Helpful Tips and Shortcuts
After spending a lot of quality time with our iPhones, it's only natural that we have discovered more than a few helpful hints, tips, and shortcuts.
Slide for Accuracy and Punctuation
Our first tip can help you type faster in two ways: by helping you type more accurately and by enabling you to type punctuation and numerals faster than ever before.
Now we want to introduce you to a new gesture we like to call the slide. To do the slide, you start by performing the first half of a tap. That is, you touch your finger to the keyboard screen but don't lift it up. Now, without lifting your finger, slide it onto the key you want to type. You'll know you're on the right key because it pop ups and enlarges.
First, try the slide during normal typing. Stab at a key. If you miss, rather than lifting your finger, backspacing, and trying again, do the slide onto the proper key. After you get the hang of the slide, you'll see that it saves a lot of time and improves your accuracy as well.
Now here's the best part: You can use the slide to save time with punctuation and numerals, too. The next time you need to type a punctuation mark or number, try this technique:
- Start a slide action with your finger on the 123 key.
The 123 key is to the left of the Space key when the alphabetical keyboard is active. This is a slide, not a tap, so don't lift your finger just yet. - When the punctuation and numeric keyboard appears on-screen, slide your finger onto the punctuation mark or number you want to type.
- Lift your finger.
The cool thing is that the punctuation and numeric keyboard disappears and the alphabetical keyboard reappears - all without tapping the 123 key to display the punctuation and numeric keyboard and without tapping the ABC key (the key to the left of the Space key when the punctuation and numeric keyboard is active).
Practice the slide for typing letters, punctuation, and numerals, and we guarantee that in a few days you'll be typing faster and more accurately.
Autocorrect Is Your Friend
In this section, we describe two related tips about autocorrection that can also help you type faster and more accurately.
Auto apostrophes are good for you
First, before moving on from the subject of punctuation, you should know that you can type don't to get to don't, and cant to get to can't. We told you to put some faith in the iPhone's autocorrection software. And that applies to contractions. In other words, save time by letting the iPhone's intelligent keyboard insert the apostrophes on your behalf for these and other common words.
Note:
We are aware of a few exceptions. The iPhone cannot distinguish between it's, the contraction of it is, and its, the possessive adjective and possessive pronoun. It has the same issue with other contractions such as won't (wont) and can't (cant).
Make rejection work for you
If the autocorrect suggestion isn't the word you want, reject it instead of ignoring it. Finish typing the word and then tap the x to reject the suggestion before you type another word. Doing so makes your iPhone more likely to accept your word the next time you type it (or less likely to make the same incorrect suggestion the next time you type the word).
Here you thought you were buying a tech book, and you get grammar and typing lessons thrown in at no extra charge. Just think of us as full-service authors.
Hidden iTunes Scrub Speed Tip
Here's the situation: You're listening to a podcast or audiobook and trying to find the beginning of a specific segment by moving the scrubber left and right. The only problem is that the scrubber isn't very precise and your fat finger keeps moving it too far one way or the other. Never fear - your iPhone has a wonderful (albeit somewhat hidden) fix. Just press your finger on the scrubber (that little round dot on the scrubber bar), but instead of sliding your finger to the left or right, slide it downward toward the bottom of the screen. As you slide, the scrubbing speed changes like magic and the amount of change is displayed above the scrubber bar. The default (normal) speed is called high-speed scrubbing; when you slide your finger downward, the speed changes to half-speed scrubbing, then to quarterspeed scrubbing, and finally to fine scrubbing. This scrub trick is easier to do than to explain, so give it a try.
While you're sliding, keep an eye on the elapsed time and remaining time indicators because they provide useful feedback on the current scrubbing speed.
Links and Phone Numbers
The iPhone does something special when it encounters a phone number or URL in e-mail and SMS text messages. The iPhone interprets as a phone number any sequence of numbers that looks like a phone number: 1-123-555-4567, 555-4567, 1.123.555.4567, and so on. The same goes for sequences of characters that look like a Web address (URL), such as http://www.WebSiteName.com or www.WebSiteName.com. When the iPhone sees what it assumes to be a URL, it appears as a blue link on your screen.
If you tap a phone number or URL sequence like the ones just shown, the iPhone does the right thing. It launches the Phone app and dials the number for a phone number, or it launches Safari and takes you to the appropriate Web page for a URL. That's useful but somewhat expected. What's more useful and not so expected is the way Safari handles phone numbers and URLs.
Let's start with phone numbers. When you encounter a phone number on a Web page, give it a tap. A little dialog box appears on the screen displaying that phone number and offering you a choice of two buttons: Call or Cancel. Tap Call to switch to the Phone app and dial the number; tap Cancel to return to the Web page.
Here's another cool Safari trick, this time with links. If you press and hold on a link rather than tapping it, a little floating text bubble appears and shows you the underlying URL.
Tip:
You also see the underlying URL if you press and hold on a URL in Mail or Messages. Having this information in Mail or Messages is even more useful because it enables you to spot bogus links without switching to Safari or actually visiting the URL.
Finally, here's one last Safari trick. If you press and hold on most graphic images, a Save Image button appears. Tap it and the picture is saved to the camera roll in the Photos app.
Share
Ever stumble on a Web page you just have to share with a buddy? The iPhone makes it dead simple. From the site in question, tap the + button at the bottom of the browser. Then tap the Mail Link to This Page button that appears on-screen. A mail message appears with the Subject line prepopulated with the name of the Web site you're visiting, and the body of the message prepopulated with the URL. Just type something in the message body (or don't), supply your pal's e-mail address, and then tap the Send button.
Choosing a Home Page for Safari
You may have noticed that there's no home page Web site on the iPhone version of Safari, as there is in the Mac and PC versions of the browser (and for that matter, every other Web browser we know of). Instead, when you tap the Safari icon, you return to the last site you visited.
The trick is to create an icon for the page you want to use as your home page. This technique is called creating a Web clip of a Web page. Here's how to do it:
- Open the Web page you want to use as your home page and tap the + button.
- Tap the Add to Home Screen button. An icon that will open this page appears on your Home screen (or one of your Home screens if you have more than one).
- Tap this new Web clip icon instead of the Safari icon, and Safari opens to your home page instead of to the last page you visited.
Tip:
You can even rearrange the icons so that your home page icon, instead of the Safari icon, appears in the dock (the bottom row that appears on every Home screen).
Remember:
Don't forget that you can create folders by dragging one icon onto another. This trick works for Web clip icons as well as for app icons, and you're free to mix and match clips and apps in the same folder!