The iPhone lists your contacts alphabetically, but did you know you can change whether it sorts by first or last name? To change the way the iPhone sorts your contacts, just follow these steps:
1. Tap Settings:
2. Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars:
If you’re looking for a little more precision in just how much juice is left in your iPhone battery, the iPhone has a way to display battery life as a percentage next to the battery icon. To turn on this feature, follow these instructions. Note that this works for the iPhone 3GS only.
1. Tap Settings:
2. Tap General:
3. Tap Usage:
4. Slide the Battery Percentage tab to On:
Be sure to check out more of our iPhone Basics and iPhone Tips.
If you’re looking for a free instruction manual that covers all the basics of operating the iPhone, check out Apple’s iPhone User’s Guide. It’s free, and at 130 pages long, it thoroughly covers all basics of operating your iPhone. It’s available as a PDF that you can download from Apple’s site.
The guide may be too large to print out and carry with you, but you can also access the entire guide in your iPhone’s browser. Apple has created a special web version (a webapp) with an iPhone-friendly interface. Check it out here: iPhone User Guide webapp, on your iPhone.
The webapp has a handy search feature to help you quickly find the topic you’re looking for. Or, you can just browse the regular menu to discover new things your iPhone does.
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The iPhone offers a a group of settings called Restrictions that control the type of content and apps that can be accessed on the iPhone. Restrictions can also limit access to some of the iPhone’s default apps and also make sure the iPhone isn’t used to purchase apps or music. The iPhone protects theese restrictions with a passcode so that they can’t be changed when the device is given to another person.
To set the iPhone’s restrictions, just follow these steps:
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Setting up your primary email account on the iPhone will make your life that much easier rather than trying to check it on the Web. Trust us. Not only will you not have to launch Safari to check your email, but automatic notifications will keep you up-to-date at all times. Setting up an email account on the iPhone is incredibly easy. Just follow these steps:
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The iPhone’s bright and detailed screen is perfect for watching movies and TV shows while on the go. Videos purchased in iTunes are relatively easy to transfer to the iPhone. Videos from other, non-iTunes sources are a different matter (see the Notes section at the end of this post). The following are instructions on how to transfer movies and TV shows purchased from iTunes onto the iPhone.
1. Connect your iPhone to the computer.
2. In iTunes, click on your iPhone in the left sidebar.
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Occasionally, a misspelled word can get added to the iPhone’s dictionary. This can happen when you tap the “X” that appears next to the iPhone’s autocorrection. No worries though–you can reset the dictionary in the iPhone’s settings and remove the misspelled words. Here’s how.
1. Open Settings:
2. Tap General:
It is possible to send multiple photos in an email on the iPhone, but you need to start in the iPhone’s Photo app, not the Mail app like you’d assume. Below are step-by-step instructions for attaching multiple photos to an email.
1. Launch the Photo App:
2. Tap the album where the photos are located:
3. You’ll see a bunch of thumbnails of the pictures in the album. Tap the Share button in the bottom left corner:
4. Tap the pictures you want to share in the email (you can tap more than one). A red check mark will appear on each photo to indicate you’ve selected it:
5. Tape Share in the bottom left.
6. Tap Email:
7. A new email will pop up with your photos inserted into the email:
Choose your recipients, write a subject and message, and hit Send.
In Step 5, you’ll also notice a button that says Copy. Selecting Copy will also let you share multiple photos in an email–it just takes a few more steps than using the Share button (with Copy, you’ll have to open the Mail app yourself and then paste the photos).
Using the Copy button does have one big advantage: it allows you to send full-resolution pictures. You may not know that the iPhone automatically shrinks your pictures taken with the iPhone’s camera from 2048 x 1536 to 800 x 600 in size when you send them in an email via Share. Use Copy and Paste to get the full resolution.
The main downside to using Copy to share photos is that the email will take much longer to send over 3G/EDGE because of the larger file sizes.
Be sure to check out more of our posts on iPhone Basics.
The iPhone’s keyboard has a few extra characters that only become visible if you press and hold down keys. Two frequently used characters you might find useful to know about are the em dash (–) and the ellipsis (…).
To make an em dash—often used to interrupt a sentence for parenthetical remarks like this one—hold down the hyphen key until you see an em dash appear next to the hyphen. Slide your finger over to highlight the em dash and release your finger.
To make an ellipsis, hold down the period key until the ellipsis appears next to the period. Slide your finger to highlight and release.
Be sure to check out more of our posts on iPhone Basics.
Apple describes these commands as used to “make a correction.” However, I’ve only found them to be able to cancel Voice Control after a secondary prompt, such as when it asks, “Home or Mobile?”
Cancels (closes) Voice Control.
To activate Voice Control, you can either hold down the iPhone home button or hold down the button on the iPhone headphones. For the best results, speak clearly with a slight pause between each command and use full names for contacts.
The default language for Voice Control is the same as in the iPhone general settings (General –> International –> Language Setting). If you would like to command Voice Control in a different language and impress your friends, you can change it in Settings –> General –> International –> Voice Control.
Voice Control works even when the iPhone is passcode locked. To change this, go to Settings and navigate to General –> Passcode Lock and turn Voice Dial off.
You can say “eight hundred” for phone numbers that contain “800.” This only works with the number 800, a common toll-free number. For all other phone numbers, you’ll have to speak each digit, as in “seven zero zero” for 700.
Be sure to check out more of our posts on iPhone Basics.