomever’s on the other end.
In the meantime, the call is, technically, still in progress — and a green banner at the top of the Home screen reminds you of that. Tap there, on the green bar, to return to the video call.
* Spoken books. The free iBooks app, which is Apple’s answer to the Amazon Kindle, can actually read your books and PDF documents out loud to you.
To make this work, turn on VoiceOver, the text-to-speech feature that makes the iPhone usable by blind people. That is, open Settings -> General -> Accessibility and turn on VoiceOver. (There you can read about some of the other changes in your lifestyle that are required when VoiceOver is turned on; for example, you double-tap things instead of single-tapping them, because single-tapping makes the phone speak the name of whatever you’re tapping.)
Then open a book. Tap the first line (to get the highlighting off the buttons at top).
Now swipe down the page with two fingers to make the iPhone start reading the book to you, out loud, with a synthesized voice. It even turns the pages automatically and keeps going until you tap with two fingers to stop it.
Yes, this is exactly the feature that made its debut in the Amazon Kindle and was then removed when publishers screamed bloody murder. But somehow, so far, Apple has gotten away with it, maybe because nobody’s even realized this feature is in there.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011 0
Here are a few tapping tricks to be a little more productive with your iPhone
- Tap the Status bar at the top of the screen (where the clock usually is) to return instantly to the top of long pages.
- Hold a finger on a link in Safari to get a pop-up saying where the link goes.
- To scroll left or right, tap the bottom left or right corner.
- Tap with two fingers to zoom out in maps.
- Drag inside text boxes with two fingers to scroll without scrolling the whole page.
- Double-click the Power/Lock button to send incoming calls to your voice mail.
- Double-click the Home button in any app to bring the iPod controls.
Stay tuned for more hacks, tips, jailbreak, how to guides
While you might find some of these iPhone tips and tricks elementary, I'm sure there's atleast something on this list that you didn't know of. And if you did, congrats iPhoner -
1. Double tap space bar for a period -When typing on your iPhone, double tapping the space bar at the end of a sentence automatically enters a period followed by a space. No need to press "123" to get to the numbers and symbols page where the period typically resides. I use this trick daily and it heavily increases my typing speed (especially when texting).
2. Tap the bottom corner to navigate home screensWhen on your home screen, try tapping the bottom right/left corner to switch between pages instead of swiping your finger accross the screen.
3. Take out your SIM card during backup and sync -We've all experienced it. You're backing up and syncing your iPhone, and the hour long back up is nearly complete. Then all of a sudden you get a phone call, and the whole back up/sync is null and void.To avoid this happening, simply start the backup/sync, then pull out your SIM card. Do not worry, this does not damage your phone at all. Put it back in once everything is complete. This way, your backup won't get interrupted.This tip is also useful if you need to make a phone call while your iPhone is backing up/syncing. Since unlocking your phone cancels the process, just take out your SIM card, pop it in your old cell phone, and call away.
4. Move "dock" iconsYou'd be surprised how often this tip is overlooked. The 4 icons located on the grey bar at the bottom of your iPhone - Phone, Mail, iPod, Safari - are movable, just like the rest of the icons. Just press and hold the icons, then drag them while they are shaking. Press the home button when you're done. You can put any 4 icons on your dock.In the screenshots, note the difference between pic 1 and 2.
5. Automatically capitalize and add apostrophesThe iPhone automatically capitalizes certain words ("I" when you type "i"). It also automatically adds apostrophes ("I'm" when you type "Im").
6. Double tap a column on Safari to fit-to-pageWhen browsing the Internet on your iPhone's Safari browser, double tap any column, word, or picture to fit it's width to your iPhone's screen. This is extremely useful for reading blogs.The first screenshot is the that when it firsts load. The second screenshot is the page once the main text was double tapped.
7. Manually select the icon image for a bookmarked webpageThis one's a little more confusing. When you are browsing a website on your iPhone's Safari browser and want to add its icon to your home screen, press the plus sign and select "Add to Home Screen".The image in the icon, however, is a screenshot of the page you were on. So if you want the icon to look a specific way, zoom in on a particular item on the page. Whether you want the website's logo, or some picture on the page, simply zoom in on that part of the page before you press "Add to Home Screen".Note: This doesn't work with all websites. Popular sites like Google have special icons for the iPhone's home screen.
8. Your iPhone's headphones have a multi-function button!You'd be surprised how many people don't know that the iPhone's native headphones have a button on the microphone.Just squeeze the microphone together, and the button gets pressed.The buttons functions:In call...
- Press once to answer a call
- Press twice to send the call to voicemail
- Press once to hang up a call
In call while second call coming in... [thank you silver0fox]
- click once to hold current call and switch to new call
- hold for 2 secs and release to ignore new call
Out of call...
- Press once to activate iPod and play song
- Press once to pause song
- Press twice to skip to next song
Be sure to share your new found knowledge (or atleast inform people that their iPhone's headphones have a button).
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