How to Use Your iPhone is a regular series on organizedCHAOSonline. New technology, for some of us, doesn’t come easy. If you’re one of those people, these iPhone shortcuts, tips, and tricks will help take the mystery out of your phone, and hopefully make using it an enjoyable experience. If you have any questions in particular, just leave them in the comment section below and we’ll get you an answer…pronto!
The iOS7 Update. Do you Hate it?
Change is good, so they say. Whoever “they” may be. I was just getting comfortable, and probably a bit cocky using my phone, so held off on the update. I hadn’t talked to one single person who was happy with the new look after they had updated. I think the comment that bothered me most was that it reset icons to look like “a child’s artwork”. That bothered me, because I’m a sucker for clever icons and cool colors, basically the more asthetically pleasing, the more on board I am to learn. But blue and white text messages and blah stick figure type apps? I bit the bullet and updated, and have to admit, I wasn’t a fan…at first. The tricks I had learned didn’t work anymore and everything turned back into a chore.
I rebelled by ignoring my phone for a few days while I pouted (which, amazingly, freed up a lot more of my time – weird), I got busy trying to figure this sucker out. A week later, I’m back in the saddle and kind of liking this little update. Sure, it has some flaws, but for the most part, it works. Below are a few of the improvements, and new ways to do with the new what we were already doing with the old.
The Functions: New Ways To Do Old Things…
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Before Update: When your screen is locked and you receive notifications of messages, the sender’s first and last name appeared in the notification.
After Update: The update default displays only the first name of the person sending the message. Well that’s just swell if you only have one “John” or “Mary” in your contact list. But if you have several people with the same first name, it’s confusing.
To change this back to the way it used to be, go to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Scroll down to Contacts and choose Short Name. Tap it to turn it off. Or, if you prefer one of the other choices listed, just click that instead.
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When you check your email, then play a quick game, and stop to read a text, unless you close those apps, they stay open and running in the background. This can drain your battery quickly. To close open apps…
Before Update: To close apps, you could double click on the Home key, and your open app icons would be displayed.in a tidy little row. You’d hold your finger on one until they started to wiggle, then press the “x” on each one to close it out.
After Update: To close open apps, double click on the Home key. Instead of icons, you’ll see screen shots of the apps with their icon below. To close them, hold your finger on the screenshot and swipe up. Same theory, different process. Just work your way through them until they’re all closed.
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Before Update: When you received a text message, the time the text was sent to you appeared with each text.
After Update: Apparently the powers that be didn’t consider this important, so it’s been hidden, but…you can still find it. Hold your finger on any text message text bubble and drag to the left. The time sent will be displayed to the right of each message, but it goes away again as soon as you take your finger off the message. (I’m still not sure I’m a fan of this one).
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New Features: New Ways to do New Things…
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After Update: Did you screw up and give your phone number to someone you shouldn’t have? You can now block all their attempts to contact you. This will block their phone calls, text messages, and Face Time attempts.
Here’s how:
- Add their number to your Contacts (finding their number shouldn’t be a problem – it will be listed 95 times in your Recent Calls list. Go to Phone>Recents. Click on the circle with an “i” to get their number).
- After you’ve entered their number in Contacts, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap on Block This Caller.
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After Update: Are you taking a picture of someone in motion? The update includes a redesign of the camera app that allows you to take multiple shots in quick succession.
Here’s how: Instead of pressing the home key to take your shot, press and hold the Volume Up button. Try it. Cool, huh?
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After Update: The update added quite a few new sounds to the sound library to choose from to set your new message notifications. Of course, I had to go and listen to all of them, and ended up reassigning all the sound alerts for new email, new text message, new voicemail, and my default ringtone. It’s fun, but I do this so often, I can’t ever remember what sound I’ve assigned to which alert.
Here’s how: Go to Settings>Sounds>Sound & Vibration Patterns. Go down each alert on the list and assign a sound to it. If one becomes annoying, you can go back and change these whenever you want.
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After Update: Are you multi-tasking and don’t have time to catch up reading your emails? Siri’s just sittin’ there doing nothing. Get her to read them to you.
Here’s how:Hold down on the Home button to wake up Siri. Tell her “Read my emails“. She’ll tell you how many you have, then read you the name of the sender, time and date sent and the subject of each. When I tried this, I had 25 emails. She read me three and asked if I wanted her to read them all. I said “no”. I thought this was a great feature, but I wanted to have the content of the emails read to me, so I asked her. Geez Louise she’s an accomodating woman! I told her “Read me the content of the email received at 11:15am.” She frickin did it! Unfortunately, she also dutifully read the entire company’s disclaimer and copyright statement that was included at the end of the email, but hey, she’s just doing her job.
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That’s it for now. Hopefully you’ll find something here that will solve a problem for you. Again, if you have a specific question, let us know in the comment section. Watch for the next update in “How To Use Your iPhone”.
This series is for those of you who have an iPhone and don’t have a clue how to do anything but answer it. It’s also for the seasoned iPhone user who may discover one simple little tip here that somehow slipped by you. It happens. I continue to learn really basic tricks that I didn’t know about, and a lot of times, I learn them from people who are new to their iPhones. So you just never know. What’s that saying? “Throw it against the wall and see what sticks”?
As always with everything we post, if you have suggestions or comments or tips of your own, please share them! We read and respond to all comments on our blogs, and we love hearing from you. Feel free to comment below, and also feel free to use the social media sharing buttons to share this post if you feel it could be helpful to others. As they say “Sharing is Caring”. How ’bout we all share what we know, wanna?
All the posts in our “How To Use Your iPhone” series will include the below general iPhone diagram. As you read our tips and instructions, you’ll have a quick reference when instructed to “click blank button” or “look at your blank bar”.
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Ready? Lets learn how to do some stuff…
#1. Double tap the space bar to insert a period.
I’m a punctuation and grammar nazi. To insert a period in a text, you need to tap the “123” button to bring up the punctuation characters, find what you want, then click back out to your regular keyboard. Seriously? This is one of the shortcuts that made me want to kiss my phone. When typing, double click on your spacebar to get a period. It also inserts the space after, so that you can just keep on a typin’.
#2.Hold down a letter to get different versions of it.
If you want to type a word like “fiance” with the little tic above the “e”, hold down the letter to get different versions of it . Then slide your finger to the one you want and it will be entered.
#3. Easily type in ALL CAPS.
Do you want to type something in all caps? Double click the arrow and it will lock your caps. Tap it when you’re done to unlock it.
#4. Take a picture of what’s on your phone’s screen.
Want to take a screenshot of your phone? Press the home button and the lock button at the same time. The screenshot image is then saved, just like other pictures you take, to your photo stream. I use this feature a lot to send screenshots to someone I’m texting. (See Tip #5)
#5. Send a screenshot in a text message.
Tons of uses for this feature. Example: My hubs, (who doesn’t have a smartphone), texts me before scheduling his next outdoor job asking me what the weather looks like the rest of the week. I’m slammed with work and don’t have the time to call him, so I pull up my weather app, take a screenshot of the week’s forecast, and attach the screenshot to my return text to him. Done and done. It saves a lot of back and forth texting, and keeps me from being distracted by phonecalls when I’m working.
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Step 1
With your right finger on the on/off button, and your left thumb on the home button, push them at the same time. When you release, you’ll see a white screen and hear a camera sound. You’ve taken a picture of your screen and it’s saved in your photo stream.
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Step 2
1. Go to Text Messages.
2. Write your message, like normal, but don’t send it yet.
3. To attach your screenshot, tap the photo icon.
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Step 3
1. You’ll be asked to choose a photo, or take one.
2. Choose Existing.
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Step 4
1. Locate the screenshot you just took and tap it.
2. Your screenshot is now attached to your text message. Tap send.
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#6. Accept or Reject Autocorrect
Pay attention to this option! Have you seen all those autocorrect mishaps that are flying around the internet? Hilarious sometimes, but not paying attention to what your phone inserts for you could also come back and bite you in the ass!
As you type, your autocorrect will suggest words that it thinks you’re trying to type. Sometimes the autocorrect suggestions aren’t even close to the word you had in mind. (Click here for examples of some adult autocorrect errors done wrong). Don’t get in a hurry and allow your iphone to think for you. Your recipient may end up receiving a wonky message from you that resulted from one incorrectly inserted word that changed the meaning of your entire message!
When autocorrect pops up with a suggested word, you have two options:
- Glance at it and mentally kiss your phone for anticipating the word you wanted to type with its correct spelling. By you ignoring the autocorrect suggestion, it assumes you approved, and it will automatically be inserted.
- Glance at it, and say outloud, “Holy shit, are you KIDDING me?”. If the word isn’t at all what you were trying to type, click the “x” in the suggested word’s right corner to reject it, thank GOD you were paying attention, and continue on typing the word you want.
We’ll be back with more iPhone tips next week. Be watching!
I’ve had an iPhone on and off for quite awhile. I have now become “that” person who goes into almost a full blown panic attack if I’ve misplaced my phone. I’ve added enough apps, photos and contact information that it’s become my second brain (the one that isn’t fried). Even though it’s something that I use and rely on every single day, I am totally aware that I’m not using my phone to it’s full potential. There are features I’m not quite sure how to use and what exactly they’re used for. You too? I’m not talking all geeky, tricked-out techie stuff, but just useful and efficient features and tips that we’d like to know how to do.
Photo credit: organized CHAOS online
On a quest to learn how to use my iPhone to it’s full potential, I thought I could bring you all along with me, so we’ll be making “How To Use Your iPhone” an ongoing series. We all have knowledge to share that can benefit others. I’ve learned how to do shortcuts on my iphone from people who have only had theirs for a short time. So let’s all share what we know, wanna? For those of you who are seasoned iPhone users, you never know…you may run across something you didn’t know how to do. If not, please feel free to comment with any tricks you haven’t seen us post. There are days that I have a love/hate relationship with my phone. I can’t figure out how to do something that I KNOW it can do. if you have a “how to…” question, just post it in the comments. We respond to all comments on our blog, and if your question is one several of our readers also have, it may be the next topic in our “How To Use Your iPhone” series.
With all that said, I’m excited to share these cool things I just learned. I tried them all, (except the wet phone one) and they’re easy peasy. Before we get started with this series, you may see terms that you aren’t familiar with – I had to Google some of them myself, so I thought it might be helpful to show you where everything is and what it’s called on your iPhone. The features may be placed differently, depending on the iPhone model you have, but for the most part, the below image will give you an idea of what’s what and what’s where on your iPhone.
Photo Credit: Apple
#1. See a Six-Day Weather Forecast
Put your finger on the Status Bar (see location above), and lightly swipe down. What you now see on your screen are called notifications. You should see your local weather displayed. To see your six day weather forecast, lightly swipe your finger to the left or the right within the weather strip. Cool, huh? (To open the weather application, just tap anywhere on the weather bar. Once there, you can tap on a day and it will give you the hourly forecast.)
Photo Credit: organized CHAOS online
Note: If you just want to quickly look at your notifications, swipe down (It’s like a little window shade you’re pulling down). To close notifications, see the little handle at the bottom? Put your finger there and lightly swipe up.
#2 Dry Out a Wet Phone
Ooops. Did you drop your phone in the toilet? After you’ve fished it out, don’t turn it on to see if it still works, it could short circuit your phone and wreck it. Just calmly dry your phone lightly with a towel. Don’t try to do it quickly with a hairdryer – it could push moisture into areas that aren’t already wet. Now pour some uncooked rice into a Ziploc bag, submerge your phone, and leave it overnight.
Photo Credit: Origin Unknown
#3. Use Your Phone Like a Camera
Your iPhone takes some pretty awesome pictures, but because the shutter button sometimes is awkward to get to, your finger may shake as you press it, giving you a blurry picture. Now you can hold your iPhone just like a camera. Turn it horizontally and press the volume button now on your top right (which also doubles as a shutter button), to take your picture. I tried this and it feels so much more natural.
Photo Credit: Udemy
Note: If you’ve got a hardcover on your phone though, you have to use the tip of your finger or your fingernail to push the button.
#4. Extend Your Battery by Closing Apps
When you use an application, it stays open, even if you’re done using it. Open apps can drain your battery faster. To close them, press twice on your Home button (see location above). All the applications you’ve used recently will show along the bottom. Press and hold one of the icons. They will all show a red minus sign and start to jiggle. Touch the red minus sign on the ones you want to close.
Photo Credit: organized CHAOS online
Note: I loved discovering this one! To save my battery, I now do this each time I’ve used an app that I won’t be using again soon.
#5. Turn Your Favorite Website Into a Desktop Icon
If you visit a website often, instead of typing it into your iPhone browser each time, save it to your screen as a desktop icon. Here’s how:
- 1st Image: Open Safari and type in the website you want to save: i.e, www.organizedchaosonline.com
- 2nd Image: Tap the Go To icon (the one on the bottom with the half square and the arrow). Then select Add to Homescreen
- 3rd Image: The shortcut to the website will now appear as an icon on your Homescreen
Photo Credit: organized CHAOS online
How handy is THIS??
Watch for the next in our “How To Use Your iPhone” series. To read our Tip of The Day while you’re drinking your morning coffee, “Like” us on Facebook!
