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—KEVIN KELLY, COFOUNDER OF WIRED

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David Pogue

iPhone

The Missing Manual

Tenth Edition

iPhone: The Missing Manual, Tenth Edition BY DAVID POGUE
Copyright © 2017 David Pogue. All rights reserved.
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Copy Editor: Julie Van Keuren
Indexers: David Pogue, Julie Van Keuren
Cover Designers: Monica Kamsvaag and Phil Simpson
Interior Designer: Phil Simpson (based on a design by Ron Bilodeau)

Print History:
January 2017.

First Printing.

The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. iPhone: The Missing
Manual and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their
products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book,
and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have
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Adobe Systems, Inc., in the United States and other countries. O’Reilly Media, Inc., is
independent of Adobe Systems, Inc.
Photos of the iPhone courtesy of Apple, Inc.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher
and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting
from the use of the information contained herein.

ISBN: 978-1-49-197924-2
[TI]

[1/17]

Contents
The Missing Credits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About the iPhone..................................................................................................................... 1
About This Book......................................................................................................................3
iPhone 7 and 7 Plus: What’s New...................................................................................5
What’s New in iOS 10............................................................................................................ 7

Part One: The iPhone as Phone
Chapter 1: The Guided Tour. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Sleep Switch (On/Off)........................................................................................................15
Home Button........................................................................................................................... 18
Silencer Switch, Volume Keys....................................................................................... 22
Screen........................................................................................................................................ 22
Cameras and Flash.............................................................................................................. 25
Sensors...................................................................................................................................... 26
SIM Card Slot.......................................................................................................................... 26
Headphone Jack................................................................................................................... 28
Microphone, Speakerphone...........................................................................................30
The Lightning Connector.................................................................................................. 31
Antenna Band......................................................................................................................... 31
In the Box................................................................................................................................. 32
Seven Basic Finger Techniques.................................................................................... 32
Force Touch (iPhone 6s and 7).................................................................................... 35
Charging the iPhone........................................................................................................... 38
Battery Life Tips................................................................................................................... 39
The Home Screen................................................................................................................44
Control Center.......................................................................................................................46
Passcode (or Fingerprint) Protection.........................................................................51

Chapter 2: The Lock Screen & Notifications.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Four Swipes, You’re In........................................................................................................57
Notifications .......................................................................................................................... 59
The Today Screen (Widgets)......................................................................................... 65

Chapter 3: Typing, Editing & Searching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
The Keyboard...........................................................................................................................71
iPhone 6s and 7: The Secret Trackpad..................................................................... 87
Dictation................................................................................................................................... 88
Cut, Copy, Paste.................................................................................................................... 95

Contents

iii

The Definitions Dictionary............................................................................................... 97
Speak!.........................................................................................................................................98
Spotlight: Global Search...................................................................................................99

Chapter 4: Phone Calls & FaceTime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Dialing from the Phone App........................................................................................ 103
The Favorites List............................................................................................................... 104
The Recents List..................................................................................................................107
Contacts.................................................................................................................................. 109
The Keypad.............................................................................................................................119
Visual Voicemail.................................................................................................................. 120
Answering Calls...................................................................................................................124
Not Answering Calls..........................................................................................................126
Do Not Disturb.....................................................................................................................128
Fun with Phone Calls.........................................................................................................131
Call Waiting............................................................................................................................134
Call Forwarding....................................................................................................................135
Caller ID....................................................................................................................................136
Custom Ringtones..............................................................................................................136
FaceTime Video Calls........................................................................................................137
FaceTime Audio Calls........................................................................................................141
Bluetooth Accessories......................................................................................................142

Chapter 5: Siri Voice Command.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Voice Command................................................................................................................. 146
How to Use Siri.....................................................................................................................147
How to Use “Hey Siri”...................................................................................................... 148
What to Say to Siri............................................................................................................ 149
Advanced Siri........................................................................................................................170

Chapter 6: Texting & Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Text Messages and iMessages......................................................................................173
Receiving Texts....................................................................................................................177
Sending Messages............................................................................................................. 184
The “Drawer”........................................................................................................................ 190
Messages Prefs.....................................................................................................................197
Free Text Messages........................................................................................................... 201

Chapter 7: Large Type, Kid Mode & Accessibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
VoiceOver..............................................................................................................................204
Zooming................................................................................................................................. 208
Magnifier................................................................................................................................... 211
Color Filters............................................................................................................................213
Speech......................................................................................................................................214
How to De-Sparsify iOS 10’s Design.........................................................................215
Switch Control......................................................................................................................217
AssistiveTouch......................................................................................................................218
Touch Accommodations.................................................................................................221
3D Touch.................................................................................................................................222

Contents

Keyboard................................................................................................................................222
Shake to Undo.....................................................................................................................223
Vibration.................................................................................................................................223
Call Audio Routing............................................................................................................223
Home Button........................................................................................................................223
Reachability...........................................................................................................................224
Hearing Assistance............................................................................................................224
Media (Subtitle Options)................................................................................................226
Guided Access (Kiosk Mode)......................................................................................226
The Instant Screen-Dimming Trick...........................................................................228
Accessibility Shortcut......................................................................................................229

Part Two: Pix, Flix & Apps
Chapter 8: Music & Videos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Apple Music ........................................................................................................................ 234
The Library Tab...................................................................................................................235
Playback Control............................................................................................................... 236
Playlists...................................................................................................................................240
“For You” Tab...................................................................................................................... 244
Browse Tab............................................................................................................................245
iTunes Radio..........................................................................................................................245
Speakers and Headphones...........................................................................................247
Music Settings..................................................................................................................... 250
The iTunes Store..................................................................................................................251
The TV App.......................................................................................................................... 254

Chapter 9: The Camera. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
The Camera App.................................................................................................................261
Photo Mode...........................................................................................................................263
Live Photos (iPhone SE, 6s, and 7)..........................................................................276
Portrait Mode.......................................................................................................................278
Square Mode....................................................................................................................... 280
Pano Mode............................................................................................................................ 280
Video Mode...........................................................................................................................282
Slo-Mo Mode........................................................................................................................285
Time-Lapse Mode............................................................................................................. 286
Trimming a Video.............................................................................................................. 286
Editing Photos.....................................................................................................................287
Managing and Sharing Photos....................................................................................297
753 Ways to Use Photos and Videos.....................................................................308
My Photo Stream................................................................................................................316
iCloud Photo Sharing........................................................................................................318
iCloud Photo Library........................................................................................................323
Geotagging...........................................................................................................................324
Capturing the Screen...................................................................................................... 326

Contents

Chapter 10: All About Apps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Two Ways to the App Store.........................................................................................327
Organizing Your Apps.....................................................................................................333
Folders.....................................................................................................................................337
App Preferences................................................................................................................340
App Updates.......................................................................................................................340
How to Find Good Apps.................................................................................................341
The App Switcher............................................................................................................. 343
AirPrint: Printing from the Phone............................................................................. 346
The Share Sheet ............................................................................................................... 348
AirDrop................................................................................................................................... 348
iCloud Drive............................................................................................................................351

Chapter 11: The Built-In Apps.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Calculator...............................................................................................................................355
Calendar ................................................................................................................................357
Clock........................................................................................................................................ 366
Compass.................................................................................................................................373
Health.......................................................................................................................................375
Home........................................................................................................................................377
iBook.........................................................................................................................................378
Maps......................................................................................................................................... 388
News........................................................................................................................................402
Notes.......................................................................................................................................404
Podcasts...................................................................................................................................411
Reminders.............................................................................................................................. 414
Stocks......................................................................................................................................420
Tips........................................................................................................................................... 422
TV.............................................................................................................................................. 423
Voice Memos....................................................................................................................... 423
Wallet....................................................................................................................................... 426
Watch.......................................................................................................................................427
Weather...................................................................................................................................427
More Standard Apps....................................................................................................... 429

Part Three: The iPhone Online
Chapter 12: Getting Online. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Cellular Networks.............................................................................................................. 433
Wi‑Fi Hotspots................................................................................................................... 435
Airplane Mode and Wi‑Fi Off Mode........................................................................ 438
Personal Hotspot (Tethering)..................................................................................... 439
Twitter and Facebook.....................................................................................................443

Contents

Chapter 13: Safari. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
Safari Tour.............................................................................................................................445
Zooming and Scrolling................................................................................................... 447
Full-Screen Mode..............................................................................................................448
Typing a Web Address...................................................................................................449
Searching in Safari..............................................................................................................451
Bookmarks............................................................................................................................454
The History List...................................................................................................................457
Shared Links (�)............................................................................................................... 458
The Reading List................................................................................................................ 459
Link-Tapping Tricks............................................................................................................ 461
Saving Graphics................................................................................................................. 462
Saved Passwords and Credit Cards........................................................................ 462
Manipulating Multiple Pages....................................................................................... 465
Reader View......................................................................................................................... 467
Web Security .....................................................................................................................469
Five Happy Surprises in the P Panel.......................................................................471

Chapter 14: Email. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Setting Up Your Account...............................................................................................475
Downloading Mail..............................................................................................................478
VIPs and Flagged Messages....................................................................................... 483
What to Do with a Message........................................................................................ 487
Writing Messages.............................................................................................................. 498
Surviving Email Overload.............................................................................................504

Part Four: Connections
Chapter 15: Syncing with iTunes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Connecting the iPhone................................................................................................... 510
The Eight Great iTunes Tabs.........................................................................................513
Summary Tab........................................................................................................................514
Apps Tab..................................................................................................................................515
Music Tab.................................................................................................................................515
Movies and TV Shows Tabs...........................................................................................517
Podcasts Tab.........................................................................................................................518
Books Tab................................................................................................................................518
Tones Tab.................................................................................................................................518
Photos Tab..............................................................................................................................518
Info Tab.....................................................................................................................................521
On My Device........................................................................................................................521
One iPhone, Multiple Computers................................................................................521
One Computer, Multiple iPhones...............................................................................522
Backing Up the iPhone...................................................................................................522

Contents

vii

Chapter 16: iCloud.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
What iCloud Giveth...........................................................................................................525
iCloud Sync...........................................................................................................................527
My Photo Stream, Photo Sharing............................................................................. 530
Find My iPhone.................................................................................................................. 530
Email.........................................................................................................................................533
Video, Music, Apps: Locker in the Sky................................................................... 534
iCloud Drive...........................................................................................................................535
The Price of Free................................................................................................................535
Apple Pay.............................................................................................................................. 536
Family Sharing....................................................................................................................540

Chapter 17: Continuity: iPhone Meets Mac. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
Continuity Setup............................................................................................................... 545
Mac as Speakerphone.................................................................................................... 546
Texting from the Mac...................................................................................................... 548
Instant Hotspot.................................................................................................................. 550
Handoff.....................................................................................................................................551
AirDrop....................................................................................................................................553
Universal Clipboard.......................................................................................................... 554

Chapter 18: The Corporate iPhone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
The Perks................................................................................................................................557
Setup ...................................................................................................................................... 559
Exchange + Your Stuff ....................................................................................................561
A Word on Troubleshooting........................................................................................ 563
Virtual Private Networking (VPN)............................................................................ 564

Chapter 19: Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Three Important Settings Tricks............................................................................... 568
Airplane Mode.................................................................................................................... 569
Wi‑Fi......................................................................................................................................... 569
Bluetooth............................................................................................................................... 570
Carrier.......................................................................................................................................571
Cellular......................................................................................................................................571
Personal Hotspot...............................................................................................................573
Notifications..........................................................................................................................573
Control Center.....................................................................................................................574
Do Not Disturb....................................................................................................................574
General.....................................................................................................................................574
Display & Brightness........................................................................................................578
Wallpaper..............................................................................................................................580
Sounds (or Sounds & Haptics)...................................................................................582
Siri.............................................................................................................................................. 584
Touch ID & Passcode....................................................................................................... 584
Battery.................................................................................................................................... 584
Privacy.................................................................................................................................... 585
iCloud...................................................................................................................................... 588

viii

Contents

iTunes & App Store.......................................................................................................... 588
Wallet & Apple Pay.......................................................................................................... 589
Mail............................................................................................................................................ 589
Contacts................................................................................................................................. 593
Calendar................................................................................................................................. 594
Notes....................................................................................................................................... 595
Reminders............................................................................................................................. 596
Phone...................................................................................................................................... 596
Messages............................................................................................................................... 598
FaceTime............................................................................................................................... 599
Maps......................................................................................................................................... 599
Compass............................................................................................................................... 600
Safari....................................................................................................................................... 600
News........................................................................................................................................603
Music........................................................................................................................................604
TV..............................................................................................................................................605
Photos & Camera..............................................................................................................605
iBooks......................................................................................................................................606
Podcasts................................................................................................................................606
Game Center....................................................................................................................... 607
Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Vimeo............................................................................... 607
TV Provider..........................................................................................................................608
App Preferences................................................................................................................608

Part Five: Appendixes
Appendix A: Signup & Setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
Buying a New iPhone.........................................................................................................611
Setting Up a New Phone.................................................................................................613
Upgrading an iPhone to iOS 10...................................................................................617
Software Updates...............................................................................................................618
Restrictions and Parental Controls............................................................................618
Cases and Accessories.....................................................................................................621

Appendix B: Troubleshooting & Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
First Rule: Install the Updates..................................................................................... 623
Six Ways to Reset the Phone..................................................................................... 623
iPhone Doesn’t Turn On................................................................................................ 626
Battery Life Is Terrible......................................................................................................627
Out of Space........................................................................................................................627
Phone and Internet Problems.................................................................................... 629
Warranty and Repair.......................................................................................................630
The Battery Replacement Program..........................................................................631
What to Do About a Cracked Screen......................................................................631
Where to Go from Here..................................................................................................632

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633

Contents

The Missing Credits

David Pogue (author, illustrator) is the tech columnist
for Yahoo Finance (yahoofinance.com), the world’s
biggest business publication. He was groomed for that
job by 13 years of writing the weekly tech column for
The New York Times. He’s also a monthly columnist for
Scientific American, a four-time Emmy-winning correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning, the host of 20
NOVA specials on PBS, and the creator of the Missing
Manual series.
David has written or cowritten more than 100 books, including dozens
in the Missing Manual series, six in the For Dummies line (including Macs,
Magic, Opera, and Classical Music), two novels (one for middle-schoolers
called Abby Carnelia’s One and Only Magical Power), The World
According to Twitter, and three books of essential tips and shortcuts:
Pogue’s Basics: Tech, Pogue’s Basics: Life, and Pogue’s Basics: Money.
In his other life, David is a former Broadway show conductor, a magician,
and a funny public speaker. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Nicki,
and three awesome children.
Links to his columns and videos await at www.davidpogue.com. He welcomes feedback about his books by email at david@pogueman.com.
Julie Van Keuren (editor, indexer, layout) spent 14 years in print journalism before deciding to upend her life, move to Montana, and live the freelancing dream. She now works for a variety of clients who understand
that skilled editing, writing, book layout, and indexing don’t have to come
from inside a cubicle. She and her husband, sci-fi writer M.H. Van Keuren,
have two teenage sons. Email: little_media@yahoo.com.

The Missing Credits

Rich Koster (technical reviewer). The iPhone became Rich’s first cellphone the very first evening it was sold. He began corresponding with
David Pogue, sharing tips, tricks, and observations; eventually, David
asked him to be the beta reader for the first edition of iPhone: The
Missing Manual—and hired him as the tech editor of subsequent editions.
For this edition of the book, Rich is glad to say all the work involved was
accomplished on the iPhone 7 Plus. Rich is a husband, father, graphic
artist, writer, and Disney fan (@DisneyEcho on Twitter).
Phil Simpson (original design) runs his graphic design business from
Southbury, Connecticut. His work includes corporate branding, publication design, communications support, and advertising. He lives with his
wife and some great felines. Email: phil.simpson@pmsgraphics.com.

Acknowledgments
The Missing Manual series is a joint venture between the dream team
introduced on these pages and O’Reilly Media. I’m grateful to all of them,
especially to the core of the iPhone Missing Manual team introduced
here.
The work done on previous editions lives on in this one; for that, I’m
grateful to Jude Biersdorfer, Matt Gibstein, Teresa Brewer, Brian Jepson,
Apple’s Trudy Muller, Philip Michaels, O’Reilly’s Nan Barber, and my
incredible assistant Jan Carpenter, who keeps me from falling apart like
wet Kleenex. Thanks to David Rogelberg and Tim O’Reilly for believing
in the idea; to Kellee Katagi for proofreading; and above all, to Nicki, Kell,
Tia, and Jeffrey. They make these books—and everything else—possible.
—David Pogue

Also by David Pogue
• macOS Sierra: The Missing Manual
• Windows 10: The Missing Manual
• Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, El Capitan Edition
• David Pogue’s Digital Photography: The Missing Manual
• The World According to Twitter
• Pogue’s Basics: Tech
• Pogue’s Basics: Life
• Pogue’s Basics: Money

The Missing Credits

Introduction

ow do you make the point that the iPhone has changed the
world? The easy answer is “use statistics”—1 billion sold,
2 million apps available on the iPhone App Store, 140 billion
downloads…. Trouble is, those statistics get stale almost before you’ve
finished typing them.
Maybe it’s better to talk about the aftermath. How since the iPhone
came along, cell carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and so on) have opened
up the calcified, conservative way they used to consider new cellphone
designs. How every phone and its brother now have a touchscreen.
How Google (Android) phones, Windows phones, and even BlackBerry
phones all have their own app stores. How, in essence, everybody wants
to be the iPhone.
Apple introduces a new iPhone model every fall. In September 2016, for
example, it introduced the tenth iPhone models, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus,
with more features and faster guts.
More importantly, there’s a new, free version of the iPhone’s software,
called iOS 10. (Why not “iPhone OS” anymore? Because the same
operating system runs on the iPad and the iPod Touch. It’s not just for
iPhones, and saying “the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch OS” takes too long.)
You can run iOS 10 on older iPhone models without having to buy a new
phone. This book covers all the phones that can run iOS 10: the iPhone 5,
iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, iPhone
SE, and iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

About the iPhone
So what is the iPhone? Really, the better question is what isn’t the
iPhone?

Introduction

It’s a cellphone, obviously. But it’s also a full-blown iPod, complete with
a dazzling screen for watching videos. And it’s a sensational pocket
Internet viewer. It shows fully formatted email (with attachments, thank
you) and displays entire web pages with fonts and design intact. It’s
tricked out with a tilt sensor, a proximity sensor, a light sensor, Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, GPS, a gyroscope, a barometer, and that amazing multitouch
screen.

For many people, the iPhone is primarily a camera and a camcorder—one
that’s getting better with every year’s new model.
Furthermore, it’s a calendar, address book, calculator, alarm clock, stopwatch, stock tracker, traffic reporter, RSS reader, and weather forecaster.
It even stands in for a flashlight and, with the screen off, a pocket mirror.
TIP: If you want a really good pocket mirror, you can also use the
Camera app in self-portrait mode. It’s a brighter view (and you don’t
have to actually take a selfie).

And don’t forget the App Store. Thanks to the 2 million add-on programs
that await there, the iPhone is also a fast, wicked-fun pocket computer.
All those free or cheap programs can turn it into a medical reference, a
musical keyboard, a time tracker, a remote control, a sleep monitor, a tip
calculator, an ebook reader, and more. Plus, the App Store is a portal to
thousands of games, with smooth 3D graphics and tilt control.

Introduction

All of this sends the iPhone’s utility and power through the roof. Calling it
a phone is practically an insult. (Apple probably should have called it an
“iPod,” but that name was taken.)

About This Book
You don’t get a printed manual when you buy an iPhone. Online, you can
find an electronic PDF manual that covers the basics well, but it’s largely
free of details, hacks, workarounds, tutorials, humor, and any acknowledgment of the iPhone’s flaws. You can’t easily mark your place, underline, or read it in the bathroom.
The purpose of this book, then, is to serve as the manual that should
have accompanied the iPhone. (If you have an iPhone 4s or an earlier
model, you really need one of this book’s earlier editions. If you have an
iPhone 5 or later model, this book assumes that you’ve installed iOS 10.2;
see Appendix A.)
Writing a book about the iPhone is a study in exasperation, because the
darned thing is a moving target. Apple updates the iPhone’s software
fairly often, piping in new features, bug fixes, speed-ups, and so on.
Therefore, you should think of this book the way you think of the first
iPhone: as an excellent start. To keep in touch with updates we make to
it as developments unfold, drop in to the book’s Errata/Changes page.
(Go to www.missingmanuals.com, click this book’s name, and then click
View/Submit Errata.)
TIP: This book covers the iOS 10.2 software. There will surely be a 10.2.1, a
10.3, and so on. Check this book’s page at www.missingmanuals.com
to read about those updates when they occur.

About the Outline
iPhone: The Missing Manual is divided into five parts, each containing several chapters:
• Part 1, The iPhone as Phone, covers everything related to phone
calls: dialing, answering, voice control, voicemail, conference calling,
text messaging, iMessages, MMS, and the Contacts (address book)
program. It’s also where you can read about FaceTime, the iPhone’s
video-calling feature; Siri, the “virtual assistant”; and the surprisingly
rich array of features for people with disabilities—some of which are
useful even for people without them.
• Part 2, Pix, Flix & Apps, is dedicated to the iPhone’s built-in software,
with a special emphasis on its multimedia abilities: playing music,

Introduction

podcasts, movies, and TV shows; taking and displaying photos; capturing photos and videos; using the Maps app; reading ebooks; and so
on. These chapters also cover some of the standard techniques that
most apps share: installing, organizing, and quitting them; switching
among them; and sharing material from within them using the Share
sheet.
• Part 3, The iPhone Online, is a detailed exploration of the iPhone’s
third talent: its ability to get you onto the Internet, either over a Wi‑Fi
hotspot connection or via the cellular network. It’s all here: email, web
browsing, and tethering (that is, letting your phone serve as a sort of
Internet antenna for your laptop).
• Part 4, Connections, describes the world beyond the iPhone itself—
like the copy of iTunes on your Mac or PC that can fill up the iPhone
with music, videos, and photos; and syncing the calendar, address
book, and mail settings. These chapters also cover the iPhone’s control panel, the Settings program; Continuity (the wireless integration
of iPhone and Mac); and how the iPhone syncs wirelessly with corporate networks using Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync—or with your
own computers using Apple’s iCloud service.
• Part 5, Appendixes, contains two reference chapters. Appendix A
walks you through the setup process; Appendix B is a master compendium of troubleshooting, maintenance, and battery information.

AboutÆTheseÆArrows
Throughout this book, and throughout the Missing Manual series, you’ll
find sentences like this one: Tap SettingsÆGeneralÆKeyboard. That’s
shorthand for a much longer instruction that directs you to open three
nested screens in sequence, like this: “Tap the Settings icon. On the next
screen, tap General. On the screen after that, tap Keyboard.” (In this
book, tappable things on the screen are printed in orange to make them
stand out.)
Similarly, this kind of arrow shorthand helps to simplify the business of
choosing commands in menus on your Mac or PC, like FileÆPrint.

About MissingManuals.com
Missing Manuals are witty, well-written guides to computer products that
don’t come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each
book features a handcrafted index; cross-references to specific page
numbers (not just “see Chapter 14”); and an ironclad promise never to
put an apostrophe in the possessive pronoun its.
To get the most out of this book, visit www.missingmanuals.com. Click
the Missing CDs link, and then click this book’s title to reveal a neat, orga-

Introduction

nized list of the shareware, freeware, and bonus articles mentioned in this
book.
The website also offers corrections and updates to the book; to see
them, click the book’s title, and then click View/Submit Errata. In fact,
please submit corrections yourself! Each time we print more copies of
this book, we’ll make any confirmed corrections you’ve suggested. We’ll
also note such changes on the website, so you can mark important corrections into your own copy of the book, if you like. And we’ll keep the
book current as Apple releases more iPhone updates.

iPhone 7 and 7 Plus: What’s New
Apple’s usual routine is to introduce a new iPhone shape every other year
(iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone 6)—and then release a follow-up,
upgraded “s” model in alternate years (iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5s,
iPhone 6s). The 2016–2017 models fit right in. They’re follow-up models
that look exactly like the 6 and 6s but have a few enhancements:
• No headphone jack. Most people wouldn’t call the removal of the
headphone jack an enhancement; in fact, people shrieked and
moaned. Now, to listen to audio privately, you have to use either (a)
the adapter in the box (which accommodates existing headphones
and plugs them into the Lightning charging jack), (b) the earbuds in
the box (which also plug into the charging jack), or (c) wireless earbuds or headphones.
So why did Apple get rid of the headphone jack? Because of size.
The headphone jack may not seem very big—but on the inside of the
phone, the corresponding receptacle occupies an unnerving amount
of nonnegotiable space. Getting rid of it let Apple upgrade the speakers, battery, and camera, and helped make the iPhone 7 water- and
dust-resistant.
• Water resistance. Yes, that’s right: The iPhone is, at long last, water
resistant. It can handle up to 30 minutes under a meter of water.
Which means that rain and falls into the toilet can’t hurt it.
Apple’s late to this ball game, but it’s a really good ball game.
NOTE: In addition to the standard metal colors (matte black, silver,
gold, pink gold), there’s a new finish available called Jet Black.
It’s glistening, shiny, deep piano black. It’s gorgeous and sleek
and smooth and you want to rub it like it’s a worry stone. It’s also
incredibly fingerprinty. (Apple warns that “its high shine may
show fine micro-abrasions with use,” so it suggests that “you use
one of the many cases available to protect your iPhone.”)

Introduction

• Better battery. The iPhone 7 battery is 14 percent larger than the previous model’s—two hours more life per charge, says Apple—and you
notice it. (The improvement in the larger Plus model is more modest:
one extra hour per charge.)
• Better, stabilized camera. Apple makes a big deal of the iPhone 7’s
new camera. It’s got more megapixels (12, up from 8), and the front
camera has been goosed to 7 megapixels. Megapixels don’t really
mean very much, though; they have no effect on picture quality.
Apple also raves about the camera’s f/1.8 aperture (lets in a lot of
light).
The stabilized lens helps a lot—an internal assembly that acts as a
shock absorber to counteract the typical tiny hand jiggles that often
introduce blur into low-light photos.
All of this makes a huge difference in low-light videos. The color is
clearer, and the graininess much less pronounced. Low-light stills are
enhanced to a lesser degree.
The flash on the back is now made up of four LEDs instead of two,
resulting in flashes (and flashlights) that are 50 percent brighter than
before.
• Two lenses. On the iPhone 7 Plus, the camera enhancement is much
bigger: Apple has installed two lenses, one wide-angle, one telephoto.
With a tap on the screen, you can zoom in 2x. This is true optical
zoom (rather than the simulated digital zoom on most phones, which
impairs the photo quality). You can also dial up any amount of optical
zoom between 1x and 2x.
You can zoom before taking a still photo, or even while you’re shooting video.
NOTE: Once you’re at 2x zoom, the camera automatically switches to its
regular digital zoom. That means the 7 Plus iPhone now offers up
to 6x total zoom for video and 10x for photos. That’s twice what
the previous models could manage.

The dual lenses also make possible a great feature Apple calls Portrait
mode. It gives you the gorgeously soft-focused background that’s
common in professional photography.
• Better screen. Apple makes much of the iPhone 7’s new screen with
its “expanded color gamut,” meaning that it can display more colors
than previous screens, and its “25 percent brighter” display.

Introduction

• Stereo speakers. The iPhone now has stereo speakers! They’re at
the top and bottom of the phone, so you don’t get the stereo effect
unless the phone is sitting sideways. Even then, there’s very little left/
right channel separation.
But never mind that: The iPhone 7’s audio system overall is definitely
better than before. It may not be twice as loud, as Apple claims, but
you’d definitely say that the 7 sounds fuller and stronger than previous models.
• Faster processor. This year’s iPhone processor has four cores (brains),
two of which are dedicated to lower-importance tasks (and consume
less power—one of the reasons the phone gets better battery life).
• More storage. The pathetically small 16-gigabyte iPhone has finally
gone to the great junk drawer in the sky. Now the three iPhone storage capacities are 32, 128, and 256 gigabytes (for $650, $750, and
$850; installment and rental plans are available). For the larger 7 Plus
model, the prices are $770, $870, and $970.
• Immobile Home button. The Home button, central to so many iPhone
features—waking the phone, switching apps, commanding Siri, and so
on—is no longer a moving, mechanical part. Now, when you press it,
you feel a click, but it’s actually a fakeout, a sharp internal vibration.
The advantages of this setup: You can adjust how clicky the button is.
There’s no gap for water to get in. And this Home button is pressure-
sensitive—it knows when you’re pressing harder—which could someday permit some cool new features nobody’s even thought of yet.

What’s New in iOS 10
The design for iOS 10 doesn’t look much different from iOS 9 before it (or
iOS 8, or iOS 7); the improvements are focused on features and flexibility.
TIP: If the fonts are too thin for your taste, you can fatten them up just
enough by going to SettingsÆDisplay & Brightness and turning on
Bold Text. While you’re there, you can make text larger in most apps,
too; tap the Text Size control.

You’d have to write an entire book to document everything that’s new or
changed in iOS 10; it’s a huge upgrade. But here’s a quick rundown.

Big-Ticket Items
First, there’s been a colossal revamp of Messages, Apple’s text-
messaging app. Now you can dress up your messages with a wide range

Introduction

of hilarious new visual treats, animations, and effects, inspired by the
ones in, for example, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger.
Second, Apple has rethought that moment when you pick up the
phone—a hundred times a day. The iPhone now requires fewer steps to
unlock itself, check the latest alerts, or fire up the camera.
A new option in Settings called “Raise to Wake” (available in the 6S, 7,
and SE families) makes the screen turn on when you just pick up the
phone.

Nips and Tucks
• Mutlipage Control Center. For years now, you’ve been able to swipe
upward from the bottom of the screen—anytime, in any app—to see
the Control Center. It’s a single quick-access panel containing the
most important switches, like airplane mode, Wi-Fi on/off, Bluetooth
on/off, and the flashlight.
In iOS 10, the audio-playback controls sit on a second Control Center
screen, to the right of the first. (In the unlikely event that you have any
HomeKit home-automation gadgets at your house, a third Control
Center panel appears, so that you can control them.)
Also, you can hard-press or long-press the buttons at the bottom of
the Control Center to get shortcut menus of useful settings. For example, the flashlight button now offers Low, Medium, or High brightness!
• Siri is more open. Until now, only Apple decided what Siri, the
voice-controlled assistant, could understand. Now, though, the creators of certain apps can teach Siri new vocabulary, too. Already, you
can say, “Send Nicki a message with WeChat,” “Pay Dad 20 dollars
with Square Cash,” and “Book a ride with Lyft.”
• Emergency Bypass. This switch, new on each person’s Contacts card,
means “Let ringtones and vibrations play when this person calls, even
when Do Not Disturb is turned on.” A million parents will now get
better sleep at night.
• Recent searches. When you tap Search in Notes, Mail, or Spotlight
Suggestions, you see a list of suggested searches or previous
searches you’ve conducted, to save you a little time.
• Remember my parked car. Maps automatically drops a pin at the
spot when your phone disconnects from your car’s Bluetooth system
(or CarPlay system, if you have that). Later, it can guide you back.
• More 3D Touch features. If you have a phone whose screen responds
to pressure (iPhone 6s and 7 families), you’ll find more shortcut
8

Introduction

menus available in more places. For example, you can reply to a
text-message notification, accept a Calendar invitation, or see where
your Uber is on a map, all by hard-pressing. If you hard-press a Homescreen folder, there’s now a Rename command. And if you hard-press
in the Notification Center (the list that appears when you swipe
down from the top of the screen) you get a Clear All Notifications
command.
• Delete the bloatware. For the first time, you can hide Apple’s starter
apps on your Home screens (Watch, Home, Stocks, and so on), so
you’re not saddled with the icons you never use.
• Donate your organs. The Health app now offers you a chance to sign
up for the Donate Life America registry, so that you can do some
good even after your death.
• Multilingual typing. You can now type in two languages within the
same text box without switching keyboard layouts. iOS figures out
what language you’ve switched to and automatically changes the
language for autocorrect entries and QuickType predictions.
• Internet calls treated as phone calls. Apps like Skype, Facebook
Messenger, Slack, and WhatsApp let you place voice calls, phone to
phone, over the Internet (instead of using the cellular network). For
the first time, those calls are now treated by the iPhone exactly like
regular phone calls. They appear in your Recents and Favorites list,
they pop up the photo of the caller, and your Contacts list now has a
place to save your friends’ Internet calling handles.
• Voicemail transcription. The Voicemail list now includes approximate
transcriptions of the messages people have left for you! They’re very
rough and filled with mistakes, but it’s usually enough to get the gist
of a message’s topic and importance.
• Bedtime-consistency management. iOS 10’s Clock app offers a new
Bedtime tab. You answer a few questions about your sleep habits,
and the app will attempt to keep your sleep regular—prompting you
when it’s time to get ready for bed, waking you at a consistent time,
and keeping a graph of your sleep consistency.
• Delete rarely played songs. If you turn on Optimize Music Storage
in Settings, then, as your phone begins to run out of storage space,
iOS 10 automatically identifies music you haven’t listened to recently.
It removes those songs from your phone to save space. (Of course,
you can always re-download them at no charge.)
• Expanded lookup. When you highlight a word and then tap Look Up,
you now get a lot more than the dictionary definition. You get matching Wikipedia entries, movie names, book titles, websites, news

Introduction

headlines, maps, and so on. In essence, the Look Up button becomes
an instantaneous reference feature that saves you a trip to Safari’s
search bar.
• Music continues in Camera mode. Opening the Camera app to take a
still photo no longer pauses whatever music is playing. Fashion photographers who play rock music during photo shoots are celebrating.
• More informative Wi-Fi listings. Now, in SettingsÆWi-Fi, you’ll find
out if the Wi-Fi network has no Internet connection (“No Internet
Connection” appears in orange letters). And if you’re connecting to an
open network (no password), you get a “Security Recommendation”
link. Tap it, and a message announces: “Open networks provide no
security and expose all network traffic.” In other words, take caution,
because your Internet traffic is sniffable by the bad guys.
• New magnifier. The Accessibility settings offer a new magnifying
screen that lets you control the zoom, color tint, and flashlight all at
once—great when you’re having trouble reading fine print in a dark
restaurant or tiny black-on-gray print anywhere. You can set up your
phone so that triple-clicking the Home button starts this mode.
• Color-blindness filter. Also in Accessibility: A feature called Display
Accommodations, which adjusts the phone’s screen to help color-
blind people. It tells the iPhone’s screen to substitute different,
easier-to-see colors for the red and green tones that typically trip up
color-blinders. If you’re color blind, this feature may blow your mind.

App Upgrades
• Apple Music. Apple Music—the app, the $10-a-month service—was a
hot mess. The newly redesigned app is far easier to navigate.
• Photos. The redesigned Photos can auto-generate lovely, musical
videos, using your photos and videos as its raw material (from a
recent time period, or a recent place you visited, or featuring a certain
person). It comes with a selection of 80 soundtracks and plenty of
customization controls.
The Photos search box lets you find images according to what they
show. You can search your photos for “dog,” or “beach,” or whatever.
Perhaps more usefully, the editing mode now includes a markup feature: You can draw or type onto your photos, or add a circular magnified area.
Finally, if you’re a fan of Live Photos—Apple’s name for the weird
3-second-video+photo feature available on the iPhone 6s and 7

Introduction

families—you’ll be happy to hear that iOS 10 brings image stabilization
to them. You can also apply the usual Photos editing tools (tweak
color, brightness, contrast, and so on) to the video.
• Maps. Apple’s Maps app still doesn’t know as much about the world
as Google Maps, but Apple has put a lot of effort into slicking up the
app itself. It looks great, and it now offers to reroute you if traffic will
mar your planned commute. And now, app makers can add Maps
Extensions—new features for Maps, like the ability to book a restaurant reservation with OpenTable or to call an Uber ride.
• News. The new app offers breaking-news alerts, subscriptions to certain publications, and a lovely new design.
• New Home app. This app lets you control your thermostat, electric
drapes, lights, and other home-automation gadgets—assuming that
they’re compatible with Apple’s HomeKit standard. (You probably
don’t own any.)
• Notes. You and another person can edit a page in Notes simultaneously. Great when you and your spouse are planning a party and
brainstorming about guests and the dinner menu, for example.
• Safari. Website creators can now offer an Apple Pay button, meaning
that you can pay for stuff without having to painstakingly type in your
name, address, and credit card information 400 times a year. So cool:
You can authenticate with your phone’s fingerprint reader!
Now Safari can fill in a secondary address for you in a web form (like
your work address), or even someone else’s address (grabbed from
Contacts).
• Calendar. If you start to type a Calendar event that the app recognizes as something you’ve entered before, it proposes autocompleting it. Calendar also sometimes pre-fills in times and places as you
create an appointment, based on information it spotted in an email or
message.
• Health. You can now share your activity and calorie burn with your
friends. It’s fitness through humiliation.
• Mail. The Mail app occasionally offers an Unsubscribe button when
it suspects that a message has come from a mailing list. Also in Mail,
conversation view (where exchange messages are grouped) now
places messages chronologically—no more scrolling to the bottom to
see what everyone is talking about. You’ll see. It’s good.

Introduction

What It All Means
Let’s be honest: Apple is finding it harder to say “no” to new features
these days. iOS has become a very dense operating system, with more
features than you could master in years.
Then again, the public may not care about simplicity the way it once did.
When smartphones were new, extreme simplicity was critical to helping
them accept the concept.
Today’s 10-year-olds weren’t even alive before there were iPhones. And
people who got their first smartphones as teenagers grew up along with
iOS and Android—and evolved along with them—so the sheer complexity
doesn’t bother them much. It’s usually only their parents who complain.
But never mind. iOS 10 is better, smarter, faster, clearer, and more refined
than what came before. It takes hundreds of steps forward, and only a
couple of tiny steps back.
That’s a lot of tweaks, polishing, and finesse—and a lot to learn.
Fortunately, 650 pages of instructions now await you.

Introduction

1
PART ONE

The iPhone
as Phone
Chapter 1
The Guided Tour
Chapter 2
The Lock Screen & Notifications
Chapter 3
Typing, Editing & Searching
Chapter 4
Phone Calls & FaceTime
Chapter 5
Siri Voice Command
Chapter 6
Texting & Messages
Chapter 7
Large Type, Kid Mode & Accessibility

The Guided
Tour

ou can’t believe how much is hidden inside this sleek, thin slab.
Microphone, speaker, cameras, battery. Processor, memory,
power processing. Sensors for brightness, tilt, and proximity. Twenty wireless radio antennas. A gyroscope, accelerometer, and
barometer.
For the rest of this book, and for the rest of your life with the iPhone,
you’ll be expected to know what’s meant by, for example, “the Home
button” and “the Sleep switch.” A guided tour, therefore, is in order.

Home button
Silencer switch
Volume keys

Sleep Switch (On/Off)
You could argue that knowing how to turn on your phone might be a
useful skill.

The Guided Tour

For that, you need the Sleep switch. It’s a metal button shaped like a
dash. On the iPhone 6 and later models, it’s on the right edge; on the 5
family and SE, it’s on the top edge.

Sleep switch

It has several functions:
• Sleep/wake. Tapping it once puts the iPhone into Sleep mode, ready
for incoming calls but consuming very little power. Tapping it again
turns on the screen so it’s ready for action.
• On/Off. The same switch can also turn the iPhone off completely so it
consumes no power at all; incoming calls get dumped into voicemail.
You might turn the iPhone off whenever you’re not going to use it for
a few days.
To turn the iPhone off, hold down the Sleep switch for 3 seconds. The
screen changes to say slide to power off.

Confirm your decision by placing a fingertip on the π and sliding to
the right. The device shuts off completely.

Chapter 1

TIP: If you change your mind about turning the iPhone off, then tap the
Cancel button or do nothing; after a moment, the iPhone backs out
of the slide to power off screen automatically.

To turn the iPhone back on, press the switch again for 1 second. The
Apple logo appears as the phone boots up.
• Answer call/Dump to voicemail. When a call comes in, you can tap
the Sleep button once to silence the ringing or vibrating. After four
rings, the call goes to voicemail.
You can also tap it twice to dump the call to voicemail immediately.
(Of course, because they didn’t hear four rings, iPhone veterans will
know you’ve blown them off. Bruised egos may result. Welcome to
the world of iPhone etiquette.)
• Force restart. The Sleep switch has one more function. If your iPhone
is frozen, and no buttons work, and you can’t even turn the thing off,
this button is also involved in force-restarting the whole machine.
Steps for this last-ditch procedure are on page 624.

Sleep Mode
When you don’t touch the screen for 1 minute (or another interval you
choose), or when you press the Sleep switch, the phone goes to sleep.
The screen is dark and doesn’t respond to touch.
If you’re on a call, the call continues; if music is playing, it keeps going;
if you’re recording audio, the recording proceeds. But when the phone
is asleep, you don’t have to worry about accidental button pushes. You
wouldn’t want to discover that your iPhone has been calling people or
taking photos from the depths of your pocket or purse. Nor would you
want it to dial a random number from your back pocket, a phenomenon
that’s earned the unfortunate name butt dialing.

The Lock Screen
In iOS 10, the iPhone has a newly expanded state of being that’s somewhere between Sleep and on. It’s the Lock screen. You can actually get
a lot done here, without ever unlocking the phone and advancing to its
Home screens.
You can wake the phone by pressing the Home button or the Sleep
button. Or—if you have an iPhone SE, 6s family, or 7 family—you can
do something new and game-changing: Just lift the phone to a vertical
position.

The Guided Tour

The screen lights up, and you’re looking at the Lock screen. Here—even
before you’ve entered your password or used your fingerprint—you can
check the time, read your missed messages, consult your calendar, take a
photo, and more.
NOTE: You can turn off the new “wake when I lift you” feature. It’s in
SettingsÆDisplay & Brightness; turn off Raise to Wake. Now you
have to press Sleep or Home to wake the phone, as before.

In iOS 10, this new netherworld of activity between Sleep and On—the
Lock screen—is a complex, rich, busy universe; see Chapter 2.
Now then: If you want to proceed to the Home screens—to finish turning on the phone—then click the Home button at this point. That’s a new
habit to learn; you no longer do that by swiping across the screen, as you
have on all iPhones since 2007.
TIP:

iOS 10 offers a buried but powerful new option: Rest Finger to
Open. (It’s in Settings Æ General Æ Accessibility Æ Home Button.)
When you turn this on, the second click—the one to get past the
Lock screen—is no longer necessary.
If your phone is asleep, then just lifting it up (with your finger
touching the Home button) wakes it and unlocks it; you never even
see the Lock screen. Or, if the phone is asleep, you can click the
Home button and just leave your finger on it. In each case, you save
at least one Home-button click.
So what if you do want to visit the Lock screen? Just raise the
phone, or click the Sleep button, without touching the Home button.

Home Button
Here it is: the one and only button on the front of the phone. Push it
to summon the Home screen, your gateway to everything the iPhone
can do.
The Home button is a wonderful thing. It means you can never get lost.
No matter how deeply you burrow into the iPhone software, no matter
how far off-track you find yourself, one push of the Home button takes
you back to the beginning. (On the iPhone 7, it doesn’t actually move, but
it feels like it does; see page 7.)
On the iPhone 5s and later models, of course, the Home button is also a
fingerprint scanner—the first one on a cellphone that actually works.
But, as time goes on, Apple keeps saddling the Home button with more
functions. It’s become Apple’s only way to provide shortcuts for common

Chapter 1

Home button

features; that’s what you get when you design a phone that has only
one button. In iPhone Land, you can press the Home button one, two,
or three times for different functions—or even hold it down or touch it
lightly for others. Here’s the rundown.

Quick Press: Wake Up
Pressing the Home button once wakes the phone if it’s asleep. That’s
sometimes easier than finding the Sleep switch on the top or edge. It
opens the Lock screen, where you can check notifications or the time,
hop into the camera, check your calendar, and more. See Chapter 2.

Momentary Touch: Unlock (iPhone 5s and Later)
Whenever you’re looking at the Enter Passcode screen, just resting your
finger on the Home button is enough to unlock the phone. (Teaching the
iPhone to recognize your fingerprint is described on page 53.) You
proceed to the Home screen. That convenience is brought to you by the
Touch ID fingerprint reader that’s built into the Home button.

Long Press: Siri
If you hold down the Home button for about 3 seconds, you wake up Siri,
your virtual voice-controlled assistant. Details are in Chapter 5.

Two Quick Presses: App Switcher
If, once the phone is awake, you press the Home button twice quickly,
the current image fades away—to reveal the app-switcher screen, the key
to the iPhone’s multitasking feature.
What you see here are currently open screens of the apps you’ve used
most recently (older ones are to the left). They appear at nearly full size,

The Guided Tour

overlapping like playing cards. Swipe horizontally to bring more apps into
view; the Home screen is always at the far right.
With a single tap on a screen’s “card,” you jump right back into an app
you had open, without waiting for it to start up, show its welcome screen,
and so on—and without having to scroll through 11 Home screens trying
to find its icon.
In short, the app switcher gives you a way to jump directly to another
app, without a layover at the Home screen first.
TIP: On this screen, you can also quit a program by flicking it upward. In
fact, you can quit several programs at once that way, using two or
three fingers. Fun for the whole family!

This app switcher is the only visible element of the iPhone’s multitasking
feature. Once you get used to it, that double-press of the Home button
will become second nature—and your first choice for jumping among
apps.

Two Touches: Reachability
Starting with the iPhone 6, the standard iPhone got bigger than previous
models—and the Plus models are even biggerer. Their screens are so big,

Chapter 1

in fact, that your dinky human thumb may be too small to reach the top
portion of the screen (if you’re gripping the phone near the bottom).
For that reason, Apple has built a feature called Reachability into the
iPhone 6 and later models. When you tap the Home button twice (don’t
click it—just touch it), the entire screen image slides halfway down the
glass, so that you can reach the upper parts of it with your thumb!

As soon as you touch anything on the screen—a link, a button, an
empty area, anything—the screen snaps back to its usual, full-height
position. (The on/off switch for Reachability is in SettingsÆGeneralÆ
Accessibility.)
TIP: On the larger iPhones, the Home screen turns 90 degrees when you
rotate them. The Dock jumps to the right edge, vertically. Try it!

Three Presses: Magnifier, VoiceOver, Zoom…
In SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibility, you can set up a triple-press of
the Home button to turn one of several accessibility features on or off.
There’s the Magnifier, new in iOS 10 (turns the iPhone into a giant electronic illuminated magnifying glass); VoiceOver (the phone speaks
The Guided Tour

whatever you touch), Invert Colors (white-on-black type, which is sometimes easier to see), Grayscale (a mode that makes the whole iPhone
black and white); Zoom (magnifies the screen), Switch Control (accommodates external gadgets like sip-and-puff straws), and AssistiveTouch
(help for people who have trouble with physical switches).
All these features are described in Chapter 6.

Silencer Switch, Volume Keys
Praise be to the gods of technology—this phone has a silencer switch!
This tiny flipper, on the left edge or at the top, means that no ringer or
alert sound will humiliate you in a meeting, at a movie, or in church. To
turn off the ringer, push the flipper toward the back of the phone (see
the photo on page 16).
No menus, no holding down keys, just instant silence.
NOTE: Even when silenced, the iPhone still makes noise in certain
circumstances: when an alarm goes off; when you’re playing
music; when you’re using Find My iPhone (page 530); when
you’re using VoiceOver; or, sometimes, when a game is playing.
Also, the phone still vibrates when the silencer is engaged,
although you can turn this feature off in SettingsÆSounds.

On the left edge are the volume controls. They work in five ways:
• On a call, these buttons adjust the speaker or earbud volume.
• When you’re listening to music, they adjust the playback volume—
even when the phone is locked and dark.
• When you’re taking a picture, either one serves as a shutter button or
as a camcorder start/stop button.
• At all other times, they adjust the volume of sound effects like the
ringer, alarms, and Siri.
• When a call comes in, they silence the ringing or vibrating.
In each case, if the screen is on, a volume graphic appears to show you
where you are on the volume scale.

Screen
The touchscreen is your mouse, keyboard, dialing pad, and notepad. You
might expect it to get fingerprinty and streaky.

Chapter 1

But the modern iPhone has an oleophobic screen. That may sound like
an irrational fear of yodeling, but it’s actually a coating that repels grease.
A single light wipe on your clothes restores the screen to its right-out-ofthe-box crystal sheen.
You can also use the screen as a mirror when the iPhone is off.
The iPhone’s Retina screen has crazy high resolution (the number of tiny
pixels per inch). It’s really, really sharp, as you’ll discover when you try
to read text or make out the details of a map or a photo. The iPhone 5
and SE models manage 1136 × 640 pixels; the iPhone 6/6s/7 packs in
1334 × 750; the SE has 640 × 1136; and the Plus models have 1920 x 1080
(the same number of dots as a high-definition TV).
The front of the iPhone is made of a special formulation made by
Corning, to Apple’s specifications—even better than Gorilla Glass, Apple
says. It’s unbelievably resistant to scratching. (You can still shatter it if
you drop it just the wrong way.)
NOTE: This is how Corning’s website says this glass is made: “The
glass is placed in a hot bath of molten salt at a temperature of
approximately 400° C. Smaller sodium ions leave the glass, and
larger potassium ions from the salt bath replace them. These
larger ions take up more room and are pressed together when
the glass cools, producing a layer of compressive stress on the
surface of the glass.”
But you probably guessed that.

If you’re nervous about protecting your iPhone, you can always get a
case for it (or a “bumper”—a silicone band that wraps the edges). But if
you’re worried about scratching the glass, you’re probably worrying too
much. Even many Apple employees carry the iPhone in their pockets
without cases.

Screen Icons
Here’s a roundup of the icons you may see in the status bar at the top of
the iPhone screen, from left to right:
• Cell signal (µ). As on any cellphone, the number of bars—or dots,
in iOS’s case—indicates the strength of your cell signal, and thus the
quality of your call audio and the likelihood of losing the connection. If
there are no dots, then the dreaded words “No service” appear here.
• Network name and type. These days, different parts of the country—and even your street—are blanketed by cellular Internet signals of

The Guided Tour

different speeds, types, and ages. Your status bar shows you the kind
of network signal it has. From slowest to fastest:

G or ˝ means your iPhone is connected to your carrier’s slowest, oldest Internet system. You might be able to check email, but you’ll lose
your mind waiting for a web page to load.

If you see 3, you’re in a city where your cell company has installed a
3G network—still slow compared to 4, which offers speed in between 3G and LTE.
And if you see 9 up there—well, get psyched. You have an iPhone 5
or later model, and you’re in a city with a 4G LTE cellular network.
And that means very fast Internet.
NOTE: You may also see a notation like “T-Mobile Wi‑Fi” or “VZW Wi-Fi”
up there. The iPhone 6/6s/7 models, it turns out, can make free
phone calls over a Wi‑Fi network—if your cellphone carrier has
permitted it, and if you’ve turned the feature on (page 434). It’s
a great way to make calls indoors where the cell signal is terrible.

• Airplane mode (|). If you see the airplane instead of signal and
Wi‑Fi bars, then the iPhone is in airplane mode (page 438).
• Do Not Disturb (p). When the phone is in Do Not Disturb mode,
nothing can make it ring, buzz, or light up except calls from the most
important people. Details are on page 128.
• Wi‑Fi signal (∑). When you’re connected to a wireless Internet
hotspot, this indicator appears. The more “sound waves,” the stronger
the signal.
• 9:41 AM. When the iPhone is unlocked, a digital clock appears on the
status bar.
• Alarm (Å). You’ve got an alarm set. This reminder, too, can be valuable, especially when you intend to sleep late and don’t want an alarm
to go off.

Chapter 1

• Bluetooth (b). The iPhone is connected wirelessly to a Bluetooth
earpiece, speaker, or car system. (If this symbol is gray, then it means
Bluetooth is turned on but not connected to any other gear—and not
sucking down battery power.)
• TTY (Y). You’ve turned on Teletype mode, meaning that the iPhone
can communicate with a Teletype machine. (That’s a special machine
that lets deaf people make phone calls by typing and reading text. It
hooks up to the iPhone with a special cable that Apple sells from its
website.)
• Call forwarding (f). You’ve told your iPhone to auto-forward any
incoming calls to a different number. This icon is awfully handy—
it explains at a glance why your iPhone never seems to get calls
anymore.
• VPN (v). You corporate stud, you! You’ve managed to connect to
your corporate network over a secure Internet connection, probably with the assistance of a systems administrator—or by consulting
page 564.
• Syncing (n). The iPhone is currently syncing with some Internet service—iCloud, for example (Chapter 16).
• Battery meter (B). When the iPhone is charging, the lightning bolt
appears. Otherwise, the battery logo “empties out” from right to left
to indicate how much charge remains. (You can even add a “% full”
indicator to this gauge; see page 584.)
• Navigation active (˜). You’re running a GPS navigation app, or some
other app that’s tracking your location, in the background (yay, multi
tasking!). Why is a special icon necessary? Because those GPS apps
slurp down battery power like a thirsty golden retriever. Apple wants
to make sure you don’t forget you’re running it.
• Rotation lock (m). This icon reminds you that you’ve deliberately
turned off the screen-rotation feature, where the screen image turns
90 degrees when you rotate the phone. Why would you want to? And
how do you turn the rotation lock on or off? See page 48.

Cameras and Flash
At the top of the phone, above the screen, there’s a horizontal slot. That’s
the earpiece. Just above it or beside it, the tiny pinhole is the front-facing
camera. It’s more visible on the white-faced iPhones than on the black
ones.

The Guided Tour

Its primary purpose is to let you take selfies and conduct video chats
using the FaceTime feature, but it’s also handy for checking for spinach
in your teeth.
It’s not nearly as good a camera as the one on the back, though. The
front camera isn’t as good in low light and takes much lower-resolution
shots.
A tiny LED lamp appears next to this back lens—actually, it’s two lamps
on the 5s, 6, and 6s iPhones, and four on the 7 family. That’s the flash for
the camera, the video light when you’re shooting movies, and a darned
good flashlight for reading restaurant menus and theater programs in
low light. (Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and tap the i icon to
turn the light on and off.)
The tiny pinhole between the flash and the lens is a microphone. It’s used
for recording clearer sound with video, for better noise cancellation on
phone calls, and for better directional sound pickup.
The iPhone 7 Plus actually has two lenses on the back—one wide-angle,
one zoomed in. Details on this feature and everything else on the
iPhone’s cameras are in Chapter 9.

Sensors
Behind the glass, above or beside the earpiece, are two sensors. (On the
black iPhones, you can’t see them except with a flashlight.) First, there’s
an ambient-light sensor that brightens the display when you’re in sunlight and dims it in darker places.
Second, there’s a proximity sensor. When something (like your head) is
close to the sensor, it shuts off the screen and touch sensitivity. It works
only in the Phone app. You save power and avoid dialing with your
cheekbone when you’re on a call.

SIM Card Slot
On the right edge of the iPhone, there’s a pinhole next to what looks like
a very thin slot cover. If you push an unfolded paper clip straight into the
hole, the SIM card tray pops out.
So what’s a SIM card?
It turns out that there are two major cellphone network types: CDMA,
used by Verizon and Sprint, and GSM, used by AT&T, T-Mobile, and most
other countries around the world.

Chapter 1

Every GSM phone stores your phone account info—things like your
phone number and calling-plan details—on a tiny memory card known as
a SIM (subscriber identity module) card.
What’s cool is that, by removing the card and putting it into another GSM
phone, you can transplant a GSM phone’s brain. The other phone now
knows your number and account details, which can be handy when your
iPhone goes in for repair or battery replacement. For example, you can
turn a Verizon iPhone 7 into a T-Mobile iPhone 7 just by swapping in a
T-Mobile SIM card.

The World Phone
AT&T is a GSM network, so AT&T iPhones have always had SIM cards. But,
intriguingly enough, every iPhone has a SIM card, too—even the Verizon
and Sprint models. That’s odd, because most CDMA cellphones don’t
have SIM cards.
These iPhones contain antennas for both GSM and CDMA. It’s the same
phone, no matter which cell company you buy it from. Only the SIM card
teaches it which one it “belongs” to.
Even then, however, you can still use any company’s phone in any country. (That’s why the latest iPhones are said to be “world phones.”) When
you use the Verizon or Sprint iPhone in the United States, it uses only the
CDMA network. But if you travel to Europe or another GSM part of the
world, you can still use your Verizon or Sprint phone; it just hooks into
that country’s GSM network.
If you decide to try that, you have two ways to go. First, you can contact your phone carrier and ask to have international roaming turned on.
You’ll keep your same phone number overseas, but you’ll pay through the

The Guided Tour

nose for calls and, especially, Internet use. (One exception: On T-Mobile,
international texting and Internet use are free.)
Second, you can rent a temporary SIM card when you get to the destination country. That’s less expensive, but you’ll have a different phone number while you’re there.
The iPhone 4s used a card type
known as a micro-SIM card. And for
the iPhone 5 and later, Apple developed even tinier cards called nanoSIMs. (You can see all three at left.)
At this rate, you won’t be able to see
the iPhone 8’s SIM card without an
electron microscope.
Apple thinks SIM cards are geeky and intimidating and that they should
be invisible. That’s why, unlike most GSM phones, your iPhone came with
the card preinstalled and ready to go. Most people never have any reason
to open this tray.
If you were curious enough to open it up, you can close the tray simply
by pushing it back into the phone until it clicks.
NOTE: Many countries offer LTE high-speed cellular Internet on all
different radio frequencies. The iPhone 6/6s/7 can hop onto more
of these networks than any other cellphone, but it still doesn’t
work in every country. Ask your carrier which countries your
model works with.

Headphone Jack
Until the iPhone 7 came along, iPhones contained a standard jack for
plugging in the white earbuds that came with it—or any other earbuds or
headphones.
It’s more than an ordinary 3.5-millimeter audio jack, however. It contains
a secret fourth pin that conducts sound into the phone from the microphone on the earbuds’ cord. You, too, can be one of those executives
who walk down the street barking orders, apparently to nobody.
The iPhone can stay in your pocket as you walk or drive. You hear the
other person through your earbuds, and the mike on the cord picks up
your voice.

Chapter 1

NOTE: Next to the headphone jack, inside a perforated grille, a tiny
second microphone lurks. It’s the key to the iPhone’s noisecancellation feature. It listens to the sound of the world around
you and pumps in the opposite sound waves to cancel out all
that ambient noise. It doesn’t do anything for you—the noise
cancellation affects only what the other guy on the phone hears.
That’s why there’s also a third microphone at the top back
(between the camera and flash); it’s designed to supply noise
cancellation for you so that the other guy sounds better when
you’re in a noisy place.

iPhone 7: No Headphone Jack
We, the people, may complain about how exhausting it is to keep up with
the annual flood of new smartphones. But at least you don’t have to create the annual set of new features. That’s their problem.
Not just because it’s increasingly difficult to think of new features, but
also because the phone makers have pretty much run out of room for
new components inside.
That, says Apple, is why it removed the headphone jack from the
iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The headphone jack may not seem very big—but
on the inside of the phone, the corresponding receptacle occupies an
unnerving amount of nonnegotiable space.
So how are you supposed to listen to music without a headphone jack?
Apple offers three ways:
• Using the adapter. In the iPhone box, Apple includes a two-inch
adapter cord that connects any headphones to the phone’s Lightning
jack.
• Use the earbuds. The phone also comes with new white earbuds that
connect to the Lightning (charging) jack.
TIP: Of course, if your headphones are plugged into the Lightning
jack, you can’t charge your phone while listening over them. The
only solution is an adapter like Belkin’s $40 Lightning Audio +
Charge RockStar, which lets you charge and plug in headphones
simultaneously.

• Use wireless headphones. You can also use any Bluetooth wireless earbuds—from $17 plastic disposable ones to Apple’s own,
super-impressive AirPods. Page 142 has more on Bluetooth
headsets.

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In theory, those three approaches should pretty much cover you whenever you want to listen.
In practice, though, you’ll still get zapped by the occasional inconvenience. You’ll be on a flight, for example, listening to your laptop with
headphones—and when you want to switch to the phone, you’ll realize
that your adapter cord is in the overhead bin. (Based on a true story.)
But this kind of hassle is the new reality. Motorola and LeEco (in China)
have already ditched the headphone jack, and other phone makers will
follow suit.

Microphone, Speakerphone
On the bottom of the iPhone, Apple has parked two important audio
components: the speaker and the microphone.

Headphones
(models before
iPhone 7)

Microphone
Charge/sync
(Lightning connector)

Speakerphone

On the iPhone 7, in fact, there are two speakers, on the top and bottom
of the phone. Stereo sound (and better sound) has finally come to the
iPhone.
TIP: The speakerphone isn’t super loud, because it’s aimed straight out
of the iPhone’s edge, away from you. But if you cup your hand
around the bottom, you can redirect the sound toward your face, for
an immediate boost in volume and quality.

Chapter 1

The Lightning Connector
Directly below the Home button, on the bottom edge of the phone,
you’ll find the connector that charges and syncs the iPhone with your
computer.
30-pin connector
(iPhone 4S)

Lightning connector
(iPhone 5 and later)

For nearly 10 years, the
charge/sync connector was
identical on every iPhone,
iPod, and iPad—the famous
30-pin connector. But starting on the iPhone 5, Apple
replaced that inch-wide connector with a new, far-smaller
one it calls Lightning.

The Lightning connector is a
great design: It clicks nicely
into place (you can even
dangle the iPhone from it),
yet you can yank it right out. You can insert the Lightning into the phone
either way— there’s no “right-side up” anymore. It’s much sturdier than
the old connector. And it’s tiny, which was Apple’s primary goal—only 0.3
inches wide (the old one was almost 0.9 inches wide).
Unfortunately, you may still occasionally encounter a car adapter or
hotel-room alarm clock with the old kind of connector. (For $30, you can
buy an adapter.)
In time, as the Lightning connectors come on all new iPhones, iPods, and
iPads, a new ecosystem of accessories will arise. We’ll arrive at a new era
of standardization—until Apple changes jacks again in another 10 years.

Antenna Band
Radio signals can’t pass through
metal. That’s why there are
strips of glass on the back of
the iPhone 5, 5s, and SE, strips
of plastic on the iPhone 6/6s/7
models, and all plastic on the
back of the 5c.
And there are a lot of radio
signals in this phone. All told,
there are 20 different radio

The Guided Tour

transceivers inside the iPhone 6/6s/7. They tune in to the LTE and 3G
(high-speed Internet) signals used in various countries around the world,
plus the three CDMA signals used in the U.S.; and one each for Wi‑Fi,
Bluetooth, American GPS, and Russian GPS.

In the Box
Inside the minimalist box, you get the iPhone and these items:
• The earbuds. Every iPhone comes with
a pair of the iconic white earbuds that
announce to the world, “I have an iPhone!”
These days, they’re what Apple calls
EarPods. They sound great, although their
bulbous shape may get uncomfortable in
smaller ears. A volume control/clicker is
right there on the cord, so you can answer
phone calls and pause the music without
even taking the phone out of your pocket.
(The EarPods that come with the new
iPhone 7, of course, plug into the Lightning
jack, since there’s no headphone jack on
that model.)
• A Lightning cable. When you connect your
iPhone to your computer using this white USB cable, it simultaneously
syncs and charges. See Chapter 15.
• The AC adapter. When you’re traveling without a computer, you can
plug the dock’s USB cable into the included two-prong outlet adapter,
so you can charge the iPhone directly from a wall socket.
• Decals and info card. iPhone essentials.
You don’t need a copy of the iTunes software, or even a computer, to use
the iPhone—but it makes loading up the phone a lot easier, as described
in Chapter 15.
If you don’t have iTunes on your computer, you can download it from
www.apple.com/itunes.

Seven Basic Finger Techniques
On the iPhone, you do everything on the touchscreen instead of with
physical buttons.

Chapter 1

Tap
The iPhone’s onscreen buttons are nice and big, giving your fleshy fingertip a fat target.
You can’t use a fingernail or a pen tip; only skin contact works. (You
can also buy an iPhone stylus. But a fingertip is cheaper and harder to
misplace.)

Double-Tap
Double-tapping is pretty rare. It’s generally reserved for two functions:
• In the Safari web browser, Photos, and Maps apps, double-tapping
zooms in on whatever you tap, magnifying it. (At that point, double-tapping means “Restore to original size.”) Double-tapping also
zooms into formatted email messages, PDF files, Microsoft Office files,
and other things.
• When you’re watching a video (or recording one), double-tapping
switches the aspect ratio (video screen shape).

Swipe
In some situations, you’re asked to confirm an action by swiping your finger across the screen. That’s how you confirm that you want to shut off
the phone, for example. Swiping like this is also a great shortcut for deleting an email or a text message.

Drag
When you’re zoomed into a map, web page, email, or photo, you scroll
around by sliding your finger across the glass in any direction—like a flick
(described next), but slower and more controlled. It’s a huge improvement over scroll bars, especially when you want to scroll diagonally.

Flick
A flick is a faster, less-controlled drag. You flick vertically to scroll lists
on the iPhone. The faster you flick, the faster the list spins downward or
upward. But lists have a real-world sort of momentum; they slow down
after a second or two, so you can see where you wound up.
At any point during the scrolling of a list, you can flick again (if you didn’t
go far enough) or tap to stop the scrolling (if you see the item you want
to choose).

Pinch and Spread
In apps like Photos, Mail, Safari, and Maps, you can zoom in on a photo,
message, web page, or map by spreading.

The Guided Tour

That’s when you place two fingers (usually thumb and forefinger) on the
glass and spread them. The image magically grows, as though it’s printed
on a sheet of rubber.
NOTE: The English language has failed Apple here. Moving your thumb
and forefinger closer together has a perfect verb: pinching. But
there’s no good word to describe moving them the opposite
direction.
Apple uses the oxymoronic expression pinch out to describe that
move (along with the redundant-sounding pinch in). In this book,
the opposite of “pinching” is “spreading.”

Once you’ve zoomed in like this, you can zoom out again by putting two
fingers on the glass and pinching them together.

Edge Swipes
Swiping your finger inward from outside the screen has a few variations:
• From the top edge. Opens the Notification Center, which lists all your
missed calls and texts, shows your appointments, and so on.
• From the bottom edge. Opens the Control Center, a unified miniature
control panel for brightness, volume, Wi‑Fi, and so on.
• From the left edge. In many apps, this means “Go back to the previous screen.” It works in Mail, Settings, Notes, Messages, Safari,
34

Chapter 1

Facebook, and some other apps. At the Home screen, it opens the
Today screen (page 65).
It sometimes makes a big difference whether you begin your swipe
within the screen or outside it. At the Home screen, for example, starting your downward swipe within the screen area doesn’t open the
Notification Center—it opens Spotlight, the iPhone’s search function.
TIP: If you have an iPhone 6s or 7, you can also hard-swipe from the left
edge to open the app switcher described on page 19. Actually,
all you have to do is hard-press the left margin of the screen, but
hard-swiping might fit the metaphor better (pulling the app cards
onto the screen).

Force Touch (iPhone 6s and 7)
The screen on the iPhone 6s and 7 (and their Plus siblings) doesn’t just
detect a finger touch. It also knows how hard your finger is pressing,
thanks to a technology Apple calls Force Touch. This feature requires
that you learn two more finger techniques.

Quick Actions
iOS 10 interprets the pressure of your touch in various ways. On the
Home screens, you can make a shortcut menu of useful commands pop
out of various app icons, like this:
Apple calls these commands quick actions, and each is designed to
save you a couple of steps. There are more than ever in iOS 10. Some
examples:
• The Camera app icon offers shortcut menus like Take Selfie, Record
Video, Record Slo-mo, and Take Photo.
• The Clock app gives you direct access to its Set Alarm, Start Timer,
and Start Stopwatch functions.
• Notes gives you New Note, New Photo, and New Sketch commands
(a reference to the new finger-drawing features).
• Maps offers Directions Home (a great one), Mark My Location, Send
My Location, and Search Nearby (for restaurants, bars, shops, and
so on).
• The Phone app sprouts the names of people you’ve called recently, as
well as a Create New Contact command.
• Calendar shows your next appointment, plus an Add Event command.

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• Reminders lists your reminder categories, so you can create a new
To Do directly inside one of them (for example, New in Family).
• Mail and Messages offer New Message commands. Mail also offers
Search, Inbox (with a new-message counter), and VIPs (also with a
counter).
• Home-screen folders sprout a Rename command at your fingertip.
• The Notification Center (the list that appears when you swipe down
from the top of the screen) offers a Clear All Notifications command.
• The Control Center icons (page 47) offer some options. You can
hard-press the Flashlight icon to choose Low, Medium, or High brightness. That’s super cool, especially on the iPhone 7, whose much stronger LED flashlight is enough to light up a high-school football game
at night. Meanwhile, the Timer button offers presets for 1 minute, 5
minutes, 20 minutes, or 1 hour. And the Camera button offers Take
Photo, Record Slo-mo, Record Video, and Take Selfie. That kind of
thing.
Similar quick actions also sprout from these Apple apps’ icons: Photos,
Video, Wallet, iTunes Store, App Store, iBooks, News, Safari, Music,
FaceTime, Podcasts, Voice Memos, Contacts, and Find My Friends.
And, of course, in iOS 10, you can use hard presses to respond to notifications: reply to a text message, accept a Calendar invitation, or see
where your Uber is on a map.

Chapter 1

Other software companies can add shortcut menus to their apps, too.
You’ll find these shortcut menus on the Facebook, Fitbit, and Google
Maps app icons, for example.
If you force-press an app that doesn’t have quick actions, you just feel a
buzz and nothing else happens.
NOTE: At the outset, this force-pressing business can really throw you
when you’re trying to rearrange icons on your Home screens. As
described on page 335, that usually involves long-pressing an
icon, which for most people is too similar to hard-pressing one.
The trick is to long-press very lightly. You’ll get used to it.

Peek and Pop
Hard to explain, but very cool: You hard-press something in a list—your
email Inbox, for example (below, left). Or a link in a text message, or a
photo thumbnail. You get a pop-up bubble showing you what’s inside
(middle):

The Guided Tour

When you release your finger, the bubble disappears, and you’re right
back where you started.
Peeking is, in other words, exactly like the Quick Look feature on the Mac.
It lets you see what’s inside a link, icon, or list item without losing your
place or changing apps.
Email is the killer app here. You can whip through your Inbox, hard-
pressing one new message after another—“What’s this one?” “Do I
care?”—simply inspecting the first paragraph of each but not actually
opening any message.
Then, if you find one that you do want to read fully, you can press harder
yet to open the message normally (previous page, right). Apple calls that
“popping.”
Here are some places where you can peek in the basic iPhone apps:
Mail (preview a message in a list), Messages (see recent exchanges with
someone in the list of people), Maps (preview information about a pushpin), Calendar (see details of an event), Photos (preview a photo in a
screenful of thumbnails), Safari (preview the page hiding behind a link),
Weather (see weather details for a name in the list of cities), Music (see
information about a song or album in a list), Video (read details about a
video in a list), Notes (see the contents of a note’s name in a list), iBooks
(view a book-cover thumbnail larger), News (preview the body of an article in a list), and Find My Friends (see the map identifying the location of
someone in your list).
But, for goodness’ sake, at least get to know peek and pop in Mail and
Messages. It’s really kind of awesome.
And, again, app makers can add this feature to their own apps.

Charging the iPhone
The iPhone has a built-in, rechargeable battery that fills up most of its
interior. How long a charge lasts depends on what you’re doing—music
playback saps the battery the least, GPS navigation saps it the most. But
one thing is for sure: You’ll have to recharge the iPhone regularly. For
most people, it’s every night.
NOTE: The iPhone’s battery isn’t user-replaceable. It’s rechargeable, but
after 400 or 500 charges, it starts to hold less juice. Eventually,
you’ll have to pay Apple to install a new battery. (Apple says
the added bulk of a protective plastic battery compartment, a
removable door and latch, and battery-retaining springs would
have meant a much smaller battery—or a much thicker iPhone.)

Chapter 1

You recharge the iPhone by connecting the white USB cable that came
with it. You can plug the far end into either of two places to supply
power:
• Your computer’s USB jack. In general, the iPhone charges even if
your computer is asleep. (If it’s a laptop that itself is not plugged in,
though, the phone charges only if the laptop is awake. Otherwise,
you’d come home to a depleted laptop.)
• The AC adapter. The little white two-prong cube that came with the
iPhone connects to the end of the cradle’s USB cable.
Unless the charge is really low, you can use the iPhone while it charges.
The battery icon in the upper-right corner displays a lightning bolt to let
you know it’s charging.
TIP: If you have an iPhone 6, 6s, or 7 model, it’ll charge much faster if
you charge it with the 2.1-amp wall adapter that comes with an iPad,
instead of the 1-amp adapter that comes with the phone. How’s a
90 percent charge in two hours sound?

Battery Life Tips
The battery life of the iPhone is either terrific or terrible, depending on
your point of view and how old your phone is.
If you were an optimist, you’d point out that the iPhone gets longer battery life than most touchscreen phones. If you were a pessimist, you’d
observe that you sometimes can’t make it through even a single day
without needing a recharge.
So knowing how to scale back your iPhone’s power appetite should
come in extremely handy.
These are the biggest wolfers of electricity: the screen and background
activity (especially Internet activity). Therefore, when you’re nervous
about your battery making it through an important day, here are your
options:
• Low Power mode can squeeze another 3 hours of life out of a charge.
In Low Power mode, your iPhone quits doing a lot of stuff in the
background, like fetching new mail and updating apps. It also stops
playing most of iOS’s cute little animations and stops listening for
you to say “Hey Siri” (page 148). The processor slows down, too; it
takes longer to switch between apps, for example. And the battery

The Guided Tour

indicator turns yellow, to remind you why things have suddenly
slowed down.
When your battery sinks to 20 percent remaining (and then again at
10 percent), you get a warning message. If you choose Low Power
Mode in this message box, then boom: You’re in Low Power mode.
If your phone is plugged in, it exits Low Power mode automatically
once it has enough juice (above, lower right). You can also turn Low
Power Mode on or off manually in SettingsÆBattery (above, upper
right).
At any time, you can also shut down juice-guzzling features manually.
Here they are, roughly in order of power appetite:
• Dim the screen. Turning down your screen saves a lot of battery
power. The quickest way is to swipe up from the bottom of the screen
to open the Control Center (page 46), and then drag the brightness slider.
On a new iPhone, Auto Brightness is turned on, too. In bright light, the
screen brightens automatically; in dim light, it darkens. That’s because
when you unlock the phone after waking it, it samples the ambient
light and adjusts the brightness.
NOTE: This works because of the ambient-light sensor near the earpiece.
Apple says it experimented with having the light sensor active all
the time, but it was weird to have the screen constantly dimming
and brightening as you used it.

You can use this information to your advantage. By covering up the
sensor as you unlock the phone, you force it into a low-power, dim40

Chapter 1

screen setting (because the phone believes it’s in a dark room). Or by
holding it up to a light as you wake it, you get more brightness. In either case, you’ve saved the navigation it would have taken you to find
the manual brightness slider in Settings or in the Control Center. (Or
you can turn this auto-brightness feature off altogether in SettingsÆ
Display & Brightness.)
TIP: You can set things up so that a triple-click on the Home button
instantly dims your screen, for use in the bedroom, movie theaters,
or planetariums—without having to fuss with Settings or sliders. See
page 228 for this awesome trick.

• Turn off “push” data. This is a big one. If your email, calendar, and
address book are kept constantly synced with your Macs or PCs, then
you’ve probably gotten yourself involved with Yahoo Mail, iCloud
(Chapter 16), or Microsoft Exchange (Chapter 18). It’s pretty amazing
to know that your iPhone is constantly kept current with the mother
ship.
Unfortunately, all that continual sniffing of the airwaves, looking for
updates, costs you battery power. If you can do without the immediacy, then visit SettingsÆMailÆAccountsÆFetch New Data. If you
turn off the Push feature for each email account and set it to Manually
instead, then your iPhone checks for email and new appointments
only when you actually open the Mail or Calendar apps. Your battery
goes a lot further.
• Turn off background updating. Non-Apple apps check for frequent
updates, too: Facebook, Twitter, stock-reporting apps, and so on. Not
all of them need to be busily toiling in the background. Your best bet
for battery life, then, involves visiting SettingsÆGeneralÆBackground
App Refresh and turning the switch off for each app whose background activity isn’t strictly necessary.
• Turn off automatic app updates. As you’ll soon discover, app companies update their wares far more often than PC or Mac apps. Some
apps get updated many times a year.
Your phone comes set to download them automatically when they
become available. But that constant checking and downloading costs
you battery life.
To shut that feature down, open SettingsÆiTunes & App Store. In the
Automatic Downloads section, turn off Updates. (The other switches—Music, Apps, Books—are responsible for auto-downloading things
that you or your brood have downloaded on other iOS gadgets. You
might want to make sure they’re off, too, if battery life is a concern.)

The Guided Tour

• Turn off GPS checks. In SettingsÆPrivacyÆLocation Services, there’s
a list of all the apps on your phone that are using your phone’s location feature to know where you are. (It’s a combination of GPS,
cell-tower triangulation, and Wi‑Fi hotspot triangulation.) All that
checking uses battery power.
Some apps, like Maps, Find My Friends, and Yelp, don’t do you much
good unless they know your location. But plenty of apps don’t really
need to know where you are. Facebook and Twitter, for example, want
that information only so that they can location-stamp your posts. In
any case, the point is to turn off Location Services for each app that
doesn’t really need to know where you are.
TIP: In the list of apps under Location Services, tiny ˜ icons show you
which apps are using GPS right now and which have used it in the
past 24 hours. These icons can help guide you in shutting off the
GPS use of various apps.

• Turn off Wi‑Fi. If you’re not in a wireless hotspot, you may as well
stop the thing from using its radio. Swipe up from the bottom of the
screen to open the Control Center, and tap the ∑ icon to turn it off.
Or at the very least tell the iPhone to stop searching for Wi‑Fi networks it can connect to. Page 437 has the details.
• Turn off Bluetooth. If you’re not using a Bluetooth gadget (headset, fitness band, or whatever), then for heaven’s sake shut down that
Bluetooth radio. Open the Control Center and tap the b icon to turn
it off.
• Turn off Cellular Data. This option (in SettingsÆCellular) turns off the
cellular Internet features of your phone. You can still make calls, and
you can still get online in a Wi‑Fi hotspot.
This feature is designed for people who have a capped data plan—a
limited amount of Internet use per month—which is almost everybody.
If you discover that you’ve used up almost all your data allotment
for the month, and you don’t want to go over your limit (and thereby trigger an overage charge), you can use this option to shut off all
data. Now your phone is just a phone—and it uses less power.
• Consider airplane mode. In airplane mode, you shut off all the
iPhone’s power-hungry radios. Even a nearly dead iPhone can hobble
on for a few hours in airplane mode—something to remember when
you’re desperate. To enter airplane mode, swipe up from the bottom
of the screen to open the Control Center, and tap the | icon.

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TIP: For sure, turn on airplane mode if you’ll be someplace where you
know an Internet signal won’t be present—like on a plane, a ship at
sea, or Montana. Your iPhone never burns through a battery charge
faster than when it’s hunting for a signal it can’t find; your battery
will be dead within a couple of hours.

• Turn off the screen. With a press of the Sleep button, you can turn
off the screen, rendering it black and saving huge amounts of power.
Music playback and Maps navigation continue to work just fine.
Of course, if you want to actually interact with the phone while the
screen is off, you’ll have to learn the VoiceOver talking-buttons technology; see page 204.
By the way, beware of 3D games and other graphically intensive apps,
which can be serious power hogs. And turn off EQ when playing your
music (see page 249).
If your battery still seems to be draining too fast, check out this table,
which shows you exactly which apps are using the most power:

The Guided Tour

To see it, open SettingsÆBattery. You can switch between battery readouts for the past 24 hours, or for the past 7 days. Keep special watch for
labels like these:
• Low Signal. A phone uses the most power of all when it’s hunting
for a cellular signal, because the phone amplifies its radios in hopes
of finding one. If your battery seems to be running down faster than
usual, the “Low Signal” notation is a great clue—and a suggestion that
maybe you should use airplane mode when you’re on the fringes of
cellular coverage.
• Background activity. As hinted on the previous pages, background
Internet connections are especially insidious. These are apps that do
online work invisibly, without your awareness—and drain the battery
in the process. Now, for the first time, you can clearly see which apps
are doing it.
Once you know the culprit app, it’s easy to shut its background work
down. Open SettingsÆGeneralÆBackground App Refresh and switch
off each app whose background activity isn’t strictly necessary.
TIP: If you tap the little clock icon in SettingsÆBattery, the screen
shows you how much time each app has spent running—both in the
foreground and in the background (below, right). It’s an incredibly
informative display if you’ve been wondering where all your battery
power has been going.

The Home Screen
The Home screen is the launching pad for every iPhone activity. It’s what
appears when you press the Home button. It’s the immortal grid of colorful icons.
It’s such an essential software landmark, in fact, that a quick tour might
be helpful:
• Icons. Each icon represents one of your iPhone apps (programs)—
Mail, Maps, Camera, and so on—or a folder that you’ve made to contain some apps. Tap one to open that app or folder.
Your iPhone comes with a couple of dozen apps preinstalled by
Apple; you can’t remove them. The real fun, of course, comes when
you download more apps from the App Store (Chapter 10).
• Badges. Every now and then, you’ll see a tiny, red number “badge”
(like ®) on one of your app icons. It’s telling you that something new

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Apps
Badge (new information!)

Dock

awaits: new email, new text messages, new chat entries, new updates
for the apps on your iPhone. It’s saying, “Hey, you! Tap me!”
• Home page dots. The standard Home screen can’t hold more than 20
or 24 icons. As you install more and more programs on your iPhone,
you’ll need more and more room for their icons. Fortunately, the
iPhone makes room for them by creating additional Home screens
automatically. You can spread your new programs’ icons across 11
such launch screens.
The little white dots are your map. Each represents one Home screen.
If the third one is “lit up,” then you’re on the third Home screen.
To move among the screens, swipe horizontally—or tap to the right or
left of the little dots to change screens.
And if you ever scroll too far away from the first Home screen, here’s
a handy shortcut: Press the Home button (yes, even though you’re
technically already home). That takes you back to the first Home
screen.
• The Dock. At the bottom of the Home screen, four exalted icons sit in
a row on a light-colored panel. This is the Dock—a place to park the
most important icons on your iPhone. These, presumably, are the ones
The Guided Tour

you use most often. Apple starts you off with the Phone, Mail, Safari,
and Music icons there.
What’s so special about this row? As you flip among Home screens,
the Dock never changes. You can never lose one of your four most
cherished icons by straying from the first page; they’re always handy.
• The background. You can replace the background image (behind
your app icons) with a photo. A complicated, busy picture won’t do
you any favors—it will just make the icon names harder to read—so
Apple provides a selection of handsome, relatively subdued wallpaper
photos. But you can also choose one of your own photos.
For instructions on changing the wallpaper, see page 580.
It’s easy (and fun!) to rearrange the icons on your Home screens. Put the
most frequently used icons on the first page, put similar apps into folders, and reorganize your Dock. Full details are on page 335.
TIP: You can set up a completely empty first Home screen by moving all
of its app icons onto other Home pages, if you want. That’s a weird
but fun arrangement for anyone with a really great wallpaper photo.

Control Center
For such a tiny device, there are an awful lot of settings you can
change—hundreds of them. Trouble is, some of them (volume, brightness) need changing a lot more often than others (language preference,
voicemail greeting).
That’s why Apple invented the Control Center: a panel that offers quick
access to the controls you need the most.
To open the Control Center, no matter what app you’re using, swipe
upward from beneath the screen.
TIP: You can even open the Control Center from the Lock screen (unless
you’ve turned off that feature in SettingsÆControl CenterÆAccess
on Lock Screen).

The Control Center is a gray panel filled with one-touch icons for the settings most people change most often on their iPhones.
In iOS 10, there are now two pages of the Control Center, as shown on
the facing page. The only hint is the two tiny dots beneath each screen.
Over time, you’ll learn to swipe leftward to see the newly separate music
playback controls, or to the right to see everything else.
46

Chapter 1

Airplane mode, Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb,
Rotation Lock

Playback controls

Flashlight, Timer, Calculator,
Camera
NOTE: If you’ve set up any HomeKit accessories—remote-controllable
lights, locks, thermostats, outlets, and security systems that work
with Apple’s Home automation app—then the Control Center
sprouts a third page.

Now, many of these settings are even faster to change using Siri, the
voice-command feature described in Chapter 5. When it’s not socially
awkward to speak to your phone (like at the symphony or during a golf
game), you can use spoken commands—listed below under each button
description—to adjust settings without even touching the screen.
Here’s what’s in the Control Center:
• Airplane mode (|). Tap to turn the icon red. Now you’re in airplane
mode; the phone’s wireless features are all turned off. You’re saving
the battery and obeying flight attendant instructions. Tap again to
turn off airplane mode.
Sample Siri command: “Turn airplane mode on.” (Siri warns you that if
you turn airplane mode on, Siri herself will stop working. Say “OK.”)
• Wi‑Fi (∑). Tap to turn your phone’s Wi‑Fi off (gray) or on (blue).
Sample Siri commands: “Turn off Wi‑Fi.” “Turn Wi‑Fi back on.”
• Bluetooth (b). Tap to turn your Bluetooth transmitter off (gray) or
on (blue). That feature alone is a godsend to anyone who uses the
The Guided Tour

iPhone with a car’s Bluetooth audio system. Bluetooth isn’t the battery drain it once was, but it’s still nice to be able to flick it on so easily
when you get into the car.
Sample Siri commands: “Turn Bluetooth on.” “Turn off Bluetooth.”
• Do Not Disturb (p). Do Not Disturb mode, described on page 128,
means that the phone won’t ring or buzz when people call—except a
few handpicked people whose communiqués ring through. Perfect for
sleeping hours; in fact, you can set up an automated schedule for Do
Not Disturb (say, midnight to 7 a.m.).
But what if you wake up early or want to stay up late? Now you can
tap to turn Do Not Disturb on (blue) or off (gray).
Sample Siri commands: “Turn on Do Not Disturb.” “Turn Do Not Disturb off.”
• Rotation lock (m). When rotation lock is turned on (red), the screen
no longer rotates when you turn the phone 90 degrees. The idea is
that sometimes, like when you’re reading an ebook on your side in
bed, you don’t want the screen picture to turn; you want it to stay
upright relative to your eyes. (A little m icon appears at the top of the
screen to remind you why the usual rotating isn’t happening.)
The whole thing isn’t quite as earth-shattering as it sounds—first,
because it locks the image in only one way: upright, in portrait orientation. You can’t make it lock into widescreen mode. Furthermore,
many apps don’t rotate with the phone to begin with. But when that
day comes when you want to read in bed on your side with your head
on the pillow, your iPhone will be ready. (Tap the button again to turn
rotating back on.)
• Brightness. Hallelujah! Here’s a screen-brightness slider. Drag the little
white ball to change the screen brightness.
Sample Siri commands: “Make the screen brighter.” “Dim the screen.”
• AirPlay Mirroring (Ò). The AirPlay button lets you send your iPhone’s
video and audio to a wireless speaker system or TV—if you have an
AirPlay receiver, of which the most famous is the Apple TV. Details are
on page 259.
• AirDrop ([). AirDrop gives you a quick, effortless way to shoot photos, maps, web pages, and other stuff to nearby iPhones, iPads, iPod
Touches, and even Macs. (See page 348 for details.)
On the Control Center, the AirDrop button isn’t an on/off switch like
most of the other icons here. Instead it produces a pop-up menu of

Chapter 1

options that control whose i-gadgets can “see” your iPhone: Contacts
Only (people in your address book), Everyone, or Receiving Off (nobody).
• Night Shift (�). “Many studies have shown that exposure to bright
blue light in the evening can affect your circadian rhythms and
make it harder to fall asleep,” Apple’s website says. You can therefore tap this button to give your screen a warmer, less blue tint. (You
can also set Night Shift to turn on near bedtime automatically; see
page 579.)
Sample Siri command: “Turn on Night Shift.”
NOTE: Truth is, there’s not much research that blue light from screens
affects your circadian rhythm, let alone little screens like your
phone. And the iPhone may not cut out enough blue to make
much of a difference anyway. (If using a gadget before bed
makes it harder to sleep, it’s more likely that it’s the brain
stimulation of what you’re reading.) Sleep scientists have a more
universally effective suggestion: Turn off your screens a couple of
hours before bedtime.

• Flashlight (i). Tap to turn on the iPhone’s “flashlight”—actually
the LED lamp on the back that usually serves as the camera flash.
Knowing that a source of good, clean light is a few touches away
makes a huge difference if you’re trying to read in the dark, find your
way along a path at night, or fiddle with wires behind your desk.
• Timer (ˇ). Tap to open the Clock app—specifically, the Timer mode,
which counts down to zero. Apple figures you might appreciate having direct access to it when you’re cooking, for example, or waiting for
your hair color to set.
Sample Siri commands: “Open the Timer.” Or, better yet, bypass the
Clock and Timer apps altogether: “Start the timer for three minutes.”
“Count down from six minutes.” (Siri counts down right there on the
Siri screen.)
• Calculator (N). Tap to open the Calculator app—a handy shortcut if
it’s your turn to figure out how to divide up the restaurant bill.
Sample Siri commands: “Open the calculator.” Or, better yet, without
opening any app: “What’s a hundred and six divided by five?”
• Camera (s). Tap to jump directly into the Camera app. Because
photo ops don’t wait around.
Sample Siri commands: “Take a picture.” “Open the camera.”

The Guided Tour

On the Playback screen of the Control Center, you get these options:
• Music information. Now that the playback buttons are on a separate
screen, there’s room for some information about the current song,
and even a photo of the album.
• Playback controls ( «, ÷, » ). These controls govern playback in
whatever app is playing music or podcasts in the background: the
Music app, Pandora, Spotify, whatever it is. You can skip a horrible
song quickly and efficiently without having to interrupt what you’re
doing, or pause the music to chat with a colleague. (Tap the song
name to open whatever app is playing.)
You also get a scrubber bar that shows where you are in the song,
the name of the song and the performer, and the album name. And,
of course, there’s a volume slider. It lets you make big volume jumps
faster than you can by pressing the volume buttons on the side of the
phone.
Sample Siri commands: “Pause the music.” “Skip to the next song.”
“Play some Billy Joel.”
• Audio Output. At the very bottom of this screen, you can choose
which speaker source you want for playback. It always lists iPhone
(the built-in speakers), but it may also list things like a Bluetooth
speaker, earbuds, or AirPlay, which sends music or video to a wireless
speaker system or TV (see page 249).
The Control Center closes when any of these things happen:
• You tap the Timer, Calculator, or Camera button.
• You tap or drag downward from any spot above the Control Center
(the dimmed background of the screen).
• You press the Home button.
NOTE: In some apps, swiping up doesn’t open the Control Center on the
first try, much to your probable bafflement. Instead, swiping up
just makes a tiny O tab appear at the edge of the screen. (You’ll
see this behavior whenever the status bar—the strip at the top
that shows the time and battery gauge—is hidden, as can happen
in the full-screen modes of iBooks, Maps, Videos, and so on. It
also happens in the Camera.)
In those situations, Apple is trying to protect you from opening
the Control Center accidentally—for example, when what you
really wanted to do was scroll the image up. No big deal; once
the O appears, swipe up a second time to open the Control
Center panel.

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If you find yourself opening the Control Center accidentally—when playing games, for example—you can turn it off. Open SettingsÆControl
Center. Turn off Access Within Apps. Now swiping up opens the Control
Center only at the Home screen. (You can also turn off Access on Lock
Screen here, to make sure the Control Center never appears when the
phone is asleep.)

Passcode (or Fingerprint) Protection
Like any smartphone, the iPhone offers a first line of defense for a phone
that winds up in the wrong hands. It’s designed to keep your stuff private
from other people in the house or the office, or to protect your information in case you lose the iPhone. If you don’t know the passcode or don’t
have the right fingerprint, you can’t use the iPhone (except for limited
tasks like taking a photo or using Siri).
About half of iPhone owners don’t bother setting up a passcode to protect the phone. Maybe they never set the thing down in public, so they
don’t worry about thieves. Or maybe there’s just not that much personal
information on the phone—and meanwhile, having to enter a passcode
every time you wake the phone can get to be a profound hassle.
TIP: Besides—if you ever do lose your phone, you can put a passcode on
it by remote control; see page 531.

The other half of people reason that the inconvenience of entering a
passcode many times a day is a small price to pay for the knowledge that
nobody can get into your stuff if you lose your phone.
If you think your phone is worth protecting, here’s how to set up a passcode—and, if you have an iPhone 5s or later model, how to use the fingerprint reader instead.

Setting Up a Passcode
If you didn’t already create a phone passcode the first time you turned
your iPhone on (see page 614), here’s how to do it. (And just because
you’re an iPhone 5s-or-later owner, don’t be smug; you have to create a
passcode even if you plan to use the fingerprint reader. As a backup.)
Open SettingsÆTouch ID & Passcode. (On the 5c, it’s just called
Passcode Lock.)
iOS 10 proposes a longer string of numbers than iOS once did, for
greater security (six digits instead of four). But you can tap Passcode
Options if you’d prefer a four-digit number, or a full-blown alphanumeric
password of any length.
The Guided Tour

You’re asked to type the passcode you want, either on the number keypad (for number codes) or the alphabet keyboard. You’re asked to do it
again to make sure you didn’t make a typo.
NOTE: Don’t kid around with this passcode. If you forget the iPhone
code, you’ll have to restore your iPhone (page 625), which
wipes out everything on it. You’ve probably still got most of the
data on your computer or backed up on iCloud, of course (music,
video, contacts, calendar), but you may lose text messages, mail,
and so on.

Once you confirm your passcode, you return to the Passcode Lock
screen. Here you have a few more options.
The Require Passcode option lets you specify how quickly the password is requested before locking somebody out: immediately after
the iPhone wakes or 1, 15, 30, 60, or 240 minutes later. (Those options
are a convenience to you, so you can quickly check your calendar or
missed messages without having to enter the passcode—while still
protecting your data from, for example, evildoers who pick up your
iPhone while you’re out getting coffee.)
Certain features are accessible on the Lock screen even before you’ve
entered your password: the Today and Notifications tabs of the
Notification Center; Siri, Wallet, Home Control, and Reply with Message (the ability to reply to text messages right from their notification
bubble).
These are huge conveniences, but also, technically, a security risk.
Somebody who finds your phone on your desk could, for example,
blindly voice-dial your colleagues or use Siri to send a text. If you turn
these switches off, then nobody can use these features until after
entering the password (or using your fingerprint).
Finally, here is Erase Data—an option that’s scary and reassuring at
the same time. When this option is on, then if someone makes 10
incorrect guesses at your passcode, your iPhone erases itself. It’s
assuming that some lowlife burglar is trying to crack into it to have a
look at all your personal data.
This option, a pertinent one for professional people, provides potent
protection from patient password prospectors.
NOTE: Even when the phone is locked and the password unguessable,
a tiny blue Emergency Call button still appears on the Unlock
screen. It’s there just in case you’ve been conked on the head by
a vase, you can’t remember your own password, and you need to
call 911.

Chapter 1

And that is all. From now on, each time you wake your iPhone (if it’s not
within the window of repeat visits you established), you’re asked for your
password.

Fingerprint Security (Touch ID)
If you have an iPhone 5s or later, you have the option of using a more
secure and convenient kind of “passcode”: your fingertip.
The lens built right into the Home button (clever!) reads your finger at
any angle. It can’t be faked out by a plastic finger or even a chopped-off
finger. You can teach it to recognize up to five fingerprints; they can all
be yours, or some can belong to other people you trust.
Before you can use your fingertip as a password, though, you have to
teach the phone to recognize it. Here’s how that goes:
1. Create a passcode. You can’t use a fingerprint instead of a passcode;
you can only use a fingerprint in addition to one. You’ll still need a
passcode from time to time to keep the phone’s security tight. For
example, you need to enter your passcode if you can’t make your
fingerprint work (maybe it got encased in acrylic in a hideous crafts
accident), or if you restart the phone, or if you haven’t used the phone
in 48 hours or more.
So open SettingsÆTouch ID & Passcode and create a password, as
already described.
2. Teach a fingerprint. At the top of the Touch ID & Passcode screen,
you see the on/off switches for the three things your fingerprint can
do: It can unlock the phone (iPhone Unlock), pay for things (Apple
Pay), and it can serve as your password when you buy books, music,
apps, and videos from Apple’s online stores (iTunes & App Store).
But what you really want to tap here, of course, is Add a Fingerprint.

The Guided Tour

Now comes the cool part. Place the finger you want to train onto the
Home button—your thumb or index finger are the most logical candidates. You’re asked to touch it to the Home button over and over,
maybe six times. Each time, the gray lines of the onscreen fingerprint
darken a little more.
Once you’ve filled in the fingerprint, you see the Adjust Your Grip
screen. Tap Continue. Now, the iPhone wants you to touch the Home
button another few times, this time tipping the finger a little each
time so the sensor gets a better view of your finger’s edges.
Once that’s done, the screen says “Success!”
You are now ready to start using the fingerprint. Try it: Put the phone to
sleep. Then wake it (press the Sleep switch or press the Home button),
and leave your finger on the Home button for about a second. The phone
reads your fingerprint and instantly unlocks itself.
And now, a few notes about using your fingerprint as a password:
• Yes, you can touch your finger to the Home button at the Lock
screen. But you can also touch it at any Enter Passcode screen.

Chapter 1

Suppose, for example, that your Lock screen shows that you missed a
text message. And you want to reply. Well, you can swipe across that
notification to open it in its native habitat—the Messages app—but
first you’re shown the Enter Passcode screen. Ignore that. Just touch
the Home button with the finger whose print you recorded.
• Apple says the image of your fingerprint is encrypted and stored in
the iPhone’s processor chip. It’s never transmitted anywhere, it never
goes online, and it’s never collected by Apple.
• If you return to the Touch ID & Passcode screens, you can tap Add a
Fingerprint again to teach your phone to recognize a second finger.
And a third, fourth, and fifth.
The five “registered” fingerprints don’t all have to belong to you. If you
share the phone with a spouse or a child, for example, that special
somebody can use up some of the fingerprint slots.
• On the other hand, it makes a lot of sense to register the same finger
several times. You’ll be amazed at how much faster and more reliably
your thumb (for example) is recognized if you’ve trained it as several
different “fingerprints.”
• To rename a fingerprint, tap its current name (“Finger 1” or whatever).
To delete one, tap its name and then tap Delete Fingerprint. (You can
figure out which finger label is which by touching the Home button;
the corresponding label blinks. Sweet!)
• You can register your toes instead of fingers, if that’s helpful. Or even
patches of your wrist or arm, if you’re patient (and weird).
• The Touch ID scanner may have trouble recognizing your touch if
your finger is wet, greasy, or scarred.
• The iPhone’s finger reader isn’t just a camera; it doesn’t just look for
the image of your fingerprint. It’s actually measuring the tiny differences in electrical conductivity between the raised parts of your
fingerprint (which aren’t conductive) and the skin just beneath the
surface (which is). That’s why a plastic finger won’t work—and even
your own finger won’t work if it’s been chopped off (or if you’ve
passed away).

Fingerprints for Apps, Websites, and Apple Pay
So if your fingerprint is such a great solution to password overload, how
come it works only to unlock the phone and to buy stuff from Apple’s
online stores? Wouldn’t it be great if your fingerprint could also log you
into secure websites? Or serve as your ID when you buy stuff online?

The Guided Tour

That dream is finally becoming a reality. Software companies can now
use your Touch ID fingerprint to log into their apps. Mint (for checking
your personal finances), Evernote (for storing notes, pictures, and to-do
lists), Amazon (for buying stuff), and other apps now permit you to substitute a fingerprint touch for typing a password.
What’s really wild is that password-storing apps like 1Password and
LastPass have been updated, too. Those apps are designed to memorize
your passwords for all sites on the web, of every type—and now you can
use your fingerprint to unlock them.
Moreover, your fingerprint is now the key to the magical door of Apple
Pay, the wireless pay-with-your-iPhone technology described on
page 536.
All of this is great news. Most of us would be happy if we never, ever had
to type in another password.

Chapter 1

The Lock Screen
& Notifications

he Lock screen—the first thing you see when you wake the
iPhone—is more than just a big Do Not Disturb sign. It’s a lively
bulletin board for up-to-date information about your life. And,
in iOS 10, it’s had a big promotion. Now it’s possible to have complete
work sessions right at the Lock screen, without even fully unlocking the
iPhone.
For starters, you can use the iPhone as a watch—millions of people do.
Just lift the sleeping phone, or press the Sleep or Home button, to consult the Lock screen’s time and date display, and then shove the phone
right back into your pocket. The iPhone relocks after a few seconds.
If you’re driving, using the Maps app to guide you, the Lock screen
shows the standard GPS navigation screen. Handy, really—the less fumbling you have to do while driving, the safer you are.
Better yet, the Lock screen is a handy status screen. Here you see a
record of everything that happened while you weren’t paying attention.
It’s a list of missed calls, text messages received, notifications from your
apps, and other essential information.

Four Swipes, You’re In
The Lock screen in iOS 10 is the centerpiece of four other important
screens. You can swipe up, down, left, or right to bring them into view.
• Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the Control Center
shortcuts screen (page 46).

• Swipe down from the top to view your Notification Center—a master
list of missed calls, appointments, alerts, and so on (page 61).
• Swipe left to open the Camera app (page 261).
• Swipe right to reveal the Today (Widgets) screen (page 65).
The Lock Screen & Notifications

In short, keep this map in your head every time you wake your phone:
Notification Center

Today view

Camera

Lock

screen

Control Center

Chapter 2

Notifications
A notification is an important status message. You get one every time
a text message comes in, an alarm goes off, a calendar appointment is
imminent, your battery is running low, and so on. They appear in three
different places:
• On your screen, while you’re working. They pop up to get your attention (below, top left).
• On the Lock screen, in a scrolling list of alerts that came in while you
were away (below, bottom left). (Unlocking the phone wipes them
away. The next time you unlock the phone, that batch will be gone.)
• On the Notifications screen. This special screen pulls down from the
top of the screen like a window shade (below, right). Here’s where you
can look at all the notifications that have come in recently, even ones
you already saw on the Lock screen.
TIP: You can pull this screen down from the top whether the phone is
locked or unlocked.

The following pages tackle these three notification situations one by one.

The Lock Screen & Notifications

Notifications While You’re Working
These days, there’s a lot more you can do with a notification than just
read it and nod your head. Apple has gone to a lot of effort to make notifications as productive, customizable, and un-interrupty as possible.
For example, if one of them springs onto your screen while you’re working, you can deal with it in any of these ways:
• Flick it away. You can flick any notification bubble upward with your
finger to make it disappear.
• Answer it. Often, a notification appears to display an incoming text
message, email, or calendar invitation. You can actually take action
on the bubble itself: reply to a text message, delete an email, accept
a calendar invitation, see where your Uber car is, mark a Reminder as
done, and so on. And you never have to leave the app you were using,
which is deliciously efficient.
Apple calls this feature rich notifications.
If you have an iPhone 6s or 7 model, you have 3D Touch, which
means your screen can tell how hard you’re pressing. Just hard-press
right on the notification to expand it (facing page, top right).
If you have an earlier model, you have to use a different sequence
to access the notification response screens. Swipe to the left on the
notification bubble to reveal a couple of buttons, like View and Clear
(facing page, lower right). Tap View to open the response panel (facing page, top right).
• Open it. Finally, here’s the obvious one: You can tap a notification to
open the app it came from. Tap an email notification to open the message in Mail; tap a text-message notification to open it in Messages;
and so on. That’s handy when you want to dig in and see the full context of the notification.

Notifications on the Lock Screen
The techniques for operating on notifications on the Lock screen (facing
page, right) are slightly different. You can:
• Answer it. As described, you can deal with a notification right on its
bubble. On an iPhone 6s or 7 model, hard-press right on the notification to expand it as shown at top right on the facing page.
If it’s an iPhone 5, 6, or SE, swipe to the left on the notification bubble to reveal a couple of buttons. If it’s a text message, buttons say
View and Clear; if it’s an email, they say Trash and Mark as Read; and
so on (facing page, lower right).

Chapter 2

• Open it. If you swipe a notification bubble to the right, you’re
prompted to log in (enter your password or touch the fingerprint
reader/Home button). You wind up in whichever app sent you the
notification. If it’s a missed-call note, it takes you to the Phone app; if
it’s a text message, it opens the Messages app; and so on.
Modern iPhones: Press hard to reply

Incoming notification

Older iPhones: Swipe left, tap View

The Notification Center
No matter what kind of notification pops up, you still see only one alert
at a time. And once it’s gone, you can’t get it back. Or can you?

The Lock Screen & Notifications

Meet the Notification Center screen (page 59, right). It lists every notification you’ve recently received, in a tidy scrolling list.
You can check it out right now, whether your phone is locked or
unlocked: Swipe your finger down from above the iPhone’s screen. The
Notification Center pulls down like a classy window shade, listing every
recent item of interest.
Here you’ll find all your apps’ notifications, as well as your missed calls,
recent text messages, reminders, and upcoming calendar appointments.
Scroll down, and you’ll discover that they go back about a week. It can
be a very long list.
Tap one of these bubbles to open the relevant app for more details—for
example, to see more information about that appointment, or to read the
whole text message in context.
You can clear out the notifications from the Center like this:
• Tap the ˛ next to a day’s name, and then tap Clear to remove all notifications for that day.
• If you have an iPhone 6s or 7 model, hard-press the ˛ next to
any day’s name to reveal the Clear All button. It erases your entire
Notification Center. (There’s no Clear All function on older iPhone
models.)
To close the Notification Center, just swipe it up and away from the bottom of the screen.

Customizing Notifications
You can (and should) specify which apps are allowed to junk up your
notification screens. Open SettingsÆNotifications to see the master list,
with one entry for every app that might ever want your attention. (Or just
tell Siri, “Open notification settings.”)
You’ll quickly discover that every app thinks it’s important; every app
wants its notifications to blast into your face when you’re working.
You, however, may not agree. You may not consider it essential to know
when your kid’s Plants vs. Zombies score has changed, for example.
So: Tap an app’s name to open its individual Notifications screen (facing
page—the News app, in this example). Here you’ll find settings that vary
by app, but they generally run along these lines:
• Allow Notifications. If you don’t want this app to make any notifications pop up at all, turn this off.

Chapter 2

• Show in Notification Center. If you turn this off, an app may still display bubbles or banners to get your attention—but those alerts won’t
show up in the Notification Center itself.
• Sounds. Some apps try to get your attention with a sound effect
when a notification appears. Turn this off if you think your phone
makes too many beeps and burbles as it is. (Some apps also let
you choose which sound effect plays to get your attention. You can
change the sound or choose None.)
• Badge App Icon. A badge is a little red circled number (®, for example). It appears right on an app’s icon to indicate how many updates
are waiting for you. Turn it off if you really don’t need that reminder.
• Show on Lock Screen. The Lock screen (page 17) is another place
to see what’s been trying to get your attention while the phone was
in your pocket: missed calls and texts, new messages and email, and
so on.
The Lock screen may seem just like the Notification Center—but there
are differences. For example, each time you wake the phone, what-

The Lock Screen & Notifications

ever notifications are on the Lock screen are wiped clear. They don’t
stay put, as they do in the Notification Center.
You might want a different set of apps to list their nags on the Lock
screen. Maybe you want the Lock screen to show only missed calls,
new text messages, and new email—but you’d like the Notification
Center to be fully stocked with Twitter and Facebook updates, for
example. Or maybe you’d rather not permit passing evildoers to pick
up your phone and see your notifications without even having to
unlock it.
That’s why you have this switch. It governs your ability to see this
app’s updates on the Lock screen (and the Notification Center when
you open it while at the Lock screen).

What Notifications Look Like
Notifications can appear in any of three styles—and you get to choose
which you prefer, for each individual app.
On the same SettingsÆNotifications screen (then tap the app’s name),
you can choose one of these three styles for notifications that occur
while you’re using the phone:
• None. If a certain app bugs you with news you really don’t care about,
you can shut it up forever. Tap None.
• Banners are incoming notifications that appear quietly and briefly at
the top of the screen. The message holds still long enough for you
to read it, but it goes away after a few seconds. Banners are a good
option for things like Facebook and Twitter updates and incoming
email messages.
TIP: A reminder: If you tap a banner before it disappears, you jump
directly to the app that’s trying to get your attention. You can also
flick a banner up off the screen if it’s in your way.

• Alerts. An alert box doesn’t disappear after a couple of seconds;
it stays on your screen until you tap or swipe it. You might use this
option for apps whose messages are too important to miss, like
alarms, flight updates, or text messages.
TIP: You can also use the Include setting to specify how much of the
Notification Center this app is allowed to use up—that is, how many
lines of information. Maybe you need only the most recent alert
about your upcoming flight (1 Item), but you want to see a lot more
of your upcoming appointments (10 Items).

Chapter 2

Miscellaneous Weirdness
As you poke around in the Notification Center settings, you’ll discover
that certain oddball apps offer some options that don’t match up with
the settings you see for most apps. Don’t freak out. It’s all part of Apple’s
master plan to put controls where it hopes you’ll find them.

The Today Screen (Widgets)
To the left of the main Lock screen, you’ll find a motley assortment of
panels that Apple calls widgets.
Some are quick-access buttons that launch related apps, like quick-dial
(or quick-text) buttons for your favorite contacts; others are info-bits that
you might want to check frequently throughout the day, like your calendar, news, sports, and weather.
This entire wonderland is available before you’ve even unlocked the
phone—quickly. That’s the point.

The Lock Screen & Notifications

(Actually, the Today screen is available when the phone is unlocked, too.
It’s always waiting to the left of the Home screens.)
Truth is, many people don’t even know the Today screen is there; even if
they do, most people don’t use it. And sure enough, this feature doesn’t
really be become useful until you customize it: Rearrange the widgets,
remove the ones you’d never touch, and install more useful ones.
The very first time you open the Widgets screen, you see things like the
Spotlight search bar (page 99), Up Next, Siri App Suggestions, and
News. (They’re described on these pages.) But the key to the real magic
is the Edit button, which is hiding below all the widgets, several scrolls
down.
The list you find here has two parts: The widgets that are currently
installed, and the ones that aren’t. Delete a widget by tapping its – button; add one by tapping its ≠ button. Rearrange the installed ones by
dragging their ˝ handles. When you are finished, tap Done.
So what widgets are available? Here’s a rundown:
• Up Next. The next couple of things on your calendar. Tap to log in and
open the Calendar app, which shows you details of the event.
• Siri App Suggestions. This feature is supposed to let you know when
one of your apps might be useful. You can think of it as a “frequently
used apps” listing, but it’s even smarter than that; the icons you see
here are chosen based on the time and your location right now.
It’s based on recognition of your daily patterns: If you listen to the
Podcasts app through earbuds every day before work, then plugging
in your earbuds at about that time and location displays the Podcast
66

Chapter 2

app’s icon. If you call home as you leave work every day, the Phone
app’s icon shows up at that time.
In each case, the suggested app opens when you tap its icon.
• News. Headlines from the News app (page 402).
• Weather. You guessed it.
• Maps Destinations. If you use Apple’s Maps app, and routinely enter
the addresses of your appointments on the Calendar, here’s the payoff: a list of upcoming and predicted destinations, including your next
calendar appointment and where you parked your car (page 399).
• Calendar. Today’s agenda. Tap an appointment to unlock your phone
and see its details screen.
• Reminders. Your unfinished To Dos. You can mark one as done here,
without having to unlock the phone and open the app. That’s a big
deal.
• Favorites. This is your speed-dial list. The first four people you’ve designated as Favorites appear here, for quick speed dialing.
But it’s not just about phone calls (who does that anymore)? In
iOS 10, you can designate a text-message address, email address,
Skype handle, or other communication addresses as Favorites
(page 104). Which means that, using this widget, you can insta-text
your spouse or your kid, without having to open the app, access the
address book, choose the person’s name, and so on. Shortcuts, baby!
• Find Friends. After a moment of thought, this widget shows a
map that pinpoints the location of any loved ones you’re tracking
(page 586).
• Mail. A speed-dial list of the people you’ve designated as VIPs
(page 484), for quick emailing.
• Maps Nearby. These icons are shortcuts for time-appropriate
searches, like coffee in the morning, or nightlife after dark.
• Maps Transit. If you use Maps’ public-transportation feature, this widget lets you know about delays and service interruptions.
• Music. Playback controls for resuming and controlling whatever you
were playing last.
• Notes. You see the first couple of lines of the Notes page you most
recently edited.

The Lock Screen & Notifications

• Photos. Thumbnails that, after you unlock the phone, open recent
Memories (automated slideshows of recent time periods).
• Stocks. The latest on whatever stocks you follow (page 420).
• Tips. This is the closest Apple comes to offering a manual for iOS 10.
You probably have many other widgets, too, installed by your apps.
Waze, Yelp, The New York Times, NPR, Google Maps, Kindle, Evernote,
Dropbox, Chrome, Amazon, and many other apps put widgets here for
your quick-glancing pleasure.
TIP: Many widgets are expandable. If you see a Show More button on
a widget, it means that a larger area, showing more information,
is available to you. For example, expanding the Favorites widget
shows icons for eight speed-dial people instead of four; expanding
the Notes widget shows the three notes you’ve most recently
viewed, instead of one; and so on. They remain expanded until you
collapse them again.

Widgets on the Home Screen
Turns out you don’t have to swipe onto the Today screen to view a certain widget you need right now. On the iPhone 6s and 7 models, you can
hard-press (page 35) an app’s Home-screen icon to view not just its
shortcut menu, but also its widget, for quick consultation. (This pop-up
panel also includes an Add Widget button, should you decide to install it
on the Widgets screen.)

Locking Down the Lock Screen
Now, remember: You can enjoy any of these activities, and see any of
this information, even before you’ve entered your password or used your
fingerprint.
If you’d rather not have all these details show up on the Lock screen, you
can turn them off. Privacy is the main reason you might want to do so—
remember that the bad guys don’t need a password to view your Lock
screen. They just have to tap the Sleep switch or the Home button.
If that bothers you, turn those features off individually. For example:
• Control Center. To block Lock-screen access to your Control Center,
open SettingsÆControl Center. Turn off Access on Lock Screen.
• Widgets. You can eliminate the entire Today screen by turning off
SettingsÆTouch ID & PasscodeÆToday. (The Today screen is still
available after you’ve unlocked the phone; swipe to the right from the
Home screen.)

Chapter 2

Or, if one widget’s presence bothers you, bring up the Today screen;
scroll to the bottom; tap Edit; and tap the – button for the widget.
• Notification screen. Similarly, you can eliminate the Notifications
screen by turning off SettingsÆTouch ID & PasscodeÆNotifications
view. (This, too, is still available after you’ve unlocked the phone.)
NOTE: This step gets rid of the Notifications screen—the window
shade that appears when you drag down on the Lock screen.
Notifications will still appear on the Lock screen as they come in,
though. You can hide these items from your Lock screen on an
app-by-app basis. To set this up, choose SettingsÆNotifications.
Tap the app in question; scroll to the bottom, and then turn off
Show on Lock Screen.

• Camera. There’s no way to block access to the Camera from the Lock
screen. (Well, you can open SettingsÆGeneralÆRestrictions and turn
off Camera. That step, however, hides the Camera completely—it even
disappears from the Home screen.)

The Lock Screen & Notifications

Typing, Editing
& Searching

s a pocket computer, the iPhone faces a fundamental limitation: It has no real keyboard or mouse. Which might be
considered a drawback on a gadget that’s capable of running
hundreds of thousands of programs.
Fortunately, where there’s a problem, there’s software that can fix it. The
modern iPhone’s virtual keyboard is smart in all kinds of ways—automatically predicting words and correcting typos, for example. And besides:
If you don’t like the iPhone’s onscreen keyboard, you can just choose
one designed by a different company.
This chapter covers every aspect of working with text on the iPhone:
entering it, dictating it, fixing it and searching for it.

The Keyboard
It’s true, boys and girls: The iPhone has no physical keys. A virtual keyboard, therefore, is the only possible built-in system for typing text. Like
it or not, you’ll be doing a lot of typing on glass.
The keyboard appears automatically whenever you tap in a place where
typing is possible: in an outgoing email or text message, in the Notes
program, in the address bar of the web browser, and so on.
Just tap the key you want. As your finger taps the glass, a “speech balloon” appears above your finger, showing an enlarged version of the
key you actually hit (since your finger is now blocking your view of the
keyboard).
TIP: If you worry about spies nearby figuring out what you’re typing
by watching those bubbles pop up over your fingertips, you can
turn them off. Open SettingsÆGeneralÆKeyboard, and turn off
Character Preview.

Typing, Editing & Searching

In darker gray, surrounding the letters, you’ll find these special keys:
• Shift (L). When you tap this key, it turns dark to indicate that it’s in
effect. The next letter you type appears as a capital. Then the L key
returns to normal, meaning that the next letter will be lowercase.
TIP: It used to be that the color of the Shift key was your only clue
that you were about to type a capital letter; the actual letters on
the onscreen keyboard’s keys always appeared AS CAPITALS. But
these days, the key letters appear in lowercase until you press Shift.
(If you prefer that old system, though, open SettingsÆ GeneralÆ
AccessibilityÆKeyboard. Turn off Show Lowercase Keys.

• Caps Lock (Ç). The iPhone has a Caps Lock “key,” but it’s hidden. To
engage it, double-tap the L key; it changes to Ç. You’re now in Caps
Lock mode, and you’ll type in ALL CAPITALS until you tap the Ç key
again (or the „ key). If you can’t seem to make Caps Lock work, try
double-tapping the L key fast. Or see if maybe Caps Lock got turned
off in SettingsÆGeneralÆKeyboard.

• Backspace (V). This key actually has three speeds:
Tap it once to delete the letter just before the blinking insertion point.

Chapter 3

Hold it down to “walk” backward, deleting as you go.
If you hold down the key long enough, it starts deleting words rather
than letters, one whole chunk at a time.
•

„. Tap this button when you want to type numbers or punctuation. The keyboard changes to offer a palette of numbers and symbols. Tap the same key—which now says —to return to the letters
keyboard.
Once you’re on the numbers/symbols pad, a new dark-gray button
appears, labeled =. Tapping it summons a third keyboard layout,
containing the less frequently used symbols, like brackets, the # and
% symbols, bullets, and math symbols.

• return. Tapping this key moves to the next line, just as on a real keyboard. (There’s no Tab key or Enter key in iPhone Land.)

Making the Keyboard Work
Some people have no problem tapping those tiny virtual keys; others
struggle for days. Either way, here are some tips:
• As you type, use the whole pad of your finger or thumb. Don’t try to
tap with only a skinny part of your finger to match the skinny keys.
You’ll be surprised at how fast and accurate this method is. (Tap,
don’t mash.)
• This may sound like New Age hooey, but trust the keyboard. Don’t
pause to check the result after each letter. Just plow on.
TIP: Although you don’t see it, the sizes of the keys on the iPhone
keyboard are changing all the time. That is, the software enlarges
the “landing area” of certain keys, based on probability.
For example, suppose you type tim. The iPhone knows that no
word in the language begins with timw or timr—and so, invisibly, it
enlarges the “landing area” of the E key, which greatly diminishes
your chances of making a typo on that last letter.

• Without a mouse, how are you supposed to correct an error you
made a few sentences ago? Easy—use the loupe.
Hold your fingertip down anywhere in the text until the magnified
circle appears. Without lifting your finger, drag anywhere in the text;
the insertion point moves along with it. Release when the blue line
is where you want to delete or add text, just as though you’d clicked
there with a mouse.

Typing, Editing & Searching

TIP: In the Safari address bar, you can skip the part about waiting for the
loupe to appear. Once you click into the address, start dragging to
make it appear at once.

• Don’t bother using the Shift key to capitalize a new sentence. The
iPhone does that capitalizing automatically. (To turn this feature on or
off, use SettingsÆGeneralÆKeyboardÆAuto-Capitalization.)
• Don’t type a period at the end of each sentence, either. Because the
period is such a frequently used symbol, there’s an awesome shortcut that doesn’t require switching to the punctuation keyboard: At the
end of a sentence, tap the space bar twice. You get a period, a space,
and a capitalized letter at the beginning of the next word. (This, too,
can be turned off—in SettingsÆGeneralÆKeyboardÆ“.” Shortcut—
although it’s hard to imagine why you’d want to.)
• You can save time by leaving out the apostrophe in contractions. Type
im, dont, or cant. The iPhone proposes I’m, don’t, or can’t, so you can
just tap the space bar to fix the word and continue.

Autocorrect: Your Typing Assistant from Hell
Since it’s fussy to type on a phone, the iPhone, like all smartphones,
offers a feature called autocorrect. Whenever the software thinks you’ve
made a spelling error, it automatically substitutes the “correct” word or
spelling. For example, if you type imsame, the iPhone realizes that you
meant insane and replaces it automatically.
Most of the time, that’s helpful; autocorrect even finishes long words for
you sometimes. But you have to be vigilant—because many times autocorrect substitutes the wrong word! And sometimes you don’t notice it,

Chapter 3

and you wind up texting absolute gibberish to your correspondent. The
Internet is filled with hilarious examples of autocorrect gone wrong. (Visit
damnyouautocorrect.com for some choice ones.)
So here’s the important thing: The iPhone always shows you the replacement it intends to make before making it, in a blue-type bubble (below,
left). To accept its suggestion, tap the space bar or any punctuation. To
prevent the replacement, tap the bubble with your finger.
TIP: If you turn on Speak Auto-text (in SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibility),
the iPhone even speaks the suggested word out loud. That way, you
can keep your focus on the keyboard.

And by the way: If you accidentally accept an autocorrect suggestion,
tap the Backspace key. A word bubble appears, which you can tap to
reinstate what you’d originally typed (shown above at right).
TIP: If you think that autocorrect is doing you more harm than help,
you can turn it off in SettingsÆGeneralÆKeyboard. Turn off
Auto-Correction.

QuickType
What Apple calls its QuickType keyboard can save you a lot of time, tapping, and errors.
The idea is simple: As you type a sentence, the software predicts which
word you might type next—which are the three most likely words, actually—and displays them as three buttons above the keyboard.
If you begin the sentence by typing, “I really,” then the three suggestions
might be want, don’t, and like.
But what if you intended to say, “I really hope…”? In that case, type the
first letter of “hope.” Instantly, the three suggestions change to “h”,
hope, and hate. (The first button always shows, in quotes, whatever nonword you’ve typed so far, just in case that’s what you intend. To place

Typing, Editing & Searching

it into your text, you can tap that button or tap the space bar or some
punctuation.)
In other words, QuickType is autocomplete on steroids. (In fact, one of
the three suggestions is always the same one you would have seen in the
little autocomplete bubble.) Frankly, it’s a rush when QuickType correctly
proposes finishing a long word for you.
With QuickType, you can produce a sentence like “I’ll gladly pay you
Tuesday for a hamburger today” with 26 taps on the screen. If you had
to type out the whole thing, you’d have tapped 50 keys. QuickType also
adds spaces for you.

A set of three buttons, guessing what you might want to type next, isn’t
a new idea; Android and BlackBerry phones have had it for years. But
QuickType is smarter in several ways:
• QuickType’s suggestions are different in Messages (where language
tends to be casual) than in Mail (where people write more formally).
• Similarly, QuickType modifies its suggestions based on whom you’re
writing to. It learns.
• Sometimes, QuickType offers you several words on a single button, to
save you even more time (for example, up to or in the).
• New in iOS 10: When you’re in the Messages app, QuickType suggests
an emoji (a tiny cartoon drawing) when you’ve typed a corresponding
word. Page 186 has the details.
• QuickType automatically adds a space after each word you select, so
you don’t have to mess with the space bar.

Chapter 3

• When someone texts you a question that ends with a choice (“Coffee,
tea, or me?”), the QuickType buttons cleverly offer those choices on
the buttons. Before you’ve even typed a single letter, the choices say
coffee, tea, and you.
• If you forget to capitalize a word, double-tap to select it. Now tap
Shift once (to Initial Cap the Word) or twice (for ALL CAPS). Lo and
behold, the QuickType suggestions are now capitalized renditions of
the word, ready to replace it!
• You can hide the QuickType bar if it’s getting on your nerves. Just
hold down the button next to the 123 key (it usually looks like º or
˚); from the shortcut menu, tap to turn off Predictive. (There’s a
duplicate of this switch in SettingsÆ GeneralÆ Keyboard.)

QuickType does mean that you have to split your focus. You have to
pay attention to both the keys you’re tapping and the ever-changing
word choices above the keyboard. With practice, though, you’ll find that
QuickType offers impressive speed and accuracy. You won’t miss the little autocorrect bubbles of old.

The Spelling Dictionary
If you start typing a word the iPhone doesn’t recognize, the first of the
three suggestion buttons displays your word in quotation marks. If you
really do intend to type that nonstandard word, tap its button. You’ve
just allowed the “mistake” to stand—and you’ve added it to the iPhone’s
dictionary. The phone assumes that you’ve just typed some name, bit of
slang, or terminology that wasn’t in its dictionary originally.
From now on, it will accept that bizarre new word as legitimate—and, in
fact, will even suggest it the next time you start typing it.

Typing, Editing & Searching

TIP: If you feel you’ve really made a mess of your custom dictionary, and
the iPhone keeps suggesting ridiculous alternate words, you can
start fresh. From the Home screen, tap SettingsÆGeneralÆReset,
and then tap Reset Keyboard Dictionary. Now the iPhone’s
dictionary is the way it was when it came from the factory, without
any of the words it learned from you.

The Spelling Checker
Here’s the world’s friendliest typo-fixer. Apple calls it a spelling checker,
but maybe that’s stretching it.
Anytime the iPhone doesn’t recognize something you’ve typed, it draws
a dotted red underline beneath it. Tap the word to see a pop-up balloon
with one, two, or three alternate spellings. Often, one of them is what
you wanted, and you can tap it to fix the mistake. (Equally often, none of
them is, and it’s time to break out the loupe and the keyboard.)
TIP: You can also invoke the spelling checker’s suggestions even if you
haven’t made a typo. Double-tap the word; on the editing bar that
appears, tap Replace.

The Widescreen Keyboard
In most apps, you can turn the phone 90 degrees to type. When the keyboard stretches out the long way, the keys get a lot bigger. It’s much easier to type—even with two thumbs.
This feature doesn’t work in every app, but it does work in the apps
where you do the most typing: Mail, Messages, the Safari browser,
Contacts, Twitter, Notes, and so on. (The screen also rotates in Camera,
Music, Calculator, Calendar, and Stocks, though not for typing purposes.)
If you have an iPhone 6 or later, something even more startling happens:
You get extra keys on the sides—including cursor keys. (With the Caps
Lock engaged, you can actually highlight text by pressing these cursor
keys.)

Chapter 3

Cursor keys

Cut
Paste
Undo

Copy
Bold
Dictate

Hide keyboard

NOTE: If you don’t see the additional control keys on the sides of your
widescreen keyboard, it’s probably because you’ve turned on
Zoomed mode (page 208). In Zoomed mode, all the keys are a
little bigger—so there’s no room for the buttons.

Punctuation with One Touch
On the iPhone, the punctuation and alphabet keys appear on two different keyboard layouts. That’s a serious hassle, because each time you
want, say, a comma, it’s an awkward, three-step dance: (1) Tap the „ key
to get the punctuation layout. (2) Tap the comma. (3) Tap the  key or
the space bar to return to the alphabet layout.
Imagine how excruciating it is to type, for example, “a P.O. box in the
U.S.A.” That’s 34 finger taps and 10 mode changes!
Fortunately, there’s a secret way to get a punctuation mark with only a
single finger gesture. The iPhone doesn’t register most key presses until
you lift your finger. But the Shift and punctuation keys register their taps
on the press down instead.
So here’s what you can do, all in one motion:
1. Touch the „ key, but don’t lift your finger. The punctuation layout
appears.

Typing, Editing & Searching

2. Slide your finger onto the period or comma key, and release. The
ABC layout returns automatically. You’ve typed a period or a comma
with one finger touch instead of three.
TIP: If you’re a two-thumbed typist, you can also hit the „ key with
your left thumb and then tap the punctuation key with your right.
It even works on the = sub-punctuation layout, although you’ll
probably visit that screen less often.

In fact, you can type any of the punctuation symbols the same way. This
technique makes a huge difference in the usability of the built-in iPhone
keyboard.
TIP: This same trick saves you a finger-press when capitalizing words,
too. You can put your finger down on the L key and slide directly
onto the letter you want to type in its uppercase version. Or, if
you’re a two-handed typist, you can work the Shift key like the one
on your computer: Hold it down with your left thumb, type a letter
with your right, and then release both.

Accented Characters
To produce an accented character (like é, ë, è, ê, and so on), keep your
finger pressed on that key for 1 second. A palette of diacritical marks
appears; slide onto the one you want.

Chapter 3

Not all keys sprout this pop-up palette. Here’s a list of the keys that do:
Key

Alternates

à á â ä Æ ã å ā

ç ć č

è é ê ë ę ė ē

ī į í ì ï î i

ń ñ

ō ø œ õ ó ò ö ô

ß ś š

ū ú ù ü û

ź ž ż

‘ ’ '

» « „ ” “

—

€ £ ¥ W

0 (zero)

…

‰

Typing Shortcuts (Abbreviation Expanders)
Here’s a feature that hardly anyone ever talks about—probably because
nobody knows it exists. But it’s a huge time- and sanity-saver.
You can program the phone to expand abbreviations that you type. Set
up addr to type your entire mailing address, or eml to type out your
email address. Create two-letter abbreviations for big legal or technical
words you have to type a lot. Set up goaway to type out a polite rejection paragraph for use in email. And so on.
This feature has been in Microsoft Office forever (called AutoCorrect).
And it’s always been available as a separate app (TypeIt4Me and

Typing, Editing & Searching

TextExpander, for example—but because they were separate, you had to
copy your expanded text, switch to the target program, and then paste).
But since it’s now built right into the operating system, it works anywhere
you can type.
You can start building your list of abbreviations in SettingsÆGeneralÆ
KeyboardÆ Text Replacement. Tap the n button. On the resulting screen,
type the expanded text into the Phrase box. (It can be very long, but it
has to be one continuous blob of text; it can’t contain Returns.) In the
Shortcut box, type the abbreviation you want to trigger the phrase.
TIP: The Shortcut box says “Optional.” You might wonder: Why would
you leave the shortcut blank? Then your new shortcut will be
un-triggerable and pointless.
Not quite. It’s optional to enable a sneaky trick: to make the phone
stop misreplacing some word (for example, insisting that you
mean PTA when you type pta, the name of a new chemical you’ve
designed).
In that case, type your phrase into the Phrase box, but leave
Shortcut blank.

Chapter 3

That’s it! Now, whenever you type one of the abbreviations you’ve set up,
the iPhone proposes replacing it with your substituted text.

Swype, SwiftKey, and Other Keyboards
You’re not stuck with Apple’s onscreen keyboard. You can, if you like,
install virtual keyboards from other companies. (Hey—just like on Android
phones!)
Many people swear that these rival keyboard systems are superior to the
standard iOS keyboard in speed and accuracy. In particular, people like
the Swype and SwiftKey keyboards; in these systems, you don’t have to
tap each key to spell out a word. Instead, you rapidly and sloppily drag
your finger across the glass, hitting the letters you want and lifting your
finger at the end of a word. The software figures out which word you
were going for.
Sounds bizarre, but it’s fast and very satisfying. And pretty—your finger
leaves a sort of fire trail as it slides across the glass.

These keyboards generally incorporate their own versions of QuickType—
that is, they offer three predictions about the word you’re going to type
next.
Most don’t vary their predictions depending on the person you’re writing to or which app you’re using, as iOS’s predictions do. But they do
offer other impressive features; for example, SwiftKey can sync what it’s
learned to your other gadgets (iOS doesn’t do that; it learns, but its education is locked on your iPhone). The Minuum keyboard is weird-looking
but very compact, leaving a lot more room for your writing.

Typing, Editing & Searching

Then there’s Fleksy, TouchPal, Kuaiboard, and a raft of others.
Note, however, that none of them offer a ß button. Apple doesn’t allow
them access to Siri, so you can’t use voice dictation when one of these
keyboards is on the screen. And, sometimes, you can’t use these alternate keyboards for typing into password boxes.
Otherwise, these alternate keyboard systems are fascinating, and, often,
faster than Apple’s. Many are free, so they’re well worth exploring.
To install an alternate keyboard, download it from the App Store
(page 328).
Then go to SettingsÆGeneralÆKeyboardÆKeyboards (previous page,
left). When you tap Add New Keyboard, you’ll see your newly downloaded keyboard’s name. Turn it on by tapping it.
Now, when you arrive at any writing area in any app, you’ll discover
that a new icon has appeared on the keyboard: a tiny globe (˚) next
to the space bar. Tap it. The keyboard changes to the new one you
installed. (Each tap on the ˚ button summons the next keyboard you’ve
installed—or you can hold your finger down on it for a pop-up list.)

International Typing
Because the iPhone is sold around the world, it has to be equipped for
non-English languages—and even non-Roman alphabets. Fortunately, it’s
ready.
To prepare the iPhone for language switching, go to SettingsÆGeneralÆ
Language & Region. Tap iPhone Language to set the iPhone’s primary
language (for menus, button labels, and so on).
To make other keyboards available, go to SettingsÆGeneralÆ
KeyboardÆ Keyboards, tap Add New Keyboard, and then turn on the
keyboard layouts you’ll want available: Russian, Italian, whatever.
If you choose Japanese or Chinese, you’re offered the chance to specify
which kind of character input you want. For Japanese, you can choose a
QWERTY layout (Romaji) or a Kana keypad. For Simplified or Traditional
Chinese, your choices include the Pinyin input method (which uses a
QWERTY layout) or handwriting recognition, where you draw your symbols onto the screen with your fingertip; a palette of potential interpretations appears to the right. (That’s handy, since there are thousands of
characters in Chinese, and you’d need a 65-inch iPhone to fit the keyboard on it.) Or hey—it’s a free tic-tac-toe game!
As described in the previous section, a new key now appears on the keyboard: ˚ next to the space bar. (It replaces the º emoji key, if you had

Chapter 3

it.) Each time you tap it, you rotate to the next keyboard you requested
earlier. The new language’s name appears briefly on the space bar to
identify it.
Thanks to that ˚ button, you can freely mix languages and alphabets
within the same document without having to duck back to some control
panel to make the change. And thanks to the iPhone’s virtual keyboard,
the actual letters on the “keys” change in real time.
The ˚ button works in three ways:
• Tap it once to restore the most recent keyboard. Great if you’re frequently flipping back and forth between two languages.
• Tap it rapidly to cycle among all the keyboards you’ve selected. (The
name of the language appears briefly on the space bar to help you
out.)
• If you, some United Nations translator, like to write in a lot of different languages, you don’t have to tap that ˚ key over and over again
to cycle through the keyboard layouts. Instead, hold your finger down

Typing, Editing & Searching

on the ˚ key. You get a convenient pop-up menu of the languages
you’ve turned on, so you can jump directly to the one you want.

The Emoji Keyboard
Even if you speak only one language, don’t miss the emoji keyboard. It
gives you a palette of smileys and fun symbols, also known as emoticons,
to use in your correspondence.
When you tap the º button, you're offered hundreds and hundreds
of little symbols—many of them new or redesigned in iOS 10.2. They’re
spread across eight categories (plus a Frequently Used category), each
represented by a small icon below the keyboard.

Emoji are even smarter in the Messages app; see page 186.
TIP: To return to a category’s first page, you don’t have to swipe; just tap
the category’s icon.

The bottom line is clear: Smileys are only the beginning.
NOTE: These symbols show up identically on Apple machinery
(phones, tablets, Macs) but may look slightly different on other
kinds of phones.

Connecting a Real Keyboard
This iPhone feature barely merits an asterisk in Apple’s marketing materials. But if you’re any kind of wandering journalist, blogger, or writer,
you might flip your lid over this: You can type on a real, full-sized, physical keyboard, and watch the text magically appear on your iPhone’s
screen—wirelessly.

Chapter 3

That’s because you can use a Bluetooth keyboard (the Apple Wireless
Keyboard, for example) to type into your iPhone.
To set this up, from the Home screen, tap SettingsÆBluetooth. Turn
Bluetooth on, if it’s not already.
Now turn on the wireless keyboard. After a moment, its name shows up
on the iPhone screen in the Devices list; tap it. You’ll know the pairing
was successful, because when you tap in a spot where the onscreen keyboard would usually appear, well, it doesn’t.
Typing is a lot easier and faster with a real keyboard. As a bonus, the
Apple keyboard’s brightness, volume, and playback controls actually
work to control the iPhone’s brightness, volume, and playback.
TIP: The Apple keyboard’s ´ key even works: It makes the iPhone’s
onscreen keyboard appear or disappear. And to switch languages,
press c-space bar on the wireless keyboard. You’ll see the list of
languages. Tap the space bar again to choose a different language.

When you’re finished using the keyboard, turn it off. The iPhone goes
back to normal.

iPhone 6s and 7: The Secret Trackpad
You may remember hearing about the Force Touch screen on your
iPhone (or reading about it, on page 35). But you can also use pressure on the screen to create a trackpad for editing text!
Whenever text is on the screen and the keyboard is open, press firmly
anywhere on the keyboard. All the keys go blank, as shown on the next
page.
You can ease up on the pressure, but don’t lift your finger from the glass.
You can now move the insertion-point cursor through the text just by
dragging your finger across the keys. If it hits the edge of the window, it
scrolls automatically.
Still keep your finger down. At this point, hard presses also let you select
(highlight) text:
• Hard-press twice to select an entire sentence.
• Hard-press three times to select an entire paragraph.
Or use this trick: Move the insertion point to a word; if you now press
hard, you highlight that word.

Typing, Editing & Searching

At this point, you can expand the selection by doing any of these things:
• Drag up or down. (Again, you don’t have to keep pressing hard, but
you do have to keep your finger on the glass.)
• Hard-press twice to extend the selection to the entire sentence.
• Hard-press three times to extend the selection to the entire
paragraph.
Once you’ve selected text in this way, the usual command bar (Cut, Copy,
Paste, and so on) appears, for your text-manipulation pleasure.
Little by little, the iPhone is revealing its secret ambition to be a laptop.

Dictation
The iPhone’s speech-recognition feature, sometimes called Siri (even
though Siri is also the voice command feature), lets you enter text anywhere, into any program, just by speaking. (Behind the scenes, it’s using

Chapter 3

the same Nuance recognition technology that powers the Dragon line of
dictation programs.)
It’s extremely fast and, usually, remarkably accurate. Suddenly you don’t
have to fuss with the tiny keyboard. The experience of “typing” is no
longer claustrophobic. You can blather away into an email, fire off a text
message, or draft a memo without ever looking at the screen.
Now, before you get all excited, here are the necessary footnotes:
• Voice typing works best if there’s not a lot of background noise.
• Voice typing isn’t always practical, since everybody around you can
hear what you’re saying.
• Voice typing isn’t always accurate. Often, you’ll have to correct an
error or two.
All right—expectations set? Then here’s how to type by speaking.
First, fire up someplace where you can call up the keyboard: Messages,
Notes, Mail, Safari, whatever. Tap, if necessary, so that the onscreen keyboard appears.
Tap the ß next to the space bar.
When you hear the xylophone note, say what you have to say (next
page, left). If there’s background noise, hold the phone up to your head; if
it’s relatively quiet, a couple of feet away is fine. You don’t have to speak
slowly, loudly, or weirdly; speak normally. As you speak, the words fly
onto the screen.
You have to speak your own punctuation, like this: “Dear Dad (colon):
Send money (dash)—as much as you can (comma), please (period).” The
table at the end of this section describes all the different punctuation
symbols you can dictate.
After you finish speaking, tap Done. Another xylophone note plays—
higher, this time—and you may see some of the words change right
before your eyes, as though Siri is changing her mind. In fact, she is; she’s
using the context of all the words you said to revise what she originally
thought you said, as you said it. See?
NOTE: On the iPhone 6s and 7 models, you can use dictation even
without an Internet connection—even in airplane mode. On older
models, however, dictation requires a good Internet signal.

Typing, Editing & Searching

If the transcription contains errors, you can tap with your finger to edit
them, exactly as you would fix an error in something you typed. (Make
the effort; you’re simultaneously teaching your iPhone to do better the
next time.) Or, if the whole thing is a mess, you can shake your iPhone,
the universal gesture for Undo (as long as Shake to Undo is turned on in
SettingsÆ GeneralÆ Accessibility).
NOTE: Often, the iPhone knows perfectly well when it might have gotten
a word wrong—it draws a dashed underline beneath words or
phrases it’s insecure about. You can tap that word or phrase to
see the iPhone’s alternative interpretation, which is often correct.

Usually, you’ll find the accuracy pretty darned good, considering you
didn’t have to train the software to recognize your voice, and considering that your computer is a cellphone, for crying out loud. You’ll also find
that the accuracy is better when you dictate complete sentences, and
that long words fare better than short ones.

Chapter 3

Punctuation
Here’s a handy table that shows you what punctuation you can say and
how to say it.
TIP: If you’ve ever used Dragon NaturallySpeaking (for Windows) or
Dragon Dictation (for the Mac), then you already know these
commands; they’re the standard Nuance dictation-software
shortcuts, because that’s what the iPhone uses behind the scenes.

Say this:

To get this:

For example,
saying this:

“period” or “full
stop”

. [space and
capital letter
afterward]

“Best (period)
date (period)
ever (period)”

Best. Date. Ever.

“dot” or “point”

. [no space
afterward]

“My email is
frank (dot)
smith (at sign)
gmail (dot)
com”

My email is
frank.smith@
gmail.com

“comma,”
“semicolon,”
“colon”

, ; :

“Mom (comma)
hear me (colon)
I’m dizzy (semicolon) tired”

Mom, hear me:
I’m dizzy; tired

“question
mark,” “exclamation point”

? ! [space and
capital letter
afterward]

“Ellen (question
mark) Hi (exclamation point)”

Ellen? Hi!

“inverted
question mark,”
“inverted exclamation point”

¿ ¡

“(inverted question mark) Que
paso (question
mark)”

¿Que paso?

“ellipsis” or “dot
dot dot”

…

“Just one
(ellipsis) more
(ellipsis) step
(ellipsis)”

Just one…
more…step…

“space bar”

[a space,
especially
when a hyphen
would normally
appear]

“He rode the
merry (space
bar) go (space
bar) round”

He rode the
merry go round

Types this:

Typing, Editing & Searching

For example,
saying this:

Types this:

Say this:

To get this:

“open paren”
then “close
paren” (or
“open bracket/
close bracket,”
or “open brace/
close brace”)

( ) or [ ] or { }

“Then she
(open paren)
the doctor
(close paren)
gasped”

Then she (the
doctor) gasped

“new line”

[a press of the
Return key]

“milk (new line)
bread (new
line) quinoa”

Milk
Bread
Quinoa

“new
paragraph”

[two presses of
the Return key]

“autumn leaves
(new paragraph) softly
falling”

autumn leaves

“quote,” then
“unquote”

“ ”

Her perfume
screamed
(quote) available (unquote)

Her perfume
screamed
“available”

“numeral”

[writes the
following number as a digit
instead spelling
it out]

“Next week she
turns (numeral)
eight”

Next week she
turns 8

“asterisk,” “plus
sign,” “minus
sign,” “equals
sign”

*, +, −, =

“numeral eight
(asterisk) two
(plus sign) one
(minus sign)
three (equals
sign) fourteen”

8*2+1−3=14

“ampersand,”
“dash”

&, —

“Logan (ampersand) Dexter
(dash) the best
(exclamation
point)”

Logan &
Dexter—the
best!

“hyphen”

- [without
spaces]

“Don’t give
me that holier
(hyphen) than
(hyphen) thou
attitude”

Don’t give me
that holierthan-thou
attitude

Chapter 3

softly falling

For example,
saying this:

Types this:

Say this:

To get this:

“backquote”

’

“Back in
(backquote)
(numeral)
fifty-two”

back in ’52

“smiley,”
“frowny,”
“winky” (or
“smiley face,”
“frowny face,”
“winky face”)

:-) :-( ;-)

“I think you
know where I’m
going with this
(winky face)”

I think you
know where I’m
going with this
;-)

You can also say “percent sign” (%), “at sign” (@), “dollar sign” ($), “cent
sign” (¢), “euro sign” (€), “yen sign” (¥), “pounds sterling sign” (£), “section sign” (§), “copyright sign” (©), “registered sign” (®), “trademark sign”
(™), “greater-than sign” or “less-than sign” (> or <), “degree sign” (°),
“caret” (^), “tilde” (~), “vertical bar” (l), and “pound sign” (#).
The software automatically capitalizes the first new word after a period,
question mark, or exclamation point. But you can also force it to capitalize words you’re dictating by saying “cap” right before the word, like this:
“Dear (cap) Mom (comma), I’ve run away to join (cap) The (cap) Circus
(comma), a nonprofit cooperative for runaway jugglers.”
Here’s another table—this one shows the other commands for capitalization, plus spacing and spelling commands.
TIP: Speak each of the on/off commands as a separate utterance, with a
small pause before and after.

Say this:

To get this:

For example,
saying this:

Types this:

“cap” or
“capital”

Capitalize the
next word

“Give me the
(cap) works”

Give me the
Works

“caps on,” then
“caps off”

Capitalize the
first letter of
every word

“Next week,
(caps on) the
new england
chicken cooperative (caps off)
will hire me”

Next week, The
New England
Chicken
Cooperative will
hire me

Typing, Editing & Searching

For example,
saying this:

Types this:

Say this:

To get this:

“all caps on,”
then “all caps
off”

Capitalize
everything

“So (all caps
on) please
please (all caps
off) don’t tell
anyone”

So PLEASE
PLEASE don’t
tell anyone

“all caps”

Type just the
next word in all
caps

“We (all caps)
really don’t
belong here”

We REALLY
don’t belong
here

“no caps”

Type the
next word in
lowercase

“See you in (no
caps) Texas”

See you in
texas

“no caps on,”
then “no caps
off”

Prevents any
capital letters

“I’ll ask (no caps
on) Santa Claus
(no caps off)”

I’ll ask santa
claus

“no space”

Runs the two
words together

“Try our new
mega (no
space) berry
flavor”

Try our new
megaberry
flavor

“no space on,”
then “no space
off”

Eliminates all
spaces

“(No space on)
I can’t believe
you ate all that
(no space off)
(comma) she
said excitedly”

Ican’tbelieveyou
ateallthat, she
said excitedly

[alphabet
letters]

Types the
letters out
(usually not
very accurately)

“The stock
symbol is
A P P L”

The stock symbol is APPL

You don’t always have to dictate these formatting commands, by the
way. The iPhone automatically inserts hyphens into phone numbers
(you say, “2125561000,” and get “212-556-1000”); formats two-line street
addresses without your having to say, “New line” before the city); handles
prices automatically (“six dollars and thirty-two cents” becomes “$6.32”).
It formats dates and web addresses well, too; you can even use the
nerdy shortcut “dub-dub-dub” when you want the “www” part of a web
address.

Chapter 3

The phone recognizes email addresses, too, as long as you remember to
say “at sign” at the right spot. You’d say, “harold (underscore) beanfield
(at sign) gmail (dot) com” to get harold_beanfield@gmail.com.
TIP: You can combine these formatting commands. Many iPhone owners
have wondered: “How do I voice-type the word “comma,” since
saying “comma” types out only the symbol?”
The solution: Say, “No space on, no caps on, C, O, M, M, A, no space
off, no caps off.” That gives you the word “comma.”
Then again, it might just be easier to type that one with your finger.

Cut, Copy, Paste
Copy and Paste do just what you’d expect. They let you grab some text
off a web page and paste it into an email message, copy directions from
email into Notes, paste a phone number from your address book into a
text message, and so on.
So how do you select text and use Cut, Copy, and Paste on a machine
with no mouse or menus? As on the Mac or PC, it takes three steps.

Step 1: Select the Text
Start by highlighting the text you want to cut or copy.
• To select some. Double-tap the first word (or last word) that you
want in the selection. That word is now highlighted, with blue dots
at diagonal corners. Drag these handles to expand the selection. The
magnifying loupe helps you release the dot at just the right spot.
Double-tap…

...drag the handle.

Typing, Editing & Searching

TIP: On a web page, you can’t very well double-tap to select a word,
because double-tapping means “zoom in.” Instead, hold your finger
down on a word to produce the blue handles; the loupe helps you.
(If you highlight the wrong word, keep your finger down and slide to
the correct one; the highlighting goes with you.)
However, if you’re zoomed out to see the whole page, holding down
your finger highlights the entire block of text (a paragraph or even
a whole article) instead of one word. Now you can expand the
selection to include a photo, if you like; that way, you can copy and
paste the whole enchilada into an outgoing email message.

• To select all. Suppose you intend to cut or copy everything in the text
box or message. Tap anywhere in the text to place the insertion point.
Then tap the insertion point itself to summon the selection buttons—
one of which is Select All.
TIP: Selecting text is much easier on an iPhone 6s or 7, because you have
a built-in trackpad; see page 87.

Step 2: Cut or Copy
At this point, you’ve highlighted the material you want, and the Cut
and Copy buttons are staring you in the face. They’re either word buttons above your text, or they’re actual graphic buttons (if you have your
recent iPhone turned sideways).
Tap Cut or ¡ (to remove the selected text) or Copy or ™ (to leave it but
place a duplicate on your invisible Clipboard). If you want to get rid of
the text without copying it to the Clipboard—because you want to preserve something else you copied there, for example—just tap the d key.
TIP: And what if you want to copy text without the formatting (bold,
italics, underlining) that it might have? After selecting the text, tap
Share and then tap Copy in the Share sheet.

Step 3: Paste
Finally, switch to a different spot in the text, even if it’s in a different window (for example, a new email message) or a different app (for example,
Calendar or Notes). Tap in any spot where you’re allowed to type. Tap
the Paste button to paste what you cut or copied. (On an iPhone 6/6s or
later model turned sideways, you can tap the £ button instead.) Ta-da!

Chapter 3

(Possible Step 4: Undo)
Everyone makes mistakes, right? Fortunately, there’s a secret Undo command, which can come in handy when you cut, copy, or paste something
by mistake.
The trick is to shake the iPhone. It then offers you an Undo button,
which you can tap to confirm the backtracking. One finger touch instead
of three. (This feature has to be turned on in SettingsÆGeneralÆ
Accessibility.)
TIP: The shake-to-undo feature also works to undo dictating or typing—
not just cutting or pasting.

Of course, on an iPhone 6, 6s, or 7 turned sideways, you get a dedicated
Undo button instead: ∞.
In fact, you can even undo the Undo. Just shake the phone again; now
the screen offers you a Redo button. Fun! (Except when you shake the
phone by accident and get the Nothing to Undo message. But still.)

The Definitions Dictionary
On page 77, you can read about the spelling dictionary that’s built
into iOS—but that’s just a dumb list of words. Your iPhone also has a real
dictionary, one that shows you definitions.
In most apps, you can look up any word that appears on the screen.
Double-tap it to get the editing bar shown on the next page at left; then
tap Look Up. (You may have to tap 2 to bring that button into view.)

Typing, Editing & Searching

TIP: You can also double-tap the blinking insertion point that’s just
before a word. On the editing bar, tap ’ to see the Look Up button.

(If you discover that there are “No definitions found,” then tap Manage at
the bottom of this screen for a list of dictionaries that you can download:
English, French, Simplified Chinese, and so on. Tap U to download the
ones you think you’ll use.)

Speak!
The iPhone can read to you, too. Visit SettingsÆGeneralÆ AccessibilityÆ
Speech and turn on Speak Selection and/or Speak Screen. Choose a
language (or accent), a voice, and a speaking rate. (The more realistic
voices, like Alex and his sister Ava, require you to download audio files
from Apple. Just tap the U to begin the download.)
It’s fun to turn on Highlight Content, too. (Each word will light up in color
as the phone speaks it. Great for kids learning to read!)
From now on, among the other buttons that pop up when you select
text, a Speak button appears. Or, if you swipe down the screen with two
fingers (and you turned on Speak Screen), your iPhone reads the entire
screen.
You can use these features whenever you want to double-check the pronunciation of a word, whenever you want to have a web article or email
read to you while you’re getting dressed for the day, or whenever you
lose your voice and just want to communicate with the rest of the world.

Chapter 3

TIP: Once you tap Speak, the button changes to say Pause. You’re in
charge.

Spotlight: Global Search
The iPhone’s global search feature is called Spotlight. It can find information on your phone within any app—but it’s also something like a typed
version of Siri, in that it can call up information about movies, restaurants,
news, and so on.

How to Use Spotlight
The Spotlight search bar awaits in two places:
• Swipe downward from the top of the screen. Doesn’t matter what
app you’re using, or even if you’ve unlocked the phone. This gesture
brings up the Notification Center (page 61)—which contains the
Spotlight search bar at the top.
• Swipe to the right from the first Home screen. Lurking to its left is
the Today screen (page 65)—with, once again, a Spotlight box at
the top.
When you tap into the search box, the keyboard opens automatically.
Begin typing to identify what you want to find and open. For example,
if you were trying to find a file called Pokémon Fantasy League, typing
just pok or leag would probably suffice. (Spotlight doesn’t find text in the
middles of words, though; it searches from the beginnings of words.)
As you type, a results list appears below the search box, listing everything Spotlight can find containing what you’ve typed so far.
They’re neatly grouped by category; the beginning of each category is
marked with a heading like Contacts or Music.
TIP: If you drag your finger to scroll the list, the keyboard helpfully
vanishes so you can see more results.

Here’s what you might find in Spotlight’s list of results (next page, left):
• Applications. For frequent downloaders, this may be the juiciest function: Spotlight searches the names of every app on your iPhone. If you
have dozens installed, this is a much more efficient way to find one
than trying to page through all the Home screens, eyeballing the icons
as you go. (The search results even identify which folder an app is in.)

Typing, Editing & Searching

• Spotlight Suggestions. Spotlight can find movies, music, apps, and
other stuff from the web. The feature works beautifully. The hard part
is just remembering that it’s available.
Spotlight lists results from Wikipedia (when you search for, say, “rhubarb” or “Thomas Edison”); news (search for “SF Giants” or “Middle
East negotiations”); restaurants, shops, and businesses (“Olive Garden” or “Apple Store”); the App Store (“Instagram” or “Angry Birds”);
the iTunes Store (“Gravity” or “Beatles”); and the iBooks store (“Grisham” or “Little Women”).
The results list identifies which category each hit comes from. Tapping
a result does what you’d expect: for a web article, opens the article;
for a business, opens its Maps page so you can call it or get instant
directions; for something from an Apple store, opens the appropriate
store.
Really, don’t miss this. When you hear about a cool app, don’t open
the App Store to look for it. When you want to know a sports score,
don’t start with Safari. When you need the phone number of a restaurant, don’t call 411. Instead, use Spotlight for all of these things.
• Contacts. First names, last names, and company names.

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• Music, Podcasts, Videos, Audiobooks. Song, performer, and album
names, plus the names of podcasts, videos, and audiobooks.
• Notes, Reminders, Voice Memos. The actual text of your notes and
to-do items, and the names and descriptions of voice memos.
• Events. Calendar stuff: appointment names, meeting invitees, and
locations (but not any notes attached to your appointments).
• Mail. The To, From, and Subject fields of all accounts. For certain
accounts, you can even search inside the messages.
• Messages. Yep, you can search your text messages, too.
• Bing Web Results. You can tap Search Web at the bottom of the
results list to hand off to Safari for a search. Handy to have it built
right into Spotlight.
TIP: Many apps, like Contacts, Mail, Calendar, Music, and Notes, have
their own search boxes (usually hidden until you scroll to the top of
their lists). Those individual search functions are great when you’re
already in the program where you want to search. The Spotlight
difference is that it searches all these apps at once.

If you see the name and icon of whatever you were hoping to dig up, tap
to open it. The corresponding app opens automatically.

Siri App Suggestions
On the Today screen (page 65), in search results, and sometimes
when you highlight text and tap Look Up, you see something peculiar: a
little row of app icons labeled Siri App Suggestions.
These app icons actually have nothing to do with Siri, the voice-
controlledassistant. Instead, these are the iPhone’s suggestions of apps
you may want to use right now, based on your location, the time of day,
and your typical routine. For example, if you open the Music app every
night during your 6:30 p.m. gym workout, then the Music app appears
at that time, ready to open. If you check your Fitbit app every morning
when you wake, then this screen offers its icon at that time of day. The
idea is to save you from having to hunt for these apps when you need
them again.
If you find these icons unhelpful, you can eliminate them or tweak them.
Open SettingsÆ GeneralÆSpotlight Search. This is what you’ll find:
• Siri Suggestions is the master on/off switch for the appearance of
those apps in search results.

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• Suggestions in Search means, “Eliminate these app suggestions from
the results when I use Spotlight; I want to search only what’s on my
phone.”
• Suggestions in Look Up means, “When I highlight text and tap
Look Up, I want to see only its definition or web results—not app
suggestions.”
• Search Results. If you do decide to let the iPhone suggest apps, these
on/off switches let you eliminate certain apps from consideration.

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Phone Calls &
FaceTime

ith each successive iPhone model, Apple improves the
iPhone’s antennas, circuitry, speakers, microphone, and
software. And features like Siri, auto-reply, and Do Not
Disturb have turned Apple’s phone from an also-ran into one of the most
useful gadgets ever to hop onto a cellular network.

Dialing from the Phone App
Suppose you’re in luck. Suppose the dots in the upper-left corner of the
iPhone’s screen tell you that you’ve got cellular reception. You’re ready to
start a conversation. To make a phone call, open the Phone app like this:
1. Go Home, if you’re not already there. Press the Home button.
2. Tap the Phone icon. It’s usually at the bottom of the Home screen.
(The tiny circled number in the corner of the Phone icon tells you how
many missed calls and voicemail messages you have.)
TIP: Using Siri is often faster. You get good results saying things like, “Call
Casey Robin’s cell” or “Dial 866-2331.”

Now you’ve arrived in the Phone program. A new row of icons appears at
the bottom, representing your voicemail (page 120) and the four ways
of dialing from here:
• Favorites. Here’s the iPhone’s version of speed dial: It lists up to 50
people you think you call most frequently. Tap a name to make the
call. (Details on building and editing this list begin on page 104.)
• Recents. Every call you’ve recently made, answered, missed, or even
just dialed appears in this list. Missed callers’ names appear in red lettering, which makes it easy to spot them—and to call them back.

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Tap a name or a number to dial. Or tap the * button to view the
details of a call—when, where, how long—and, if you like, to add this
number to your Contacts list.
• Contacts. This program also has an icon of its own on the Home
screen; you don’t have to drill down to it through the Phone button.
It’s your phone book; tap somebody’s name or number to dial it.
• Keypad. This dialing pad’s big, fat buttons are easy to hit even with
big, fat fingers. You can punch in any number and then tap ‚ to place
the call.
Once you’ve dialed, no matter which method you used, either hold the
iPhone up to your head, put in the earbuds, turn on the speakerphone, or
put on your Bluetooth earpiece—and start talking!
This, however, is only the Quick Start Guide. Here’s a more detailed look
at each of the Phone-app modules.

The Favorites List
You may not wind up dialing much from Contacts. That’s the master list,
all right, but it’s too unwieldy when you just want to call your spouse,
your boss, or your lawyer. Dialing by voice (Chapter 5) is almost always
faster. But when silence is golden, at the very least use the Favorites
list—a short, easy-to-scan list of the people you call most often (facing
page, left).
Actually, in iOS 10, calling is only the beginning. A Favorite can be any
kind of “address”: for triggering an email, a text message, a video call,
or even an Internet voice call in an app like WhatsApp, Skype, or Cisco
Spark. In other words, you can set things up so that one tap on a favorite opens an outgoing text to your beloved, and a different tap triggers a
Skype call to your boss.
TIP: Once you’ve set up these favorites, you can add them to the Today
screen (page 65), so that placing one of these calls or text
communications is only a swipe and a tap away.

You can add names to this list in any of three ways:
• From the Favorites list itself. Tap n to view your Contacts list. Tap
the person you want. If there’s more than one phone number or email
address on the Info screen, then tap the one you want to add to
Favorites.

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TIP: Each favorite doesn’t represent a person; it represents a number or
address. So if your friend Chris has both a home number and a cell
number, then add two items to the Favorites list. Gray lettering in
the list lets you know whether each number or address is mobile,
home, Skype, Messages, FaceTime, or whatever.

• From the Contacts list. Tap a name to open the Info screen, where
you’ll find a button called Add to Favorites. It opens the little Add
to Favorites panel shown below at right. For each of its four communication methods—Message, Call, Video, Mail—you get a pop-up
menu that lists your available apps for performing that sort of human
contact.
Tap the one you want to add to Favorites.

• From the Recents list. Tap * next to any name or number in the
Recents list. If it’s somebody who’s already in your Contacts list,
then you arrive at the Call Details screen, where one tap on Add to
Favorites does what it says.
If it’s somebody who’s not in Contacts yet, you’ll have to put her there
first. Tap Create New Contact, and then proceed as described on

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page 111. After you hit Save, you return to the Call Details screen so
you can tap Add to Favorites.
TIP: To help you remember that a certain phone number or email
address is already in your Favorites list, a gray star appears next to
it in certain spots, like the Call Details screen and the Contact Info
screen.

The Favorites list holds 50 numbers. Once you’ve added 50, the Add to
Favorites and n buttons disappear.
NOTE: The face of each favorite peeks out of a round frame next to the
name, and if your Contact card for that person doesn’t have a
photo, the circle shows the person’s initials instead.

Reordering Favorites
Tapping that Edit button at the top of the Favorites list offers another
handy feature, too: It lets you drag names up and down, so the most
important people appear at the top of the list. Just use the grip strip
(˝) as a handle to move entire names up or down the list.

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Deleting from Favorites
To delete somebody from your Favorites—the morning after a nasty
political argument, for example—use the iPhone’s standard swipe-to-
delete shortcut: Swipe leftward across the undesired name. Tap the
Delete button that appears.
(If you’re paid by the hour, you can use the slow method, too. Tap Edit.
Now tap the – button next to the unwanted entry and tap Delete to
confirm.)

The Recents List
Like any self-respecting cellphone, the iPhone maintains a list of everybody you’ve called or who’s called you recently. The idea, of course, is
to provide you with a quick way to call someone you’ve been talking to
lately.
To see the list, tap Recents at the bottom of the Phone app. You see a list
of the last 75 calls that you’ve received or placed, along with each person’s name or number (depending on whether that name is in Contacts
or not), city of the caller’s home area code (for callers not in your
Contacts), time or date of the call—and what kind of call it was: mobile,
home, work, FaceTime, FaceTime Audio, Skype, or whatever.

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Here’s what you need to know about the Recents list:
• Calls that you missed (or sent to voicemail) appear in red type. If you
tap Missed at the top of the screen, you see only your missed calls.
The color-coding and separate listings are designed to make it easy
for you to return calls you missed, or to try again to reach someone
who didn’t answer when you called.
• A tiny f icon lets you know which calls you made (to differentiate
them from calls you received).
• To call someone back—regardless of whether you answered or dialed
the call—tap that name or number in the list.
• Tap * next to any call to open the Info screen. At the top of the
screen, you can see whether this was an outgoing call, an incoming
call, a missed call, or a canceled call (in which you chickened out and
hung up before your callee answered).
What else you see here depends on whether the other person is in
your Contacts list.
If so, the Info screen displays the person’s whole information card
(below, left). A little table displays all the incoming and outgoing calls
to or from this person that day. A small gray star denotes a phone
number that’s also in your Favorites list, and a Recent label indicates a
recent call from that number.
If the call isn’t from someone in your Contacts, then you get to see a
handy notation at the top of the Info screen: the city and state where
the calling phone is registered (below, right).

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TIP: If someone who isn’t in Contacts has called you, iOS 10 takes a
guess at that person’s name—by looking for a matching phone
number in the signature portion of your email! For example, if Frank
Smythe has called you from 213-292-3344, and there’s also an email
from him with his phone number as part of his signature, then the
Recents list will say: Maybe: Frank Smythe. Clever!

• To save you scrolling, the Recents list thoughtfully combines consecutive calls to or from the same person. If some obsessed ex-lover
has been calling you every 10 minutes for 4 hours, you’ll see “Chris
Meyerson (24)” in the Recents list. (Tap * to see the exact times of
the calls.)
• You can erase one call from this list exactly the same way you’d delete
a Favorite: Swipe leftward across the undesired name. Tap the Delete
button that appears. (Once again, there’s also a long way: Tap Edit,
tap – next to the unwanted entry, and then tap Delete.)
You can also erase the entire list, thus preventing a coworker or
significant other from discovering your illicit activities: Tap Edit, and
then tap Clear at the top of the screen. You’re asked to confirm your
decision.

Contacts
The Phone app may offer four ways to dial—Favorites, Recents, Contacts,
and Keypad—but the Contacts list is the source from which all other lists
spring. That’s probably why it’s listed three times: once with its own button on the Home screen, again at the bottom of the Phone app, and also
in the FaceTime app.
Contacts is your address book—your master phone book.
NOTE: Your iPhone’s own phone number appears at the top of the
Contacts list within the Phone module (though not, for some
reason, when you open Contacts from its Home screen icon).
That’s a much better place for it than deep at the end of a menu
labyrinth, where it is on most phones.

If your social circle is longer than one screenful, you can navigate this list
in any of three ways:
• First, you can savor the distinct pleasure of flicking through it.
• Second, if you’re in a hurry to get to the T’s, use the A-to-Z index
down the right edge of the screen. Just tap the first letter of the last

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name you’re looking for. Alternatively, you can slide your finger up or
down the index. The list scrolls with it.
• Third, you can use the search box at the very top of the list, above
the A’s.
Tap inside the search box to make the keyboard appear. As you type,
Contacts pares down the list, hiding everyone whose first, last, or
company name doesn’t match what you’ve typed so far. It’s a really
fast way to pluck one name out of a haystack.
(You can clear the search box by tapping the ˛ at its right end or
restore the full list by tapping Cancel.)
In any case, when you see the name you want, tap it to open its card,
filled with phone numbers and other info. Tap the number you want to
dial.

Groups
Many computer address book programs, including the Mac’s Contacts
app, let you place your contacts into groups—subsets like Book Club or
Fantasy League Guys. You can’t create or delete groups on the iPhone,
but at least the groups from your Mac, PC, Exchange server, or iCloud
account get synced over to it. To see them, and to switch them all on or
off at once, tap Groups at the top of the Contacts list.

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Here’s where groups come into play:
• If you can’t seem to find someone in the list, you may be looking in
the wrong list. Tap Groups at the top-left corner to return to the list
of accounts. Tap All Contacts to view a single, unified list of everyone
your phone knows about.
• If you’ve allowed your iPhone to display your contacts from Facebook
or Twitter, then each of those lists is a group, too. (If your Contacts list
seems hideously bloated with hundreds of people you never actually
call, it’s probably your Facebook list. Pop into Groups and touch All
Facebook, removing the checkmark, to hide them all at once.)
• If you do use the Groups feature, remember to tap the group name
you want before you create a new contact. That’s how you put someone into an existing group. (If not, tap All Contacts instead.)

Adding to the Contacts List
Every cellphone has a Contacts list, of course, but the beauty of the
iPhone is that you don’t have to type in the phone numbers one at a
time. Instead, the iPhone sucks in the entire phone book from your Mac
or PC, iCloud, and/or an Exchange server at work.
It’s infinitely easier to edit your address book on the computer, where you
have an actual keyboard and mouse. The iPhone also makes it easy to
add someone’s contact information when she calls, emails, or text messages you, thanks to a prominent Add to Contacts button.
But if, in a pinch, on the road, at gunpoint, you have to add, edit, or
remove a contact manually, here’s how to do it:
Make sure you’ve selected the right group or account, as described
already. Now, on the Contacts screen, tap n. You arrive at the New
Contact screen, which teems with empty boxes.
It shouldn’t take you long to figure out how to fill in this form: You tap in
a box and type. But here are a few tips and tricks for data entry:
• The keyboard opens automatically when you tap in a box. And the
iPhone capitalizes the first letter of each name for you.
• Phone numbers are special. When you enter a phone number, the
iPhone adds parentheses and hyphens for you. (You can even enter
text phone numbers, like 1-800-GO-BROWNS; the iPhone converts
the letters to digits when it dials.)
If you need to insert a pause—for dialing access numbers, extension numbers, or voicemail passwords—type #, which introduces a

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2-second pause in the dialing. You can type several of them to create
longer pauses.
To change the label for a number (“mobile,” “home,” “work,” and so
on), tap the label that’s there now. The Label screen shows you your
choices. There’s even a label called “iPhone,” so you and your buddy
can gloat together.
TIP: If you scroll down the Label screen, you’ll see that you can also
create custom labels. You might prefer someone’s cellphone number
to be identified as “cell” instead of “mobile,” for example. Or you
might want to create a label that says “Skype,” “Google Voice,”
“Line 2,” “Yacht Phone,” or “Bat Phone.” The secret: Tap Add Custom
Label. (Once you’ve created a custom label, it’s there in the list of
options for your use later.)

• Expand-O-Fields mean you’ll never run out of room. Almost every
field (empty box) on a Contacts card is infinitely expanding. That
is, the instant you start filling in a field, another empty box (labeled
≠ add phone or whatever) appears right below it, so you can immediately add another phone number, email address, URL, or street
address. (The only nonexpanding fields are First name, Last name,
Company, Ringtone, Text Tone, Notes, and whatever oddball fields
you add yourself.)

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For example, when you first tap add phone, the phone-number box
you get is labeled “home.” (If that’s not the right label, you can tap
it to choose from one of nine others—or add a custom label.) A new
add phone button appears so you’ll have a place to enter a second
phone number for this person. When you do that, a third add phone
button appears. And so on.
In other words, you can never run out of places to add more phone
numbers, addresses, URLs, and social media profiles.
NOTE: Tapping add field at the bottom of this screen lets you add a new
miscellaneous field, like Nickname or Department.

• Relatives are here. There’s also the social profile field, where you can
list somebody’s Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Facebook, and even Myspace
addresses. There’s an instant message field, too, where you can record
addresses for chat networks like AIM or Yahoo Messenger.
And there’s add related name. Here’s where you can specify this
person’s mother, father, spouse, partner, child, manager, sibling, and so
on—or even type in a relationship that you make up (tap the existing
label and then Add Custom Label).
NOTE: As you may discover in Chapter 5, Siri knows about all your
relationships. You can tell her to “Call my mom” or “Text my boss.”
Does the add related name feature mean that you can now ask
Siri to “Call Chris Robin’s manager”?
Alas, no. These fields are for your reference only.

• You can add a photo of the person, if you like. Tap add photo. If you
have a photo of the person on your phone already, tap Choose Photo.
You’re taken to your photo collection, where you can find a good
headshot (Chapter 9).
Alternatively, tap Take Photo to activate the iPhone’s built-in camera.
Frame the person, and then tap the white camera button to snap the
shot.
In any case, you wind up with the Move and Scale screen. Here you
can frame up the photo so the person’s face is nicely sized and centered. Spread two fingers to enlarge the photo; drag your finger to
move the image within the frame. Tap Choose to commit the photo
to the address book’s memory. (Back on the Info screen where you
started, a miniature version of the photo now appears. Tap edit if you
want to change the photo, take a new one, adjust the Move and Scale
screen, or get rid of the photo altogether.)

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From now on, this photo will pop up whenever the person calls. It also
appears next to the person’s name in your Favorites list.
• You can import photos from Facebook. Here’s a wild guess: Most
of the photo boxes in your copy of Contacts are empty. After all,
who’s going to go to the trouble of hunting down headshots of 500
acquaintances, just for a fully illustrated Contacts list?
Fortunately, with one click, the iPhone can harvest headshots from
the world’s largest database of faces: Facebook.
Visit SettingsÆFacebook to see the magical button: Update All Contacts. When you click it, the iPhone goes online for a massive research
mission. Using your contacts’ names and phone numbers as matching
criteria, it ventures off to Facebook, finds the profile photos of everyone who’s also in your Contacts list, and installs them into Contacts
automatically. (If you already have a photo for somebody, don’t worry;
it doesn’t get replaced.)
As a handy bonus, this operation also adds the @facebook.com email
addresses for the people you already had in Contacts.

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TIP: Actually, there’s another side effect of this operation: It also adds all
your Facebook friends’ names to your main Contacts list.
Now, you may not be crazy about this. Most of these Facebook folk
you’ll never call on the phone—yet here they are, cluttering up the
Contacts list within the Phone app.
Fortunately, the Update All Contacts button doesn’t really mix your
Facebook friends in with your local Contacts list. It just subscribes
to your Facebook address book—adds a new group, which you can
turn off with one quick click; see page 110.
Even if you do choose to hide all their entries, you still get the
benefit of the imported headshots and Facebook email addresses
for the people you do want to see in Contacts.

• You can import Twitter addresses. In SettingsÆTwitter, the Update
Contacts button awaits. Its purpose is to fill in the Twitter handles for
everyone who’s already in your Contacts, matching them by phone
number or email address.
• You can choose a ringtone. You can choose a different ringtone for
each person in your address book. The idea is that you’ll know by the
sound of the ring who’s calling you.
NOTE: It’s one tone per person, not per phone number. Of course, if you
really want one ringtone for your buddy’s cellphone and another
for his home phone, you can always create a different Contacts
card for each one.

To choose a ringtone, tap Default. On the next screen, tap any sound
in the Ringtones or Alert Tones lists to sample them. (Despite the
separate lists, in this context, these sounds are all being offered as
ringtones.) When you’ve settled on a good one, tap Done to return to
the Info screen where you started.
TIP: New in iOS 10: Here, on the ringtone selection screen, you’re offered
an Emergency Bypass switch. Turn it on to say, “Whenever this
person calls or texts, I want my phone to ring or vibrate even if I’ve
turned on Do Not Disturb” (page 128).

• You can specify a vibration pattern for incoming calls. This unsung
feature lets you assign a custom vibration pattern to each person
in your Contacts, so you know by feel who’s calling—without even
removing the phone from your pocket, even if your ringer is off. It’s a
surprisingly useful option.

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To set it up, start on the Ringtone screen described already; tap
Default next to the word vibration. You’re offered a choice of canned
patterns (Alert, Heartbeat, Quick, Rapid, and so on). But if you tap
Create New Vibration, you can then tap the screen in whatever
rhythm you like. It can be diddle diddle dee…or the opening notes to
the Hallelujah Chorus…or the actual syllables of the person’s name.
(“Maryanna Beckleheimer.” Can you feel it?)

The phone records your pattern, which you can prove to yourself by
tapping Play. If you tap Save and name that pattern, then it becomes
one of the choices when you choose a vibration pattern for someone
in your Contacts. It’s what you’ll feel whenever this person calls you.
Yes, it’s tactile caller ID. Wild.
• You can also pick a text-message sound (and vibration). Just as you
can choose sounds and vibrations for incoming phone calls, the next
two items (text tone, vibration) let you choose sounds and vibrations
for incoming text messages and FaceTime invitations.
• You can add new fields of your own. Very cool: If you tap add field
at the bottom of the screen, then you go down the rabbit hole into
Field Land, where you can add any of 13 additional info bits about the
person whose card you’re editing: a prefix (like Mr. or Mrs.), a suffix
(like M.D. or Esq.), a nickname, a job title, a phonetic pronunciation for
people with weird names, and so on.

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When you tap one of these labels, you return to the Info screen,
where you’ll see that the iPhone has inserted the new, empty field
in the most intelligent spot. For example, if you add a phonetic first
name, that box appears just below the First Name box. The keyboard
opens so you can fill in the blank.
• You can link and unlink Unified Contacts. As noted earlier, your
phone can sync up with different accounts. Your Contacts app might
list four sets of names and numbers: one stored on your phone, one
from an iCloud account, one from Facebook, and a fourth from your
corporate Exchange server at work. In the old days, therefore, certain names might have shown up in the All Contacts list two or three
times—not an optimal situation.
Now, as a favor to you, the iPhone displays each person’s name only
once in that master All Contacts list. If you tap that name, you open
up a unified information screen for that person. It includes all the details from all the underlying contacts cards.
NOTE: The iPhone combines cards in the All Contacts list only if the
first and last names are exactly the same. If there’s a difference in
name, suffix, prefix, or middle name, then no unifying takes place.
Remember, too, that you see the unification only if you view the
All Contacts list.

To see which cards the iPhone is combining for you, scroll to the bottom of the card. There the Linked Contacts section shows you which
cards have been unified.
You can tap a listing to open the card in the corresponding account.
For that matter, you can manually link a card, too; tap Edit, tap link
contacts, and then choose a contact to link to this unified card—even
if the name isn’t a perfect match.
NOTE: It’s OK to link Joe Carnelia’s card with Joseph Carnelia’s card—
they’re probably the same person. But don’t link up different
people’s cards. Remember, the whole point is to make the iPhone
combine all the phone numbers, email addresses, and so on
onto a single card—and seeing two sets on one card could get
confusing fast.

This stuff gets complex. But, in general, the iPhone tries to do the
right thing. For example, if you edit the information on the unified
card, you’re changing that information only on the card in the corresponding account. (Unless you add information to the unified
card. In that case, the new data tidbit is added to all the underlying
source-account cards.)

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NOTE: To delete any info bit from a Contacts card, tap the – next to it,
and then tap the red Delete button to confirm.

Adding a Contact on the Fly
There’s actually another way to add someone to your Contacts list—a
faster, on-the-fly method that’s more typical of cellphones. Start by
bringing the phone number up on the screen:
• In the Phone app, open the Keypad. Dial the number, and then tap å.
• You can also add a number that’s in your Recents (recent calls) list,
storing it in Contacts for future use. Tap the * button next to the
name.
In both cases, finish up by tapping Create New Contact (to enter this
person’s name for the first time) or Add to Existing Contact (to add a
new phone number to the card of someone who’s already in your list).
Off you go to the Contacts editing screen shown on page 112.

Editing Someone
To make corrections or changes, tap the person’s name in the Contacts
list. In the upper-right corner of the Info card, tap Edit.
You return to the screens already described, where you can make whatever changes you like. To edit a phone number, for example, tap it and
change away. Or, to delete a number (or any other info bit), tap the –
button next to it, and then tap Delete to confirm.
After you tap Done (or Cancel), you can return to the Contacts list by
swiping to the right.

Deleting Someone
Truth is, you’ll probably add people to your address book far more often
than you’ll delete them. After all, you meet new people all the time—but
you delete people primarily when they die, move away, or dump you.
To zap someone, tap the name in the Contacts list and then tap Edit.
Scroll down, tap Delete Contact, and confirm by tapping Delete Contact
again. (Weirdly, the Delete Contact option doesn’t appear if you open
someone’s info card from the Recents or Favorites lists—only from the
main Contacts list.)

Sharing a Contact
There’s a lot of work involved in entering someone’s contact information.
It would be thoughtful, therefore, if you could spare the next guy all that

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effort—by sending a fully formed electronic business card to him. It can
be yours or that of anyone in your Contacts list.
To do that, open the contact’s card, scroll to the bottom, and tap
Share Contact. On the Share sheet, you’re offered a choice of AirDrop,
Message, Mail, and More. (“Message” means an iMessage—page 174—if
it’s a fellow Apple fan, or a text message otherwise. AirDrop is described
on page 327. And More is a place for new apps to install their sharing
options.)
Tap your choice, address the message (to an email address or, for a message, a cellphone number), and send it. The recipient, assuming he has a
half-decent smartphone or address-book program on the receiving end,
can install that person’s information with a single tap on the attachment.

The Keypad
The fourth way to place a call is to tap Keypad at the bottom of the
screen. The standard iPhone dialing pad appears. It’s just like the number
pad on a normal cellphone, except that the “keys” are much bigger and
you can’t feel them.

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To make a call, tap out (or paste) the phone number—use the V key to
backspace if you make a mistake—and then tap the ‚ button.
You can also use the keypad to enter a phone number into your Contacts
list, thanks to the å button, as described earlier.

Visual Voicemail
On the iPhone, you don’t dial in to check for answering-machine messages people have left for you. You don’t enter a password. You don’t sit
through some Ambien-addled recorded lady saying, “You have…17…messages. To hear your messages, press 1. When you have finished, you may
hang up….”
Instead, whenever somebody leaves you a message, the phone wakes
up, and a notification lets you know who it’s from. You also hear a sound
(unless you’ve turned on the silencer switch).
That’s your cue to open Phone Æ Voicemail. There you see all your messages in a tidy chronological list. (The list shows the callers’ names if
they’re in your Contacts list; otherwise it shows their numbers.) You can
listen to them in any order—you’re not forced to listen to three longwinded friends before discovering that there’s an urgent message from
your boss. It’s a game-changer.
iOS 10 even makes an attempt to transcribe your voicemails—to understand them and type out what they say. It’s pretty crude, with lots of
wrong words and missing words. But it’s usually enough to get the gist.

Setup
To access your voicemail, open the Phone app; tap Voicemail.
The very first time you visit this screen, the iPhone prompts you to make
up a numeric password for your voicemail account—don’t worry, you’ll
never have to enter it again, unless you plan to actually dial in for messages (page 124). Record a “Leave me a message” greeting.
You have two options for the outgoing greeting:
• Default. If you’re microphone-shy, or if you’re famous and you don’t
want stalkers calling just to hear your famous voice, then use this
option. It’s a prerecorded, somewhat uptight female voice that says,
“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.
212-661-7837 is not available.” Beep!

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• Custom. This option lets you record your own voice saying, for
example, “You’ve reached my iPhone 7. You may begin drooling at the
tone.” Tap Record, hold the iPhone to your head, say your line, and
then tap Stop.
Check how it sounds by tapping Play.
Then just wait for your fans to start leaving you messages!

Using Visual Voicemail
In the voicemail list, a blue dot (∆) indicates a message you haven’t yet
played.
TIP: You can work through your messages even when you’re out of
cellular range—on a plane, for example—because the recordings are
stored on the iPhone itself.

When you tap the name of a message, you instantly see the date and
time it came in, the person’s name (if it’s in your Contacts) or the cellphone’s registered city and state (if not), and a rough transcription. The
Play slider tells you how many seconds long the message is.

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And all the controls you need are right there, surrounding the message
you tapped:
• Share (P). Yes, you can send a voicemail recording to someone else—
by email, text message, or whatever (page 348). That’s a handy bit
of record-keeping that could be very useful in, say, a criminal trial.
• The transcript. Yes, this is a crude transcript (Apple labels it beta,
after all). There's no punctuation. There may be missing ____ and
phrases. Some words might be completely wrong. But it's usually
good enough that you can tell if a message is some robocall asking
for money, or a message from the school nurse saying that your kid
has a broken rib.
• 2. Tap to listen to the message.
• Speaker. As the name “Visual Voicemail” suggests, you’re looking at
your voicemail list—which means you’re not holding the phone up to
your head. The first time people try using Visual Voicemail, therefore,
they generally hear nothing!
But if you hit Speaker before you tap 2, you can hear the playback
and continue looking over the list.
NOTE: If you’re listening through the earbuds, a Bluetooth earpiece,
or a car kit, of course, then you hear the message playing back
through that. If you really want to listen through the iPhone’s
speaker instead, tap Audio and then Speaker. (You switch back
the same way.)

• Call Back. Tap Call Back to return the call. Very cool—you never even
encounter the person’s phone number.
• Delete. You might want to keep the list manageable by deleting old
messages. To do that, tap a message’s Delete button.
If you have a lot of messages to delete, here’s a faster way: Swipe
across the first one’s name right to left, and then tap Delete. The message disappears instantly. You can work down the list quickly this way.
If you didn’t know that trick, you could also do it the slow way: Tap
Edit (upper right of the screen). Tap the – button next to a message’s name and then tap Delete to confirm. Tap the next – button
and continue.

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TIP: To listen to deleted messages that are still on the phone, scroll to the
bottom of the list and then tap Deleted Messages.
On the Deleted screen, you can undelete a message that you
actually don’t want to lose yet (that is, move it back to the Voicemail
screen—tap it and then tap Undelete) or tap Clear All to erase these
messages for good.

• Rewind, Fast Forward. Drag the little vertical line in the scrubber bar
(beneath the message) to skip backward or forward in the message.
It’s a great way to replay something you didn’t catch the first time.
To collapse the expanded message, tap another message in the list, if it’s
visible, or just tap the caller’s name.
Even before you’ve expanded a message’s row to view the Play, Speaker,
Call Back, and Delete buttons, a few other Visual Voicemail buttons are
awaiting your inspection:
• Greeting. Tap Greeting (upper-left corner) to record your voicemail
greeting.
• Call Details. Tap * to open the Info screen—the Contacts card—for
the message that was left for you.
If it was left by somebody who’s in your Contacts list, you can see
which of that person’s phone numbers the call came from (indicated
in blue type), plus a % if that number is in your Favorites list. Oh, and
you can add this person to your Favorites list at this point by tapping
Add to Favorites (at the bottom of the screen).

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If the caller’s number isn’t in Contacts, then you’re offered a Create
New Contact button and an Add to Existing Contact button, so you
can store it for future reference.
In both cases, you also have the option to return the call (right from
the Info screen), fire off a text message, or place a FaceTime audio or
video call.

Dialing in for Messages
Gross and pre-iPhonish though it may sound, you can also dial in for your
messages from another phone.
To do that, dial your iPhone’s number. Wait for the voicemail system to
answer. As your own voicemail greeting plays, dial * (or # if you have
Verizon), your voicemail password, and then #.
You hear the Uptight Carrier Lady announce how many messages you
have, and then she’ll start playing them for you. After you hear each message, she’ll offer you the following options (but you don’t have to wait for
her to announce them):
• To delete the message, press 7.
• To save it, press 9.
• To replay it, press 4. (On T-Mobile, it’s 1.)
Conveniently enough, these keystrokes are the same on Verizon, Sprint,
and AT&T.
TIP: If this whole Visual Voicemail thing freaks you out, you can also
dial in for messages right from the iPhone. Open the keypad and
hold down the 1 key, just as though it were a speed-dial key on any
normal phone.
After a moment, the phone connects; you’re asked for your
password, and then the messages begin to play back, just as
described already.

Answering Calls
When someone calls your iPhone, you’ll know it; three out of your five
senses are alerted. Depending on how you’ve set up your iPhone, you’ll
hear a ring, feel a vibration, and see the caller’s name and photo fill the
screen. (Smell and taste will have to wait until iOS 11.)

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NOTE: For details on choosing a ringtone and on Vibrate mode, see
page 582.

How you answer depends on what’s happening at the time:
• If you’re using the iPhone, tap the green Accept button. Tap the red
hang-up button when you’ve both said enough.
• If the iPhone is asleep or locked, the screen lights up and says slide
to answer. If you slide your finger as indicated by the arrow, you
simultaneously unlock the phone and answer the call.
• If you’re wearing earbuds, the music fades out and then pauses; you
hear the ring both through the phone’s speaker and through your earbuds. Answer by squeezing the clicker on the earbud cord or by using
either of the methods already described.
When the call is over, you can click again to hang up—or just wait
until the other guy hangs up. Either way, the music fades in again and
resumes from the spot where you were so rudely interrupted.

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Same thing if you were watching a video or listening to a podcast;
it pauses for the duration of the call and then resumes when you
hang up.
TIP: If the caller is not in your Contacts, iOS 10 makes an educated guess
as to the name. Instead of no name at all, you’ll see something like
“Maybe: Casey Robin.”
How does the iPhone do it? When a call comes in, iOS instantly
searches your email in hopes of finding a matching phone number
in somebody’s email signature. If it finds one, it extracts that
person’s name and proposes it. Apple should call it “Likely Caller ID.”

Online and on the Phone, Together
Don’t forget that the iPhone is a multitasking master. Once you’re on the
phone, you can dive into any other program—to check your calendar, for
example—without interrupting your call.
You may even be able to use the phone’s Internet functions (web, email,
apps, and so on) without interrupting the call. To be precise, you can be
online and on the phone simultaneously if any of these things is true:
• You’re in a Wi‑Fi hotspot.
• You have AT&T or T-Mobile.
• You have an iPhone 6 or later, and you’ve turned on VoLTE calling
(see page 434).
In other words, if you have Verizon (non-VoLTE) or Sprint, and if you’re
not in a Wi‑Fi hotspot, then you can’t get online until the call is complete.

Not Answering Calls
Maybe you’re in a meeting. Maybe you’re driving. Maybe the call is
coming from someone you really don’t want to deal with right now.
Fortunately, you have all kinds of ways to slam the cellular door in somebody’s face.

Silencing the Ring
You might need a moment before you can answer the call, or you need
to exit a meeting or put in the earbuds. In those cases, you can stop the
ringing and vibrating by pressing one of the physical buttons on the
edges (the Sleep switch or either volume key). The caller still hears the

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phone ringing, and you can still answer it within the first four rings, but at
least the sound won’t be annoying those around you.
(This assumes, of course, that you haven’t just flipped the silencer
switch.)

Ignore It—or Dump It to Voicemail
If you wait long enough (four rings), the call goes to voicemail (even if
you silence the ringing as described already).
Or you can dump it to voicemail immediately (instead of waiting for the
four rings). How you do that depends on the setup:
• If the iPhone is asleep or locked, tap the Sleep button twice fast.
• If you’re using the iPhone, tap the Decline button on the screen.
• If you’re wearing the earbuds, squeeze the microphone clicker for
2 seconds. You hear two low beeps, meaning: “OK, Master; dumped.”
Of course, if your callers know you have an iPhone, they’ll also know that
you’ve deliberately dumped them into voicemail—because they won’t
hear all four rings.

Respond with a Text Message
Whenever your phone rings, the screen bears a small white Message
button (shown on page 125). If you tap it, you get a choice of three
canned text messages. Tapping one immediately dumps the caller to
voicemail and sends the corresponding text message to the phone that’s

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calling you. If you’re driving or in a meeting, this feature is a lot more
polite and responsive than just dumping the poor slob to voicemail.
TIP: You can edit any of these three canned messages; they don’t have
to say, “Sorry, I can’t talk right now,” “I’m on my way,” and “Can I call
you later?” forever. To do that, open SettingsÆPhone, tap Respond
with Text, and replace the text in the three placeholder boxes.

The fourth button, Custom, lets you type or dictate a new message on
the spot. (“I’m in a meeting and, frankly, your call isn’t worth getting fired
for” comes to mind.)

Remind Me Later
The trouble with Respond with Text, of course, is that it sends a text message. What if the caller is using a landline that can’t receive text messages? Fortunately, you have another option: Remind Me.
Tapping this button offers you one time-based option, In 1 Hour (which
sets up a reminder to return the call an hour from now), and three location-based options (previous page, right): When I leave, When I get
home, and When I get to work. (The home and work options appear only
if the iPhone knows your home and work addresses—because you’ve
entered them in your own card in Contacts.)
These options use the phone’s GPS circuitry to detect when you’ve left
your current inconvenient-to-take-the-call location, whether it’s a job
interview, a first date, or an outhouse.

Do Not Disturb
When you turn on Do Not Disturb, the phone is quiet and dark. It doesn’t
ring, chirp, vibrate, light up, or display messages. A p appears on the
status bar to remind you why it seems to be so uncharacteristically
depressed.
Yes, airplane mode does the same thing, but there’s a big difference: In
Do Not Disturb, the phone is still online. Calls, texts, emails, and other
communications continue to chug happily away; they just don’t draw
attention to themselves.
Do Not Disturb is what you want when you’re in bed each night. You
don’t really want to be bothered with chirps for Facebook status updates
and Twitter posts, but it’s fine for the phone to collect them for the
morning.

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Bedtime is why Do Not Disturb comes with two fantastic additional settings: one that turns it on and off automatically on a schedule, so that the
phone goes dark each night at the same time you do, and another that
lets you designate important people whose calls and texts are allowed to
get through. You know—for emergencies.

Turning on Do Not Disturb
To turn on Do Not Disturb manually, you have three options:
• Tell Siri, “Turn on Do Not Disturb.”
• Swipe upward to open the Control Center, and tap the p icon so that
it turns blue.
• Open Settings, tap Do Not Disturb, and tap Manual.
To set it up on a schedule, open SettingsÆDo Not Disturb. Turn on
Scheduled, and then tap the From/To block to specify starting and ending hours. (There’s no separate setting for weekends; Do Not Disturb will
turn on and off for the same hours every day of the week.)

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Allowing Special Callers Through
What if your child, your boss, or your elderly parent needs you urgently
in the middle of the night? Turning the phone off completely, or putting it
into airplane mode, would leave you unreachable in an emergency.
In iOS 10, you have several different ways to create wormholes through
your Do Not Disturb blockade for specified callers and texters:
• Allow Calls From. When you open SettingsÆDo Not Disturb and then
tap Allow Calls From, you’re offered options like Everyone (all calls
and texts come through), No One (the phone is still online, but totally
silent), or Favorites, which may be the most useful option of all.
That setting permits calls and texts from anybody you’ve designated
as a Favorite in the Phone app (page 104). Since those are the people you call most often, it’s fairly likely that they’re the most important
people in your life.
You can also create an arbitrary group of people—just your mom and
sister, just your boss and nephew, whatever. You have to create these
address-book groups on your computer (page 110)— for example,
in Contacts on the Mac. Once you’ve done that, their names appear
on the Allow Calls From screen under Groups. You can designate any
one of them as the lucky exception to Do Not Disturb.
• Emergency Bypass. This feature, new in iOS 10, lets you designate any
random person in your Contacts list as an “It’s OK to Disturb” person.
That person’s calls and texts will always go through. See the Tip on
page 115.

One More Safety Measure
The Do Not Disturb settings screen also offers something called
Repeated Calls. If you turn this on, then if anybody tries to call you more
than once within 3 minutes, he’ll ring through.
The idea here is that nobody would call you multiple times unless he
needed to reach you urgently. You certainly wouldn’t want Do Not
Disturb to block somebody who’s trying to tell you that there’s been an
accident, that you’ve overslept, or that you’ve just won the lottery.

Locked or Unlocked
The final option on the settings screen is the Silence option. If you
choose Always, then Do Not Disturb works exactly as described.
But if you choose Only while iPhone is locked, then the phone does ring
and vibrate when you’re using it. Because, obviously, if the phone is

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awake, so are you. It’s a great way to ensure that you don’t miss important calls if you happened to have awakened early today and started
working.

Fun with Phone Calls
The iPhone makes it pitifully easy to perform stunts like turning on the
speakerphone, putting someone on hold, taking a second call, and so on.
Here are the options you get when you’re on a call.

Mute
Tap this button to mute your own microphone, so the other guy can’t
hear you. (You can still hear him, though.) Now you have a chance to yell
upstairs, to clear the phlegm from your throat, or to do anything else
you’d rather the other party not hear. Tap again to unmute.

Keypad
Sometimes you have to input touchtones, which used to be a perk
only of phones with physical dialing keys. For example, that’s usually
how you operate home answering machines when you call in for messages, and it’s often required by automated banking, reservations, and
conference-call systems.
Tap this button to produce the traditional iPhone dialing pad. Each digit
you touch generates the proper touchtone for the computer on the other
end to hear.

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When you’re finished, tap Hide to return to the dialing-functions screen,
or tap End if your conversation is complete.

Speaker
Tap this button to turn on the iPhone’s built-in speakerphone—a
great hands-free option when you’re caught without your earbuds or
Bluetooth headset (page 142). (In fact, the speakerphone doesn’t work
if the earbuds are plugged in or if a Bluetooth headset is connected.)
When you tap the button, it turns white to indicate that the speaker is
activated. Now you can put the iPhone down on a table or a counter and
have a conversation with both hands free. Tap speaker again to channel
the sound back into the built-in earpiece.
TIP: On iPhones before the 7, the speaker is on the bottom edge of the
phone. If you’re having trouble hearing it, and the volume is all the
way up, consider pointing the speaker toward you, or even cupping
one hand around the bottom to direct the sound. (That works
on the 7 models, too, although there’s a second speaker in the
earpiece.)

Add Call (Conference Calling)
The iPhone is all about software, baby, and that’s nowhere more apparent
than in its facility at handling multiple calls at once.
The simplicity and reliability of this feature put other cellphones to
shame. Never again, in attempting to answer a second call, will you have
to tell the first person, “If I lose you, I’ll call you back.”
As you’ll read, however, this feature is much better on a GSM phone
(AT&T or T-Mobile) than on a CDMA phone (Verizon or Sprint).
Suppose you’re on a call. Here are some of the tricks you can do:
• Make an outgoing call. Tap add call. The iPhone puts the first person on hold—neither of you can hear the other—and returns you to
the Phone app and its various phone-number lists. You can now make
a second call just the way you made the first. The top of the screen
makes clear that the first person is still on hold as you talk to the
second.
• Receive an incoming call. What happens when a second call comes
in while you’re already on a call?
To answer on a GSM phone, tap End Call + Answer. On a CDMA
phone, tap End Current Call; the new call makes the phone ring again,
at which point you can answer it normally. Weird but true.

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You can also tap End Current Call (answer the incoming call, hang up
on the first) or Decline Incoming Call (send it to voicemail).
When you’re on two calls at once, the top of the screen identifies both
other parties. Two new buttons appear, too:
• Swap (GSM phones only) lets you flip between the two calls. At the
top of the screen, you see the names or numbers of your callers. One
says Hold (the one who’s on hold, of course) and the other bears a
time counter, which lets you know whom you’re actually speaking to.
Think how many TV and movie comedies have relied on the old
“Whoops, I hit the wrong button and now I’m bad-mouthing somebody directly instead of behind his back!” gag. That can’t happen on
the iPhone.
You can swap calls by tapping swap or by tapping the Hold person’s
name or number.
• Merge Calls combines your two calls so all three of you can converse
at once. Now the top of the screen announces the names of your
callers. Note that on a CDMA phone, you can merge calls only if you
placed the second call—not if it was incoming.

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TIP: On a GSM phone, you can now tap * next to someone’s name; at
this point, you can drop someone from the call by tapping End, or
talk privately with someone by tapping Private. Tap Merge Calls to
return to the group call.

This business of combining calls into one doesn’t have to stop at two. At
any time, you can tap Add Call, dial a third number, and then tap Merge
to combine it with your first two. And then a fourth call, and a fifth. With
you, that makes six people on the call.
Then your problem isn’t technological; it’s social, as you try to conduct a
meaningful conversation without interrupting one another.

FaceTime
Tap this button to switch from your current phone call into a face-to-face
video call, using the FaceTime app described starting on page 137.
(This feature requires that both you and the other guy have iPhones,
iPads, iPod Touches, or Macs.)

Hold
The FaceTime button appears in place of what, on earlier iPhones, was
the Hold button. But you can still trigger the Hold function—by holding
down the Mute button for a couple of seconds. Now neither you nor the
other guy can hear anything. Tap again to resume the conversation.

Contacts
This button opens the address book program so you can look up a number or place another call.

Call Waiting
Call waiting has been around for years. With a call-waiting feature, when
you’re on one phone call, you hear a beep indicating that someone else
is calling. You can tap the Flash key on your phone to answer the second
call while you put the first one on hold.
Some people don’t use call waiting because it’s rude to both callers.
Others don’t use it because they have no idea what the Flash key is.
On the iPhone, when a second call comes in, the phone rings (and/
or vibrates) as usual, and the screen displays the name or number of

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the caller, just as it always does. Buttons on the screen offer you three
choices:
• End Current Call. Hangs up on the first call and takes the second one.
• Answer (Hold Current Call). This is the traditional call-waiting effect.
You say, “Can you hold on a sec? I’ve got another call,” to the first
caller. The iPhone puts her on hold, and you connect to the second
caller.
At this point, you can jump back and forth between the two calls, or
you can merge them into a conference call.
• Decline Incoming Call. The incoming call goes straight to voicemail.
Your first caller has no idea that anything has happened.
If call waiting seems a bit disruptive, you can turn it off, at least on the
AT&T iPhone (the switch is in Settings Æ Phone Æ Call Waiting). When call
waiting is turned off, incoming calls go straight to voicemail when you’re
on the phone.
If you have T-Mobile, Sprint, or Verizon, then you can turn off call waiting
only one call at a time; just dial *70 before you dial the number. You won’t
be disturbed by call-waiting beeps while you’re on that important call.

Call Forwarding
Here’s a pretty cool feature you may not have known you had. It lets you
route all calls made to your iPhone number to a different number. How is
this useful? Let us count the ways:
• When you’re home. You can have your cellphone’s calls ring your
home number so you can use any extension in the house, and so you
don’t miss any calls while the iPhone is turned off or charging.
• When you send your iPhone to Apple for battery replacement. You
can forward the calls you would have missed to your home or work
phone number.
• When you’re overseas. You can forward the number to one of the
web-based services that answers your voicemail and sends it to you
as an email attachment (like Google Voice).
• When you’re going to be in a place with little or no cell coverage.
Let’s say you’re in Alaska. You can have your calls forwarded to your
hotel or to a friend’s cellphone. (Forwarded calls eat up your allotment of minutes, though.)

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You have to turn on call forwarding while you’re still in an area with cell
coverage. Here’s how:
• AT&T. Tap Settings Æ Phone Æ Call Forwarding, turn call forwarding on,
and then tap in the new phone number. That’s all there is to it—your
iPhone will no longer ring. At least not until you turn the same switch
off again.
• Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile. On the dialing pad, dial *72, plus the number you’re forwarding calls to. Then tap ‚. (To turn off call forwarding,
dial *73, and then tap ‚.)

Caller ID
Caller ID is another classic cellphone feature. It’s the one that displays
the phone number of the incoming call (and sometimes the name of the
caller).
The only thing worth noting about the iPhone’s own implementation of
caller ID is that you can prevent your number from appearing when you
call other people’s phones:
• AT&T. Tap Settings Æ Phone Æ Show My Caller ID, and then tap the on/
off switch.
• Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile. You can disable caller ID only for individual
calls. For example, if you’re calling your ex, you might not want your
number to show up on his phone. Just dial *67 before you dial the
number. (Caller ID turns on again for subsequent calls.)

Custom Ringtones
The iPhone comes with more than 50 creative and intriguing ringing
sounds, from an old car horn to a peppy marimba lick. Page 582 shows
you how to choose the one you want to hear when your phone rings. You
can also buy ready-made pop-music ringtones from Apple for $1.29 each.
(On your iPhone, open the iTunes Store app. Tap More and then Tones).
But where’s the fun in that? Surely you don’t want to walk around listening to the same ringtones as the millions of other iPhone owners.
Fortunately, you can also make up custom ring sounds, either to use as
your main iPhone ring or to assign to individual callers in your Contacts
list. All kinds of free or cheap apps are available for doing that, with
names like Ringtone Designer Pro and Ringtones for iPhone; they let you

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make ringtones out of songs you already own, or even sounds you record
yourself.
You can also use GarageBand, a free Apple program available for iOS or
Mac. For instructions, see this chapter’s free online appendix. It’s a PDF available on this book’s “Missing CD” page at missingmanuals.com.

Because apps aren’t allowed to manipulate the iPhone’s ringtones list
directly, the process isn’t altogether automatic; it involves syncing the
ringtone to iTunes on your computer and then syncing it again to your
phone. But the app’s instructions will guide you. (iPhone ringtones must
be in the .m4r file format.)
TIP: One feature that’s blatantly missing on the iPhone is a “vibrate, then
ring” option for incoming calls. That’s where the phone first vibrates
silently to get your attention—and begins to ring only if you haven’t
responded after, say, 10 seconds.
GarageBand offers the solution: Create a ringtone that’s silent for
the first 10 seconds and only then plays a sound. Then set your
iPhone to vibrate and ring. When a call comes in, the phone plays
the ringtone immediately as it vibrates—but you won’t hear anything
until after the silent portion of the ringtone has been “played.”

FaceTime Video Calls
Your iPhone, as you’re probably aware, has two cameras—one on the
back and one on the front. And that can mean only one thing: Video calling has arrived.
The iPhone was not the first phone to be able to make video calls. But it
is the first one that can make good video calls, reliably, with no sign-up
or setup, with a single tap. The picture and audio are generally rock-solid,
with very little delay, and it works the first time and every time. Now
Grandma can see the baby, or you can help someone shop from afar, or
you can supervise brain surgery from thousands of miles away (some
medical training recommended).
You can enjoy these Jetsons fantasies not just when calling other
iPhones; you can also make video calls between iPhones and iPads, iPod
Touches, and Macs. You can even place these calls when you’re not in a
Wi‑Fi hotspot, over the cellular airwaves, when you’re out and about.
Being able to make video calls like a regular cellphone call is a huge
convenience. Never again will you return home from the store and get
scolded for buying the wrong size, style, or color.

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In any case, FaceTime couldn’t be easier to fire up—in many different
ways:
• From Siri. The quickest way to start a video call may be simply to say,
“FaceTime Mom,” “FaceTime Chris Taylor,” or whatever.
• From Favorites. Whenever you designate someone’s FaceTime
contact info as a favorite, a new entry appears in the Phone app’s
Favorites list (page 104).
• When you’re already on a phone call with someone. This is a good
technique when you want to ask first if the other guy wants to do
video, or when you’ve been chatting and suddenly there’s some
reason to do video. In any case, there’s nothing to it: Just tap the
FaceTime icon that’s right on the screen when you pull the phone
away from your face. (Your buddy can either accept or, if he just got
out of the shower, decline.)
• From the FaceTime app. You can also start up a videochat without
placing a phone call first. That’s handy when you have Wi‑Fi but no
cell signal; FaceTime can make the call even when Verizon can’t.
Of course, if you’re not already on a call, the iPhone doesn’t yet know
whom you want to call. So you have to tell it. Open the FaceTime app.
It presents a list of your recent FaceTime calls. Tap a name to place a

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new call to that person, or tap * to view a history of your calls with
that person (and buttons for placing new ones).
Or, to find your callee from your own Contacts list, tap the n button.
Find a name, tap it, and then tap Ń to place the call.
If your future conversation partner isn’t in Contacts yet, then tap
where it says Enter name, email, or number, and do just that.
• From Contacts. In the Contacts app, if you tap a person’s name, you’ll
find buttons that place FaceTime calls. Or, in the Phone app, call up
your Favorites or Recents list. Tap * next to a name to open the contact’s card; tap FaceTime.
• From Messages. If you’re chatting away with somebody by text and
you realize that typing is no longer appropriate for the conversation,
tap Details at the top of the screen. Tap Ń.
At this point, the other guy receives an audio and video message inviting
him to a chat. If he taps Accept, you’re on. You’re on each other’s screens,
seeing and hearing each other in real time. (You appear on your own
screen, too, in a little inset window. It’s spinach-in-your-teeth protection.)
Once the chat has begun, here’s some of the fun you can have:
• Show what’s in front of you. 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 z 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 with the laptop’s camera facing away
from you, you can’t see what you’re showing.)
Tap z again to return to the front camera.
• Snap a commemorative photo. You can immortalize a chat by using
the screenshot keystroke (Sleep + Home). You wind up with a still
photo of your videochat in progress, safely nestled in the Camera Roll
of your Photos app.
• Rotate the screen. FaceTime works in either portrait (upright) or
landscape (widescreen) view; just turn your phone 90 degrees. Of
course, if your calling partner doesn’t also turn her gadget, she’ll see
your picture all squished and tiny, with big black areas filling the rest
of the screen. (On the Mac, the picture rotates automatically when

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your partner’s gadget rotates. You don’t have to turn the monitor 90
degrees.)
TIP: The m (rotation lock) button described on page 25 works in
FaceTime, too. That is, you can stop the picture from rotating when
you turn the phone—as long as you’re happy with full-time upright
(portrait) orientation.

• Mute the audio. Tap Â to silence the audio you’re sending. Great
when you need to yell at the kids.
• Mute the video. When you leave the FaceTime app for any reason
(press the Home button and then open a different program, if you
like), 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 designed to let you check your calendar, look something up on the web, or whatever, while you’re still chatting. But it’s
also a great trick when you need to adjust your clothing, pick at your
teeth, or otherwise shield your activity from the person 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.
When you and your buddy have had quite enough, tap the End button to
terminate the call. (Although it’s easy to jump from phone call to videochat, there’s no way to go the other direction.)
And marvel that you were alive to see the day.

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FaceTime Audio Calls
You might imagine that, on the great timeline of Apple technologies, audio calling would have arrived before video calling. But no; free
Internet audio calls didn’t come to the iPhone until iOS 7.
And it’s a big, big deal. Video calling is neat and all, but be honest: Don’t
you find yourself making phone calls more often? Video calling forces
us to be “on,” neatly dressed and well behaved, because we’re on camera. Most of the time, we’re perfectly content (in fact, more content) with
audio only.
And FaceTime audio calls don’t eat into your cellphone minutes and
aren’t transmitted over your cell carrier’s voice network; instead, these
are Internet calls. (They use data, not minutes.)
When you’re in a Wi‑Fi hotspot, they’re free. When you’re not, your
carrier’s data network carries your voice. Use FaceTime audio a lot,
and you might even be able to downgrade your calling plan to a less
expensive one.
Sold yet? All right: Here’s how to make a free Internet voice call.
You start out exactly as you would when making a video call, as
described earlier. That is, you can start from the FaceTime app, the
Contacts app, the Phone app, Messages, and so on.
In each spot where FaceTime is available, you get a choice of two types
of calls: Video (Ń) and Audio (ž). (In Messages, if you tap the ž, you
get a choice of two voice options: Voice Call and FaceTime Audio.)
When you place an audio FaceTime call, the other person’s phone rings
exactly as though you’d placed a regular call. All the usual buttons and
options are available: Remind Me, Message, Decline, Accept, and so on.
Once you accept the call, it’s just like being on a phone call, too: You
have the options Mute, Speaker, FaceTime (that is, “Switch to video”)
and Contacts. (What’s missing? The Keypad button and the Merge Calls
button. You can’t combine FaceTime audio calls with each other, or with
regular cellphone calls. If a cellphone call comes in, you’ll be offered the
chance to take it—but you’ll have to hang up on FaceTime.)
Actually, it’s better than being on a phone call in two ways. First, you
don’t have the usual lag that throws off your comic timing. And, second,
the audio quality is amazing—more like FM radio than cellular. It sounds
like the other person is right next to your head; you hear every breath,
sniff, and sweater rustle.

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You’d be wise to try out FaceTime audio calls. Whenever you’re calling
another iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or Mac owner, you’ll save money and
minutes by placing these better-sounding free calls.
TIP: iOS even offers you FaceTime Call Waiting. If you’re on a FaceTime
audio or video call, and someone else FaceTime calls you, your
phone rings—and you can either tap Decline or End & Accept.

Bluetooth Accessories
Bluetooth is a short-range cable elimination technology. It’s designed to
untether you from equipment that would ordinarily require a cord.
Most people use Bluetooth for two purposes: Communicating with a
smartwatch or fitness band, or transmitting audio to a wireless speaker,
car stereo, or Bluetooth earpiece.
NOTE: This discussion covers monaural Bluetooth earpieces intended
for phone calls. But the iPhone can also handle Bluetooth stereo
headphones, intended for music, as well as Bluetooth speakers.
Details are on page 247.

Pairing with a Bluetooth Earpiece or Speaker
Pairing means “marrying” a phone to a Bluetooth accessory so that each
works only with the other. If you didn’t do this one-time pairing, then
some other guy passing on the sidewalk might hear your conversation
through his earpiece. And neither of you would be happy.
The pairing process is different for every cellphone and every Bluetooth
earpiece. Usually it involves a sequence like this:
1. On the earpiece, turn on Bluetooth. Make the earpiece or speaker
discoverable. Discoverable just means that your phone can “see” it.
You’ll have to consult the gadget’s instructions to learn how to do so;
it’s usually a matter of holding down some button or combination of
buttons until the earpiece blinks.
2. On the iPhone, tap Settings Æ Bluetooth. Turn Bluetooth on. The
iPhone immediately begins searching for nearby Bluetooth equipment. If all goes well, you’ll see the name of your earpiece or speaker
show up on the screen.
3. Tap the gadget’s name. Type in the passcode, if necessary. The
passcode is a number, usually four or six digits, that must be typed

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into the phone within about a minute. You
have to enter this only once, during the
initial pairing process. The idea is to prevent some evildoer sitting nearby in the
airport lounge, for example, to secretly
pair his earpiece with your iPhone.
The user’s manual for your earpiece
should tell you what the passcode is (if
one is even required).
To make calls using a Bluetooth earpiece (or
speaker as a speakerphone), you dial using
the iPhone itself. You usually use the iPhone’s
own volume controls, too. You generally press a button on the earpiece
or speaker to answer an incoming call, to swap call-waiting calls, or to
end a call.
If you’re having problems making a particular gadget work, Google it.
Type “iphone jambox mini,” for example. Chances are good that you’ll
find a write-up by somebody who’s successfully worked through the
setup.

Bluetooth Car Systems
The iPhone works beautifully with Bluetooth car systems, too. The pairing
procedure generally goes exactly as described previously: You make the
car discoverable, enter the passcode on the iPhone, and then make the
connection.
Once you’re paired up, you can answer an incoming call by pressing a
button on your steering wheel, for example. You hear your caller through
the car’s speakers, and a microphone for your own voice is hidden in the
rearview mirror or dashboard. You make calls either from the iPhone or,
in some cars, by dialing the number on the car’s own touchscreen.
NOTE: When Bluetooth is turned on but the earpiece isn’t, or when
the earpiece isn’t nearby, the b icon on your iPhone’s status bar
appears in gray. And when it’s connected and working right, the
earpiece’s battery gauge appears on the iPhone’s status bar.

Of course, studies show that it’s the act of driving while conversing that
causes accidents—not actually holding a cellphone. So the hands-free
system is less for safety than for convenience and compliance with state
laws.

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Pairing with a Smartwatch or Fitness Band
The trouble with Bluetooth has always been that it’s a battery hog. Now,
though, there’s a new, better technology, called Bluetooth LE (for “low
energy”), Bluetooth Smart, or Bluetooth 4.0. Its very smart idea: It turns
on only when necessary and then turns off again to save power.
When you’ve paired your phone with a Bluetooth 4.0 gadget, you see
the Bluetooth logo on your status bar (b) light up only when it’s actually
exchanging data. Bluetooth LE has made possible a lot of smartwatches
and fitness trackers.
As a handy bonus, you usually do the pairing right in the gadget’s companion app, rather than fumbling around in Settings. That setup makes
a lot more sense. For example, when you’re setting up an Apple Watch,
you use the Watch app to pair the watch; when you’re setting up an
Up band or Fitbit, you connect your band wirelessly in the Up app or
Fitbit app.

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Siri Voice
Command

iri, the iPhone’s famous voice-recognition technology, is actually two features. First, there’s dictation, where the phone types
out everything you say. It’s described in Chapter 3.

Second, there’s Siri the voice-controlled minion. You can say, “Wake me
up at 7:45 a.m.,” or “What’s Chris’s work number?” or “How do I get to
the airport?” or “What’s the weather going to be like in San Francisco
this weekend?”
You can also ask questions about movies, sports, and restaurants. Siri
displays a beautifully formatted response and speaks in a calm voice.
You can even ask her, “What song is that?” or “Name that tune.” She’ll
identify whatever song is playing in the background, just as the popular
Shazam app does. It’s creepy/amazing.
You can operate her hands-free, too. Instead of pressing the Home button to get her attention, you just say, “Hey Siri.” (The 6s and 7 models
can respond even when running on battery power.)
Until iOS 10, only Apple decided what Siri could understand. Now,
though, the creators of certain apps can teach Siri new vocabulary, too.
For example, you can now say, “Send Nicki a message with WeChat,”
“Pay Dad 20 dollars with Square Cash,” and “Book a ride with Lyft” or
“Order me an Uber.”
NOTE: The kinds of apps Apple permits to tap into Siri are in these six
categories: audio or video calls, messages, payments, photo
searching, booking rides, and starting workouts. Notably absent:
music apps. You still can’t say, “Play some Dave Brubeck on
Spotify,” for example. Apple Music is the only music service Siri
understands.

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Voice Command
In 2010, Apple bought Siri, a company that made a voice-control app (no
longer available) for the iPhone. Apple cleaned it up, beefed it up, integrated it with the iPhone’s software, and wound up with Siri, your virtual
servant.
NOTE: Believe it or not, Siri is a spinoff from a Department of Defense
research project called CALO (Cognitive Agent that Learns and
Organizes), which Wikipedia describes as “the largest artificialintelligence project ever launched.” In a very real way, therefore,
Siri represents your tax dollars at work.
The spinoff was run by the Stanford Research Institute (SRI).
But that’s not where Siri’s name came from. Siri, it turns out, is
a Norwegian word meaning “beautiful woman who leads you to
victory.” (Cocreator Dag Kittlaus named her. He’s Norwegian.)

Siri is a crisply accurate, astonishingly understanding, uncomplaining,
voice-commanded servant. No special syntax is required; you don’t even
have to hold the phone to your head.
Most speech-recognition systems work only if you issue certain limited commands with predictable syntax, like “Call 445-2340” or “Open
Microsoft Word.” But Siri is different. She’s been programmed to respond
to casual speech, normal speech. It doesn’t matter if you say, “What’s
the weather going to be like in Tucson this weekend?” or “Give me the
Tucson weather for this weekend” or “Will I need an umbrella in Tucson?”
Siri understands almost any variation.
And she understands regular, everyday speaking. You don’t have to separate your words or talk weirdly; you just speak normally.
It’s not Star Trek. You can’t ask Siri to clean your gutters or to teach you
French. (Well, you can ask.)
But, as you’ll soon discover, the number of things Siri can do for you is
impressive. Furthermore, Apple continues to add to Siri’s intelligence
through software updates.
NOTE: Apple also keeps increasing the number of languages that Siri
understands. Already, Siri understands English (in nine varieties),
Arabic, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German,
Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mandarin, Norwegian,
Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish. You
change the language by visiting SettingsÆSiri.

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How to Use Siri
To get Siri’s attention, you have three choices:
• Hold down the Home button until you see a wavy animation on the
screen. Siri no longer double-beeps or vibrates when you trigger her,
except when you trigger her remotely. She gives a double-beep when
you use CarPlay, your earbuds clicker, or “Hey Siri” (described next).
The phone doesn’t have to be unlocked or awake, which is awesome.
Just pull the phone out of your pocket and hold down the Home
button.
TIP: Some people press the Home button to trigger Siri, and then release
the button and start talking. But you can also hold the Home button
down the entire time you’re speaking. That way you know Siri won’t
attempt to execute your command before you’re finished saying it.

• Hold down the clicker on your earbuds cord or the Call button on
your Bluetooth earpiece.
• Say, “Hey Siri.” A double-beep plays. (You have to turn this feature
on in advance. And unless you have a 6s or 7 model, it works only
when the phone is plugged into power, like a USB jack. Details in a
moment.)
Now Siri is listening. Ask your question or say your command. You don’t
have to hold the phone up to your mouth; Siri works perfectly well at
arm’s length, on your desk in front of you, or on the car seat beside you.
NOTE: Apple insists that Siri is neither male nor female. In fact, if you ask
Siri her gender, she’ll say something noncommittal, like, “Is this
relevant?” But that’s just political correctness. Any baby-name
website—or a Norwegian dictionary—will tell you that Siri is a
girl’s name.

When you’re finished speaking, be quiet for a moment (or, if you’ve been
pressing the Home button, release it). About a second after you stop
speaking, Siri connects with her master brain online and processes your
request. After a moment, she presents (and speaks) an attractively formatted response.
TIP: You generally see only the most recent question and response on
the Siri screen. But you can drag downward to see all the previous
exchanges you’ve had with Siri during this session.

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To rephrase your question or cancel or start over, tap the screen to interrupt Siri’s work. (You can also cancel by saying “Cancel” or just by pressing the Home button.) Tap the microphone icon to trigger your new
attempt.
And when you’re completely finished talking to Siri, you can either press
the Home button, hold down your earbuds clicker, or say something like
“Goodbye,” “See you later,” or “Adios.” You’re taken back to whatever app
you were using before.

How to Use “Hey Siri”
Siri can also accept spoken commands without your touching the phone.
It’s an ideal feature for use in the car, when your hands and eyes should
be focused on driving. (Of course, the safest arrangement is not to interact with your phone at all when you’re driving.)
The phone won’t respond to “Hey Siri” unless you’ve set it up like this:
• Turn on “Hey Siri.” Open SettingsÆSiri and turn on Allow “Hey Siri”
(it comes turned off).
• Train Siri to recognize your voice. You have to do a quick training
session to teach Siri what you sound like. Otherwise, a lot of people would be freaked out when they say things like “Jay’s weary” or
“Space? Eerie!” and the phone double-beeps in response.
As soon as you turn on Allow “Hey Siri” the training screens appear.
Hit Set Up Now. The screen asks you to say “Hey Siri” three times,
then “Hey Siri, how’s the weather today?” and “Hey Siri, it’s me.” That’s
all Siri needs to learn your voice.
At that point, you’re good to go. Anytime you want to ask Siri something,
just say, “Hey Siri”; at the sound of the double-beep, say your thing.
Just remember that most iPhone models don’t respond to “Hey Siri”
except when they’re plugged in and charging. (Having to listen constantly for the “Hey Siri” command is exhausting for your iPhone; it uses
a lot of power. This requirement ensures that it won’t drain your battery.)
The exceptions: the iPhone 6s and 7 models, which can listen for you
even on battery power.
Thanks to “Hey Siri,” you now have a front-seat conversationalist, a little
software friend who’s always happy to listen to what you have to say—
and whose knowledge of the world, news, sports, and history can help
make those cross-country drives a little less dull.

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What to Say to Siri
Siri comes with two different cheat sheets to help you learn her capabilities. To produce either one, hold down the Home button to make Siri’s
“What can I help you with?” screen appear. Then:
• Wait. After 5 seconds of silence, Siri begins displaying screen after
screen of example commands, under the heading “Some things you
can ask me.”
• Tap the tiny ? button to reveal the list of categories shown below.
TIP: Or just trigger Siri and then say, “What can I say?” or “What can you
do?” or “Help me!” The same cheat sheet appears.

Here are the general categories of things you can say to Siri:
• Opening apps. If you don’t learn to use Siri for anything else, for the
love of Mike, learn this one.
You can say, “Open Calendar” or “Play Angry Birds” or “Launch Calculator.”

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Result: The corresponding app opens instantly. It’s exactly the same
as pressing the Home button, swiping across the screen until you find
the app you’re looking for, and then tapping its icon—but without
pressing the Home button, swiping across the screen until you find
the app you’re looking for, and then tapping its icon.
• Change your settings. You can make changes to certain basic settings just by speaking your request. You can say, for example, “Turn
on Bluetooth,” “Turn off Wi‑Fi,” “Turn on Do Not Disturb,” or “Turn on
airplane mode.” (You can’t turn off airplane mode by voice, because
Siri doesn’t work without an Internet connection.)
You can also make screen adjustments: “Make the screen brighter.”
“Dim the screen.”
Result: Siri makes the requested adjustment, tells you so, and displays
the corresponding switch in case she misunderstood your intention.
NOTE: If you’ve protected your phone with a fingerprint, you may have
to unlock it before you’re allowed to change settings. Security
and all that.

• Open Settings panels. When you need to make tweakier changes to
Settings, you can open the most important panels by voice: “Open
Wi‑Fi settings,” “Open Cellular settings,” “Open Personal Hotspot settings,” “Open Notification settings,” “Open Sounds settings,” “Open
wallpaper settings,” and so on.
You can open your apps’ settings this way, too: “Open Maps settings,”
“Open Netflix settings,” “Open Delta settings,” and so on.
Siri is smart enough not to open security-related settings this way;
remember that you can use Siri even from the Lock screen. She’s protecting you from passing pranksters who might really mess up your
phone.
Result: Siri silently opens the corresponding page of Settings.
• Calling. Siri can place phone calls or FaceTime calls for you. “Call
Harold.” “Call Nicole on her mobile phone.” “Call the office.” “Phone
home.” “Dial 512-444-1212.” “Start a FaceTime call with Sheila Withins.”
“FaceTime Alex.”
Result: Siri hands you off to the Phone app or FaceTime app and
places the call. At this point, it’s just as though you’d initiated the call
yourself.

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Siri also responds to questions about your voicemail, like “Do I have
any new voicemail messages?” and even “Play my voicemails.” (After
playing each message, Siri gracefully offers to let you return the call—
or to play the next one.)
• Alarms. You can say, “Wake me up at 7:35.” “Change my 7:35 alarm to
8:00.” “Wake me up in 6 hours.” “Cancel my 6 a.m. alarm” (or “Delete
my…” or “Turn off my…”).
This is so much quicker than setting the iPhone’s alarm the usual way.
Result: When you set or change an alarm, you get a sleek digital
alarm clock, right there beneath Siri’s response, and Siri confirms what
she understood.

• Timer. You can also control the Timer module of the phone’s Clock
app. It’s like a stopwatch in reverse, in that it counts down to zero—
handy when you’re baking something, limiting your kid’s video-game
time, and so on. For example: “Set the timer for 20 minutes.” Or
“Show the timer,” “Pause the timer,” “Resume,” “Reset the timer,” or
“Stop it.”

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Result: A cool digital timer appears. A little stopwatch icon appears
on the Lock screen to remind you that time is ticking down.
TIP: You can specify minutes and seconds: “Set the time for two
minutes, thirty seconds,” for example.

• Clock. “What time is it?” “What time is it in San Francisco?” “What’s
today’s date?” “What’s the date a week from Friday?” Or just “Time.”
Result: When you ask about the time, you see the clock identifying
the time in question. (For dates, Siri just talks to you and writes out
the date.)
• Contacts. You can ask Siri to look up information in your address
book (the Contacts app)—and not just addresses. For example, you can say, “What’s Gary’s work number?” “Give me Sheila
Jenkins’s office phone.” “Show Tia’s home email address.” “What’s
my boss’s home address?” “When is my husband’s birthday?” “Show
Larry Murgatroid.” “Find everybody named Smith.” “Who is P.J.
Frankenberg?”
Result: A half “page” from your Contacts list. You can tap it to jump
into that person’s full card in Contacts. (If Siri finds multiple listings for
the person you named—“Bob,” for example—she lists all the matches
and asks you to specify which one you meant.)

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TIP: In many of the examples on these pages, you’ll see that you can
identify people by their relationship to you. You can say, “Show my
mom’s work number,” for example, or “Give me directions to my
boss’s house” or “Call my girlfriend.” For details on teaching Siri
about these relationships, see “Advanced Siri” on page 170.

• Text messages. “Send a text to Alex Rybeck.” “Send a message to
Peter saying, ‘I no longer require your services.’ ” “Tell Cindy I’m running late.” “Send a message to Janet’s mobile asking her to pick me
up at the train.” “Send a text message to 212-561-2282.” “Text Frank
and Ralph: Did you pick up the pizza?”
Result: Siri prompts you for the body of the message, if you haven’t
specified it. Then you see a miniature outgoing text message. Siri asks
if you want to send it; say “Yes,” “Send,” or “Confirm” to proceed.
TIP: If you’re using earbuds, headphones, or a Bluetooth speaker, Siri
reads the message back to you before asking if you want to send it.
(You can ask her to read it again by saying something like, “Review
that,” “Read it again,” or “Read it back to me.”) The idea, of course,
is that if you’re wearing earbuds or using Bluetooth, you might be
driving, so you should keep your eyes on the road.

If you need to edit the message before sending it, you have a couple
of options. First, you can tap it; Siri hands you off to the Messages
app for editing and sending.
Second, you can edit it by voice. You can say, “Change it to” to
re-dictate the message; “Add” to add more to the message; “No, send
it to Frank” to change the recipient; “No” to leave the message on the
screen without sending it; or “Cancel” to forget the whole thing.
You can also ask Siri to read incoming text messages to you, which is
great if you’re driving. For example, you can say, “Read my new messages,” and “Read that again.”
TIP: If you’ve opted to conceal the actual contents of incoming texts
so that they don’t appear on your Lock screen (page 200), then
Siri can read you only the senders’ names or numbers—not the
messages themselves.

You can even have her reply to messages she’s just read to you. “Reply, ‘Congratulations (period). Can’t wait to see your trophy (exclamation point)!’ ” “Call her back.” “Tell him I have a flat tire and I’m going
to be late.”

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• Email. Siri can read your email to you. For example, if you say, “Read
my latest email” or “Read my new email,” Siri reads aloud your most
recent email message. (Siri then offers you the chance to dictate a
response.)
Or you can use the summary-listing commands. When you say, “Read
my email,” Siri starts walking backward through your Inbox, telling you
the subject of each, plus who sent it and when.
After a few listings, Siri says: “Shall I read the rest?” That’s your opportunity to shut down what could be a very long recitation. If you say
“Yes,” she goes on to read the entire list of subject lines, dates, and
senders.
Result: Siri reads aloud.
TIP: You can also use commands like “Any new mail from Chris today?”
“Show new mail about the world premiere.” “Show yesterday’s email
from Jan.” All of those commands produce a list of the messages,
but Siri doesn’t read them.

You can also compose a new message by voice; anytime you use the
phrase “about,” that becomes the subject line for your new message.
“Email Mom about the reunion.” “Email my boyfriend about the dance
on Friday.” “New email to Freddie Gershon.” “Mail Mom about Saturday’s flight.” “Email Frank and Cindy Vosshall and Peter Love about
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the picnic.” “Email my assistant and say, ‘Thanks for arranging the
taxi!’ ” “Email Gertie and Eugene about their work on the surprise party, and say I really value your friendship.”
(If you’ve indicated only the subject and addressee, Siri prompts you
for the body of the message.)
TIP: You can’t send mail to canned groups of people using Siri—at least
not without MailShot, an iPhone app that exists expressly for the
purpose of letting you create email addressee groups.

You can reply to a message Siri has just described, too. “Reply, ‘Dear
Robin (comma), I’m so sorry about your dog (period). I’ll be more
careful next time (period).’ ” “Call her mobile number.” “Send him a
text message saying, ‘I got your note.’ ”
Result: A miniature Mail message, showing you Siri’s handiwork before you send it.
• Calendar. Siri can make appointments for you. Considering how many
tedious finger taps it usually takes to schedule an appointment in the
Calendar app, this is an enormous improvement. “Make an appointment with Patrick for Thursday at 3 p.m.” “Set up a haircut at 9.” “Set
up a meeting with Charlize this Friday at noon.” “Meet Danny Cooper
at 6.” “New appointment with Steve, next Sunday at 7.” “Schedule a
conference call at 5:30 p.m. tonight in my office.”

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Result: A slice of that day’s calendar appears, filled in the way you
requested.
TIP: Siri may also alert you to a conflict, something like this: “Note that
you already have an all-day appointment about ‘Boston Trip’ for this
Thursday. Shall I schedule this anyway?” Amazing.

You can also move previously scheduled meetings by voice. For
example, “Move my 2:00 meeting to 2:30.” “Reschedule my meeting
with Charlize to a week from Monday at noon.” “Add Frank to my
meeting with Harry.” “Cancel the conference call on Sunday.”
You can even consult your calendar by voice. You can say, “What’s
on my calendar today?” “What’s on my calendar for September 23?”
“When’s my next appointment?” “When is my meeting with Charlize?”
“Where is my next meeting?”
Result: Siri reads you your agenda and displays a tidy Day view of the
specified date.
• Directions. By consulting the phone’s GPS, Siri can set up the Maps
app to answer requests like these: “How do I get to the airport?”
“Show me 1500 Broadway, New York City.” “Directions to my assistant’s house.” “Take me home.” “What’s my next turn?” “Are we there
yet?”
TIP: You can also say, “Stop navigation”—a great way to make Maps stop
harassing you when you realize you know where you are.

You can ask for directions to the home or work address of anyone in
your Contacts list—provided those addresses are in your Contacts
cards.
Result: Siri fires up the Maps app, with the start and end points of
your driving directions already filled in.
• Reminders. Siri is a natural match for the Reminders app. She can add
items to that list at your spoken command. For example: “Remind me
to file my IRS tax extension.” “Remind me to bring the science supplies to school.” “Remind me to take my antibiotic tomorrow at 7 a.m.”
The location-based reminders are especially amazing. They rely on
GPS to know where you are. So you can say, “Remind me to visit the
drugstore when I leave the office.” “Remind me to water the lawn
when I get home.” “Remind me to check in with Nancy when I leave
here.”

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TIP: It’s pretty obvious how Siri knows to remind you when you leave
“here,” because she knows where you are right now. But she also
understands “home” and “office,” both yours and other people’s—if
you’ve entered those addresses onto the corresponding people’s
cards in Contacts.

Siri can also understand the word “this” when you’re looking at an
email message, a web page, or a note. That is, you can say, “Remind
me about this at 7 p.m.” or “Remind me about this when I get home.”
Sure enough: Siri will flag you with a reminder Notification at the appropriate time—and add an entry, with a link to the original message,
web page, or note, to the Reminders app.
Result: A miniature entry from the Reminders app, showing you that
Siri has understood.

• Notes. You create a new note (in the Notes app) by saying things like,
“Make a note that my shirt size is 15 and a half” or “Note: Dad will not
be coming to the reunion after all.” You can even name the note in
your request: “Create a ‘Movies to Watch’ note.”
But you can also call up a certain note to the screen, like this: “Find
my frequent-flier note.” You can even summon a table-of-contents
view of all your notes by saying, “Show all my notes.”

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Result: A miniature Notes page appears, showing your newly dictated
text (or the existing note that you’ve requested).
TIP: You can keep dictating into the note you’ve just added. Say, “Add
‘Return books to library’ ” (or just say, “Add,” and she’ll ask you what
to add). She’ll keep adding to the same note until you say, “Note
that…” or “Start a note” or “Take a note” to begin a fresh note page.
You can add text to an earlier note: “Add Titanic II: The Voyage
Home to my ‘Movies to Watch’ note.” (The first line of any note is
also its title—in this case “Movies to Watch.”)

• Restaurants. Siri is also happy to serve as your personal concierge.
Try “Good Italian restaurants around here,” “Find a good pizza joint in
Cleveland,” or “Show me the reviews for Olive Garden in Youngstown.”
Siri displays a list of matching restaurants—with ratings, reviews,
hours, and so on.
But she’s ready to do more than just give you information. She can
actually book your reservations, thanks to her integration with the
OpenTable website. You can say, “Table for two in Belmont tonight,”
or “Make a reservation at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant Saturday
night at seven.”
Result: Siri complies by showing you the proposed reservation. Tap
one of the offered alternative time slots, if you like, and then off you

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go. Everything else is tappable here, too—the ratings (tap to read customer reviews), phone number, web address, map, and so on.
• Businesses. Siri is a walking (well, all right, not walking) Yellow
Pages. Go ahead, try it: “Find coffee near me.” “Where’s the closest
Walmart?” “Find some pizza places in Cincinnati.” “Search for gas
stations.” “French restaurants nearby.” “I’m in the mood for Chinese
food.” “Find me a hospital.” “I want to buy a book.”
Result: Siri displays a handsome list of businesses nearby that match
your request.
TIP: She’s a sly dog, that Siri. She’ll help you out even if your requests
are, ahem, somewhat off the straight and narrow. If you say, “I think
I’m drunk,” she’ll list nearby cab companies. If you indicate that
you’re craving relief from your drug addiction, she’ll provide you
with a list of rehab centers. If you refer to certain biological urges,
she’ll list escort services.

• Playing music. Instead of fumbling around in your Music app, save
yourself steps and time by speaking the name of the album, song, or
band: “Play some Beatles.” “Play ‘I’m a Barbie Girl.’ ” “Play some jazz.”
“Play my jogging playlist.” “Play the party mix.” “Shuffle my ‘Dave’s
Faves’ playlist.” “Play.” “Pause.” “Resume.” “Skip.”
If you’ve set up any iTunes Radio stations (Chapter 8), you can call
for them by name, too: “Play Dolly Parton Radio.” Or be more generic:
Just say, “Play iTunes Radio” and be surprised. Or be more specific:
Say, “Play some country music” (substitute your favorite genre).
Result: Siri plays (or skips, shuffles, or pauses) the music you asked
for—without ever leaving whatever app you were using.
• Apple Music. If you subscribe to Apple’s $10-a-month Apple Music
service, Siri offers a huge range of even more useful voice controls.
For example, you can call for any music in Apple’s 30 million–song
catalog by song name, album, or performer: “Play ‘Mr. Blue Sky.’ ”
“Show me some Elton John albums.” “Play ‘Yesterday’ next” (or
“…after this song”). Or ask to have a singer or album played in random
order: “Shuffle Taylor Swift.”
When you hear a song you like, you can say, “Play more like this.” Or,
“Add this song [or album] to my library.” (Or, if you don’t like it, “Skip
this song.”)
If more than one person performed a song, be specific: “Play ‘Smooth
Criminal’ by Glee.” You can even ask for a song according to the movie it was in. “Play that song from Frozen.”

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Or start one of your playlists by name (“Play ‘Jogging’ ”). Or re-listen
to a song: “Play previous.” Or ask for one of Apple Music’s radio stations: “Play Beats 1” or “Play Charting Now.”
While music is playing, Siri is happy to tell you what you’re listening to.
(“What song is this?” “Who’s the singer?” “What album is this from?”)
You can also tell her, “Like this song” or “Rate this song five stars.”
She’ll note that and offer you more songs like it on the For You screen
of the Apple Music app.
You can ask her to play the top hits of any year or decade (“Play the
top song from 1990”; “Play the top 35 songs of the 1960s”).
Result: Just what you’d expect!
• Identifying music. Siri can listen to the music playing in the room and
try to identify it (song name, singer, album, and so on).
Whenever there’s music playing, you can say things like, “What’s that
song?” “What’s playing right now?” “What song is this?” or “Name
that tune!”
Result: Siri listens to the music playing at your home/office/bar/
restaurant/picnic—and identifies the song by name and performer.
There is also, needless to say, a Buy button.
• Weather. “What’s the weather going to be today?” “What’s the forecast for tomorrow?” “Show me the weather this week.” “Will it snow

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in Dallas this weekend?” “Check the forecast for Memphis on Friday.”
“What’s the forecast for tonight?” “Can you give me the wind speed
in Kansas City?” “Tell me the windchill in Chicago.” “What’s the humidity right now?” “Is it nighttime in Cairo?” “How’s the weather in Paris
right now?” “What’s the high for Washington on Friday?” “When will
Jupiter rise tomorrow?” “When’s the moonrise?” “How cold will it be
in Houston tomorrow?” “What’s the temperature outside?” “Is it windy
out there?” “When does the sun rise in London?” “When will the sun
set today?” “Should I wear a jacket?”
Result: A convenient miniature Weather display for the date and
place you specified.
• Stocks. “What’s Google’s stock price?” “What did Ford close at
today?” “How’s the Dow doing?” “What’s Microsoft’s P/E ratio?”
“What’s Amazon’s average volume?” “How are the markets doing?”
Result: A tidy little stock graph, bearing a wealth of up-to-date statistics.
• Find My Friends. You see this category only if you’ve installed Apple’s
Find My Friends app. “Where’s Ferd?” “Is my dad home?” “Where are
my friends?” “Who’s here?” “Who is nearby?” “Is my mom at work?”
Result: Siri shows you a beautiful little map with the requested person’s location clearly indicated by a blue pushpin. (She does, that is,
if you’ve set up Find My Friends, you’ve logged in, and your friends
have made their locations available.)
• Search the web. “Search the web for a 2016 Ford Mustang.”
“Search for healthy smoothie recipes.” “Search Wikipedia for the
Thunderbirds.” “Search for news about the Netflix-Amazon merger.”
TIP: Siri uses Microsoft’s Bing search service to perform its web searches.
If you prefer Google, just say so. Say, “Google Benjamin Franklin.”
(For that matter, you can also ask Siri to “Yahoo” something—for
example, “Yahoo blueberry dessert recipes.”)

Wikipedia is a search type all its own. “Search Wikipedia for Harold
Edgerton.” “Look up Mariah Carey on Wikipedia.” Pictures get special treatment, too: “I want to see pictures of cows.” You can also say,
“Show me pictures of…” or “Find me…” or “Search for…”
Result: Siri displays the results of your search right on her screen. Tap
one of the results to open the corresponding web page in Safari.
• Sports scores. At last you have a buddy who’s just as obsessed with
sports trivia as you are. You can say things like, “How did the Indians
do last night?” “What was the score of the last Yankees game?”
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“When’s the next Cowboys game?” “What baseball games are on
today?”
You can also ask questions about individual players, like “Who has the
best batting average?” “Who has scored the most runs against the
Red Sox?” “Who has scored the most goals in British soccer?” “Which
quarterback had the most sacks last year?”
And, of course, team stats are fair game, like “Show me the roster for
the Giants,” “Who is pitching for Tampa this season?” and “Is anyone
on the Marlins injured right now?”
Result: Neat little box scores or factoids, complete with team logos.

• Movies. Siri is also the virtual equivalent of an insufferable film buff.
She knows everything. “Who was the star of Groundhog Day?” “Who
directed Chinatown?” “What is Waterworld rated?” “What movie won
Best Picture in 1952?”
It’s not just about old movies, either. Siri also knows everything about
current showtimes in theaters. “What movies are opening this week?”
“What’s playing at the Watton Cineplex?” “Give me the reviews for
Doctor Strange.” “What are today’s showtimes for Trolls?”

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Result: Tidy tables of movie theaters or movie showtimes. (Tap one
for details.) Sometimes you get a movie poster filled with facts—and,
of course, you get a link to rent or buy it on iTunes.

• Facts and figures. This is a huge category. It represents Siri’s partnership with the Wolfram Alpha factual search engine (www.wolfram
alpha.com). The possibilities here could fill an entire chapter—or an
entire encyclopedia.
You can say things like, “How many days until Valentine’s Day?”
“When was Abraham Lincoln born?” “How many teaspoons are in
a gallon?” “What’s the exchange rate between dollars and euros?”
“What’s the capital of Belgium?” “How many calories are in a Hershey
bar?” “What’s a 17 percent tip on sixty-two dollars for three people?”
“What movie won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1985?” “When is the
next solar eclipse?” “Show me the Big Dipper.” “What’s the tallest
mountain in the world?” “What’s the price of gold right now?” “What’s
the definition of ‘schadenfreude’?” “How much is 23 dollars in pesos?”
“Generate a random number.” “Graph x equals 3y plus 12.” “What
flights are overhead?”
Result: For simple math and conversions, Siri just shows you the
answer. For more complex questions, you get a specially formatted
table, ripped right out of Wolfram Alpha’s knowledge base.

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TIP: Siri can also harness the entire wisdom of Wikipedia. You can say,
for example, “Search Wikipedia for Tim Kaine,” or “Tell me about
Alexander Hamilton,” or “Show me the Wikipedia page about
Richard Branson.”

• Post to Twitter or Facebook. iOS is a red-blooded, full-blown Twitter
companion. So you can say things like, “Tweet ‘I just saw a threeheaded dog catch a Frisbee in midair. Unreal.’ ” “Tweet with my location, ‘My car just broke down somewhere in Detroit. Help?’ ”
Facebook is fair game, too. You can say, “Post to Facebook, ‘The guy
next to me kept his cellphone on for the whole plane ride,’ ” or “Write
on my timeline, ‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.’ ”
Result: Siri offers you a sheet (miniature dialog box) where you can
approve the transcription and then, if it all looks good, send it off to
your Twitter or Facebook feed.
TIP: If someone’s Twitter address is recorded in Contacts, you can say,
“Tweet Casey Robin: Loved your last tweet!” Siri sends a tweet to
that person (@CaseyRobin253 Loved your last tweet!). Anyone who
follows both of you will see that tweet. (Alas, Siri cannot send direct
messages—private person-to-person tweets.)

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• Search Twitter. If you say something like, “What are people saying?”
or “What’s going on?” or “What’s happening on Twitter?” you see a
list of tweets on the current trending topics on Twitter. (Tap a tweet in
the list to open it into a new window that contains more information
and a View in Twitter button.)
Or ask, “What are people saying about the Chicago Bears?” to read
tweets on that subject. Or, conversely, you can ask, “What is Jimmy
Kimmel saying on Twitter?” to see his most recent tweets. (You can
substitute the names of other people or companies on Twitter.) Or,
“Search Twitter for the hashtag ‘FirstWorldProblems.’ ” (A hashtag is
a searchable phrase like #toofunny or #iphone7, which makes finding
relevant tweets on Twitter much easier.)
Result: Siri displays 10 or so tweets that match your query.
• Round up photos or videos. This trick can save you a lot of time and
fussing. You can ask Siri to show you all photos or videos according to the time or place you shot them, or according to the album
name they’re in. “Show me the videos from Halloween last year,” you
can say. “Get me the videos from Utah.” “Show me the Disney World
album.” “Open the Panoramas album.” “Show me the Slo-mo videos
from Oberlin College.” “Give me the pictures from last summer.”
Result: You get a screenful of little square thumbnails of photos or
videos that match your request. Tap one to open it, or tap Show All to
see all the photos/videos in that batch.

Non-Apple Apps
It’s a big deal: In iOS 10, Apple has finally permitted Siri to control apps
from other companies. Once you find out what these commands are,
they can accelerate other apps just as much as Siri already accelerates
Apple’s.
Here are a few examples:
• Lyft, Uber. “Order a Lyft.” “Call me an Uber.” Siri asks you to tap the
kind of car you want to order; one further tap orders the ride.
• Pinterest. “Find toddler bedroom idea pins on Pinterest.” The
Pinterest app opens, displaying pins that match your search query
(from all of Pinterest, not just your pages).
• Square Cash. “Pay Casey 10 dollars with Square Cash.” Boom: You’ve
just sent money to lucky, lucky Casey.
• LinkedIn. “Send a LinkedIn message to Robin that says, ‘Can you
vouch for me?’ ”

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• WhatsApp, WeChat, Skype. All of these chat apps work exactly
like iOS’s own Messages app, in that you can send “text messages”
entirely by voice. Just say “with [name of app] at the end of your
command, or use the messaging app’s name as a noun.
For example: “Tell Eric ‘I think I left my wallet in your car’ with
WhatsApp.” “Send a WeChat to Phoebe saying, ‘Are we still going
out?” “Let Marge know ‘I accidentally left your front door open this
morning’ in Skype.”
To see a list of all your apps that understand Siri commands, open
SettingsÆSiriÆApp Support. There they are: All the Siri-compatible
apps, with on-off switches.

You may never find the end of the things Siri understands, or the ways
that she can help you. If her repertoire seems intimidating at first, start
simple—use her to open apps, dial by voice, send text messages, and set
alarms. You can build up your bag of tricks as your confidence grows.
NOTE: Remember that you can use Siri without even unlocking your
phone—and therefore without any security, like your passcode.
Among certain juvenile circles, therefore, Siri is the source of
some interesting pranks. Someone who finds your phone lying on
a table could change your calendar appointments, send texts or
emails, or even change what Siri calls you (“Call me ‘you idiot’ ”),
without having to enter the phone’s passcode!
The solution is simple. In SettingsÆTouch ID & Passcode, if you
scroll way down, you can turn off Siri. Of course, you’ve now lost
the convenience of using Siri when the phone is locked. But at
least you’ve prevented having your own phone call you an idiot.

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When Things Go Wrong
If Siri doesn’t have a good enough Internet connection to do her thing,
she’ll tell you so.
If she’s working properly but misrecognizes your instructions, you’ll know
it, because you can see her interpretation of what you said. And, as indicated by the little hint tap to edit, you can tap Siri’s interpretation to
open up an editing screen so that you can make corrections by typing.
TIP: You can also correct a misheard command just by speaking the
correct version, like this, “I meant Chicago.” Siri gets what you mean.

If Siri recognizes what you said but it isn’t within her world of comprehension, she offers you a Search the web button as a last resort.

Siri’s Personality
Siri’s understanding of casual spoken commands is so impressive that
you might sometimes think she’s almost human. And that, of course, is
exactly what Apple wants.
You can say all kinds of off-kilter things to Siri. After you’ve encountered
a few of her answers, you won’t be surprised to find out that Apple actually employs a comedy-writing team exclusively for Siri-humor purposes.
For example, if you ask her, “What is the meaning of life?” she responds
with one of more than a dozen different answers. She might say, “I can’t
answer that now, but give me some time to write a very long play in
which nothing happens.” Or “It’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya.”
Or: “All evidence to date suggests it’s chocolate.”
Siri is full of such comebacks, and there are whole websites dedicated to
her snark. Here are a few examples. (This list won’t ruin the fun, because
Siri actually has several different comebacks to most of these questions.)
You: “Who’s your daddy?” Siri: “You are. Can we get back to work now?”
You: “Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” Siri: “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do
that.” (Then: “Are you happy now?”)
You: “Knock knock.” Siri: “Knock knock. Who’s there? Joshua. Joshua
who? Joshua, I don’t do knock-knock jokes.”
You: “What are you wearing?” Siri: “You have the wrong personal assistant, Carl.”
You: “Who’s the boss?” Siri: (Presents the vital statistics of Bruce
Springsteen.)

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You: “Beam me up, Siri!” Siri: “Please remove your belt, shoes, and jacket,
and empty your pockets.”
You: “Show me the money.” Siri: “I’ve found 23 ATMs that are fairly close
to you…”
You, in the evening: “Good morning, Siri.” Siri: “Good morning? It’s
9:24 p.m.!”
You: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could
chuck wood?” Siri: “42 cords of wood, to be exact. Everyone knows that.”
You: “Guess what.” Siri: “You won the lottery?”
You: “Talk dirty to me.” Siri: “Humus. Compost. Pumice. Silt. Gravel.”
You: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Siri: “I am not perspicacious
about the peregrinations of poultry.”
You: “Do you have a religion?” Siri: “My policy is the separation of spirit
and silicon.”
You: “Klaatu barada nikto.” Siri: “OK, I’ll pass the message on to Gort.”
(You kind of have to know The Day the Earth Stood Still to get it.)
Here are a few other things to say to Siri when you get bored:
I love you, Siri.

Why are we here?

Will you marry me?

I need a bathroom.

You’re so sexy.

What are you doing?

When is your birthday?

You’re the best assistant ever!

What’s the best phone?

You’re funny.

Can you sing?

Guess what?

Why are we here?

You’re an idiot.

You’re cute.

Have a nice day.

You make me so mad!

How are you today?

What do you want?

I don’t have any friends.

Tell me a joke.

What do you think is the best
tablet?

Tell me a story.

168

Sing for me.

How many pickled peppers did
Peter Piper pick?

I’m cold.

Oh my god.

Do you love me?

What does “Siri” mean?

Chapter 5

Am I your best friend?

Are you serious?

Do you believe in love?

Are you kidding me?

What do you think I should wear
for Halloween?

Do you want to go on a date?

Testing 1, 2, 3.
I’m tired.
What’s your secret?

Blah blah blah.
LOL.
Who’s your boss?
You are good to me.

What do you think of Android?

You are boring.

What do you think of Windows?

Give me a kiss.

You don’t understand love.

What are the three laws of
robotics?

You don’t understand me.
I’m sorry.
Am I fat?
What are you wearing?
Siri?
Who’s on first?
Why are you so awesome?
Where are you?
What do you think of Google Now?
Okay, Glass.

Let’s play a game.
Read me a haiku.
Take me to your leader.
Can I borrow some money?
Siri, rap.
Siri, beatbox.
When will Hell freeze over?
Tell me the story of Sleeping
Beauty.

Do you like Android phones?

Which came first, the chicken or
the egg?

What’s the best cellphone?

Trick or treat!

What’s the best computer?

What do you want?

How much do you cost?

OK Google.

What are you doing later?

What’s your favorite animal?

Make me a sandwich.

Do you have children?

Does Santa Claus exist?

Do you have a boyfriend?

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

What are the lottery numbers
going to be tomorrow?

Should I give you a female or male
voice?
I don’t like your voice.

What are you doing tomorrow?
What did you do last night?

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What are you doing this weekend?

Rock paper scissors.

What’s your favorite movie? (…TV
show, song, color, book, computer,
phone, operating system, app)

Yes or no?

What should I ask Tim Cook?

Pick a card.

Are you smart?

Tell me a riddle.

How do I look?

What’s 0 divided by 0?

Have you ever loved anyone?

What’s infinity times infinity?

Do you have any pets?

What is the passcode?

Do I look good in this outfit?

Do you follow the three laws of
robotics?

Talk dirty to me.

Read me a haiku.

Flip a coin.

What are the three laws of
robotics?

Roll a die.

When is the world going to end?

Roll two dice.

Stop it, Siri.

TIP: You may notice that Siri addresses you by name in her typed
answers, but she doesn’t always speak it when she reads those
answers out loud.
Ordinarily, she calls you whatever you’re called in Contacts. But you
can make her call you whatever you like. Say, “Call me Master” or
“Call me Frank” or “Call me Ishmael.” If you confirm when she asks,
from now on, that’s what Siri will call you in her typed responses.

Advanced Siri
With a little setup, you can extend Siri’s powers in some intriguing ways.

Teach Siri About Your Relationships
When you say, “Text my mom” or “Call my fiancée,” how does Siri know
who you’re talking about? Sure, Siri is powerful artificial intelligence, but
she’s not actually magic.
Turns out you teach her by referring to somebody in your Contacts
list. Say to her something like, “My assistant is Jan Carpenter” or “Tad
Cooper is my boyfriend.” When Siri asks for confirmation, say “Yes” or tap
Confirm.
Or wait for Siri to ask you herself. If you say, “Email my dad,” Siri asks,
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tionship from now on. (The available relationships include mother, father,
grandmother, grandfather, brother, sister, child, son, daughter, spouse,
wife, husband, boss, partner, manager, assistant, girlfriend, boyfriend, and
friend.)
Behind the scenes, Siri lists these relationships on your card in Contacts.
Now that you know that, you can figure out how to edit or delete these
relationships as well. Which is handy—not all relationships, as we know,
last forever.

Fix Siri’s Name Comprehension
Siri easily understands common names—but if someone in your family,
work, or social circle has an unusual name, you may quickly become frustrated. After all, you can’t text, call, email, or get directions to someone’s
house unless Siri understands the person’s name when you say it.
One workaround is to use a relationship, as described in the previous
section. That way, you can say, “Call my brother” instead of “Call Ilyich”
(or whatever). Another is to use Siri’s pronunciation-learning feature. It
kicks in in several different situations:
• When you’re texting. If Siri offers the wrong person’s name when you
try to text someone by voice, say, “Someone else.” After you’ve sent
the message, Siri apologetically says, “By the way, sorry I didn’t recognize that name. Can you teach me how to say it?”
• After Siri botches a pronunciation. Tell her, “That’s not how to pronounce his name.”
• Whenever it occurs to you. You can start the process by saying,
“Learn to pronounce Reagann Tsuki’s name” or “Learn to pronounce
my mom’s name.”
• In Contacts. Open somebody’s “card” in Contacts; start Siri and say,
“Learn to pronounce her name.”
In each case, with tremendous courtesy, Siri walks you through the process of teaching her the correct pronunciation. She offers you up to three
2 buttons; each triggers a different pronunciation. Tap Select next to the
correct one (or tap Tell Siri again if none of the three is correct).
By the end of the process, Siri knows two things: how to say that person’s name aloud, and how to recognize that name when you say it.

Siri Settings
In SettingsÆSiri, you can fiddle with several Siri settings:
• On/Off. If you turn Siri off, you can’t command your iPhone. Nor can
you dictate text; the ß button disappears from the keyboard. You can
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speak only to call (“Dial 212-556-1000”) and to control music playback
(for example, “Play U2” or “Next track”). In essence, you’ve just turned
your modern iPhone into an iPhone 4.
NOTE: And why would anyone turn off Siri? One reason: Using Siri
involves transmitting a lot of data to Apple, which gives some
people the privacy willies. Apple collects everything you say to
Siri, your song and playlist names, plus all the names in Contacts
(so that Siri can recognize them when you refer to them).

• Access on Lock Screen. Turns off Siri when the phone is locked.
• Allow “Hey Siri.” If you’re annoyed to find Siri perking up to take
requests too often, you can turn her listening off here.
• Language. What language do you want Siri to speak and recognize?
The options here include 41 languages and dialects, including English
in nine flavors (Australian, British, Canadian, Indian, and so on).
• Siri Voice. That’s right, kids: Siri can have either a man’s voice or a
woman’s voice—and she (or he) can speak in a selection of accents.
Even if you’re American, it’s fun to give Siri a cute Australian accent.
• Voice Feedback. Always On: Siri always replies to queries with a
synthesized voice (in addition to a text response). Hands-Free Only:
You’re telling Siri not to bother speaking when you’re looking at the
screen and can read the responses for yourself. She’ll speak only if
you’re on speakerphone, using a headset, listening through your car’s
Bluetooth system, and so on. Control with Ring Switch: Siri speaks her
answers only when the phone isn’t silenced (page 22).
• My Info. Siri needs to know which card in Contacts contains your
information and lists your relationships. That’s how she’s able to
respond to queries like “Call my mom,” “Remind me to shower when I
get home,” and so on.
NOTE: The “Raise to Speak” option once found on this screen is gone. It
was responsible for making Siri listen for a command whenever
you raised the phone to your head—handy for a little privacy, but
not utterly reliable. It was replaced by “Hey Siri” and the walkietalkie feature described on page 184.

• App Support. Here’s the list of Siri-compatible apps. Turn them on or
off at will.

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Texting &
Messages

he term “iPhone” has never seemed especially appropriate for
a gadget with so much power and flexibility. Statistics show, in
fact, that making phone calls is one of the iPhone’s least-used
functions! In fact, 57 percent of us never use the iPhone to make phone
calls at all.)
But texting—now we’re talking. Texting is the single most used function
of the modern cellphone. In the U.S., we send 6 billion texts a day; half of
Americans send at least 50 texts a day. Worldwide, we send 8.3 trillion
texts a year. That’s a lot of “how r u”s and “LOL”s.
Apple, wary of losing customers to creative messaging apps like
WhatsApp, Google’s Allo, and Facebook Messenger, has radically overhauled its Messages app in iOS 10. Its special effects and cool interactions easily match most offerings of rival apps—and, thanks to a new
Messages app store, even surpass them. Text-message conversations no
longer look like a tidy screenplay. Now they can be overrun with graphics, cartoons, animations, and typographic fun.
There are so many creative ways to express yourself now that “Oh,
sorry—it’s so hard to convey tone in a text message” will no longer cut it
as an excuse.

Text Messages and iMessages
So why is texting so crazy popular? For reasons like these:
• Like a phone call, a text message is immediate. You get the message
off your chest right now.
• And yet, as with email, the recipient doesn’t have to answer immediately. The message waits for him even when his phone is turned off.

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• Unlike a phone call, a text is nondisruptive. You can send someone
a text message without worrying that he’s in a movie, a meeting,
or anywhere else where holding a phone up to his head and talking
would be frowned upon. (And the other person can answer non
disruptively, too, by sending a text message back.)
• You have a written record of the exchange. There’s no mistaking
what the person meant. (Well, at least not because of sound quality.
Understanding the texting shorthand that’s evolved—“C U 2mrO,” and
so on—is another matter entirely.)
Now, the first thing to learn about texting on the iPhone is that there are
two kinds of messages. There are regular text messages (SMS), which
any cellphone can send to any cellphone. And there are iMessages, which
only Apple equipment (iPhones, iPads, Macs) can exchange.
The Messages app can send and receive both kinds of messages with
equal skill and flexibility—but iMessages offer much greater creative
freedom.

Standard Texting (SMS)
SMS stands for Short Message Service, but it’s commonly just called texting. A text message is a very short note (under 160 characters—a sentence or two) that you shoot from one cellphone to another. What’s so
great about it?
Most iPhone plans include unlimited texts. Picture and video messages
(known as MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service) count as regular text
messages.
But whenever you’re texting another Apple person (using an iPhone,
iPad, iPod Touch, or Mac), never mind that last part—all your texts are
free, as described next.

iMessages
An iMessage looks and works exactly like a text message. You send iMessages and receive them in the same app (Messages). They show up in the
same window. You can send the same kinds of things: text, photos, videos, contacts, map locations, whatever. You send and receive them using
exactly the same techniques.
The big difference? iMessages go exclusively between Apple products.
If your iPhone determines that the address belongs to any other kind of
phone, it sends regular old text messages.

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So why would Apple reinvent the text-messaging wheel? Because iMessages offer some huge advantages over regular text messages:
• No 160-character limit. A single message can be many pages long.
(The actual limit is 18,996 characters per message, in case you’re
counting.)
• iMessages don’t count as text messages. You don’t have to pay for
them. They look and work exactly like text messages, but they’re
transferred over the Internet (Wi‑Fi or cellular) instead of your cell
company’s voice airwaves. You can send and receive an unlimited
number of them and never have to pay a penny more.
• When you’re typing back and forth with somebody, you don’t have to
wonder whether, during a silence, they’re typing a response to you or
just ignoring you; when they’re typing a response, you see an ellipsis
(_) in their speech bubble.
• You don’t have to wonder if the other guy has received your message.
A tiny, light-gray word “delivered” appears under each message you
send, briefly, to let you know that the other guy’s device received it.

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• You can even turn on a “read receipt” feature that lets the other guy
know when you’ve actually seen a message he sent. He’ll see a notation that says, for example, ”Read 2:34 PM.” (See page 598.)
• Your history of iMessages shows up on all your i-gadgets; they’re
synchronized through your iCloud account. In other words, you can
start a chat with somebody using your iPhone and later pick up your
Mac laptop at home and carry right on from where you stopped (in
its Messages program).
As a result, you always have a record of your iMessages. You have a
copyable, searchable transcript on your computer.
• iMessages can be more than text. They can be little audio recordings,
video recordings, photos that you take within the Messages app,
sketches you make with your finger, games, “stickers,” emoji symbols,
animations, and much more.
iMessages happen automatically. All you do is open Messages and create
a text message as usual. If your recipient is using an Apple gadget with
iOS 5 or later, or a Mac using OS X Mountain Lion or later…and has an
iCloud account…and hasn’t turned off iMessages, then your iPhone sends
your message as an iMessage automatically. It somehow knows.
You’ll know, too, because the light-gray text in the typing box says “iMessage” instead of “Text Message.” And each message you send shows up
in a blue speech bubble instead of a green one. The ~ button is blue, too.
In fact, when you’re addressing a new text message, the names that
appear in blue represent people with iMessages gadgets, so you know in
advance who’s cool and who’s not. (The green names are those who do
not have iMessage. The gray ones—well, your iPhone doesn’t know yet.)

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The actual mechanics of sending and receiving messages are essentially
the same, whether it’s SMS messages or iMessage. So the rest of this
chapter applies equally well to both, with a few exceptions.

Receiving Texts
When you get a text, the iPhone plays a sound. It’s a shiny glockenspiel
ding, unless you’ve changed the standard sound or assigned a different
text tone to this specific person.
The phone also displays the name or number of the sender and the message. Unless you’ve fooled around with the Notifications settings, the
message appears at the top of the screen, disappearing momentarily on
its own, so as not to interrupt what you’re doing. (You can also flick it up
and away if it’s blocking your screen.)
If the iPhone was asleep, it lights up long enough to display the message
right on its Lock screen. At that point, you have a few options:
• Ignore it. After a moment, the screen goes dark again. The incoming-
text notification bubble will be there the next time you wake it.
• Answer it. On an iPhone 6s or 7, hard-press right on the notification
to expand it into a full keyboard, so that you can respond without
even unlocking the phone; on an earlier model, swipe to the left
on the notification bubble to reveal View and Clear buttons. See
page 60 for more on responding to texts from the Lock screen.
• Open it. If you swipe a notification bubble to the right, you’re
prompted to log in; you wind up looking at the message in the
Messages app.
TIP: On the Home screen, the Messages icon bears a little circled number
“badge” letting you know how many new text messages are waiting
for you.

Once you tap a message notification to open it, you see Apple’s vision of
what a text-message conversation should look like. Incoming text messages and your replies are displayed as though they’re cartoon speech
balloons.
To respond to the message, tap in the text box at the bottom of the
screen. The iPhone keyboard appears. Type away, or dictate a response,
and then tap ~. (Before iOS 10, that button said Send.) If your phone has
cellular or Wi-Fi coverage, then the message goes out immediately.

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If your buddy replies, then the balloon-chat continues, scrolling up the
screen.
And now, a selection of juicy Message tips:
• The last 50 exchanges appear here. If you want to see even older
ones, scroll to the very top and then drag downward.
TIP: This business about having to scroll to the top, wait, and then drag
downward gets old fast, especially when you’re trying to dig up a
message you exchanged a few weeks back. Fortunately, there’s a
glorious shortcut: Tap the very top of the screen (where the clock
appears) over and over again. Each time, you load another batch of
older messages and scroll to the oldest one.

And by the way—if the keyboard is blocking your view of the conversation, swipe downward on the messages to hide it.
• Links that people send you in text messages actually work. For example, if someone sends you a web address, tap it to open it in Safari.
If someone sends a street address, tap it to open it in Maps. And if
someone sends a phone number, tap it to dial.
A web address in iMessages shows up as a little logo and graphic of
the website (below, left). (Sometimes you have to Tap to Load Preview to see it.) Then tap that preview thumbnail to open the web
page.
• If someone sends you a link to a video on YouTube or Vimeo, you can
play the video without leaving the Messages window; just tap the
thumbnail (below, right). (To open the video at full size, on YouTube
or Vimeo, tap the thumbnail’s name.)

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• Once you’ve opened a text conversation, you see that each flurry of
messages is time-stamped when it begins (“Sat, Nov 12, 2:18 pm,” for
example). But at this point, you can also drag leftward anywhere on
the screen to reveal the exact time stamps of every message within
the chat.
TIP: When typing a message, if you decide that it would be faster just to
call, trigger Siri and say, “Call her” or “Call him.”

The List of Conversations
What’s cool is that the iPhone retains all these exchanges. The Messages
screen (of the Messages app) is a list of all your correspondents. A blue
dot indicates a conversation that contains new messages (page 175,
right).
Tap a person’s listing to open the actual messages you’ve exchanged,
going back in time to your very first texts.

These listings represent people, not conversations. For example, if you
had a text message exchange with Chris last week, then a quick way to
send a new text message to Chris (even on a totally different subject) is
to open that “conversation” and simply send a “reply.” The iPhone saves
you the administrative work of creating a new message, choosing a
recipient, and so on.
Similarly, if you’ve sent a message to a certain group of people, you can
address a new note to the same group by tapping the old message’s row
here.
TIP: Hey, you can search text messages! At the very top of the list,
there’s a search box. You can actually find text inside your message
collection.

To return to the Messages list from the actual chat view, tap ” at top left.

If having these old exchanges hanging around presents a security (or
marital) risk, you can delete them in either of two ways:
• Delete an entire conversation. Swipe away the conversation. At the
list of conversations, swipe your finger leftward across the conversation’s name. That makes the Delete confirmation button appear
(page 175, right).
Alternate method: Above the Messages list, tap Edit, tap to select (l)
the conversations you want to ditch, and then tap the Delete button.

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• Delete just one text. Open the conversation so that you’re viewing
the cascade of bubbles representing the texts back and forth.
Now, this technique is a little weird, but here goes: Hold down your
finger on the individual message you want to delete (or double-tap
it). When the white panel of options appears, tap More.
Now you can delete all the exchanges simultaneously (tap Delete All)
or vaporize only particularly incriminating messages. To do that, tap
the selection circles for the individual balloons you want to nuke, putting checks (l) by them; then tap the T to delete them all at once.
Tap Delete Message to confirm.
NOTE: Interestingly, you can also forward some messages you’ve
selected in this way. When you tap the Forward button (^), a
new outgoing text message appears, ready for you to specify the
new recipient.

Mark All as Read
Here’s a handy option: When you get off the plane, home from your honeymoon, you might see Messages bristling with notifications about texts
you missed. Now you can mark them all as read at once, so the blue dots
don’t distract you anymore.
To do that, on the Messages screen, tap Edit and then Read All.

The Details Screen
The Details screen offers six options that you may find handy in the
midst of a chat. To see them, tap * at the top of the screen. Here’s what
you see now:
• Call. If all this fussy typing is driving you nuts, you can jump onto a
phone or video call. At the top of the Details screen, a little strip of
icons awaits. They include Ń (place a FaceTime video call), Đ (send
a text right from the Details page), and ž (conclude the transaction
by voice, with a phone call or FaceTime audio call). You can also tap
this person’s name to open the corresponding Contacts card, loaded
with different ways to call, text, or email.
• Send My Current Location. Hit this button to transmit a map to the
other person, showing exactly where you are, so that person can
come and pick you up, meet you for drinks, rescue you when your car
doesn’t start, or whatever.
If your correspondent has an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, she can open the
map you’ve sent in Maps, ready to guide her with driving directions. If

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she’s one of the unenlightened—she owns some non-Apple phone—
then she gets what’s called a Location vCard, which she may be able
to open into a mapping app on her own phone.
NOTE: If Location Services isn’t turned on (page 585), the phone asks
you to turn it on now. After all, you can’t very well share your
location if your phone has no idea where you are.

• Share My Location. If you’re moving around, you may prefer this
option. It sends your whereabouts to your correspondent—and keeps
that location updated as you meander through the city, for a period
of time that you specify (One Hour, Until End of Day, or Indefinitely).
That’s great when you’re club-hopping, say, and trying to help some
buddies catch up with you. As your location changes, the map you
sent to your recipient updates itself.
At any time—even before the hour, day, or eternity is up—you can
stop broadcasting your location to this person; just open the Details
screen again and tap Stop Sharing My Location.
• Do Not Disturb. Otherwise known as “mute,” “enough already,” or
“shut up.” It makes your phone stop ringing or vibrating with every
new message from this person or group. Handy when you’re trying to

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get work done, when you’re being bombarded by silly group chitchat,
or when someone’s stalking you.
• Send Read Receipts. If this is an iMessages chat, then in iOS 10, for
the first time, you can turn read receipts (page 598) on or off independently for each chat partner, using this switch.
• Images/Attachments. Crazy cool! Here are all the photos and other
attachments you’ve ever exchanged with this texting correspondent,
going back to forever. (Tap Images to see only photos and videos;
Attachments shows everything else.)
You can tap one of these tiles to open it; hard-press one to “peek” at it
(page 37); or hold your finger down lightly to get choices like Copy,
Delete, and More. (There’s usually nothing under More except Save
Image, which copies the texted photo into your Photos collection, and
a T button.)

Capturing Messages and Files
In general, text messages are fleeting; most people have no idea how
they might capture them and save them forever. Copy and Paste help
with that.
Some of the stuff in those text messages is easy to capture, though. For
example, if you’re on the receiving end of a photo or a video, tap the
small preview in the speech bubble. It opens at full-screen size so you
can have a better look at it—and if it’s a video, there’s a ÷ button so you
can play it. Either way, if the picture or video is good enough to preserve,
tap the P button. You’re offered a Save Image or Save Video button; tap
to add the photo or video to your iPhone’s collection.
If someone sends you contact information (a phone number, for example), you can add it to your address book. Just tap inside that bubble and
then tap either Create New Contact or Add to Existing Contact.
If you’d like to preserve the actual text messages, you have a few options:
• Copy them individually. Hold your finger down on a text bubble, and
then tap Copy. At this point, you can paste that one message into, for
example, an email message.
• Forward them. Hold your finger down on a text bubble; tap More,
and then tap the selection checkmarks beside all the messages you
want to pass on. Now you can tap the Forward (^) button. All the
selected messages go along for the ride in a single consolidated message to a new text-message addressee.

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• Save the iMessages. If you have a Mac, then your iMessages (that is,
notes to and from other Apple gadgets) show up in the Messages
chat program. You can save them or copy them there.
TIP: Behind the scenes, the Mac stores all your chat transcripts in a
hidden folder as special text files. To get there, press the Option key
as you open the Go menu; choose Go ÆLibrary. The transcripts are
in date-stamped folders in the MessagesÆArchive folder.

• Use an app. There’s no built-in way to save regular text messages in
bulk. There are, however, apps that can do this for you, like iMazing
(for Windows) or iBackup Viewer (free for the Mac). They work from
the invisible backup files that you create when you sync your phone
with iTunes.

Tapbacks (iMessages Only)
How many trillions of times a day do people respond to texts with
repetitive reactions like “LOL” and “Awww” and “!!!!!”? Many. It’s how you
demonstrate to your chat partner that you appreciate the import of her
text.
If you and your buddy are both using iOS 10 or macOS Sierra, though,
you’ve now got a quicker, less cluttery, more visual way to indicate those
sorts of standard emotional reactions: what Apple calls tapbacks.
If you double-tap a message you’ve been sent, you’re offered a Tapback
palette: six little reaction symbols: a heart, a thumbs up, a thumbs down,
“ha ha,” two exclamation points, and a question mark. When you choose
one, it appears instantly on your screen and your buddy’s. You can use
them to stamp your reaction onto the other person’s text (or one of your
own, if you’re weird).

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In short, the tapback palette lets you react to a text without having to
type anything.
TIP: What’s cool is that you can change your tapback icon later, if new
information affects your reaction. Just double-tap again to bring up
the same palette.

Sending Messages
If you want to text somebody you’ve texted before, the quickest way, as
noted, is simply to resume one of the “conversations” already listed in the
Messages list.
You can also tap a person’s name in Contacts, or * next to a listing in
Recents or Favorites, to open the Info screen; tap Send Message.
NOTE: In some cases, the iPhone shows you your entire Contacts list,
even people with no cellphone numbers. But you can’t text
somebody who doesn’t have a cellphone.

Actually, options to fire off text messages lurk all over the iPhone—anytime you see the Share (P) button, which is frequently. The resulting Share screen includes options like Email, Twitter, Facebook—and
Message. Tapping Message sends you back to Messages, where the
photo, video, page, or other item is ready to send. (More on multimedia
messages shortly.)
In other words, sending a text message to anyone who lives in your
iPhone is only a couple of taps away.
NOTE: You can tap that ± button to add another recipient for this same
message (or tap the „ button to type in a phone number).
Repeat as necessary; they’ll all get the same message.

Yet another way to start: Tap the √ button at the top of the Messages
screen. Or, easiest of all, use Siri. Say, “Text Casey” or whatever.
In any case, the text message composition screen is waiting for you now.
You’re ready to type (or dictate) and send!

Audio Texting (iMessages Only)
Sometimes an audio recording is just better than a typed message, especially when music, children, animals, or a lot of emotion in your voice
are involved. You could probably argue that audio texting is also better

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than typed texting when you’re driving, jogging, or operating industrial
machinery.
If you and your friend are both Apple people, your phone can become a
sort of walkie-talkie.
Hold down the ß button at the right end of the Messages text box. Once
the sound-level meter appears, say something. When you’re finished,
release your finger. Now you can tap < to cancel, Ť to play it back, or W
to send what you said to your buddy as an audio recording.
TIP: If you’re pretty confident that what you’ve said is correct, you can
slide your thumb directly from the ß button straight up to the W to
send it.

The guy on the receiving end doesn’t even have to touch the screen to
listen. He just holds the phone up to his head! Your audio message plays
automatically. (This works even if his phone is asleep and locked.)

And then get this: To reply, he doesn’t have to touch anything or look at
the screen, either. He just holds the phone to his head again and speaks!
Once he lowers the phone, his recording shoots back to you.
Throughout all of this, you don’t have to look at the phone, put
your glasses on, or touch the screen. It’s a whole new form of quick
exchanges—something that combines the best of a walkie-talkie (instant
audio) with the best of text messages (you can listen and reply at your
leisure).
TIP: The off switch for the Raise to Listen/Raise to Speak feature is in
SettingsÆMessages. But why would you want to disable such a cool
feature?

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Now then: That business about holding down the ß button, talking, and
then sliding up is probably how you’ll always do it—once you become
friends with this feature. But, at the outset, you can proceed more
cautiously.
If, after speaking, you simply lift your finger from the glass, you can tap
Ť to review your recording before sending it, or the < to cancel the
whole thing.
But, really, it’s that hold down/speak/slide up business that makes audio
transmissions so much fun.
TIP: Audio eats up a lot more space on your phone than text. If you do a
lot of audio messaging then, over time, those audio snippets can fill
up your storage.
That’s why iOS comes set to delete each audio message 2 minutes
after you receive it. If that prospect worries you, then visit SettingsÆ
Messages. Under Audio Messages, you can tap Expire and change
that setting to Never.
Even if you leave it set to 2 minutes, you’re free to preserve
especially good audio messages forever; just tap the tiny Keep
button that appears below each one.

Help with Emoji and Info-Bits
Apple has done quite a bit of work in iOS 10 to make Messages a more
helpful assistant, especially in the area of emoji—those popular little icons
once known as smileys or emoticons. Now there are hundreds upon

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hundreds of them, representing people, places, things, food, emotions,
household objects, and on and on.
Until iOS 10 came along, finding and using emoji was something of a
headache, simply because there were so many. You’d have to scroll
through page after page of them, eyes bugging out trying to spot the
one you needed. But no longer! Consider:
• Auto-emoji. If iOS 10 has an emoji symbol for a word you’ve just
typed, it shows that symbol right in the row of autocomplete suggestions (facing page, left). If you tap the emoji before tapping the space
bar, then you replace the typed word with the image. If you tap space
and then tap the emoji, you get both the word and the picture.
• Auto-emoji part 2. When you tap the º button on your keyboard,
Messages highlights, in color, any words in your freshly typed (but not
yet sent) message that can be replaced with an emoji symbol (facing
page, right). Tap any highlighted word to swap in the icon. That’s a
huge timesaver—you’re spared the ritual of scrolling to find the one
you want.
• Jumbo emoji. When you send one, two, or three emoji symbols as
your entire response, they appear three times as large as normal (at
least if the recipient has iOS 10 or macOS Sierra).
• Auto-info. You know the QuickType word suggestions above the keyboard (page 75)? In Messages, those suggestions include information you might want to type.

If you type “I’m available at,” then one of the suggestion buttons includes the next open slot on your calendar. If you say “Stacy’s number
is,” then the button offers her phone number (if she’s in your Contacts). If someone texts you, “Where are you?” then one of the buttons offers to drop a Map button. Quite handy, actually.

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The Finger-Sketch Pad
New and crazy in iOS 10: If you turn the phone 90 degrees, the screen
becomes a whiteboard. What you scribble with your finger looks like
real ink on paper and gets sent as a graphic. (You also see your previous
masterpieces displayed here for quick reuse.) Just so cool.
Of course, this whiteboard business deprives you of the 90-degree
behavior in previous versions of iOS: A wider keyboard and, on Plus-sized
iPhones, a separate column that lists your various chats in progress.

If you miss that arrangement, no problem: On the whiteboard screen, just
tap the ś button in the corner. The keyboard pops up.
From now on, turning the phone 90 degrees will bring back the keyboard—until you change your mind (by tapping the ; button in the corner of the keyboard).

Sending with Animated Fun
If you’re used to older versions of the Messages app, the first thing you
might notice is that the Send button no longer says “Send.” It’s now a
blue up-arrow (~). And it’s more than a button.
If you hard-press (or long-press) the blue arrow, you get a palette of four
new sending styles.
The first three—Slam, Loud, and Gentle—animate the typography of
your text to make it bang down, swell up, and so on, at least when you’re
sending to fellow iOS 10 or Mac fans. For example, Slam makes your text

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fly across the screen and then thud into the ground, making a shock
wave ripple through the other messages.
The fourth special “Send with effect” is called Invisible Ink. It obscures
your message with animated glitter dust until your recipient drags a finger across it (as shown at bottom above).
This idea is great for guessing games and revealing dramatic news, of
course. But when you’re sending, ahem, spicy text messages, it also prevents embarrassment if the recipient’s phone is lying in public view.
When you hard-press (or long-press) the ~, the fifth option is Screen. It
opens pages of full-screen animations. These, upon sending, fill the entire
background of the Messages window to indicate your reaction to something: ascending balloons, a laser show, fireworks, a shooting star, falling
confetti, and so on. Swipe horizontally to preview each style before you
commit to it.
If your text says “Congrats,” “Happy birthday,” or “Happy New Year,”
Messages fills the screen with a corresponding animation automatically.
Which may or may not get old fast.

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NOTE: The full juiciness of these text and screen styles is available only
if your recipient also has iOS 10. So what if you’re sending to an
Android phone, an older iPhone, or a Mac?
In that case, the animation you’ve so carefully picked out doesn’t
show up. Instead, the other guy can only read about what you
intended. He’ll see the somewhat baffling written notation “sent
with Slam effect,” “sent with Balloons,” or whatever.

The “Drawer”
iOS 10 introduces a nearly overwhelming new universe of expressive
possibilities in texting. Apple has stuffed them all into three buttons that
generally hide to the left of the typing box in Messages.
Tap the ź to see them.
Those three little buttons (shown on the facing page) may not look
like much. But each is, in fact, a portal into a different vast universe of
options. Let’s tackle them one at a time.

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Photos and Videos
The first button in the “drawer” (s) opens the Photos picker, new in
iOS 10.
It consists of a simplified Camera app and a simplified Camera Roll of
your existing pictures—but it also gives you access to your actual Camera
app and your actual Camera Roll.
“Drawer:”
Photos, Digital Touch, App Store

Tap for
Camera and
Photo Library

Live
camera

Recent
photos

• To take a new photo, tap anywhere in the live preview (you don’t
have to aim for the white round shutter button). Wait patiently until it
appears in the Messages text box, ready to send.
• The Photos browser also displays two scrolling rows of all photos
and videos you’ve taken recently. Tap one (or more) that you want to
send.
• To take a video, panorama, time-lapse video, slo-mo video, or any
other fancier shot, tap the ” (next to the camera preview, shown
above) and then tap Camera. You’ve just opened the regular
Camera app.
• If you tap the ” and then tap Photo Library, you open the regular Photos app, where you can find your albums, videos, and other
organizational structures of the regular Photos app, for ease in finding
an older picture or video to send.
Once you’ve inserted a photo into the text box, you can edit it (that’s
new), draw on it with your finger (also new), and even type text on it
(definitely new). Just tap it to open the editing window, and then tap

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Edit (to edit using the photo-editing tools described on page 287) or
Markup (to draw or type on it, as described on page 294).
NOTE: The new Markup features are mostly described in Chapter 9 of
this book, but they’re super-useful in Messages. It can be amusing
and educational to make notes on a photo, draw a little mustache
on someone you don’t like, or enlarge a certain detail for your
chat partner’s enlightenment.

You now return to your SMS conversation in progress—but now that
photo or video appears inside the Send box. Type a caption or a comment, if you like. Then tap ~ to fire it off to your buddy. Or you can tap
the x if you change your mind about sending this photo.

Digital Touch
The second drawer button, Ż, opens a palette of crazy interactive art
features, mostly inherited from the Apple Watch.
Here’s what all these controls do:
• Color picker. Tap to open a palette of seven colors, which will determine your “paint” color in the next step.
TIP: You’re not limited to those seven colors. You can hard-press or longpress any one of those swatches to open a complete color wheel,
from which you can dial up any shade you like. (Tap Done when
done.)

• Doodle with your finger. Once you’ve selected a color, you can start
drawing on the black background. There’s no eraser and no Undo,

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but this should be fine for quick scrawls, comic exasperated faces, or
technical blueprints.
TIP: A much larger, full-screen canvas awaits you when using the Digital
Touch feature. Tap the “ at lower right to perform the expansion.
At that point, the ‘ (top right) collapses the panel to its smaller
incarnation and takes you back to your chat.

Tap ~ to send your sketch. What’s cool is that if your recipient is an
iMessage customer, she’ll see the actual playback of your drawing,
recreated before her eyes. (If you’re corresponding with someone
who doesn’t have iOS 10, he’ll receive your doodle as a finished piece
of artwork, without the benefit of seeing its animated creation.)
• Shoot a photo or video, and then deface it. Tap the Ń icon to open
the new Selfie camera mode. Here, you’ll find both a white “take a still”
shutter button and a red “record a video” button (®). (The z button
is here, too, in case you want to take a picture using the phone’s back
camera.)

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You can draw on the photo after you’ve taken it; in fact, you can even
draw on a video, or stamp a Digital Touch graphic onto it (see below),
while you’re recording it. Your iMessages recipients will see the doodle
“played back” on their screens, recreated line by line as you drew it.
(Non-iMessages folk simply receive the finished sketch superimposed
on the video or photo.)

• Send animated feelings. The right side of the Digital Touch screen
shows what look like three little buttons. In fact, though, they’re just a
cheat sheet.
They’re meant to teach you about the five canned animations you
can generate by tapping or pressing your fingers on the black canvas
here: an animated ring of fire, fireball, kiss, beating heart, and broken
heart. (Tap anywhere on these indicators to open the full cheat sheet.)
You tap for a ring of fire (as many as you want); hold down your finger for a flaming fireball; do a two-finger tap for a lip-kiss; hold with
two fingers for a beating heart; and tap-and-hold/drag-downward for
an animated breaking heart. (No, the heart doesn’t beat at the speed
of your pulse, as it does on the Apple Watch; the iPhone doesn’t have
a heart-rate sensor.)

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TIP: You can perform any of these special taps while you’re recording a
video, too.

As you explore these Digital Touch options, you’ll gradually become
aware of how fluid and intermixable they are. You can draw or stamp
fire/kiss/heart animations on top of a photo or video you’re recording,
for example. Or, after tapping the Ń icon, you can draw something—for
example, a hand-sketched frame—and then take a photo or video that
goes inside it.
As usual, fellow iMessages people will see all these glorious animations
played back just as you saw them—but non-Apple people receive only a
finished image or video.

The Messages App Store
The third icon in the “drawer,” the j, is where Messages really goes off

the rails—into a world of options beyond belief.

Apple has created an app store just for add-ons to the Messages app.
You can download all kinds of tiny apps that work within Messages.
Some are “stickers” or animations that you can stamp onto other people’s texts.

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Others simply give you access, while you’re chatting, to popular apps like
Yelp or OpenTable (so that you can research or book restaurants), Airbnb
(to book lodging), Square Cash or Circle Pay or Venmo (to send money
directly to friends), Fandango (to research and book movies), iTranslate
(to convert your texts to or from another language), Kayak (to book
flights), Doodle (to find a mutually free time to meet), hundreds of popular games, and on and on. The idea is that you can do all of this right
there in Messages, collaboratively with your buddy on the other end.
Apple starts you out with two such apps:
• Images. This one is a searchable database of “reaction GIFs,” which
are very short, silent video loops, usually swiped from popular movies or TV shows. People (well, the young ones) use reaction GIFs
to respond to something someone says. For example, if you text
your friend about a disastrous decision you made today, you might
get, in response, a 2-second loop of Kevin Spacey sarcastically
slow-clapping.
• Music. This mini-app lets you send a 30-second snippet of any song
on your phone—handy if your conversation is running along the lines
of “You know that song?” (If you’re both Apple Music subscribers, you
can both play the entire song.)
The “home screen” for your Messages apps awaits behind the Ą button
at the bottom left corner of the screen (facing page, left). If you then tap
Store, you’ll find a universe of add-ons, both free and costing a couple of
bucks. You can search or browse this store just as you do the regular App
Store (right).
For example, you can find them using the Featured and Categories tabs,
or the search box at the top. Or you can tap Manage to see a list of the
apps you already have on your phone that can show up within Messages,
if you flip their switches here.
Some of the most popular “apps” are sets of “stickers”— animated or
still icons—that you can drag anywhere onto any message you’ve sent,
thereby adding your own sarcastic or emotional commentary to it (facing page, left). The Messages app store gives access to endless sets of
free or for-purchase stickers.
Once you’ve downloaded a few apps, their icons appear whenever you
tap the Ą button; swipe horizontally to see the various “pages” of them.
When you tap an app to use it, you may discover that it’s fully operable
within a small space below your chat, as in the examples on the facing
page at right. Others open up into a full-screen app that really doesn’t
interact much with Messages itself.

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Messages Prefs
You might not think that something as simple as text messaging would
involve a lot of fine print, but you’d be wrong.

Settings for Texts and iMessages
Tap SettingsÆMessages to find some intriguing options:
• iMessage. This is the on/off switch for the entire iMessages feature.
It’s hard to imagine why you would want to, but you know—whatever
floats your boat.
• Show Contact Photos. If you turn this on, you’ll see a little round
photo next to each texting correspondent in the chat list and at the
top of a chat window—or the person’s initials, if there’s no photo available. If you turn this off, then you see the person’s name at the top of
Messages instead.
• Text Message Forwarding. This switch is the gateway to the cool
Continuity feature described on page 548, in which you can use
your Mac to send regular text messages to non-Apple phones.

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• Send Read Receipts. When you turn this option on, your iMessage
correspondents will know when you’ve seen their messages. The
word “Read” will appear beneath each sent message that you’ve
actually seen. Turn this off only if it deprives you of the excuse for not
responding promptly (“Hey, I never even saw your message!”).
TIP: In iOS 10, you can turn read receipts on or off independently for
each chat partner; see page 182.

• Send as SMS. If iMessages is unavailable (meaning that you have no
Internet connection at all), then your phone will send your message as
a regular text message, via the regular cellphone voice network.
• Send & Receive. Tap here to specify what cellphone numbers and
email addresses you want to register with iMessages. (Your laptop,
obviously, does not have a phone number, which is why iMessages
gives you the option of using an email address.)
When people send iMessages to you, they can use any of the numbers or addresses you turn on here. That’s the only time these numbers and addresses matter. You see the same messages exactly the
same way on all your Apple gadgets, no matter what email address or
phone number the sender used for you.
(If you scroll down on this Settings screen, you’ll see the Start new
conversations from options. This is where you specify which number
or address others will see when you initiate the message. It really
doesn’t make much difference which one you choose.)
• MMS Messaging. MMS messages are like text messages—except that
they can also include audio clips, video clips, or photos, as already
described. In the rare event that your cell company charges extra for
these messages, you have an on/off switch here. If you turn it off, then
you can send only plain text messages.
• Group Messaging. Suppose you’re sending a message to three
friends. When they reply to your message, the responses will appear
in a Messages thread that’s dedicated to this particular group. It
works only if all of you have turned on Group Messaging. (Note to
the paranoid: It also means that everyone sees everyone else’s phone
numbers or email addresses.)
Messages tries to help you keep everybody straight by displaying
their headshots (if you have them in Contacts), or their initials (if you
don’t).
• Show Subject Field. If email messages can have subject lines, why not
text messages? Now, on certain newfangled phones (like yours), they

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can; the message arrives with a little dividing line between the subject
and the body, offering your recipient a hint as to what it’s about.
NOTE: It’s OK to leave the subject line blank. But if you leave the body
blank, the message won’t send. (Incidentally, when you do fill in
the subject line, what you’re sending is an MMS message, rather
than a plain old text message.)

• Character Count. If a message is longer than 160 characters, the
iPhone breaks it up into multiple messages. That’s convenient, sure.
But if your cellphone plan permits only a fixed number of messages
a month, you could wind up sending (and spending) more than you
intended.
The Character Count feature can help. When it’s on, after your typing
wraps to a second line, a little counter appears just above the Send
button (“71/160,” for example). It tracks how many characters remain
within your 160-character limit for one message. (Of course, if you’re
sending an iMessage, you don’t care how long it is; there’s no length
limit.)
• Blocked. You can block people who are harassing or depressing you
with their texts or calls. Tap here to view the list of people in your
Contacts app you’ve decided to block; tap Add New to add new people to the list.
• Keep Messages. How long do you want your text messages to hang
around on your phone? This is a question of privacy, of storage, and
of your personality. In any case, here’s where you get a choice of 30
Days, 1 Year, or Forever.
• Filter Unknown Senders. When you turn this on, the iPhone turns off
notifications for senders not in your Contacts and sorts them into a
separate list, which you can find in the “Unknown Senders” section of
the Messages app.
• Expire. The iPhone ordinarily deletes audio and video messages a
couple of minutes after they arrive, to avoid filling up your phone with
old, no-longer-relevant audio and video files. The two Expire controls
here let you turn off that automatic deletion (by choosing Never).
• Raise to Listen. Here’s the on/off switch for the “raise to listen”/“raise
to talk” features described earlier, where the phone plays back audio
messages, and sends your spoken replies, automatically when you
hold it up to your head. You might want to turn that feature off if you
discover that the phone is playing back audio messages unexpectedly—or, worse, recording and sending them when you didn’t mean it.

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• Low Quality Image Mode. This feature, new in iOS 10, is a gift to
anyone who has to pay for cellular service. It automatically reduces
the size (resolution) and quality (compression) of any photo you send
to around 100 kilobytes. At this point, sending 50 low-quality photos
uses about the same amount of cellular data as one full-blown iPhone
photo. Not only do you save a lot of money in the form of cellular
data, but you save a lot of time, too, because these photos are fast to
send.
And here’s the best part: The photo looks exactly the same to the
recipients at the other end (at least until they zoom in).

Bonus Settings in a Place You Didn’t Expect
Apple has stashed a few important text-messaging settings in SettingsÆ
NotificationsÆMessages:
• Allow Notifications. If, in a cranky burst of sensory overload, you want
your phone to stop telling you when new texts come in (with a banner or sound, for example), then turn this off.
• Show in Notification Center. How many recent text messages should
appear in the Notification Center (page 61)?
• Sounds. Tap here to choose a sound for incoming texts to play. (You
can also choose a different sound for each person in your address
book, as described on page 115.)
• Badge App Icon. Turning this on makes the Messages icon show a
little red badge to let you know when you have a new text message.
• Show on Lock Screen. Do you want received text messages and
iMessages to appear on the screen when it’s locked? If yes, then you
can sneak reassuring glances at your phone without turning it fully on.
If no, then you maintain better protection against snoopers who find
your phone on your desk.
• Show in CarPlay. If your newish car has Apple’s CarPlay software in its
dashboard, here’s where you control whether or not incoming texts
appear on it.
• Show Previews. Usually, when a text message arrives, it wakes up
your phone and shows the message contents. Which is great, as long
as the message isn’t private and the phone isn’t lying on the table
where everyone can see it. If you turn off Show Previews, though,
you’ll see who the message is from but not the actual text of the message (until you tap the notification banner or bubble).
• Repeat Alerts. If someone sends you a text message but you don’t
tap or swipe to read it, the iPhone waits 2 minutes and then plays the
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notification sound again. That second chance helps when, for example, you were in a noisy place and missed the original chime.
But for some people, even one additional reminder isn’t enough.
Here you can specify that you want to be re-alerted Twice, 3 Times, 5
Times, or 10 Times. (Or Never, if you don’t want repeated alerts at all.)

Free Text Messages
Text messaging is awesome. Paying for text messaging, not so much.
iMessages are great because they send messages over the Internet
instead of the cellular carriers’ voice networks—but only when you’re
sending to fellow owners of Apple equipment.
Fortunately, there are all kinds of sneaky ways to do text messaging for
free that don’t require your correspondents to have an Apple device.
Apps like Skype, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Google Allo, Slack,
Viber, Line, and WeChat offer most of the same features as the iPhone’s
Messages app sending iMessages—except that your recipient doesn’t
have to have Apple gear. There are versions of these apps that run on
any brand of phone and computer.

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Large Type,
Kid Mode &
Accessibility

f you were told that the iPhone was one of the easiest phones in the
world for a disabled person to use, you might spew your coffee. The
thing has almost no physical keys! How would a blind person use it?
It’s a phone that rings! How would a deaf person use it?
But it’s true. Apple has gone to incredible lengths to make the iPhone
usable for people with vision, hearing, or other physical impairments.
As a handy side effect, these features also can be fantastically useful to
people whose only impairment is being under 10 or over 40.
If you’re deaf, you can have the LED flash to get your attention. If you’re
blind, you can turn the screen off and operate everything—read your
email, surf the web, adjust settings, run apps—by letting the phone
speak what you’re touching. It’s pretty amazing (and it doubles the battery life).

You can also magnify the screen, reverse black for white (for better-
contrast reading), set up custom vibrations for each person who might
call you, and convert stereo music to mono (great if you’re deaf in one
ear).
The kiosk mode is great for kids; it prevents them from exiting whatever
app they’re using. And if you have aging eyes, you might find the Large
Text option handy. You may also be interested in using the LED flash,
custom vibrations, and zooming.
Here’s a rundown of the accessibility options in iOS 10. To turn on any
of the features described here, open SettingsÆGeneralÆ Accessibility.
(And don’t forget about Siri, described in Chapter 5. She may be the
best friend a blind person’s phone ever had.)
TIP: You can turn many of the iPhone’s accessibility features on and off
with a triple-click of the Home button. See page 229 for details.

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VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a screen reader—software that makes the iPhone speak
everything you touch. It’s a fairly important feature if you’re blind.
On the VoiceOver settings pane, tap the on/off switch to turn VoiceOver
on. Because VoiceOver radically changes the way you control your
phone, you get a warning to confirm that you know what you’re doing.
If you proceed, you hear a female voice begin reading the names of the
controls she sees on the screen. You can adjust the Speaking Rate of the
synthesized voice.
There’s a lot to learn in VoiceOver mode, and practice makes perfect, but
here’s the overview:
• Touch something to hear it. Tap icons, words, even status icons at the
top; as you go, the voice tells you what you’re tapping. “Messages.”
“Calendar.” “Mail—14 new items.” “45 percent battery power.” You can
tap the dots on the Home screen, and you’ll hear, “Page 3 of 9.”
Once you’ve tapped a screen element, you can also flick your finger
left or right—anywhere on the screen—to “walk” through everything
on the screen, left to right, top to bottom.
TIP: A thin black rectangle appears around whatever the voice is
identifying. That’s for the benefit of sighted people who might be
helping you.

• Double-tap something to “tap” it. Ordinarily, you tap something on
the screen to open it. But since single-tapping now means “speak
this,” you need a new way to open everything. So: To open something
you’ve just heard identified, double-tap anywhere on the screen. (You
don’t have to wait for the voice to finish talking.)
TIP: Or do a split tap. Tap something to hear what it is—and with that
finger still down, tap somewhere else with a different finger to open it.

There are all kinds of other special gestures in VoiceOver. Make the voice
stop speaking with a two-finger tap; read everything, in sequence, from
the top of the screen with a two-finger upward flick; scroll one page at
a time with a three-finger flick up or down; go to the next or previous
screen (Home, Stocks, and so on) with a three-finger flick left or right;
and more.
Or try turning on Screen Curtain with a three-finger triple-tap; it blacks
out the screen, giving you visual privacy as well as a heck of a battery
boost. (Repeat to turn the screen back on.)
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On the VoiceOver settings screen, you’ll find a wealth of options for using
the iPhone sightlessly. For example:
• Speaking rate slider controls how fast VoiceOver speaks to you, on a
scale of tortoise to hare.
• Use Pitch Change makes the phone talk in a higher voice when you’re
entering letters and a lower voice when you’re deleting them. It also
uses a higher pitch when speaking the first item of a list and a lower
one when speaking the last item. In both cases, this option is a great
way to help you understand where you are in a list.
• Verbosity makes the phone speak more to help you out more. For
example, Speak Hints gives you additional suggestions for operating
something you’ve tapped. For example, instead of just saying, “Safari,”
it says, “Safari. Double-tap to open.” And Emoji Suffix makes the
phone say (for example) “pizza emoji” instead of just “pizza” when
encountering an emoji symbol.
• Speech is where you choose a voice for VoiceOver’s speaking. If
you have an iPhone 5s or later (with at least 900 megabytes of free
space), you can install Alex, the realistic male voice that’s been happily chatting away on the Mac for years.
Here, too, is the new Pronunciation feature, which is described on
page 215. Finally, you can choose the language you want for the
Rotor (page 206).
• Braille, of course, is the system that represents letters as combinations of dots on a six- or eight-cell grid. Blind people can read Braille
by touching embossed paper with their fingers. But in iOS they can
type in Braille, too. For many, that may be faster than trying to type
on the onscreen keyboard, and more accurate than dictation.
On this Settings screen, you specify, among other things, whether you
want to use the six- or eight-dot system.
When you’re ready to type, you use the Rotor (described in a moment) to choose Braille Screen Input, which is usually the last item on
the list. If the phone is flat on a table (“desktop mode”), the six “keys”
for typing Braille are arrayed in a loose, flattened V pattern.
If you’re holding the phone, you grip it with your pinkies and thumbs,
with the screen facing away from you (“Screen away” mode).
• Audio gives you three options. Use Sound Effects helps you navigate
by adding little clicks and chirps as you scroll, tap, and so on. Audio
Ducking makes music or video soundtracks get momentarily softer
when the phone is speaking. And the new Auto-select Speaker in Call

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is ingenious: It switches the phone to the speakerphone automatically
whenever you’re not holding it to your head.
NOTE: That Auto-select Speaker in Call thing would be useful to
almost anyone—but note that these features kick in only when
VoiceOver itself is turned on.

• The Rotor is a brilliant solution to a thorny problem. If you’re blind,
how are you supposed to control how VoiceOver reads to you? Do
you have to keep burrowing into Settings to change the volume,
speaking speed, verbosity, and so on?
Nope. The Rotor is an imaginary dial. It appears when you twist two
fingers on the screen as if you were turning an actual dial.
And what are the options on this dial? That’s up to you. Tap Rotor
in the VoiceOver settings screen to get a list of choices: Characters,
Words, Speech Rate, Volume, Punctuation, Zoom, and so on.

Once you’ve dialed up a setting, you can get VoiceOver to move from
one item to another by flicking a finger up or down. For example, if
you’ve chosen Volume from the Rotor, then you make the playback
volume louder or quieter with each flick up or down. If you’ve chosen
Zoom, then each flick adjusts the screen magnification.
The Rotor is especially important if you’re using the web. It lets you
jump among web page elements like pictures, headings, links, text
boxes, and so on. Use the Rotor to choose, for example, images—then
you can flick up and down from one picture to the next on that page.
• Typing Style. In Standard Typing, you drag your finger around the
screen until VoiceOver speaks the key you want—and then simultaneously tap anywhere with a second finger to type the letter.
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In Touch Typing, you can slide your finger around the keyboard until
you hear the key you want; lift your finger to type that letter.
There’s also Direct Touch Typing, which is a faster method intended
for people who are more confident about typing. If you tap a letter,
you type it instantly. If you hold the key down, VoiceOver speaks its
name but doesn’t type it, just to make sure you know where you are.
• Phonetic Feedback refers to what VoiceOver says as you type or
touch each keyboard letter. Character and Phonetics means that it
says the letter’s name plus its pilot’s alphabet equivalent: “A—Alpha,”
“B—Bravo,” “C—Charlie,” and so on. Phonetics Only says the pilot’s-
alphabet word alone.
• Typing Feedback governs how the phone helps you figure out what
you’re typing. It can speak the individual letters you’re striking, the
words you’ve completed, or both.
• Modifier Keys. You can trigger some VoiceOver commands from
a physical Bluetooth keyboard; all of them use Control-Option as
the basis. (For example, Control-Option-A means “read all from
the current position.” A complete list of these shortcuts is at
http://j.mp/1kZRSOz).
The Modifier Keys option lets you use the Caps Lock key instead of
the Control-Option business, which simplifies the keyboard shortcuts
at least a little bit.
• Always Speak Notifications makes the phone announce, with a
spoken voice, when an alert or update message has appeared. (If
you turn this off, then VoiceOver announces only incoming text
messages.)
• Navigate Images. As VoiceOver reads to you what’s on a web page,
how do you want it to handle pictures? It can say nothing about
them (Never), it can read their names (Always), or it can read their
names and whatever hidden Descriptions savvy web designers have
attached to them for the benefit of blind visitors.
• Large Cursor fattens up the borders of the VoiceOver “cursor” (the
box around whatever is highlighted) so you can see it better.
• Double-tap Timeout lets you give yourself more time to complete a
double-tap when you want to trigger some VoiceOver reading. Handy
if you have motor difficulties.
VoiceOver and Braille input take practice and involve learning a lot of
new techniques. If you need these features to use your iPhone, then visit
the more complete guide at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3598.

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Or spend a few minutes (or weeks) at applevis.com, a website dedicated
to helping the blind use Apple gear.
TIP: VoiceOver is especially great at reading your iBooks out loud.
Details are on page 386.

Zooming
Compared with a computer, an iPhone’s screen is pretty tiny. Every now
and then, you might need a little help reading small text or inspecting
those tiny graphics.
The Zoom command is just the ticket; it lets you magnify the screen
whenever it’s convenient, up to 500 percent. Of course, at that point,
the screen image is too big to fit the physical glass of the iPhone, so you
need a way to scroll around on your virtual jumbo screen.
To begin, you have to turn on the master Zoom switch in SettingsÆ
GeneralÆAccessibility. Immediately, this magnifying lens appears:

Scroll down and look at the Zoom Region control. If it’s set to Window
Zoom, then zooming produces this movable rectangular magnifying lens.
If it’s set to Full Screen Zoom, then zooming magnifies the entire screen.
(And that, as many Apple Genius Bar employees can tell you, freaks out
a lot of people who don’t know what’s happened.)
Now then. Next time you need to magnify things, do this:
• Start zooming by double-tapping the screen with three fingers.
You’ve either opened up the magnifying lens or magnified the entire

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screen. The magnification is 200 percent of original size. (Another
method: Triple-press the Home button and then tap Zoom.)
TIP: You can move the rectangular lens around the screen by dragging
the white oval handle on its lower edge.

• Pan around inside the lens (or pan the entire virtual giant screen) by
dragging with three fingers.
• Zoom in more or less by double-tap/dragging with three fingers. It’s
like double-tapping, except that you leave your fingers down on the
second tap—and drag them upward to zoom in more (up to 500 percent) or down to zoom out again.
You can lift two of your three fingers after the dragging has begun.
That way, it’s easier to see what you’re doing.
TIP: There’s also a Resize Lens command in the Zoom menu, described
next.

• Open the Zoom menu by tapping the white handle on the magnifying lens. Up pops a black menu of choices like Zoom Out (puts away
the lens and stops zooming), Full Screen Zoom (magnifies the entire
screen, hides the lens), Resize Lens (adds handles so you can change
the lens’s shape), Choose Filter (lets you make the area inside the lens
grayscale or inverted colors, to help people with poor vision), and
Show Controller (the little joystick described in a moment). There’s
also a slider that controls the degree of magnification, which is pretty
handy.

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That’s the big-picture description of Zoom. But back in SettingsÆ
GeneralÆ AccessibilityÆZoom, a few more controls await:
• Follow Focus. When this option is turned on, the image inside the
magnifying lens scrolls automatically when you’re entering text. Your
point of typing is always centered.
• Smart Typing. When this option is turned on, a couple of things
happen whenever the onscreen keyboard appears. First, you get
full-screen zooming (instead of just the magnifying lens); second, the
keyboard itself isn’t magnified, so you can see all the keys.
• Show Controller. The controller is this weird little onscreen joystick:

You can drag it with your finger to move the magnifying lens, or the
entire magnified screen, in any direction. (It grows when you’re touching it; the farther your finger moves from center, the faster the scrolling.) It’s an alternative to having to drag the magnified screen with
three fingers, which isn’t precise and also blocks your view.
You can tap the center dot of the Controller to open the Zoom menu
described already. Or double-tap the center dot to stop or start
zooming.
TIP: On iPhone 6s or 7 models, you can hard-press the controller for
a pop-up magnifying lens. It remains open only as long as you’re
pressing.

• Idle Visibility. After you’ve stopped using the joystick for a while, it
stays on the screen but becomes partly transparent, to avoid blocking
your view. This slider controls how transparent it gets.

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• Zoom Region controls whether you’re zooming the entire screen or
just a window (that is, a magnifying lens).
• Zoom Filter gives you options for how you want the text in the zoom
window to appear—for example, black on gray for viewing in low light.
(See the super-cool Zoom Filter tip on page 228.)
• Maximum Zoom Level. This slider controls just how magnified that
lens, or screen, can get.
TIP: When VoiceOver is turned on, three-finger tapping has its own
meaning—“jump to top of screen.” Originally, therefore, you couldn’t
use Zoom while VoiceOver was on.
You can these days, but you have to add an extra finger or tap for
VoiceOver gestures. For example, ordinarily, double-tapping with
three fingers makes VoiceOver stop talking, but since that’s the
“zoom in” gesture, you must now triple-tap with three fingers to
mute VoiceOver.
And what about VoiceOver’s existing triple/three gesture, which
turns the screen off? If Zoom is turned on, you must now triple-tap
with four fingers to turn the screen off.

Magnifier
Oh man, this is great: In iOS 10, you can triple-click the Home button to
turn the iPhone into the world’s best electronic magnifying glass. It’s perfect for dim restaurants, tiny type on pill bottles, and theater programs.
Once you’ve summoned the Magnifier, you can zoom in, turn on the
flashlight, or tweak the contrast.
To set this up, open SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibilityÆMagnifier. Turn on
Magnifier. Turn on Auto-Brightness, too; it’ll help the picture look best.
Then, next time you need a magnifying glass, triple-click the Home button. Instantly, the top part of the screen becomes a zoomed-in view of
whatever is in front of the camera.
At this point, you gain a wealth of options for making that image even
clearer (next page, left):
• Zoom slider. Adjusts the degree of magnification.
•
•

¸. Turns on the flashlight, to illuminate the subject.
l. Locks the focus, so that the phone quits trying to refocus as you
move the phone. (You can also tap the screen for this function.)

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•

®. Freezes the frame. That way, once you’ve finally focused on what
you want to read, you can actually read it, without your own hand
jiggles ruining the view.

•

A. Opens the Filters screen (above, right).

The Filters screen offers even more tools for making things clear:
• Filter. Swipe horizontally across the screen (you don’t have to aim
for the little row of filter names) to cycle among the Magnifier’s color
filters: None, White/Blue, Yellow/Blue, Grayscale, Yellow/Black, Red/
Black. Each may be helpful in a different circumstance to make your
subject more legible.

• ∫ and " sliders. Adjusts the brightness and contrast of the image.
•

J. Swaps the two filter colors (black for white, blue for yellow, and
so on).

To exit the Filters screen, tap A again; to exit the Magnifier, press the
Home button.

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Color Filters
This item, and some of the features in it, are new in iOS 10. They affect
the color schemes of the entire screen, in hopes of making it easier for
you to see.
• Invert Colors. By reversing the screen’s colors black for white, like a
film negative, you create a higher-contrast effect that some people
find is easier on the eyes (below, left). The other colors reverse, too—
red for green and so on.

• Color Filters. For the first time, the iPhone can help you if you’re color
blind. The Color Filters option gives you special screen modes that
substitute colors you can see for colors you can’t, everywhere on the
screen. Tap the various color-blindness types in the list (Red/Green,
Blue/Yellow, and so on) to see how each affects the crayons or color
swatches at the top of the screen. Use the Intensity slider to govern
the degree of the effect.
The Color Tint option washes the entire screen with a certain shade
(which you choose using the Hue slider that appears); it’s designed
to help people with Irlen syndrome (visual stress), who have trou-

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ble reading. The Grayscale option removes all color from the screen.
Everything looks like a black-and-white photo.)
The phone’s colors may now look funny to other people, but you
should have an easier time distinguishing colors when it counts.
(You may even be able to pass some of those Ishihara dot-pattern
color-blindness tests online.)
• Reduce White Point makes all colors ever depicted on the screen less
intense—including the white of the background, which becomes a
little yellowish.

Speech
Your phone can read to you aloud: an email message, a web page, a text
message—anything. Your choices here go like this:
• Speak Selection puts a Speak command into the button bar that
appears whenever you highlight text in any app. Tap that button to
make the phone read the selected text.
• Speak Screen simply reads everything on the screen, top to bottom,
when you swipe down from the top of the screen with two fingers.
Great for hearing an ebook page or email read to you.
• Highlight Content. New in iOS 10—and great for dyslexic or beginner
readers. If you turn this on, the phone underlines or uses a highlight
color on each word or sentence as it’s spoken, depending on your
settings here.
• Typing Feedback. The phone can speak each Character as you type it
(“T,” “O,” “P,” and so on), with or without Character Hints (“T—Tango,”
“O—Oscar,” “P—Papa”). Here you can also specify how much delay
elapses before the spoken feedback plays; whether you want finished
words and autocorrect suggestions spoken, too; and whether you
want to hear QuickType suggestions (page 75) pronounced when
you hold your finger down on them.
This feature, of course, helps blind people know what they’re typing. But it also means that you don’t have to take your eyes off the
keyboard, which is great for speed and concentration. And if you’re
zoomed in, you may not be able to see the suggested word appear
under your typed text—but now you’ll still know what the suggestion is.
• Voices gives you a choice of languages and accents for the spoken
voice. Try Australian; it’s really cute.

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• Speaking Rate controls how fast the voice talks.
• Pronunciations. At last: In iOS 10, you can now correct the phone’s
pronunciation of certain words it always gets wrong. Type the word
into the Phrase box; tap the § and speak how it should be pronounced; and then, from the list of weird phonetic symbol-written
alternatives, tap the one that sounds correct. This technique corrects how your phone pronounces those words or names whenever
it speaks, including Siri and the text-to-speech feature described on
page 88.

How to De-Sparsify iOS 10’s Design
When Apple introduced the sparse, clean design of iOS 7 (which carries
over into iOS 10), thousands blogged out in dismay: “It’s too lightweight!
The fonts are too spindly! The background is too bright! There aren’t
rectangles around buttons—we don’t know what’s a button and what’s
not! The Control Center is transparent—we can’t read it! You moved our
cheese—we hate this!”
Well, Apple may not agree with you about the super-lightweight design.
But at least it has given you options to change it. You can make the type
bigger and bolder, the colors heavier, the background dimmer. You can
restore outlines around buttons. And so much more.
All of these options await in SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibility.

Larger Text
This option is the central control panel for iOS’s Dynamic Type feature.
It’s a game-changer if you, a person with several decades of life experience, often find type on the screen too small.
Using the slider, you can choose a larger type size for all text the iPhone
displays in apps like Mail, iBooks, Messages, and so on. This slider doesn’t
affect all the world’s other apps—at least until their software companies
update them to make them Dynamic Type–compatible. That day, when it
comes, will be glorious. One slider to scale them all.
TIP: The switch at the top, Larger Accessibility Sizes, unlocks an even
longer slider. That is, it makes it possible for you to make the text in
all the Dynamic Type–compatible apps even larger.

Bold Text
In iOS 10, the system font is fairly light. Its strokes are very thin; in some
sizes and lighting conditions, it can even be hard to read.

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But if you turn on Bold Text (and then tap Continue in the confirmation
box), your iPhone restarts—and when it comes to, the fonts everywhere
are slightly heavier: at the Home screen, in email, everywhere. And much
easier to read with low light or aging eyesight.
It’s one of the most useful features in iOS—and something almost
nobody knows about.

Button Shapes
Among the criticisms of iOS’s design these days: You can’t tell what’s a
button anymore! Everything is just words floating on the screen, without
border rectangles to tell you what’s tappable!
That’s not quite true; any text in blue type is a tappable button. But never
mind that; if you want shapes around your buttons, you shall have them—
when you turn on this switch (below, right).

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Increase Contrast
There are two switches in here. Reduce Transparency adds opacity to
screens like the Dock and the Notification Center. Their backgrounds are
now solid, rather than slightly see-through, so that text on them is much
easier to read. (You can see the before and after below.)

Darken Colors makes type in some spots a little darker and heavier.
You notice it in the fonts for buttons, in the Calendar, and in Safari, for
example.

Reduce Motion
What kind of killjoy would want to turn off the subtle “parallax motion” of
the Home screen background behind your icons, or the zooming-in animation when you open an app?
In any case, you can if you want, thanks to this button.

On/Off Labels
The Settings app teems with little tappable on/off switches, including
this one. When something is turned on, the background of the switch is
green; when it’s off, the background is white.
But if you’re having trouble remembering that distinction, turn on this
option. Now the background of each switch sprouts visible symbols
to help you remember that green means On (you see a | marking) and
white means Off.

Switch Control
Suppose your physical skills are limited to very simple gestures: puffing on an air pipe, pressing a foot switch, blinking an eye, or turning the
head, for example. A hardware accessory called a switch lets you operate
certain gadgets this way.

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When you turn on Switch Control, the iPhone warns you that things are
about to get very different. Tap OK.
Now the phone sequentially highlights one object on the screen after
another; you’re supposed to puff, tap, or blink at the right moment to say,
“Yes, this one.”
If you don’t have a physical switch apparatus, you can use one nature
gave you: your head. The iPhone’s camera can detect when you turn your
head left or right and can trigger various functions accordingly.
If you’d like to try it out, open SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibilityÆ
Switch Control. Tap SwitchesÆAdd New SwitchÆCameraÆLeft Head
Movement.
On this screen, you choose what a left head-turn will mean to your
phone. The most obvious option is Select Item, which you could use in
conjunction with the sequential highlighting of controls on the screen.
But you can also make it mean “Press the Home button,” “Activate Siri,”
“Adjust the volume,” and so on.
Once you’ve made your selection, repeat that business for Right Head
Movement.
When you return to the Switch Control screen, turn on Switch Control.
Now your phone is watching you; whenever you turn your head left or
right, it activates the control you set up. Pretty wild.
The controls here let you specify how fast the sequential highlighting
proceeds, whether or not it pauses on the screen’s first item, how many
times the highlighting cycles through each screenful, and so on.
To turn off Switch Control, tap the on/off switch again. Or, if you’re using
some other app, triple-press the Home button to open the Accessibility
shortcut panel. If you had the foresight to add Switch Control to its
options (page 229), then one tap does the trick.
Switch Control is a broad (and specialized) feature. To read more
about it, open the Accessibility chapter of Apple’s iPhone User Guide:
help.apple.com/iphone/10/.

AssistiveTouch
If you can’t hold the phone, you might have trouble shaking it (a shortcut for “Undo”); if you can’t move your fingers, just adjusting the volume
might be a challenge.

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This feature is Apple’s accessibility team at its most creative. When you
turn AssistiveTouch on, you get a new, glowing white circle in a corner of
the screen (below at top).

You can drag this magic white ball anywhere on the edges of the screen;
it remains onscreen all the time.
When you tap it, the white ball expands into the special palette shown
above. It’s offering six ways to trigger motions and gestures on the
iPhone screen without requiring hand or multiple-finger movement. All
you have to be able to do is tap with a single finger—or even a stylus
held in your teeth or foot.
You can add more buttons to this main menu, or switch around which
buttons appear here. To do that, open SettingsÆGeneralÆ AccessibilityÆ
Assistive TouchÆCustomize Top Level Menu.
Meanwhile, here are the starter six icons:
• Voice Control. Touch here when you want to speak to Siri. If you do,
in fact, have trouble manipulating the phone, Siri is probably your best
friend already. This option, as well as the “Hey Siri” voice command,
mean that you don’t even have to hold down the Home button to
start her up.

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• Notification Center, Control Center. As far as most people know, the
only way to open the Notification Center is to swipe down the screen
from the top; the only way to open the Control Center is to swipe up
from the bottom. These buttons, however, give you another way—one
that doesn’t require any hand movement. (Tap the same button again
to close whichever center you opened.)
• Home. You can tap here instead of pressing the physical Home button. (That’s handy when your Home button gets sticky, too.)
• Device. Tap this button to open a palette of six functions that would
otherwise require you to grasp the phone or push its tiny physical
buttons (previous page, right). There’s Rotate Screen (you can tap
this instead of turning the phone 90 degrees), Lock Screen (instead
of pressing the Sleep switch), Volume Up and Volume Down (instead
of pressing the volume keys), and Mute/Unmute (instead of flipping
the small Mute switch on the side).
If you tap More, you get some bonus buttons. They include Shake
(does the same as shaking the phone to undo typing), Screenshot
(as though you’d pressed the Sleep and Home buttons together),
Multitasking (brings up the app switcher, as though you’d double-
pressed the Home button), and Gestures.
That Gestures button opens up a peculiar palette that depicts a hand
holding up two, three, four, or five fingers. When you tap, for example,
the three-finger icon, you get three blue circles on the screen. They
move together. Drag one of them (with a stylus, for example), and the
phone thinks you’re dragging three fingers on its surface. Using this
technique, you can operate apps that require multiple fingers dragging on the screen.
• Custom. Impressively enough, you can actually define your own
gestures. On the AssistiveTouch screen, tap one of the n buttons, and
tap then Create New Gesture to draw your own gesture right on the
screen, using one, two, three, four, or five fingers.
For example, suppose you’re frustrated in Maps because you can’t do
the two-finger double-tap that means “zoom out.” On the Create New
Gesture screen, get somebody to do the two-finger double-tap for
you. Tap Save and give the gesture a name—“2 double tap,” say.
From now on, “2 double tap” shows up on the Custom screen, ready
to trigger with a single tap by a single finger or stylus.

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TIP: Apple starts you off with some useful predefined gestures in
Custom, each of which might be difficult for some people to trigger
in the usual ways. First, there’s Pinch, the two-finger pinch or spread
gesture you use to zoom in and out of photos, maps, web pages,
PDF documents, and so on. Drag either one of the two handles to
stretch them apart. Drag the connecting line to move the point of
stretchiness.
Then there’s 3D Touch (on the iPhone 6s and later models, that’s a
hard-press). And there’s Double Tap (two quick presses in the same
spot).

Touch Accommodations
These options are intended to accommodate people who find it difficult
to trigger precise taps on the touchscreen. For example:
• Touch Accommodations is the master switch for all three of the following options.
• Hold Duration requires that you keep your finger on the screen for an
amount of time that you specify (for example, 1 second) before the
iPhone registers a tap. That feature neatly eliminates accidental taps
when your finger happens to bump the screen.

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When Hold Duration is turned on, a countdown cursor appears at
your fingertip, showing with a circular graph how much longer you
have to wait before your touch “counts.”
• Ignore Repeat ignores multiple taps that the screen detects within a
certain window—say, 1 second. If you have, for example, a tremor, this
is a great way to screen out accidental repeated touches or repeated
letter-presses on the onscreen keyboard.
• Tap Assistance lets you indicate whether the location of a tap should
be the first spot you touch or the last spot. The Use Final Touch
Location option means you can put your finger down in one spot and
then fine-tune its position on the glass anytime within the countdown
period indicated by the timer cursor. Feel free to adjust the timer window using the controls here.

3D Touch
The 3D Touch option (page 60) may be the hot feature of the iPhone
6s and 7 families. But it may also drive you crazy.
Here you can turn the feature off, or just adjust the threshold of pressure
(Light, Medium, Firm) required to trigger a “3D touch.” (Apple even gives
you a sample photo thumbnail to practice on, right on this screen, so you
can gauge which degree of pressure you like best.)

Keyboard
The first option here controls whether or not the onscreen keyboard’s
keys turn into CAPITALS when the Shift key is pressed; see page 72.
The others control what happens when you’ve hooked up a physical keyboard to your iPhone—a Bluetooth keyboard, for example:
• Key Repeat. Ordinarily, holding down a key makes it repeat, so that
you can type things like “auuuuuuuuuuugggggh!” or “zzzzz.” These
two sliders govern the repeating behavior: how long you must hold
down a key before it starts repeating (to prevent triggering repetitions accidentally), and how fast each key spits out characters once
the spitting has begun.
• Sticky Keys lets you press multiple-key shortcuts (involving keys like
Shift, Option, Control, and c) one at a time instead of all together.
(The Sound option ensures that you’ll get an audio beep to confirm
that the keyboard has understood.)

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Toggle With Shift Key gives you the flexibility of turning Sticky Keys
on and off at will. Whenever you want to turn on Sticky Keys, press
the Shift key five times in succession. You’ll hear a special clacking
sound effect alerting you that you just turned on Sticky Keys. (Repeat
the five presses to turn Sticky Keys off again.)

Shake to Undo
In most of Apple’s apps, you can undo your most recent typing or editing
by giving the iPhone a quick shake. (You’re always asked to confirm.) This
is the On/Off switch for that feature—handy if you find yourself triggering Undo accidentally.

Vibration
Here’s a master Off switch for all vibrations the phone makes. Alarms,
notifications, confirmations—all of it.
As Apple’s lawyers cheerfully point out on this screen, turning off vibrations also means you won’t get buzzy notifications of “earthquake, tsunami, and other emergency alerts.” Goodness!

Call Audio Routing
When a call comes in, where do you want it to go? To your headset?
Directly to the speakerphone? Or the usual (headset unless there’s no
headset)? Here’s where you make a choice that sticks, so you don’t have
to make it each time a call rings.

Home Button
If you have motor-control problems of any kind, you might welcome this
enhancement. It’s an option to widen the time window for registering a
double-press or triple-press of the Home button. If you choose Slow or
Slowest, the phone accepts double- and triple-presses spaced far and
even farther apart, rather than interpreting them as individual presses a
few seconds apart.
This screen also lets you turn off the new Rest Finger to Open feature,
which saves you a click when you’re unlocking the phone (page 18).

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Reachability
Reachability is the feature described on page 20, the one that brings
the top half of the screen downward when you double-touch (not fully
press) the Home button. It’s designed to let you reach things on the top
of the screen while holding one of the larger iPhones with only one hand.
If you find yourself triggering this feature accidentally, you’ll be happy to
know that this Off switch awaits.

Hearing Assistance
The next options in SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibility are all dedicated to
helping people with hearing loss.

Hearing Aids
A cellphone is bristling with wireless transmitters, which can cause interference and static if you wear a hearing aid. But the iPhone offers a few
solutions.
First, try holding the phone up to your ear normally when you’re on a
call. If the results aren’t good, see if you can switch your hearing aid from
M mode (acoustic coupling) to T mode (telecoil). If so, turn on Hearing
Aid mode (iPhone 5 and later), which makes it work better with T-mode
hearing aids.
This settings panel also lets you “pair” your phone with a Bluetooth hearing aid. These wireless hearing aids offer excellent sound but eat hungrily
through battery charges.
Hearing aids bearing the “Made for iPhone” logo work especially well—
they sound great and don’t drain the battery.

TTY
A TTY is a teletype or text telephone. It’s a machine that lets deaf people
make phone calls by typing instead of speaking.
Previous versions of iOS worked with TTY equipment—but in iOS 10,
there’s a built-in software TTY that requires no hardware to haul around.
It resembles a chat app, and it works like this: When you place a phone
call (using the standard Phone app), the iPhone gives you a choice of
what kind of call you want to place:
• Voice call. Voice-to-voice, as usual.

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• TTY call. You’re calling another person who also has a TTY machine
(or iOS 10). You’ll type back and forth.
• TTY relay call. This option means you can call a person who doesn’t
have a TTY setup. A human operator will speak (to the other guy)
everything you type, and will type (to you) everything the other guy
speaks. This, of course, requires a relay service, whose phone number
you enter here on this Settings panel.
For more on using TTY on the iPhone, visit https://support.apple.com/
en-us/HT207033.

LED Flash for Alerts
If you’re deaf, you know when the phone is ringing—because it vibrates,
of course. But what if it’s sitting on the desk, or it’s over there charging?
This option lets you know when you’re getting a call, text, or notification
by blinking the flash on the back of the phone—the very bright LED light.

Mono Audio
If you’re deaf in one ear, then listening to any music that’s a stereo mix
can be frustrating; you might be missing half the orchestration or the
vocals. When you turn on the Mono Audio option in SettingsÆGeneralÆ
Accessibility, the iPhone mixes everything down so that the left and right
channels contain the same monaural playback. Now you can hear the
entire mix in one ear.
TIP: This is also a great feature when you’re sharing an earbud with a
friend, or when one of your earbuds is broken.

Phone Noise Cancellation
iPhone models 5 and later have three microphones scattered around
the body. In combination, they offer extremely good background-noise
reduction when you’re on a phone call. The microphones on the top and
back, for example, listen to the wind, music, crowd noise, or other ambient sound and subtract that ambient noise from the sound going into the
main phone mike.
You can turn that feature off here—if, for example, you experience a
“pressure” in your ear when it’s operating.

Balance Slider
The L/R slider lets you adjust the phone’s stereo mix, in case one of your
ears has better hearing than the other.

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Media (Subtitle Options)
These options govern Internet videos that you play in the iPhone’s Videos
app (primarily those from Apple’s own iTunes Store.)
• Subtitles & Captioning. The iPhone’s Videos app lets you tap the Å
button to see a list of available subtitles and captions. Occasionally,
a movie also comes with specially written Subtitles for the Deaf
and Hard of Hearing (SDH). Tap Subtitles & CaptioningÆClosed
Captions + SDH if you want that Å menu to list them whenever
they’re available.
The Style option gives you control over the font, size, and background
of those captions, complete with a preview. (Tap the ƒ button to view
the preview, and the sample caption, at full-screen size.) The Custom
option even lets you dream up your own font, size, and color for the
type; a new color and opacity of the caption background; and so on.
• Audio Descriptions. This new option is for Internet movies that come,
or may someday come, with a narration track that describes the
action for the blind.

Guided Access (Kiosk Mode)
It’s amazing how quickly even tiny tots can master the iPhone—and how
easily they can muck things up with accidental taps.
Guided Access solves that problem rather tidily. It’s kiosk mode. That is,
you can lock the phone into one app; the victim cannot switch out of it.
You can even specify which features of that app are permitted. Never
again will you find your Home screen icons accidentally rearranged or
text messages accidentally deleted.
Guided Access is also great for helping out people with motor-control
difficulties—or teenagers with self-control difficulties.
To turn on Guided Access, open SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibilityÆ
Guided Access; turn the switch On.
Now a Passcode Settings button appears. Here’s where you protect
Guided Access so the little scamp can’t shut it off—at least not without a
six-digit passcode (Set Guided Access Passcode) or your fingerprint.
You can also set a time limit for your kid’s Guided Access. Tap Time Limit
to set up an alarm or a spoken warning when time is running out.
Finally, the moment of truth arrives: Your kid is screaming for your phone.

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Open whatever app you’ll want to lock in place. Press the Home button
three times fast. The Guided Access screen appears. At this point, you
can proceed in any of three ways:
• Declare some features off-limits. With your finger, draw a circle
around each button, slider, and control you want to deactivate. The
phone converts your circle to a tidy rectangle; you can drag its corners to adjust its size, drag inside the rectangle to move it, or tap the
1 to remove it if you change your mind or want to start again.
Once you enter Guided Access mode, the controls you’ve enclosed
appear darkened (above, right). They no longer respond—and your
phone borrower can’t get into trouble.
• Change settings. If you tap Options, you get additional controls. You
can decide whether or not your little urchin is allowed to press the
Sleep/Wake Button or the Volume Buttons when in Guided Access
mode. If you want to hand the phone to your 3-year-old in the back
seat to watch baby videos, you’ll probably want to disable the touchscreen altogether (turn off Touch) and prevent the picture from rotating when the phone does (turn off Motion).

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Here, too, is the Time Limit switch. Turn it on to view hours/minutes
dials. At the end of this time, it’s no more fun for Junior.
• Begin kiosk mode. Tap Start.
Later, when you get the phone back and you want to use it normally, triple-press the Home button again; enter your passcode or offer your fingerprint. At this point, you can tap Options to change them, Resume to
go back into kiosk mode, or End to return to the iPhone as you know it.
TIP: If you use any of the other accessibility features described in this
chapter, you may be dismayed to discover that you can no longer
use the triple-clicking of the Home button to open the on/off
buttons for those features. The triple-click has been taken over by
Guided Access!
Fortunately, Apple has anticipated this problem. If you turn on
Accessibility Shortcut on the Guided Access screen of Settings
(see the next page), then triple-clicking produces the usual list of
accessibility features—and Guided Access is on that list, too, ready
to tap.

The Instant Screen-Dimming Trick
The Accessibility settings offer one of the greatest shortcuts of all time:
the ability to dim your screen, instantly, with a triple-click on the Home
button. You don’t have to open the Control Center, visit Settings, or fuss
with a slider; it’s instantaneous. This trick is Apple’s gift to people who
go to movies, plays, nighttime drives, or anywhere else where full screen
brightness isn’t appropriate, pleasant, or comfortable—and digging
around in the Control Center or Settings takes too much time.
It’s a bunch of steps to set up, but you have to take them only once. After
that, the magic is yours whenever you want it.
Ready? Here’s the setup.
1. Open SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibility. Turn on Zoom.
At this point, the magnifying lens may appear. But you’re interested in
dimming, not zooming, so:
2. Tap the white handle at the bottom of the magnifying lens; in the
shortcut menu, tap Zoom Out (next page, left).
Now the magnifying lens is gone.

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3. Scroll down; tap Zoom Filter; tap Low Light (above, right). Tap Zoom
(in the upper left) to return to the previous panel.
You’ve just set up the phone to dim the screen whenever Zooming
is turned on. Now all you have to do is teach the phone to enable
Zooming whenever you triple-click the Home button.
4. In the top-left corner, tap Accessibility.
You return to the main Accessibility screen. Scroll to the very bottom.
5. Tap Accessibility Shortcut; make sure Zoom is the only selected
item.
At this point, you can press the Home button to get out of Settings.
From now on, whenever you triple-click the Home button, you turn on
a gray filter that cuts the brightness of the screen by 30 percent. (Feel
free to fine-tune the dimness of your new Insta-Dim setting at that point,
using the Control Center; see page 46.) It doesn’t save you any battery power, since the screen doesn’t think it’s putting out any less light.
But it does give you instant darkening when you need it in a hurry—like
when a potentially important text comes in while you’re in the movie
theater.
Triple-click again to restore the original brightness, and be glad.

Accessibility Shortcut
Burrowing all the way into the SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibility screen
is quite a slog when all you want to do is flip some feature on or off.
Therefore, you get this handy shortcut: a fast triple-press of the Home
button.

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That action produces a little menu, in whatever app you’re using, with on/
off switches for the iPhone’s various accessibility features.
It’s up to you, however, to indicate which ones you want on that menu.
That’s why you’re on this screen—to turn on the features you want to
appear on the triple-press menu. Your options are Magnifier, VoiceOver,
Invert Colors, Color Filters, Reduce White Point, Zoom, Switch Control,
and AssistiveTouch.
TIP: If you choose only one item here, then triple-pressing the Home
button won’t produce the menu of choices. It will just turn that one
feature on or off.

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2
PART TWO

Pix, Flix
& Apps
Chapter 8
Music & Videos
Chapter 9
The Camera
Chapter 10
All About Apps
Chapter 11
The Built-In Apps

Music & Videos

f all the iPhone’s talents, its iPoddishness may be the most
successful. This function, after all, gets the most impressive
battery life (40 to 80 hours of playback, depending on the
model). There’s enough room on your phone to store thousands of
songs.

In iOS 10, the Music app got yet another huge annual makeover. Five
tabs greet you across the bottom: Library, For You, Browse, Radio, and
Search. In reaction to the howls of millions of customers who were baffled by the previous incarnation, Apple has radically simplified this app.
NOTE: This simplification means the loss of a few features. To save you
hunting around for them, here are two of the missing: Genius
playlists and playback history.

Some of them are useful only if you’ve subscribed to Apple Music,
Apple’s $10-a-month music service—but not all of them. The Internet
radio stations, for example, mean that you’ll never run out of music to listen to—and you’ll never pay a penny for it.
NOTE: If you’re not interested in paying for an Apple Music subscription,
you can hide the two tabs that you’ll never use (For You and
Browse). To do that, open SettingsÆMusic and turn off Show
Apple Music.
The For You and New tabs disappear—and a new tab, Connect,
takes their place. This is the mini-rock-band Instagram service
described on page 235.
The bottom line: Your Music app might show you either of two
different sets of tabs. omplicated? Yes. Anyway, this chapter is
written as though you haven’t hidden the Apple Music tabs.

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Apple Music
The Apple Music service, which debuted in 2015, is a rich stew of components. For $10 a month (or $15 for a family of six), you get all of the
following.
TIP: You can give Apple Music a free 90-day trial. After that, you’re
charged $10 a month—unless you turn off the auto-renewal feature
now, while you’re still thinking about it. To do that, tap the ç (top
right of the Music app), and then View Apple IDÆSubscriptions. Tap
Apple Music Membership, and then Cancel Subscription. You'll still
be a member until the trial is up.

• Unlimited Streaming Music. You can listen to any band, album, or
song in the Apple Music library of 30 million songs—on demand, no
ads. It’s not like listening to a radio station, where someone else is
programming the music; you program the music.
On the other hand, this is not like Apple’s traditional music store,
where you pay $1 per download and then own the song. If you ever
stop paying, the music stops. You’re left with nothing.
If you do subscribe, you can tell Siri things like, “Play the top songs of
2005” or “Play some good running music” or “Play some Taylor Swift.”
Nor are you obligated to do all your music programming manually.
Apple Music comes equipped with ready-made playlists, prepared
by human editors, in all kinds of categories. There are sets of starter
songs by various singers (“Intro to Sarah McLachlan”), playlists by
genre and era, and playlists for specific activities like Waking Up, Running, Getting It On, and even Breaking Up.
You can freely mix the songs you’re renting with the music you
actually own. You can even download songs that you don’t own for
playback when you have no Internet connection (as long as you’re still
paying your $10 a month).
• Beats 1 Radio. Apple has launched a “global, 24-hour Internet radio
station” called Beats 1. (It actually broadcasts live for 12 hours a day,
and then repeats.)
Listening is free, even to nonpayers.
Live DJs introduce songs and comment on the singers, just as on FM
radio stations. Of course, you have no input on the style of music you
hear on Beats 1, and you can’t pause, rewind, fast-forward, or save
anything you hear for later listening. It’s old-style radio, offering the
magic of serendipity.

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• Connect. Connect is an Instagram-like service run by Apple. Here
bands that Apple thinks you’ll like (or that you choose manually) can
promote themselves by posting songs, videos, and other material.
You can 6 these posts, share them, or comment on them.
• iTunes Match. iTunes Match, which dates back to 2011, is a cloudbased version of your iTunes library, available to any of your Apple
devices. For $25 a year, you can stream Apple’s copies of any song
files you actually own—ripped from CDs or even acquired illegally.
The advantages: First, you save a lot of space on your phone. Second,
you can play them on any Apple gadget you own. Third, the versions
Apple plays are often of higher quality than your originals.
iTunes Match continues as a separate service for non–Apple Music
subscribers (the song limit is now 100,000 songs). But if you do subscribe to Apple Music, in effect you get iTunes Match automatically.
• iCloud Music Library. This is a newer service—a descendant of iTunes
Match. This feature, too, matches all the songs on your phone with
songs that Apple has online, so you can play any of it on an Apple
machine anywhere (once you've signed in). And if you have some
songs that Apple doesn't have, you can upload them to Apple and
thereby add them to your locker.
NOTE: Apple's matching algorithms aren't flawless; sometimes they
don't recognize and match a song that you and Apple both, in
fact, have.
Another note: When you turn on iCloud Music Library, you're
offered the opportunity to delete all the music on your phone and
replace it with what's in your online locker. Back up your phone's
music before you do this. There are occasional stories of people
losing their entire music collections.

The Library Tab
Here’s all the music you’ve actually chosen yourself.
In the old days, this meant “music files that are actually on your phone.”
If you have an Apple Music membership, though, you’ll also see online
songs listed here that you’ve added to your personal catalog.
You can view them grouped in any of the lists you see here: Playlists,
Artists, Albums, Songs, or (if you subscribe to Apple Music) Downloaded
Music. Below all that, in the Recently Added section, you get thumbnails
for albums and playlists you've recently downloaded or built.

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TIP: There are other categories you could be seeing here, too, like
Genres, Compilations, Composers, and Videos. To add them to
the list of headings—or to remove some of the ones that start out
there—tap Edit next to the bold Library heading.

As you could probably guess, you operate the Music app by drilling
down—by tapping from category to album to song or whatever. (Tap the
top-left corner of the screen to backtrack.)

Playback Control
When you tap the name of a song, album, playlist, or whatever, it plays.
You can control playback—skip, rewind, and so on—in any of several
ways.

The Mini-Player
On almost every screen of the Music app, you get a miniature controller at the bottom of the screen, like the one shown above at left (very
bottom).

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It identifies the current song, provides a “next song” button ( 4) and
offers the most important playback control of all: ¿.

The Now Playing Screen
If you tap (or drag upward on) the mini-player, though, the Now Playing
screen appears (facing page, right). This time, there’s room for all the
controls you need to control music playback. Here are its contents, from
top to bottom:
TIP: Swipe down to close this screen.

• Album art. Most of the screen is filled with a bright, colorful shot of
the original CD’s album art. (If none is available—if you’re listening to
a song you wrote, for example—you see a big, gray, generic musical-
note picture. You can drag or paste in an album-art graphic—one you
found on the web, for example—in iTunes.)
• Scrubber. This slider reveals two useful statistics: how much of the
song you’ve heard, in minutes and seconds (at the left end) and how
much time remains (at the right end).
To operate the slider, drag the tiny round handle with your finger. You
can jump to any spot in the song this way. (Tapping directly on the
spot you want to hear doesn’t work.)
• Song info. The artist name, track name, and album name.
• 1, 4 (Previous, Next). These buttons work exactly as they do on an
iPod: Tap 1 to skip to the beginning of this song (or, if you’re already
at the beginning, to the previous song). Tap 4 to skip to the next
song.
TIP: If you’re wearing the earbuds, then you can pinch the clicker twice
to skip to the next song.

If you hold down one of these buttons, you rewind or fast-forward.
You hear the music speeding by, without turning the singer into a
chipmunk. The rewinding or fast-forwarding accelerates if you keep
holding the button down.
• Play/Pause button. The Pause button beneath the album photo looks
like this ¿ when the music is playing. If you do pause, then the button
turns into the Play button (2).

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TIP: If you’re wearing the earbuds, then pinching the microphone clicker
serves the same purpose: It’s a Play/Pause control.
Incidentally, when you plug in headphones, the iPhone’s built-in
speaker turns off, but when you unplug the headphones, your music
pauses instead of switching abruptly back to the speaker.

• Download (U). If this song is on Apple Music online (and not physically on your phone), then tap to download it for playability when
you're not on the Internet.
• +. This button appears only when you're playing an Apple Music song;
it adds the current song to your iCloud Music Library (page 235).
• Volume. You can drag the round handle of this slider (bottom of the
screen) to adjust the volume—or you can use the volume buttons on
the left side of the phone.
• AirPlay (�). Tap to send playback to an external speaker using
AirPlay (page 249).
• Options (_). As always in this app, this button is like a shortcut menu
of options that might apply at the moment, described next.
Incidentally, people go batty trying to find three important controls in
the Music app's new version: Shuffle, Repeat, and the Up Next queue
(page 243).
They're all there—but you have to swipe up from the Now Playing screen
to see them.

The Options Panel
The ellipsis (_) awaits on every Now Playing screen. Its choices depend
on whether you’ve tapped some music that you own (facing page, left)
or that you’ve found in Apple Music’s collection (right). But here are
some of the commands you might see there:
• Download. Grab the song off of Apple's servers, so you'll be able
to play it without an Internet connection (for Apple Music or iTunes
Match subscribers only).
• Delete from Library. Gets rid of the song forever.
• Add to Library. Adds the current song to your iCloud Music Library
(page 235).
• Add to a Playlist. Lets you add this item to a playlist you’ve made
yourself.

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• Play Next. Adds this song or album to the beginning of the queue for
immediate playback (page 243).
• Play Later. Adds this song or album to the end of the queue.
• Create Station. Makes a "radio station" full of music that sounds like
this one (page 246).
• Share Song. Opens the Share sheet (page 348), so that you can
send a link to this song via email, text message, Facebook or Twitter
post, and so on. (The recipients can listen to the full song if they’re
Apple Music subscribers.)
• Lyrics. Holy smokes. Apple Music can show you a screen containing
the lyrics of the song you're playing. Who'da thought?
• Love, Dislike. As you listen to a song, tap these buttons to tell Apple
when there's a song you particularly love or loathe. When Apple's
magical computers suggest new music for you later, they'll take these
hints into account.
TIP: If you have an iPhone 6s or 7, you can hard-press a song in a list (for
example, a playlist) to open the same Options menu. That is, you
don't have to burrow all the way to its Now Playing screen.

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Control Center
The Control Center, of course, is the panel that appears when you swipe
up from the bottom of the screen (page 46). It includes playback controls, too. That means that you never have to go to the Music app just to
change tracks if you’re busy doing something else on the phone.

Playback While Locked
Once you’re playing music, it keeps right on playing, even if you press the
Home button or change apps. After all, the only thing more pleasurable
than surfing the web is surfing it with a Beach Boys soundtrack.
If you’ve got something else to do—like jogging, driving, or performing
surgery—tap the Sleep switch to turn off the screen. The music keeps
playing, but you’ll save battery power.
TIP: Even with the screen off, you can still adjust the music volume (use
the volume buttons on the earbud clicker or the buttons on the side
of the phone), pause the music (pinch the earbud clicker once), or
advance to the next song (pinch it twice).

What’s cool is that if you wake the phone (press Home or the Sleep
switch, or just lift the phone), the Lock screen looks like the Now Playing
screen. It has all the same controls, so you can manage the playback
without even having to fully wake the phone.
If a phone call comes in, the music fades, and you hear your chosen ringtone—through your earbuds, if you’re wearing them. Squeeze the clicker
on the earbud cord or tap the Sleep switch to answer the call. When the
call ends, the music fades back in, right where it left off.

Voice Control
There’s one more way to control your playback—a way that doesn’t
involve taking your eyes off the road or leaving whatever app you’re
using. You can control your music playback by voice command, using
Siri. See Chapter 5.

Playlists
A playlist is a group of songs you’ve placed together, in a sequence that
makes sense to you. One might consist of party tunes; another might
hold romantic dinnertime music; a third might be drum-heavy workout
cuts.

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Creating Playlists on the Phone
To play with playlists, start on the Library tab. Tap Playlists. Here are all
the playlists you’ve ever created—which might be zero (below, left).
To create one, do like this:
1. Click the giant New Playlist button.
A new screen appears, where you can name and set up your new
playlist (below, middle).
2. Tap Playlist Name; type a name for your playlist.
You can also, at this moment, tap the little s button to take, or
choose, a photo to represent this playlist. Or even type a description.
3. Tap Add Music.
The Add Music screen appears (below, right). It offers the usual
ways to view your collection: Playlists (that is, existing ones), Artists,
Albums, Songs, Videos, Genres, Compilations, Composers, and Downloaded Music. (A compilation is one of those albums that’s been put

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together from many different performers. You know: “Zither Hits of
the 1600s,” “Kazoo Classics,” and so on.)
4. Tap the category you want for finding your first song; drill down
until you find the music you want to add.
For example, if you first tap Albums, you then see a list of your albums; tap å to add the entire album to the new playlist. Or tap the
album’s name to view the songs on it—and then å next to a song’s
name to add it to the list.
5. Keep adding music to the playlist until you’re satisfied.
You can keep tapping å buttons, without leaving this screen; each
turns into a checkmark to indicate that you’ve added it (previous
page, right). A playlist can be infinitely long; we’re way past the days
of worrying about how much will fit on a cassette tape or a CD.
6. Tap every Done button until you’re back on the Playlists screen.
Your newly minted playlist is ready to play!

Using Playlists
To see what songs or videos are in a playlist, tap its name or picture. You
now arrive at a Playlist details screen, where your tracks are listed for
your inspection. To start playing a song once you see it in the Playlist list,
tap its name; you’ll hear that song and all those that follow it, in order.
Or tap the Shuffle button (

) to start random-order playback.

TIP: Here you can use a standard iOS convention: Anywhere you’re
asked to drill down from one list to another—from a playlist to the
songs inside, for example—you can backtrack by swiping from the
left edge of the phone into the screen.
Or do it the long way: Tap ” at the upper-left corner of the screen.
That button’s name always tells you what screen you just came from
(My Music, for example).

Once you’re here, you can have all kinds of fun:
• To delete or rearrange songs: Tap Edit. Use the ˝ handles to drag
the songs into a new sequence. Hit – to make one disappear. (You’re
not deleting it from your phone—only from this playlist.) Tap Done.
• To add more songs to the playlist: Tap Edit. Tap Add Music.
• To rename the open playlist: Tap Edit. Tap the current title and edit
away. (Tap Done.)

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• To delete the playlist: Open the playlist; tap the _ to open the
Options panel; tap Delete from Library. Confirm by tapping Delete
Playlist. (Scary though that wording may sound, no music is actually
deleted from your library—only the playlist that contains it.)

Up Next
Unless you’re a professional DJ, you’re probably happy to hear song after
song played automatically, according to whatever album, playlist, or radio
station they’re in.
But the Up Next playlist gives you a degree of control without requiring
the full project of programming a playlist.
The Up Next playlist always exists. If you tell Music to play an album,
then Up Next autofills with the songs on that album; if you’re listening to
all the music from a certain performer, then Up Next displays what else
you’ll hear from that artist. And if you tap any song in your Library, then
everything after it gets added to the Up Next queue automatically.
But you can also queue up music yourself, adding songs to Up Next on
your own schedule. The playback will plow through them in order.
• Add a song to Up Next. Hard-press (or long-press) a song, album, or
playlist to open the Options panel (below, left). Tap Play Next to put

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this song at the beginning of the Up Next queue, or Play Later to put
it at the end of the queue.
• Play a song now. Suppose you find some music you want to play
right now. You don’t care about the Up Next playlist.
When you tap that item’s name, the iPhone asks: “After playing this,
do you want to play the songs you’ve added to Up Next?” If you hit
Keep Up Next, then you hear the new song without disturbing the
Up Next list that will play afterward. If you hit Clear Up Next, then the
new music plays and then stops; you’ve nuked the current Up Next
list.

View, Edit, or Clear the Up Next List
Most people probably never realize it, but you can actually look over the
Up Next playlist in progress. You can rearrange or delete anything in it.
There’s only one way to see the Up Next playlist, and it’s pretty buried. You have to open the full-height Now Playing screen described on
page 237, and then scroll up.
Once the list appears (previous page, right), you can remove a song
from the queue by swiping left on it to reveal the Remove button; tap it.
Rearrange the list by dragging the little "grip strip" handles up or down.
(If you don't see them, it's because you've got your music on Repeat.)
NOTE: There's no way to clear the entire list at once—except to forcequit the Music app (page 345) and then reopen it.

“For You” Tab
30 million is a lot of songs. You won’t live long enough to hear them all.
So Apple has supplied the For You tab of the Music app to present new
songs, performers, and albums its algorithms think you’ll like. (If you’re
not a paying subscriber, then this tab is just an ad for Apple Music.)
Scroll horizontally to see more tiles in a category; scroll vertically to see
the playlists, albums, artists, and new releases Apple thinks you'll like.
And how does the app guess what kind of music you’ll like? When you
sign up for the service, you’re shown dancing red circles bearing musicgenre names. You’re supposed to tap the ones you like, double-tap the
ones you really like, and hold your finger down on the ones you don’t like.

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Then, of course, as you go through your life listening to music, you can
always turn the 6 button on or off to further fine-tune Apple’s understanding of your tastes.

Browse Tab
The Browse tab is also for paying subscribers only. It’s lists of lists.
Scroll down long enough, and you’ll find lists like New Music, Curated
Playlists (music lists, created by Apple's editors, for particular genres,
activities, and moods), Videos, Top Charts, and Genres. Once again, the
idea is to help you find new stuff you like.

iTunes Radio
Your iPhone includes an amazing gift: your own radio station. Your own
empire of radio stations, in fact.
They come in two categories: Free and Custom.

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Free Stations
What you see on the Radio screen depends on whether or not you've
turned off Show Apple Music, as described on page 233.
If that's turned off, then you see only free stations here: Beats 1 (the
Apple live station described on page 234) and some Internet streaming stations like CBS, NPR, ESPN, and Bloomberg. These are free Internet
radio stations.

Subscriber Stations
If Show Apple Music is turned on, then this screen offers ready-made
“radio stations” that Apple has supplied for you. If you're a subscriber,
they play; if not, they give you an ad to sign up.
Tap Radio Stations to find more ready-to-play, software-curated “radio
stations” in every conceivable category: Country, NPR, ESPN, Oldies,
Soul/Funk, Chill, Indie, Classic Metal, Pop Workout, Kids & Family,
Lullabies, Latin Pop, Classical, Reggae, and on and on.
You can hit 4 to skip a song you’re not enjoying. And you don’t hear
any ads.

Custom Stations
If you're a paid subscriber, the iTunes Radio service offers more than
canned stations; you can create a new “station” instantly, based on any
“seed” song you choose.
You don’t get to choose the exact songs or singers you want to hear;
you have to trust iTunes Radio to choose songs based on your chosen song, singer, or music genre. For example, if you choose Billy Joel
as your “seed,” you’ll hear a lot of Billy Joel, but also a lot of other music
that sounds more or less like his.
To set up a new “radio station” of your own, find a song, band, or album.
Hard-press or long-press it to open the Options menu (page 35)—and
tap Create Station.
You’ve just created a new station, and it begins instantly.
TIP: While a custom station plays, you can tap the ✩ on its Now Playing
screen to see two new buttons: Play More Like This and Play Less
Like This. That kind of feedback fine-tunes your custom station for
future use.

The idea of a “seed song”–based radio service isn’t new, of course. It’s the
same idea as Pandora, a website and app that has offered precisely the
same features for years. But iTunes Radio is built in, it’s incorporated with
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Siri and the Control Center, and it’s part of Apple’s larger ecosystem; that
is, you can see your same set of “radio stations” on your Mac or PC (in
the iTunes app), iPad, and Apple TV.

Returning to a Custom Station
On the main Radio screen, the Recently Played list shows all the stations
you’ve listened to. Tap to start playing.

Siri and iTunes Radio
Truth is, there’s an easier way to create a custom radio station: Just let
Siri do the work. No matter what you’re doing on the iPhone, you can
hold down the Home button and say, for example, “Play 'Just the Way
You Are' by Billy Joel” or “Play some Beatles.” Boom: The music begins.
Actually, Siri comes equipped to recognize a whole slew of commands
pertaining to iTunes Radio. Here’s a sampler; you don’t have to use these
precise wordings:
• Start a station from Whitney Houston (or any song, album, or
performer).

• Play the radio.
• What song is this?
• Play more like this.
• Don’t play this song again.
• Pause the music. (Resume the music.)
• Skip this song.
• Add this song to my Wish List.
• Stop the radio.

Speakers and Headphones
The iPhone’s speaker is pretty darned good for such a tiny machine. But
the world is full of better speakers—Bluetooth wireless speakers, car
stereo systems, hi-fi TVs, and fancy earbuds and headphones. The iPhone
is especially easy to use with them.

Bluetooth Wireless
You can buy amazingly small, powerful Bluetooth stereo speakers that
receive your iPhone’s music from as far as 20 or 30 feet away—made by
Jawbone, Bose, and others.
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There are also wireless Bluetooth headphones and earbuds—an especially useful fact if you have an iPhone 7 (which lacks a headphone jack).
Once you’ve bought your headphones or speakers, you have to introduce
them to the iPhone—a process called pairing.
From the Home screen, tap SettingsÆBluetooth. Turn Bluetooth on
(below, left); you see the Searching n animation as the iPhone wirelessly
hunts for your headphones or speakers.

Grab them, turn them on, and start the pairing procedure, as described in
the manual. Usually that means holding down a certain button until a tiny
light starts flashing. At that point, the headphones’ or speaker’s name
appears on the iPhone’s screen.
TIP: If the headphones or speakers require a one-time passcode—it’s
usually 0000, but check the manual—the iPhone’s keyboard
appears, so you can type it in.

A couple of seconds later, it says Connected; now any sound the iPhone
would ordinarily play through its speakers or earbuds now plays through
the wireless headphones or speakers. Not just music—which, in general,
sounds amazing—but chirps, game sounds, and so on. Oh, and phone
calls.
If your headset has a microphone, too, then you can even answer and
make phone calls wirelessly. (There’s an Answer button right on the
headphones.)

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Using Bluetooth wireless stereo does eat up your battery charge faster.
But come on: listening to your music without wires, with the iPhone still
in your pocket or bag? How cool is that?

Switching Among Speakers
When your iPhone has a connection to a wireless sound source—
Bluetooth speakers/earbuds or an AirPlay receiver, for example—you
need some way to direct the music playback to it.
The answer is the � button. It’s on the Control Center (page 46).
When you tap it, the iPhone offers a button for each speaker or set of
earbuds or headphone (facing page, right). To switch, tap the one you
want.
Instantly, the sound begins flowing from your other source. Use the same
method to switch back to the iPhone’s speakers when the time comes.

AirPlay
There’s another way to transmit audio wirelessly from the iPhone (and
video, too): the Apple technology called AirPlay. You can buy AirPlay
speakers, amplifiers, and TV sets. The Apple TV, of course, is the bestknown AirPlay machine.
AirPlay is described on page 259, because most people use it to transmit video, not just audio. But the steps for transmitting to an AirPlay
audio gadget are the same.

Music Settings
The iPhone has a long list of traditional iPod features for music playback.
Most of these options await in SettingsÆMusic. (Shortcut: Tell Siri, “Open
Music settings.”)

EQ (Equalization)
Like any good music player, the iPhone offers an EQ function: a long list
of presets, each of which affects your music differently by boosting or
throttling various frequencies. One might bring out the bass to goose up
your hip-hop tunes; another might emphasize the midrange for clearer
vocals; and so on. (“Late Night” is especially handy; it lowers the bass so
it thuds less. Your downstairs neighbors will love it.)
You'll find the EQ feature way down the Music Settings page.

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Volume Limit
It’s now established fact: Listening to a lot of loud music through earphones can damage your hearing. Pump it up today, pay for it tomorrow.
Portable music players can be sinister that way, because in noisy places
like planes and city streets, people turn up the volume much louder than
they would in a quiet place, and they don’t even realize how high they’ve
cranked it. That’s why Apple created this volume slider. It lets you limit
the maximum volume level of the music.
In fact, if you’re a parent, you can even lock down this control on your
child’s iPhone; it can be bypassed only with a password. Set the volume
slider here, and then, in SettingsÆGeneralÆRestrictions, turn on Volume
Limit, as described on page 250.

Sound Check
This feature smooths out the master volume levels of tracks from different albums, helping to compensate for differences in their recording
levels. It doesn’t deprive you of peaks and valleys in the music volume, of
course—it affects only the baseline level.

Playing Music from Your Computer
Here’s a trick you weren’t expecting: You can store many terabytes of
music on your Mac or PC upstairs—and play it on your phone in the
kitchen downstairs. Or anywhere on the same Wi‑Fi network, actually.
This nifty bit of wireless magic is brought to you by Home Sharing, a feature of the iTunes program.
Here’s the setup: In iTunes on the Mac or PC, open EditÆPreferences.
Click Sharing, and turn on Share my library on my local network. (You
can share only certain playlists, if you like.) Turn on Require password and
enter your Apple account (iCloud) password. Click OK.
Now pick up your phone. At the bottom of the SettingsÆMusic screen,
log into Home Sharing using the same Apple ID and password.
Now you’re ready to view the contents of your computer on the phone.
You’d never guess where it’s hiding.
In the Music app, on the Library tab, tap Home Sharing; on the next
screen, choose your computer’s name. (Note that the Home Sharing
heading doesn't appear unless your computer is turned on and iTunes is
open.)
That’s it! Suddenly, your entire Music app is filled with the music from
your computer’s collection, rather than the music on the phone.

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The iTunes Store
Just as you can buy apps using the App Store app, you can also browse,
buy, and download songs, TV shows, and movies using the iTunes Store
app. Anything you buy gets autosynced back to your computer’s copy
of iTunes when you get home. Whenever you hear somebody mention a
buy-worthy song, for example, you can have it within a minute.
To begin, open the iTunes Store app. The store you see here (below,
left) is modeled on the App Store described in Chapter 10. This time, the
buttons at the bottom of the screen include Music, Movies, TV Shows,
Search, and More.
When you tap Music, Movies, or TV Shows, the screen offers further
buttons. For Music, for example, the scrolling horizontal rows of options
might include New Releases, Recent Releases, Singles, and Pre-Orders.
(Beneath each list is a Redeem button, which you can tap if you’ve been
given an iTunes gift certificate or a promo code; a Send Gift button,
which lets you buy a song or video for someone else; and an Apple ID
button, which can show you your current credit balance.)

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TIP: You can’t buy TV shows or movies on the cellular network—just in
Wi‑Fi hotspots. That’s your cell company’s way of saying, “We don’t
want you jamming up our precious cellular network with your hefty
video downloads, bucko.”
Note, by the way, that you can rent movies from the store instead
of buying them outright. You pay only $3, $4, or $5 to rent (instead
of $10 to $16 to buy). But once you start watching, you have only 24
hours to finish; after that, the movie deletes itself from your phone.
(If you like, you can sync it to your Mac or PC to continue watching
in iTunes—still within 24 hours.)

To search for something in particular, tap Search. The keyboard appears.
Type what you’re looking for: the name of a song, movie, show, performer, or album, for example. At any time, you can stop typing and tap
the name of a match to see its details. You can use the buttons across
the top to restrict the search to one category (just songs or movies, for
example).
TIP: Sometimes it’s quicker to search directly from the Spotlight search
bar, which can search the iTunes Store directly.

All these tools eventually take you to the details page of an album, song,
or movie. For a song, tap its name to hear an instant 90-second preview
(tap again to stop). For a TV show or movie, tap 2 to watch the ad or the
sneak preview.
If you’re sold, then tap the price button to buy the song, show, or album
(and tap Buy to confirm). Enter your Apple ID password when you’re
asked. (For movies, you can choose either Buy or Rent, priced accordingly.) At this point, your iPhone downloads the music or video you
bought.

Purchased Items
Anything you buy from the iTunes Store winds up in the appropriate app
on your iPhone: the TV app for TV shows and movies, the Music app for
songs. (Within the Music app, you can see everything you’ve bought: Tap
Playlists and then Purchased.)
In the iTunes Store app, you can tap More and then Purchased to see
what you’ve bought. Once you tap a category (Music, Movies, TV Shows),
you get a pair of tabs:
• All. Here’s a list of everything you’ve bought from iTunes, on your
iPhone or any other Apple machine.
• Not on This iPhone. This is the cool part. Here you see not just the
files on the iPhone in your hand, but things you’ve bought on other
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Apple gadgets—an album you bought on your iPad, for example, or a
song you downloaded to your iPod Touch. (This assumes that you’re
using the same Apple ID on all your gizmos.)
The beauty of this arrangement, of course, is that you can tap the
name of something that’s Not on This iPhone—and then download it
(tap U). No extra charge.
TIP: If you prefer, you can direct your phone to download those
purchases that you make on other gadgets automatically, without
your having to tap Not on This iPhone. Visit SettingsÆiTunes & App
Store, and turn on the switches for Music, Apps, and/or Books under
Automatic Downloads. If you also turn on Use Cellular Data, then
your phone will do this auto-downloading when you’re in any 3G or
LTE cellular Internet area, not just in a Wi‑Fi hotspot.

More in “More”
Tapping More at the bottom of the screen offers these options:
• Tones. You can buy ready-made ringtones on this page—30-second
slices of pop songs. (Don’t ask what sense it makes to pay $1.29 for

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30 seconds of a song, when you could buy the whole song for the
same price.)
• Genius. Apple offers a list of music, movies, and TV shows for sale
that it thinks you’ll like, based on stuff you already have.
• Purchased. Here’s another way to examine the stuff you’ve bought
on all your devices. If you’ve turned on Apple’s Family Sharing feature
(page 540), you can also examine what stuff your family members
have bought.
• Downloads. Shows you a progress bar for anything you’ve started to
download.
TIP: If you tap Edit, you’ll see that you can replace any of the four iTunes
Store bottom-row icons with one of the More buttons (Tones,
Genius, Purchased, or whatever). Just drag one of these icons
directly downward on top of an existing icon.

So you’ve downloaded one of the store’s millions of songs, podcasts, TV
shows, music videos, ringtones, or movies directly to your phone. Next
time you sync, that song will swim upstream to your Mac or PC, where
it will be safely backed up in iTunes. (And if you lost your connection
before the iPhone was finished downloading, your Mac or PC will finish
the job automatically. Cool.)

The TV App
This weird hybrid app didn’t come with iOS 10; it appeared on your
phone with iOS 10.2. (A matching app appears on the Apple TV, where it
may make more sense.)
It’s intended to serve as a single repository for paid TV shows and movies online, in these three categories:
• Videos you’ve bought or rented from Apple’s iTunes store. In this
regard, the TV app takes over the functions of the old Videos app,
which has vanished from your phone.
• Paid video-service apps like Showtime, Hulu, and HBO Go. A few of
these apps work with the TV app’s “single sign-on” feature, meaning
that you can enter the name and password for your cable account
once, and thereafter you’re spared having to enter it into each individual app.

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• Channels your cable package provides. Or at least those that have
apps: ABC, A&E, AMC, TBS, and so on. Each one requires that you
provide your cable or satellite TV account name and password. (Here
again, a few may work with the single sign-on feature, meaning you
don’t have to sign in individually.)
TIP: Even if you don't have a cable subscription, there's some free stuff
you can watch in this app. Visit Store Æ Buy or Rent on iTunes
section Æ Free Episodes.
There are also some channel apps that are free to watch without a
subscription, including PBS, PBS Kids, CBS Sports, ABC News, and
The Weather Channel.

That’s the shiny future concept of the TV app. In its fledgling first incarnation, though, it’s of far less use, because it works only with a handful of
lesser cable companies and only a handful of channel apps. Netflix, for
example, is not among them.
Until more players join the party, here’s how to use the TV app.

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Four Tabs
The buttons across the bottom clearly exhibit the TV app’s split personality (split between iTunes purchases and cable-channel apps).
• iTunes Store. Find TV shows and movies to rent or buy using Search.
Watch the ones you’ve bought or rented in Library.
• Channel apps. Find channel apps using Store. Watch the shows available from the apps you’ve installed in Watch Now.

How to Play a Video
Tap a video's thumbnail to see its plot summary, year of release, and so
on. If it’s a TV series, tap an episode in that series, if necessary. Either
way, tap 2 to begin watching.
NOTE: If you see a U on this screen, it means that this bought or rented
movie is not actually on your phone. If you have a good Wi‑Fi
signal, you can watch it right now by streaming it (instead of
downloading it to your phone).
If you don’t see that icon, then the video file is actually on your
phone. An Edit button appears, which you can tap (and then tap
°) to delete the video.

When you’re playing video, anything else on the screen is distracting, so
Apple hides the video playback controls. Tap the screen once to make
them appear and again to make them disappear.
Here’s what they do:
• Done. Tap this button, in the top-left corner, to stop playback and
return to the master list of videos.
• Scroll slider. This progress indicator (top of the screen) is exactly like
the one you see when you’re playing music. You see the elapsed time,
the remaining time, and a white, round handle that you can drag to
jump forward or back in the video.
TIP: Drag your finger farther (up or down) from the handle to choose a
faster or slower scrubbing speed.

• Zoom/Unzoom. In the top-right corner, a little { or } button
appears if the video’s shape doesn’t exactly match your screen. Tap it
to adjust the zoom level of the video, as described in a moment.

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• Play/Pause (2/3). These buttons (and the earbud clicker) do the
same thing to video as they do to music: alternate playing and
pausing.
• Previous, Next (0, 5). Hold down your finger to rewind or fastforward the video. The longer you hold, the faster the zipping. (When
you fast-forward, you even get to hear the sped-up audio.)
If you’re watching a movie from the iTunes Store, you may be surprised to discover that it comes with predefined chapter markers, just
like a DVD. Internally, it’s divided up into scenes. To see them, stop
playback (tap Done); on the movie page, tap Chapters. Tap a chapter name to skip to that chapter marker—or tap 2 to return to your
original spot.
TIP: If you’re wearing the earbuds, you can pinch the clicker twice to skip
to the next chapter, or three times to go back a chapter.

• Volume. You can drag the round handle of this slider (bottom of the
screen) to adjust the volume—or you can use the volume buttons on
the left side of the phone.
• Language (Å). You don’t see this button often. But when you do, it
summons subtitle and alternate-language soundtrack options, just like
a DVD player.
• AirPlay (Ò). This symbol appears if you have an Apple TV (or
another AirPlay-compatible electronic). Tap it to send your video
playback to the TV, as described on page 259.

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TIP: If you don’t see a video that you know you purchased through
iTunes, open the iTunes Store app on your phone. Tap MoreÆ
Purchased, and then select the person who bought the movie or
TV show. Next tap either Movies or TV Shows; look under All and
Not on This iPhone. When you find what you want, tap its name and
re-download it by tapping U. That puts it back into the TV app’s
library.
And to delete a video from the library, swipe leftward across its
name in the Videos list; tap Delete to confirm. (You can always
re-download it, of course.)

Zoom/Unzoom
The iPhone’s screen is bright, vibrant, and stunningly sharp. Sometimes,
however, it’s not the right shape for videos.
Pre-HDTV shows are squarish, not rectangular. So when you watch older
TV shows on a rectangular screen, you get black letterbox columns on
either side of the picture.
Movies have the opposite problem. They’re usually too wide for the
iPhone screen. So when you watch movies, you may wind up with horizontal letterbox bars above and below the picture.

Some people are fine with that. After all, HDTVs have the same problem.
At least when letterbox bars are onscreen, you know you’re seeing the
complete composition of the scene the director intended.
Other people can’t stand letterboxing. You’re already watching on a
pretty small screen; why sacrifice some of that precious area to black
bars?
Fortunately, the iPhone gives you a choice. If you double-tap the video as
it plays, you zoom in, magnifying the image so it fills the entire screen. Or,
if the playback controls are visible, you can also tap ∏ or }. Of course,
now you’re not seeing the entire original composition. You lose the

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top and bottom of old TV scenes, or the left and right edges of movie
scenes.
Fortunately, if this effect chops off something important—some text, for
example—the original letterbox view is just another double-tap away. (No
zooming happens if the source material is already a perfect fit for the
iPhone’s screen shape.)

TV Output
When you crave a screen bigger than a few inches, you can play your
iPhone’s videos on a regular TV. All you need is the right cable: the Apple
Digital AV Adapter. It carries both audio and video over a single HDMI
cable.
It mirrors what’s on the phone: your Home screen, email, Safari, and
everything else. (Photos and presentations appear on your TV in pure,
“video outputted” form, without any controls or other window clutter.)

AirPlay
Your iPhone also offers wireless projection, thanks to a feature called
AirPlay. It transmits music or high-def video (with audio) from your
iPhone to an Apple TV (or another AirPlay-equipped receiver) across
the room. It’s a fantastic way to send slideshows, movies, presentations,
games, FaceTime calls, and websites to your TV for a larger audience to
enjoy. Whatever is on the screen gets transmitted.

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AirPlay receivers include the Apple TV (version 2 or later) and speakers,
stereos, and receivers from Denon, Marantz, JBL, iHome, and so on. The
phone and recent AirPlay receivers no longer have to be on the same
Wi‑Fi network, thanks to a feature called peer-to-peer AirPlay.
When you’re playing a video or some music, open the Control Center
(page 46), and tap � to see a list of available AirPlay receivers. If you
have an Apple TV, tap its name, and then turn its Mirroring switch on.
That’s it! Everything on the iPhone screen now appears on the TV or
sound system. (The phone’s status bar displays the Ò icon, so you don’t
wander off and forget that every move you make is visible to the entire
crowd in the living room.)

Two Ways to See the iPhone on Your Mac
If you're a teacher, trainer, or product demonstrator, you might be
amazed at how easy it is to display your iPhone's screen on a Mac's
screen. From there, you can either project it onto an even bigger screen,
or record it as a QuickTime movie to use in presentations or post online.
• The free way. If your Mac has OS X Yosemite or later, then connect the phone to the Mac with its white USB charging cable. Open
the Mac app called QuickTime Player. Choose FileÆNew Movie
Recording. From the little ‘ menu next to the ® button, choose
iPhone.
Now you’re seeing the iPhone’s screen on your Mac—and you can
record it, project it, or screen-capture it for future generations!
• The wireless way. A $13 program called Reflector (reflectorapp.com)
lets you view the iPhone’s live image on the Mac’s screen—and hear
its sound. (It actually turns the Mac into an AirPlay receiver.) There’s
also a Record command, so you can create a movie of whatever
you’re doing on the phone.

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The Camera

ncredible though it sounds, the iPhone is the number-one most
popular camera model in the world. More photos are posted online
from this phone than from any other machine in existence.

And no wonder; you’ve probably never seen pictures and movies look
this good on a pocket gadget. With each new version of the iPhone,
Apple improves its camera—and on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, it’s unbelievably good; on the 7 Plus, there’s even, for the first time, an optical
zoom.
And the videos look amazing. They’re auto-stabilized—and the 6s and 7
models even shoot in 4K (four times the resolution of high-def video).
This chapter is all about the iPhone’s ability to display photos, take new
ones with its camera, and capture videos.

The Camera App
The little hole on the back of the iPhone, in the upper-left corner, is its
camera.
On the latest iPhones, it’s pretty impressive, at least for a cellphone cam.
The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, for example, have four LED flashes, manual
exposure controls, optical stabilization, and phase-detection autofocus
(the same kind of very fast refocusing found in professional SLR cameras). These phones can shoot 10 shots a second and do amazingly well
in low light.
The earlier iPhone models’ cameras aren’t quite as good, but they’re still
fine as long as your subject is still and well lit. Action shots may come out
blurry, and dim-light shots may come out grainier.
Now that you know what you’re in for, here’s how it works.

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Firing Up the Camera
Photographic opportunities are frequently fleeting; by the time you fish
the phone from your pocket, wake it up, unlock it, press the Home button, find the Camera app, and wait for it to load, the magic moment may
be gone forever.
Fortunately, there’s a much quicker way to get to the Camera app:
1. Wake the phone.
That is, lift the phone (page 17) or press the Home or Sleep button, so that you’re now at the Lock screen.
2. Swipe to the left.
The Camera app opens directly. This trick shaves an unbelievable
amount of time off the old get-to-the-camera method. Over time, the
wake-and-swipe ritual becomes natural, fluid—and fast.
TIP: Of course, there’s a hands-free way to fire up the Camera app, too:
Tell Siri, “Open camera.”

By the way: This Camera shortcut bypasses the password or fingerprint
security. Any random stranger who picks up your phone can, therefore, jump directly into picture-taking mode, without your password or
fingerprint.
That stranger can’t do much damage, though. She can take new photos, or delete the new photos taken during her session—but the photos
you’ve already taken are off-limits, and the features that could damage your reputation (editing, emailing, and posting photos) are unavailable. She would have to open the Photos app to get to those—and that
requires the phone password.

Camera Modes
The Camera app can capture six or seven kinds of photo and video,
depending on your phone model. By swiping your finger horizontally
anywhere on the screen, you switch among its modes. Here they are,
from left to right:
• Time-Lapse. This mode speeds up your video, yet somehow keeps it
stable. You can reduce a 2-hour bike ride into 20 seconds of superfast
playback.
• Slo-Mo (iPhone 5s and later). Wow, what gorgeousness! You get
a video filmed at 120 or 240 frames a second—so it plays back at
one-quarter or one-eighth the speed, incredibly smoothly. Fantastic
for sports, tender smiles, and cannonballs into the pool.
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• Video. Here’s your basic camcorder mode: 4K video on the 6s and 7
models, high definition on earlier ones.
• Photo. This is the primary mode for taking pictures. It’s the one
Camera chooses automatically when it opens.
• Portrait. Available only on the iPhone 7 Plus, whose two camera lenses create a softly blurred background that looks super
professional.
• Square. You might wonder why Apple would go to the trouble of designating a whole special camera mode to taking square, not rectangular, pictures. Answer: Instagram, the crazy-popular app that features
square pictures and was sold to Facebook for nearly $1 billion.
• Pano. Choose this mode to capture super-wide-angle panoramic
photos.
TIP: If you tend to stick to one of these modes (like Square because
you’re an Instagram junkie, for example), you can make the iPhone’s
camera stay in your favorite mode, rather than resetting itself to
Photo mode every time you reopen it. That feature, which appeared
in iOS 10.2, is in SettingsÆPhotos & CameraÆ Preserve Settings.

All of these modes are described in this chapter, but in a more logical
order: still photos first, then video modes.

Photo Mode
Most people, most of the time, use the Camera app to take still photos. It’s a pretty great experience. The iPhone’s screen is a huge digital-
camera viewfinder. You can turn it 90 degrees for a wider or taller shot.

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Tap to Focus
All right: You’ve opened the Camera app, and the mode is set to Photo.
See the yellow box that appears briefly on the screen?
It’s telling you where the iPhone will focus, the area it examines to calculate the overall brightness of the photo (exposure), and the portion that
will determine the overall white balance of the scene (that is, the color
cast).
Tap the sky to make it correctly exposed, Tap the dark beach to brighten it up,
even if the beach is now too dark.
although that also brightens up the sky.

If you’re taking a picture of people, the iPhone’s software tries to lock in
on a face—up to 10 faces, actually—and calculate focus and exposure so
that they look right.
But sometimes there are no faces—and dead center may not be the most
important part of the photo. The cool thing is that you can tap somewhere else in the scene to move that yellow square—to recalculate the
focus, exposure, and white balance.
Here’s when you might want to do this tapping:
• When the whole image looks too dark or too bright. If you tap a
dark part of the scene, the whole photo brightens up; if you tap a

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bright part, the whole photo darkens a bit. You’re telling the camera,
“Redo your calculations so this part has the best exposure; I don’t
care if the rest of the picture gets brighter or darker.” At that point,
you can override the phone’s exposure decision.
• When the scene has a color cast. If the photo looks, for example, a
little bluish or yellowish, tap a different spot in the scene—the one you
care most about. The iPhone recomputes its assessment of the white
balance.
• When you’re in macro mode. If the foreground object is very close
to the lens—4 to 8 inches away—the iPhone automatically goes
into macro (super closeup) mode. In this mode, you can do something really cool: You can defocus the background. The background
goes soft, slightly blurry, just like the professional photos you see
in magazines. No, not as well or as flexibly as the iPhone 7 Plus can
(page 278), but it’s something. Just make sure you tap the foreground object.

Adjust Exposure
When you tap the screen to set the focus point, a new control appears: a
little yellow sun slider. That’s your exposure control. Slide it up to brighten
the whole photo or down to make things darker—an incredibly useful
option.
Often, just a small adjustment is all it takes to add a splash of light to a
dim scene, or to dial the details back into a photo that’s bright white.
To reset the slider to the iPhone’s original proposed setting, tap the
screen somewhere else, or just aim the phone at something different for
a second.

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The point is that the Camera app lets you fuss with the focus point and
the exposure level independently.

Focus Lock/Exposure Lock
The iPhone likes to focus and calculate the exposure before it shoots.
Cameras are funny that way.
That tendency, however, can get in your way when you’re shooting something that moves fast. Horse races, divers. Pets. Kids on merry-go-rounds,
kids on slides, kids in your house. By the time the camera has calculated
the focus and exposure, which takes about a second, you’ve lost the shot.
Therefore, Apple provides a feature that’s common on professional cameras but rare on phones: auto-exposure lock and autofocus lock. They
let you set up the focus and exposure in advance so that there’s zero lag
when you finally snap the shot.
To use this feature, point the camera at something that has the same distance and lighting as the subject-to-be. For example, focus at the base
of the merry-go-round that’s directly below where your daughter’s horse
will be. Or point at the bottom of the waterslide before your son is ready
to go.
Now hold your finger down on that spot on the iPhone’s screen until you
see the yellow square blink twice. When you lift your finger, the phrase
“AE/AF Lock” tells you that you’ve now locked in exposure and auto
focus. (You can tap again to unlock it if you change your mind.)
At this point, you can drag the yellow sun slider to adjust that locked
exposure, if you like.
Now you can snap photos, rapid-fire, without ever having to wait while
your iPhone rethinks focus and exposure.
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The LED Flash
As on most phones, the iPhone’s “flash” is actually just a very bright LED
light on the back. You can make it turn on momentarily, providing a small
boost of illumination when the lights are low. (That’s a small boost—it
won’t do anything for subjects more than a few feet away.)
The iPhone 5s, 6, and 6s models, in fact, have two LED flashes: one
white, one amber. The 7 family takes that a step further, with four flashes,
together producing 50 percent more light output.
The flashes go off simultaneously, with their strengths mixed properly so
that their light matches the color temperature of the scene. (You might
notice that before the phone takes the picture, it flashes once before the
shot is captured. That’s the camera’s opportunity to measure the light
color of the scene.)
This multi-flash trick makes a huge difference in the quality of your flash
photos. (Especially skin tones, which may be why Apple calls the feature
“True Tone.”)

No matter which model you have, the flash comes set to Auto. It turns
on automatically when the scene is too dark, in the iPhone’s opinion. But
if you tap the ¸ when it says Auto, two other options pop out: On (the
flash will fire no matter what the lighting conditions) and Off (the flash
will not fire, no matter what).
TIP: If you open the Control Center (page 46) and tap the flashlight
icon (i), the phone’s LED flash turns on and stays on. It’s great
when you want to see your key in the door or read the tiny type in a
program or a menu.

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The Screen Flash
The iPhone 6s and 7 models offer a “flash” on the front, too, for taking
selfies. But it’s not an LED like the one on the back.
Instead, at the moment you take the shot, the screen lights up to illuminate your face. Better yet: It adjusts the color of the screen’s “flash” to
give your face the best flesh tones, based on a check of the ambient light
color.
Of course, the normal iPhone screen is too tiny to supply much light,
even at full brightness. So Apple developed a custom chip with a single
purpose: to overclock the screen. In selfie situations, the screen blasts at
three times its usual full brightness for a fraction of a second. It is crazy
bright.
It works fantastically well. Here, you can see the nuked-looking result
from a traditional back LED “flash” (left) side-by-side with the screen
flash (right).

Zooming In
The iPhone has a zoom, which can help bring you “closer” to the subject—but (unless it’s a 7 Plus) it’s a digital zoom. It doesn’t work like a
real camera’s optical zoom, which actually moves lenses to blow up the
scene. Instead, it basically just blows up the image, making everything
bigger, and slightly degrading the picture quality in the process.
To zoom in like this, spread two fingers on the screen. As you spread, a
zoom slider appears; you can also drag the handle in the slider, or tap +
or -, for more precise zooming.

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Sometimes, getting closer to the action is worth the subtle image-quality
sacrifice.

The iPhone 7 Plus: True Zoom
On the iPhone 7 Plus, there was enough room for Apple to install two
lenses, side by side. One is wide-angle; one is telephoto. With one tap
on the little 1x button (below, left), you can zoom in 2x (middle). This is
true optical zoom, not the cruddy digital zoom on most previous phones
(which degrades the quality).

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2x zoom isn’t a huge amount, but it’s 2x more than any other thin smartphone can handle. And it’s a triumphant first step toward eliminating a
key drawback of phone cameras: They can’t actually zoom.
You can also dial up any amount of zoom between 1x and 2x, again without losing any quality. The iPhone performs that stunt by seamlessly
combining the zoom lens’s image (in the center of the photo) with a margin provided by the wide lens. Just plant your finger on the 1x and drag it
to the left. You’ll see the circular scale of zooming appear (previous page,
right).
You can even zoom while shooting a video, which is very cool.
Even on the Plus, by the way, you can keep dragging your finger to the
left, past 2x—all the way up to a really blotchy 10x (or 6x for video).
Beyond 2x, of course, you’re invoking digital zoom. But sometimes, it’s
just what you need.
TIP: Once you’ve dragged your finger to open the zooming scale, you
can tap the current magnification button (“2.5x” or whatever) to
reset the zooming to 1x.

The “Rule of Thirds” Grid
The Rule of Thirds, long held as gospel by painters and photographers,
suggests that you imagine a tic-tac-toe grid superimposed on your
frame. As you frame the shot, position the important parts of the photo
on those lines or, better yet, at their intersections. Supposedly, this setup
creates a stronger composition than putting everything in dead center.
Now, it’s really a Consideration of Thirds; plenty of photographs are, in
fact, strongest when the subject is centered.

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But if you want to know where those magic intersections are so that you
can consider the Rule of Thirds, duck into SettingsÆ Photos & Camera.
Scroll down; turn on Grid.
Now the phone displays the tic-tac-toe grid, for your composition pleasure (it’s not part of the photo). You turn it off the same way.

High Dynamic Range (HDR)
In one regard, digital cameras are still pathetic: Compared with the
human eye, they have terrible dynamic range.
That’s the range from the brightest to darkest spots in a single scene. If
you see someone standing in front of a bright window, you can probably
make out who it is. But in a photo, that person will be a solid black silhouette. The camera doesn’t have enough dynamic range to handle both the
bright background and the person standing in front of it.
You could brighten up the exposure so that the person’s face is lit—but
then you’d brighten the background to a nuclear-white rectangle.
A partial solution: HDR (high dynamic range) photography. That’s
when the camera takes three photos (or even more)—one each at dark,
medium, and light exposure settings. Its software combines the best
parts of all three, bringing details to both the shadows and the highlights.
Believe it or not, your iPhone has a built-in HDR feature. It’s not as amazing as what an HDR guru can do in Photoshop—for one thing, you have

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zero control over how the images are combined, how many are combined, or how much of each is combined.
But, often, an HDR photo does show more detail in both bright and dark
areas than a single shot would. In the iPhone shot on the previous page,
the sky is blown out—pure white. On the right, the HDR feature brings
back the lost streaks of color.
To use HDR, tap HDR at the top of the screen. It has three settings: On,
Off, and Auto. Auto means “Use your judgment, iPhone. If you think this
scene would benefit, please use HDR automatically.” Take your best shot.
TIP: Should the phone save a standard shot in addition to the HDR shot?
That’s up to you. In SettingsÆPhotos & Camera, you’ll find the on/
off switch for Keep Normal Photo.

When you inspect your photos later in the Photos app, you’ll know which
ones were taken with HDR turned on; when you tap the photo, you’ll see
the HDR logo at the upper-left corner.

Taking the Shot
All right. You’ve opened the Camera app. You’ve set up the focus, exposure, flash, grid, HDR, and zoom. If, in fact, your subject hasn’t already left
the scene, you can now take the picture. You can do that in any of three
ways:
• Tap the shutter (') button.
• Press either of the physical volume buttons on the left edge of the
phone.
This option is fantastic. If you hold the phone with the volume buttons
at the top, those buttons are right where the shutter would be on a
real camera. Pressing one feels more natural than, and doesn’t shake
the camera as much as, tapping the screen.
• Press a volume button on your earbuds clicker—a great way to trigger
the shutter without jiggling the phone in the process, and a more convenient way to take selfies when the phone is at arm’s length.
Either way, if the phone isn’t muted, you hear the snap! sound of a picture successfully taken.
You get to admire your work for only about half a second—and then the
photo slurps itself into the thumbnail icon at the lower-left corner of the
screen. To review the photo you just took, tap that thumbnail icon.
At this point, to look at other pictures you’ve taken, tap the screen and
then tap All Photos.
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This is your opportunity to choose a photo (or many) for emailing, texting, posting to Facebook, and so on; tap Select, tap the photos you
want, and then tap the Share button (P). See page 348.
TIP: For details on copying your iPhone photos and videos back to your
Mac or PC, see page 519.

Burst Mode
Every iPhone snaps photos over and over if you keep your finger pressed
on the ' button or a volume key.
But the iPhone 5s and later models take them quickly—10 shots a second.
That’s a fantastic feature when you’re trying to capture a moment that
will be over in a flash: a golf swing, a pet trick, a toddler sitting still.
All you have to do is keep your finger pressed on the ' button or the
volume key. A counter rapidly increments, showing you how many shots
you’ve fired off.
TIP: The front-facing camera can capture burst mode, too.

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Better yet, the phone helps you clean up the mess afterward—the hassle
of inspecting all 230 photos you shot, to find the ones worth keeping.
Tap the lower-left thumbnail. To help keep you sane, the iPhone depicts
your burst as a single photo, with the phrase “Burst (72 photos)” (or
whatever) in the corner of the screen. (In the Camera Roll, its thumbnail
bears multiple frames, as though it were a stack of slides.)
Here’s where it gets cool.
If you tap Select, you see all frames of the burst in a horizontally scrolling
row. Underneath, you see an even smaller “filmstrip” of them—and a few
of them are marked with dots.
These are the ones the iPhone has decided are the keepers. It does that
by studying the clarity or blur of each shot, examining how much one
frame is different from those around it, and even skipping past shots
where somebody’s eyes are closed. Tap the marked thumbnails to see if
you approve of the iPhone’s selections.
Whether you do or not, you should work through the larger thumbnails
in the burst, tapping each one you want to keep. (The circle in the corner
sprouts a blue checkmark.)
When you tap Done, the phone asks: “Would you like to keep the other
photos in this burst?” Tap Keep Everything to preserve all the shots in the
burst, so you can return later to extract a different set of frames; or Keep
Only 2 Favorites (or whatever number you selected) to discard the ones
you skipped.

Self-Portraits (the Front Camera)
The iPhone has a second camera on the front, above the screen. It lets
you use the screen itself as a viewfinder to frame yourself, experiment
with your expression, and check your teeth.
To activate the front camera in the Camera app, tap the z. Suddenly,
you see yourself on the screen. Frame the shot, and then tap ' to take
the photo.
Now, don’t get your expectations too high. The front camera is not the
back camera. It’s OK on the 6s and 7 models (5 megapixels, plus that
cool screen flash)—but older models offer much lower resolution, lower
quality, and no flash.
But when your goal is a well-framed self-portrait that you’ll use on the
screen—email or the web, for example, where resolution isn’t very important—then having the front-camera option is better than not having it.

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The Self-Timer
A self-timer is essential when you want to be in the picture yourself; you
can prop the phone on something and then run into the scene. It’s also
a great way to prevent camera shake (which produces blurry photos),
because your finger doesn’t touch the phone.
Just tap the 7, and then tap 3s (a 3-second countdown) or 10s (a
10-second countdown).
Now, when you tap ' or press a volume key, you get a countdown: Huge
digits on the screen if you’re using the front camera, blinking flash if
you‘re using the rear camera. After the countdown, the phone takes the
picture all by itself. (If the sound is on, you’ll hear the shutter noise.)
Correction: The phone takes 10 pictures, in burst mode. The phone
assumes that if you’re using the self-timer, then you won’t be able to see
when everybody’s eyes are open. So it takes 10 shots in a row; you can
weed through them later to find the best shot.
TIP: The self-timer is available for both the front and back cameras. In
other words, it’s also handy for selfies.

Filters
Square photos weren’t the only influence that Apple felt from the popularity of Facebook’s Instagram app. It also became clear that the masses
want filters, special effects that degrade the color of your photo in artsy
ways. (They can affect either square or regular photos.) You, too, can
make your pictures look old, washed-out, or oversaturated.
You can turn on the filter before you take the shot, so you can see how
it’ll look.

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• To filter before you shoot. Tap A to view your options. You see a tictac-toe board of eight color filters (and black-and-white filters); None
is always in the center.
Tap a filter thumbnail to try it. Each turns your photo into a variation
of black-and-white or plays with its saturation (color intensity). If you
find one that looks good, take the shot as usual.
To turn off the filters, tap the A icon again and tap None.
NOTE: You can always unfilter a filtered shot later, if you prefer the
original. Just tap the A icon to open the palette of filters—and
this time, tap None.

• To filter after you shoot. You can also apply a filter to any photo
you’ve already taken, as described on page 291.
TIP

And if you love one particular filter, iOS 10 lets you keep it turned on
all the time. Open Settings ÆPhotos & Camera Æ Preserve Settings
and turn on Photo Filter.

Live Photos (iPhone SE, 6s, and 7)
A Live Photo is a weird new entity: a still photo with a 3-second video
attached (with sound). You can take them only with the SE, 6s, or 7
phones, but you can play them back on any iPhone or the Mac.
What you’re getting is 1.5 seconds before the moment you snapped the
photo, plus 1.5 seconds after. In the Camera app, the u icon at the top
lets you know whether or not you’re about to capture the 3-second video
portion when you take a still. (The factory setting, yellow, means On.)
TIP: When you take a Live Photo, remember to hold the phone still both
before and after you tap the u button! That’s when the phone is
recording those 3 seconds of video.
A yellow “Live” label appears for 3 seconds, while the video is being
captured. That’s a warning to keep the phone still longer than you
ordinarily would, so that it can complete the video capture. (If you
forget, and you drop your hand too soon, iOS is smart enough to
autodelete the blurry garbage that results at the end of the shot.)

Now, your obvious concern might be file size. “The iPhone takes
12-megapixel photos,” you might say. “Well, video has 30 frames a
second! One Live Photo must take up 90 times as much storage as a still
image!”

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Fortunately, no. The actual photo is a full 12-megapixel shot. But the
other frames of the Live Photo contain only enough pixels to fill the
phone’s screen—not even 1 megapixel per frame. (And a Live Photo
stores only 15 frames a second, not 30.) Overall, an entire Live Photo
takes up about twice as much space as a still photo.
That’s still around 4 megabytes a shot, though, so be careful about leaving Live Photos turned on for everyday shooting. To prevent it from
turning itself back on again every time you open the Camera app, open
Settings Æ Photos & Camera Æ Preserve Settings and turn on Live Photo.

Reviewing Live Photos
As you flick through the photos you’ve taken (in the Photos app),
you’ll know when a photo is a Live Photo; you’ll see it animate for a
half-second.
To play the full 3-second video with sound, press hard on it with your finger. (See page 35 for more on force-touching.)
NOTE: The SE doesn’t offer 3D Touch, but you can long-press a Live
Photo you’ve shot to make it move.

Sharing Live Photos
But what happens if you try to send a Live Photo to some other device?
Well, first of all, you’ll know that you’re about to share a Live Photo. After
you tap P, a special “Live” icon, shown on the next page, reminds you.
You can tap to turn off that logo before you send, so that you’re sharing
only the still photo.

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NOTE: You can’t email a Live Photo with its video intact. Even if you
send it to another iPhone SE, 6s, or 7, only the still image survives
the journey.
On the other hand, you can post Live Photos to Facebook and
Tumblr, where they “play” just fine. And a free app called Motion
Stills turns Live Photos into GIFs or movies that you can edit
outside the Photos app—and even import into iMovie for even
more advanced editing.

If you proceed with the Live Photo turned on, what happens next
depends on what kind of device receives it.
If it’s running recent Apple software (iOS 9 or later, OS X El Capitan or
later), then the Live Photo video plays on that gadget, too. On the Mac, in
Photos, click Live Photo to play it. On an iPad or older iPhone, hold your
finger down on it to play it back.
What if it’s a device or software program that doesn’t know about
Live Photos—if you send it as a text message, for example, or open it
in Photoshop? Behind the scenes, a Live Photo has two elements: a
12-megapixel JPEG still image and a 3-second QuickTime movie. In these
situations, only the JPEG image arrives at the other end.

Portrait Mode
The 7 Plus has two camera lenses: one wider angle, the other a 2x zoom.
Clever software lets you blend the zoom to any degree between them
(page 269).
But the two-lens setup has a second benefit: It lets the camera tell the
foreground subject apart from its background. And with that knowledge,

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the phone can create a soft blurry-background look. Shown below at left,
the original shot; at right, the blurred one:
Ordinarily, you see that look only in professional photos, or at least photos taken with big black SLR cameras using high-aperture lenses (f/1.8,
for example). But now you can do it with your phone.
The blur in this case is not optically created, the way an SLR makes it.
This is a glorified Photoshop filter; it’s done with software.
Still, the effect generally looks fantastic, even when the outline of the
subject is complex (like frizzy hair).

Once you’ve scrolled through the Camera app’s modes to Portrait, point
the camera at someone who’s standing between 15 inches and 8 feet
away. You see the background blur, right there in the preview image. Take
the shot.
If a second person is standing within the range, you can tap the screen to
make that person the subject.
In SettingsÆPhotos & Camera, you can turn on Keep Normal Photos
for this depth effect. It means, “For each Portrait photo I take, save two
images—one with and one without the blur.”
Now, Portrait mode doesn’t always work. It can get confused when the
light is dim, like in a bar or restaurant; when the subject is covered with
a repeating pattern; when your subject is reflective, like a shiny bottle;
or when your subject is not in that 15-inches-to-8-feet range. In those
instances, you may get bleed blur, where the blurriness leaks into the
subject like some kind of hideous, detail-eating virus.
As long as the light and the distance are right, though, the results are
surprisingly good.
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Soon, the Flickrs and Facebooks of the world will start teeming with
great-looking, blurry-background photos—taken by iPhones.

Square Mode
No longer do you have to download a special app (*cough* Instagram
*cough*) just to take perfectly square photos, the way all the cool kids do
these days. Just swipe across the screen until you enter Square mode.
In Square mode, the photos the Camera app takes are square instead of
rectangular (4 × 3 proportions). Otherwise, everything you’ve read in this
chapter, and will read, is exactly the same in Square mode.

Pano Mode
Here’s one of the best camera features of the iPhone: panoramic photographs. The iPhone lets you capture a 240-degree, ultra-wide-angle
photo (63 megapixels on the 6s and 7!) by swinging the phone around
you in an arc. The phone creates the panorama in real time; you don’t
have to line up the sections yourself.

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TIP: On the iPhone 5s and later, the Panorama mode smoothly adjusts
the exposure of the scene as you pan. That fixes one of the most
frustrating aspects of other cameras, which use the same exposure
all the way across their panoramas; you discover that the sunlit part
of the scene is blown out and the shadowy parts are way too dark.

Next time you’re standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon—or anything
else that requires a really wide or tall angle—keep this feature in mind.
In the Camera app, swipe leftward until you reach Pano mode.
TIP: The big white arrow tells you which way to move the phone. But you
can reverse it (the direction) just by tapping it (the arrow) before
you begin.

Tap ' (or press a volume key). Now, as instructed by the screen, swing
the phone around you—smoothly and slowly, please. You can pan either
horizontally or (to capture something very tall) vertically.
As you go, the screen gives you three kinds of feedback:
• It says “Slow down” if you start swinging too fast. Truth is, as far as
the iPhone is concerned, the slower the better.
• It says “Move up” or “Move down” if you’re not keeping the phone
level. Use the big white arrow itself like a carpenter’s level; you’ll leave
the center line if you’re not staying level as you move your arm.
• The preview of your panorama builds itself as you move. That is,
you’re seeing the final product, in miniature, while you’re still taking it.
You’ll probably find that 240 degrees—the maximum—is a really wide
angle. You’ll feel twisted at the waist. But you can end the panorama at
any stage, just by tapping the S button.
At that point, you’ll find that the iPhone has taken a very wide, amazingly
seamless photograph at very high resolution (over 16,000 pixels wide). If
a panorama is too wide, you can crop it, as described later in this chapter.

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If you snap a real winner, you can print it out at a local or online graphics shop, frame it, and hang it above the entire length of your living-room
couch.

Video Mode
The iPhone can record sharp, colorful video. It’s at the best flavor of high
definition (1080p), or even 4K (on the 6s and 7 models)—and it’s stabilized to prevent hand jerkiness, just like a real camcorder. The 5s offers
a gorgeous, 120-frames-per-second slow-motion mode that turns even
frenzied action into graceful, liquidy visual ballet; the 6 and later models
can manage 240 frames per second, for even more fluid, slowed-down
videos.
Using video is almost exactly like taking stills. Open the Camera app.
Swipe to the right until you’ve selected Video mode. You can hold the
iPhone either vertically or horizontally while you film. But if you hold it
upright, most people on the Internet will spit on you; tall-and-thin videos don’t fit the world’s horizontal screens, including YouTube, laptops,
and TVs.
TIP: When you switch from still-photo mode to video, you may notice
that the video image on the screen suddenly jumps bigger, as
though it’s zooming in. And it’s true: The iPhone is oddly more
“zoomed in” in camcorder mode than in camera mode.

Tap to compute focus, exposure, and white balance, as described on
the previous pages. (You can even hold your finger down to trigger the
exposure and focus locks, or drag the tiny yellow sun to adjust exposure
manually, as described earlier.)

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Then tap Record (')—or press a volume key—and you’re rolling! As you
film, a time counter ticks away at the top.

A Note About Resolution—and 4K Video
Video generally plays back at 30 frames a second. But the iPhone 6 and
later models can do something only expensive cameras do: They can
record and play back 60 frames a second. Video you shoot this way has
a smoothness and clarity that’s almost surreal. (It also takes up twice as
much space on your phone.)
The on/off switch for 60 fps is in SettingsÆPhotos & Camera. Turn on
Record at 60 FPS. Experiment; see if you feel that the result is worth the
sacrifice of storage space.
This is also, by the way, where you turn on 4K video recording on the 6s
and 7 models.
4K televisions, also called Ultra HD, are TV sets with four times as many
tiny pixels as an HDTV set, for four times the clarity. Eventually, there will
be 4K televisions, 4K computer screens, 4K camcorders, and even 4K
phone screens. For now, though, 4K screens are fairly rare—and shows to
watch in 4K are rarer still.
4K shooting is not the factory setting for the iPhone 6s and 7, and that’s
a good thing; 4K takes up a huge amount of storage space (375 megabytes a minute).
Furthermore, you probably don’t have anywhere to play back 4K video
you’ve captured with this phone! Paradoxically, the iPhone itself doesn’t
have enough pixels to play 4K video. And don’t think you can play them
to your TV wirelessly using an Apple TV; even the Apple TV can’t handle
4K TV.
You can post 4K video to YouTube—but even then, very few people have
computer screens or TV screens capable of playing it back in 4K.

Things to Do While You’re Rolling
Once you’ve begun capturing video, don’t think your work is done. You
can have all kinds of fun during the recording. For example:
• Change focus. You can change focus while you’re filming, which is
great when you’re panning from a nearby object to a distant one.
Refocusing is automatic, just as it is on camcorders—and it’s especially quick and smooth on the iPhone 6 and later models. But you
can also force a refocusing (for example, when the phone is focusing
on the wrong thing) by tapping in your “viewfinder” to specify a new

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focus point. The iPhone recalculates the focus, white balance, and
exposure at that point, just as it does when you’re taking stills.
• Change exposure. While you’re recording, you can drag your finger
up or down to make the scene brighter or dimmer.
• Zoom in. You can zoom in while you’re rolling, up to 3x actual size.
Just spread two fingers on the screen, like you would to magnify a
photo. Pinch two fingers to zoom out again. (On the iPhone 7 Plus,
you can either do that two-finger spreading or drag the little 1x button to the left, as described on page 270.)
TIP: Once you start to zoom, a zoom slider appears on the screen. It’s
much easier to zoom smoothly by dragging its handle than it is to
use a two-finger pinch or spread.
So here’s a smart idea: Zoom in slightly before you start recording,
so that the zoom slider appears on the screen. Then, during the
shot, drag its handle to zoom in, as smoothly as you like.

• Take a still photo. Yes, you can even snap still photos while you’re
capturing video. Just tap the ' that appears while you’re filming.
Awesome.
NOTE: The pictures you take while filming don’t have the same
dimensions as the ones you take in Photo mode. These have 16:9
proportions, just like the video; they’re not as tall as still photos.

When you’re finished recording, tap Stop (S). The iPhone stops recording and plays a chime; it’s ready to record another shot.
There’s no easier-to-use camcorder on earth. And what a lot of capacity! Each individual shot can be an hour long—and on the 256-gigabyte
iPhone, you can record 136 hours of video. Just long enough to capture
the entire elementary-school talent show.

The Front Camera
You can film yourself, too. Just tap z before you film to make the iPhone
use its front-mounted camera, so that the screen shows you. The resolution isn’t as high (the video isn’t as sharp) as what the back camera captures, but it’s still high definition.

The Video Light
You know the LED “flash” on the back of the phone? You can use it as
a video light, too, supplying some illumination to subjects within about
5 feet or so. Just tap the ¸ icon and then tap On before you start captur-

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ing. (Alas, you have to turn the light on before you start rolling. You can’t
turn it on or off in the middle of a shot.)

Slo-Mo Mode
If you have a 5s or later, your Camera app has an additional mode called
Slo-Mo. (Swipe the screen to the right until Slo-Mo is selected.)
Capturing video in this mode is exactly like capturing video the regular
way—but, behind the scenes, the phone is recording 120 or 240 frames a
second instead of the usual 30.
NOTE: The iPhone 5s records at 120 frames a second. The iPhone 6 and
later, however, can record at either 120 or 240 frames per second.
You make your choice in SettingsÆPhotos & Camera.

When you open the captured movie to watch it, you’ll see something
startling and beautiful: The clip plays at full speed for 1 second, slows
down to one-quarter or one-eighth speed, and, for the final second,
accelerates back to full speed. It’s a great way to study sports action,
cannonball dives, and shades of expression in a growing smile.
What you may not realize, however, is that you can adjust where the
slow-motion effect begins and ends in the clip. When you open the video
for playback and then hit Edit, a strange kind of ruler track appears just
below it. Drag the vertical handles inward or outward to change the spot
where the slow motion begins and ends.
At the very bottom of the screen is a second, taller strip; you use this one
to trim the ends off the video (see below) or to scroll quickly through the
clip to see where you are.

Time-Lapse Mode
Whereas Slo-Mo mode is great for slowing down fast scenes, the TimeLapse mode speeds up slow scenes: flowers growing, ice melting, candles burning, and so on.
Actually, this mode might better be called hyperlapse. Time-lapse implies
that the camera is locked down while recording. But in a hyperlapse
video, the camera is moving. This mode works great for bike rides, hikes,
drives, plane trips, and so on; it compresses even multihour events down
to under a minute of playback, with impressive smoothness.
So how much does the Time-Lapse mode speed up the playback?
Answer: It varies. The longer you shoot, the greater the speed-up. The
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app accelerates every recording enough to play back in 20 to 40 seconds, whether you film for 1 minute, 100 minutes, or 1,000 minutes.
If you film for less than 20 seconds, your video plays back at 15 times
original speed. But you can film for much, much longer, like 30 hours or
more. Time-Lapse mode speeds up the result from 15x, 240x, 960x—
whatever it takes to produce a 20- to 40-second playback.

Trimming a Video
To review whatever video you’ve just shot, tap the ` thumbnail icon at
the lower corner of the screen. You’ve just opened up the video playback
screen. Tap ÷ to play the video.
At this point, if you tap the Edit button (�), you can trim off the dead
air at the beginning and the end.
To do that, drag the q and Q markers (currently at the outer ends of the
little filmstrip) inward so that they turn yellow, as shown below. Adjust
them, hitting ÷ to see the effect as you go.

TIP: You can drag the playback cursor—the vertical white bar that
indicates your position in the clip—with your finger. That’s the
closest thing you get to Rewind and Fast-Forward buttons. (In fact,
you may have to move it out of the way before you can move the
end handles for trimming.)

When you’ve positioned the handles so that they isolate the good stuff,
tap Done. Finally, tap either Trim Original (meaning “Shorten the original

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clip permanently”) or Save as New Clip (meaning “Leave the original
untouched, and spin out the shortened version as a separate video, just
in case”).

iMovie for iPhone
Of course, there’s more to editing than just snipping dead air from the
ends of a clip. That’s why Apple made iMovie for iPhone. It’s free on a
new iPhone or $5 if it didn’t come with your phone.

Editing Photos
Yes, kids, it’s true: You can crop and edit your pictures right on the phone.
The tools Apple gives you in the Photos app aren’t exactly Photoshop,
but they come surprisingly close. And in iOS 10, you can use all of them
on Live Photos without affecting their “liveness.”
TIP: Whenever you’re in editing mode, tap the screen for a momentary
flashback to the original image. Great for A/B comparisons.

To edit a photo, tap its thumbnail (anywhere in the Photos app) to open
it. Tap anywhere to make the controls appear; tap � at the bottom.
Now you get a set of unlabeled buttons. Between Cancel and Done, you’ll
find the Crop/Straighten, Filters, and Adjust Color buttons; on the opposite side of the photo, there’s Auto-Enhance and, on certain iPhone 6s
and 7 shots, Live Photo Off. Read on.

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NOTE: All the changes described on these pages are nondestructive.
That is, the Photos app never forgets the original photo. At any
time, hours or years later, you can return to the Edit screen and
undo the changes you’ve made (tap Revert). You can recrop the
photo back to its original size, for example, or turn off the AutoEnhance button. In other words, your changes are never really
permanent.

Auto-Enhance (°)
When you tap this magical button, the iPhone analyzes the relative
brightness of all the pixels in your photo and attempts to “balance” it.
After a moment, the app adjusts the brightness and contrast and intensifies dull or grayish-looking areas. Usually, the pictures look richer and
more vivid as a result.
You may find that Auto-Enhance has little effect on some photos, only
minimally improves others, and totally rescues a few. In any case, if you
don’t care for the result, you can tap the ° button again to turn AutoEnhance off.

Adjust Color (2)
The people have spoken: They want control over color, white balance,
tint, and so on.
So when you tap 2, you’re offered three adjustment categories: Light,
Color, and B&W.
When you tap one of these categories, you see a “filmstrip” below or
beside your photo. You can drag your finger across it, watching the
effect on your photo.

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As it turns out, each of these sliders controls a handful of variables, all
of which it’s changing simultaneously. For example, adjusting the Light
slider affects the exposure, contrast, brights, and darks all at once (below,
left).
Intriguingly, you can tap ≤ or Ç to see how the master slider has
affected these qualities—or even adjust these sub-sliders yourself (below,
right). For example:
• Light. When you drag your finger along the Light filmstrip, you’re
adjusting the exposure and contrast of the photo. Often, a slight
tweak is all it takes to bring a lot more detail out of the shot.
TIP: Actually, when you’re making any of the adjustments described on
these pages, you don’t have to drag across the filmstrip. You can
drag your finger left or right across the photo itself—a bigger target.

For much finer control, tap the ≤ or Ç icon. You open your “drawer”
of additional controls: Brilliance (a new iOS 10 slider that, Apple says,
“brightens dark areas and pulls in highlights to reveal hidden detail”),
Exposure (adjusts the brightness of all pixels), Highlights (pulls lost
details out of very bright areas), Shadows (pulls lost details out of
very dark areas), Brightness (like Exposure, but doesn’t brighten parts
that are already bright), Contrast (heightens the difference between

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the brightest and darkest areas), and Black Point (determines what is
“black”; shifts the entire dark/light range upward or downward). Once
again, you drag your finger along the “film strip” to watch the effect
on your photo.
• Color. The Color filmstrip adjusts the tint and intensity of the photos’
colors. Here again, just a nudge can sometimes liven a dull photo or
make blue skies “pop” just a little more.
Tap ≤ or Ç to see the three sliders that make up the master Color
control. They are Saturation (intensity of the colors—from vivid
fake-looking Disney all the way down to black and white), Contrast
(deepens the most saturated colors), and Cast (adjusts the color tint
of the photo, making it warmer or darker overall).

• B&W stands for black and white. The instant you touch this filmstrip,
your photo goes monochrome, like a black-and-white photo. It’s hard
to describe exactly what happens when you drag your finger—you
just have to try it—except to note that the app plays with the relative
tones of blacks, grays, and whites, creating variations on the blackand-white theme.
Tap ≤ or Ç to see the component sliders: Intensity (the strength of
the lightening/darkening effect), Neutrals (brightness of the middle
grays), Tone (intensifies the brightest and darkest areas), and Grain

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(simulates the “grain”—the texture—of film prints; the farther you
move the slider, the higher the “speed of the film” and the more visible the grain).
TIP: You can perform all these adjustments with the phone held either
horizontally or vertically. The filmstrip jumps to the right side or the
bottom of the screen accordingly.

At any point, you can back out of what you’re doing by tapping Ç. For
example, if you’re fiddling with one of the Color sub-sliders (Contrast or
Saturation, for example), tapping Ç returns you to the view of the three
master sliders (Light, Color, and B&W).
And, of course, you can tap Cancel to abandon your editing altogether,
or Done to save the edited photo and close the editing controls.
It might seem a little silly trying to perform these Photoshop-like tweaks
on a tiny phone screen, but the power is here if you need it.

Filters (A)
Filters are effects that make a photo black and white, oversaturated, or
washed out. If you have an iPhone 5 or later, you can apply a filter as you
take the picture (page 276); no matter which phone you have, though,
you can apply a filter to an existing photo here.
Tap the A button to view a horizontally scrolling row of filter buttons.
Tap each to see what it looks like on your photo; finish up by tapping
Apply or Cancel. (You can always restore the photo’s original look later—
by returning to this screen and tapping None.)

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(Don’t these filters more or less duplicate the effects of the Light, Color,
and B&W sliders described already? Yes. But filters produce canned, onetap, instant changes that don’t require as much tweaking.)
TIP: It may look like you’ve just filtered that picture forever. But in fact
you can return to it later and apply the None filter to it, thereby
restoring it to its original, pristine condition.

Remove Red Eye (ª)
Red eye is a common problem in flash photography. This creepy, possessed look—devilish, glowing-red pupils in your subjects’ eyes—has
ruined many an otherwise great photo.
Red eye is caused by light reflected back from eyes. The bright light of
your flash illuminates the blood-red retinal tissue at the back of the eyes.
That’s why red-eye problems are worse when you shoot pictures in a dim
room: Your subjects’ pupils are dilated, allowing even more light from
your flash to reach their retinas.
The Red-Eye button appears only if the phone detects that the flash fired
when the photo was taken. (It appears at top left on the iPhone 6 and
later, or top middle on earlier models.)
When you tap this button, a message says “Tap each red-eye.” Do what
it says: Tap with your finger inside each eye that has the problem. A little
white ring appears around the pupil (unless you missed, in which case
the ring shudders side to side, as though saying, “Nope”)—and the app
turns the red in each eye to black.
TIP: It helps to zoom in first. Use the usual two-finger spread technique.

Crop/Straighten (Ž)
This button opens a crazy editing screen where you can adjust the size,
shape, and angle of the photo.
When you tap Ž, iOS analyzes whatever horizontal lines it finds in the
photo—the horizon, for example—and uses it as a guide to straightening
the photo automatically.
It’s very smart, as you can see on the next page. See how the photo has
been tilted slightly—and enlarged slightly to fill the frame without leaving
triangular gaps?

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You can reject the iPhone’s proposal (tap Reset). Or you can tilt the
photo more or less (drag your finger across the round scale), up to 90
degrees.
If you want to rotate the photo more than 90 degrees—for example, if
the camera took it sideways—tap 5 as many times as necessary to turn
the picture upright.
The other work you can do in this mode is cropping.
Cropping means shaving off unnecessary portions of a photo. Usually,
you crop a photo to improve its composition—adjusting where the subject appears within the frame of the picture. Often, a photo has more
impact if it’s cropped tightly around the subject, especially in portraits.
Or maybe you want to crop out wasted space, like big expanses of background sky. If necessary, you can even chop a former romantic interest
out of an otherwise perfect family portrait.
Cropping is also very useful if your photo needs to have a certain aspect
ratio (length-to-width proportion), like 8 × 10 or 5 × 7.
To crop a photo you’ve opened, tap the Ž. A white border appears
around your photo. Drag inward on any edge or corner. The part of the
photo that the iPhone will eventually trim away is darkened. You can
recenter the photo within your cropping frame by dragging any part of
the photo, inside or outside the white box. Adjust the frame and drag the
photo until everything looks just right.
Ordinarily, you can create a cropping rectangle of any size and proportions, freehand. But if you tap 4, you get a choice of eight canned proportions: Square, 3 × 2, 3 × 5, 4 × 3, and so on. They make the app limit the
cropping frame to preset proportions.

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This aspect-ratio feature is especially important if you plan to order
prints of your photos. Prints come only in standard photo sizes: 4 × 6,
5 × 7, 8 × 10, and so on. But unless you crop them, the iPhone’s photos are
all 3 × 2, which doesn’t divide evenly into most standard print photograph
sizes. Limiting your cropping to one of these standard sizes guarantees
that your cropped photos will fit perfectly into Kodak prints. (If you don’t
constrain your cropping this way, then Kodak—not you—will decide how
to crop them to fit.)
TIP: The Original option here maintains the proportions of the original
photo even as you make the grid smaller.

When you tap one of the preset sizes, the cropping frame stays in those
proportions as you drag its edges. It’s locked in those proportions unless
you tap 4 and choose a different setting.

Marking Up Your Photos
Here’s an iOS 10 special that nobody saw coming: You can now draw or
type on your photos, right from within the Photos app.
To access this new mode once you’re in editing mode, tap 3 and then
Markup.
In this new mode, you get a choice of three creative tools, plus Undo:
• Draw. Tap a colored dot to choose the ink color for your “pen.” Tap
the � button for a menu of line thicknesses—or, on 6s and 7 models, press harder as you draw to get a thicker line. You can use the ∞
(Undo button) as often as you mess up.

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Once you’ve drawn a line, a weird little two-button panel appears. It
lets you convert the line or shape you just drew into vector art lines—
editable, smooth, perfect, computer-generated line segments.
Tap the left side to leave the line as pixels. If you tap the right side, the
line snaps into a computer-generated circle, square, or line segment
(whichever most closely matches your doodle). You can drag its tiny
handles to enlarge, move, or reshape this element, or change its color
or line thickness (at least until you tap Done). Tap the screen to exit
editing mode and draw another line.
NOTE: If you tap a shape you just drew, some buttons appear above
it: Delete, Duplicate, and—if you’ve turned your scribble into a
vector drawing—Edit. Edit, in this case, means “add some text
inside the shape.”

• Enlarge a detail. Tap the center � button to slap a magnified circular
area onto your photo. Drag the blue handle to adjust the circle’s size;
drag the green one to adjust the degree of magnification inside it.
And drag inside the circle to move it.
Undo

Draw

Enlarge a detail

Add text

Type controls

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NOTE: You’re not enlarging this for your own editing purposes; this
magnified area will stay magnified when you send the photo. It’s
for calling your correspondent’s attention to some detail.

• Superimpose text. The third button (�) adds a text box to the
photo. Double-tap inside the box to summon the keyboard so that
you can edit the “Text” dummy text (then tap Done). Drag the tiny
blue handles to adjust the shape of the box; drag inside to move the
box. Tap a color dot to change the color; tap � for a menu of font,
type size, and paragraph-justification options, as shown on the previous page.

Handing Off to Other Editing Apps
OK, Apple: Who are you, and what have you done with the company that
used to believe in closed systems?
Maybe you’re a fan of Camera+, Fragment, or some other photo app. Its
tools can seem as though they’re built right into the Photos app.
Here’s the drill: Open a photo in Photos. Tap �. Tap 3. Now you see the
icons of all apps on your phone that have been updated to work with this
feature, which Apple calls Extensibility.
The photo opens immediately in the app you choose, with all of its editing features available. You can freely bounce back and forth between
Apple’s editor and its competitors’.

Saving Your Changes
Once you’ve rotated, cropped, auto-enhanced, or de-red-eyed a photo,
tap the Done button. You’ve just made your changes permanent.
Or, rather, you’ve made them temporarily permanent. As noted, you can
return to an edited photo at any time to undo the changes you’ve made
(tap Revert). When you send the photo off the phone (by email, to your
computer, whatever), that copy freezes the edits in place—but the copy
on your phone is still revertable.
TIP: If you sync your photos to Photos, iPhoto, or Aperture on the
Mac (over a cable), they show up in their edited condition. Yet,
amazingly, you can undo or modify the edits there! The original
photo is still lurking behind the edited version. You can use your
Mac’s Crop tool to adjust the crop, for example. Or you can use
iPhoto’s Revert to Original command to throw away all the edits you
made to the original photo while it was on the iPhone.
(If you transfer the photos using email, AirDrop, or Messages,
however, you get only the finished JPEG image; you can’t rewind the
changes.)

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Managing and Sharing Photos
Once you’ve taken some photos, or copied them to your phone from
your computer (see page 519), you’ll have some pictures ready to view.
You can learn how to edit them to perfection starting on page 287.
But the Photos app has another job: presenting them, sharing them, and
slideshowing them for all your fans.
TIP: The Photos app is fully rotational. That is, you can turn the phone 90
degrees. Whether you’re viewing a list, a screen full of thumbnails, or
an individual photo, the image on the screen rotates, too, for easier
admiring. (Unless, of course, you’ve turned on the rotation lock, as
described on page 25.)

At the bottom of the Photos app screen, four tabs lie in wait: Photos,
Memories, Shared, and Albums. The next few sections explain what
they do.

The Photos Tab
In the olden days, the Photos app displayed all your photos—thousands
of them—in one endless, hopeless, scrolling mass. If you were hunting
for a particular shot, you had to study the thumbnails with an electron
microscope to find it.
Now, though, iOS groups them intelligently into sets that are easy to navigate. Here they are, from smallest to largest:
• Moments. A moment is a group of photos you took in one place
at one time—for example, all the shots at the picnic by the lake.
The phone even uses its GPS to give each moment a name: “San
Francisco, California (Union Square),” for example.
TIP: If you tap a Moment’s name, a map opens up; little photo thumbnails
show exactly where these pictures were taken. Slick!

• Collections. Put a bunch of moments together, and what do you get?
A collection. Here again, the phone tries to study the times and places
of your photo taking—but this time it puts them into groups that
might span a few days and several locations. You might discover that
your entire spring vacation is a single collection, for example.
• Years. If you “zoom out” of your photos far enough, you wind up
viewing them by year: 2014, 2015, 2016, and so on.

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To “zoom in” from larger groupings to smaller ones (YearsÆCollectionsÆ
Moments), just tap each pile of thumbnails. If you tap a thumbnail on the
Moments screen, you open that photo for viewing.
TIP: When you first open a photo, it appears on a white background. Tap
the photo to change the background to black, which often makes
your photos’ colors look better.

To “zoom out” again, tap the grouping name at top left (Years, for
example).
TIP: If you’ve opened a single photo for examination, you can retreat to
the moment it came from by pinching with two fingers.

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The last technique worth knowing is the Finger Browse. Whenever you’re
looking at a tiny grid of tiny thumbnail images (in a year or collection),
hold your finger down within the batch. A larger thumbnail sprouts from
your finger, as on this sunset shot here—

—and you can slide your finger around within the mosaic to find a particular photo, or batch of them.

The Memories Tab
Here’s a big new feature of iOS 10: Memories. These are automatically
selected groups of pix and videos from certain time periods or trips,
which, with a tap, become gorgeous, musical slideshows. Most people are
pleasantly surprised at how coherent and well-created these are, even
though they’re totally automatic. Photos, short pieces of your videos, and
even scrolling panoramas are all first-class citizens in these slideshows.
Right off the bat, you see a few of Photos’ suggestions, represented as
clearly labeled billboards (“Cape Cod Summer,” “Best of Last Week”…).
Tap to open a Memory; at this point, you can scroll down to see more
about what’s in this Memory. You’ll see the photos that will be in it, as
well as who’s in it (People), and where the photos came from (Places).
At the very bottom, you’ll see the option to Delete Memory or Add to
Favorite Memories; that command adds this slideshow to a new folder on
the Albums tab called Favorite Memories, for quick access later.
Anyway, the real fun begins when you tap 2 to start an instant slideshow.
They’re usually fantastic.

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When you come back to your senses, note that you can tap the screen
for some quick editing options. Drag horizontally to change the animation/music style (Dreamy, Sentimental, Gentle, Chill, and so on) or the
slideshow length (Short, Medium, Long).
For more detailed editing, tap �. Now you can edit the Memory’s Title
(name and typographical title style), Music (either the app’s selections
or anything from your music library), Duration (dial up any length you
want), or Photos & Videos (tap n to add one, T to delete one).
TIP: When you tap n, the resulting Select Photos screen shows you
thumbnails of all candidate shots; checkmarks indicate the ones
that Photos has chosen to include. Not only does this screen make
it quick and easy to adjust which photos and videos appear in the
Memory, but it also shows you how clever and selective Photos has
been in the first place.

Once you’ve got a really killer Memory on your hands, by the way, don’t
miss the option to send it to other people as a standalone video. While a
Memory slideshow is playing, tap it to reveal the P button at the top.

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The Albums Tab
(The third tab is actually the Shared tab, but we’re skipping over it for
now; see page 318.)
The Albums tab is a scrolling list of specialized photo “folders” like these:
• All Photos. Yup—everything on your phone, including videos.
• Favorites. This folder gives you quick access to your favorite photos. And how does the phone know which photos are your favorites?
Easy: You’ve told it. You’ve tapped the 6 icon under a photo, anywhere within the Photos app. (Favorites must be photos you’ve taken
with the phone, not transferred from your computer.)
• Favorite Memories appears only if you have, in fact, designated a
Memory slideshow as a favorite (page 299).
• People. Impressively enough, Photos can auto-group the people in
your photos, using facial recognition. Once you’ve given the software
a running start, it can find those people in the rest of your photo collection automatically. That’s handy every now and then—when you
need a photo of your kid for a school project, for example.

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To see it at work, tap People. Here are thumbnails representing the
faces Photos has found and grouped, complete with a tally of how
many photos Photos has found. At the top, you see people you’ve
designated as Favorites.
Tap a thumbnail to see all the photos of this person. Scroll wayyyyy
down to Confirm Additional Photos (Photos shows you other photos
one at a time and asks, “Is this the same person?”); Favorite (or Unfavorite) This Person, and Add to Memories (creates a new Memory
slideshow just of this person).
TIP: This feature doesn’t work until the iPhone has analyzed your photos,
which can take at least a day. Apple proudly points out that all this
analysis is done on your phone. (That’s in contrast to a service like
Google Photos, which offers similar features but requires Google to
access your photo library.)

If you don’t see a thumbnail for a certain someone, scroll down and
tap the n button to start the process of rounding up his or her pictures.

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• Places. Every photo you take with a smartphone (and a few very
fancy cameras) gets geotagged—stamped, behind the scenes, with its
geographic coordinates. When you tap Places in the Albums list, you
see a map, dotted with clusters of photos you took in each place. Tap
one to see the photos you took there.
• Videos, Selfies, Panoramas, Videos, Time-Lapse, Slo-Mo, Depth
Effect, Bursts, Screenshots. As a convenience to you, these categories give you one-tap shopping for everything you’ve captured using
the Camera app’s specialized picture and video modes. (Depth Effect
appears only on the iPhone 7 Plus; it contains shots you’ve taken
using Portrait mode [page 278].)
Super handy when you’re trying to show someone your latest timelapse masterpiece, for example; now you know where to look for it.
• Recently Deleted. Even after you think you’ve deleted a photo or
video from your phone, you have 30 days to change your mind.
Deleted pictures and videos sit in this folder, quietly counting down to
their own doomsdays.
If you wind up changing your mind, you can open Recently Deleted,
tap the photo you’d condemned, and tap Recover. It pops back into
its rightful place in the Photos app, saved from termination.
On the other hand, you can also zap a photo into oblivion immediately. Tap to open it, tap Delete, and then confirm with Delete Photo.
If you tap Select, you can also hit Delete All or Recover All.
• My Albums. Here you get a list of albums that you’ve created (or copied to the phone from your Mac or PC).
As you’d guess, you can drill down from any of these groupings to a
screen full of thumbnails, and from there to an individual photo.
TIP: If you hold your finger down on the photo or even its thumbnail, a
Copy button appears. That’s one way to prepare for pasting a single
photo into an email message, an MMS (picture or video) message to
another phone, and so on.

Creating and Deleting Albums
You can manually add selected photos into new albums—a great way to
organize a huge batch you’ve shot on vacation, for example.
To do that, open any one of your existing albums (including All Photos);
tap Select; and then tap (or drag through) all the photos you want to

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move to a new or different album. Tap Add To at the bottom of the
screen.
You’re now offered an Add to Album screen. Tap the album into which
you want to move these pictures. (If albums are dimmed, that’s because
they’ve been synced from your Mac or PC. You’re not allowed to mess
with them. The canned specialty-photo folders, like Panorama and TimeLapse, are also dimmed, because only iOS can put things into those folders, and it does that automatically.)
This list also includes a New Album button; you’re asked to type the
name you want for the new album and then tap Save.
NOTE: These buttons don’t actually move photos out of their original
albums. You’re creating aliases of them—pointers to the original
photos. If you edit a photo from one album, it’s edited in all of
them.

To delete an album you created on the phone, start on the main Albums
tab. Tap Edit, and then tap the – button next to the album you want to
delete.

Hide a Photo
Here’s a quirky little feature: It’s now possible to hide a photo from the
Photos tab (Moments, Collections, and Years), so that it appears only on
the Albums tab (in your albums and in a special Hidden folder).
Apple noticed that lots of people use their phones to take screenshots
of apps, pictures of whiteboards or diagrams, shots of package labels or
parking-garage signs, and so on. These images aren’t scenic or lovely;
they’re not memories; they don’t look good (or serve much purpose)
when they appear nestled in with your shots-to-remember in Moments,
Collections, and Years. (Hidden photos don’t appear in slideshows,
either.)
Open the photo and then tap the P button; in the Sharing options that
appear, tap Hide. To confirm, tap Hide Photo.
Whatever photos you hide go to a new folder on the Albums tab—called,
of course, Hidden, so that you can find them easily. From here, you can
unhide a shot the same way: Hit P and then Unhide.

Flicking, Rotating, Zooming, Panning
Once a photo is open at full size, you have your chance to perform the
four most famous and most dazzling tricks of the iPhone: flicking, rotating, zooming, and panning a photo.

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• Flicking horizontally is how you advance to the next/previous picture
or movie in the batch.
• Zooming a photo means magnifying it, and it’s a blast. One quick way
is to double-tap the photo; the iPhone zooms in on the portion you
tapped, doubling its size.
Another technique is to use the two-finger spread, which gives you
more control over what gets magnified and by how much.

(If you’ve brought in photos from your computer, note that the iPhone
doesn’t store the giganto 20-megapixel originals you took with your
fancy camera. It keeps only scaled-down, iPhone-sized versions, so
you can’t zoom in more than about three times the original size.)
Once you’ve spread a photo bigger, you can then pinch to scale it
down again. Or just double-tap to restore the original size. (You don’t
have to restore a photo to original size before advancing to the next
one, though; if you flick enough times, you’ll pull the next photo onto
the screen.)
• Panning is moving a photo around on the screen after you’ve zoomed
in. Just drag your finger to do that; no scroll bars are necessary.
• Rotating is what you do when a horizontal photo or video appears on
the upright iPhone, which makes the photo look small and fills most
of the screen with blackness.
Just turn the iPhone 90 degrees in either direction. Like magic, the
photo rotates and enlarges to fill its new, wider canvas. No taps
required. (This doesn’t work when the phone is flat on its back—on
a table, for example. It has to be more or less upright. It also doesn’t
work when Portrait Orientation is locked.)
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This trick also works the other way: You can make a vertical photo fit
better by turning the iPhone upright.
TIP: When the iPhone is rotated, all the controls and gestures reorient
themselves. For example, flicking right to left still brings on the next
photo, even if you’re now holding the iPhone the wide way.

Finding Photos
There’s a search icon (Â) in Photos, which might seem odd. How can
you search for a blob of pixels? How does the phone know what’s in a
picture?
Artificial intelligence, people. In iOS 10, Apple has given Photos the ability to recognize what’s in your pictures and videos. You can search your
photos for “dog,” or “beach,” or whatever.
To try it out, tap Â at the top of the Photos or Albums screens. Right off
the bat, the phone offers some one-tap canned searches based on locations and dates (like One Year Ago and Home). Tap to see the photos
and videos that match.
To search for something more specific, you can type either of two kinds
of things:
• A place, date, name, or album. Try typing september or tucson or
bay area or 2015, for example. As you type, iOS displays all the photo
groupings that match what you’ve typed so far. Tap that grouping to
see the photo thumbnails within.
TIP: Then again, it’s usually faster to request such photos by voice, using
Siri: “Show me all the photos from Texas in 2015.” See page 165.

• A noun. Here’s the new image-recognition feature. Type the photographic subject you’re seeking, like forest, girl, plane, piano, food,
pizza, mountain, or whatever. In the results list, Photos lists matching pictures under a Category heading, like Pizza Category or Cat
Category (facing page, left). Tap to see what the phone has rounded
up for you (facing page, right).
As you’ll soon discover, Apple’s image recognition software makes a
lot of mistakes; you may well find a bar code or a picket fence in your
Piano category, or a truck in your Cars category. But hey—it’s just
software. Give it some slack.

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TIP: You can also search for the data associated with a photo (time,
place, album name), and combine that with a noun search to
pinpoint a certain photo.

Deleting Photos
If some photo no longer meets your exacting standards, you can delete
it. But this action is trickier than you may think.
• If you took the picture using the iPhone, no sweat. Open the photo;
tap T. When you tap Delete Photo, that picture is gone. Or, rather, it’s
moved to the Recently Deleted folder described on page 303; you
have 30 days to change your mind.
(If you open the photo from the Albums tab instead, you’re just taking the picture out of that album—not actually deleting it from the
phone.)
• If the photo was synced to the iPhone from your computer, well,
that’s life. The iPhone remains a mirror of what’s on the computer.
In other words, you can’t delete the photo from the phone. Instead,
delete it from the original album on your computer (which does not
mean deleting it from the computer altogether). The next time you
sync the iPhone, the photo disappears from it, too.

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Photo Controls
If you tap the screen once after opening a photo, some useful controls
appear. They show up either at the top or bottom of the screen, depending on how you’re holding the phone. (Tap again to hide them and summon a black background, for a more impressive photo presentation.)
• Album name. Here’s the group this photo came from.
• Details. Opens a scrolling screen, new in iOS 10, that explodes with
resources for this photo, like a map of where it was taken (and the
address); links to “related” shots (taken in the same place, or of the
same people); and even a Show Photos from This Day link, which calls
up all the other pictures you took that day.
• Favorite (6). When you find a picture you really love—enough that
you might want to call it up later to show people—tap 6. This photo
or video now appears in the Favorites folder (in the Albums tab of the
Photos app, described earlier), so that it’s easy to find with your other
prize-winners. (The 6 appears only on photos you’ve taken with
the phone—not pictures you’ve imported from computers or other
cameras.)
• Share (P). Tap P if you want to do something more with this photo
than just stare at it. You can use it as your iPhone’s wallpaper, print it,
copy it, text it, send it by email, use it as somebody’s headshot in your
Contacts list, post it on Twitter or Facebook, and so on. These options
are all described in the following pages.
• Date and time. The top of the screen says “September 13, 12:52 pm,”
for example, letting you know when this photo was taken.
• Edit (�). This button is the gateway to the iPhone’s photo-editing
features, described starting on page 287.
• Delete (T). Gets rid of this photo, as described earlier.
• Other photos. At the bottom of the screen, Photos thoughtfully displays a ribbon of tiny thumbnail images (in other words, pinkynail
images). They represent the previous and following photos in this
batch. By tapping or dragging, you can jump to another photo without having to back out of the opened-photo screen.

753 Ways to Use Photos and Videos
It’s great that the iPhone has a great camera. But what’s even greater is
that it’s also a cellphone. It’s online. So once you’ve taken a picture, you

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can do something with it right away. Mail it, text it, post it to Facebook or
Twitter, use it as wallpaper—right from the iPhone.

Step 1: Choose the Photos
Before you can send or post a photo or video, you have to tell iOS which
one (or ones) you want to work with.
To send just one, well, there’s no big mystery; tap its thumbnail, and then
tap P.
But you can also send a bunch of them in a group—whenever you see
a Select button. Tap it and then individually select the photos you want
to send. With each tap, a l appears, meaning, “OK, this one will be
included.” (Tap again to remove the checkmark.)

Step 2: Preparing to Send
Once you’ve opened a photo (or selected a few), tap P.
Now you have a huge array of “send my photo here” options, displayed
in rows.

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At the top of the Share screen, a scrolling row of other pictures appears.
It lets you add more to the one(s) you’ve already selected, or deselect
some that you already did. That’s a lot less crazymaking than having
to cancel out of the Share screen in order to change your selection of
pictures.
TIP: If you’re holding the phone horizontally, select the photos first and
then tap Next to see the sharing icons.

All right, then. Here’s an overview of the options available on the Share
screen.

AirDrop
So very cool: You can shoot a photo, or several, to any nearby iPhone,
iPad, iPod Touch, or Mac—wirelessly, securely, conveniently, and instantly.
See page 348 for the step-by-steps.

Message
This row of Share options lists apps that can receive your photos and
videos.
The Message icon lets you send a photo or video as a picture or video
message. It winds up on the screen of the other guy’s cellphone.
That’s a delicious feature, which people exploit millions of times a day.
NOTE: If you’re sending to another Apple gadget, like an iPhone, iPad,
iPod Touch, or Mac, it will be sent as a free iMessage (assuming
that the recipient has an iCloud account and has turned on the
iMessages option). If you’re sending to a non-Apple cellphone,
it will be a regular MMS message. All of this is described in
Chapter 6.

Tap Message and then specify the phone number of the recipient; if
you’re sending by iMessage, the email address also works. Or choose
someone from your Contacts list. Then type a little note, tap Send, and
off it goes.
NOTE: If you’re sending a video, the iPhone compresses it first so that
it’s small enough to send as a text-message attachment (smaller
dimensions, lower picture quality). Then it attaches the clip to an
outgoing text message; it’s your job to address it.

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Mail
The iPhone automatically rotates and attaches your photos or video
clips to a new outgoing message. All you have to do is address it and hit
Send. If it’s a big file, you may be asked how much you want the photo
scaled down from its original size. Tap Small, Medium, Large, or Actual
Size, using the megabyte indicator as a guide. (Some email systems don’t
accept attachments larger than 5 megabytes.)
(Any video clip you send by email gets compressed—smaller, lower
quality—for the same reason.)

iCloud Photo Sharing
You can share batches of photos or videos with other people, either
directly to their Apple gadgets or to a private web page. What’s more,
they can (at your option) contribute their own pictures to the album.
This is a big topic, though, so it gets its own write-up on page 318.

Add to Notes
Since the Notes app (page 404) can accommodate pasted pix or vids,
why not?
A little box appears, inviting you to type some text into the newly illustrated photo note. You can also plop this picture into either a new note
page or an existing one, using the pop-up menu at lower right (and a lot
of scrolling, since the pop-up menu has room for only four Note-page
names at a time).

Twitter, Facebook, Flickr
If you’ve told your iPhone what your name and password are (in
SettingsÆ Twitter or SettingsÆFacebook or SettingsÆFlickr), then posting a photo from your phone to your Twitter feed, Facebook timeline, or
Flickr collection is ridiculously simple.
Open the photo; tap the P button; tap Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr.
You’re offered the chance to type a message that accompanies your
photo. (As usual with Twitter, you have a maximum of 140 characters for
your message.) You can also tap Add Location if you want Twitterites or
Facebookers to know where the photo was taken.
NOTE: The Add Location option is available only if you’ve permitted
Twitter or Facebook to use your location information, which you
set up in SettingsÆPrivacyÆLocation Services.

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If you’re posting to Facebook, you can also indicate whom you’re sharing this item with—just your friends, everyone, and so on—by tapping
Audience beneath the photo thumbnail. Flickr also offers a chance to
specify which of your Flickr photo sets you want to post to.
When you tap Send or Post, your photo, and your accompanying tweet
or post, zoom off to Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr for all to enjoy.

YouTube, Vimeo
Call up a video, if it’s not already on the screen before you. Tap P. The
Share sheet offers these video-specific buttons:
• YouTube. The iPhone asks for your Google account name and password (Google owns YouTube). Next it wants a title, description, and
tags (searchable keywords like “funny” or “babies”).
It also wants to know if the video will be in standard definition or high
definition (and it gives the approximate size of the file). You should
also pick a Category (Autos & Vehicles, Comedy, Education, or whatever).
Finally, choose from Public (anyone online can search for and view
your video), Unlisted (only people who have the link can view this
video), or Private (only specific YouTubers can view). When everything looks good, tap Publish.
After the upload is complete, you’re offered the chance to see the
video as it now appears on YouTube, or to Tell a Friend (that is, to
email the YouTube link to a pal). Both are excellent ways to make sure
your masterful cinematography gets admired.

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• Vimeo. You’re supposed to have set up your name and password in
Settings for Vimeo (a video site a lot like YouTube, but classier, with a
greater emphasis on quality and artistry).
If you’ve done that, then all you have to do, when posting a video, is
to specify a caption or a description, and then tap Details to choose a
video size and who your audience is (public, private, and so on). Once
you tap Post, your video gets sent on to the great cinema on the web.

Save PDF to iBooks
This button converts whatever photos you’ve selected into a single,
multipage PDF document that opens in iBooks (page 378). In effect, it
creates an ebook of your pictures.
After a moment of conversion, iBooks opens automatically so you can
inspect the results. You can now use all the tools available in iBooks
(bookmarking, annotating, and so on). Better yet, you can send the
resulting PDF document to someone else—a handy way to share a
no-frills batch of pictures.

More
In the modern, extendable iOS, you can hand off a photo to other apps
and services—beyond the set that Apple provides. If you tap More, you
get the screen shown on page 309 at right.
That screen is basically a setup headquarters for the row of “where you
can send photos” icons. Here you can rearrange them (put the ones
you use most often at the top by dragging the H handle); add to the
list (turn on the switches for new, non-Apple photo-sharing apps you’ve
installed); or hide the services you don’t use (turn off the switches). (You
can’t turn off the switches for Message, Mail, and iCloud Photo Sharing.)

Copy
The bottom row of sharing options lists things you can do to the selected
photos.
The Copy button, for example, puts the photo(s) onto the Clipboard,
ready for pasting into another app (an outgoing Mail message, for example). Once you’ve opened an app that can accept pasted graphics, double-tap to make the Paste button appear.

Duplicate
Makes a second copy of the photo. Handy if you intend to edit the original beyond recognition.

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Slideshow
This button instantly generates a gorgeous, musically accompanied, animated slideshow.
After the slideshow has begun, tap Options to see controls like these:
• Themes. A theme is a canned presentation style, incorporating animations, crossfades, and music. Each makes the photos appear, interact,
overlap, and flow away in a different way. You’re offered five choices—
Origami, Dissolve, Push, Magazine, and Ken Burns. (Some of these
display more than one photo at a time.)
• Music. Choose one of the five pieces of background music here, opt
for None, or tap iTunes Music to choose a song from your music
collection.
• Repeat. Makes the slideshow play over and over again until you stop
it manually.
• Speed. The slider controls how much time each photo gets.
The slideshow incorporates both photos and videos (with sound; the
background music actually gets softer so you can hear the audio).
While the show is playing, here’s what you can do:
• Tap to summon the ¿ button.
• Turn the iPhone 90 degrees to accommodate landscape-orientation
photos as they come up; the slideshow keeps right on going.
• Swipe leftward to blow past a photo or video that’s taking too long.

AirPlay
This button offers a list of nearby AirPlay gadgets—the only one you’ve
probably heard of is Apple TV—so you can display the current photo on
your TV or another screen.

Hide
Here’s the option to hide a photo, as described on page 304.

Save Image
Suppose you’re looking at a photo that you didn’t take with the phone.
Maybe someone texted or emailed it to you, for example. This button
saves it into your own photo collection, so you’ll be able to cherish it for
years.

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Assign to Contact
If you’re viewing a photo of somebody who’s listed in Contacts, then you
can use it (or part of it) as her headshot. After that, her photo appears on
your screen every time she calls. Just tap Assign to Contact.
Your address book list pops up. Tap the name of the person who goes
with this photo.
Now you see a preview of what the photo will look like when that person
calls. This is the Move and Scale screen. You want to crop the photo and
shift it in the frame so only that person is visible (if it’s a group shot)—in
fact, probably just the face.
Start by enlarging the photo: Spread your thumb and forefinger against
the glass. As you go, shift the photo’s placement in the round frame with
a one-finger drag. When you’ve got the person centered, tap Choose.

Use as Wallpaper
Wallpaper is the background photo that appears in either of two places:
the Home screen (plastered behind your app icons) or the Lock screen
(which appears every time you wake the iPhone).
This button lets you replace Apple’s standard photos with one of your
photos. It opens the Move and Scale screen, which lets you fit your photo
within the wallpaper “frame.” Pinch or spread to enlarge the shot; drag
your finger on the screen to scroll and center it.
Finally, tap Set. You now specify where you want to use this wallpaper;
tap Set Lock Screen, Set Home Screen, or Set Both (if you want the same
picture in both places).
You can also change your wallpaper within Settings, as described on
page 580.

Print
You can print a photo easily enough, provided that you’ve hooked up
your iPhone to a compatible printer. Once you’ve opened the photo, tap
the P button and then tap Print. The rest goes down as described on
page 346.

Add to iCloud Drive
This button saves the selected pictures and videos to your “hard drive in
the sky,” the iCloud Drive (page 351). Thereafter, you can open them
from any Mac, Windows PC, iPhone, or iPad. (Of course, you get only 5
gigabytes of free storage, so this isn’t really a backup solution for your
entire photographic output.)

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More
Once again, iOS offers a way to rearrange the Share buttons (this time,
the bottom row)—or to add new buttons. They appear automatically
when you install certain apps that have photo-sharing capabilities.

My Photo Stream
The concept of My Photo Stream is simple: Every time a new photo
enters your life—when you take a picture with your iPhone or import one
onto your computer—it gets added to your Photo Stream. From there, it
appears automatically on all your other Apple machines.
NOTE: Photo Stream doesn’t sync over the cellular airwaves. It sends
photos around only when you’re in a Wi‑Fi hotspot.

Using Photo Stream means all kinds of good things:
• Your photos are always backed up. Lose your iPhone? No biggie—
when you buy a new one, your latest 1,000 photos appear on it
automatically.
• Any pictures you take with your iPhone appear automatically on your
computer. You don’t have to connect any cables or sync anything
yourself.
TIP: There’s one exception. If you take a photo and then delete it while
still in the Camera app, that photo won’t enter your Photo Stream.
A similar rule holds true with edits: If you edit a photo you’ve just
taken, those edits become part of the Photo Stream copy. But if you
take a photo, leave the Camera app, and later edit it, then the Photo
Stream gets the original copy only.

Truth is, Photo Stream is a very old feature, one that Apple has long since
expanded and replaced with iCloud Photo Library (page 323). But
since Photo Stream is free, a lot of people still use it—as follows.
To turn on My Photo Stream, go to SettingsÆPhotos & CameraÆUpload
to My Photo Stream. (You should also turn it on using the iCloud control
panel on your computers. That’s in System Preferences on your Mac, or
in the Control Panel of Windows.) Give your phone some time in a Wi‑Fi
hotspot to form its initial slurping-in of all your most recent photos.
Once Photo Stream is up and running, you’ll find a new album called My
Photo Stream. It’s in the Photos app on every iOS device, Mac, or Apple

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TV you own (or have signed into using iCloud). Inside are the photos that
have entered your life most recently.
NOTE: If you don’t see this album, it’s probably because you’ve turned
on iCloud Photo Library, described on page 323. In that case,
all your recent photos are in the All Photos album. There’s no My
Photo Stream album.

Now, your iPhone doesn’t have nearly as much storage available as your
Mac or PC; you can’t yet buy an iPhone with 750 gigabytes of storage.
That’s why, on your phone, your My Photo Stream consists of just the last
1,000 photos. (There’s another limitation, too: The iCloud servers store
your photos for 30 days. As long as your gadgets go online at least once
a month, they’ll remain current with the Photo Stream.)
TIP: Ordinarily, the oldest of the 1,000 photos in your Photo Stream
scroll away forever as new photos come in. But you can rescue the
best ones from that fate—by saving them onto your phone, where
they’re free from the risk of automatic deletion. Use the Save Images
button. Or, if you’re viewing one open picture in My Photo Stream,
tap P and then tap Save to Camera Roll.

Deleting Photos from the Photo Stream
Here’s the thing about Photo Stream: You might think you’re taking a private picture with your phone, forgetting that your spouse or parent will
see it seconds later on the family iPad. It’s only a matter of time before
Photo Stream gets some politician in big trouble.
Fortunately, you can delete certain incriminating photos from your Photo
Stream. Just select the thumbnail of the photo you want to delete, and

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then tap the Trash icon (T). The confirmation box warns you that you’re
about to delete the photo from all your Apple machines (and, for shared
streams, the machines of everyone who’s subscribed to your photographic output).
If you haven’t saved it to a different album or roll, it’s gone for good when
you tap Delete Photo.

iCloud Photo Sharing
iCloud Photo Sharing is like having a tiny Instagram network of your very
own, consisting solely of people you invite. You send photos or videos
to other people’s gadgets. After a party or some other get-together, you
could send your best shots to everyone who attended; after a trip, you
could post your photographic memories for anyone who might care.
The lucky recipients can post comments about your pix, click a “like” button to indicate their enthusiasm, or even submit pictures and videos of
their own.
In designing this feature, Apple had quite a challenge. There’s a lot of
back-and-forth among multiple people, sharing multiple photos, so
iCloud Photo Sharing can get complicated. Stay calm and keep your
hands and feet inside the tram at all times. Here’s how it works.
TIP: Well, here’s how it works if your equipment meets the requirements.
These shared photo albums can show up on an i-gadget with iOS 7
or later; on a Mac with OS X Mavericks (10.9) or later and iPhoto 9.5
or Aperture 3.5 or later; on a PC with Windows 7 or later and the
iCloud Control Panel 3.0; or on an Apple TV (2nd generation) with
Software Update 6.0 or later.
You also have to turn on the Photo Album feature. On an iOS
gadget, the switch is in SettingsÆiCloudÆPhotos; turn on iCloud
Photo Sharing. On the Mac, open System PreferencesÆiCloud.
Make sure Photos is turned on; click Options and confirm that Photo
Sharing is on, too. On a Windows PC, it’s in the iCloud Control Panel
for Windows (a free download from Apple’s website).

Create a Shared Photo Album
To share some of your masterpieces with your adoring fans, do this:
1. Create the empty album. Open the Photos app. On the Shared tab,
scroll to the top (if necessary) and tap n.
2. Name the new album. In the Shared Album box, name the Photo
Album (“Bday Fun” or whatever). Tap Next.

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3. Specify the audience. You’re asked for the email addresses of your
lucky audience members; enter their addresses in the “To:” box just as
you would address an outgoing email.
For your convenience, a list of recent sharees appears below the
“To:” box.
When that’s done, tap Create. You return to the list of shared albums,
where your newly named album appears at the top. It is, however,
completely empty.
4. Pour some photos or movies into the album. Tap your new, empty
album’s name. Then, on the next screen, tap the n to burrow through
your photos and videos—you can use any of the three tabs (Photos,
Shared, Albums)—to select the material you want to share. Tap their
thumbnails so that they sprout checkmarks, and then tap Done.
A little box appears so that you can type up a description.
5. Type a description of the new batch. In theory, you and other people
can add to this album later. That’s why you’re offered the chance to
caption each new batch.
Once that’s done, tap Post.

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The thumbnails of the shared photos and videos appear before you—and
the n button is there, too, in case you want to add more pictures later.
TIP: You can easily remove photos from the album, too. On this screen of
thumbnails, tap Select; tap the thumbnails you want to nuke; tap T;
and confirm by tapping Delete Photo.

Adjusting an Album’s Settings
Before you set your album free, tap the People tab at the bottom of the
screen. Here are a few important options to establish for this album:
• Invite People. This list identifies everyone with whom you’ve shared
the album. To add a new subscriber, tap Invite People. To delete a
subscriber, tap the name and then (at the bottom of the contact
card) tap Remove Subscriber.
• Subscribers Can Post. Your subscribers can contribute photos and
videos to your album. That’s a fantastic feature when it contains pictures of an event where there was a crowd: a wedding, show, concert,
picnic, badminton tournament. Everyone who was there can enhance
the gallery with shots taken from their own points of view with their
own phones or cameras.
• Public Website. If you turn on Public Website, then even people who
aren’t members of the Apple cult will be able to see these photos. The
invitees will get an email containing a web address. It links to a hidden
page on the iCloud website that contains your published photos.
When you turn this switch on, the web address of your new gallery
appears in light-gray type. Tap Share Link for a selection of methods
for sending the link to people: by Message, Mail, Twitter, Facebook,
AirDrop, and so on.
What they’ll see is a mosaic of pictures, laid out in a grid on a single
sort of web poster. Your fans can download their favorites by clicking
the U button. (You can’t add comments or “like” photos on the web,
however.)
TIP: If you click one of these medium-sized photos, you enter slideshow
mode, in which one photo at a time fills your web browser window.
Click the arrow buttons to move through them.

• Notifications. If this switch is on, then your phone will show a banner
each time someone adds photos or videos to your album, clicks the
“Like” button for a photo, or leaves a comment.

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• Delete Shared Album. That’s right: If the whole thing gets out of
hand, you can slam the door in your subscribers’ faces by making the
entire album disappear.
Read on to see what it’s like to be the person whose email address you
entered.

Receiving a Photo Album on Your Gadget
When other people share Photo Albums with you, your phone makes a
little warble, and a notification banner appears: “[Your buddy’s name]
invited you to join ‘[name of shared photo batch]’.”
Simultaneously, a badge like (®) appears on the Photos app icon and on
the Shared tab within Photos, letting you know how many albums have
come your way.
TIP: If you have iPhoto, Photos, or Aperture on a Mac, an invitation to
accept the album appears there, too.

As you’d guess, you can tap the new album’s name to see what’s inside it;
tap Accept if you’re sure.

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Once you’re subscribed, you view the photos and movies as you would
any album—with a couple of differences. First, you can tap Add a comment to make worshipful or snarky remarks, or tap Like to offer your
silent support.
TIP: Either you or the photo’s owner can delete one of your comments.
To do that, hold your finger down on the comment itself and then
tap the Delete button that appears.

You can also snag a copy of somebody’s published photo or video for
yourself. With the photo before you, tap the P button to see the usual
sharing options—and tap Save Image. Now the picture or video isn’t
some virtual online wisp—it’s a solid, tangible electronic copy in your own
photo pool.
If your buddy has turned on Subscribers Can Post for this album, then
you can send your own photos and clips into the album; everybody
who’s subscribed to it (and, of course, its owner) will see them.
To do that, tap the n on the album’s page of thumbnails; choose your
photos and movies; tap Done; add a comment; and tap Post.

Fun with Shared Photo Albums
Once you’ve created a shared Photo Album, you can update it or modify
it in all kinds of ways:
• Add new photos or movies to it. In Photos, open the shared Photo
Album, whether it’s one you created or one you’ve subscribed to.
Tap n. Now you can browse your whole world of photos, tapping to
add them to the photo album already in progress.
• Remove things from it. In Photos, open the shared photo album. Tap
Select, tap the item(s) you want to delete, and then tap the Trash icon
(T)—and confirm with a tap on Delete Photo(s).
• Delete an entire shared Photo Album. Tap the People tab below an
open photo album, scroll down, tap Delete Shared Album, and confirm by tapping Delete.
• Change who’s invited, change the name. The People tab is also
where you can add to the list of email addresses (tap Invite People),
remove someone (tap the name, and then tap Remove Subscriber),
rename the album, or turn off Public Website to dismantle the web
version of this gallery.
At any time, you can tap the Activity “folder” at the top of the Shared tab
in the Photos app. Here, for your amusement, is a visual record of every-

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thing that’s gone on in Shared Photo Album Land: photos you’ve posted,
photos other people have posted, comments back and forth, likes, and so
on. It’s your personal photographic Facebook.

iCloud Photo Library
If learning the difference between My Photo Stream, iCloud Photo
Sharing, and Shared Photo Streams isn’t hard enough, then hold onto
your lens cap. Apple offers yet another online photo feature: the iCloud
Photo Library.
The idea this time is that all your Apple gadgets will keep all your photos
and videos backed up online and synced. The advantages:
• All your photos and videos are always backed up—not just the last
1,000.
• All your photos and videos are accessible from any of your gadgets.
• You can reclaim a lot of space on your phone. There’s an option that
offloads the original photos and videos to iCloud but leaves small,
phone-sized copies on your phone.
There are a couple of sizable downsides to iCloud Photo Library, too:
• Remember, your entire iCloud account comes with only 5 gigabytes
of free storage. If you start backing up your photo library to it, too,
you’ll almost certainly have to pay to expand your iCloud storage.
Photos and videos eat up a lot of storage space.
• Things get a little complicated. The structure of the Photos app
described in this chapter changes, for example; the albums usually
called Camera Roll and My Photo Stream go away. They’re replaced
by a new album called All Photos. (Camera Roll and My Photo Stream
were just subsets of your whole photographic life anyway.)
If you decide to dive in, then open SettingsÆiCloudÆPhotosÆiCloud
Photo Library.
Once iCloud Photo Library is on, you won’t be able to copy pictures from
your computer to your phone using iTunes anymore; iTunes will be completely removed from the photo-management loop. That’s why, at this
point, you may be warned that your phone is about to delete any photos and videos that you’ve synced to it from iTunes (Chapter 15). (Don’t
worry—they’ll be safe in iCloud.)
And, of course, you might be warned that you need to buy more iCloud
storage space.

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Now the Settings panel expands and offers this important choice:
• Optimize iPhone Storage. If you turn this on, your original photos and
videos get backed up to iCloud—but on your phone, you’ll be left with
much smaller versions that are just right for viewing on the phone’s
screen (but not high resolution enough to, for example, print). This
arrangement saves you a ton of space on your phone.
• Download and Keep Originals leaves the big original files on your
phone.
Finally, the uploading process begins. If you have a lot of photos and videos, it can take a very long time.
But when it’s all over, you’ll have instant access to all your photos and
videos in any of these places:
• On the iPhone (or other iOS gadgets). In the Photos app, on the
Albums tab, the new “album” called All Photos represents your new
online photo library. Add to, delete from, or edit pictures in this set,
and you’ll find the same changes made on all your other Apple gear.
• On the web. You can sign into iCloud.com and click Photos to view
your photos and videos, no matter what machine you’re using. The
Moments and Albums tabs here correspond to the tabs in the phone’s
Photos app. Click a photo to open it full size, whereupon the icons at
the top of the screen let you delete, download, or “favorite” it.
• On the Mac. Everything appears in the All Photos heading in the
Photos app. (There’s no way to see your iCloud Photo Library’s contents in the older iPhoto and Aperture programs, alas.)

Geotagging
Mention to a geek that a gadget has both GPS and a camera, and there’s
only one possible reaction: “Does it do geotagging?”
Geotagging means “embedding your latitude and longitude information
into a photo or video when you take it.” After all, every digital picture
you’ve ever taken comes with its time and date embedded in its file; why
not its location?
The good news is that the iPhone can geotag every photo and movie you
take. How you use this information, however, is a bit trickier. The iPhone
doesn’t geotag unless all the following conditions are true:
• The location feature on your phone is turned on. On the Home
screen, tap SettingsÆPrivacyÆLocation Services. Make sure Camera

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is set to While Using the App. (The rest of the time, the camera does
not record your location.)
• The phone knows where it is. If you’re indoors, the GPS chip in the
iPhone probably can’t get a fix on the satellites overhead. And if
you’re not near cellular towers or Wi‑Fi base stations, then even the
pseudo-GPS may not be able to triangulate your location.
• You’ve given permission. The first time you use the iPhone’s camera,
a peculiar message appears, asking if it’s allowed to use your location
information. In this case, it’s asking, “Do you want to geotag your pictures?” If you tap OK, then the iPhone’s geographic coordinates will
be embedded in each photo you take.
OK, so suppose all of this is true, and the geotagging feature is working.
How will you know? Well, the Moments feature can put geotagging to
work right on the phone. You can open a map and see all the photos you
took in that spot.

You can also transfer the photos to your computer, where your likelihood of being able to see the geotag information depends on what
photo-viewing software you’re using. For example:
• When you’ve selected a photo in iPhoto or Photos (on the Mac), you
can press c-I for the Info panel. It shows the photo’s spot on a map.
• Once you’ve posted your geotagged photos on Flickr.com (the
world’s largest photo-sharing site), people can use the Explore menu
to search for them by location or even see them clustered on a
world map.
• If you import your photos into Picasa (for Windows), then you can
choose ToolsÆGeotagÆView in Google Earth to see a picture’s location on the map (if the free Google Earth program is installed on your
computer, that is).

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Or choose ToolsÆGeotagÆExport to Google Earth File to create a
.kmz file, which you can send to a friend. When opened, this file opens
Google Earth (if it’s on your friend’s computer) and displays a miniature of the picture in the right place on the map.

Capturing the Screen
Let’s say you want to write a book about the iPhone (hey, it could happen). How are you supposed to illustrate that book? How can you take
pictures of what’s on the screen?
The trick is very simple: Get the screen just the way you want it, even if
that means holding your finger down on an onscreen button or a keyboard key. Now hold down the Home button, and while it’s down, press
the Sleep switch at the top of the phone. (Yes, you may need to invite
some friends over to help you execute this multiple-finger move.)
But that’s all there is to it. The screen flashes white. Now, if you go to the
Photos app’s Albums tab, in the Camera Roll or the Screenshots album,
you see a crisp, colorful pixel image, in PNG format, of whatever was on
the screen. (Its resolution matches the screen: 1136 × 640 on the iPhone 5
family, for example, or 1242 × 2208 on the Plus models.)
At this point, you can send it by email (to illustrate a request for help, for
example, or to send a screen from Maps to a friend who’s driving your
way); sync it with your computer (to add it to your Mac or Windows
photo collection); or designate it as the iPhone’s wallpaper (to confuse
the heck out of its owner).
TIP: In some corners of iOS, there’s no way to take a screenshot like this.
For example, when the phone is ringing, pressing the screenshot
button combination sends the call to voicemail instead of capturing
the screen image.
In those situations, you may have to rely on the Mac’s ability to
display the iPhone’s screen. See page 260.

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All About Apps

pp is short for application, meaning software program, and
the App Store is a single, centralized catalog of every authorized iPhone add-on program in the world. In fact, it’s the
only place where you can get new programs (at least without hacking
your phone).
You hear people talking about downsides to this approach: Apple’s stifling the competition; Apple’s taking a 30 percent cut of every program
sold; Apple’s maintaining veto power over apps it doesn’t like.
But there are some enormous benefits, too. First, there’s one central
place to look for apps. Second, Apple checks out every program to
make sure it’s decent and runs decently. Third, the store is beautifully
integrated with the iPhone itself.
There’s an incredible wealth of software in the App Store. These programs can turn the iPhone into an instant-message tool, a pocket
Internet radio, a medical reference, a musical keyboard, a time and
expense tracker, a TV remote control, a photo editor, a recipe box, a tip
calculator, a restaurant finder, a teleprompter, and so on. And games—
thousands of dazzling handheld games, some with smooth 3D graphics
and tilt control.
It’s so much stuff—2 million apps, 150 billion downloads—that the challenge is just finding your way through it. Thank goodness for those Most
Popular lists.

Two Ways to the App Store
You can get to the App Store in two ways: from the phone itself, or from
your computer’s copy of the iTunes software.
Using iTunes offers a much easier browsing and shopping experience,
of course, because you’ve got a mouse, a keyboard, and that big screen.

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But downloading straight to the iPhone, without ever involving the computer, is wicked convenient when you’re out and about.

Shopping from the Phone
To check out the App Store from your iPhone, tap the App Store icon.
You arrive at the colorful, scrolling wonder of the store itself.
It has five tabs at the bottom. Here they are, in order:
• Featured is pretty clear: You can scroll vertically to see different categories, like New Apps We Love (Apple’s editor picks) or Games You
Might Like, and horizontally to see more apps within each category.
• Categories presents the entire catalog, organized by category: Books,
Business, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Games, and so on. Tap a
category to see what’s in it.

• Top Charts is a list of the 100 most popular apps at the moment,
ranked by how many people have downloaded them. There are actually three lists here: the most popular free programs, the most popular
ones that cost money, and which apps have made the most money
(“Top Grossing”), even if they haven’t sold the most copies.
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• Search. As the number of apps grows into the many millions, viewing
by scrolling through lists begins to get awfully unwieldy.
Fortunately, you can also search the catalog, which is efficient if you
know what you’re looking for (either the name of a program, the kind
of program, or the software company that made it).
Before you even begin to type, this screen shows you a list of Trending Searches—that is, the most popular searches right now. Odds are
pretty good that if you want to download the latest hot app you keep
hearing about, you’ll see its name here (because, after all, it’s hot).
Or tap in the search box to make the keyboard appear. As you type,
the list shrinks so that it’s showing you only the matches. You might
type tetris, or piano, or Disney, or whatever.
Tap anything in the results list (below, left) to see matching apps
(right). You can swipe horizontally to scroll through them. Tap one to
view its details screen, as described on the next page.
• Updates. Unlike its buddies, this button isn’t intended to help you
navigate the catalog. Instead, it lets you know when one of the

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programs you’ve already installed is available in a newer version.
Details in a moment.
About a third of the App Store’s programs are free; the rest are usually
under $5. A few, intended for professionals (pilots, for example), can cost
a lot more.

The App Details Page
No matter which button was your starting point, eventually you wind up
at an app’s details screen. There’s a description, a scrolling set of screenshots, info about the author, the date posted, the version number, a page
of related and similar apps, and so on.

You can also tap Reviews to dig beyond the average star rating into the
actual written reviews from people who’ve already tried the thing.
Why are the ratings so important? Because the App Store’s goodies
aren’t equally good. Remember, these programs come from a huge variety of people—teenagers in Hungary, professional firms in Silicon Valley,
college kids goofing around on weekends—and just because they made

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it into the store doesn’t mean they’re worth the money (or even the time
to download).
Sometimes a program has a low score because it’s just not designed well
or it doesn’t do what it’s advertised to do. And sometimes, of course, it’s
a little buggy.
If you decide something is worth getting, scroll back to the top of the
page and tap its price button. It may say, for example, $0.99 or, if it’s free,
simply Get.
TIP: A little + sign on the price button means that the app works well on
both the iPad and the iPhone.

If you’ve previously bought an app, either on this iPhone or on another
Apple touchscreen gadget, then the button turns into a U; you don’t
have to buy it again. Just tap to re-download. If, in fact, this app is
already on your iPhone, then the button says Open (handy!).
Once you tap the price and then Install App, you’ve committed to downloading the program. There are only a few things that may stand in
your way:
• A request for your iTunes account info. You can’t use the App Store
without an iTunes account—even if you’re just downloading free stuff.
If you’ve ever bought anything from the iTunes Store, signed up for
an iCloud account, or bought anything from Apple online, then you
already have an iTunes account (an Apple ID, meaning your email
address and password).
The iPhone asks you to enter your iTunes account name and password the first time you access the App Store and periodically thereafter, just to make sure some marauding child in your household can’t
run up your bill without your knowledge. Mercifully, you don’t have
to enter your Apple ID information just to download an update to an
app you already own.
TIP: If you have an iPhone 5s or later model, and you’ve taught it to
recognize your fingerprint, here’s the payoff: When you try to
download an app, instead of having to enter your Apple password,
you can just touch the Home button with your finger.

• A file size over 100 megabytes. Most iPhone apps are pretty small—
small enough to download directly to the phone, even over a cellular
connection. If a program is bigger than 100 MB, though, you can’t
download it over the cellular airwaves, a policy no doubt intended to

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soothe nerves at AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, whose networks
could be choked with 200 million iPhoners downloading huge files.
Instead, over-100-meg files are available only when you’re on a Wi‑Fi
connection. Of course, you can also download them to your computer
and sync them from there, as described later in this chapter.
Once you begin downloading a file, a pie chart on the app’s icon fills in to
indicate the download’s progress. (Tap the icon to pause or unpause the
download. If you have an iPhone 6s or 7, you can hard-press the icon for
a shortcut menu offering buttons for Cancel Download, Pause Download,
and Prioritize Download—in other words, finish ahead of any other downloading apps.) When the downloading is done, tap the Open button to
launch it and try it out.
TIP: You don’t have to sit there and stare at the progress bar. You can go
on working on the iPhone. In fact, you can even go back to the App
Store and start downloading something else simultaneously. You
can easily spot your fresh downloads on the Home screens: Their
icons fill in with color as the download proceeds.

Two Welcome Notes About Backups
Especially when you’ve paid good money for your iPhone apps, you
might worry about what would happen if your phone got lost or stolen,
or if someone (maybe you) accidentally deleted one of your precious
downloads.
You don’t have to worry, for two reasons.
First, the next time you sync your iPhone with your computer, iTunes asks
if you want the newly purchased apps backed up. If you click Transfer,
then the programs show up on the Applications tab in iTunes.
Second, here’s a handy little fact about the App Store: It remembers
what you’ve already bought. You can re-download a purchased program
at any time, on any of your iPhones, iPads, or iPod Touches, without having to pay for it again.
TIP: If some program doesn’t download properly on the iPhone, don’t
sweat it. Go into iTunes on your computer and choose StoreÆCheck
for Available Downloads. And if a program does download to the
phone but doesn’t transfer to iTunes, then choose FileÆTransfer
Purchases from “iPhone”. These two commands straighten things
out, clear up the accounting, and make all well with your two copies
of each app (iPhone + computer).

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Shopping in iTunes
You can also download new programs to your computer using iTunes
and then sync them over to the phone. By all means, use this method
whenever you can. It’s much more efficient to use a mouse, a keyboard,
and a full screen.
In iTunes, choose Apps from the pop-up menu at top left; at top center, click App Store. The screen fills with starting points for your quest,
matching what you’d see on the phone: New Apps We Love, New Games
We Love, and so on.
Or use the search box at top right. From here, the experience is the same
as on the phone.

Organizing Your Apps
As you add new apps to your iPhone, it sprouts new Home screens as
necessary to accommodate them all, up to a grand total of 15 screens.
That’s 364 icons—and yet you can actually go all the way up to many
thousands of apps, thanks to the miracle of folders.

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That multiple–Home screen business can get a little unwieldy, but a couple of tools can help you manage. First, you can just use Siri to open an
app, without even knowing where it is. Just say, “Open Angry Birds” (or
whatever).
Second, a Spotlight search can pluck the program you want out of your
haystack, as described on page 99.
Third, you can organize your apps into folders, which greatly alleviates
the agony of TMHSS (Too Many Home Screens Syndrome).
It’s worth taking the time to arrange the icons on your Home screens into
logical categories, tidy folders, or at least a sensible sequence.
You can do that either on the phone itself or in iTunes on your computer.
That’s far quicker and easier, but it works only when your phone is actually connected to the Mac or PC. Read on.

Rearranging/Deleting Apps Using iTunes
To fiddle with the layout of your Home screens with the least amount of
hassle, connect the iPhone to your computer using the white charging
cable or over Wi‑Fi. Open iTunes.
Click your iPhone’s icon at top left, and then click Apps in the left-side
list. You see something like this display:

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From here, it’s all mouse power:
• For each listed app, click the button so that it says either Install (if the
app is on your computer but not currently on your phone) or Remove
(if it is; at that point, the button changes to say Will Remove). In other
words, it’s possible to store hundreds of apps in iTunes but load only
some of them onto your iPhone.
• Click one of the Home screen miniatures on the right list to indicate
which screen you want to edit. It gets big. Now you can drag the app
icons to rearrange them on that page. (Click the background to close
the life-size image.)
• Beneath the Home screen miniatures, iTunes displays similar mockups of each folder on your phone. Because they’re visible here, all of
them, all the time, it’s very easy to put icons into them—and to work
with the multiple “pages” within each folder (read on).
• It’s fine to drag an app onto a different page mock-up. You can organize your icons on these Home screens by category, frequency of use,
color, or whatever tickles your fancy. (The + button above each pile of
mock-ups means “Click to install an additional Home screen.”)
TIP: You can select several app icons simultaneously by c-clicking them
(or Ctrl-clicking in Windows); that way, you can move a bunch of
them at once.

• You can drag the page mock-ups around to rearrange them, too.
• To delete an app from the iPhone, point to its icon and click the X.
(You can’t delete Apple’s starter apps like Safari and Messages.)
• Create a folder by dragging one app’s icon on top of another (see
page 337 for more on folders).
When your design spurt is complete, click Apply.

Rearranging/Deleting Apps Right on the Phone
You can also redesign your Home screens right on the iPhone, which is
handy when you don’t happen to be wired up to a computer.
To enter this Home screen editing mode, hold your finger down lightly on
any icon until, after about a second, the icons begin to—what’s the correct term?—wiggle. (On some phones, if you press too hard, you’ll trigger
Force Touch—see page 35—and get frustrated.)

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At this point, you can rearrange your icons by dragging them around the
glass into a new order; other icons scoot aside to make room.
TIP: You can even move an icon onto the Dock. Just make room for it by
first dragging an existing Dock icon to another spot on the screen.

You can drag a single icon across multiple Home screens without ever
having to lift your finger. Just drag the icon against the right or left margin of the screen to “turn the page.”
To create an additional Home screen, drag a wiggling icon to the right
edge of the screen; keep your finger down. The first Home screen slides
off to the left, leaving you on a new, blank one, where you can deposit
the icon. You can create up to 11 Home screens in this way.
You may have noticed that, while your icons are wiggling, most of them
also sprout little ˛’s. That’s how you delete a program you don’t need
anymore: Tap that ˛. You’ll be asked if you’re sure; if so, it says bye-bye.

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In iOS 10, for the first time, you can actually use this technique to delete
Apple’s less important preinstalled apps, like Stocks and Watch! You
don’t have to hide them in a folder just to get them out of your face.
NOTE: You’re not actually deleting them—only hiding them. They still
occupy 150 megabytes. (To “reinstall” them, download them from
the App Store as usual.)

When everything looks good, press the Home button to stop the
wiggling.

Restoring the Home Screen
If you ever need to undo all the damage you’ve done, tap SettingsÆ
GeneralÆ ResetÆReset Home Screen Layout. That function preserves
any new programs you’ve installed, but it consolidates them. If you’d
put 10 apps on each of four Home screens, you wind up with only two
screens, each packed with 20 icons. Any leftover blank pages are eliminated. This function also places all your downloaded apps in alphabetical
order.

Folders
Folders let you organize your apps, deemphasize the ones you rarely use,
and restore order to that dizzying display of icons, just as on a computer.
These days, each folder can have many pages of its own, each displaying
nine icons. A single folder, in other words, can contain as many apps as
you want—and therefore, only memory limits how many apps you can fit
onto your phone.

Setting Up Folders on the iPhone
To create and edit folders, begin by entering Home screen editing mode.
That is, hold your finger down on any icon (lightly) until all the icons
wiggle.
Now, to create a folder, drag one app’s icon on top of another. iOS puts
both of them into a new folder and, if they’re the same kind of app, even
tries to figure out what category they both belong to—and names the
new folder accordingly (“Music,” “Photos,” “Kid Games,” or whatever).
You can type in a new name at this point.
You’re welcome to add more apps to this folder. Tap the Home screen
background to close the folder, and then (while the icons are still wiggling) drag another app onto the folder’s icon. Lather, rinse, repeat.

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Drag one app onto another…

…and a new folder is born. Rename it here.

If one of your folders has more than nine apps in it, iOS creates a second “page” for the folder—and a third, a fourth, and so on. You can move
apps around within the pages and otherwise master your new multipage
folder domain.
You can scroll the folder “pages” by swiping sideways (facing page), just
as you scroll the full-size Home pages. The only limit to how many icons
a folder can hold is your tolerance for absurdity.
Once you’ve created a folder or two, they’re easy to rename, move,
delete, and so on. (Again, you can do all of the following only in
icon-wiggling editing mode.) Like this:
• Take an app out of a folder by dragging its icon anywhere else on the
Home screen. The other icons scoot aside to make room, just as they
do when you move them from one Home screen to another.
• Move a folder around by dragging, as you would any other icon.

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TIP: You can drag a folder icon onto the Dock, too, just as you would any
app. Now you’ve got a pop-up subfolder full of your favorite apps—
on the Dock, which is present on every Home screen. That’s a useful
feature; it multiplies the handiness of the Dock itself.

• Rename a folder by opening it (tapping it). At this point, the folder’s
name box is ready for editing.
TIP: On an iPhone 6s or 7, you can hard-press a folder icon—even when
you’re not in wiggling-icon mode—to reveal the Rename command.

• Move an icon from one folder “page” to another by dragging it to
the edge of the folder, waiting with your finger down until the page
“changes,” and then releasing your finger in the right spot.
• Delete a folder by removing all of its contents. The folder disappears
automatically.
When you’re finished manipulating your folders, press the Home button
to exit Home screen editing mode—and stop all the wiggling madness.

Setting Up Folders in iTunes
It’s faster and easier to set up your folders within iTunes, on your Mac or
PC, where you have a mouse and a big screen to help you. Connect your

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iPhone to your computer (by cable or Wi‑Fi), open iTunes, click your
iPhone’s icon at the top, and then click Apps in the left-side list. You see
something like the illustration on page 334.
To create a folder, double-click a Home page miniature to expand it; now
drag one app’s icon on top of another, exactly as you’d do on the iPhone.
The software puts them into a single new folder. As on the iPhone, the
software proposes a folder name; an editing bar also appears so that you
can type a custom name you prefer.
Once you’ve got a folder, you can open it just by double-clicking. It
expands to life size, revealing its contents. Now you can edit the folder’s name, drag the icons around inside it, or drag an app right out of the
folder window and onto another Home page (or another folder on it).
Just keep your finger down on the mouse button or trackpad until the
new Home page or folder page opens.
Below the Home pages, you’ll discover that each of your app folders now
has an app-management screen mock-up of its own, complete with a
horizontally scrolling set of pages. That’s so you can move the “pages”
around, organize the apps within them, and so on.
If you remove all the apps from a folder, then the folder disappears.

App Preferences
If you’re wondering where you can change an iPhone app’s settings, consider backing out to the Home screen and then tapping Settings. Apple
encourages programmers to add their programs’ settings here, way
down below the bottom of the iPhone’s own settings.
Some programmers ignore the advice and build the settings right into
their apps, where they’re a little easier to find. But if you don’t see them
there, now you know where else to look.

App Updates
When a circled number (like ®) appears on the App Store’s icon on the
Home screen, or on the Updates icon within the App Store program,
that’s Apple’s way of letting you know that a program you already own
has been updated. Apple knows which programs you’ve bought—and
notifies you when new, improved versions are released. Which is remarkably often; software companies are constantly fixing bugs and adding
new features.

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Manual Updates
When you tap Updates, you’re shown a list of the programs with waiting
updates. A tiny What’s New arrow lets you know what the changes are—
new features, perhaps, or some bug fixes. And when you tap a program’s
name, you go to its details screen, where you can remind yourself of
what the app does and read other people’s reviews of this new version.
You can download one app’s update, or, with a tap on the Update All
button, all of them…no charge.
NOTE: You can also download your updates from iTunes. From the topleft pop-up menu, choose Apps; then click Updates at the top of
the screen. This window shows the icons of all updated versions
of your programs. You can download the updates individually
(click an icon, click Update) or all at once (Update All Apps).

Automatic Updates
If you have a lot of apps, you may come to feel as though you’re spending your whole life downloading updates. They descend like locusts,
every single day, demanding your attention.
That’s why Apple offers an automatic update-downloading option. Your
phone can download and install updated versions of your apps quietly
and automatically in the background.
To turn on this feature, open SettingsÆ iTunes & App Store. Under
Automatic Downloads, turn on Updates. (If you’d prefer that the phone
wait to do this downloading until it’s in a Wi‑Fi hotspot—to avoid eating
up your monthly cellular data-plan allotment—then turn off Use Cellular
Data.)
From now on, the task of manually approving each app’s update is off
your to-do list forever.
TIP: Fortunately, the iPhone also keeps a tidy record of every app it’s
updated and what that update gives you. Open the App Store app;
tap the Updates tab. There’s your list, sorted chronologically. Tap
an app’s row to read what was new in the update you’ve already
received.

How to Find Good Apps
If the Featured, Categories, and Top Charts lists aren’t inspiring you, there
are all kinds of websites dedicated to reviewing iPhone apps. There’s
appadvice.com and whatsoniphone.com and on and on.
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But if you’ve never dug into iPhone apps before, you should at least try
out some of the superstars, the big dogs that almost everybody has.
Many of the most popular apps are designed to deliver certain websites
in the best-looking way possible. That’s why there are apps for Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, Spotify, Pandora, Flickr, Yelp, Netflix, YouTube,
Wikipedia, and so on.
Here are a very few more examples—a drop in the bucket at the tip of the
iceberg—of the infinite app variety beyond those basics:
• Apple Apps (free). The first time you open the App Store, you’re
offered a set of free Apple apps that Apple thinks you might like:
iBooks, iTunes U, Podcasts, Find My Friends, and Find My iPhone.
With one tap, you can grab this whole set.
• Google Maps (free). Google Maps is a replacement for the built-in
Maps app. It’s much, much better than Maps—even Apple has admitted that. Among other things, it offers Street View (you can actually
see a photo of almost any address and “look around” you), it incorporates the Zagat guides for restaurants, and it’s unbelievably smart
about knowing what you’re trying to type into the search box. Usually,
about three letters is all you need to type before the app guesses
what you mean.
• Google Mobile (free). Speak to search Google’s maps. Includes
Google Goggles: Point the phone’s camera at a book, DVD, wine
bottle, logo, painting, landmark, or bit of text, and the hyperintelligent
app recognizes it and displays information about it from the web.
• Echofon (free). Most free Twitter apps are a bit on the baffling side.
This one is simple and clean.
• FlightTrack 5 ($5). Shows every detail of every flight: gate, time
delayed, airline phone number, where the flight is on the map, and
more. Knows more—and knows it sooner—than the actual airlines do.
• SoundHound (free). Beats Shazam at its own game. Hold this app up
to a song that’s playing on the radio, or even hum or sing the song,
and the app miraculously identifies the song and offers you lyrics. It’s
faster than Shazam, too.
• Instagram (free) has a bunch of filter effects, as iOS’s Camera app
does. But the real magic is in the way it’s designed to share your
photos. You sign up to receive Instagrams from Facebook or Twitter
folk. They (the photos, not the folk) show up right in the app, scrolling up like a photographic Twitter feed. Seeing what other people are

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doing every day with their cameraphones and creative urges is really
inspirational.
Other essentials: Angry Birds and its sequel, Bad Piggies. Uber and Lyft.
Skype. Hipmunk (finds flights). The New York Times. The Amazon Kindle
book reader, B&N eReader. Dictionary. TED. Mint.com. Scrabble. Keynote
Remote (controls your Keynote presentations from the phone). Remote
(yes, another one, also from Apple—turns the iPhone into a Wi‑Fi, wholehouse remote control for your Mac’s or PC’s music playback—and for
Apple TV). Instant-messaging (AIM, Yahoo Messenger, or IM+). Yahoo
Weather (gorgeous).
Happy apping!

The App Switcher
Often, it’s handy to switch among open apps. Maybe you want to copy
something from Safari (on the web) into Mail (a message you’re writing). Maybe you want to refer to your frequent-flier number (in Notes) as
you’re using an airline’s check-in app. Maybe you want to adjust something in Settings and then get back to whatever you were doing.

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The key to switching apps is to double-click the Home button. Whatever
is on the screen gets replaced by the app switcher (below, left).
TIP: On the iPhone 6s and 7 models, there’s a second way to reach this
screen: Hard-swipe from the left edge of the screen. This method
has one advantage: It lets you peek at whatever apps are in the
background, and then, without ever lifting your thumb, slide back
to the left. You’ve had a quick glance without ever fully entering the
app switcher.

You see a scrolling series of “cards” that represent the open apps, in
chronological order. They’re big enough that you can actually see what’s
going on in each open app. In fact, sometimes, that’s all you need; you
can refer to another app’s screen in this view, without actually having to
switch into that app.
TIP: Thoughtfully enough, the app switcher always puts the previous
app front and center when you first double-press the Home button.
For example, if you’re in Safari but you were using Mail a minute ago,
Mail appears centered in the app switcher. That makes life easier if
you’re doing a lot of jumping back and forth between two apps; one
tap takes you into the previous app.

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When you tap an app’s icon or screen in the app switcher, you open that
app.

Force-Quitting an App
The app switcher lets you manually exit an app, closing it down. To do
that, flick the unwanted app’s mini-screen upward, so that it flies up off
the top of the screen (shown on the previous page at right).
The app is not really gone; it will return to the lineup the next time you
open it from the Home screen.
You’ll need this gesture only rarely. You’re not supposed to quit every app
when you’re finished. Force-quit an app only if it’s frozen or acting glitchy
and needs to be restarted.
TIP: There may be one more element on the task-switcher screen, too:
a faint app icon at the far left. That’s a document, email, or web
page being sent to your phone by your Mac, using Handoff (see
page 551).

A Word About Background Apps
Switching out of a program doesn’t actually close it. All apps can run in
the background.
Of course, if every app ran full-tilt simultaneously, your phone would guzzle down battery power like crazy. To solve that problem, Apple has put
two kinds of limits in place:
• iOS’s limits. Not all apps run full speed in the background. Apps that
really need constant updating, like Facebook or Twitter, get refreshed
every few seconds; apps that don’t rely on constant Internet updates
get to nap for a while in the background.
In deciding which apps get background attention, iOS studies things
like how good your phone’s Internet connection is and what time of
day you traditionally use a certain app (so that your newspaper’s app
is ready with the latest articles when you open it).
• Your own limits. You can’t control which apps run in the background,
but you can control which ones download new data in the background. In SettingsÆGeneralÆBackground App Refresh, you’ll find
a list of every app that may want to update itself in the background.
In an effort to make your battery last longer, you can turn off background updating for the apps you don’t really care about; you can
even turn off all background updating using the master switch at
the top.

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The bottom line: There’s no need to quit apps you’re not using, ever.
Contrary to certain Internet rumors, they generally don’t use enough
memory or battery power to matter. You may see dozens of apps in the
app switcher, but you’ll never sense that your phone is bogging down as
a result.

Back to App (ť )
This humble button may become your favorite feature.
It’s a Back button that appears when you’ve tapped a link of some kind
that takes you into a different app. For example:
• You’re in Messages, and you tap a web link (below, left) that takes
you into Safari. A ťMessages button appears at the top-left corner of
your screen (below, right).

• You’re on Twitter or Facebook, and you tap a link that opens a web
page. Sure enough: The top-left button says ťTwitter or ťFacebook.
• You’re in Mail, and you tap an underlined date and time that takes
you into the Calendar app. A ťMail button appears in the corner.
• You’re in Safari, and you tap a link that opens in YouTube. Sure
enough: The button says ťSafari.
And so on. Add it all up, and this tiny recent enhancement can save you
literally minutes a week. It’s the best.

AirPrint: Printing from the Phone
The very phrase “printing from the phone” might seem peculiar. How
do you print from a gadget that’s smaller than a Hershey bar—a gadget
without any jacks for connecting a printer?

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Wirelessly, of course.
You can send printouts from your phone to any printer that’s connected
to your Mac or PC on the same Wi‑Fi network if you have a piece of software like Printopia ($20).
Or you can use the iPhone’s built-in AirPrint technology, which can send
printouts directly to a Wi‑Fi printer without requiring a Mac or a PC.
Not just any Wi‑Fi printer, though—only those that recognize AirPrint.
Many recent Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark printers work with AirPrint;
you can see a list of them on Apple’s website, here: http://support.apple.
com/kb/HT4356.
Not all apps can print. Of the built-in Apple programs, only iBooks,
Mail, Photos, Notes, and Safari offer Print commands. Those apps contain what most people want to print most of the time: PDF documents
(iBooks), email messages, driving directions from the web, and so on.
Plenty of non-Apple apps work with AirPrint, too.

To use AirPrint, start by tapping the P button; tap Print. You’re offered a
Select Printer option. Tap it to introduce the phone to your printer, whose
name should appear automatically. Now you can adjust the printing
options (number of copies, page range)—and when you finally tap Print,
your printout shoots wirelessly to the printer, exactly as though your
phone and printer were wired together.

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The Share Sheet
Every app is different, of course. But all of them have certain things in
common; otherwise, you’d go out of your mind.
One of those things is the Share sheet. It’s your headquarters for sending
stuff off your phone: to other apps, to other phones, to the Internet, to a
printer. It’s made up of several icon rows, each of which scrolls horizontally. (From top to bottom, you could title these rows “What to Share,”
“Send by AirDrop,” “Send to an App,” and “Act on This Data Directly.”)
The Share sheet pops up whenever you tap the Share button (P) that
appears in many, many apps: Maps, Photos, Safari, Notes, Voice Memos,
Contacts, and so on.
The buttons you see depend on the app; you may see only two options
here, or you may see a dozen. Starting on page 310, for example, you
can read descriptions of the icons that appear when you’re sending a
photo: AirDrop, Message, Mail, Twitter, Facebook, Copy, AirPlay, Print, and
so on. The options here vary by app.
Moreover, there’s a More button at the end of each row. That’s an invitation for other, non-Apple apps to install their own “send to” options into
the Share sheet. When you tap More, you can see the full list of apps that
have inserted themselves here. Now you can perform these tasks:
• Hide a sharing option. Flip the switch to make one of the sharing
options disappear from the Share sheet. (You can’t hide the sharing
options that Apple considers essential, like Messages or Mail.)
• Rearrange the sharing options. Use the handle to move these items
up or down the list, which affects their left-to-right order on the Share
sheet.

AirDrop
It’s a headline feature: AirDrop, a way to shoot things from one Apple
phone, tablet, or Mac to another—wirelessly, instantly, easily, encryptedly, without requiring names, passwords, or setup. It’s much faster than
emailing or text messaging, since you don’t have to know (or type) the
other person’s address. It’s available on the iPhone 5 and later.
NOTE: If the Mac is running OS X Yosemite or later, you can shoot files
between it and your phone, too.

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You can transmit pictures and videos from the Photos app, people’s info
cards from Contacts, directions (or your current location) from Maps,
pages from Notes, web addresses from Safari, electronic tickets from
Wallet, apps you like in the App Store, song and video listings from the
iTunes app), radio stations (iTunes Radio), and so on. As time goes on,
more and more non-Apple apps will offer AirDrop, too.
Behind the scenes, AirDrop uses Bluetooth (to find nearby gadgets
within about 30 feet) and a private, temporary Wi‑Fi mini-network (to
transfer the file). Both sender and receiver must have Bluetooth and
Wi‑Fi turned on.
The process goes like this:
1. Find a willing recipient.
You can’t send anything with AirDrop unless the receiving phone or
tablet is running iOS 7 or later—and is awake. And only recent models
work with AirDrop: iPhone 5 or later, 4th generation iPad or later, any
iPad mini, and 5th generation iPod Touch or later.
2. Open the item you want to share. Tap the Share button (P).
If your app doesn’t have a P button, then you can’t use AirDrop.

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When the Share sheet appears, within a few seconds, you see something that would have awed the masses in 1995: small circular photos
of everyone nearby (previous page, left). (Or at least everyone with
iOS 7 or later, or OS X Yosemite or later. Or at least everyone among
them who’s open to receiving AirDrop transmissions, as described in
a moment.)
TIP: When you send a photo, the top row of the Share sheet shows your
other photos and videos so that you can select additional items to
go along for the ride. A blue checkmark identifies each item you’ve
selected to send.

3. Tap the icon of the person you want to share with.
In about a second, a message appears on the recipient’s screen, conveying your offer to transmit something good—and, when it makes
sense, showing a picture of it (previous page, right).
TIP: Actually, you can select more than one person’s icon. In that case,
you’ll send this item to everyone at once.

At this point, it’s up to your recipients. If they tap Accept, then the
transfer begins (and ends); whatever you sent them opens up automatically in the relevant app. You’ll know that AirDrop was successful
because the word “Sent” appears on your screen.
If they tap Decline, then you must have misunderstood their willingness to accept your item (or they tapped the wrong button). In that
case, you’ll see the word “Declined” on your screen.

The One AirDrop Setting
Your existence probably won’t become a living hell of AirDrop invitations.
Realistically, you won’t be bombarded by strangers around you who want
to show you family pictures or web links. Even so, Apple has given you
some control over who’s allowed to try to send you things by AirDrop.
To see the settings, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the
Control Center (page 46). There, in the middle, is the AirDrop button.
Tap it to see these three choices:
• Off. Nobody can send anything to you by AirDrop. You’ll never be
disturbed by an incoming “Accept?” message.
• Contacts Only. Only people in your Contacts app—your own address
book—can send you things by AirDrop. Your phone is invisible to

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strangers. (Of course, even when someone you know tries to send
something, you still have to approve the transfer.)
NOTE: The Contacts Only option requires that both you and your
recipient have iCloud accounts and are logged in. Your Contacts
card for the other person has to include that iCloud address (or
.me, or .mac).

• Everyone. Anyone, even strangers, can try to send you things. You
can still accept or decline each transfer.
TIP: OK, there’s one other AirDrop setting to fiddle with: In SettingsÆ
Sounds, you can specify the sound effect that means “AirDrop file
received.”
(OK, OK, there’s one more setting. Deep in GeneralÆRestrictions,
you can turn off AirDrop altogether. Now your youngster—or
whomever you’re trying to restrict with restrictions—can’t get into
trouble in a debauched frenzy of sending and receiving files.)

iCloud Drive
iCloud Drive is Apple’s version of Dropbox. It’s a folder whose contents
appear identically on every Mac, iPhone, iPad, and even Windows PC you
own, through the magic of instant online syncing. It’s an online “disk” that
holds 5 gigabytes (or more, if you’re willing to pay for it).
Whatever you put into the iCloud Drive appears, almost instantly, in the
iCloud Drive folder on all your other machines: Macs, iPhones, iPads, and
even Windows PCs. In fact, your files will even be available at iCloud.com,
so you can grab them when you’re stranded on a desert island with nothing but somebody else’s computer. (And Internet access.)
This is an incredibly useful feature. No more emailing files to yourself.
No more carrying things around on a flash drive. After working on some
document at the office, you can go home and resume from right where
you stopped; the same file is waiting for you, exactly as you left it.
The iCloud Drive is a great backup, too, because of its automatic duplication on multiple machines. Even if your phone is stolen or burned to aluminum dust, your iCloud Drive files are safe.
Your first chance to turn on iCloud Drive was when you installed
iOS 8, 9, or 10 (or bought your iOS 8, 9, or 10 phone). If you declined,
maybe because you had no idea what it was about, then you can visit
SettingsÆiCloudÆiCloud Drive and turn iCloud Drive on now.

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NOTE: iCloud Drive replaces a previous syncing feature that Apple
called “Documents in the Cloud.” If you turn on iCloud Drive,
then the old system goes away; all the files you kept there are
brought onto your new iCloud Drive. That’s fine, as long as you
understand that pre–iOS 8 (or pre–OS X Yosemite) gadgets will
no longer be able to see them.
Once you turn on iCloud Drive, you can’t go back to the
“Documents in the Cloud” system. Sure, you can turn off iCloud
Drive (in Settings), but all that does is stop syncing the drive’s
contents with your other machines.

Now, it’s easy to understand iCloud Drive on a Mac or PC. It looks like
any other disk, full of files and folders. You can even access them at
iCloud.com (click the Drive icon), which is handy when you have to use
someone else’s computer. Any change you make to the iCloud Drive or
its contents is instantly synchronized across all your other gadgets.
On the phone, iCloud Drive is an actual app—the closest thing the phone
has to a “desktop” where you can organize files and folders. Tug downward to reveal three tabs at the top, which sort the list of files and folders
by Date, Name, or Tags; the Ç switches between icon view and list view.

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Hold your finger down on any icon in the iCloud Drive until the options
bar appears, with options for Delete, Rename, Share, Move, and Info.
You can also hit Select and then tap the icons you want to put into a
New Folder, Move into a different folder, or Delete from the iCloud Drive.
Now, iOS is not macOS or Windows; still, it can open many kinds of documents right on the phone. Graphics, music files, Microsoft Office documents, and PDFs all open from the iCloud Drive.
Other kinds of computer files, not so much. The iPhone can’t open the
specialized files from sheet-music or genealogy programs, for example.
In those cases, iCloud Drive is still useful, though, because it lets you forward those documents by email to a machine that can open them.
You can also see what’s on your iCloud Drive within apps that can open
and save documents. That includes Apple’s apps—Keynote, Pages,
Numbers, iMovie—and other apps that create and open documents, like,
say, Scanner Pro and PDF Expert.
In all these apps, there’s an Open button or icon that presents the iCloud
Drive’s contents. In Pages, for example, when you’re viewing your list of
documents, tap Locations, and then tap iCloud. There’s the list of folders
on your iCloud Drive, corresponding perfectly to what you would have
seen on a Mac or a PC. Tap a folder to open it and see what’s in it.
Note that iOS shows you everything on your iCloud Drive, even things
you can’t open at the moment. For example, if you’re using the iMovie
app, you can’t open a Pages file, so Pages documents appear dimmed
and gray.
On an iPhone, the iCloud Drive folder list is not quite the same thing as
having a real desktop—you can’t rename, copy, or delete files or folders
on the phone, for example.
But it’s comforting to know that everything on your iCloud Drive that you
can open is available wherever you go—and that you can now load up
everyday documents (pictures, music, PDFs, Microsoft Office files, iWork
documents) onto your phone by dragging them into the iCloud Drive
folder on your computer.

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The Built-In
Apps

our iPhone comes already loaded with the icons of about 25
programs. Eventually, of course, you’ll fill it up with apps you
install yourself, but Apple starts you off with the essentials.
They include gateways to the Internet (Safari), communications tools
(Phone, Messages, Mail, Contacts), visual records of your life (Photos,
Camera), shopping centers (iTunes Store, App Store), omnipresent storage (iCloud Drive), and entertainment (Music, TV, Podcasts).
Those core apps get special treatment in the other chapters. This chapter covers the secondary programs, in alphabetical order: Calculator,
Calendar, Clock, Compass, Health, Home, iBooks, Maps, News, Notes,
Podcasts, Reminders, Stocks, Tips, TV, Voice Memos, Wallet, Watch, and
Weather.
TIP: You can open any of these apps by hunting it down and tapping its
icon. But it’s usually much faster to tell Siri to do it. Say, “Open the
calculator,” for example.

Calculator
The iPhone wouldn’t be much of a computer without a calculator, now,
would it? And here it is, your everyday calculator—with a secret twist.
In Calculator’s basic four-function mode, you can tap out equations (like
15.4 × 300 =) to see the answer at the top. (You can paste things you’ve
copied into here, too; just hold your finger down until the Paste button
appears.) There’s no memory function in the basic calculator, but you do
get a +/– button; its function is to change the currently displayed number
from positive to negative, or vice versa.

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TIP: When you tap one of the operators (like ×, +, –, or ÷) it sprouts a
black outline to help you remember which operation is in progress.
Let’s see an ordinary calculator do that!

Now the twist: If you rotate the iPhone 90 degrees in either direction,
the Calculator morphs into a full-blown HP scientific calculator, complete
with trigonometry, logarithmic functions, a memory function, exponents,
roots beyond the square root, and so on. Go wild, ye engineers and
physicists!

If you make a mistake while entering a number, swipe horizontally across
the numerical display (either direction). Each swipe backspaces over the
rightmost digit. And if you mistakenly touch the wrong operator (× when
you meant –, for example), there’s no need to start over. Just tap the correct operator before tapping the number. The app ignores the errant tap.

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TIP: Don’t forget that you can use the Calculator instantly, at any time,
even without waking or unlocking the phone. It’s one of the Chosen
Few icons on the Control Center (page 46)—mainly because it’s
really handy when you have to calculate a tip in a restaurant!

Calendar
The iPhone’s calendar syncs, automatically and wirelessly, with whatever
online calendar you keep: iCloud, Google Calendar, a corporate Exchange
calendar, and so on. Everything’s kept in sync with your computers and
tablets, too. Make a change in one place, and it changes everywhere else.
Then again, you can also use Calendar all by itself.
TIP: The Calendar icon on the Home screen shows what looks like one of
those paper Page-a-Day calendar pads. But if you look closely, you’ll
see a sweet touch: It actually shows today’s day and date.

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Day View
When you open Calendar, you see today’s schedule, broken down by
time slot (previous page, right). You can navigate to other days’ schedules in any of three ways: Swipe horizontally across the Day screen to see
the previous or next day. Tap a date at the top to see another day this
week. Swipe across the dates at the top to jump to another week. If the
date you want to check is further away than a week or two, though, it
might make more sense to pop into Month view, described next.

Month View
Month view, of course, shows an entire month at a glance (previous page,
center). You can scroll the months vertically, thereby scanning the entire
year in a few seconds. To get there from Day view, tap the name of the
month at the top left.
Of course, your little phone screen is too small to show you what’s written on each calendar square; all you get is a gray dot on any date when
you’ve scheduled an appointment. Tap that dot to jump back into Day
view and read your schedule.
TIP: If you have an iPhone 6s or later model, a delicious shortcut awaits:
Hard-press any gray dot. A pop-up bubble appears, showing you
the appointments that day as though it’s a peephole into the Day
view. You can then press even harder to open the Day view for that
day, or lift your finger away to return to the Month view. You’ve just
used peek and pop, described on page 37.

Year View
If you’re in Month view, you can “zoom out” yet another level—Year view.
It’s a simple, vertically scrolling map of the year’s months. Tap the name
of the year (top left) to see it. From there, tap a month block to open it
back into Month view.
TIP: In all three of these views—Day, Month, Year—you can tap Today
(bottom left) to return to today’s date.

Week View
The most useful view yet may be the fourth one: the scrolling Week view
(facing page, top).
No button opens this view; instead, from any other view, turn the phone
90 degrees so that it’s in landscape mode. You can swipe sideways to
move to earlier or later dates. Swipe up or down to move through the
hours of the day. (OK, you don’t get to see a full week, but it’s close.)

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Plus Model Views
If you have a Plus model—one with the Jumbotron screen—then there’s
room for extra information (the lower illustration above). On a Plus, the
Day and Month views offer a split screen, showing the calendar on the
left and details on the right. You also get a row of view buttons (Day,
Week, Month, Year)—something the owners of puny regular iPhones
never see.

Subscribing to Your Online Calendars
To set up real-time, wireless connections to your calendars online, tap
your way to SettingsÆCalendarsÆAdd Account. Here you can tap
iCloud, Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, or Outlook.com to set up your
account. (You can also tap OtherÆAdd CalDAV Account to fill in the
details of a less well-known calendar server, or OtherÆAdd Subscribed
Calendar to connect to an online calendar subscription service—from
TripIt or your favorite sports team, for example.

Making an Appointment (Day or Month View)
Recording an event on this calendar is quite a bit more flexible than
entering one on, say, one of those “Hunks of the Midwest Police Stations”
paper calendars.

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Start by tapping n (top-right corner of the screen). The New Event
screen pops up, filled with tappable lines of information. Tap one (like
Starts or Repeat) to open a configuration screen for that element.
For example:
• Title/Location. Name your appointment here. For example, you might
type Fly to Phoenix.
The second line, called Location, makes a lot of sense. If you think
about it, almost everyone needs to record where a meeting is to take
place. You might type a reminder for yourself like My place, a specific
address like 212 East 23rd, a contact phone, or a flight number. Use
the keyboard as usual.
• Starts/Ends. Tap Starts, and then indicate the starting time for this
appointment, using the four spinning dials that appear at the bottom
of the screen (below, right). The first sets the date; the second, the
hour; the third, the minute; the fourth, AM or PM.

Then tap Ends, and repeat the process to schedule the ending time.
(The iPhone helpfully presets the Ends time to one hour later.)
An All-day event, of course, has no specific time of day: a holiday, a
birthday, a book deadline. When you turn this option on, the Starts

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and Ends times disappear. The event appears at the top of the list for
that day.
TIP: Calendar can handle multiday appointments, too, like trips away.
Turn on All-day—and then use the Starts and Ends controls to
specify beginning and ending dates. On the iPhone, you’ll see the
appointment as a list item that repeats on every day’s square. Back
on your computer, you’ll see it as a banner stretching across the
Month view.

• Repeat. The screen here contains common options for recurring
events: every day, every week, and so on. It starts out saying Never.
Once you tap a selection, you return to the Edit screen. Now you can
tap the End Repeat button to specify when this event should stop repeating. If you leave the setting at Never, then you’re stuck seeing this
event repeating on your calendar until the end of time (a good choice
for recording, say, your anniversary, especially if your spouse might be
consulting the same calendar).
In other situations, you may prefer to tap On Date and spin the three
dials (month, day, year) to specify an ending date, which is useful for
car and mortgage payments.
Tap New Event to return to the editing screen.
• Travel Time. If you turn on this switch, you can indicate how long it’ll
take you to get to this appointment.

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You get six canned choices, from 5 minutes to 2 hours. Or you can tap
Starting Location and specify your starting point, and marvel as the
iPhone calculates the driving time automatically. (Walking time, too, if
it’s close enough.)
Two things then happen. First, the travel time is blocked off on your
calendar, so you don’t accidentally schedule things during your
driving time. (The travel time is depicted as a dotted extension of the
appointment.)
Second, if you’ve set up an alarm reminder, it will go off that much
earlier, so you have time to get where you’re going.
• Calendar. Tap here to specify which color-coded calendar (category, like Home, Kids, or Work) this appointment belongs to. Turn to
page 364 for details on the calendar concept.
• Invitees. If you have an iCloud, Exchange, or CalDAV account, you can
invite people to an event—a meeting, a party, whatever—and track
their responses, right there on your phone (or any iCloud gadget).
When you tap Invitees, you get an Add Invitees screen, where you
can type in the email addresses of your lucky guests. (Or tap ≠ to
choose them from your Contacts list.)
Later, when you tap Done, the phone fires off email invitations to
those guests. It contains buttons for them to click: Accept, Decline,
and Maybe. You get to see their responses right here in the details of
your calendar event.
As icing on the cake, your guests will see a pop-up reminder on their
phones when the time comes for the party to get started.
• Alert. This screen tells Calendar how to notify you when a certain
appointment is about to begin. Calendar can send any of four kinds
of flags to get your attention. Tap how much notice you want: 5, 15, or
30 minutes before the big moment; an hour or two before; a day or
two before; a week before; or on the day of the event.
NOTE: For all-day events like birthdays, you get a smaller but very useful
list of choices: “On day of event (9 AM),” “1 day before (9 AM),”
“2 days before (9 AM),” and “1 week before.”

When you tap Add Event and return to the main Add Event screen,
you see that a new line, called Second Alert, has sprouted up beneath
the first Alert line. This line lets you schedule a second warning for
your appointment, which can occur either before or after the first one.
Think of it as a backup alarm for events of extra urgency.

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Once you’ve scheduled these alerts, you’ll see a message appear on
the screen at the appointed time(s). (Even if the phone was asleep, it
appears briefly.) You’ll also hear a chirpy alarm sound.
TIP: The iPhone doesn’t play the sound if you turned off Calendar Alerts
in SettingsÆSounds or SettingsÆSounds & Haptics. It also doesn’t
play if you silenced the phone with the silencer switch on the side.

• Show as. If you work in the business world, it’s courteous to mark
your new appointments as either Busy or Free. That way, other people who see your calendar, trying to schedule a meeting when you
can attend, will know which events on your calendar are movable and
which are non-negotiable. If you’re just indicating “Keeping Up with
the Kardashians TV marathon,” maybe that one should be marked as
Free.
• URL. Here’s a spot where you can record the web address of some
online site that provides more information about this event.
• Notes. Here’s your chance to customize your calendar event. You can
type any text you want in the Notes area—driving directions, contact
phone numbers, a call history, or whatever. Tap Done.
When you’ve completed filling in all these blanks, tap Add. Your newly
scheduled event now shows up on the calendar.

Making an Appointment (Day View, Week View)
As noted earlier, turning the phone 90 degrees opens up a widescreen,
scrolling Week view of your life.
In both Day view and Week view, you can hold your finger down on a
time slot to add a new, 1-hour appointment right there. You’re asked
to enter a name and, if you like, location for this new appointment. Tap
Add. You can always edit this appointment’s details or duration later, as
described next—but this quick-and-dirty technique saves the effort of
tapping in Start and End times.

Editing, Rescheduling, Deleting Events (Long Way)
To examine the details of an appointment in the calendar, tap it once.
The Event Details screen appears, filled with the details you previously
established.
To edit any of these characteristics, tap Edit. You return to what looks
like a clone of the New Event screen. Here you can change the name,
time, alarm, repeat schedule, calendar category, or any other detail of the
event, just the way you set them up to begin with.

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This time, there’s a red Delete Event button at the bottom. That’s the only
way to erase an appointment from your calendar. (You can’t erase events
created by other people—Facebook birthdays, meetings on shared calendars, and so on—only appointments you created.)

Editing and Rescheduling Events (Fun Way)
In Day or Week views, you can drag an appointment’s block to another
time slot or even another day. Just hold your finger down on the appointment’s bubble for about a second—until it darkens—before you start to
drag. It’s a lot quicker and more fluid than having to edit in a dialog box.
You can also change the duration of an appointment in Day and Week
views. Hold your finger down on its colored block for about a second;
when you let go, small, round handles appear.
You can drag those tiny handles up or down to make the block taller or
shorter, in effect making it start or end at a different time.
Whether you drag the whole block, the top edge, or the bottom edge,
the iPhone thoughtfully displays “:15,” “:30,” or “:45” on the left-side time
ruler to let you know where you’ll be when you let go.

The Calendar (Category) Concept
A calendar, in Apple’s somewhat confusing terminology, is a color-coded
subset—a category—into which you can place various appointments.
They can be anything you like. One person might have calendars called
Home, Work, and TV Reminders. Another might have Me, Spouse ’n’ Me,
and The Kidz. A small business could have categories called Deductible
Travel, R&D, and R&R.

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You can create and edit calendar categories right on the iPhone, in
your desktop calendar program, or (if you’re an iCloud member) at
www.icloud.com when you’re at your computer; all your categories and
color-codings show up on the iPhone automatically.
At any time, on the iPhone, you can choose which subset of categories
you want to see. Just tap Calendars at the bottom of Day, Month, or Year
view. You arrive at the big color-coded list of your categories (below,
left). As you can see, it’s subdivided according to your accounts: your
Gmail categories, your Yahoo categories, your iCloud categories, and
so on. There’s even a Facebook option, if you’ve set up your Facebook
account, so that you can see your Facebook calendar entries and friends’
birthdays right on the main calendar.

This screen exists partly as a reference, a cheat sheet to help you remember what color goes with which category, and partly as a tappable subset chooser. That is, you can tap a category’s name to hide or show all of
its appointments on the calendar. A checkmark means you’re seeing its
appointments. (The All [Account Name] button turns on or off all that
account’s categories at once.)
If you tap Edit, then a little ’ appears next to each calendar’s name.
When you tap it, you’re offered a screen where you can change the

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calendar’s name, color, and list of people who can see it (previous page,
right)—or scroll all the way down to see the Delete Calendar button.
The Edit Calendars screen also offers an Add Calendar button. It’s the
key to creating, naming, and colorizing a new calendar on the phone.
(Whatever changes you make to your calendar categories on the phone
will be synced back to your Mac or PC.)
TIP: You can share an iCloud calendar with other iCloud members
(previous page, right), which is fantastic for families and small
businesses who need to coordinate. Tap Calendars, and then
tap * next to the calendar’s name. Tap Add Person and enter the
person’s name. Your invitees get invitations by email; with one click,
they’ve added your appointments to their calendars. They can make
changes, too.
You can also share a calendar with anyone (not just iCloud
members) in a “Look, don’t touch” condition. Tap Calendars, and
then tap * next to the calendar’s name. Turn on Public Calendar;
tap Share Link to open the Share sheet for sending the link. Most
calendar apps understand the calendar link that your phone sends.

Search
If you tap Â and type into the search box, you pare down the list of all
calendar events from all time; only events whose names match what
you’ve typed show up. Tap one to jump to its block on the corresponding
Day view.
Next time you’re sure you made an appointment with Harvey but you
can’t remember the date, keep this search feature in mind.
TIP: The iOS calendar is pretty basic. For more features and power,
consider calendar apps like Fantastical or BusyCal.

Clock
It’s not just a clock—it’s more like a time factory. Hiding behind this
single icon on the Home screen are five programs: a world clock, an
alarm clock, a stopwatch, a countdown timer, and—new in iOS 10—a
bedtime-management module.
TIP: The app icon itself on the Home screen shows the current time! Isn’t
that cute?

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World Clock
When you tap World Clock on the Clock screen, you start out with only
one clock, showing the current time in Apple’s own Cupertino, California.
The neat part is that you can open up several of these clocks and set
each one to show the time in a different city. By checking these clocks,
you’ll know what time it is in some remote city, so you don’t wake somebody up at what turns out to be 3 a.m.

To specify which city’s time appears on the clock, tap n at the upperright corner. Scroll to the city you want, or tap its first letter in the index
at the right side to save scrolling, or tap in the search box at the top and
type the name of a major city. As you type, matching city names appear;
tap the one whose time you want to track.
As soon as you tap a city name, you return to the World Clock display.
You can scroll the list of clocks. You’re not limited by the number that fit
on your screen at once.
TIP: Only the world’s major cities are in the iPhone’s database. If you’re
trying to track the time in Squirrel Cheeks, New Mexico, add a major
city in the same time zone instead—like Albuquerque.

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To edit the list of clocks, tap Edit. Delete a city clock by tapping – and
then Delete, or drag clocks up and down using the H as a handle. Then
tap Done.

Alarm
If you travel much, this feature could turn out to be one of your iPhone’s
most useful functions. It’s reliable, it’s programmable, and it even wakes
the phone first, if necessary, to wake you.
To set an alarm, tap Alarm at the bottom of the Clock screen. You’re
shown the list of alarms you’ve already created, even if none are currently
set to go off (below, left). You could create a 6:30 a.m. alarm for weekdays and an 11:30 a.m. alarm for weekends.

To create a new alarm, tap n to open the Add Alarm screen.
TIP: But really, you should not bother setting alarms using this manual
technique. Instead, you’ll save a lot of time and steps by using Siri.
Just say, “Set my alarm for 7:30 a.m.” (or whatever time you want).
And while we’re at it: You can also say, “Change my 7:30 a.m. alarm
to 8 a.m.” And if you get really lucky with your life karma, you
may even have the opportunity to say the greatest thing you can
possibly say to Siri: “Turn off my alarm.”

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You have several options here:
• Time dials. Spin these three vertical wheels—hour, minute, AM/PM—to
specify the time you want the alarm to go off.
• Repeat. Tap to specify what days this alarm rings. You can specify,
for example, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays by tapping those
three buttons. (Tap a day-of-the-week button again to turn off its
checkmark.) Tap Back when you’re done. (If you choose Saturdays
and Sundays, iOS is smart enough to call that “Weekends.” And it
knows that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are
“Weekdays.”)
• Label. Tap to give this alarm a description, like “Get dressed for wedding.” That message appears on the screen when the alarm goes off.
• Sound. Choose what sound you want to ring. You can choose from
any of the iPhone’s ringtone sounds, any you’ve added yourself—or,
best of all, Pick a Song. That’s right—you can wake to the music of
your choice.
• Snooze. If this option is on then, at the appointed time, the alarm
message on the screen offers you a Snooze button. Tap it for 9
more minutes of sleep, at which point the iPhone tries again. (If your
phone was in Sleep mode, it gives you a countdown to the next rude
awakening.)
When you finally tap Save, you return to the Alarm screen, which lists
your new alarm. Just tap the on/off switch to cancel an alarm. It stays in
the list, though, so you can quickly reactivate it another day, without having to redo the whole thing. You can tap n to set another alarm, if you
like.
Now the R icon appears in the status bar at the top of the iPhone
screen. That’s your indicator that the alarm is set.
To delete an alarm, swipe left across its name and then tap Delete. To
make changes to the time, name, sound, and so on, tap Edit, and then
tap the alarm.
TIP: The iPhone never deletes an alarm after using it; over time,
therefore, your list of alarms may grow alarmingly large. Fortunately,
you can tell Siri to clean them up for you in one fell swoop. Just say,
“Delete all my alarms.”

So what happens when the alarm goes off? The iPhone wakes itself up, if
it was asleep. A message appears, identifying the alarm and the time.

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And, of course, the sound rings. This alarm is one of the only iPhone
sounds that you’ll hear even if the silencer switch is turned on. Apple figures that if you’ve gone to the trouble of setting an alarm, you probably
want to know about it, even if you forget to turn the ringer back on.
To stop the alarm, tap Stop or press the Home button. To snooze it, tap
the Snooze button or press the Sleep switch or a volume key. (In other
words, in your sleepy haze, just grab the phone with your whole hand
and squeeze. You’ll hit something that shuts the thing off.)
Once your alarm has gone off, its time remains listed in the Clock app (on
the Alarm screen), but its on/off switch goes to Off.

Bedtime
Medical research tells us that sleep deprivation and inconsistent sleep
schedules take a terrible toll on our health, mood, and productivity. So
iOS 10’s Clock app offers a new Bedtime tab. If you answer a few questions about your sleep habits, the app will attempt to keep your sleep
regular—prompting you when it’s time to get ready for bed, waking you
at a consistent time, and keeping a graph of your sleep consistency.
The first time you open this panel, the interview begins. On successive screens, it asks: What time would you like to wake up? Which days
of the week should the alarm go off? How many hours of sleep do you
need each night? When would you like a bedtime reminder? (That is,
how many minutes before you want to hit the pillow?) What ringtone or
sound do you want to hear when you wake up?
TIP: You can change your answers to any of these questions later by
tapping Options at top left.

At this point, you see the master Bedtime graph shown on the facing
page at left. It’s a handy visualization of the mental math millions of people perform every night anyway: “If I go to bed now, I’ll get five hours of
sleep!”
The real point of Bedtime, though, is the Sleep Analysis graph below all
of this. Your goal is to keep the bars consistent over time—both in length
and vertical position. It’s not enough to get enough sleep; you should
also try to sleep during the same period each night.
If you care about your health, mood, and productivity, that is.
TIP: The More history button you may see here opens the Health app
described later in this chapter. Behind the scenes, the Health app is
doing the actual work for the Bedtime module.

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Stopwatch
You’ve never met a more beautiful stopwatch than this one. Tap Start
to begin timing something: a runner, a train, a person who’s arguing
with you.
While the digits are flying by, you can tap Lap as often as you like. Each
time, the list at the bottom identifies how much time elapsed since the
last time you tapped Lap. It’s a way for you to compare, for example,
how much time a runner is spending on each lap around a track. You see
the numbered laps and the time for each.
NOTE: If you prefer an old-timey analog stopwatch display, slide the
digital readout to the left. Slide right to bring back the digital
stopwatch.

You can work in other apps while the stopwatch is counting. In fact, the
timer keeps ticking away even when the iPhone is asleep! As a result, you
can time long-term events, like how long it takes an ice sculpture to melt,
the time it takes for a bean seed to sprout, or the length of a Michael Bay
movie.

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Tap Stop to freeze the counter; tap Start to resume the timing. If you tap
Reset, you reset the counter to zero and erase all the lap times.

Timer
The fourth Clock mini-app is a countdown timer. You input a starting
time, and it counts down to zero.
Countdown timers are everywhere in life. They measure the periods
in sports and games, cooking times in the kitchen, penalties on The
Amazing Race. But on the iPhone, the timer has an especially handy
function: It can turn off the music or video after a specified amount of
time. In short, it’s a sleep timer that plays you to sleep and then shuts off
to save power.
To set the timer, open the Clock app and then tap Timer. Spin the two
dials to specify the number of hours and minutes you want to count
down.
Then tap the When Timer Ends control to set up what happens when
the timer reaches 0:00. Most of the options here are ringtone sounds, so
you’ll have an audible cue that the time’s up. The last one, though, Stop
Playing, is the aforementioned sleep timer. It stops audio and video playback at the appointed time, so that you (and the iPhone) can go to sleep.
Tap Set.

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Finally, tap Start. Big clock digits count down toward zero. While it’s in
progress, you can do other things on the iPhone, change the When Timer
Ends settings, or just hit Cancel to forget the whole thing.
TIP: It’s much faster and simpler to use Siri to start, pause, and resume
the Timer. See page 151.
If you have an iPhone 6s or 7, you can also open the Control Center
(page 46) and hard-press the Timer icon. Its shortcut menu
offers instant timer options for 1 hour, 20 minutes, 5 minutes, or 1
minute.

Compass
The iPhone has something very few other phones offer: a magnetic-field
sensor known as a magnetometer, even better known as a compass.
When you open the Compass app, you get exactly what you’d expect: a
classic Boy Scout wilderness compass that always points north.
Except it does a few things the Boy Scout compasses never did. Like displaying a digital readout of your heading, altitude, city name, and precise geographic coordinates at the bottom. And offering a choice of true
north (the “top” point of the Earth’s rotational axis) or magnetic north
(the spot that traditional compasses point to, which is about 11 degrees
away from true north). You choose in SettingsÆCompass.
To use the compass, hold it roughly parallel to the ground, and then read
it like…a compass. Tap the center of the compass to lock in your current heading; a red strip shows how far you are off course. Tap again to
unlock the heading.
TIP: For many people, the real power of the compass is in the Maps
app. (You can jump directly from Compass to Maps by tapping the
coordinates below the compass dial.)
The compass lets Maps know which way you’re facing. That’s a
critical detail when you’re lost in a city, trying to find a new address,
or emerging from the subway with no idea which way to walk.

People who write iPhone programs can tap into the compass, too.
There’s an “augmented reality” app called New York Nearest Subway,
for example. By using the compass, GPS, and tilt-sensor information,
it knows where you are and how you’re holding the phone—and so it
superimposes arrows that show where to find the nearest subway stop
and which line it’s on.

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The Carpenter’s Level
The Compass app has a secret identity: It doubles as a carpenter’s level.
The next time you need to hang a picture, or prop up a wobbly table, or
raise a barn, you’ll now know when you’ve got things perfectly horizontal
or vertical.
From the Compass screen, swipe to the left to reveal the level. It measures all three dimensions:
• Right/left. Hold the iPhone upright (against a picture you’re hanging,
say), and tilt it left and right. When it’s perfectly upright, the readout
says 0 degrees, and the bottom half of the screen turns green.
• Forward/back. Hold the phone upright and tip it away from or toward
you. Once again, “0 degrees” and green mean “level.”
• Perfectly flat. Hold the phone on its back, screen facing the sky.
When the two circles merge (above, right), you’ll know you’ve got
it perfectly level. You could, for example, put the iPhone on a table
you’re trying to adjust, using its gauge to know how close you’re getting as you wedge something under its short leg.

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TIP: Level doesn’t have to be the zero point. You can tilt the phone to
any angle and declare that to be the zero point—by tapping the
screen.

Health
This app, newly renovated in iOS 10, is a dashboard for all the health
data—activity, sleep, nutrition, relaxation—generated by your fitness apps.
But even if you don’t have an app or a band, you have the iPhone itself;
unbeknownst to you, it’s been quietly tracking the steps you’ve been taking and the flights of stairs you’ve been climbing, just by measuring the
jostling of the phone in your pocket or bag! (If that creeps you out just a
bit, you can turn it off in SettingsÆ PrivacyÆ Motion & Fitness.)
Lots of apps and fitness bands share their data with Health: the
Apple Watch, UP band, MyFitnessPal, Strava, MapMyRun, WebMD,
MotionX-24/7, 7 Minute Workout, Withings Health Mate, Garmin Connect
Mobile, Lark, Lose It!, Sleepio, Weight Watchers, and so on. Fitness tracking is a big, big deal these days, now that your phone and/or your fitness
band can measure your steps, exercise, and sleep.
TIP: The one fitness brand that’s screamingly missing from this list is
Fitbit. Your Fitbit band can’t share its data with the Health app—at
least not without the help of a $3 app called Sync Solver or a free
one called Power Sync for Fitbit.

If you have one of those bands or apps, you’ll have to fish around in its
settings until you find the option to connect with Health. At that point,
you must turn on the kinds of data you want it to share with Health.
Next, open the Health app. The next bit of setup is to specify what kind
of data you want staring you in the face on its Dashboard screen. This is
the motivational aspect of Health: The more you’re forced to look at and
think about your weight, activity, sleep, or calories, the more likely you
are to improve.

The Four Biggies
The top of the screen offers huge tiles for Activity, Mindfulness, Nutrition,
and Sleep—in Apple’s mind, the Big Four of health. An introductory
video appears when you tap each of these, explaining with charming
British narration the importance of that life factor. On each screen, you
can see the latest graphs of your efforts in that category. (For some, like
Mindfulness, you won’t see anything unless you’ve installed an app that
generates that kind of data.)

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Below those tiles, you’ll find places to record health data, like your body
measurements, electronic medical records, reproductive data, and so on.
Three other tabs appear in Health:
• The Today Tab. Here’s a single summary screen of the Big Four, all in
one place. You can tap any one of these summary bubbles to view it
in more detail—for example, to switch among Day, Week, Month, or
Year graphs.
• Sources. This screen lists all the fitness apps and gadgets you’ve
hooked up to Health (including the Apple Watch, if you have one), so
that you know where your data is going.
• Medical ID. This screen offers a reason to use the Health app even if
you don’t use any fitness apps and don’t track any medical statistics.
It’s the electronic equivalent of an emergency medical ID bracelet.
You can record your name, age, blood type, weight, height, medical conditions, and emergency contact information. This screen also
makes it easy to do something noble: offer to donate your organs
after you pass away.

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If you tap Edit and turn on Show When Locked, then this information
will be available on your phone’s Lock screen. If you pass out, have a
seizure, or otherwise become medically inconvenienced, a passerby
or medical pro can get that critical information without needing your
password (or your awareness).
If that person is technically savvy, that is. Finding the Medical ID
screen is fairly tricky. From the Lock screen, press the Home button to
view the Enter Passcode screen; tap Emergency; tap Medical ID.

Home
HomeKit is Apple’s home-automation standard. The Home app lets you
set up and control any product whose box says “Works with HomeKit”—
all of those “smart” or “connected” door locks, security cameras, power
outlets, thermostats, doorbells, lightbulbs, leak/freeze/temperature/
humidity/air-quality sensors, and so on.
Once you’ve installed the gadget and hooked it up in the Home app, you
can turn it on and off, monitor its readouts, or adjust its settings (like on
the thermostat shown below at right). You can do all of that from the

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Home app, from the Control Center (shown on the previous page, left),
or by using Siri voice commands (“Lock the front door,” “Turn on the
downstairs lights,” and so on). You can automate those actions based on
the time or your location, or hand off control of certain devices to other
people’s iPhones.
For complete details on setting up and using Home and HomeKit, see
this book’s free online PDF appendix, “HomeKit and the Home App.” It’s
on this book’s “Missing CD” at www.missingmanuals.com.

iBooks
iBooks is Apple’s ebook reading program. It turns the iPhone into a sort
of pocket-sized Kindle. With iBooks, you can carry around dozens or
hundreds of books in your pocket, which, in the pre-ebook days, would
have drawn some funny looks in public.
Most people think of iBooks as a reader for books that Apple sells on its
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does that very well. But you can also load it up with your own PDF documents, as well as thousands of free, older, out-of-copyright books.
TIP: iBooks is very cool and all. But, in the interest of fairness, it’s worth
noting that Amazon’s free Kindle app, and Barnes & Noble’s free
B&N eReader app, are much the same thing—but offer much bigger
book libraries at lower prices than Apple’s.

Downloading Books
To shop the iBooks bookstore, open the iBooks app. If this is your first
time diving in, you might be offered a selection of free starter books to
download right now. Go for it; they’re real, brand-name books by famous
authors.
If, at any time, you want to buy another book—it could happen—well, the
icons across the bottom are the literary equivalent of the App Store. Tap
Featured to see what Apple is plugging this week; Top Charts to see this
week’s bestsellers, including what’s on The New York Times Best Sellers
list (note that there’s a special row for free books); Search to search by
name; and Purchased to see what you’ve bought.
TIP: Once you’ve bought a book from Apple, you can download it again
on other iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads, and Macs. Buy once, read
many times. That’s the purpose of the Not on This iPhone tab, which
appears when you tap Purchased.

Once you find a book that looks good, you can tap Sample to download
a free chapter, read ratings and reviews, or tap the price itself to buy the
book and download it straight to the phone.

PDFs and ePub Files
You can also load up your ebook reader from your computer, feeding it
with PDF documents and ePub files.
NOTE: ePub is the normal iBooks format. It’s a very popular standard
for ebook readers, Apple’s and otherwise. The only difference
between the ePub documents you create and the ones Apple
sells is that Apple’s are copy-protected.

As usual, your Mac or PC is the most convenient loading dock for files
bound for your iPhone. If you have a Mac, open the iBooks program.

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If not, open iTunes, click your iPhone’s icon at the top (when it’s connected), and then click Books.
Either way, you now see all the books, PDF documents, and ePub files
that you’ve slated for transfer. To add to this set, just drag files off your
desktop and directly into this window, as shown below.

And where are you supposed to get all these files? Well, PDF documents
are everywhere—people send them as attachments, and you can turn
any document into a PDF file. (For example, on the Mac, in any program,
choose FileÆPrint; in the resulting dialog box, click PDFÆSave as PDF.)
TIP: If you get a PDF document as an email attachment, then adding
it to iBooks is even easier. Tap the attachment to open it; now tap
Open in iBooks in the corner of the page. (The iPhone may not be
able to open really huge PDFs, though.)

But free ebooks in ePub format are everywhere, too. There are 33,000
free downloadable books at gutenberg.org, for example, and over a million at books.google.com—oldies, but classic oldies, with lots of Mark
Twain, Agatha Christie, Herman Melville, H.G. Wells, and so on. (Lots of
these are available in the Free pages of Apple’s own iBook store, too.)

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TIP: You’ll discover that these freebie books usually come with genericlooking covers. But once you’ve dragged them into iTunes, it’s easy
to add good-looking covers. Use images.google.com to search for
the book’s title. Right-click (or Control-click) the cover image in
your web browser; from the shortcut menu, choose Copy Image.
In iTunes, in Library mode, choose Books from the top-left pop-up
menu. Right-click (or Control-click) the generic book; choose
Get Info; click Artwork; and paste the cover you copied. Now that
cover will sync over to the iPhone along with the book.

Once you’ve got books in iTunes, connect the iPhone, choose its name at
top right, click the Books tab at top, and turn on the checkboxes of the
books you want to transfer.

Your Library
Once you’ve supplied your iBooks app with some reading material, the
fun begins. When you open the app, its My Books tab shows a futuristic, shaded bookshelf with your library represented as little book covers.
Mostly what you’ll do here is tap a book to open it. But there are other
activities waiting for you:
• Tap the Ç icon, which switches the book-cover view to a much more
boring (but more compact) list view. Buttons at the top let you sort
the list by author, title, category, and so on.
• Tap Select if you want to delete a book, or a bunch of them. To do
that, tap each book thumbnail that you want to target for termination;
observe how they sprout C marks. Then tap Delete. Of course, deleting a book from the phone doesn’t delete your safety copy in iTunes
or online.
• The Search button at the bottom of the iBooks screen lets you search
by author or title—not just your books, but the entire iBooks store.
• When you first start using a new iPhone, iPad, or Mac, your book
covers bear the U symbol. It means: “Our records show that you’ve
bought this book, but it’s still online, in the great Apple locker in the
sky. Tap to download it to your phone so you can start reading.”

Collections
You can create subfolders for your books called collections. You might
have one for school and one for work, or one for you and one for somebody who shares your phone, for example.
To switch your view to a different collection, tap the collection’s name.
It’s the top-center button, which starts out saying All Books. (If you’ve
loaded some PDF documents, then you’ll find a collection called “PDFs,”

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already set up.) To create a new collection, open that top-center menu
and hit New Collection.
And to move a book into a different collection: Tap Select, tap a book
(or several), and then tap Move. It opens the Collections screen shown
below, so that you can choose a new collection for the selected items.
TIP: You can reorganize your bookshelf in a collection (which you can’t
do in the All Books view). Hold down your finger on a book until it
swells with pride, and then drag it into a new spot.

Reading
But come on. You’re a reader, not a librarian. Here’s how to read an
ebook.
Open the book or PDF by tapping the book cover. Now the book opens,
ready for you to read. Looks great, doesn’t it? (If you’re returning to a
book you’ve been reading, iBooks remembers your place.)
If the phone detects that it’s nighttime (or just dark where you are), the
screen appears with white text against a black background. That’s to prevent the bright white light of your phone from disturbing other people
in, for example, the movie theater. (This is the Night theme, and you can
turn it off.)
TIP: Turn the phone 90 degrees for a wider column of text.

In general, reading is simple: Just read. Turn the page by tapping the
edge of the page—or swiping your finger across the page. (If you swipe

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slowly, you can actually see the “paper” bending over—in fact, you can
see through to the “ink” on the other side of the page! Amaze your
friends.) You can tap or swipe the left edge (to go back a page) or the
right edge (to go forward).
TIP: This is rotation lock’s big moment. When you want to read lying
down, you can prevent the text from rotating 90 degrees using
rotation lock (page 25).

But if you tap a page, a row of additional controls appears:
•

” takes you back to the bookshelf view.

•

Ç opens the table of contents. The chapter or page names are
“live”—you can tap one to jump there.

•

AA lets you change the look of the page. For example, this panel
offers a screen-brightness slider. That’s a nice touch, because the
brightness of the screen makes a big difference in the comfort of your
reading. (This is the same control you’d find in the Control Center or
in Settings.)

The A and A buttons control the type size—a huge feature for people
with tired or over-40 eyes. And it’s something paper books definitely

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don’t have. Tap the larger one repeatedly to enlarge the text; tap the
smaller one to shrink it.
The same panel offers a Fonts button, where you can choose from
eight typefaces for your book, as well as a Themes button, which
lets you specify whether the page itself is White, Sepia (off-white),
or Night (black page, white text, for nighttime reading). And there’s
an Auto-Night Theme button; if you don’t care for the white-onblack theme, then turn off this switch. Finally, there’s a Scrolling View
switch. In scrolling view, you don’t turn book “pages.” Instead, the
book scrolls vertically, as though printed on an infinite roll of Charmin.
•

¢ opens the search box. It lets you search for text within the book

you’re reading, which can be extremely useful. As a bonus, there are
also Search Web and Search Wikipedia buttons so you can hop online
to learn more about something you’ve just read.

•

ﬂ adds a bookmark to the current page. This isn’t like a physical
bookmark, where there’s usually only one in the whole book; you can
use it to flag as many pages, for as many reasons, as you like.

• Chapter slider. At the bottom of the screen, a slider represents the
chapters of your book. Tap or drag it to jump around in the book; as
you drag, a pop-up indicator shows you what chapter and page number you’re scrolling to. (If you’ve magnified the font size, of course,
then your book consumes more pages.)
TIP: An iBook can include pictures and even videos. Double-tap a picture
in a book to zoom in on it.

When you’re reading a PDF document, by the way, you can do something you can’t do when reading regular iBooks: zoom in and out using
the usual two-finger pinch-and-spread gestures. Very handy indeed.
TIP: On the other hand, here are some features that don’t work in
PDF files (only ebooks): font and type-size changes, page-turn
animations, sepia or black backgrounds, highlighting, and notes.

Notes, Bookmarks, Highlighting, Dictionary
Here are some more stunts that you’d have trouble pulling off in a printed
book. If you double-tap a word, or hold your finger down on a word, you
get a bar that offers these options:
• Speak reads the highlighted passage aloud. (This button appears
only if you’ve turned on Speak Selection in SettingsÆ GeneralÆ
AccessibilityÆ Speech.) Thank you, Siri!

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• Copy. You can probably guess this one.
• Look Up. Opens up a page from iBooks’ built-in dictionary. You
know—in the unlikely event that you encounter a word you don’t
know.
• Highlight. Adds tinted, transparent highlighting, or underlining, to
the word you tapped. For best results, don’t tap the Highlight button
until you’ve first grabbed the blue dot handles and dragged them to
enclose the entire passage you want highlighted.
Once you tap Highlight, the buttons change into a special Highlight
bar (above, middle). The first button opens a third row of buttons
(bottom), so that you can specify which highlight color you want.
(The final button designates underlining.)

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The second button (T) removes highlighting. The third lets you add
a note, as described next. The P button opens the Share sheet, also
described momentarily.
• Note. This feature creates highlighting on the selected passage and
opens an empty, colored sticky note, complete with keyboard, so you
can type in your own annotations. When you tap Done, your note collapses down to a tiny yellow Post-it peeking out from the right edge
of the margin. Tap to reopen it.
To delete a note, tap the highlighted text. Tap T.
• Search opens the same search box that you’d get by tapping the ¢
icon—except this time the highlighted word is already filled in, saving
you a bit of typing.
• Share opens the Share sheet (page 348) so you can send the highlighted material to somebody else by message or email, post it to
Facebook or Twitter, or copy it to your Clipboard for pasting into
another app.
NOTE: If you’ve highlighted a single word, and if you have Speak
Selection turned on in SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibilityÆSpeech,
then there’s one more option: Spell. It spells the word aloud for
you, one letter at a time.

There are a couple of cool things going on with your bookmarks, notes,
and highlighting, by the way. Once you’ve added them to your book,
they’re magically and wirelessly synced to any other copies of that
book—on other gadgets, like the iPad or iPod Touch, your other iPhones,
or even Mac computers running OS X Mavericks or later. Very handy
indeed.
Furthermore, if you tap the Ç to open the Table of Contents, you’ll see
the Bookmarks and Notes tabs. Each presents a tidy list of all your bookmarked pages, notes, and highlighted passages. You can tap P (and then
Share Notes) to print or email your notes, or tap one of the listings to
jump to the relevant page.

Books That Read to You
iBooks can actually read to you! It’s a great feature when you’re driving
or jogging, when someone’s just learning to read, or when you’re having
trouble falling asleep. There’s even a special control panel just for managing your free audiobook reader.

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To get started, open SettingsÆGeneralÆAccessibilityÆSpeech. Turn on
Speak Screen.
Then open a book in iBooks. Swipe down the page with two fingers to
make the iPhone start reading the book to you, out loud, with a synthesized voice. At the same time, a palette appears, offering these speech
controls:
Collapse controls

Read slower
Back a page

Close controls

Pause

Read faster
Next page

After a few seconds, the palette shrinks into a ’ button at the edge of
the screen—and, after that, it becomes transparent, as though trying to
make itself as invisible as possible. You can, of course, tap it to reopen it.
Yes, this is exactly the feature that debuted in the Amazon Kindle and
was then removed when publishers screamed bloody murder—but,
somehow, so far, Apple has gotten away with it.

iBooks Settings
If you’ve embraced the simple joy of reading electronic books the size of
a chalkboard eraser, then you deserve to know where to make settings
changes: in SettingsÆiBooks. Here are the options waiting there:
• Use Cellular Data. Do you want to be able to download books using
your carrier’s cellular data network (which eats up your monthly data
allotment)? If you turn this off, then you can download books only
when you’re in a Wi‑Fi hotspot.

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• Full Justification. Ordinarily, iBooks presents text with fully justified
margins (left). Turn this off if you prefer ragged right margins (right).
Full justification

Ragged right margin

• Auto-hyphenation. Sometimes, typesetting looks better if hyphens
allow partial words to appear at the right edge of each line. Especially
if you’ve also turned on Full Justification.
• Both Margins Advance. Usually, tapping the right edge of the screen
turns to the next page, and tapping the left edge turns back a page. If
you turn on this option, then tapping either edge of the screen opens
the next page. That can be handy if you’re a lefty, for example.
• Sync Bookmarks, Sync Collections. Turn these on if you’d like your
bookmarks and book collections to be synced with your other Apple
gadgets.
• Online Content. A few books contain links to video or audio clips
online. This option comes set to Off, because video and audio can eat
up your monthly cellular data allotment like a hungry teenager.
There are even a couple of controls here that apply to audiobooks. They
govern how much time skips when you tap one of the back or forward
Skip buttons—15 seconds, for example.

Maps
Here it is, folks, the feature that made international headlines: the
Maps app.
From its birth in 2007, the iPhone always came with Google Maps—
an excellent mapping and navigation app. (Apple wrote it, but Google
provided the maps and navigation data.) But in iOS 6, Apple replaced
Google Maps with a new mapping system of its own.

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Unfortunately, in its initial version, the databases underlying the Maps
app had a lot of problems. They didn’t include nearly as many points of
interest (buildings, stores, landmarks) as Google’s. Addresses were sometimes wrong.
Apple promised to keep working on Maps until it was all fixed, but in the
meantime, in a remarkable apology letter, CEO Tim Cook recommended
using one of Maps’ rivals. By far the best one is Google Maps. It’s free, it’s
amazingly smart (it knows what address you mean after you type only a
few letters), it has public-transportation details, live traffic reports, Street
View (you can see photos of most addresses, and even “look around”
you), and of course Google’s far superior maps and data.
All right—you’ve been warned. It may still take some time before Apple
Maps is complete and reliable.
But while Apple’s cartographical elves keep cleaning up the underlying
maps, some of its features are pretty great, especially in the newly overhauled iOS 10 version. And if you have a Mac, you can look up a destination on the Mac and then send the directions wirelessly to your phone.

Meet Maps
The underlying geographical database may need work, but Maps, the
app itself, is a thing of beauty.

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It lets you type in any address or point of interest in the U.S. or many
other countries and see it plotted on a map, with turn-by-turn driving
directions, just like a $300 windshield GPS unit. It also gives you a live
national Yellow Pages business directory and real-time traffic-jam alerts.
You can get bus and train schedules for a few U.S. cities. You have a
choice of a street-map diagram or actual aerial photos, taken by satellite.
And Maps offers Flyover, an aerial, 360-degree 3D view of major cities.

Maps Basics
When you open Maps, a blue dot represents your current location.
Double-tap to zoom in, over and over again, until you’re seeing actual
city blocks. You can also pinch or spread two fingers to shrink or magnify
the view. Drag or flick to scroll around the map.
To zoom out again, you can use the rare two-finger double-tap.
You can twist two fingers to rotate the map. (A compass icon at top right
helps you keep your bearings; you can tap it to restore the map’s usual
north-is-up orientation.) And if you drag two fingers up the screen, you
tilt the map into 3D view, which makes it look more like you’re surveying
the map at an angle instead of straight down.

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At any time, you can tap the * button in the corner of the screen to
open a secret panel of options. Here’s how you switch among Maps’
three views of the world: Map, Transit, or Satellite.
Each tab also lets you set up preferences for that view. For Map: Do you
want to see color-coded roads that show current traffic?. For Transit: Do
you want to include buses as well as train schedules? For Satellite: Do
you want street names and/or traffic colors superimposed on the aerial
views?
Each of these tabs offers buttons that let you Mark My Location (drop
a pin for your current spot, add it to your Favorites, add it to your
Contacts, and so on), Add a Place (record the address and other details
of a business, thereby adding it to Apple’s database), and Report an
Issue (tell Apple about a bug).

Finding Yourself
If any phone can tell you where you are, it’s the iPhone. It has not one,
not two, but three ways to determine your location.
• GPS. First, the iPhone contains a traditional GPS chip, of the sort
that’s found in windshield navigation units of old. If the iPhone has a
good view of the sky, then it can do a decent job of consulting the 24
satellites that make up the Global Positioning System and determining
its own location.
And if it can’t see the sky, the iPhone has two fallback location features.
• Wi-Fi Positioning System. Metropolitan areas today are blanketed by
overlapping Wi‑Fi signals. At a typical Manhattan intersection, you
might be in range of 20 base stations. Each one broadcasts its own
name and unique network address (its MAC address—nothing to do
with Mac computers) once every second. Although you’d need to
be within 150 feet or so to actually get onto the Internet, a laptop or
phone can detect this beacon signal from up to 1,500 feet away.
Imagine if you could correlate all those beacon signals with their
physical locations. Why, you’d be able to simulate GPS—without
the GPS!
So for years, all those millions of iPhones have been quietly logging
all those Wi‑Fi signals, noting their network addresses and locations.
(The iPhone never has to connect to these base stations. It’s just reading the one-way beacon signals.)
At this point, Apple’s database knows about millions of hotspots—and
the precise longitude and latitude of each.

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So, if the iPhone can’t get a fix on GPS, it sniffs for Wi‑Fi base stations. If it finds any, it transmits their IDs back to Apple (via cellular
network)—which looks up those network addresses and sends coordinates back to the phone.
That accuracy is good to within only 100 feet, and of course the system fails completely once you’re out of populated areas. On the other
hand, it works indoors, which GPS definitely doesn’t.
• The cellular triangulation system. Finally, as a last resort, the iPhone
can check its proximity to the cellphone towers around you. The software works a lot like the Wi‑Fi location system, but it relies upon its
knowledge of cellular towers’ locations rather than Wi‑Fi base stations. The accuracy isn’t as good as GPS—you’re lucky if it puts you
within a block or two of your actual location—but it’s something.
TIP: The iPhone’s location circuits eat into battery power. To shut them
down when you’re not using them, open SettingsÆPrivacy and turn
off Location Services.

All right—now that you know how the iPhone gets its location information, here’s how you can use it. Its first trick is to show you where you are.
Tap the ˜ at the top of the Maps screen. The button turns solid blue, indicating that the iPhone is consulting its various references to figure out
where you are. You show up as a blue pushpin that moves with you. It
keeps tracking until you tap the ˜ enough times to turn it off.

Orienting Maps
It’s great to see a blue pin on the map, and all—but how do you know
which way you’re facing? Thanks to the built-in magnetometer (compass), the map can orient itself for you.
Just tap the ˜ button twice. The map spins so that the direction you’re
facing is upward, and the ˜ icon points straight up. A “flashlight beam”
emanates from your blue dot; its width indicates the iPhone’s degree of
confidence. (The narrower the beam, the surer it is.)

Searching Maps
Now, the following paragraphs guide you through using the search box
in Maps. But, frankly, if you use it, you’re a sucker. It’s much quicker to use
Siri to specify what you want to find.
You can say, for example, “Show me the map of Detroit” or “Show me
the closest Starbucks” or “Give me directions to 200 West 79th Street
in New York.” Siri shows you that spot on a map; tap to jump into the
Maps app.
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If you must use the search box, though, here’s how it works. It shouldn’t
be hard to find, since it opens automatically when you open Maps (below,
left). Here are some of the ways you can dive into the Maps database of
places.
• Recents. Below the box, there’s a list of searches you’ve recently conducted. You’d be surprised at how often you want to call up the same
spot again later—and now you can, just by tapping its name in this list.
TIP: If you swipe a listing to the left, you reveal two new buttons: Share
(send the location information to someone) and Remove (if, for
example, you intend to elope and don’t want your parents to
find out).

• Favorites. One nice thing about Maps is the way it tries to eliminate typing at every step. The Favorites are a great example. They’re
addresses you’ve flagged for later use by tapping the 6, an option
that appears on every place’s Location card. For sure, you should
bookmark your home and workplace. That will make it much easier to
request driving directions.
Then, to see your list of Favorites, scroll all the way to the bottom of
the Recents list and tap Favorites (above, right). Tap one to jump to
its spot on the map, or swipe to the left to reveal Share, Edit Name,
and Remove buttons.
• Business Categories. When you first tap into an empty search box,
you get icons for Food, Drinks, Shopping, Travel, Services, Fun,
Health, and Transport. Each expands into eight more icons for further
refinement (Travel offers Airports, Hotels, Banks & ATMs, and so on).
Keep tapping to drill down to the place you want; it’s all designed to
save you typing when you’re in a hurry.

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TIP: Don’t miss the horizontally scrolling list of subcategories or
establishments at the very bottom of some of these screens. When
you tap Drinks, for example, this weird little ticker lists Sports Bars,
Cocktail Bars, Pubs, and so on.

Most people, though, most of the time, wind up typing what they want to
find. You can type all kinds of things into the search box:
• An address. You can skip the periods (and usually the commas, too).
And you can use abbreviations. Typing 710 w end ave ny ny will find
710 West End Avenue, New York, New York. (In this and any of the
other examples, you can type a zip code instead of a city and a state.)
• An intersection. Type 57th and lexington, ny ny. Maps will find the
spot where East 57th Street crosses Lexington Avenue in New York
City.
• A city. Type chicago il to see that city. You can zoom in from there.
• A zip code or a neighborhood. Type 10024 or greenwich village.
• Latitude and longitude coordinates. Type 40.7484° N, 73.9857° W.
• A point of interest. Type washington monument or niagara falls.
• A business type. Type drugstores in albany ny or hospitals in
roanoke va.
• A contact’s name. Maps is tied into Contacts, your master address
book (page 109). Start typing a person’s name to see the matches.
• A business category. Maps is a glorified national Yellow Pages. If you
type, for example, pharmacy 60609, then those red pushpins show
you all the drugstores in that Chicago zip code. It’s a great way to find
a gas station, a cash machine, or a hospital in a pinch. Tap a pushpin
to see the name of the corresponding business.
As usual, you can tap the ’ button in the map pin’s label bubble to open
a details screen. If you’ve searched for a friend, then you see the corresponding Contacts card. If you’ve searched for a business, then you get
a screen containing its phone number, address, website, and so on; often,
you get a beautiful page of Yelp information (photos, reviews, ratings).
Remember that you can tap a web address to open it or tap a phone
number to dial it. (“Hello, what time do you close today?”)

Add a New Place
Once you’ve found something on the map—your current position, say,
or something you’ve searched for—you can drop a pin there for future

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reference. Tap the * button; when the page slides up, tap Mark My
Location. A blue pushpin appears. (If your aim wasn’t exact, you can tap
Edit Location and then scroll the map to adjust its position relative to
the pin.)
TIP: You can also drop a pin by holding your finger down on the right
spot.

Scroll the new place’s “card” to reveal its address, a Share button (so you
can let someone else know where you are), an Add to Favorites button,
and an option to add this location to somebody’s card in Contacts (or to
create a new contact).

The Location Card
Whenever you’ve tapped the name of some place in Apple’s massive
database (like a store, restaurant, or point of interest), the bottom part of
the screen lists its information screen—its location “card.”
The visible portion of this card already shows the all-important Directions
button (below, left). But you can also hide the card by swiping down on
it, or expand it to full screen by tapping or swiping up (right).

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If this is the location for a restaurant or a business, you might strike gold:
The Location page might offer several screens full of useful information,
courtesy of Yelp.com. You’ll see the place’s hours of operation, plus onetap links for placing a phone call to the place or visiting its website. Then
there may be customer reviews, photos, delivery and reservation information, and so on.
Links here let you bookmark the spot, get directions, add it to Contacts,
or share it with other people (via AirDrop, email, text message, Facebook,
or Twitter).
TIP: The Location card for a restaurant may even offer a Reservations
button, so that you can book a table on the spot—if, that is, that
eatery participates in OpenTable’s online booking system.

Directions
Suppose you’ve just searched for a place. The top part of its location
card is open on the screen. At this point, you can tap Directions for
instant directions, using four modes of transportation (below, left):
• Drive. You’ll get the traditional turn-by-turn driving directions.

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• Walk. The app will guide you to this place by foot. You get an estimate of the time it’ll take, too.
• Transit. This button appears if you’re in one of the cities for
which Apple has public-transportation schedules: Atlanta, Austin,
Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas,
Denver, Honolulu, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City,
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio, San
Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., plus a few big
cities in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, and China. More are coming,
Apple says.
If you’re lucky enough to be in one of those cities, you’ll discover that
the public-transport directions are surprisingly clear and detailed. You
even see the color, letter, and number schemes of that city’s bus or
rail system right there in the app.
TIP: iOS 10 comes ready to warn you when there’s a disruption on your
favorite commuter bus or rail system. To tell it which one you want
it to monitor, tap *, and then Transit. Tap the map, and then zoom
in on the transit line until you can tap its name or number. Its Details
screen appears; scroll to the bottom and tap Add to Favorites.
At this point, you can add the Map Transit widget to your Today
screen (see page 65). Without even unlocking your phone, with
one quick swipe, you can see if the train is on time—and if not, what
kind of delay you have to look forward to.

• Ride means calling an Uber or Lyft driver. (This feature requires that
you have the Uber or Lyft app installed and set up. Also, you’re asked
to first Enable this feature; after that, one tap on Ride shows you the
time and price estimates—and offers you a Book button.)
In each case, Maps displays an overview of the route you’re about to
drive. In fact, it usually proposes several different routes. They’re labeled
with little tags that identify how long each will take you: 3 hrs 37 min, 4
hrs 11 min, and 4 hrs 33 min, for example.
If you tap one of these tags, the bottom of the screen lets you know the
distance and estimated time for that option and identifies the main roads
you’ll be on.
In each case, tap Start to see the first instruction.
The map zooms in, and Navigation mode begins.

Navigation Mode
When the iPhone is guiding you to a location, Maps behaves exactly like
a windshield GPS unit, but better looking and with less clutter to distract

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you. You see a simplified map of the world around you, complete with
the outlines of buildings, with huge banners that tell you how to turn
next, and onto what street. Siri’s familiar voice speaks the same information at the right times, so you don’t even have to look at the screen.
Even if you hit the Sleep switch to lock the phone, the voice guidance
continues. (It continues even if you switch to another app; return to Maps
by tapping the banner at the top of the screen.)
The bottom bar shows your projected arrival time, plus the remaining
distance and time. It also offers the End button, which makes the navigation stop.
While Maps is guiding you, you can zoom in and out; you can also pan
the map to look ahead at upcoming turns or to inspect alternate routes.
You can twist two fingers to turn the map, too. All of this is new in iOS 10.
Once you’ve shifted the view in these ways, a ˜ button appears. Tap it to
restore Maps’ usual centered view.
While you’re navigating, you can also tap (or swipe up on) the bottom
bar to reveal quick-tap buttons like these:
• Gas Stations, Lunch, Coffee. Perform instant searches for these
frequent-favorite driver stops.
• Overview. Your entire planned route shrinks down to fit on a single
screen. Now you see your entire route, and you can zoom, turn, and
pan. To return to the navigation screen, tap ˜.
• Details. Tap to get a written list of turn-by-turn instructions.
• Audio. You can adjust the volume of Siri’s speaking voice as she gives
you driving directions by tapping here. Choose Low, Medium, or Loud
Volume, or turn off her voice prompts altogether with No Voice.
Here, too, is the Pause Spoken Audio switch. It means “When Maps
speaks an instruction, momentarily pause playback of any background recordings, like podcasts and audiobooks. Because it’d get
really confusing to hear two robo-people speaking at you at once.”
Tap the screen (or just wait) to hide these additional controls once again.

Directions Between Two Other Points
The redesign of Maps seems to suggest that you’ll always want to navigate somewhere from your current location. And usually, that’s true.

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Sometimes, though, you might want directions between two points—
when you’re not currently at either one. You can still do that in iOS 10, but
you’d never guess how.
First, select your starting point. For example, add a pushpin marker as
described on page 394, or tap a point-of-interest icon. Tap Directions,
and then tap My Location.
Now you can change the From box (where it currently says My Location),
using the same address-searching tactics described on page 392. (At
this point, you can also swap your start and end points by tapping the
double arrow.)
Finally, tap Route to see the fastest route and get going.

Night Mode
If the phone’s ambient light sensor decides that it’s dark in your car, it
switches to a dimmer, grayer version of the map. It wouldn’t want to distract you, after all. When there’s enough light, it brightens back up again.

Where You Parked
Many a reviewer calls this the breakthrough feature of iOS 10: Maps automatically remembers where you parked, and can afterward guide you
back to your car.
How does the phone know when you’ve parked? Because it connects
wirelessly to your car over Bluetooth or CarPlay. (If your car doesn’t have
Bluetooth or CarPlay, you don’t get this feature.)
When you turn off the car, the phone assumes that you’ve parked it,
checks its GPS location, and makes a notification appear to let you
know that it’s memorized the spot. (If, that is, this feature is turned on in
SettingsÆMapsÆShow Parked Location.)
TIP: If you tap the notification, you’re offered a chance to take a photo
of the parking spot or to record some notes about it. The expanded
alert also shows how long you’ve been parked—handy if you have to
feed a meter.

When the time comes to return to your car, iOS 10 makes life as easy as
possible. Wake the phone and swipe to the right to view the Maps widget or the Maps Destinations widget. Once you know where you parked,
a swipe or a hard press gets you started finding your way back. (See
page 65 for more on widgets.)

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The car’s location also appears in the Maps app itself, right there in
the list of recent locations, and as a reminder in the Today tab of the
Notification Center. Tap to begin your journey home.

Traffic
How’s this for a cool feature? Free, real-time traffic reporting. Just tap the
* button (it’s visible whenever you’re not in Navigation mode), and then
turn on Traffic. Now traffic jams appear as red lines on the relevant roads,
for your stressing pleasure; less severe slowdowns show up in orange.
Better yet, tiny icons appear, representing accidents, closures, and construction. Tap to see a description bar at the bottom of the screen (like
“Accident, Park Ave at State St”); tap that bar to read the details.
If you don’t see any colored lines, it’s either because traffic is moving fine
or because Apple doesn’t have any information for those roads. Usually,
you get traffic info only for highways, and only in metropolitan areas.

Flyover
You don’t need a car to use Flyover, the Maps app’s most dazzling feature; it has nothing to do with navigation, really. You can operate it even
while you’re lying on your couch like a slug.

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Flyover is a dynamic, interactive, photographic 3D model of certain major
cities. It looks something like an aerial video, except that you control
the virtual camera. You can pan around these scenes, looking over and
around buildings to see what’s behind them. To create this feature, Apple
says, it spent two years filming cities in helicopters.
To try it, you must be in Satellite view (tap * to get there). Enter 3D
mode by dragging up the screen with two fingers.
Wait for a moment as the phone downloads the photographic models.
Now you can go nuts, conducting your own virtual chopper tour of the
city using the usual techniques:
• Drag with one finger to move around the map.
• Pinch or spread two fingers to zoom in or out.
• Drag two fingers up or down to change your camera angle relative to
the ground.
• Twist two fingers to turn the world before you.
It’s immersing, completely amazing, and very unlikely to make you airsick.

Flyover Tours
Apple wasn’t satisfied with letting you pan around virtual 3D city models
using your finger. Now it’s prepared to give you city tours in 3D.
Use the search box to enter the name of a big city or major landmark.
(Some examples: San Francisco, New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Rome,
Madrid, Vancouver, San Jose, Cape Town, Stockholm. Or places like
Yosemite National Park, Sydney Opera House, Stonehenge, St. Peter’s
Basilica, or the Brooklyn Bridge.)

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When you tap the search results, a new button appears on the place
bar at the bottom: Flyover Tour. It starts a crazy treat: a fully automated
video tour of that city or place. The San Francisco tour shows you the
baseball park, the famous Transamerica Pyramid, the Alcatraz prison
island, and so on. It’s slow, soothing, cool, and definitely something that
paper maps never did.

Extensions
There’s one more goody in the new Maps: Extensions. These are add-on
features made by other companies—auto-installed into Maps by their fullblown apps—like Uber, Lyft, Yelp, and OpenTable. The point, of course, is
to let you order cars, read restaurant reviews, reserve tables, or buy tickets right from within Maps.
Extensions, for example, are responsible for adding the Ride button
described on page 397.
You’ll probably find them quite handy, but maybe not all of them.
Fortunately, you can turn off individual extensions in SettingsÆMapsÆ
Extensions.

News
The News app, newly overhauled in iOS 10, does just what Apple promises: It “collects all the stories you want to read, from top news sources,
based on topics you’re most interested in.” In other words, Apple has
written its own version of Flipboard.
When you open the News app and tap Customize Your News, the setup
process goes like this:
• Choose your mags. First, you’re presented with a very tall scrolling
list of favorite online publications (The New York Times, Wired, The
New Yorker, and hundreds more) and topics (Movie Actors, Science…).
You’re supposed to tap the ones you want to use as News fodder.
• Notifications. On the next screen, you’re invited to specify which
of those publications and topics are allowed to trigger notifications
(page 59).
• Email. The new News app is delighted to send you notifications of
articles by email, too. Tap Sign Me Up to make it so.
And that’s it: Suddenly, you have a beautiful, infinite, constantly updated,
free magazine stand, teeming with stories that have been collated

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according to your tastes. All of it is free, although you’re not getting
the listed publications in full—usually, you’re offered just a few selected
stories.

The five tabs across the bottom are designed to offer multiple entry
points into the eternal tsunami of web news:
• For You is the main thing. It’s constantly updated with new articles
that Apple’s algorithms think you’ll like, based on (a) your selections
the first time you used the app, (b) the stories you favorited by tapping P and then Love, (c) the stories you indicated you didn’t like by
tapping P and then Dislike, and (d) which stories you actually wound
up reading.
• Favorites displays icons for the publications and topics you’ve said
you’re interested in. Same stories, different starting point.
• Explore offers a list of breaking-news topics—and publications that
Apple wants you to try out.
• Search. Oh, yes—you can search for articles by topic or publication.

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• Saved. Most of the time, you can’t use News without an Internet connection. If you anticipate that you’ll be spending time in the living hell
known as Offline mode (like on a subway, sailboat, or airplane), you
can save some stories for reading later. To do that, tap P and then
Save. You’ll find your saved stories here, on the Saved tab.
TIP: The Saved tab also offers a sub-tab called History. In iOS 10, for the
first time, you can jump back to an article you’d already read, using
this list.

Once you’ve tapped to open a story, using News is simplicity itself. Swipe
vertically to scroll through an article, or horizontally to pull the next article into view.

Notes
The iPhone has always had a Notes app. But with each successive version of iOS, this ancient, text-only notepad becomes more complete,
more Evernote-ish in scope. A Notes page can now include a checklist of
to-dos, a photo, a map, a web link, or a sketch you draw with your finger.

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And in iOS 10, you can even share notes wirelessly with another iPhone
fan, so that you can collaborate.
It’s nice to be able to jot down—or dictate—lists, reminders, and brainstorms. You can email them to yourself when you’re finished—or sync
them right to your Mac or PC.
And, as always, any changes you make in Notes are automatically synchronized to all your other Apple gadgets and Macs.
NOTE: The first time you open Notes, you may be invited to upgrade
your existing notes to the new Notes format. If you don’t, you
don’t get any of the new features. But if you do, you can’t open
your notes on any gadget that doesn’t have iOS 9 (or later) or
OS X El Capitan (or later) for the Mac.

To get started, tap √ to start a new blank note—what looks like a blank
white page. The keyboard appears so you can begin typing.
TIP: You can also send text from other apps into Notes. For example,
in Mail, select some text you’ve typed into an outgoing message; in
the button bar, tap Share. Similarly, you can tap a Mail attachment’s
icon; once again, tap Add to Notes in the Share sheet. In each case,
your selection magically appears on a new Notes page.

Formatting and Photos
But there’s also an intriguing-looking å button. It summons some fantastic buttons at the bottom of the page:
•

Š creates a checklist. Every paragraph you type sprouts a circle—

which is actually a checkbox. Tap it to place a checkmark in there.
This feature is fantastic for lists: to-do lists, packing lists, movies to
see, gift tracking, party planning, job hunting, homework management, and so on.

Each time you press Return, you create a new checklist item. But you
can also select some existing paragraphs and then tap Š, turning it
into a checklist after the fact.
•

W . Hey, there are style sheets! You can create titles (big and bold
type), headings (bold), bulleted lists, dashed lists, or auto-numbered
lists, with just a couple of taps, using this menu.

•

y. You can insert a photo or video into a note—either by taking one
with your camera on the spot or by choosing one that’s already on
your phone. Incredibly handy.

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• Ó. Draw with your finger! The sketch tools include a marker, a highlighter, a pencil, a straightedge (the ruler thing), an eraser, and a
color chooser (the round dot—and don’t miss the fact that there are
three scrolling panels of colors). In iOS 10, you can even add multiple
drawings to a single Note, thanks to the É button at the top. (You
can’t, however, use the sketch tools on photos you’ve brought into
the Notes app. You’ll have to mark them up in Photos and then insert
them into Notes.)
To use the ruler, put two fingers on the “ruler” on the screen, and
twist them to the angle you want. Then you can “draw against” it for
perfect straight lines.
TIP: If you have an iPhone 6s or 7 model, then all of the drawing tools
(and the eraser) are pressure-sensitive! They make fatter or darker
lines when you press harder with your finger.

When you’re finished with a note for now, tap Done. The keyboard goes
away, and a handy row of icons appears at the bottom of your Notes
page. You can trash the note ( T ), add a checklist to it ( Š ), add a photo
or video (y), add a sketch (Ó), or start a new note (√).
The Share button is always available too, at the upper right. Tap P to
print your note, copy it, or send it to someone by email, text message,
AirDrop, and so on. For example, if you tap Mail, the iPhone creates a
new outgoing message, pastes the first line of the note into the subject line, and pastes the note’s text into the body. Address the note,
edit if necessary, and hit Send. The iPhone returns you to Notes. (See
page 348 for more on the sharing options.)

Sharing Notes
Here it is, a big new Notes feature of iOS 10: You and a buddy (or several) can edit a page in Notes simultaneously, over the Internet. It’s great
when you and your friends are planning a party and brainstorming about
guests and the menu, for example. Also great for adding items to the
grocery or to-do list even after your spouse has left the house to get
them taken care of.
Just tap the new � button at the top of the screen. On the Add People
screen, specify how you want to send the invitation: by message, email,
Facebook, Twitter, or whatever.
Once your collaborators receive and accept the invite, they can begin
editing the note as though it’s their own.

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The live editing isn’t as animated as it is in, for example, Google Docs—
you don’t see letter-by-letter typing—but other peoples’ edits do appear
briefly in yellow highlighting.
Once you’ve shared a note, the icon at the top changes to �, and a
matching icon appears next to the note’s name in the master list. At any
time, you can stop sharing the note—or add more people to its collaboration—by tapping that � icon again and editing the sharing panel that
appears.

Locking Notes
In iOS 10, for the first time, you can lock notes, too—protect them with a
password. They’re here at last, suitable for listing birthday presents you
intend to get for your nosy kid, the formula for your top-secret invisibility
potion, or your illicit lovers’ names.
Note that you generally hide and show all your locked notes with a single
password. You don’t have to make up a different password for every
note.
TIP: You can make up multiple passwords, though. Each time you want
to start using a new password, open SettingsÆNotesÆPassword
and tap Reset Password. After supplying your iCloud password,
you’re offered the chance to make up a password for any new notes
you lock. All existing locked notes are still protected by the previous
password.
And if you’ve forgotten the password? Unless you’ve turned on
Touch ID, all those old notes are locked forever. But you can still
make up a new password to protect your latest secrets.

To lock a note, tap the P button; on the Share screen, tap Lock Note
(next page, left). (Why is locking a note sharing it? Never mind.) Make up
a password for locking/unlocking all your notes (or, if you’ve done this
before, enter the password).
As long as your locked notes are all unlocked, you can still see and edit
them. But when there’s any risk of somebody else coming along and seeing them (on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or any other synced gadget), click
the ż to lock all your notes. (They also all lock when the phone goes to
sleep—or if you tap Lock Now at the bottom of the screen.)
Now all you see of the locked notes are their titles. Everything on them is
replaced by a “This note is locked” message, as shown on the next page
at right. Tap View Note to unlock them with your fingerprint or password.

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TIP: To remove the padlock from a note, tap P and then tap Remove
Lock.

Use your power wisely.

The Notes List
As you create more pages, the ”iCloud button (top left) becomes more
useful. It opens your table of contents for the Notes pad, and offers a
New button. And it’s the only way to jump from one note to another.
(It may not say “iCloud”; it bears the name of whatever online account
stores your notes: Gmail, Exchange, or whatever. Or, if your notes exist
only on the phone, you just see an unlabeled ” symbol.)
TIP: You can swipe rightward to jump from an open note back to the list.

Here’s what this list displays:
• The first lines of your notes (most recent at the top), along with the
time or date you last edited them. If there’s a photo or sketch on a
note—an unlocked one, anyway—you see its thumbnail, too (facing
page, left).
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To open a note, tap its name. To delete a note, swipe across its name
in the list, right to left, and then confirm by tapping Delete.
NOTE: On iPhone Plus models, rotating the phone produces a whole
new two-column layout. The left column shows your table of
contents (first line of every note); the right column shows the
selected note itself.

• A search box. Drag down on the list to bring the search box into
view. Tap it to open the keyboard. You can now search all your notes
instantly—not just their titles, but also the text inside them.
NOTE: Don’t worry about your locked notes. iOS can search their titles,
but not their contents—even if the notes are currently unlocked.

•

�. This is the new Attachments Browser. It brings up a tidy display of
every photo, sketch, website, audio recording, and document that’s
ever been inserted into any of your notes. All in one place (above,
right).

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The beauty is that you don’t have to remember what you called a
note; just tap one of these items to open it. (At that point, you can tap
Show in Note to open the note that contains it.)
NOTE: Attachments to notes that were once locked (whether or not
they are locked right now) aren’t shown here.

Syncing Notes
Notes can synchronize with all kinds of other Apple gear—other
iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches, and Macs—so the same notes are
waiting for you everywhere you look. Just make sure Notes is turned
on in SettingsÆiCloud on each phone or tablet, and in System
PreferencesÆiCloud on your Mac. The rest is automatic—and awesome.

Notes Accounts
Your notes can also sync wirelessly with the Notes modules on Google,
Yahoo, AOL, Exchange, or another IMAP email account. To set this up,
open SettingsÆMail. Tap the account you want (iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo,
AOL, or whatever); finally, turn the Notes switch On.
That should do it. Now your notes are synced nearly instantly, wirelessly,
both directions.
NOTE: One catch: Notes that you create at gmail.com, aol.com, or
yahoo.com don’t wind up on the phone. Those accounts sync
wirelessly in one direction only: from the iPhone to the website,
where the notes arrive in a Notes folder. (There’s no problem,
however, if you get your AOL or Gmail mail in an email program
like Outlook, Entourage, or Apple Mail. Then it’s two-way syncing
as usual.)

At this point, an Accounts button appears at the top-left corner of the
table of contents screen. Tap it to see your note sets from Google, Yahoo,
AOL, Exchange, iCloud, or an IMAP email account.
If you’ve created Notes folders on your Mac (Mountain Lion or later), then
you see those folders here, too.
All of this makes life a little more complex, of course. For example, when
you create a note, you have to worry about which account it’s about to
go into. To do that, be sure to specify an account name (and a folder
within it, if necessary) before you create the new note.
NOTE: In SettingsÆNotes, you can also specify which of your different
Notes accounts you want to be the main one—the one that new
notes fall into if you haven’t specified otherwise.

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Podcasts
A podcast is a “radio” show that’s distributed online. Lots of podcasts
begin life as actual radio and TV shows; most of NPR’s shows are available as podcasts, for example, so that you can listen to them whenever
and wherever you like.
But thousands more are recorded just for downloading. They range
from recordings made by professionals in studios—to amateurs talking
into their phones. Some have thousands of listeners; some have only a
handful.
One thing’s for sure: There’s a podcast out there that precisely matches
whatever weird, narrow interests you have.
The Podcasts app helps you find, subscribe to, organize, and listen to
podcasts. It’s designed just like Apple’s online stores for apps, music,
movies, and so on. Tap Featured to see scrolling rows of recommended
podcasts (below, left) or Top Charts to see what the rest of the world is
listening to these days. Or use the Search button to look for something
specific.

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There are video podcasts, too, although they’re much less common.
The most popular videocasts are usually clips from network or cable TV
shows, but there are plenty of quirky, offbeat, funny video podcasts that
will never be seen except on pocket screens.
NOTE: Of course you can also watch video podcasts on your iPad, on
your Mac or PC via iTunes, or via an Apple TV.

In any case, once you find a podcast episode that seems interesting (previous page, right), you can listen to it in either of two ways:
• Stream it. Tap a podcast’s name to play it directly from the Internet.
It’s never stored on your iPhone and doesn’t take up any space, but
it does require an Internet connection. Generally no good for plane
rides.
• Download it. If you tap the U next to a podcast’s name, you download it to your phone. It takes up space there (and podcasts can be
big)—but you can play it back anytime, anywhere. And, of course, you
can delete it when you’re done.

Subscribing
Most podcasts are series. Their creators crank them out every week or
whatever. If you find one you love, subscribe to it, so that your phone
downloads each new episode automatically. Just tap Subscribe on its
details page.
The episodes wind up on the My Podcasts screen (previous page, center). Tap a podcast’s icon to open the episodes screen, where you can
tap Unplayed (episodes you haven’t heard) or Feed (all episodes). You’ll
also find buttons for Edit (delete episodes en masse); o (settings for this
podcast only); and P (pass along links to this podcast by Messages, Mail,
Twitter, Facebook, and so on).

Settings
There’s a lot to control when it comes to podcasts. Do you want new episodes downloaded automatically? Do you want them autodeleted when
you’re finished? Do you want to limit how many episodes of each show
are stored on your phone? What playback order—oldest first or newest
first?
You make all these choices in SettingsÆPodcasts. That’s the global setting for podcasts (next page, left)—but you can also override them for
individual podcast shows, using the o button described already.

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Playback
To play a podcast, tap its icon on My Podcasts, and then the episode name. Tap the playback strip at the bottom to reveal all the usual
audio-playback controls (page 236)—with the handy addition of a
button to toggle the talking speed (½x, 1x, 1½x, or 2x regular speed), as
shown above at right.
TIP: There’s a Sleep Timer, too, that lets you drift off to the sound of a
droning podcaster. Tap the � shown above at right to pick how long
you want the podcast to play before shutting off.

You can press the Sleep switch to turn off the screen; the podcast continues playing. And even if the phone is locked, you can open the Control
Center (page 46) to access the playback controls.
TIP: Don’t forget to use Siri! You can say things like “Play ‘Fresh Air’
podcast,” “Play my latest podcasts,” “Play my podcast” (to resume
what you listened to last), “Play latest TED podcast,” and so on.

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Reminders
Reminders not only records your life’s little tasks, but it also reminds you
about them at the right time or right place. For example, it can remind
you to water the plants as soon as you get home.
If you have an iCloud account, your reminders sync across all your gadgets. Create or check off a task on your iPhone, and you’ll also find it created or checked off on your iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, PC, and so on.
TIP: Reminders sync wirelessly with anything your iCloud account knows
about: Calendar or BusyCal on your Mac, Outlook on the PC, and
so on.

Siri and Reminders are a match made in heaven. “Remind me to file
the Jenkins report when I get to work.” “Remind me to set the TiVo for
tonight at 8.” “Remind me about Timmy’s soccer game a week from
Saturday.” “When I get home, remind me to take a shower.”

The List of Lists
When you open Reminders, it’s clear that you can create more than one
to-do list, each with its own name: a groceries list, kids’ chores, a running
tally of expenses, and so on. It’s a great way to log what you eat if you’re
on a diet, or to keep a list of movies people recommend.
They show up as file-folder tabs; tap one to open the to-do list within.
If you share an iCloud account with another family member, you might
create a different Reminders list for each person. (Of course, now you run
the risk that your spouse might sneakily add items to your to-do list!)
If you have an Exchange account, one of your lists can be synced to your
corporate Tasks list. It doesn’t offer all the features of the other lists in
Reminders, but at least it’s kept tidy and separate.
TIP: You can use Siri to add things to individual lists by name. You can
say, for example, “Add low-fat cottage cheese to the Groceries list.”
Siri can also find these reminders, saving you a lot of navigation
later. You can say, “Find my reminder about dosage instructions,” for
example.

Once you’ve created some lists, you can easily switch among them. Just
tap an open list’s name to collapse it, returning to the list of lists. At that
point you can tap the title of a different list to open it.

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TIP: When you’re viewing the list of lists, you can rearrange them by
dragging their title bars up or down.

To create a new list, begin at the list of lists (above, left). Tap n at the top
right. The app asks if you’re trying to create a new Reminder (that is, one
To Do item) or a new List, as shown at upper right; tap List.
If you have multiple accounts that offer reminders, you’re asked to specify which one will receive this new list at this point, too (above, right).
Now your jobs begin:
1. Enter a name for the list. When you tap the light-gray letters New
List, the keyboard appears to help you out.
2. Tap a colored dot. This will be the color of the list’s title font and also
of the “checked-off” circles once the list is under way.
3. Tap Done. Now you can tap the first blank line and enter the first item
in the list.

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NOTE: After that first line, you can’t create new items in the list by
tapping the blank line below the existing items. As you type,
tapping the Return key is the only way to move to the next line.
(Tap Done when you’re finished adding to the list.)

To delete a list, tap Edit and then tap Delete List.
Later, you can assign a task to a different list by tapping List on its Details
screen.
To return to the list of lists, tap the current list’s name. Or tap the bottom
edge of the screen. Or swipe down from the top of it.

The Scheduled List
If you really do wind up using Reminders as a to-do list, you might be
gratified to discover that the app also offers an automatically generated
Scheduled list: a consolidated list of every item, from all your lists, to
which you’ve given a deadline. It’s always the topmost tab, marked by an
alarm-clock icon.

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Recording a Reminder
Once you’ve opened a list, here’s how you record a new task the manual way: Tap the blank line beneath your existing reminders. Type your
reminder (or dictate it). Tap the * to set up the details, described next;
tap Done when you’re finished.
As you go through life completing tasks, tap the circle next to each
one. A checked-off to-do remains in place until the next time you visit
its list. At that point, it disappears. It’s moved into a separate list called
Completed.
But when you want to take pride in how much you’ve accomplished, you
can tap Show Completed to bring your checked-off tasks back into view.
Other stuff you can do:
• Delete a to-do item altogether, as though it never existed. Swipe
leftward across its name; tap Delete to confirm.
• Delete a bunch of items in a row. Tap Edit. Tap each – icon, and then
tap Delete to confirm.
• Rearrange a list so the items appear in a different order. Tap Edit,
and then drag the H handle up or down.

The Details Screen
If you tap * next to an item’s name, you arrive at the Details screen (next
page, left). Here you can set up a reminder that will pop up at a certain
time or place, create an auto-repeating schedule, file this item into a different to-do list with its own name, add notes to this item, or delete it.
Here are your options, one by one:
• Remind me on a day. Here you can set up the phone to chime at a
certain date and time. Turn on the switch to see two new lines: Alarm
and Repeat. Tap Alarm to bring up the “time wheel” for setting the
deadline.
Tap Repeat if you want this reminder to appear every day, week,
2 weeks, month, or year—great for reminding you about things that
recur in your life, like quarterly tax payments, haircuts, and anniver
saries.
• Remind me at a location. If you turn on this amazing feature, then
the phone will use its location circuits to remind you of this item
when you arrive at a certain place or leave a certain place. When you
tap the new Location line, you’ll see that the phone offers “Current
Location”—wherever you are at the moment. That’s handy if, for

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example, you’re dropping off your dry cleaning and want to remember to pick it up the next time you’re driving by.
But you can also choose Home or Work (your home or work addresses, as you’ve set them up in Contacts). Or you can use the search box
at the top, either to type or dictate a street address, or to search your
own Contacts list.
NOTE: If you use Bluetooth to pair your phone to your car, you have
a couple of other helpful choices: Getting in the car (to get a
reminder when the iPhone connects to your car) and when
Getting out of the car (to get one when it disconnects).

Once you’ve specified an address, the Location screen shows a map
(above, right). The diameter of the blue circle shows the area where
your presence will trigger the appearance of the reminder on your
screen.
TIP: You can adjust the size of this “geofence” by dragging the black
handle to adjust the circle. In effect, you’re telling the iPhone how
close you have to be to the specified address for the reminder to
pop up. You can adjust the circle’s radius anywhere from 328 feet
(“Remind me when I’m in that store”) to 1,500 miles (“Remind me
when I’m in that country”).

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The final step here is to tap either When I Leave or When I Arrive.
Later, the phone will remind you at the appointed time or as you
approach (or leave) the address, which is fairly mind-blowing the first
few times it happens.
NOTE: If you set up both a time reminder and a location reminder, then
your iPhone uses whichever event happens first. That is, if you ask
to be reminded at 3 p.m. today and “When I arrive at the office,”
then you’ll get the reminder when you get to the office—or at
3 p.m., if that time rolls around before you make it to work.

• Priority. Tap one of these buttons to specify whether this item has
low, medium, or high priority—or None. In some of the calendar
programs that sync with Reminders, you can sort your task list by
priority.
• List. Tap here to assign this to-do to a different reminder list, as
described earlier.
• Notes. Here’s a handy box where you can record freehand notes
about this item: an address, a phone number, details of any kind.
To exit the Details screen, tap Done.

“Remind Me About This”
Here’s a reminder about a fantastic Reminders feature.
When you’re looking at something in one of Apple’s apps, you can say,
“Remind me about this later.” That might be a text message in Messages,
a web page in Safari, an email in Mail, a document in Pages, or whatever.
(This command works in Calendar, Clock, Contacts, iBooks, Health, Mail,
Maps, Messages, Notes, Numbers, Pages, Phone, Podcasts, Reminders,
and Safari. Software companies can upgrade their apps to work with
“Remind me about this,” too.)
Instantly, Siri creates a new item on your main Reminders list—named for
the precise message, location, web page, document, or thing you were
looking at—complete with the icon of the app you were using.
Later, you can tap that icon to open the original app—to the exact spot
you were at when you issued the command.
You don’t have to be as vague as “later,” either. You can also say things
like “Remind me about this tomorrow night at 7” or “Remind me about
this when I get home.”
Put it all together, and you’ve got an amazingly effective system for
bookmarking your life. Maybe this trick will, once and for all, end
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the practice of people emailing stuff to themselves, just so they’ll
remember it.

Stocks
This one’s for you, big-time day trader. The Stocks app tracks the rise and
fall of the stocks in your portfolio by downloading the very latest stock
prices.
(All right, maybe not the very latest. The price info may be delayed as
much as 20 minutes, which is typical of free stock-info services.)
When you first fire it up, Stocks shows you a handful of sample high-tech
stocks—or, rather, their abbreviations. (They stand for the Dow Jones
Industrial Average, the NASDAQ Composite Index, the S&P 500 Index,
Apple, Google, and Yahoo.)
Next to each, you see its current share price, and next to that, you see
how much that price has gone up or down today. As a handy visual
gauge to how elated or depressed you should be, this final number
appears on a green background if it’s gone up, or a red one if it’s gone
down. Tap this number to cycle the display from a percentage to a dollar
amount to current market capitalization (“120.3B,” meaning $120.3 billion
total corporate value).
When you tap a stock, the bottom part of the screen shows some handy
data. Swipe horizontally to cycle among three different displays:
• A table of statistics. A capsule summary of today’s price and volume
statistics for this stock.
• A graph of the stock’s price. It starts out showing you the graph of
the current year. But by tapping the headings above the chart, you
can zoom in or out from 1 day (1D) to 3 months (3M) to 2 years (2Y).
• A table of relevant headlines, courtesy of Yahoo Finance. Tap a headline to read the article—or tap and hold to add it, or all the articles, to
your Safari Reading List (page 459).

Landscape View
If you turn the iPhone sideways, you get a much bigger, more detailed,
widescreen graph of the stock in question. (Flick horizontally to view the
previous or next stock.)
TIP: On a Plus model, there’s room for both your list of stocks and the
graph of the one you’ve tapped, all on the same screen.

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Better yet, you can pinch with two fingers or two thumbs to isolate a certain time period; a pop-up label shows you how much of a bath you took
(or how much of a windfall you received) during the interval you highlighted. Cool!

Customizing Your Portfolio
It’s fairly unlikely that your stock portfolio contains just Apple, Google,
and Yahoo. Fortunately, you can customize the list of stocks to reflect the
companies you do own (or want to track).
To edit the list, tap the Ç button in the lower-right corner. You arrive at
the editing screen (next page, right), where these choices await:
• Delete a stock by tapping the – button and then the Delete confirmation button.
• Rearrange the list by dragging the grip strips on the right side.
• Add a stock by tapping the n button in the top-left corner; the Add
Stock screen and the keyboard appear.
You’re not expected to know every stock-symbol abbreviation. Type
in the company’s name, and then tap Search. The iPhone shows
you, above the keyboard, a scrolling list of companies with matching
names. Tap the one you want to track. You return to the stocks-list
editing screen.
• Choose %, Price, or Numbers. By tapping the buttons at the bottom,
you can specify how you want to see the changes in stock prices in
the far-right column: as percentages (“+0.65%”), as numbers (“+2.23”)
or as market cap. (Here you’re simply choosing which number starts
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out appearing on the main stock screen. As noted earlier, you can
easily cycle among these three stats by tapping them.)
When you’re finished setting up your stock list, tap Done.

Tips
Hey, check it out—Apple’s getting into the how-to game!
This app is designed to show you tips and tricks for getting the most
from your iPhone. Each screen offers an animated illustration and a paragraph of text explaining one of iOS’s marvels. Swipe leftward to see the
next tip, and the next, and the next. Or tap Ç to see a list of all the tips
in one place.
Tap Like if it’s one of your favorites. Tap P to share a tip by text message,
email, Twitter, Facebook, or AirDrop.
Over time, Apple will beam you fresh tips to add to this collection. It’s
not exactly, you know, a handsome, printed, full-color book, but it’s
something.

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TV
This app, which appeared in iOS 10.2, lets you find and play videos from
two sources: the iTunes store, and individual video apps like HBO Now
and ABC. It’s described on page 254.

Voice Memos
This audio app is ideal for recording lectures, musical performances,
notes to self, and cute child utterances. You’ll probably be very surprised
at how good the microphone is, even from a distance.
The best part: When you sync your iPhone with iTunes on your Mac or
PC, all your voice recordings get copied back to the computer automatically. You’ll find them in the iTunes folder called Voice Memos.
Tap ® (or click your earbud clicker) to start recording. A little ding signals the start (and stop) of the session—unless you’ve turned the phone’s
volume all the way down (you sneak!).

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You get to watch the actual sound waves as the recording proceeds.
You can pause at any time by pressing the Stop button (Í)—and then
resume the same recording with another tap on the ® button.
TIP: The built-in mike records in mono. But you can record in stereo if
you connect a stereo mike (to the headphone jack or charging jack).

You can also switch out of the app to do other work. A red banner
across the top of the screen reminds you that you’re still recording. You
can even switch the screen off by tapping the Sleep switch; the recording goes on! (You can make very long recordings with this thing. Let
it run all day, if you like. Even your most long-winded friends can be
immortalized.)
Tap Done when you’re sure the recording session is over. You’re asked to
type a name for the new recording (“Baby’s First Words,” “Orch Concert,”
whatever); then you can tap Save or, if it wasn’t worth saving, Delete.
Below the recording controls, you see the list of your recordings. When
you tap one, a convenient set of controls appears. (They look a lot
like the ones that appear when you tap a voicemail message in the
Phone app.)
TIP: If you have an iPhone Plus model, you can turn the screen 90
degrees—and see both the list of recordings and the editing screen,
in two columns.

Here’s what you can do here (next page, left):
• [Recording name]. Tap the name to edit or rename it.
• 2. Tap to play the recording. You can pause with a tap on the ¿
button.
TIP: As a recording plays back, you can tap the ß icon at the top of the
screen to turn off the speaker. Hold the phone up to your ear.

• Rewind, Fast Forward. Drag the little vertical line in the scrubber bar
to skip backward or forward in the recording. It’s a great way to skip
over the boring pleasantries.

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•

T. Tap to get rid of a recording (you’ll be asked to confirm).

•

P. Tap to open the standard Share sheet. It gives you the chance to
send your recording to someone else by AirDrop, email, or MMS.

Chapter 11

Trimming Your Recording
You might not guess that such a tiny, self-effacing app actually offers
some basic editing functions, but it does. Tap a recording and then tap 9
to open its Edit screen (above, right).
The main thing you’ll do here is trim off the beginning or end of your
audio clip. That, of course, is where you’ll usually find “dead air” or microphone fumbling before the good stuff starts playing. (You can’t otherwise edit the sound; for example, you can’t copy or paste bits or cut a
chunk out of the middle.)
To trim the bookends of your clip, tap the Trim button (9). At this point,
the beginning and end of the recording are marked by vertical red lines;
these are your trim points. Drag them inward to isolate the part of the
clip you want to keep. The app thoughtfully magnifies the sound waves
whenever you’re dragging, to help with precision. Play the sound as necessary to guide you (2).
Tap Trim to lock in your changes. You’ll be asked to tap either Trim
Original (meaning “shorten the original clip permanently”) or Save as
New Recording (meaning “leave the original untouched, and spin out the
shortened version as a separate audio file, just in case”).

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Wallet
This app was originally called Passbook. And it was originally designed
to store, in one place, every form of ticket that uses a barcode. For most
people, that meant airline boarding passes.
Wallet still does that. And, occasionally, you may find a Wallet-compatible
theater or sports-admission pass, loyalty card, coupon, movie ticket, and
so on. Beats having a separate app for each one of these.
Wallet holds down a second job, too. It’s the key to Apple Pay, the magical “pay by waving your iPhone” feature described on page 536.
TIP: You can rearrange the passes; just hold still briefly before you start
moving your finger up or down. (That order syncs to your other iOS
gadgets, for what it’s worth.)

What’s cool is that Wallet uses both its own clock and GPS to know
when the time and place are right. For example, when you arrive at the
airport, a notification appears on your Lock screen. Each time you have
to show your boarding pass as you work through the stages of airport
security, you can wake your phone and swipe across that notification;

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your boarding-pass barcode appears instantly. You’re spared having to
unlock your phone (enter its password), hunt for the airline app, log in,
and fiddle your way to the boarding pass.
The hardest part might be finding things to put into Wallet. Apple says
that someday there will be a “Send to Wallet” button on the website or a
confirmation email when you buy the ticket.
For now, you can visit the App Store and search for passbook to find
apps that work with Wallet—big airlines, Fandango (movie tickets),
Starbucks, Walgreens, Ticketmaster, and Major League Baseball are
among the compatible apps. In some, you’re supposed to open the app
to view the barcode first and put it into Wallet from there. For example, in most airline apps, you call up the boarding-pass screen and then
tap Add.
Once your barcodes have successfully landed in Wallet, the rest is pure
fun. When you arrive at the theater or stadium or airport, the Lock screen
displays an alert. Swipe it to open the barcode in Wallet. You can put the
entire phone under the ticket-taker’s scanner.
Tap the * button in the corner to read the details—and to delete a ticket
after you’ve used it (tap Delete). That details screen also offers a Show
On Lock Screen on/off switch, in case you don’t want Wallet to hand you
your ticket as you arrive.
Finally, Wallet is one of the two places you can enter your credit card
information for Apple Pay on an iPhone 6 or later model, as described on
page 536. (Settings is the other.)

Watch
If you own an Apple Watch, you use this little app to set up its settings.
(OK, big app—there are 90 screens full of settings!)
So why do you have the Watch app on your phone even if you don’t
have an Apple Watch? You’ll have to ask someone in Marketing.
If it bugs you, you can get rid of it (page 337).

Weather
This little app shows a handy current-conditions display for your city
(or any other city). Handy and lovely; the weather display is animated.
Clouds drift by, rain falls gently. If it’s nighttime in the city you’re looking
up, you might see a beautiful starscape.

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The current temperature is shown nice and big; the table below it shows
the cloud-versus-sun forecast, as well as the high and low temperatures.
You don’t even have to tell the app what weather you want; it uses your
location and assumes you want the local weather forecast.
There are three places you can tap or swipe:
• Scroll up to see a table of stats: humidity, chance of rain, sunrise time,
wind speed, “feels like” (chill or heat index), and so on.
• Swipe horizontally across the hourly forecast to scroll later in
the day.
• Swipe horizontally anywhere else to view the weather for other cities
(if you’ve set them up). The tiny dots beneath the display correspond
to the number of cities you’ve set up—and the white bold one indicates where you are in the sequence.
TIP: The dots are really tiny. Don’t try to aim for a specific one—it’s a lot
easier to tap the row of dots on either the right or left side to move
backward or forward among the cities.

The first city—the screen at far left—is always the city you’re in right
now. The iPhone uses GPS to figure out where you are.

The City List
It’s easy to get the weather for other cities—great if you’re going to be
traveling, or if you’re wondering how life is for distant relations.
When you tap Ç at the lower-right corner, the screen collapses into a
list of your preprogrammed cities (facing page, right).
You can tap one to open its weather screen. You can delete one by swiping leftward across it (and then tapping Delete). You can drag them up
or down into a new order (leave your finger down for one second before
each time you drag). You can switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit by
tapping the C/F button.
Or you can scroll to the bottom (if necessary) and tap ≠ to enter a new
city.
Here you’re asked to type a city, a zip code, or an airport abbreviation
(like JFK for New York’s John F. Kennedy airport). You can specify any
reasonably sized city on earth. (Remember to check before you travel!)
When you tap Search, you’re shown a list of matching cities; tap the one
you want to track. When you return to the configuration screen, you can

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also specify whether you prefer degrees Celsius or degrees Fahrenheit.
Tap Done.
There’s nothing else to tap here except the Weather Channel icon at the
bottom. It fires up the Safari browser, which loads itself with an information page about that city from weather.com.
If you’ve added more than one city to the list, by the way, just flick your
finger right or left to flip through the weather screens for the different
cities.

More Standard Apps
This book describes every app that comes on every iPhone. But Apple
has another suite of useful programs for you. And they’re free.
NOTE: If you have an iPhone model with 64 or more gigabytes of
storage, then most of these apps come already installed: iMovie,
GarageBand, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and iTunes U.

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To find them, on the first page of the App Store, scroll down and tap
Apps Made by Apple. You’ll find these apps ready to download:
• Pages is, believe it or not, a word-processing/page-layout program.
• Numbers is Apple’s spreadsheet program.
• Keynote is Apple’s version of PowerPoint. It lets you make slideshow
presentations from your iPhone.
• iMovie. A video-editing program on your cellphone? Yes, with all the
basics: rearranging clips; adding music, crossfades, and credits.
• GarageBand is a pocket music studio.
• iTunes U is a catalog of 600,000 free courses by professors at colleges, museums, and libraries all over the world. This app lets you
browse the catalog, and watch and read the course materials.
• Find My Friends lets you see where your friends and family members
are on a map (with their permission, of course).
• Find My iPhone is useful when you want to find other missing Apple
gadgets (Macs, iPads, iPod Touches, iPhones).

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3
PART THREE

The iPhone
Online
Chapter 12
Getting Online
Chapter 13
Safari
Chapter 14
Email

Getting Online

s you may have read, the name “iPhone” grows less appropriate every year, as making phone calls fades in importance.
Today, Americans send texts five times more often than they
make phone calls. Among teenagers, 92 percent never make calls with
their smartphones.
What do they do with them, then? Go online. On an iPhone, the web
comes to life, looming larger and clearer than you’d think possible on
a cellphone. You get real email, full-blown YouTube videos, hyper-clear
Google maps, and all kinds of Internet goodness, right in your hand. And
instead of phone calls, we have Internet-based voice networks like Skype
and WhatsApp, or video-calling apps like Skype and FaceTime.
The iPhone can get onto the Internet using either of two kinds of wireless networks: cellular or Wi‑Fi. Which kind you’re on makes a huge difference to your iPhone experience.

Cellular Networks
Once you’ve accepted the miracle that a cellphone can transmit your
voice wirelessly, it’s not much of a stretch to realize that it can also transmit your data. Cellphone carriers (Verizon, AT&T, and so on) maintain
separate networks for voice and Internet data—and they spend billions
of dollars trying to make those networks faster. Over the years, they’ve
come up with data networks like these:
• Old, slow cellular network. The earliest, slowest cellular Internet
connections were called things like EDGE (AT&T) or 1xRTT (Verizon
and Sprint). The good part is that these networks are almost everywhere, so your iPhone can get online almost anywhere you can make
a phone call. You’ll know when you’re on one of these slow networks
because your status bar bears a symbol like G or ˝.

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The bad news is that it’s slow. Dog slow—dial-up slow.
You can’t be on a phone call while you’re online using EDGE or 1xRTT,
either.
• 3G cellular networks. 3G stands for “third generation.” (The ancient
analog cellphones were the first generation; EDGE-type networks
were the second.) Geeks refer to the 3G network standard by its official name: HSDPA, for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access.
Web pages that take 2 minutes to appear using EDGE or 1xRTT show
up in about 20 seconds on 3G. Voice calls sound better, too, even
when the signal strength is very low, since the iPhone’s 3G radio can
communicate with multiple towers at once.
Oh, and on AT&T and T-Mobile, you can talk on the phone and use the
Internet simultaneously, which can be very handy indeed.
• “4G” networks. AT&T enhanced HSDPA, made it faster using a
technology called HSPA+ (High-Speed Packet Access), and calls it
4G. (You’ll know when you’re on one; your status bar says 4.) But
nobody else recognizes HSPA+ as real 4G, which is why AT&T feels
justified in advertising “the nation’s largest 4G network.” The other
carriers aren’t even measuring that network type.
• 4G LTE networks. Now this is 4G.
An LTE network (Long-Term Evolution) gives you amazing speeds—in
some cases, faster than your broadband Internet at home. When your
status bar says 9, it’s fantastic.
But LTE is not all sunshine and bunnies; it has two huge downsides.
First: coverage. LTE coverage is available in hundreds of U.S. cities,
which is a good start. But that still leaves most of the country, including huge chunks of several entire states, without any 4G coverage
at all (hi there, Montana!). Whenever you’re outside the high-speed
areas, your iPhone falls back to the slower speeds.
The second big problem with LTE is that, to receive its signal, a
phone’s circuitry uses a lot of power. That’s why the latest iPhones are
bigger than their predecessors; they need beefier batteries.

A Word About VoLTE
If you have an iPhone 6 or later model, the dawn of LTE cellphone networks brings another benefit: You can use Voice over LTE, or VoLTE
(“volty”). That’s a delightful new cellular feature that promises amazing
voice quality—sounds more like FM radio than cellphone—and simultaneous calling/Internetting, even on Verizon. (Behind the scenes, it sends

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your voice over the carrier’s Internet network instead of the voice network. That’s why it’s called “Voice over LTE.”)
To make this work, every link in the chain has to be compatible with
VoLTE: your phone and your cellphone network, and (for that great
sound quality) the phone and network of the person you’re calling.
All four big U.S. carriers offer VoLTE, but you generally get the high-
quality sound only when you’re calling someone on your own cellphone
carrier—not if, for example, you have Verizon and the other guy has
T-Mobile. (Cross-carrier calling is supposed to be coming soon.)
To turn on VoLTE, open SettingsÆCellularÆEnable LTE; select Voice &
Data. For Verizon, you also have to visit your MyVerizon web page and
turn on Advanced Calling. There’s no extra cost involved—just some truly
welcome new improvements in quality and convenience.

Wi‑Fi Hotspots
Wi‑Fi, known to geeks as 802.11, is wireless networking, the same technology that gets laptops online at high speed in any Wi‑Fi hotspot.
Hotspots are everywhere these days: in homes, offices, coffee shops,
hotels, airports, and thousands of other places. Unfortunately, a hotspot
is a bubble about 300 feet across; once you wander out of it, you’re off
the Internet. So, in general, Wi‑Fi is for people who are sitting still.
When you’re in a Wi‑Fi hotspot, your iPhone usually gets a very fast connection to the Internet, as though it’s connected to a cable modem or
DSL. And when you’re online this way, you can make phone calls and surf
the Internet simultaneously. And why not? Your iPhone’s Wi‑Fi and cellular antennas are independent.
(Over cellular connections, only the AT&T and T-Mobile iPhones let you
talk and get online simultaneously. Verizon and Sprint can do that only
when you’re on a VoLTE call, as described previously.)
The iPhone looks for a Wi‑Fi connection first and considers connecting
to a cellular network only if there’s no Wi‑Fi. You’ll always know which
kind of network you’re on, thanks to the icons on the status bar: You'll
see either ∑ for Wi‑Fi, or one of the cellular icons (G, ˝, 3, 4, or 9).
Or “No service” if there’s nothing available at all.
And how much faster is one than the next? Well, network speeds are
measured in kilobits and megabits per second (which isn’t the same as
the more familiar kilobytes and megabytes per second; divide by 8 to
get those).

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The EDGE/1xRTT network is supposed to deliver data from 70 to
200 Kbps, depending on your distance from the cell towers. 3G gets 300
to 700 Kbps. A Wi‑Fi hotspot can spit out 650 to 2,100 Kbps. And 4G
LTE can deliver speeds as fast as 100 Mbps. You’ll rarely get speeds near
the high ends—but even so, there’s quite a difference.
The bottom line: LTE and Wi‑Fi are awesome. EDGE/1xRTT—not so
much.

Sequence of Connections
The iPhone isn’t online all the time. To save battery power, it opens the
connection only on demand: when you check email, request a web page,
and so on. At that point, the iPhone tries to get online following this
sequence:
• First, it sniffs around for a Wi‑Fi network that you’ve used before. If
it finds one, it connects quietly and automatically. You’re not asked for
permission, a password, or anything else.
• If the iPhone can’t find a previous hotspot but it detects a new
hotspot, a message appears (below, left). It displays any new

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hotspots’ names; tap the one you want. (If you see a � icon, then that
hotspot is password-protected.)
• If the iPhone can’t find any Wi‑Fi hotspots to join, or if you don’t join
any, it connects to the cellular network, like 3G or LTE.

Silencing the “Want to Join?” Messages
Sometimes, you might be bombarded by those “Select a Wireless
Network” messages at a time when you have no need to be online. You
might want the iPhone to stop bugging you—to stop offering Wi‑Fi
hotspots. In that situation, from the Home screen, tap SettingsÆWi-Fi (or
tell Siri, “Open Wi‑Fi settings”), and then turn off Ask to Join Networks.
When this option is off, the iPhone never interrupts you by dropping
the name of every new network at your feet. In this case, to get onto a
new network, you have to visit the aforementioned settings screen and
select it.

The List of Hotspots
At some street corners in big cities, Wi‑Fi signals bleeding out of apartment buildings sometimes give you a choice of 20 or 30 hotspots to join.
But whenever the iPhone invites you to join a hotspot, it suggests only
a couple of them: the ones with the strongest signal and, if possible, no
password requirement.
But you might sometimes want to see the complete list of available
hotspots—maybe because the iPhone-suggested hotspot is flaky. To see
the full list, from the Home screen, open SettingsÆWi-Fi. Tap the one
you want to join, as shown on the facing page at right.
TIP: Tap * next to a hotspot’s name to view an info sheet for techies.
It shows your IP address, subnet mask, router address, and other
delicious stats. Even mere mortals, however, will sometimes enjoy
the Forget This Network button. It removes this hotspot from the
list, which is handy if you’ve moved away and don’t need to be
reminded of the high speed that was once yours.

Commercial Hotspots
Tapping the name of the hotspot you want to join is generally all you
have to do—if it’s a home Wi‑Fi network. Unfortunately, joining a commercial Wi‑Fi hotspot—one that requires a credit card number (in a hotel
room or an airport, for example)—requires more than just connecting to
it. You also have to sign into it, exactly as you’d do if you were using a
laptop.
In general, the iPhone prompts you to do that automatically. A login
screen pops up on its own, interrupting whatever else you’re doing; that’s
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where you supply your credit card information or (if you have a membership to this Wi‑Fi chain, like Boingo or T-Mobile) your name and password. Tap Submit or Proceed, try not to contemplate the cost, and enjoy
your surfing.
(If that login screen doesn’t appear, or if you canceled out of it accidentally, open Safari. You’ll see the “Enter your payment information” screen,
either immediately or as soon as you try to open a web page of your
choice.)
Mercifully, the iPhone memorizes your password. The next time you use
this hotspot, you won’t have to enter it again.

Airplane Mode and Wi‑Fi Off Mode
When battery power is precious, you can turn off all three of the iPhone’s
network connections in one fell swoop. You can also turn off Wi‑Fi alone.
• To turn all radios off. In airplane mode, turn off all wireless circuitry:
Bluetooth, Wi‑Fi, and cellular. Now you can’t make calls or get onto
the Internet. You’re saving an amazing amount of power, however, and
also complying with regulations that ban cellphones in flight.
The short way: Swipe up from the bottom of the screen; on the Control Center, tap | so it turns orange. (The long way: Open Settings,
turn on Airplane Mode.)
• To turn Wi‑Fi on or off. Swipe up; on the Control Center, tap ∑ so
it’s no longer blue. (You can also switch it in SettingsÆWi-Fi.)
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TIP: Once you’ve turned on airplane mode, you can actually turn Wi-Fi
back on again. Why on earth? To use Wi‑Fi on a flight. You need a
way to turn Wi‑Fi on, but your cellular circuitry off.
Conversely, you sometimes might want to do the opposite: turn off
Wi‑Fi, but leave cellular on. Why? Because, sometimes, the iPhone
bizarrely won’t get online at all. It’s struggling to use a Wi‑Fi network
that, for one reason or another, isn’t connecting to the Internet. By
turning Wi‑Fi off, you force the iPhone to use its cell connection—
which may be slower, but at least it works!

In airplane mode, anything that requires voice or Internet access—text
messages, web, email, and so on—triggers a message: “Turn off Airplane
Mode or use Wi‑Fi to access data.” Tap either OK (to back out of your
decision) or Settings (to turn off airplane mode and get online).
You can, however, enjoy all the other iPhone features: Music, Camera, and
so on. You can also work with stuff you’ve already downloaded to the
phone, like email, voicemail messages, and web pages you’ve saved in
the Reading List.

Personal Hotspot (Tethering)
Tethering means using your iPhone as an Internet antenna, so that
your laptops, iPod Touches, iPads, game consoles, and other Internetconnectables can get online. (The other gadgets can connect to the
phone over a Wi‑Fi connection, a Bluetooth connection, or a USB cable.)
In fact, several laptops and other gadgets can all share the iPhone’s connection simultaneously. Your phone becomes a personal cellular router,
like a MiFi.

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That’s incredibly convenient. Many phones have it, but Apple’s execution
is especially nice. For example, the hotspot shuts itself off 90 seconds
after the last laptop disconnects. That’s hugely important, because a personal hotspot is a merciless battery drain.
The hotspot feature may be included with your data plan (T-Mobile), or it
may cost something like $20 a month extra, which buys only 2 gigabytes
of data (Verizon). Think email, not YouTube.
To get this feature, you have to sign up for it by calling your cellular company or visiting its website (if you didn’t already do that when you signed
up for service).
TIP: If you have a Mac running OS X Yosemite or later, you’re in for a
real treat: a much more streamlined way to set up Personal Hotspot
called Instant Hotspot. Skip the instructions below and jump
immediately to page 550.

Turning On the Hotspot
On the phone, open SettingsÆCellularÆPersonal Hotspot (or tell Siri,
“Open cellular settings”).
TIP: Once you’ve turned on Personal Hotspot for the first time, you won’t
have to drill down as far to get to it. A new Personal Hotspot item
appears right there on the main Settings screen from now on.

The Personal Hotspot screen contains details on connecting other computers. It also has the master on/off switch. Turn Personal Hotspot On.
(If you see a button that says Set Up Personal Hotspot, it means you
haven’t yet added the monthly tethering fee to your cellular plan.
Contact your wireless carrier to get that change made to your account.)
You have to use a password for your personal hotspot; it’s to ensure that
people sitting nearby can’t surf using your connection and run up your
cell bill. The software proposes a password, but you can edit it and make
up one of your own. (It has to be at least eight characters long and contain letters, numbers, and punctuation. Don’t worry—your laptop or other
Wi‑Fi gadget can memorize it for you.)
Your laptops and other gadgets can connect to the Internet using any
of three connections to the iPhone: Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, or a USB cable. If
either Wi‑Fi or Bluetooth are turned off, then a message appears to let
you know—and offers to turn them on for you. To save battery power,
turn on only what you need.

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Connecting via Wi‑Fi
After about 30 seconds, the iPhone shows up on your laptop or other
gadget as though it were a Wi‑Fi network. Just choose the iPhone’s
name from your computer’s Wi‑Fi hotspot menu (on the Mac, it’s the ∑
menu). Enter the password, and bam—your laptop is now online, using
the iPhone as an antenna. On the Mac or an iPad, the ∑ changes to look
like this: Ó.
You can leave the iPhone in your pocket or purse while connected. You’ll
surf away on your laptop, baffling every Internet-less soul around you.
Your laptop can now use email, the web, chat programs—anything it
could do in a real Wi‑Fi hotspot (just a little slower).

Connecting via Bluetooth
There’s no compelling reason to use Bluetooth instead of Wi‑Fi, especially since Bluetooth slows your Internet connection. But if you’re interested, see the free downloadable PDF appendix “Bluetooth Tethering” on
this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.

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Connecting via USB Cable
If you can connect your laptop to your iPhone using the white charging
cable, you should. Tethering eats up a lot of the phone’s battery power,
so keeping it plugged into the laptop means you won’t wind up with a
dead phone when you’re finished surfing.

Once You’re Connected
On the iPhone, a blue bar appears at the top of the screen to make
you aware that the laptop is connected (previous page, right); in fact,
it shows how many laptops or other gadgets are connected at the
moment, via any of the three connection methods. (You can tap that bar
to open the Personal Hotspot screen in Settings.)
Most carriers won’t let more than five people connect through a single
iPhone.
If you have AT&T or T-Mobile, you can still use all the functions of the
iPhone, including making calls and surfing the web, while it’s channeling
your laptop’s Internet connection.
If you have Verizon or Sprint, then your iPhone can’t handle Internet connections and voice calls simultaneously (unless you’re on a VoLTE call, as
described on page 434). So if a phone call comes in, the iPhone suspends the hotspot feature until you’re finished talking; when you hang
up (or if you decline the call), all connected gadgets regain their Internet
connections automatically.

Turning Off Personal Hotspot
If you’re connected wirelessly to the iPhone, the Personal Hotspot feature is a battery hog. It’ll cut your iPhone’s battery longevity in half. That’s
why, if no laptops are connected for 90 seconds, the iPhone turns the
hotspot off automatically.
You can also turn off the hotspot manually, just the way you’d expect: In
SettingsÆPersonal Hotspot, tap Off.

Turning Personal Hotspot Back On
About 90 seconds after the last gadget stops using the hotspot, your
iPhone shuts off the feature to save its own battery. To fire it back up
again, open Settings and tap Personal Hotspot. That’s it—just visit the
Personal Hotspot screen to make the iPhone resume broadcasting its
Wi‑Fi or Bluetooth network to your laptops and other gadgets.

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Twitter and Facebook
Twitter, of course, is a free service (sign up at twitter.com) that lets you
send out short messages, like text messages, to anyone who wants to
get them from you. Twitter is a fantastic way for people to spread news,
links, thoughts, and observations directly to the people who care—
incredibly quickly.
And Facebook is—well, Facebook. 1.6 billion people sharing their personal
details and thoughts can’t be wrong, right?
These services are woven into the built-in iPhone apps.

Start by visiting SettingsÆTwitter or SettingsÆFacebook. Here you can
enter your account name and password or sign up for an account. Here,
too, you’re offered the chance to download the Twitter or Facebook
apps. You can also tap Update Contacts, which attempts to add the
Twitter or Facebook addresses of everybody in your Contacts app to
their information cards. For details, see page 114.

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Once you’ve set up Twitter and Facebook this way, you’ll find some nifty
buttons built into your other apps, for one-tap tweeting or Facebook
posting. For example, the Share button (P) appears in Photos, Maps,
Safari, and other apps, making it easy to post a photo, location, or web
page. Siri understands commands like “Tweet” and “Post to Facebook,”
too, so you can broadcast when the spirit moves you. (The Tweet and
Post buttons are no longer in the Notification Center, however.)
In each case, you wind up at a small tweet sheet or Facebook sheet. Here
you can add a comment to the link or photo, or attach your current location, or (for Facebook) specify who’s allowed to see this post—Everyone
or just Friends, for example.
For Twitter posts, you’ll notice that the keyboard at that point offers dedicated @ and # keys. (The # is for creating hashtags—searchable keywords on a tweet like #iphone7bugs—that Twitter fans can use when
searching for tweets about certain topics. And the @ precedes every
Twitter person’s address—@pogue, for example.)

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Safari

he iPhone’s web browser is Safari, a lite version of the same
one that comes on the Mac. It’s fast, simple to use, and very
pretty. On the web pages you visit, you see the real deal—the
actual fonts, graphics, and layouts—not the stripped-down mini-web on
cellphones of years gone by.
Using Safari on the iPhone is still not quite as good as surfing the web
on, you know, a laptop. But it’s getting closer.

Safari Tour
Safari has most of the features of a desktop web browser: bookmarks,
autocomplete (for web addresses), scrolling shortcuts, cookies, a pop-up
ad blocker, password memorization, and so on. (It’s missing niceties like
streaming music, Java, Flash, and other plug-ins.)
Now, don’t be freaked out: The main screen elements disappear shortly
after you start reading a page. That’s supposed to give you more screen
space to do your surfing. To bring them back, scroll to the top, scroll to
the bottom, or just scroll up a little. At that point, you see the controls
again. Here they are, as they appear from the top left:
• Reader view (g). In this delightful view, all the ads, boxes, banners,
and other junk disappear. Only text and pictures remain, for your
sanity-in-reading pleasure. See page 467.
• Address/search bar. A single, unified box serves as both the address
bar and the search bar at the top of the screen. (That’s the trend
these days. Desktop-computer browsers like Chrome and Safari on
the Mac work that way, too.)
This box is where you enter the URL (web address) for a page
you want to visit. (“URL” is short for the even-less-self-explanatory

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Uniform Resource Locator.) For example, if you type amazon.com,
tapping Go takes you to that website.
But this is also where you search the web. If you type anything else,
like cashmere sweaters or just amazon, then tapping Go gives you the
Google search results for that phrase.
TIP: If you hold your finger down briefly on the keyboard’s period key,
you get a pop-up palette of web-address suffixes (.org, .edu, and
so on). Luckily, .com starts out selected—so just release your finger
to type it in. In other words, the entire process for typing .com goes
like this: Hold finger on period key; release.

• Stop, Reload (x, ƒ). Tap x to interrupt the downloading of a web
page you’ve just requested (if you’ve made a mistake, for instance, or
if it’s taking too long).
TIP: You don’t have to wait for a web page to load entirely. You can
zoom in, scroll, and begin reading the text even when only part of
the page has appeared.

Once a page has finished loading, the x button turns into a ƒ (reload) button. Click it if a page doesn’t look or work quite right. Safari
re-downloads the web page and reinterprets its text and graphics.
• Back, Forward (”, ’). Tap ” to revisit the page you were just on.
Once you’ve tapped ”, you can then tap ’ to return to the page you
were on before you tapped the ” button. You can also hold down
these buttons to see the complete history list of this tab.

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TIP: Since these buttons disappear as soon as you scroll down a page,
how are you supposed to move back and forward among pages?
By swiping in from outside the screen. Start your swipe on the edge
of the phone’s front glass and whisk inward. Swiping rightward like
this means “back”; leftward means “forward again.” Do it slowly, and
you can actually see the page sliding in.

• Share/Bookmark (P). When you’re on an especially useful page, tap
this button. It offers every conceivable choice for commemorating or
sharing the page. See page 348 for details.
• View Bookmarks (‡). This button brings up your list of saved bookmarks—plus your History list, Favorites, Reading List, and links recommended by the people you follow on Twitter. You can read about
these elements later in this chapter.
• Page Juggler («). Safari can keep multiple web pages open, just like
any other browser. Page 465 has the details.

Zooming and Scrolling
When you first open a web page, you get to see the entire thing, so
you can get the lay of the land. At this point, of course, you’re looking at
.004-point type, which is too small to read unless you’re a microbe. So
the next step is to magnify the part of the page you want to read.
The iPhone offers three ways to do that:
• Double-tap. Safari can recognize different chunks of a web page—
each block of text, each photo. When you double-tap a chunk, Safari
magnifies just that chunk to fill the whole screen. It’s smart and useful.
Double-tap again to zoom back out.
• Rotate the iPhone. Turn the device 90 degrees in either direction. The
iPhone rotates and magnifies the image to fill the wider view. Often,
this simple act is enough to make tiny type big enough to read.
• Do the two-finger spread. Put two fingers on the glass and slide
them apart. The Safari page stretches before your very eyes, growing
larger. Then you can pinch to shrink the page back down again. (Most
people do several spreads or pinches in a row to achieve the degree
of zoom they want.)
Once you’ve zoomed out to the proper degree, you can then scroll
around the page by dragging or flicking with a finger. You don’t have to

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worry about “clicking a link” by accident; if your finger is in motion, Safari
ignores the tapping action, even if you happen to land on a link.
TIP: Once you’ve double-tapped to zoom in on a page, you can use this
little-known trick: Double-tap anywhere on the upper half of the
screen to scroll up or the lower half to scroll down. The closer you
are to the top or bottom of the screen, the more you scroll.

Double-tap

Full-Screen Mode
On a phone, the screen is pretty small to begin with; most people would
rather dedicate that space to showing more web.
So in iOS, Safari enters full-screen mode the instant you start to scroll
down a page. In full-screen mode, all the controls and toolbars vanish.
Now the entire iPhone screen is filled with web goodness. You can bring
the controls back in any of these ways:
• Scroll up a little bit.
• Return to the top or bottom of a web page.
• Navigate to a different page.
And enjoy Safari’s dedication to trying to get out of your way.

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TIP: You can jump directly to the address bar, no matter how far down
a page you’ve scrolled, just by tapping the very top edge of the
screen (the status bar). That “tap the top” trick is timely, too, when a
website is designed to hide the address bar.

Typing a Web Address
The address/search bar is the strip at the top of the screen where you
type in a web page’s address. And it so happens that some of the
iPhone’s greatest tips and shortcuts all have to do with this important
navigational tool:
• Your Favorites await. When you tap in the address bar but haven’t yet
typed anything, the icons of a few very special, most favorite websites
appear (below, top). These are the Favorites; see page 450.
• Don’t delete. There is a ˛ button at the right end of the address
bar whose purpose is to erase the current address so you can type
another one. (Tap inside the address bar to make it, and the keyboard,
appear.) But the ˛ button is for suckers.
Instead, whenever the address bar is open for typing, just type. Forget that there’s already a URL there. The iPhone is smart enough to
figure out that you want to replace that web address with a new one.

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• Don’t type http://www. You can leave that stuff out; Safari will supply
it automatically. Instead of http://www.cnn.com, for example, just type
cnn.com (or tap its name in the suggestions list) and hit Go.
• Type .com, .net, .org, or .edu the easy way. Safari’s canned URL
choices can save you four keyboard taps apiece. To see their secret
menu, hold your finger down on the period key on the keyboard (previous page, bottom). Then tap the common suffix you want. (Or, if
you want .com, just release your finger without moving it.)
Otherwise, this address bar works just like the one in any other web
browser. Tap inside it to make the keyboard appear.
Tap the blue Go key when you’re finished typing the address. That’s your
Enter key. (Or tap Cancel to hide the keyboard without “pressing Enter.”)
TIP: If you hold your finger on a link for a moment—touching rather
than tapping—a handy panel appears. At the top, you see the full
web address that link will open. And there are some useful buttons:
Open, Open in New Tab, Add to Reading List, Copy (meaning “copy
the link address”), and Share. Oh, and there’s also Cancel.

The Favorites Icons
You can never close all your Safari windows. The app will never let you
get past the final page, always lurking behind the others: the Favorites
page (previous page, top).
This is the starting point. It’s what you first see when you tap the n button. It’s like a page of visual bookmarks.
In fact, if you see a bunch of icons here already, it’s because your phone
has synced them over from Safari on a Mac; whatever sites are on your
Bookmarks bar become icons on this bookmarks page.
You can edit this Favorites page, of course:
• Rearrange them as you would Home screen icons. That is, hold your
finger down on an icon momentarily and then drag it to a new spot.
• Remove or rename a favorites icon. Favorites are just bookmarks. So
you can edit, move, or delete them just as you would any bookmark.
(Tap ‡ to open your Bookmarks screen. Make sure that you’re on the
‡ tab, so that your list of folders is showing. Tap Favorites, then Edit.
Tap – for a site you want to delete, and then tap Delete.)
TIP: You can create folders inside the Favorites folder, too. Whenever the
Favorites screen appears, you’ll see these subfolders listed as further
sources of speed-dial websites.

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• Add a Favorites icon. When you find a page you’d like to add to the
Favorites screen, tap P. On the Share sheet, tap Add Bookmark. The
phone usually proposes putting the new bookmark into the Favorites
folder, which means that it will show up on the Favorites screen. (If
it proposes some other folder on the Location line, tap the folder’s
name and then tap Favorites.) Tap Save.
TIP: You don’t have to use the Favorites folder of bookmarks as the
one whose contents appear on the Favorites screen. In SettingsÆ
SafariÆ Favorites, a list of all your Bookmarks folders appears.
Whichever one you select there becomes your new Favorites folder,
even if its name isn’t “Favorites.”

Request Desktop Site
In an effort to conserve time and bandwidth (yours and theirs), many
websites supply mobile versions to your iPhone—smaller, stripped-down
sites that transfer faster than (but lack some features of) the full-blown
sites. You generally have no control over which version you’re sent.
Until now. Suppose you’re in Safari, and some site has dished up its
mobile version, and you’re gnashing your teeth. Hold down the ƒ in the
address box; tap Request Desktop Site. (The same button appears when
you tap P and scroll the bottom row to the right.) As you’ve requested,
the full-blown desktop version of that site now appears.

Searching in Safari
The address bar is also the search box. Just tap into it and type your
search phrase (or speak it, using Siri).
To save you time and fiddling, Safari instantly produces a menu filled with
suggestions that could spare you some typing—things it guesses you
might be looking for. If you see the address you’re trying to type, then by
all means tap it instead of typing out the rest of the URL. The time you
save could be your own:
• Top Hits. The Top Hits are Safari’s best guesses at what you’re looking
for. They’re the sites on your bookmarks and History lists that you’ve
visited most often (and that match what you’ve typed so far).
Try tapping one of the Top Hits sometime. You’ll discover, to your
amazement, that that site appears almost instantly. It doesn’t seem to
have to load. That’s because, as a favor to you, Safari quietly downloads the Top Hits in the background, while you’re still entering your
search term, all to save you time.

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NOTE: If you’re concerned that this feature is sucking down some of
your monthly cellular data allowance unnecessarily, you can turn
it off in SettingsÆSafariÆPreload Top Hit.

• Suggested Sites. Occasionally, you’ll see another proposed site or two
here: Suggested Sites. It’s yet another site that Safari supposes you
might be trying to reach, based on what you’ve typed so far and what
sites other people visit.
• Google Search. The next category of suggestions: a list of search
terms you might be typing, based on how popular those searches are
on Google (or whatever search service you’re using). For example, if
you type chick, then this section proposes things like chicken recipes,
chick fil a, and chicken pox. It’s just trying to save you a little typing;
if none of these tappable choices is the one you want, then ignore
them.
NOTE: You can turn this feature off, too, if it makes you feel spied upon.
(Behind the scenes, it’s transmitting your search term to Apple.)
You do that in SettingsÆSafariÆSearch Engine Suggestions.

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• Bookmarks and History. Here Safari offers matching selections from
websites you’ve bookmarked or recently visited. Again, it’s trying to
save you typing if it can.
• On This Page. Here’s how you search for certain text on the page
you’re reading.
Once you’ve started typing, under the On This Page heading, you see
a listing called Find “chic” (or whatever you’ve typed so far), shown
below at left. Tap that line to jump to the first appearance of that text
on the page. (There’s a less hidden way to start this process, too: Tap
P and then Find on Page.)

Use the ” and ’ buttons to jump from one match to the next. Tap
Done to return to your regularly scheduled browsing.
TIP: Suppose you’ve started typing a search term. Safari pipes up with
its usual list of suggestions. At this point, if you drag up or down the
screen, you hide the keyboard—so you can see the suggestions that
were hidden behind it.

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You can tell the iPhone to use a Yahoo, Bing, or DuckDuckGo search
instead of Google, if you like, in SettingsÆSafariÆSearch Engine.
(DuckDuckGo is a search service dedicated to privacy. It doesn’t store
your searches or tailor the results to you. On the other hand, it’s capable
of searching only about 50 web sources—Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, and
so on.)
TIP: If you’ve set your search options to use Google, then there are
all kinds of cool things you can type here—special terms that tell
Google, “I want information, not web page matches.”
You can type a movie name and zip code or city/state (Titanic
Returns 10024) to get a list of today’s showtimes in theaters near
you. Get the forecast by typing weather chicago or weather 60609.
Stock quotes: Type the symbol (AMZN). Dictionary definitions:
define schadenfreude. Unit conversions: liters in 5 gallons. Currency
conversions: 25 usd in euros. Then tap Go to get instant results.

Quick Website Search
This crazy feature lets you search within a certain site (like Amazon or
Reddit or Wikipedia) using Safari’s regular search bar. For example, typing wiki mollusk can search Wikipedia for its entry on mollusks. Typing
amazon ipad can offer links to buy an iPad from Amazon. Typing reddit
sitcoms opens reddit.com to its search results for sitcoms.
None of this will work, however, until (a) you’ve turned the feature on
(SettingsÆ SafariÆQuick Website Search), and (b) you’ve manually
taught Safari how to search those sites one time each.
To do that, pull up the site you’ll want to search (let’s say it’s reddit.com)
and use its regular search bar. Search for anything.
That site’s name now appears in the list at SettingsÆSafariÆQuick
Website Search. (Usually. Many sites don’t work with Quick Website
Search.) From now on, you can search that site by typing, for example,
reddit sitcoms. You’ll jump directly to that site’s search results.

Bookmarks
Bookmarks, of course, are links to websites you might want to visit again
without having to remember and type their URLs.
To see the list of bookmarks on your phone, tap ‡ at the bottom of the
screen. You see the master list of bookmarks. They’re organized in folders, or even folders within folders.

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Tapping a folder shows you what’s inside, and tapping a bookmark
begins opening the corresponding website.
NOTE: Actually, what you see when you tap ‡ are three tabs at the top:
‡ (Bookmarks), © (Reading List), and @ (Twitter links and
RSS feeds). The latter two are described later in this chapter.

You may be surprised to discover that Safari already seems to be prestocked with bookmarks—that, amazingly, are interesting and useful to
you in particular! How did it know?
Easy—it copied your existing desktop computer’s browser bookmarks
from Safari on the Mac when you synced the iPhone (Chapter 15), or
when you turned on Safari syncing through iCloud. Sneaky, eh?

Creating New Bookmarks
You can add new bookmarks right on the phone. Any work you do
here is copied back to your computer the next time you sync the two
machines—or instantaneously, if you’ve turned on iCloud bookmark
syncing.
When you find a web page you might like to visit again, hold down the
‡ icon; from the shortcut menu, choose Add Bookmark. (Or do it the

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long way: Tap the P to reveal the Share options, one of which is Add
Bookmark.) The Add Bookmark screen appears (previous page, right).
You have two tasks here:
• Type a better name. In the top box, you can type a shorter or clearer
name for the page. Instead of “Bass, Trout & Tackle—the web’s
Premier Resource for the Avid Outdoorsman,” you can just call it
“Fish.”
Below that: The page’s underlying URL, which is independent of what
you’ve named your bookmark. You can’t edit this one.
• Specify where to file this bookmark. If you tap Favorites, then you
open Safari’s hierarchical list of bookmark folders, which organize
your bookmarked sites. Tap the folder where you want to file the new
bookmark so you’ll know where to find it later.

Editing Bookmarks and Folders
It’s easy enough to massage your Bookmarks list within Safari—to delete
favorites that aren’t so favorite anymore, to make new folders, to rearrange the list, to rename a folder or a bookmark, and so on.
The techniques are the same for editing bookmark folders as editing the
bookmarks themselves—after the first step. To edit the folder list, start by
opening the Bookmarks (tap ‡), and then tap Edit.
To edit the bookmarks themselves, tap ‡, tap a folder, and then tap
Edit. Now you can get organized:
• Delete something. Tap – next to a folder or a bookmark, and then
tap Delete to confirm.
• Rearrange the list. Drag the grip strip (˝) up or down in the list to
move the folders or bookmarks around. (You can’t move or delete the
top two folders—Favorites and History.)
• Edit a name and location. Tap a folder or a bookmark name. If you
tap a folder, you arrive at the Edit Folder screen; you can edit the folder’s name and which folder it’s inside of. If you tap a bookmark, Edit
Bookmark lets you edit the name and the URL it points to.
Tap Done when you’re finished.
• Create a folder. Tap New Folder in the lower-left corner of the Edit
Folders screen. You’re offered the chance to type a name for it and to
specify where you want to file it (that is, in which other folder).
Tap Done when you’re finished.

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TIP: As you’ve just read, preserving a bookmark requires quite a few
taps. That’s why it’s extra important for you to remember iOS’s gift
to busy people: the “Remind me about this later” command to Siri
(page 419). You’ve just added a new item in your Reminders list,
complete with a link to whatever page you’re looking at now. (Feel
free to be more specific, as in “Remind me about this when I get
home.”)

The History List
Behind the scenes, Safari keeps track of the websites you’ve visited in
the past week or so, neatly organized into subfolders like This Evening
and Yesterday. It’s a great feature when you can’t recall the address for a
website you visited recently—or when you remember it had a long, complicated address and you get the psychiatric condition known as iPhone
Keyboard Dread.
To see the list of recent sites, tap ‡; then, on the ‡ tab, tap History,
whose icon bears a h to make sure you know it’s special. Once the
History list appears, just tap a bookmark to revisit that web page.

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Erasing the History List
Some people find it creepy that Safari maintains a History list, right
there in plain view of any family member or coworker who wanders by.
They’d just as soon their wife/husband/boss/parent/kid not know what
websites they’ve been visiting.
You can delete just one particularly incriminating History listing easily
enough; swipe leftward across its name and then tap Delete. You can
also delete the entire History menu, thus erasing all your tracks. To do
that, tap Clear; confirm by tapping Clear History. You’ve just rewritten
History.

Shared Links (�)
There’s a third tab button on the Bookmarks screen, too: €.
It’s the Shared Links button. It lists every tweet from Twitter that contains a link. The idea is to make it easier for you to explore sites that your
Twitter friends are recommending; all their web finds are collected in one
place (facing page, right).
TIP: In Safari, “shared links” has another meaning, too: The P makes it
easy to share the URL of a particularly juicy web page. On the Share
sheet, you get the usual set of links: Copy, Mail, Message (to send
by text message), Twitter, Facebook, and so on. But remember that
iOS is extensible. Depending on the apps you’ve installed, you may
see all kinds of other share-this-link options on this screen.

RSS Subscriptions
At the bottom of the Shared Links (€) tab, iOS offers a button called
Subscriptions. It’s a reference to RSS feeds, which are something like
subscriptions to websites. You don’t have to remember to go visit your
favorite blogs or news sites; notification blurbs about their newly posted
articles come to you.
Here’s the procedure:
1. In Safari, open a site that offers an RSS feed. News sites of all kinds
offer RSS feeds (nytimes.com, usatoday.com, engadget.com, and
so on).
2. Subscribe to it. To do that, tap ‡, then €, then Subscriptions, and
then Add Current Site (facing page, left).
3. Read. When you want to see what’s new, tap ‡, then €. That’s right:
Blurbs representing newly posted stories appear on the € tab (shown
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above at right), mixed in with all your Twitter links. That’s not ideal,
especially if there are hundreds of Twitter links—but at least you’ll
never be without a place to check for interesting stuff to read.
To delete a subscription, tap ‡, then €, then Subscriptions; tap – next
to the subscription’s name, and confirm by tapping Delete.

The Reading List
The Reading List is a handy list of web pages you want to read later.
Unlike a bookmark, it stores entire pages, so you can read them even
when you don’t have an Internet connection (on the subway or on a
plane, for example).
The Reading List also keeps track of what you’ve read. You can use
the Show All/Show Unread button at the bottom of the screen to view
everything—or just what you haven’t yet read.
TIP: To make matters even sweeter, iCloud synchronizes your Reading
List on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and so on—as long as you’ve turned
on bookmark syncing. It’s as though the web always keeps your
place.

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To add a page to the Reading List, tap P and then tap Add to Reading
List (above, left). Or just hold your finger down on a link until a set of
buttons appears, including Add to Reading List.
Once you’ve added a page to the Reading List, you can get to it by tapping ‡ and then tapping the Reading List tab at the top (©). Tap an
item on your list to open and read it (above, right).
TIP: When you get to the bottom of a Reading List item you’ve just
read, keep scrolling down. The phone is nice enough to offer up the
next article in your Reading List, as though they were all vertically
connected.

By the way, some web pages require a hefty amount of data to download, what with photos and all. If you’re worried about Reading List
downloads eating up your monthly data allotment, you can visit
SettingsÆSafari and turn off Use Cellular Data.
Now you’ll be able to download Reading List pages only when you’re on
Wi‑Fi, but at least there’s no risk of going over your monthly cellular-data
allotment.

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Link-Tapping Tricks
Link-tapping, of course, is the primary activity of the web. But in Safari,
those blue underlined links (or not blue, even not underlined links) harbor
special powers:
• Long-press a link to open a handy panel. Its options include Open,
Open in New Tab, Add to Reading List, Copy, and Share.
• Hard-press a link (iPhone 6s and 7 models) to peek at whatever page
that link opens, like this:

Hard press

Preview pops open without
leaving the page

This, of course, is part of the peek and pop feature described on
page 37. Once you’ve opened the preview bubble, you can either
retreat (lift your finger; remain where you were) or advance (press
even harder to fully open that page).
Quite handy, really.

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Saving Graphics
If you find a picture online that you wish you could keep forever, you have
two choices. You could stare at it until you’ve memorized it, or you could
save it.
To do that, touch the image for about a second. A sheet appears, just like
the one that appears when you hold your finger down on a regular link.
If you tap Save Image, then the iPhone thoughtfully deposits a copy of
the image in your Camera Roll so it will be copied back to your Mac or
PC at the next sync opportunity. If you tap Copy, then you nab a link to
that graphic, which you can now paste into another program.
TIP: If Save Image isn’t one of the choices, there’s a workaround: Tap
Open in New Tab, touch the image in its new tab for about a second,
and then choose Save Image from the sheet that appears.

Saved Passwords and Credit Cards
On desktop web browsers, a feature called AutoFill saves you an awful
lot of typing. It fills out your name and address automatically when you’re
ordering something online. It stores your passwords so you don’t have to
re-enter them every time you visit passworded sites.
But on the iPhone, where you’re typing on glass, the convenience of
AutoFill goes to a whole new level.
The phone can memorize your credit card information, too, making it
much easier to buy stuff online; in fact, it can even store this information
by taking a picture of your credit card.
And thanks to iCloud syncing, all those passwords and credit cards can
auto-store themselves on all your other Apple gadgetry.
To turn on AutoFill, visit SettingsÆSafariÆAutoFill. Here’s what you find
(next page, left):
• Use Contact Info. Turn this On. Then tap My Info. From the address
book, find your own listing. You’ve just told Safari which name,
address, city, state, zip code, and phone number belong to you.
From now on, whenever you’re asked to input your address, phone
number, and so on, you’ll see an AutoFill button at the top of the keyboard. Tap it to make Safari auto-enter all those details, saving you no

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end of typing. (It works on most sites.) If there are extra blanks that
AutoFill doesn’t fill, then you can tap the Previous and Next buttons
to move your cursor from one to the next instead of tapping and
scrolling manually.
TIP: New in iOS 10: If your contact card contains a secondary address
(like a work address), or even a third, then tapping AutoFill
produces a pop-up panel listing both (or all three). Just tap the one
you want.

• Names & Passwords lets Safari fill in your user name and passwords
when you visit sites that require you to log in (Google, Amazon, and
so on). On each website, you’ll be able to choose Yes (a good idea for
your PTA or library account), Never for this Website (a good idea for
your bank), or Not Now (you’ll be asked again next time).
(To view a list of the actual memorized names and passwords, open
SettingsÆSafariÆPasswords.)
TIP: On this screen, you can delete or edit saved passwords. If a login no
longer pleases you, swipe leftward across it, and then tap Delete.
To add a password manually, scroll to the bottom of the screen and
tap Add Password.
And to make an edit, tap the errant password and then tap Edit. You
can touch the problematic password or user name to call up the
iPhone’s keyboard and make your changes.

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• Credit Cards. Turn on Credit Cards, of course, if you’d like Safari to
memorize your charge card info. To enter your card details, tap Saved
Credit Cards (where you see a list of them) and then Add Credit
Card. You can type in your name, card number, expiration date, and a
description—or you can save yourself a little tedium by tapping Use
Camera. Aim the camera at your credit card; the phone magically
recognizes your name, the card number, and the expiration date, and
proposes a description of the card.

When you buy something online, iOS offers an Autofill Credit Card
button. When you tap it, Safari asks you first which credit card you
want to use, if you’ve stored more than one (it displays the last four
digits for your reference). Tap it, and boom: Safari cheerfully fills in the
credit card information, saving you time and hassle.
Unfortunately, there’s nowhere to store the little three- or four-digit
security code, sometimes called the CSC, CVV, or CV2 code. Safari
makes no attempt to fill that in; you always have to enter it manually. That’s one last safeguard against a kid, a spouse, a parent, or a
thief using your phone for an online shopping spree when you’re not
around.
TIP: Once you’ve stored all these passwords and credit cards, it sure
would be nice if you didn’t have to enter them into other Apple
gadgets, wouldn’t it? Your Mac, your iPad, and so on?
Fortunately, the iCloud service can synchronize this information to
Safari running on other Apple machines. Page 527 has the details.

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Manipulating Multiple Pages
Like any other self-respecting browser, Safari can keep multiple pages
open at once, making it easy for you to switch among them. You can
think of it as a miniature version of tabbed browsing, a feature of browsers like Safari Senior, Firefox, Chrome, and Microsoft Edge. Tabbed
browsing keeps a bunch of web pages open simultaneously.
One advantage of this arrangement is that you can start reading one
web page while the others load into their own tabs in the background.

To Open a New Window
Tap the « button in the lower right. The Safari page seems to duck
backward, bowing to you in 3D space. Tap n.
You now arrive at the Favorites page (next page, left). Here are icons for
all the sites you’ve designated as Favorites (see page 450). Tap to open
one. Or, in the address bar, enter an address. Or use a bookmark.

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To Switch Among Windows
Tap « again. Now you see something like the 3D floating pages shown
above at right. These are all your open tabs (windows). You work with
them like this:
• Close a window by tapping the x in the corner—or by swiping a
page away horizontally. It slides away into the void.
• Rearrange these windows by dragging them up or down.
• Open a window to full screen by tapping it.
You can open a third window, and a fourth, and so on, and jump among
them, using these two techniques.
TIP: Although not one person in a thousand realizes it, you can search
your open Safari tabs’ website titles and URLs. Tap the « button
and hold the phone horizontally (landscape mode). There’s your
secret search box.

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iCloud Tabs
Thanks to the miracle of iCloud syncing, the last windows and tabs you
had open on that other gadget (even if the gadget is turned off) show up
here, at the bottom of the page-juggling screen (tap « to see it). They’re
sorted into headings that correspond to your other Apple gadgets.
The concept is to unify your Macs and i-gadgets. You’re reading three
browser windows and tabs on your phone—why not resume on the big
screen when you get home and sit down in front of your Mac?
You won’t see these tabs unless the Macs have OS X Mountain
Lion or later. And, of course, Safari has to be turned on in System
PreferencesÆiCloud on the Mac, and SettingsÆiCloud on the phone or
tablet.

Reader View
How can people read web articles when there’s Times-Square blinking all
around them? Fortunately, you’ll never have to put up with that again.

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The Reader button in the address bar (g) is amazing. With one tap, it
eliminates everything from the page you’re reading except the text and
photos. No ads, toolbars, blinking, links, banners, promos, or anything
else.
The text is also changed to a clean, clear font and size, and the background is made plain white. Basically, it makes any web page look like a
printed book page, and it’s glorious. Shown below: the before and after.
Which looks easier to read?

To exit Reader, tap g again. Best. Feature. Ever.
TIP: Once you’re in Reader view, a tiny AA button appears at the right
end of the address bar. It opens the same font panel that’s built into
iBooks (illustrated on page 383). That is, it offers you a choice of
type size, font, and background color.

The fine print: Reader doesn’t appear until the page has fully loaded. It
doesn’t appear on “front page” pages, like the nytimes.com home page—
only when you’ve opened an article within. And it may not appear on
sites that are already specially designed for access by cellphones.

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You’ll know when it’s available, because the address bar says “Reader
View Available.” Can’t get much clearer than that.

Web Security
Safari on the iPhone isn’t meant to be a full-blown web browser like the
one on your desktop computer, but it comes surprisingly close—especially when it comes to privacy and security. Cookies, pop-up blockers,
parental controls…they’re all here, for your paranoid pleasure.

Pop-Up Blocker
The world’s smarmiest advertisers like to inundate us with pop-up and
pop-under ads—nasty little windows that appear in front of the browser
window, or, worse, behind it, waiting to jump out the moment you close
your window. Fortunately, Safari comes set to block those pop-ups so
you don’t see them. It’s a war out there—but at least you now have some
ammunition.
The thing is, though, pop-ups are sometimes useful (and not ads)—
notices of new banking features, seating charts on ticket-sales sites,
warnings that the instructions for using a site have changed, and so on.
Safari can’t tell these from ads—and it stifles them, too. So if a site you
trust says “Please turn off pop-up blockers and reload this page,” then
you know you’re probably missing out on a useful pop-up message.
In those situations, you can turn off the pop-up blocker. The on/off
switch is in SettingsÆSafari.
TIP: Of course, you can also install other companies’ ad blockers. Search
the App Store for, for example, 1Blocker or Crystal.

Password Suggestions
When you’re signing up for a new account on some website, and you
tap inside the box where you’re supposed to make up a password, Safari
offers to make up a password for you. It’s a doozy, too, along the lines of
23k2k4-29cs8-58384-ckk3322.
Now, don’t freak out. You’re not expected to remember that. Safari will, of
course, memorize it for you (and sync it to your other Apple computers,
if they’re on the same iCloud account). Meanwhile, you’ve got yourself a
unique, nearly uncrackable password.

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Cookies
Cookies are something like preference files. Certain websites—particularly commercial ones like Amazon—deposit them on your hard drive so
that they’ll remember you the next time you visit. That’s how Amazon is
able to greet you with, “Welcome, Chris” (or whatever your name is). It’s
reading its own cookie.
Most cookies are perfectly innocuous—and, in fact, extremely useful,
because they help websites remember your tastes (and contact info).
But fear is widespread, and the media fan the flames with tales of sinister cookies that track your movement on the web. If you’re worried about
invasions of privacy, Safari is ready to protect you.
Open SettingsÆSafariÆBlock Cookies. The options here are like a paranoia gauge. If you click Always Block, then you create an acrylic shield
around your iPhone. No cookies can come in, and no cookie information
can go out. You’ll probably find the web a very inconvenient place; you’ll
have to re-enter your information upon every visit, and some websites
may not work properly at all. The Always Allow option means “Oh, what
the heck—just gimme all of them.”
A good compromise is Allow from Websites I Visit, which accepts cookies from sites you want to visit, but blocks cookies deposited on your
phone by sites you’re not actually visiting—cookies an especially evil banner ad gives you, for example.
The SettingsÆSafari screen also offers a Clear History & Website Data
button. It deletes all the cookies you’ve accumulated so far, as well as
your phone’s cache. (That’s a patch of the iPhone’s storage area where
pieces of web pages you visit—graphics, for example—are retained, to
speed up loading the next time you visit.) If you worry that your cache
eats up space, poses a security risk, or is confusing some page, then tap
Clear History & Website Data to erase it and start over.

Private Browsing
Private browsing lets you surf without adding any pages to your History
list, searches to your Google search suggestions, passwords to Safari’s
saved password list, or autofill entries to Safari’s memory. You might want
to turn on private browsing before you visit websites that would raise
interesting questions with your spouse, parents, or boss.
When you want to start leaving no tracks, tap « to open the page-
juggler screen; tap Private at the bottom-left corner.

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Suddenly the light-gray accents of Safari turn jet-black—a reminder that
you’re now in Private mode. Tap n to open a new page, and proceed as
usual. From now on, Safari records nothing while you surf.

When you’re ready to browse “publicly” again, turn private browsing off
once more (tap «, and then tap Private). Safari resumes taking note of
the pages you visit—but it never remembers the ones you opened while
in Private mode. In other words, what happens in private browsing stays
in private browsing.

Parental Controls
If your child (or employee) is old enough to have an iPhone but not old
enough for the seedier side of the web, then don’t miss the Restrictions
feature in Settings. The iPhone makes no attempt to separate the good
websites from the bad—but it can remove the Safari icon from the iPhone
altogether so that no web browsing is possible at all. See page 618 for
instructions.

Five Happy Surprises in the P Panel
So far in this chapter, you’ve learned the first step in bookmarking a page
(tap P); in designating a new Favorite (tap P); and in saving a web article to your offline Reading List (tap P). That’s right: All these features
await on the Share sheet.
But that same panel hosts a wealth of equally useful buttons that nobody
ever talks about. So tap P to open the Share sheet and follow along!

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Sharing a Link
The AirDrop, Message, Mail, Twitter, and Facebook buttons are pretty
obvious; they share the link of your current page with other people.

Reminders
Remember how you can say to Siri, about a web page you’re on,
“Remind me about this later?” (If not, see page 419.) There’s a button
for that, here on the Share sheet. Great when speaking to your phone
would be socially awkward.

Save PDF to iBooks
Well, how the heck about that? You can turn anything you find on the
web into an iBook—an electronic book that you can read later in iBooks
(page 378)! That way, you gain a wide variety of reading tools (notes,
highlighting, dictionary) and organizational tools (collections) that aren’t
available in Safari.

Save to Home Screen
Is there a certain website you visit every day? This button adds the icon
of your web page right to your Home screen. It’s a shortcut that Apple
calls a web clip.
When you tap Add to Home Screen, you’re offered the chance to edit
the icon’s name; finally, tap Add. When you return to your Home screen,
you’ll see the icon; you can move or delete it as you would any other app.

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TIP: You can turn part of a web page into one of these Web Clips, too—
say, The New York Times’ “Most emailed” list, or the box scores for a
certain sports league. All you have to do is zoom and scroll the page
in Safari before you tap P, isolating the section you want. Later,
when you open the web clip, you’ll see exactly the part of the web
page you wanted.

Notes
You can send a link to a web article (complete with opening sentences
and an image) directly to a note in the Notes app—no copy and paste
required. You’re invited to annotate the note before hitting Save (below,
left), or even append it to the end of an existing Notes page (right).

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mail on your iPhone offers full formatting, fonts, graphics,
and choice of type size; file attachments like Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, PDF, Pages, Numbers, photos, and even .zip compressed files; and compatibility with Yahoo Mail, Gmail, AOL Mail, iCloud
mail, corporate Exchange mail, and any standard email account.
Dude, if you want a more satisfying portable email machine than this
one, buy a laptop.
This chapter covers the basic email experience. If you’ve gotten yourself
hooked up with iCloud or Exchange ActiveSync, see Chapters 16 and 18
for details.

Setting Up Your Account
If you play your cards right, you won’t have to set up your email account
on the phone. The first time you set up the iPhone to sync with your
computer (Chapter 15), you’re offered the chance to sync your Mac’s or
PC’s mail with the phone. That doesn’t mean it copies actual messages—
only the email settings, so the iPhone is ready to start downloading mail.
You’re offered this option if your Mac’s mail program is Mail or Outlook/
Entourage, or if your PC’s mail program is Outlook, Outlook Express, or
Windows Mail.
But what if you don’t use one of those email programs? No sweat. You
can also plug the necessary settings right into the iPhone.

Free Email Accounts
If you have a free email account from Google, AOL, Outlook, or Yahoo;
an iCloud account (Chapter 16); or a Microsoft Exchange account run by
your employer (Chapter 18), then setup on the iPhone is easy.

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From the Home screen, tap SettingsÆMailÆAccountsÆAdd Account.
Tap the colorful logo that corresponds to the kind of account you have
(Google, Yahoo, or whatever).

On the page that appears, sign into your account. Tap Next.
Now you may be shown the list of non-email data that the iPhone can
show you (from iCloud, Google, Yahoo, Exchange, and so on): Mail,
Contacts, calendars, Reminders, and Notes. Turn off the ones you don’t
want synced to your phone, and then tap Save.
Your email account is ready to go!
TIP: If you don’t have one of these free accounts, they’re worth having, if
only as a backup to your regular account. They can help with spam
filtering, too, since the iPhone doesn’t offer any. To sign up, go to
Google.com, Yahoo.com, AOL.com, or iCloud.com.

POP3 and IMAP Accounts
Those freebie, brand-name, web-based accounts are super-easy to set
up. But they’re not the whole ball of wax. Millions of people have more

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generic email accounts, perhaps supplied by their employers or Internet
providers. They’re generally one of two types:
• POP accounts are the oldest and most compatible type on the
Internet. (POP stands for Post Office Protocol, but this won’t be on
the test.) A POP account can make life complicated if you check your
mail on more than one machine (say, a PC and an iPhone), as you’ll
discover shortly.
A POP server transfers incoming mail to your computer or phone
before you read it, which works fine as long as you’re using only that
machine to access your email.
• IMAP accounts (Internet Message Access Protocol) are newer and
have more features than POP servers, and they’re quickly putting POP
out to pasture. IMAP servers keep all your mail online, rather than
making you store it on your computer; as a result, you can access the
same mail from any computer (or phone). IMAP servers remember
which messages you’ve read and sent, and they even keep track of
how you’ve filed messages into mail folders. (Those free Yahoo email
accounts are IMAP accounts, and so are Apple’s iCloud accounts and
corporate Exchange accounts. Gmail accounts can be IMAP, too.)
TIP: The iPhone copies your IMAP messages onto the phone itself, so
you can work on your email even when you’re not online. You can, in
fact, control where these messages are stored (in which mail folder).
To see this, open SettingsÆMailÆ[your IMAP account name]Æ[your
IMAP account name again]ÆAdvanced. See? You can specify where
your drafts, sent messages, and deleted messages wind up on the
phone.

The iPhone can communicate with both kinds of accounts, with varying
degrees of completeness.
If you haven’t opted to have your account-setup information transferred
automatically to the iPhone from your Mac or PC, then you can set it up
manually on the phone.
Tap your way to SettingsÆMailÆAccountsÆAdd Account. Tap Other, tap
Add Mail Account, and then enter your name, email address, password,
and an optional description. Tap Next.
Apple’s software attempts to figure out which kind of account you have
(POP or IMAP) by the email address. If it can’t make that determination,
then you arrive at a second screen, where you’re asked for such juicy
details as the host name for incoming and outgoing mail servers. (This
is also where you tap either IMAP or POP, to tell the iPhone what sort of
account it’s dealing with.)

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If you don’t know this stuff offhand, you’ll have to ask your Internet provider, corporate tech-support person, or next-door teenager to help you.
When you’re finished, tap Save.
To delete an account, open SettingsÆMailÆ[account name]. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find the Delete Account button.
TIP: You can make, rename, or delete IMAP or Exchange mailboxes (mail
folders) right on the phone.
In the Mail app, view the mailbox list for the account and then tap
Edit. Tap New Mailbox to create a new folder. To edit an existing
mailbox, tap its name; you can then rename it, tap the Mailbox
Location folder to move it, or tap Delete Mailbox. Tap Save to
finish up.

Downloading Mail
If you have “push” email (Yahoo, iCloud, or Exchange), then your iPhone
doesn’t check for messages; new messages show up on your iPhone as
they arrive, around the clock.
If you have any other kind of account, then the iPhone checks for new
messages automatically on a schedule—every 15, 30, or 60 minutes. It
also checks for new messages each time you open the Mail program, or
whenever you drag downward on the Inbox list.
TIP: There actually is a sneaky way to turn a Gmail account into a
“push” account: Disguise it as an Exchange account. For complete
steps, see the free PDF appendix to this chapter, “Setting Up
Push Email for Gmail.” It’s on this book’s “Missing CD” page at
www.missingmanuals.com.

You can adjust the frequency of these automatic checks or turn off the
“push” feature (because it uses up your battery faster) in Settings; see
page 41.
When new mail arrives, you’ll know it at a glance; all the Notification
Center options work well in Mail. For example, if your phone is off, you
can tap the Sleep or Home button to view the sender, subject, and the
first line of the message right on the Lock screen. (Swipe across one,
right there on the Lock screen, to jump to it in Mail.)
You’ll also hear the iPhone’s little “You’ve got mail” sound, unless you’ve
turned that off in Settings.

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If your phone is on, then a new message can alert you by appearing
briefly at the top of the screen, without disturbing your work.
You can actually process a message right from that banner. If you see at
a glance that it’s junk, or if no response is necessary, then drag your finger down on it (or, if you have an iPhone 6s or 7, hard-press it) to reveal
two new buttons: Mark as Read (leave it in your inbox, no longer appearing as a new message) and Trash.

At the Home screen, Mail’s icon sprouts a circled number that tells you
how many new messages are waiting. If you have more than one email
account, it shows you the total number of new messages, from all
accounts.
If you routinely leave a lot of unread messages in your inbox, and you
don’t really care about this “badge,” you can turn it off. In fact, you can
turn it off on a per-account basis, which is great if one of your accounts
is sort of a junk account that you keep as a spare. Tap SettingsÆ
NotificationsÆ MailÆ [account name]ÆBadge App Icon.
In any case, once you know you have mail, tap Mail on the Home screen
to start reading it.
TIP: The Mail app, more than any other app, is designed to be a series of
nested lists. You start out seeing a list of accounts; tap one to see
a list of folders; tap one for a list of messages; tap one to open the
actual message.
To backtrack through these lists, you can tap the button in the
upper-left corner over and over again—or you can swipe rightward
across the screen. That’s a bigger target and more fun.

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The Unified Inbox
If you have more than one email address, you’re in luck. The iPhone offers
a unified inbox—an option that displays all the incoming messages from
all your accounts in a single place. (If you don’t see it—if Mail opened up
to some other screen—keep swiping rightward, backing up a screen at a
time, until you do.)
This Mailboxes page has two sections:
• Unified inboxes (and other unified folders). To see all the incoming
messages in one unified box, tap All Inboxes. Below that, you see the
Inboxes for each of the individual accounts (below, left).

This part of the main Mail list also offers unified folders for VIPs and
Flagged messages, which are described in this chapter.
But what you may not realize is that you can add other unified folders
to this section. You can, for example, add a folder called Unread,
which contains only new messages from all accounts. (That’s not the
same thing as All Inboxes, because your inbox can contain messages
you have read but haven’t deleted or filed.)

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You can also add a unified folder showing all messages where you
were either the To or CC addressee; this folder won’t include any mail
where your name appeared on the BCC (blind carbon-copy) line, like
mailing lists and, often, spam.
You can also add an Attachments folder here (messages with files
attached), a Today folder, or unified folders that contain All Drafts, All
Sent, or All Trash. (“All” means “from all accounts.”)
To hide or show these special uni-folders, tap Edit, and then tap the
selection circles beside the names of the folders you want to appear.
(You can also take this opportunity to drag them up or down into a
pleasing sequence.) Tap Done.
• Accounts. Farther down the Mailboxes screen, you see your accounts
listed again. You can tap an account’s name to expand or collapse
its list of traditional mail folders: Inbox, Drafts (emails written but not
sent), Sent, Trash, and any folders you’ve created yourself (Family,
Little League, Old Stuff, whatever), as shown on the facing page
at right. If you have a Yahoo, iCloud, Exchange, or another IMAP
account, then the iPhone automatically creates these folders to match
what you’ve set up online.
NOTE: Not all kinds of email accounts permit the creation of your own
filing folders, so you might not see anything but Inbox, Sent, and
Trash.

The Message List—and Threading
If you tap an inbox’s name, you wind up face to face with the list of
incoming messages. At first, you see only the subject lines of your messages, plus, in light-gray type, the first few lines of their contents; that
way, you can scan through new messages to see if there’s anything
important. You can flick upward to scroll this list. Blue dots indicate messages you haven’t yet opened.
Each message bears a gray ’ at the right side. That means “Tap this message’s row to read it in all its formatted glory.”
Here and there, though, you may spot a double arrow at the right side
of the message list, like this: ’’ That means you’re looking at some
threaded messages. That’s where several related messages—back-andforths on the same subject—appear only once, in a single, consolidated
entry. The idea is to reduce inbox clutter and to help you remember what
people were talking about.

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When you tap a threaded message, you first open an intermediate screen
that lists the messages in the thread and tells you how many there are.
Tap one of those to read, at last, the message itself.

Of course, this also means that to return to the inbox, you have more
backtracking to do (swipe rightward twice).
In general, threading is a nice feature, even if, from time to time, it accidentally clumps in a message that has nothing to do with the others.
But if it bugs you, you can turn it off. Open SettingsÆMail, scroll down,
and turn off Organize By Thread.
(If you have an iPhone Plus model, you can turn the phone 90 degrees to
see the mini-tablet-like view shown on the facing page, with the message
list and open message visible simultaneously.)

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Filters
This one’s not new to the world of email programs, but it’s new to the
iPhone’s: one-click filters that hide or show all messages in the list of a
certain kind—like ones you haven’t yet read.
See the new Y button below the list of messages? When you tap it, you
automatically turn on the first filter: Unread. All the messages in the list
that you’ve read are hidden—until you hit the Y button again to turn off
the filter.
When the filter is on, you can click the word “Unread” to see a list of
other ways to filter the list. You can tell Mail to show you only messages
you’ve flagged; only messages to you (or that you were copied on); only
the ones with attachments; or only the ones from people in your VIP list.

VIPs and Flagged Messages
You might notice, in your master Inbox, two “email accounts” that you
didn’t set up: VIP and Flagged. They’re both intended to help you round
up important messages from the thousands that flood you every day.
Each one magically rounds up messages from all your account inboxes,
so you don’t have to go wading through lots of accounts to find the
really important mail. (Note: That’s inboxes. Messages in other mail folders don’t wind up in these special inboxes, even if they’re flagged or are
from VIPs.)

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VIPs
In the real world, VIPs are people who get backstage passes to concerts
or special treatment at business functions (it stands for “very important
person”). In iOS, it means “somebody whose mail is important enough
that I want it brought to my attention immediately when it arrives.”
So who should your VIPs be? That’s up to you. Your spouse, your boss,
and your doctor come to mind.
To designate someone as a VIP, proceed in either of these two ways:
• On the accounts screen, carefully tap the * next to the VIP item.
Your master list of all VIPs appears (below, left). Tap Add VIP to
choose a lucky new member from Contacts.

This is also where you delete people from your VIP list when they’ve
annoyed you. Swipe leftward across a name, and then tap Delete. Or
tap Edit and then tap each – button; tap Delete to confirm.
TIP: You can set things up so that when a new message from a VIP
comes in, the iPhone lets you know with a sound, a banner, an alert
bubble, a vibration, and so on. Tap VIP Alerts to set them up. (That’s
a shortcut to the SettingsÆNotificationsÆMailÆVIP screen.)

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• In a message from the lucky individual, tap his name in the From, To,
or Cc/Bcc box. His Contact screen appears, complete with an Add to
VIP button.
Once you’ve established who’s important, lots of interesting things
happen:
• The VIP inbox automatically collects messages from your VIPs.
• VIP names in every mail list sprout a gray star (above, right).
• If you use iCloud, the same person is now a VIP on all your other
iPhones and iPads (running iOS 6 or later) and Macs (running OS X
Mountain Lion or later).
TIP: You can hide the VIP inbox on the main Mailboxes screen—handy if
you don’t really use this feature. Tap Edit, and then l. Tap Done.

Flag It
Sometimes you receive email that prompts you to some sort of action,
but you may not have the time (or the fortitude) to face the task at the
moment. (“Hi there, it’s me, your accountant. Would you mind rounding up your expenses for 2005 through 2015 and sending me a list by
email?”)

485

That’s why Mail lets you flag a message, summoning a little flag icon or a
little orange dot in a new column next to the message’s name. (You can
see the actual dot in the message on the previous page at right.) It can
mean anything you like—it simply calls attention to certain messages.
TIP: The flag marker can be either a f icon or an orange dot. You make
your choice in SettingsÆMailÆFlag Style.

To flag an open message, tap f at the bottom of the screen. When the
confirmation sheet slides up (below, left), tap Flag.
You can also rapidly flag messages directly in a list (the Inbox, for example). Just swipe leftward across the message—half an inch of finger-sliding does the trick—to reveal the set of buttons shown here at right:

Tap Flag. (If you tap More, you get the option to Unflag.)
The dot or f icon appears in the body of the message, next to the message’s name in your message list. (In the picture on the facing page,
the top dot looks more like a bull’s-eye; that’s because it’s flagged and
unread.) The flag appears even on the corresponding message in your
Mac or PC email program, thanks to the miracle of wireless syncing.
Finally, the Flagged mailbox appears in your list of accounts, making it
easy to work with all flagged messages, from all accounts, in one place.
TIP: If you don’t really use this feature, you can hide the Flagged folder.
Tap Edit, and then tap the l to turn it off. Tap Done.

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This might be a good time to point out another, newer way to draw
attention to a message: Tell Siri to “Remind me about this later.” See
page 419 for details.

What to Do with a Message
Once you’ve opened a message, you can respond to it, delete it, file it,
and so on. Here’s the drill.
TIP: If you have an iPhone 6s or 7, the first thing to learn is that you can
see what’s in a message without ever leaving the Inbox list—just by
hard-pressing it. See page 37 for more on peek and pop.

List View: Flag, Trash, Mark as Unread
It’s easy to plow through a seething Inbox, processing messages as you
go, without ever having to open them. All you have to do is swipe across
a message in the list horizontally.
• Full left-swipe delete. Swipe your finger leftward all the way across
the message to delete it. That’s it: No confirmation tap required.
• Partial left-swipe options. If you don’t swipe leftward all the way,
you reveal a set of three buttons on the right: Trash (same as before,
but now you have to tap again to confirm); Flag (described in the
previous section); and More (opens up a raft of options like Reply,
Forward, Flag, Move to Junk, and so on).

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• Full right-swipe. Swipe your finger to the right all the way across the
message to mark it as new (unread). Great for reminding yourself to
look at this message again later. Or, if it’s already unread, that swipe
marks it as read.
To a certain extent, you can customize these gestures. You can turn off
the right-swipe gesture. Or swap the positions of the Flag and Read
options, for example, so that you flag a message when you swipe fully to
the right and Read appears as a button when you swipe to the left. Or
you can put the Archive button into the place of Flag when you swipe to
the left.
To check out your options, open SettingsÆMailÆSwipe Options (shown
on the facing page).
Tap Swipe Left to specify which button appears in the center of the three
when you swipe partway leftward: None, Mark as Read, Flag, or Move
Message. Tap Swipe Right to choose which function you want to trigger
with a full rightward swipe (None, Mark as Read, Flag, Move Message, or
Archive).

Read It
The type size in email messages can be pretty small. Fortunately, you
have some great iPhoney enlargement tricks at your disposal. For
example:
• Spread two fingers to enlarge the entire email message.
• Double-tap a narrow block of text to make it fill the screen, if it
doesn’t already.

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• Drag or flick your finger to scroll through or around the message.
• Choose a larger type size for all messages. See page 579.
Links are “live” in email messages. Tap a phone number to call it, a web
address to open it, a YouTube link to watch the video, an email address
to write to it, a time and date to add it to your calendar, and so on.

Reply to It
To answer a message, tap the Reply/Forward icon (F) at the bottom of
the screen; tap Reply. If the message was originally addressed to multiple
recipients, then you can choose Reply All to send your reply to everyone
simultaneously.
A new message window opens, already addressed. As a courtesy to your
correspondents, Mail pastes the original message at the bottom of the
window.
If you’d like to splice your own comments into the paragraphs of the
original message, replying point by point, then use the Return key to create blank lines in the original message. (Use the loupe—page 73—to
position the insertion point at the proper spot.)

489

The brackets by each line of the original message help your correspondent keep straight what’s yours and what’s hers.
TIP: If you select some text before you tap Reply or Reply All, then
the iPhone pastes only that selected bit into the new, outgoing
message. In other words, you’re quoting back only a portion.

Before you tap Send, you can add or delete recipients, edit the subject
line or the original message, and so on.

Forward It
Instead of replying to the sender, you may sometimes want to pass the
note on to a third person. To do so, tap F. This time, tap Forward.
TIP: If there’s a file attached to the inbound message, the iPhone says,
“Include attachments from original message?” and offers Include
and Don’t Include buttons. Rather thoughtful, actually—the phone
can forward files it can’t even open.

A new message opens, looking like the one that appears when you reply.
You can precede the original message with a comment of your own,

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like, “Frank: I thought you’d be interested in this joke about your mom.”
Finally, address and send it as usual.

Follow It
Your phone can notify you when anyone responds to a certain email
conversation.
If you’re composing or replying to a message, tap in the subject line to
make the > appear; tap it. If you’re reading a message, tap f at the
bottom of the screen; tap Notify Me; and confirm by tapping Notify Me
again (below, left). In a list, swipe leftward, partly across a message; tap
More; tap Notify Me. In each case, a bell icon appears beside the message (or thread) in the list (below, right).

When anybody replies, a notification banner appears on your screen,
ready for swiping and reading.

Filing or Deleting One Message
Once you’ve opened a message that’s worth keeping, you can file it into
one of your account’s folders (“mailboxes”) by tapping the a at the bottom of the screen. Up pops the list of your folders; tap the one you want.
It’s a snap to delete a message you no longer want, too. If it’s open in
front of you, tap the T or ( button at the bottom of the screen. The
message rapidly shrinks into the icon and disappears.
NOTE: If that one-touch Delete method makes you a little nervous, by
the way, you can ask the iPhone to display a confirmation box
before trashing the message forever. Visit SettingsÆMailÆAsk
Before Deleting.

You can also delete a message from the message list—the Inbox, for
example; see page 481.

491

TIP: Gmail doesn’t want you to throw anything away. That’s why swiping
like this produces a button that says Archive, not Delete, and why
the usual T button in a message looks like a filing box. If you prefer
to delete a message for good, hold down the ( until the Trash
Message and Archive Message buttons appear.

There’s a long way to delete messages from the list, too, as described
next. But for single messages, the finger-swipe method is much more fun.
TIP: There’s a handy Undo shortcut, too: Shake the phone lightly. Tap
Undo Trash. The deleted message jumps back to the folder it just
came from. (You can then shake again to undo the Undo!)

Filing or Deleting Batches of Messages
You can also file or delete a bunch of messages at once. In the message
list, tap Edit. A circle appears beside each message title. You can tap as
many of these circles as you like, scrolling as necessary, adding a l with
each touch.

Finally, when you’ve selected all the messages in question, tap either
Trash (Archive) or Move.
If you tap Move, then you’re shown the folder list so you can say where
you want them moved. If you tap Trash, the messages disappear.
If you decide you’ve made a mistake, just shake the phone lightly—the
iPhone’s “Undo” gesture. Tap Undo Move to put the filed messages back
where they just came from.

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NOTE: When you delete a message, it goes into the Deleted folder. In
other words, it works like the Macintosh Trash or the Windows
Recycle Bin. You have a safety net.
Email doesn’t have to stay in the Deleted folder forever, though.
You can ask the iPhone to empty that folder every day, week,
or month. From the Home screen, tap SettingsÆMail. Tap your
account name and then AdvancedÆRemove. Now you can
change the setting from “Never” to “After one day” (or week, or
month).

Add the Sender to Contacts
When you get a message from someone new who’s worth adding to
your iPhone’s Contacts address book, tap that person’s name (in blue, on
the From line). You’re offered buttons for Create New Contact and Add
to Existing Contact. Use the second button to add an email address to an
existing person’s “card.”

Open an Attachment
The Mail program downloads and displays the icons for any kind of
attachment—but it can open only documents from Microsoft Office
(Word, Excel, PowerPoint), those from Apple iWork (Pages, Keynote,
Numbers), PDFs, text, RTFs, VCFs, graphics, .zip files, and un-copy-protected audio and video files.
Just scroll down, tap the attachment’s icon, wait a moment for downloading, and then marvel as the document opens up, full screen. You can
zoom in and out, flick, rotate the phone 90 degrees, and scroll just as
though it were a web page or a photo.
TIP: If you hold your finger down on the attachment’s name, the Share
sheet appears. It offers a list of ways you can send this attachment
directly from your phone to someone else (by AirDrop or Mail)—or
to open it in other apps.
If you tap a Word document, for example, you may be offered
buttons for Mail, Dropbox, Evernote, and other apps that can open
Word docs. If you tap a PDF document, you’ll see a button for Open
in iBooks. (Quick Look means the same non-editable preview as
you’d get with a quick tap.)

When you’re finished admiring the attachment, swipe rightward to return
to the original email message.

493

TIP: iOS can handle the compressed folders known as .zip files, just as
Mac and Windows can. When you tap a .zip attachment’s icon, the
first file in it opens up. At that point, though, if you tap the a icon,
you get a list of every document in that zipped folder. You can tap
each to view or share it.

Snagging (or Sending) a Graphic
If you get sent a particularly good picture, just hold your finger still
on it. You’re offered the Save sheet, filled with options like Save (into
your Photo app’s Camera Roll), Copy, Print, and Assign to Contact (as
a person’s face photo). All the usual sending methods are represented
here, too, so that you can fire off this photo via AirDrop, Messages, Mail,
Twitter, and Facebook.

Snagging a Contact or a Date
Mail can recognize contact information or calendar information from
an incoming email message—and can dump it directly into Contacts or
Calendar for you.

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You’ll know when it’s found something—the block of contact information
below somebody’s signature, for example—because you see a special
gray banner at the top of the screen (shown below).

You can click Ignore if you don’t particularly need this person bulking
up your address book. But if it’s somebody worth tracking, tap Add to
Contacts. A new Contacts screen appears, ready to save.
Similarly, if the message contains a reference to a date and time, the
same sort of banner appears, offering to pop the appointment onto your
calendar. (This banner appears only when it’s really sure you’re being
offered a date and time: e-invitations and airline-ticket confirmations, for
example.)
iOS 10: saving you time since 2016.

Unsubscribing
Here’s a cool new one in iOS 10: Every now and then, when you open a
piece of junk mail, Mail offers you an Unsubscribe button at the top. And
sure enough: Tapping it gets you off that mailing list.

495

Now, before you uncork the champagne, keep in mind that this button appears only on some pieces of spam—from only the kind-hearted,
legitimate senders who include an Unsubscribe link at the bottom of
their messages. All Mail does is automate that process (and move the
Unsubscribe button to the top).

View the To/From Details
When your computer’s screen is only a few inches tall, there’s not a lot of
extra space. So Apple designed Mail to conceal header details (To, From,
and so on) that you might need only occasionally. For example, you usually don’t actually see the word “From:”—you usually see only the sender’s name, in blue. The To and Cc lines (page 500) may show only first
names, to save space. And if there’s a long list of addresses, you may see
only “Michael (& 15 more)”—not the actual list of names.
You get last names, full lists, and full sender labels when you tap More
following the header information. Tap Hide to collapse these details.
TIP: When you tap a sender’s name in blue, you open the corresponding
info card in Contacts. It contains one-touch buttons for calling
someone back, sending a text message, or placing a FaceTime
audio or video call—which can be very handy if the email message
you just received is urgent.

Mark as Unread
In the inbox, any message you haven’t yet read is marked by a blue dot
(∆). Once you’ve opened the message, the blue dot goes away.
If you slide your finger to the right across a message in the list, you trigger the Unread command—you make that blue dot reappear. It’s a great
way to flag a message for later, to call it to your own attention. The blue
dot can mean not so much “unread” as “un–dealt with.”

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Move On
Once you’ve had a good look at a message and processed it to your satisfaction, you can move on to the next (or previous) message in the list
by tapping ’ or ” in the upper-right corner. Or you can swipe rightward
to return to the inbox (or whatever mailbox you’re in).

Searching
Praise be—there’s a search box in Mail. The search box is hiding above
the top of every mail list, like your inbox. To see it, scroll up, or just tap
the status strip at the top of the screen.
Tap inside the search box to make the keyboard appear, along with
helpful canned searches like Flagged Messages and Messages with
Attachments. As you type, Mail hides all but the matching messages; tap
any one of the results to open it.

You don’t have to specify which fields to search (From, To, Subject,
Body), or which folder. You’re searching everywhere.
TIP: If you want to restrict the search to just the folder you’re in, you
can. After the search results begin to appear, tug downward on the
screen. Two new buttons appear: All Mailboxes and Current Mailbox.

497

Wait long enough, and the search continues with messages that are still
out there on the Internet but are so old that they’ve scrolled off your
phone.
TIP: If, after typing a few letters, you tap Search, the keyboard goes
away and an Edit button appears. Tapping it lets you select a whole
bunch of the search results—and then Mark, Move, or Trash them
simultaneously.

Writing Messages
To compose a new piece of outgoing mail, open the Mail app, and then
tap √ in the lower-right corner. A blank new outgoing message appears,
and the iPhone keyboard pops up.
TIP: Remember: You can turn the phone 90 degrees to get a widescreen
keyboard for email. It’s easier to type this way—especially on an
iPhone 6, 6s or 7 model, where you get additional editing keys (like
Undo, emoji, numbers, and cursor keys, for example) on the sides.
Of course, dictating is much, much faster than typing.

Here’s how you go about writing a message:
1. In the To field, type the recipient’s email address—or grab it from
Contacts.
Often, you won’t have to type much more than the first couple of
letters of the name or email address. As you type, Mail displays all
matching names and addresses so you can tap one instead of typing.

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(It thoughtfully derives these suggestions by analyzing both your
Contacts and people you’ve recently exchanged email with.)
As you go, the iPhone displays a list of everyone whose name matches what you’re typing (previous page, left). The ones bearing * buttons are the people you’ve recently corresponded with but who are
not in your Contacts. Tap the * to open a screen where you can add
them to Contacts—or remove them from the list of recent correspondents, so Mail’s autocomplete suggestions will no longer include those
lowlifes.
TIP: When you address an email message, Mail even suggests clusters of
people you tend to email together—“Erin and Sam,” “Erin and Andy,”
and so on—to save you the trouble of reassembling these addressee
teams.
Similarly, if you type a subject you’ve used, Mail suggests the names
of people who’ve received this subject line before. (For example,
if you send “This month’s traffic stats” every month to three
coworkers, then their names appear automatically when you type
out that subject line.) You’ll get to go home from work that much
quicker.

If you hold your finger down on the period (.) key, you get a pop-up
palette of common email-address suffixes, like .com, .edu, .org, and so
on, just as in Safari.
Alternatively, tap the å to open your Contacts list. Tap the name of
the person you want.
You can add as many addressees as you like; just repeat the procedure.
TIP: There’s no Group mail feature on the iPhone, which would let you
send one message to a predefined set of friends. But at http://
groups.yahoo.com, you can create free email groups. You can send
a single email message to the group’s address, and everyone in the
group will get a copy. (You have to set up one of these groups in a
web browser—but lo and behold, your iPhone has one!)

Incidentally, if you’ve set up your iPhone to connect to a corporate Exchange server (Chapter 18), then you can look up anybody in the entire company directory at this point. Page 559 has the instructions.
2. To send a copy to other recipients, enter the address(es) in the Cc
or Bcc fields. If you tap Cc/Bcc, From, the screen expands to reveal
two new lines beneath the To line: Cc and Bcc.

499

Cc stands for carbon copy. Getting an email message where your
name is in the Cc line implies: “I sent you a copy because I thought
you’d want to know about this correspondence, but I’m not expecting
you to reply.”
Bcc stands for blind carbon copy. It’s a copy that goes to a third
party secretly—the primary addressee never knows who else you sent
it to. For example, if you send your coworker a message that says,
“Chris, it bothers me that you’ve been cheating the customers,” you
could Bcc your supervisor to clue her in without getting into trouble
with Chris.
Each of these lines behaves exactly like the To line. You fill each one
up with email addresses in the same way.
TIP: You can drag people’s names around—from the To line to the Cc
line, for example. Just hold your finger down briefly on the name
before dragging it. (It puffs and darkens once it’s ready for transit.)

3. Change the email account you’re using, if you like. If you have more
than one email account set up on your iPhone, you can tap Cc/Bcc,
From to expand the form and then tap From to open up a spinning
list of your accounts. Tap the one you want to use for sending this
message.
4. Type the topic of the message in the Subject field. Leaving it blank
only annoys your recipient. On the other hand, don’t put the entire
message into the subject line, either.
5. Type your message in the message box. All the usual iPhone keyboard and dictation tricks apply (Chapter 3). Don’t forget that you
can use Copy and Paste, within Mail or from other programs. Both
text and graphics can appear in your message.
And here’s a fantastic trick: As you’re composing a message, you can
refer to another email—maybe the one you’re responding to—without
losing your place.
To do that, drag downward on the title bar, where it says New Message or whatever the reply’s title is; your message in progress collapses to the bottom of the screen. Now you can scroll through the
message behind it—or you can navigate to any message in any Mail
account or folder. This is a great trick when, for example, you want to
copy some text out of an earlier message.

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Swipe down to reveal what’s behind your reply.

Tap to reopen your reply.

Actually, you can collapse multiple outgoing messages like this, leaving them unfinished but still open. They all pile up at the bottom of
the screen. (Hold your finger down on them to “fan” them open, so
you can hop into one.)
When you’re ready to resume writing, tap the title bar at the bottom
of the screen; your composition window opens right back up.
6. Attach a photo or video, if you like. Hold down your finger anywhere
in the body of the message until the Select buttons appear. Tap ’ to
reveal the Insert Photo or Video button (shown on the next page at
lower left).
When you tap it, you’re shown your iPhone’s usual photo browser
so that you can choose the photos and videos you want to attach
(next page, middle). Tap the collection you want; you’re shown all the
thumbnails inside. Tap the photo or video, and then tap Choose.

501

You return to your message in progress, with the photo or video neatly inserted (above, right). You can repeat this step to add additional
photo or video attachments. When you tap Send, you’re offered the
opportunity to scale down the photo to a more reasonable (emailable) size.
TIP: You can also email a photo or a video from within the Photos
program; you can forward a file attached to an incoming piece of
mail; and you can paste a copied photo or video (or several) into an
open email message.

7. Format the text, if you like. You can apply bold, italic, or underlining
to mail text you’ve typed.
The trick is to select the text first (page 95). When the button bar
appears, tap the B I U button. Tap that to make the Bold, Italics, and
Underline buttons appear on the button bar; tap away. Not terribly
efficient, but it works.

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TIP: You can use the same trick to summon the Quote Level controls.
Select some text or move the cursor to the paragraph you want; tap
the ’ until you bring the Quote Level button into view; and tap it to
reveal the Increase and Decrease buttons. These buttons indent or
un-indent those cluttery blocks of quoted and re-quoted text that
often appear when you’re replying to a message. (One tap affects
the entire paragraph.)
If you really can’t stand those quote indentations, you can stop
the iPhone from adding them in the first place when you forward
or reply to a message. The on/off switch for that feature is in
SettingsÆMailÆIncrease Quote Level.

8. Tap Send (to send the message) or Cancel (to back out of it). If you
tap Cancel, the iPhone asks if you want to save the message. If you
tap Save Draft, then the message lands in your Drafts folder.
Later you can open the Drafts folder, tap the aborted message, finish
it up, and send it.
TIP: If you hold down the √ button for a moment, the iPhone presents a
list of your saved drafts. Clever stuff—if you remember it!

Oh, and by the way: You can begin composing a message on your phone,
and then continue writing it on your Mac, without ever having to save it
as a draft. Or go the other way. See page 551 for details on Handoff.

Signatures
A signature is a bit of text that gets stamped at the bottom of your outgoing email messages. It can be your name, a postal address, or a pithy
quote.

503

Unless you intervene, the iPhone stamps “Sent from my iPhone” at the
bottom of every message. You may be just fine with that, or you may
consider it the equivalent of gloating (or free advertising for Apple). In
any case, you can change the signature if you want to.
From the Home screen, tap SettingsÆMailÆ Signature. You can make up
one signature for All Accounts, or a different one for each account (tap
Per Account). A Signature text area appears, complete with a keyboard,
so you can compose the signature you want. It can even include emoji!
TIP: You can use bold, italic, or underline formatting in your signature,
too. Just follow the steps on the previous page for formatting a
message: Select the text, tap the ’ to bring the B I U button into
view, and so on.

Finish with a Phone Call
If you’re typing out some reply, and you realize that it’d be faster to wrap
this up by phone, hold down the Home button (to trigger Siri) and just
say, “Call him” or “Call her.”
If the addressee has a phone number in Contacts, Siri knows who you
mean; she dials the number for you, right from the Mail app!

Surviving Email Overload
If you don’t get much mail, you probably aren’t lying awake at night trying to think of ways to manage the information overload on your tiny
phone.
If you do get a lot of mail, here are some tips.

Avoiding Spam
The key to keeping spam (junk mail) out of your inbox is to keep your
email address out of spammers’ hands in the first place. Use one address
for actual communication. Use a different address in the public areas of
the Internet, like chat room posting, online shopping, website and software registration, and newsgroup posting. Spammers use automated
software robots that scour these pages, recording email addresses they
find. Create a separate email account for person-to-person email—and
never post that address on a web page.
If it’s too late, and you’re getting a lot of spam on your phone, you have
a couple of options. You could accept your fate and set up a new email
account (like a free Gmail or Yahoo account), sacrificing your old one to
the spammers.

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You could install a spam blocker app on your phone, like SpamDrain ($15
a year) or SpamBlocker (free).
Or, if you’re technically inclined, you could create a shadow Gmail
account that downloads your mail, cleans it of spam, and passes it on to
your iPhone. You can find tutorials for this trick by searching in, of course,
Google.

Condensing the Message List
Messages in your inbox are listed with the subject line in bold type and a
couple of lines, in light-gray text, that preview the message itself.
You can control how many lines of the preview show up here, from
None (you see more message titles on each screen without scrolling) to
5 Lines. Tap SettingsÆMailÆPreview.

Spotting Worthwhile Messages
The iPhone can display a j or k logo on each message in your inbox.

At a glance, it helps you identify which messages are actually intended
for you. Messages without those logos are probably spam, newsletters, mailing lists, or other messages that weren’t specifically addressed
to you.

To turn on these little badges, visit SettingsÆMail and turn on Show To/
Cc Label.

Managing Accounts
If you have more than one email account, you can delete one or just
temporarily deactivate one—for example, to accommodate your travel
schedule.
Visit SettingsÆMail. In the list of accounts, tap the one you want. At the
top of the screen, you see the on/off switch (at least for POP accounts);
Off makes an account dormant. And at the bottom, you see the Delete
Account button.
TIP: If you have several accounts, which one does the iPhone use when
you send mail from other apps—like when you email a photo from
Photos or a link from Safari?
It uses the default account, of course. You determine which one is
the default account in SettingsÆMailÆDefault Account.

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4
PART FOUR

Connections
Chapter 15
Syncing with iTunes
Chapter 16
iCloud
Chapter 17
Continuity: iPhone Meets Mac
Chapter 18
The Corporate iPhone
Chapter 19
Settings

Syncing with
iTunes

ust in case you’re one of the seven people who’ve never heard of
it, iTunes is Apple’s multifunction, multimedia jukebox software.
It’s been loading music onto iPods since the turn of the 21st
century.
Most people use iTunes to manipulate their digital movies, photos, and
music, from converting songs off a CD into music files to buying songs,
audiobooks, and movies online.
But, as an iPhone owner, you need iTunes even more urgently, because
it’s the most efficient way to get masses of music, videos, apps, email,
addresses, ringtones, and other stuff onto the phone. It also backs up
your iPhone automatically.
If you’ve never had a copy of iTunes on your computer, then fire up your
web browser and go to www.apple.com/itunes/download. Once the file
lands on your computer, double-click the installer icon and follow the
onscreen instructions to add iTunes to your life.
NOTE: iTunes is not required. It’s perfectly possible to use all of an
iPhone’s features without iTunes—even without a computer. You
can download all that stuff right from the Internet, and you can
back up your phone using iCloud (which is described in the next
chapter).
Using iTunes, however, is more efficient, and it’s nice to know that
your stuff is backed up on a machine that’s within your control.
(For an overview of iTunes’ non-iPhone-related functions, like
importing music and building playlists, see this chapter’s free
Appendix, “iTunes Crash Course,” on this book’s “Missing CD” at
www.missingmanuals.com.)

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Connecting the iPhone
iTunes is designed to load up, and back up, your iPhone. You can connect it to your computer either wirelessly over Wi‑Fi, or wirefully, with the
white USB cable that came with it.
• Connecting the Phone with a cable. Plug one end of the white cable
(supplied with your iPhone) to your computer’s USB jack. Connect
the other end to the phone.
NOTE: If you have the 2016 MacBook Pro (which has only USB-C jacks),
you’ll need either a USB-C adapter or a USB-C–to–Lightning
cable to connect your phone.

• Connecting over Wi-Fi. The iPhone can be charging in its bedside
alarm clock dock, happily and automatically syncing with your laptop somewhere else in the house. It transfers all the same stuff to and
from your computer—apps, music, books, contacts, calendars, movies,
photos, ringtones—but through the air instead of a cable.
Your computer has to be on and running iTunes. The phone and the
computer have to be on the same Wi‑Fi network.
To set up wireless sync, connect the phone using the white USB cable,
one last time. Ironic, but true.

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Now open iTunes and click the ∏ (iPhone) button at the top-left corner of the iTunes screen. Now you can look over the iPhone’s contents
or sync it (read on).
NOTE: If you have more than one iPhone, and they’re all connected, then
this button is a pop-up menu. Choose the name of the one you
want to manipulate.

On the Summary tab, scroll down; turn on Sync with this iPhone over
Wi-Fi. Click Apply. You can now detach the phone.
From now on, whenever the phone is on the Wi‑Fi network, it’s automatically connected to your computer, wirelessly. You don’t even have
to think about it. (Well, OK—you have to think about leaving the computer turned on with iTunes open, which is something of a buzzkill.)

All About Syncing
Transferring data between the iPhone and the computer is called synchronization. In general, syncing begins automatically when you connect
the phone. The G icon whirls in the top-left corner of the screen, but
you’re welcome to keep using your iPhone while it syncs.
NOTE: Your photo-editing program (like Photos or Photoshop Elements)
probably springs open every time you connect the iPhone, too.
See page 520 if that bugs you.

Most people these days don’t bother with iTunes for syncing; they let the
phone sync with their computers wirelessly, via free iCloud accounts.
If you’re a little queasy about letting a third party (Apple) store your personal data, though, you can also do this task manually. You can let the
iPhone and your computer sync directly with each other—no Internet is
involved.
Ordinarily, the iPhone-iTunes relationship is automatic, according to this
scheme:
• Bidirectional copying (iPhone D computer). Contacts, calendars, and
web bookmarks get copied in both directions. After a sync, your computer and phone contain exactly the same information.
• One-way sync (computerÆiPhone). All of the following gets copied
in one direction: computer to phone. Music, apps, TV, movies, ringtones, and ebooks you bought on your computer; photos from your
computer; and email account information.

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• One-way sync (iPhoneÆcomputer). Photos and videos taken with
the iPhone’s camera; music, videos, apps, ringtones, and ebooks you
bought right from the phone—it all gets copied the other way, from
the phone to the computer.
• A complete backup. iTunes also backs up everything else on your
iPhone: settings, text messages, call history, and so on. Details on this
backup business are covered starting on page 522.
TIP: If you’re in a hurry, you can skip the time-consuming backup portion
of the sync. Just click ≈ at the top of the iTunes window whenever
it says “Backing up.” iTunes gets the message and skips right ahead
to the next phase of the sync—transferring contacts, calendars,
music, and so on.

Manual Syncing
OK, but what if you don’t want iTunes to fire up and start syncing every
time you connect your iPhone? What if, for example, you want to change
the assortment of music and video that’s about to get copied to it? Or
what if you just want to connect the USB cable to charge the phone, not
to sync it?
In that case, you can stop the autosyncing in any of these ways:
• Interrupt a sync in progress. Click ˛ in the iTunes status window until
the syncing stops.
• Stop iTunes from syncing with the iPhone just this time. As you plug
in the iPhone’s cable, hold down the Shift+Ctrl keys (Windows) or
the c-Option keys (Mac) until the iPhone pops up in the iTunes window. Now you can see what’s on the iPhone and change what will be
synced to it—but no syncing takes place until you command it.
• Stop iTunes from auto-syncing with this iPhone. Connect the iPhone.
Click ∏ in the upper-left corner of iTunes. On the Summary tab, turn
off Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected.
• Stop iTunes from autosyncing any iPhone, ever. In iTunes, choose
EditÆPreferences (Windows) or iTunesÆPreferences (Mac). Click the
Devices tab and turn on Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically. You can still trigger a sync on command when the
iPhone is wired up—by clicking the Sync button.
Of course, you must have turned off autosyncing for a reason. And that
reason might be that you want to control what gets copied onto it.
Maybe you’re in a hurry to leave for the airport, and you don’t have time
to sit there for an hour while six downloaded movies get copied to the

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phone. Maybe you have 50 gigabytes of music but only 16 gigs of iPhone
storage.
In any case, here are the two ways you can sync manually:
• Use the tabs in iTunes. With the iPhone connected, you can specify
exactly what you want copied to it—which songs, which TV shows,
which apps, and so on—using the various tabs in iTunes, as described
on the following pages. Once you’ve made your selections, click the
Summary tab and then click Apply. (The Apply button says Sync
instead if you haven’t actually changed any settings.)
• Drag files onto the iPhone icon. Once your iPhone is connected to
your computer, you can click its icon and then turn on Manually manage music and videos (on the Summary screen). Click Apply.
Now you can drag songs and videos directly onto the iPhone’s icon to
copy them there. Wilder yet, you can bypass iTunes entirely by dragging music and video files from your computer’s desktop onto the
iPhone’s icon. That’s handy when you’ve just inherited or downloaded
a bunch of song files, converted a DVD to the iPhone’s video format,
or whatever.
Just two notes of warning here. First, the iPhone accommodates
dragged material from a single computer only. Second, if you ever
turn off this option, all those manually dragged songs and videos will
disappear from your iPhone at the next sync opportunity.
TIP: Also on the Summary tab, you’ll find the baffling little option called
Sync only checked songs and videos. This is a global override—a
last-ditch “Keep the embarrassing songs off my iPhone” option.
When this option is turned on, iTunes consults the tiny checkboxes
next to every single song and video in your iTunes library. If you
turn off a song’s checkbox, it will not get synced to your iPhone,
no matter what—even if you use the Music tab to sync All songs or
playlists, or explicitly turn on a playlist that contains this song. If the
song’s or video’s checkbox isn’t checked in your Library list, then it
will be left behind on your computer.

The Eight Great iTunes Tabs
Once your iPhone is connected to the computer, and you’ve clicked its
icon in the upper-left corner of iTunes, the left side of the iTunes window
reveals a column of word buttons: Summary, Apps, Music, Movies, TV
Shows, Podcasts, Books, Photos, and Info. Below that is a second, duplicate listing, labeled On My Device. For the most part, these represent the
categories of stuff you can sync to your iPhone.
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The following pages cover each of these tabs, in sequence, and detail
how to sync each kind of iPhone-friendly material.
TIP: At the bottom of the screen, a colorful graph shows you the number
and types of files: Audio, Video, Photos, Apps, Books, Documents
& Data, and Other (for your personal data). More importantly, it
also shows you how much room you have left, so you won’t get
overzealous in trying to load the thing up.
Point to each color block without clicking to see how many of each
item there are (“2031 photos”) and how much space they take.

Summary Tab
This screen gives basic stats on your iPhone, like its serial number, capacity, and phone number. Buttons in the middle control how and where the
iPhone gets backed up. Checkboxes at the bottom of the screen let you
set up manual syncing, as described previously.

Serial Number, UDID
If you click your phone’s serial number, it changes to reveal the unique
device identifier (UDID). That’s Apple’s behind-the-scenes ID for your
exact product, used primarily by software companies (developers). You
may, during times of beta testing a new app or troubleshooting an existing one, be asked to supply your phone’s UDID.

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You can click the same label again to see your phone’s Product Type and
ECID. Or click your phone number to see your various cellular identifiers
like the MEID, IMEI, and ICCID. Or click the iOS version to see your iOS
version’s build number.
You can right-click (on the Mac, Control-click) any of these numbers to
get the Copy command. It copies those long strings of letters and numbers onto your computer’s Clipboard, ready to paste into an email or a
text.

Apps Tab
On this tab, you get a convenient duplicate of your iPhone’s Home
screens. You can drag app icons around, create folders, and otherwise
organize your Home life much faster than you’d be able to on the phone
itself. See page 334 for details.

Music Tab
Turn on Sync Music. Now decide what music to put on your phone.
NOTE: If you’re using iCloud Music Library (page 235), this Music tab
appears empty except for a note that you can play all your music
wirelessly from the Internet. In other words, since all your music
is online, there’s no point in choosing some subset of it to sync to
your phone.

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• If you have a big iPhone and a small music library, you can opt to sync
the Entire music library.
• If you have a big music collection and a small iPhone, you’ll have
to take only some of it along for the iPhone ride. In that case, click
Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres. In the lists below, turn
on the checkboxes for the playlists, artists, albums, and music genres
you want to transfer. (These are cumulative. If there’s no Electric Light
Orchestra in any of your selected playlists, but you turn on ELO in the
Artists list, you’ll get all your ELO anyway.)
TIP: Playlists make it fast and easy to sync whole batches of tunes over
to your iPhone. But don’t forget that you can add individual songs,
too, even if they’re not in any playlist. Just turn on Manually manage
music and videos. Now you can drag individual songs and videos
from your iTunes library onto the iPhone icon to install them there.

Music videos and voice memos (recorded by the iPhone and now residing on your computer) get their own checkboxes.

Making It All Fit
Sooner or later, everybody has to confront the fact that an iPhone holds
only 16, 64, 128, or 256 gigabytes of music and video. (Actually less,
because the operating system itself eats up over a gigabyte.)
Your multimedia stash may be bigger than that. If you just turn on Sync
All checkboxes, an error message tells you that it won’t all fit on the
iPhone.
One solution: Tiptoe through the tabs, turning off checkboxes and trying
to sync until the “too much” error message goes away.
If you don’t have quite so much time, turn on Automatically fill free space
with songs. It makes iTunes use artificial intelligence to load up your
phone automatically, using your most played and most recent music as a
guide. (It does not, in fact, fill the phone completely; it leaves a few hundred megabytes for safety—so you can download more stuff on the road,
for example.)
Another helpful approach is to use the smart playlist, a music playlist
that assembles itself based on criteria that you supply. For example:
1. In iTunes, choose Music from the top-left pop-up menu. Choose
FileÆNew Smart Playlist.
The Smart Playlist dialog box appears.

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2. Specify the category.
Use the pop-up menus to choose, for example, a musical genre, or
songs you’ve played recently, or haven’t played recently, or have rated
highly.
3. Turn on the “Limit to” checkbox, and set up the constraints.
For example, you could limit the amount of music in this playlist to
2 gigabytes, chosen at random. That way, every time you sync, you’ll
get a fresh, random supply of songs on your iPhone, with enough
room left for some videos.
4. Click OK.
The new Smart Playlist appears in the list of playlists at left; you can
rename it. Click it to look it over, if you like. Then, on the Music tab,
choose this playlist for syncing to the iPhone.

Movies and TV Shows Tabs
TV shows and movies you’ve bought or rented from the iTunes Store
look great on the iPhone screen. (And if you start watching a rented
movie on your computer, the iPhone begins playing it right from where
you left off.)
Syncing TV shows and movies works just like syncing music or podcasts.
You can have iTunes copy all your stuff to the iPhone, but video fills up
your storage fast. That’s why you can turn on the checkboxes of just the
individual movies or shows (either seasons or episodes) you want—or,
using the Automatically include pop-up menu, request only the most
recent, or the most recent ones you haven’t seen yet.

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Podcasts Tab
The iTunes Store lists thousands of free amateur and professional podcasts (page 411). On this tab, you can choose to sync all podcast episodes, selected shows, all unplayed episodes—or just a certain number of
episodes per sync. Individual checkboxes let you choose which podcast
series get to come along for the ride, so you can sync to suit your mood
at the time.

Books Tab
Here are the thumbnails of your audiobooks and your ebooks—those
you’ve bought from Apple, those you’ve downloaded from the web, and
those you’ve dragged right into iTunes from your desktop (PDF files, for
example). You can ask iTunes to send them all to your phone—or only the
ones whose checkboxes you turn on.

Tones Tab
Any ringtones that you’ve bought from the iTunes Store or made yourself
(page 136) appear here; you can specify which ones you want synced
to the iPhone. You can choose either All tones or, if space on your phone
is an issue, Selected tones (and then turn on the ones you want).
Be sure to sync over any ringtones you’ve assigned to your frequent callers so the iPhone can alert you with a personalized audio cue, like Pink’s
rendition of “Tell Me Something Good” when they call you up.

Photos Tab
Why corner people with your wallet to show them your kid’s baby pictures, when you can whip out your iPhone and dazzle them with a
slideshow?

Syncing Photos and Videos (ComputerÆiPhone)
iTunes can sync the photos from your hard drive onto the iPhone. You
can even select individual albums of images that you’ve already assembled on your computer.
NOTE: If you’ve turned on iCloud Photo Library (page 323), this tab
appears blank. After all, your photos are already syncing.

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Here are your photo-filling options for the iPhone:
• Windows: You can sync with Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Album,
or any folder of photos, like My Pictures (in Windows), Pictures (on
the Mac), or any folder you like.
• Mac: You can sync with Photos, iPhoto, or Aperture.
NOTE: You can sync photos from only one computer. If you later attempt
to snag some snaps from a second machine, iTunes warns you
that you must first erase all the images that came from the
original computer.

When you’re ready to sync your photos, click the Photos tab in iTunes.
Turn on Sync photos from, and then indicate where you’d like to sync
them from (Photoshop Elements, iPhoto, or whatever).
If you’ve chosen a photo-shoebox program’s name (and not a folder’s
name), you can then click Selected albums, Events, and Faces. Turn on
the checkboxes of the albums, events, and faces you want synced. (The
“faces” option is available only if you’re syncing from Photos, iPhoto, or
Aperture on the Mac, and only if you’ve used the Faces feature, which
groups your photos according to who’s in them.)
This option also offers to tack on recent Events (batches of photos taken
the same day). Indicate whether or not you want videos included in the
syncing (Include videos).
Once you make your selections and click Apply, the program computes
for a time, “optimizing” copies of your photos to make them look great
on the iPhone (for example, downsizing them from 20-megapixel overkill to something more appropriate for a 0.6-megapixel screen), and then
ports them over.
After the sync is complete, you’ll be able to wave your iPhone around,
and people will beg to see your photos.

Syncing Photos and Videos (iPhoneÆComputer)
You can go the opposite direction, too: You can send photos and videos
you took with the iPhone’s own camera to the computer. You can rest
easy, knowing that they’re backed up to your computer for safekeeping.
Now, it’s important to understand that iTunes is not involved in this process. It doesn’t know anything about photos or videos from the iPhone.
So what’s handling the iPhone-to-computer transfer? Your operating
system. It treats the iPhone as though it’s a digital camera and suggests
importing them just as it would from a camera’s memory card.

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Here’s how it goes: Plug the iPhone into the computer with the USB
cable. What you’ll see is probably something like this:
• On the Mac. Photos or iPhoto opens. One of these free photo-
organizing/editing programs comes on every Mac. Shortly after the
program notices that the iPhone is on the premises, it goes into
Import mode. Click Import All, or select some thumbnails from the
iPhone and then click Import Selected.
After the transfer, click Delete Photos if you’d like the iPhone’s
cameraphone memory cleared out. (Both photos and videos get imported together.)
• In Windows. When you attach a camera (or an iPhone), a dialog
box asks how you want its contents handled. It lists any photo-
management program you might have installed (Photoshop Elements,
Photoshop Album, and so on), as well as Windows’ own camera-
management software. Click the program you want to handle importing the iPhone pictures and videos.
You’ll probably also want to turn on Always do this for this device, so
it’ll happen automatically the next time.

Shutting Down the Importing Process
Then again, some iPhone owners would rather not see some lumbering photo-management program firing itself up every time they connect
the phone. You, too, might wish there were a way to stop iPhoto, Photos,
or Windows from bugging you every time you connect the iPhone. That’s
easy enough to change—if you know where to look.
• Windows 7 and later. When the AutoPlay dialog box appears, click
Set AutoPlay defaults in Control Panel. (Or, if the AutoPlay dialog box
is no longer on the screen, choose StartÆControl PanelÆAutoPlay.)
Scroll all the way to the bottom until you see the iPhone icon. From
the pop-up menu, choose Take no action. Click Save.
• iPhoto. Open iPhoto. Choose iPhotoÆPreferences. Where it says
Connecting camera opens, choose No application. Close the window.
• Photos. Connect your iPhone to the Mac. Open Photos. At the top
left, click the iPhone’s icon, if necessary, and turn off Open Photos
for this device. (You have to repeat this for every individual phone or
tablet.)
From now on, no photo-importing message will appear when you plug in
the iPhone. (You can always import its photos manually, of course.)

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Info Tab
On this tab, you’re offered the chance to copy some distinctly non-
entertainment data over to your iPhone: your computer’s calendar,
address book, email settings, and web bookmarks.
Now, none of this setup is necessary if you use iCloud (Chapter 16), and
you’ve told your phone to sync its calendar (in SettingsÆiCloud). That’s
because iCloud, not iTunes, handles synchronization with the iPhone.
Instead, this tab shows only a message that, for example, “Your calendars
are being synced with your iPhone over the air from iCloud.”

Syncing Contacts and Calendars
If you’re not using iCloud syncing, then you can choose to sync your
iPhone’s address book with a Windows program like Outlook, Outlook
Express, or Windows Mail; a Mac program like Contacts or Entourage/
Outlook for Mac; or an online address book like Google Contacts or
Yahoo Address Book.
Similarly, you can sync the phone’s calendar with a program like Outlook
(for Windows) or Calendar or Outlook (on the Mac).

On My Device
Below those Settings tabs at the left side of the iTunes window, there’s a
second, similar set labeled On My Device. It’s a tidy list of everything that
is, in fact, on your phone, organized by type (Music, Movies, and so on).
There’s not really much you can do here—you can get more information
about some items by pointing to them—but just seeing your multimedia
empire arrayed before you can be very satisfying.
The Purchased category, in particular, can be handy; it shows everything
on your phone that you’ve bought with the phone.

One iPhone, Multiple Computers
In general, Apple likes to keep things simple. Everything it ever says
about the iPhone suggests that you can only sync one iPhone with one
computer.
That’s not really true, however. You can actually sync an iPhone with multiple Macs or PCs.

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And why would you want to do that? So you can fill it up with material
from different places: music and video from a Mac at home; contacts, calendar, ebooks, and iPhone applications from your Windows PC at work;
and maybe even the photos from your laptop.
iTunes derives these goodies from different sources to begin with—pictures from your photo program, addresses and appointments from your
contacts and calendar programs, music and video from iTunes. So all you
have to do is set up the tabs of each computer’s copy of iTunes to sync
only certain kinds of material.
On the Mac, for example, you’d turn on the Sync checkboxes for only the
Music, Podcasts, and Video tabs. Sync away.
Next, take the iPhone to the office; on your PC, turn on the Sync checkboxes on only the Info, Books, and Apps tabs. Sync away once more.
Then, on the laptop, turn off Sync on all tabs except Photos.
And off you go. Each time you connect the iPhone to one of the computers, it syncs that data according to the preferences set in that copy of
iTunes.

One Computer, Multiple iPhones
It’s fine to sync multiple iPhones with a single computer, too. iTunes
cheerfully fills each one up, and can back each one up, as they come. In
fact, if you open the Preferences box (in the iTunes menu on the Mac, the
Edit menu in Windows), the Devices tab lists all the iPhones that iTunes is
tracking (and iPads and iPod Touches).

Backing Up the iPhone
iTunes can back up everything your computer doesn’t already have a
copy of: stuff you downloaded straight to the phone (music, ebooks,
apps, and so on), plus less visible things, like your iPhone’s mail and network settings, your call history, contact favorites, notes, text messages,
and other personal preferences that are hard or impossible to recreate.
TIP: If you turn on the Encrypted iPhone Backup option, then your
backup will include all your passwords: for Wi‑Fi hotspots, websites,
email accounts, and so on. That can save you tons of time when you
have to restore the phone from the backup. (The one downside:
You’ll be asked to make up a password for the backup. Don’t
forget it!)

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You can create your backups in either of two places:
• On your computer. You get a backup every time the iPhone syncs
with iTunes. The backup also happens before you install a new iPhone
firmware version from Apple. iTunes also offers to do a backup before
you use the Restore option described in the next section.
• On iCloud. You can also back up your phone wirelessly and automatically—to iCloud, if you’ve signed up. That method has the advantage of being available even if your computer gets lost or burned to a
crisp in a house fire. On the other hand, since your free iCloud storage
holds only 5 gigabytes, and your phone probably holds 16 or more,
the free iCloud account usually isn’t enough. See the next chapter for
details.
You make this choice on the Summary tab described earlier in this
chapter.

Using That Backup
So the day has come when you really need to use that backup of your
iPhone. Maybe it’s become unstable, and it’s crashing all over. Or maybe
you just lost the dang thing, and you wish your replacement iPhone
could have all your old info and settings on it. Here’s how to save the day
(and your data):
1. Connect the iPhone to the computer you normally use to sync with.
2. Click the ∏ (iPhone) button; click the Summary tab.
3. Click Restore iPhone.
A message announces that you can’t erase the phone without first
turning off Find My iPhone. This is a security measure to stop a thief
from erasing a stolen phone. He can’t restore the phone without turning off Find My iPhone, which requires your iCloud password. Go to
the phone and do that (in SettingsÆiCloud).

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4. Take iTunes up on its offer to restore all your settings and stuff from
the backup.
If you see multiple backup files listed from other iPhones (or an iPod
Touch), be sure to pick the backup file for your phone. Let the backup restore your phone settings and info. Then resync all your music,
videos, and podcasts. Exhale.

Deleting a Backup File
To save disk space, you can delete old backups (especially for i-gadgets
you no longer own). Go to the iTunes preferences (EditÆPreferences in
Windows or iTunesÆPreferences on the Mac) and click the Devices tab.
Click the dated backup file you don’t want and hit Delete Backup.

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iCloud

he free iCloud service stems from Apple’s brainstorm that,
since it controls both ends of the connection between a Mac
and the Apple website, it should be able to create some pretty
clever Internet-based features.
This chapter concerns what iCloud can do for you, the iPhone owner.
NOTE: To get a free iCloud account if you don’t already have one, sign
up in SettingsÆiCloud.

What iCloud Giveth
So what is iCloud? Mainly, it’s these things:
• A synchronizing service. It keeps your calendar, address book, and
documents updated and identical on all your gadgets: Mac, PC,
iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch. Also your web passwords, credit card numbers, AirPod (wireless earbud) pairing, and all kinds of other things.
That’s a huge convenience—almost magical.
• Find My iPhone. Find My iPhone pinpoints the current location of
your iPhone on a map. In other words, it’s great for helping you find
your phone if it’s been stolen or lost.
You can also make your lost gadget make a loud pinging sound for a
couple of minutes by remote control—even if it was silenced. That’s
brilliantly effective when your phone has slipped between the couch
cushions.
• An email account. Handy, really: An iCloud account gives you a new
email address. If you already have an email address, great! This new
one can be a backup account, one you never enter on websites so
that it never gets overrun with spam. Or vice versa: Let this be your

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junk account, the address you use for online forms. Either way, it’s
great to have a second account.
• An online locker. Anything you buy from Apple—music, TV shows,
ebooks, and apps—is stored online, for easy access at any time. For
example, whenever you buy a song or a TV show from the online
iTunes Store, it appears automatically on your iPhone and computers.
Your photos are stored online, too.
• Back to My Mac. This option to grab files from one of your other
Macs across the Internet isn’t new, but it survives in iCloud. It lets you
access the contents of one Mac from another one across the Internet.
• Automatic backup. iCloud can back up your iPhone—automatically
and wirelessly (over Wi‑Fi, not over cellular connections). It’s a quick
backup, since iCloud backs up only the changed data.
If you ever want to set up a new i-gadget, or if you want to restore
everything to an existing one, life is sweet. Once you’re in a Wi‑Fi
hotspot, all you have to do is re-enter your Apple ID and password in
the setup assistant that appears when you turn the thing on. Magically, your gadget is refilled with everything that used to be on it.
Well, almost everything. An iCloud backup stores everything you’ve
bought from Apple (music, apps, books); photos and videos in your
Photos app; settings, including the layout of your Home screen; text
messages; and ringtones. You’ll also have to re-establish your passwords (for hotspots, websites, and so on) and anything that came
from your computer (like music/ringtones/videos from iTunes and
photos from the Photos app).
• Family Sharing is a broad category of features intended for families
(up to six people).
First, everyone can share stuff bought from Apple’s online stores:
movies, TV shows, music, ebooks, and so on. It’s all on a single credit card, but you, the all-knowing parent, can approve each person’s
purchases—without having to share your account password. That’s a
great solution to a long-standing problem.
There’s also a new shared family photo album and a new auto-shared
Family category on the calendar. Any family member can see the
location of any other family member, and they can find one another’s
lost iPhones or iPads using Find My iPhone.
• iCloud Drive is Apple’s version of Dropbox. It’s a folder, present on
every Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, that lists whatever you’ve
put into it—an online “disk” that holds 5 gigabytes (more, if you’re
willing to pay money).

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The iCloud Drive is a perfect place to put stuff you want to be able to
access from any Apple gadget, wherever you go. It’s a great backup, too.
• Continuity. If you have a Mac, and it’s running OS X Yosemite or later,
you’re in for a treat. The set of features Apple calls Continuity turn the
iPhone into a part of the Mac. They let you make calls from your Mac
as though it were a speakerphone. They let you send and receive text
messages from your Mac—to any cellphone on earth. They let you
AirDrop files between computer and phone, wirelessly. And more.
So there’s the quick overview. The rest of the chapter covers each of the
iCloud iPhone-related features in greater depth—except Continuity, which
gets its own chapter right after this one.

iCloud Sync
For many people, this may be the killer app for iCloud right here: The
iCloud website, acting as the master control center, can keep multiple
Macs, Windows PCs, and iPhones/iPads/iPod Touches synchronized.
That offers both a huge convenience factor—all your stuff is always on
all your gadgets—and a safety/backup factor, since you have duplicates
everywhere.
It works by storing the master copies of your stuff—email, notes, contacts, calendars, web bookmarks, and documents—on the web. (Or “in
the cloud,” as the product managers would say.)
Whenever your Macs, PCs, or i-gadgets are online—over Wi‑Fi or cellular—they connect to the mother ship and update themselves. Edit
an address on your iPhone, and shortly thereafter you’ll find the same
change in Contacts (on your Mac) and Outlook (on your PC). Send an
email reply from your PC at the office, and you’ll find it in your Sent Mail
folder on the Mac at home. Add a web bookmark anywhere and find it
everywhere else. Edit a spreadsheet in Numbers on your iPad and find
the same numbers updated on your Mac.
Actually, there’s yet another place where you can work with your data: on
the web. Using your computer, you can log into www.icloud.com to find
web-based clones of Calendar, Contacts, and Mail.
To control the syncing, tap SettingsÆiCloud on your iPhone. Turn on the
checkboxes of the stuff you want to be synchronized all the way around:
• iCloud Drive. This is the on/off switch for the iCloud Drive
(page 351). Look Me Up by Email is a list of apps that permit
other iCloud members to find you by looking up your address. And
Use Cellular Data lets you prevent your phone from doing its iCloud
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Drive synchronization over the cellular network, since you probably
get only a limited data allotment each month.
• Photos. Tap the > button to see four relevant on/off switches.
iCloud Photo Library is Apple’s new online photo storage feature. It
stores all your photos and videos online, so you can access them from
any Apple gadget; you can read more about it on page 323.
Upload to My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing are the master switches for Photo Streams, which are among iCloud’s marquee
features (page 316).
When you hold your finger down on the shutter button, the iPhone 5s
and later models can snap 10 frames a second. That’s burst mode—
and all those photos can fill up your iCloud storage. So Apple gives
you the Upload Burst Photos option to exclude them from the
backup.
• Mail. “Mail” refers to your actual email messages, plus your account
settings and preferences from iOS’s Mail program.

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• Contacts, Calendars. There’s nothing as exasperating as realizing
that the address book you’re consulting on your home Mac is missing
somebody you’re sure you entered—on your phone. This option keeps
all your address books and calendars synchronized. Delete a phone
number on your computer at home, and you’ll find it gone from your
phone. Enter an appointment on your iPhone, and you’ll find the calendar updated everywhere else.
• Reminders. This option refers to the to-do items you create in the
phone’s Reminders app; very shortly, those reminders will show up
on your Mac (in Reminders, Calendar, or BusyCal) or PC (in Outlook).
How great to make a reminder for yourself in one place and have it
reminding you later in another one!
• Safari. If a website is important enough to merit bookmarking
while you’re using your phone, why shouldn’t it also show up in the
Bookmarks menu on your desktop PC at home, your Mac laptop, or
your iPad? This option syncs your Safari Reading List, too.
• Home refers to the setups for any home-automation gear you’ve
installed (page 377).
• Notes. This option syncs the notes from your phone’s Notes app into
the Notes app on the Mac, the email program on your PC, your other
i-gadgets, and, of course, the iCloud website.
• News refers to the sources and topics you’ve set up in the News app
(page 402).
• Wallet. If you’ve bought tickets for a movie, show, game, or flight, you
sure as heck don’t want to be stuck without them because you left
the barcode on your other gadget.
• Keychain. The login information for your websites (names and passwords), and even your credit card information, can be stored right
on your phone—and synced to your other iPhones, iPads, and Macs
(running OS X Mavericks or later).
Now, you could argue that website passwords and credit card numbers are more important than, say, your Reminders. For this category,
you don’t want to mess around with security.
Therefore, when you turn on the Keychain switch in Settings, you’re
asked to enter your iCloud password.
Then you get a choice of ways to confirm your realness—either by
entering a code that Apple texts to you or by using another Apple
device to set up this one. Once that’s done, your passwords and
credit cards are magically synced across your computers and mobile

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gadgets, saving you unending headaches. This is a truly great feature
that’s worth enduring the setup.
• Backup. Your phone can back itself up online, automatically, so that
you’ll never worry about losing your files along with your phone.
Of course, most of the important stuff is already backed up by iCloud,
in the process of syncing it (calendar, contacts—all the stuff described
on these pages). So this option just backs up everything else: all your
settings, your Health data, your documents, your account settings,
and your photo library.
There are some footnotes. The wireless backing-up happens only
when your phone is charging and in a Wi‑Fi hotspot (because in a
cellular area, all that data would eat up your data limit each month).
And remember that a free iCloud account includes only 5 gigabytes
of storage; your phone may require a lot more space than that. Using
iCloud Backup may mean paying for more iCloud storage, as described on page 351.)
To set up syncing, turn on the switches for the items you want synced.
That’s it. There is no step 2.
NOTE: You may notice that there are no switches here for syncing stuff
you buy from Apple, like books, movies, apps, and music. They’re
not so much synced as they are stored for you online. You can
download them at any time to any of your machines.

My Photo Stream, Photo Sharing
These iCloud features are described in glorious detail in Chapter 9.

Find My iPhone
Did you leave your iPhone somewhere? Did it get stolen? Has that mischievous 5-year-old left it somewhere in the house again? Sounds like
you’re ready to avail yourself of one of Apple’s finest creations: Find My
iPhone.
The first step is to log into iCloud.com and click Find My iPhone.
Immediately, the website updates to show you, on a map, the current
location of your phone—and Macs, iPod Touches, and iPads. (If they’re
not online, or if they’re turned all the way off, you won’t see their current
locations.)

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If you own more than one, you may have to click All Devices and, from
the list, choose the one you’re looking for.
If just knowing where the thing is isn’t enough to satisfy you, then click
the dot representing your phone, click the * next to its name, and marvel at the appearance of these three buttons:
• Play Sound. When you click this button, the phone starts dinging and
vibrating loudly for 2 minutes, wherever it is, so you can figure out
which jacket pocket you left it in. It beeps even if the ringer switch
is off, and even if the phone is asleep. Once you find the phone, just
wake it in the usual way to make the dinging stop.
• Lost Mode. When you lose your phone for real, proceed immediately
to Lost Mode. Its first step: prompting you to password protect it,
if you haven’t already. Without the password, a sleazy crook can’t
get into your phone without erasing it. (If your phone is already
password-protected, you don’t see this step.)
The passcode you dream up here works just as though you’d created
one yourself on the phone. That is, it remains in place until you, with
the phone in hand, manually turn it off in SettingsÆGeneralÆ Passcode Lock.
Next, the website asks for a phone number where you can be
reached, and (when you click Next) a message you want displayed on
the iPhone’s Lock screen. If you actually left the thing in a taxi or on
some restaurant table, you can use this feature to plead for its return.
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When you click Done, your message appears on the phone’s screen,
wherever it is, no matter what app was running, and the phone locks
itself.
Whoever finds it can’t miss the message, can’t miss the Call button
that’s right there on the Lock screen, and can’t do anything without
dismissing the message first.
If the finder of your phone really isn’t such a nice person, at least you’ll
get an automatic email every time the phone moves from place to
place, so you can track the thief’s whereabouts. (Apple sends these
messages to your @me.com or @icloud.com address.)
• Erase iPhone. This is the last-ditch security option, for when your
immediate concern isn’t so much the phone as all the private stuff
that’s on it. Click this button, confirm the dire warning box, enter your
iCloud ID, and click Erase. By remote control, you’ve just erased everything from your phone, wherever it may be. (If it’s ever returned, you
can restore it from your backup.)
Once you’ve wiped the phone, you can no longer find it or send messages to it using Find My iPhone.
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TIP: There’s an app for that. Download the Find My iPhone app from the
App Store. It lets you do everything described here from another
iPhone, in a tidy, simple control panel.

Send Last Location
Find My iPhone works great—as long as your lost phone has power, is
turned on, and is online. Often, though, it’s lying dead somewhere, or it’s
been turned off, or there’s no Internet service. In those situations, you
might think Find My iPhone can’t help you.
But, thanks to Send Last Location, you still have a prayer of finding your
phone again. Before it dies, your phone will send Apple its location. You
have 24 hours to log into iCloud.com and use the Find My iPhone feature
to see where it was at the time of death. (After that, Apple deletes the
location information.)
You definitely want to turn this switch on.

Activation Lock
Thousands of people have found their lost or stolen iPhones by using
Find My iPhone. Yay!
Unfortunately, thousands more will never see their phones again. Until
recently, Find My iPhone had a back door the size of Montana: The
thief could simply turn the phone off. Or, if your phone was password-
protected, the thief could just erase it and sell it on the black market,
which was his goal all along. Suddenly, your phone is lost in the wilderness, and you have no way to track or recover it.
That’s why Apple offers the ingenious Activation Lock feature. It’s very
simple: Nobody can erase it, or even turn off Find My iPhone, without
entering your iCloud password (your Apple ID). This isn’t a switch you
can turn on or off; it’s always on.
So even if the bad guy has your phone and tries to sell it, the thing is
useless. It’s still registered to you, you can still track it, and it still displays
your message and phone number on the Lock screen. Without your
iCloud password, your iPhone is just a worthless brick. Suddenly, stealing
iPhones is a much less attractive prospect.

Email
Apple offers an email address as part of each iCloud account. Of course,
you already have an email account. So why bother? The first advantage
is the simple address: YourName@me.com or YourName@icloud.com.

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Second, you can read your me.com email from any computer anywhere
in the world, via the iCloud website, or on your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad.
To make things even sweeter, your me.com or icloud.com mail is completely synced. Delete a message on one gadget, and you’ll find it in the
Deleted Mail folder on another. Send a message from your iPhone, and
you’ll find it in the Sent Mail folder on your Mac. And so on.

Video, Music, Apps: Locker in the Sky
Apple, if you hadn’t noticed, has become a big seller of multimedia files.
It has the biggest music store in the world. It has the biggest app store,
for both i-gadgets and Macs. It sells an awful lot of TV shows and movies.
Its ebook store, iBooks, is no Amazon, but it’s chugging along.
Once you buy a song, movie, app, or book, you can download it again as
often as you like—no charge. In fact, you can download it to your other
Apple equipment, too—no charge. iCloud automates, or at least formalizes, that process. Once you buy something, it’s added to a list of items
that you can download to all your other machines.
Here’s how to grab them:
• iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch. For apps: Open the App Store icon. Tap
Updates. Tap Purchased, and then My Purchases. Tap Not on This
iPhone.
For music, movies, and TV shows: Open the iTunes Store app. Tap
More, and then Purchased; enter your password; tap the category you
want. Tap Not on This iPhone.
There they are: all the items you’ve ever bought, even on your other
machines using the same Apple ID. To download anything listed here
onto this machine, tap the U button. Or tap an album name to see
the list of songs on it so you can download just some of those songs.
You can save yourself all that tapping by opening SettingsÆiTunes
& App Store and turning on Automatic Downloads (for music, apps,
books, and audiobooks). From now on, whenever you’re on Wi‑Fi,
stuff you’ve bought on other Apple machines gets downloaded to
this one automatically.
• Mac or PC. Open the Mac App Store program (for Mac apps) and
click Purchases. Or open the iTunes app (for songs, TV shows, books,
and movies). Click Store and then, under Quick Links, click Purchased.
There are all your purchases, ready to open or re-download.

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TIP: To make this automatic, open iTunes. Choose iTunesÆ
PreferencesÆDownloads. Under Automatic Downloads, turn on
Music, Apps, and Books, as you see fit. Click OK. From now on,
iTunes will auto-import anything you buy on any of your other
machines.

Any bookmark you set in an iBook book is synced to your other gadgets,
too. The idea, of course, is that you can read a few pages on your phone
in the doctor’s waiting room and then continue from the same page on
your iPad on the train ride home.

iCloud Drive
iCloud Drive is Apple’s version of Dropbox. It’s a single folder whose contents are replicated on every Apple machine you own—Mac, iPhone, iPad,
iCloud.com—and even Windows PCs. See page 351 for details.

The Price of Free
A free iCloud account gives you 5 gigabytes of online storage. That
may not sound like much, especially when you consider how big some

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music, photo, and video files are. Fortunately, anything you buy from
Apple—like music, apps, books, and TV shows—doesn’t count against
that 5-gigabyte limit. Neither do the photos in your Photo Stream.
So what’s left? Some things that don’t take up much space, like settings, documents, and pictures you take with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod
Touch—and some things that take up a lot of it, like email, commercial
movies, and home videos you transferred to the phone from your computer. Anything you put on your iCloud Drive eats up your allotment,
too. (Your iPhone backup might hog space, but you can pare that down
in SettingsÆ iCloudÆStorageÆManage Storage. Tap an app’s name and
then tap Edit.)
You can, of course, expand your storage if you find 5 gigs constricting.
You can expand that to 50 GB, 200 GB, a terabyte, or 2 TB—for $1, $3,
$10, or $20 a month. You can upgrade your storage online, on your computer, or right on the iPhone (in SettingsÆiCloudÆStorageÆBuy More
Storage).

Apple Pay
Breathe a sigh of relief. Now you can pay for things without cash, without cards, without signing anything, without your wallet: Just hold the
phone. You don’t have to open some app, don’t have to enter a code,
don’t even have to wake the phone up; just hold your finger on the Home
button (it reads your fingerprint to make sure it’s you). You’ve just paid.
You can’t pay for things everywhere; the merchant has to have a wireless
terminal attached to the register. You’ll usually know, because you’ll see
the Apple Pay logo somewhere:

Apple says more than two million stores and restaurants accept Apple
Pay, including chains like McDonald’s, Walgreens, Starbucks, Macy’s,
Subway, Panera Bread, Duane Reade, Bloomingdale’s, Staples, Chevron,
and Whole Foods. The list grows all the time.
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Apple Pay depends on a special chip in the phone: the NFC chip (nearfield communication), and models before the iPhone 6 don’t have it.
Stores whose terminals don’t speak NFC—like Walmart—don’t work with
Apple Pay, either.

The Setup
To set up Apple Pay, you have to teach your phone about your credit
card. To do that, open the Wallet app. You can also start this process in
SettingsÆWallet & Apple Pay.
Tap Add credit or debit card. Tap Next.
Now, on the Add Card screen, you’re asked to aim the phone’s camera at
whatever Visa, Mastercard, or American Express card you use most often.
Hold steady until the digits of your card, your name, and the expiration
date blink onto the screen, autorecognized. Cool! The phone even suggests a card description. You can manually edit any of those four fields
before tapping Done.
TIP: If you don’t have the card with you, you can also choose Enter Card
Details Manually and type in all the numbers yourself.

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Check over the interpretation of the card’s information, and then hit Next.
Now you have to type in the security code manually. Hit Next again. Then
agree to the legalese screen.
Next, your bank has to verify that all systems are go for Apple Pay. That
may involve responding to an email or a text, or typing in a verification
code. In any case, it’s generally instantaneous.
NOTE: At the outset, Apple Pay works only with Mastercard, Visa, or
American Express, and only the ones issued by certain banks. The
big ones are all on board—Citibank, Chase, Bank of America, and
so on—and more are signing on all the time.

You can record your store loyalty and rewards cards, too—and when
you’re in that store, the phone chooses the correct card automatically.
When you’re in Dunkin’ Donuts, it automatically uses your Dunkin’ Donuts
card to pay.

The Shopping
Once the cashier has rung up your total, here comes the magic. Bring
your iPhone near the terminal—no need to wake it—in any of these ways:
• To pay with your default card: With the phone asleep and your finger
resting on the Home button, bring the phone within an inch of the
terminal. (Leave your finger on the Home button, so the fingerprint
reader can do its thing.) The phone wakes, buzzes, and beeps, and it’s
all over. It takes about 2 seconds.
TIP: To change which card is your default credit card, open SettingsÆ
Wallet & Apple Pay. That’s where you can add and remove
cards, too.

• To pay with a different card: If you double-click the Home button when you’re not right up close to the reader, your default card
appears—but you can tap it to choose a different card. Tap one and
then bring the phone near the reader again, with your finger on the
Home button.
• When you’re in a hurry, or want to change cards: This technique
offers two advantages. First, it’s a quicker way to choose one of
your other cards. Second, it lets you set up the transmission in the
moments before you approach the terminal—handy when you just
want to rush through the London subway turnstiles, for example (yes,
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To make this work, start with the iPhone asleep—dark. Double-press
the Home button to wake it and display your credit cards. Tap the
one you want (or leave the default), and then touch your finger to the
Home button. You can do all of this before you approach the reader.
At this point, the phone is continuously sending its “I’m paying!”
signal. Just wave it near the reader to complete the transaction—your
finger doesn’t have to be on the Home button or the screen.
Either way, it’s just a regular credit card purchase. So you still get your
reward points, frequent-flier miles, and so on. (Returning something
works the same way: At the moment when you’d swipe your card, you
bring the phone near the reader until it beeps. Slick.)
Apple points out that Apple Pay is much more secure than using a
credit card, because the store never sees, receives, or stores your credit
card number, or even your name. Instead, the phone transmits a temporary, one-time, encoded number that means nothing to the merchant. It
incorporates verification codes that only the card issuer (your bank) can
translate and verify.
And, by the way, Apple never sees what you’ve bought or where, either.
You can open Wallet and tap a card’s picture to see the last few transactions), but that info exists only on your iPhone.
And what if your phone gets stolen? Too bad—for the thief. He can’t
buy anything without your fingerprint. If you’re still worried, you can
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always visit iCloud.com, click Settings, tap your phone’s name, and click
Remove All to de-register your cards from the phone by remote control.

Apple Pay Online
You can buy things online, too, using iPhone apps that have been
upgraded to work with Apple Pay. The time savings this time: You’re
spared all that typing of your name, address, and phone number every
time you buy something.
Instead, when you’re staring at the checkout screen for some app, just
tap Buy with Apple Pay. It lets you pay for stuff without having to pain
stakingly type in your name, address, and credit card information 400
times a year. And if you’re shopping on a Mac (and it doesn’t have its
own fingerprint reader), you can authenticate with your phone’s fingerprint reader!

Family Sharing
If you have kids, it’s always been a hassle to manage your Apple life.
What if they want to buy a book, movie, or app? They have to use your
credit card—and you have to reveal your iCloud password to them.
Or what if they want to see a movie that you bought? Do they really have
to buy it again?
Not anymore. Once you’ve turned on Family Sharing and invited your
family members, here’s how your life will be different:
• One credit card to rule them all. Up to six of you can buy books,
movies, apps, and music on your master credit card.
• Ask before buy. When your kids try to buy stuff, your phone pops up
a permission request. You have to approve each purchase.
• Younger Appleheads. Within Family Sharing, you can now create
Apple accounts for tiny tots; 13 is no longer the age minimum.
• Shared everything. All of you get instant access to one another’s
music, video, iBooks, and app purchases—again, without having to
know one another’s Apple passwords.
• Find one another. You can use your phone to see where your kids are,
and vice versa (with permission, of course).
• Find one another’s phones. The miraculous Find My iPhone feature
(page 530) now works for every phone in the family. If your daughter can’t find her phone, you can find it for her with your phone.

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• Mutual photo album, mutual calendar, and mutual reminders. When
you turn on Family Sharing, your Photos, Calendar, and Reminders
apps each sprout a new category that’s preconfigured to permit
access by everyone in your family.

Setting Up Family Sharing
The setup process means wading through a lot of screens, but at least
you’ll have to do it only once. You can turn on this feature either on the
Mac (in System PreferencesÆSet Up Family) or on the phone itself. Since
this book is about the iPhone, what follows are the steps to do it there.
In SettingsÆiCloud, tap Set Up Family Sharing. Click Get Started. Now
the phone informs you that you, the sage adult, are going to be the
Organizer—the one with the power, the wisdom, and the credit card.
Continue (unless it’s listing the wrong Apple ID account, in which case,
you can fix it now).
On successive screens, you read about the idea of shared Apple Store
purchases; you’re shown the credit card that Apple believes you want
to use; you’re offered the chance to share your location with the others.
Each time, read and tap Continue.
Finally, you’re ready to introduce the software to your family.
• If the kid is under 13: Scroll wayyyyy down and tap Create an Apple
ID for a Child. On the screens that follow, you’ll enter the kid’s birth
date; agree to a Parent Privacy Disclosure screen; enter the security
code for your credit card (to prove that you’re you, and not, for example, your naughty kid); type the kid’s name; set up an iCloud account
(name, password, three security questions); decide whether or not to
turn on Ask To Buy (each time your youngster tries to buy something
online from Apple, you’ll be asked for permission in a notification on
your phone); decide whether you want the family to be able to see
where the kid is at all times; and accept a bunch of legalese.
When it’s all over, the lucky kid’s name appears on the Family screen.
• If the kid already has an iCloud account and is standing right there
with you in person: Tap Add Family Member. Type in her name or
email address. (Your child’s name must already be in your Contacts; if
not, go add her first. By the way, you’re a terrible parent.)
She can now enter her iCloud password on your phone to complete
her setup. (That doesn’t mean you’ll learn what her password is; your
phone stores it but hides it from you.) On the subsequent screens,
you get to confirm her email address and let her turn on location
sharing. In other words: The rest of the family will be able to see
where she is.

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• If the kid isn’t with you at the moment: Click Send an Invitation.
Your little darling gets an email at that address. He must open it on his
Apple gadget—the Mail app on the iPhone, or the Mail program on his
Mac, for example.
When he hits View Invitation, he can either enter his iCloud name
and password (if he has an iCloud account), or get an Apple ID (if he
doesn’t). Once he accepts the invitation, he can choose a picture to
represent himself; tap Confirm to agree to be in your family; enter his
iCloud password to share the stuff he’s bought from Apple; agree to
Apple’s lawyers’ demands; and, finally, opt in to sharing his location
with the rest of the family.
You can, of course, repeat this cycle to add additional family members,
up to a maximum of six. Their names and ages appear on the Family
screen.

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From here, you can tap someone’s name to perform stunts like these:
• Delete a family member. Man, you guys really don’t get along, do
you? Anyway, tap Remove.
• Turn Ask To Buy on or off. This option appears when you’ve tapped
a child’s name on your phone. If you decide your kid is responsible
enough not to need your permission for each purchase, you can turn
this option off.
NOTE: If you turn off Ask To Buy for someone after she turns 18, you
can’t turn it on again.

• Turn Parent/Guardian on or off. This option appears when you’ve
tapped an adult’s name. It gives Ask To Buy approval privileges to
someone else besides you—your spouse, for example.
Once kids turn 13, by the way, Apple automatically gives them more
control over their own lives. They can, for example, turn off Ask To Buy
themselves, on their own phones. They can even express their disgust for
you by leaving the Family Sharing group. (On her own phone, for example, your daughter can visit SettingsÆiCloudÆFamily, tap her name, and
then tap Leave Family. Harsh!)

Life in Family Sharing
Once everything’s set up, here’s how you and your nutty kids will get
along.
• Purchases. Whenever one of your kids (for whom you’ve turned on
Ask To Buy) tries to buy music, videos, apps, or books from Apple—
even free items—he has to ask you (next page, left). On your phone,
you’re notified about the purchase—and you can decline it or tap
Review to read about it on its Store page. If it seems OK, you can tap
Approve. You also have to enter your iCloud password, or supply your
fingerprint, to prevent your kid from finding your phone and approving his own request.
(If you don’t respond within 24 hours, the request expires. Your kid
has to ask again.)
Furthermore, each of you can see and download everything that
everyone else has bought. To do that, open the appropriate app: App
Store, iTunes Store, or iBooks. Tap Purchased, and then tap the family
member’s name, to see what she’s got; tap the U to download any
of it yourself.

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TIP: Anything you buy, your kids will see. Keep that in mind when you
download a book like Sending the Unruly Child to Military School.
However, you have two lines of defense. First, you can hide your
purchases. On your computer, in iTunes (Chapter 15), click iTunes
Store; click the relevant category (!, $, whatever). Click Purchased.
Point to the thing you want to hide, click the ˛, and click Hide. (On
the phone, you can hide only one category: apps. In the App Store
app, tap Updates, then Purchased, and then My Purchases. Swipe to
the left across an app’s name to reveal a Hide button.)
Second, remember that you can set up parental control on each
kid’s phone, shielding their impressionable eyes from rated-R movies
and stuff. See page 618.

• Where are you? Open the Find My Friends app to see where your
posse is right now. Or go to the Find My iPhone app (or web page;
see page 530) to see where their phones are right now.
NOTE: If one of you needs secrecy for the afternoon (Apple sweetly
gives, as an example, shopping for a gift for your spouse), open
SettingsÆiCloudÆShare My Location, and turn off the switch.
Now you’re untrackable until you turn the switch on again.

• Photos, appointments, and reminders. In Calendar, Photos, and
Reminders, each of you will find a new category, called Family, that’s
auto-shared among you all. (In Photos, it’s on the Shared tab.) You’re
all free to make and edit appointments in this calendar, to set up
reminders in Reminders (“Flu shots after school!”), or to add photos
or videos (or comments) to this album; everyone else will see the
changes instantly.
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Continuity:
iPhone Meets
Mac

pple products have always been designed to work together.
Macs, phones, tablets, watches: similar software, design,
wording, philosophy. That’s nice for you, of course, because
you have less to learn and to troubleshoot. But it’s also nice for Apple,
because it keeps you in velvet handcuffs; pretty soon, you’ve got too
much invested in its own product “ecosystem” to consider wandering
over to a rival.
Apple has taken this gadget symbiosis to an astonishing new extreme.
If your Mac is running Yosemite or a later Mac OS version, it can be an
accessory to your iPhone. Suddenly the Mac can be a speakerphone,
using the iPhone as a wireless antenna. Suddenly the Mac can send and
receive regular text messages. Suddenly AirDrop lets you drag files back
and forth, wirelessly, from phone to computer. Suddenly you can copy
material on the phone, and paste it on the Mac (or vice versa).
Apple’s name for this suite of symbiosis is Continuity. And once you’ve
got it set up, the game changes in a big way.

Continuity Setup
For many people, all of this just works. For many others, there’s a certain
degree of setting up and troubleshooting. These are the primary rules:
• You need a Mac running OS X Yosemite or later and an iPhone running iOS 8.1 or later.
• The Mac and the phone have to be signed into the same iCloud
account. (That’s a security thing—it proves that you’re the owner of
both machines and therefore unlikely to pose a risk to yourself.) On
the Mac, you do that in System PreferencesÆiCloud. On the phone,
you do that in SettingsÆiCloud. But you should also make sure that

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you’ve entered the same iCloud address in SettingsÆMessages and
SettingsÆFaceTime.
• For some of these features, Bluetooth must be turned on. On the
Mac, you can do that in System PreferencesÆBluetooth. On the
phone, it’s SettingsÆBluetooth.
The modern Bluetooth—called Bluetooth LE, or low energy—doesn’t
drain your battery the way Bluetooth once did, so it’s fine to leave it
on. But older Macs don’t have Bluetooth LE, so most Continuity features work only on 2012 and later Macs.
All right. Setup ready? Time to experience some integration!

Mac as Speakerphone
You can make and take phone calls on your Mac. The iPhone, sitting anywhere in your house, can be the cellular module for your Mac—even if
that iPhone is asleep and locked.
When a call comes in to your iPhone’s number, your Mac plays whatever ringtone your phone is playing. And a notice appears on your Mac
screen:

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You can click to answer it (or decline it); your Mac’s microphone and
speaker become your speakerphone.
You can place a call the same way. Just click any phone number you find
on the Mac: in Contacts, in Safari, in an email message, and so on.
To make this work, SettingsÆPhoneÆCalls on Other DevicesÆAllow
Calls on Other Devices must be turned on for each device you want to
participate in this grand experiment. The iPhone and the Mac must be on
the same Wi‑Fi network, too.
NOTE: Actually, there’s a mind-blowing exception to that statement:
Continuity over cellular. In this scenario, your Mac and iPhone
don’t have to be on the same Wi‑Fi network! Even if you left your
phone at home, you can still make calls and send texts from your
Mac, wherever you are in the country!
This amazing feature requires participation by the cellular carrier,
and so far, T-Mobile is the only company offering it. (How do
you know? Open SettingsÆPhoneÆ Wi-Fi Calling; if you see an
option called Allow Calls on Other Devices, you’re golden.)

Once you’ve set things up as described, it just works. Even call-waiting
works—if a second call comes in, your Mac notifies you and offers you
the chance to put the first one on hold. And on the Mac, the Contacts
app offers Ringtone and Texttone menus, so you can assign custom
sounds that play when your Mac rings.
Crazy.

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TIP: If you own a bunch of Apple machines, it might drive you crazy that
they all now ring at once when a call comes in. Fortunately, you can
turn off the ringing on each device that you’d rather be peaceful.
To make one of your iPads or iPod Touches stop ringing, turn
off SettingsÆFaceTimeÆCalls from iPhone. To make a Mac
stop ringing, open the FaceTime program; choose FaceTimeÆ
PreferencesÆ Settings, and turn off Calls from iPhone.

Texting from the Mac
You can send and receive text messages (as well as picture, audio, and
video messages) on your Mac, too.
We’re not talking about sending texts to other Apple people (with iCloud
accounts). Those are called iMessages, and they’re a special, Apple-only
kind of message (page 174). We’re talking about something much
better: You can type any cellphone number and send a regular SMS text
message to anyone. Or receive them when they’re sent to your iPhone
number.
Or you can initiate the text conversation by clicking a phone number in
Contacts, Calendar, or Safari to send an SMS message. Once again, your
iPhone acts as a relay station between the cellular world and your Mac.
Here’s how to set it up.
First, as usual, the Mac and the phone must be on the same Wi‑Fi network and signed into the same iCloud account. (Or the same cellular network, if it’s T-Mobile, as already described.)
Next, on the iPhone, open SettingsÆMessages. Tap Text Message
Forwarding. Your Mac’s name appears. Turn on the switch.
Now, on the Mac, open Messages. (Its icon is probably popping out of
your Dock at this moment, trying to get your attention.) When you open

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Messages, a code appears. You’re supposed to type it into the corresponding box on your phone:
This same code appears right now on any iPad or iPod Touch you own.
They, too, will be able to send and receive texts, with your iPhone doing
the relaying.
All of this is to prove, really and truly, that you’re the owner of both
devices. You wouldn’t want some bad guy reading your text messages,
would you?
That’s it—your gadgets are paired. You can now use Messages to send
standard text messages to any cellphone. You can also click and hold on
a phone number wherever it appears—in Contacts, in a Spotlight search
result, in Safari, in Mail—and choose Send Message from there. And when
a text message comes in, a standard Mac notification bubble appears at
top right.

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The beauty of all this is that your back-and-forths are kept in sync
between the Mac and the phone. You can jump between them and continue the texting conversation. (You’ll note that, as usual, the bubbles
containing your utterances are green. Blue is reserved for iMessages—
that is, messages to other people with iCloud accounts.)

Instant Hotspot
As you know from page 439, paying your cell carrier another $20 or so
every month entitles you to use the iPhone’s Personal Hotspot feature.
That’s where the phone itself acts as a portable Wi‑Fi hotspot, so that
your laptop (or any other gadgets) can get online almost anywhere.
As you also know from page 439, it’s kind of a pain to get going. Each
time you want your laptop to get online, you have to wake your iPhone,
unlock it, open Settings, and turn on Personal Hotspot. Then you wait
about 20 seconds, until the phone’s name shows up in your ∑ menu.
Not with Continuity.
Now, the phone can stay in your pocket. Its name appears in your ∑
menu, ready for choosing at any time—even if the phone is asleep and
locked, and even if Personal Hotspot is turned off! Handily enough, the
∑ menu also shows the phone’s battery and signal status.
Once your Mac is online through your iPhone’s cellular connection, it tries
to save you money by suspending data-intensive jobs like full backups
and software updates. And it closes down the connection when you no
longer need it, to save your iPhone’s battery.
As usual, this works only if the iPhone and Mac both have Bluetooth
turned on and are signed into the same iCloud account.

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Handoff
Handoff passes half-finished documents between the phone and the
Mac, wirelessly and automatically.
For example, suppose you’ve been writing an email message on your
iPhone (below, top). When you arrive home and sit down at the Mac, a

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new icon appears at the left end of the Mac’s Dock (previous page, middle). When you click it, the Mac’s Mail program opens, and the half-finished message is there for you to complete (bottom).
It doesn’t have to be an email message, either. If you were reading a web
page or a Map on your phone, then that icon on the Mac opens the same
web page or map. If you were working on a Reminder; a Calendar entry;
a Contacts entry; a note in Notes; or a document in Keynote, Numbers, or
Pages; you can open the same in-progress item on the Mac.
And all of it works in the other direction, too. If you’re working on something on the Mac, but you’re called away, an icon appears on the lower-left corner of your iPhone’s Lock screen that opens the same item
(below, left).
TIP: There’s another way to find the Handoff icon: It’s in the app switcher
on both devices. On the phone, for example, double-press the Home
button—and notice the new strip at the bottom, identifying the
document you’re handing off from the Mac (below, right). On the
Mac, press c-Tab to open the app switcher; there, too, is the icon for
the app being handed off from the phone.

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Here’s the setup: Once again, both gadgets must be signed into your
iCloud account. Both must have Bluetooth turned on, and the Mac and
phone have to be sitting within Bluetooth range of each other (about
30 feet).
On the Mac, open System PreferencesÆGeneral; turn on Allow Handoff
between this Mac and your iCloud devices.
On the iPhone, the on/off switch is in SettingsÆGeneralÆHandoff.
Now try it out. Start an email message on your iPhone. Have a look at the
Dock on your Mac: There, at the left end, pops the little icon of whatever
program can finish the job.
Watch for the little lower-left icon on your screens to make it work.

AirDrop
AirDrop is pretty great. As described on page 348, it lets you shoot
photos, videos, maps, Contacts cards, PDF files, Word documents, and
all kinds of other stuff from one iPhone to another iPhone. Wirelessly.
Without having to set up names, passwords, or permissions. Without
even having an Internet connection.
What page 348 didn’t cover, though, was how you can use AirDrop
between a phone and a Mac.

From iPhone to Mac
Open whatever it is you want to send to the Mac: a photo, map, website,
contact…anything with a P button.
When you tap the Share button, you see the AirDrop panel—and, after
a moment, the icons of any nearby Macs show up, too. Including yours
(next page, left).
If the Mac’s icon doesn’t show up, it’s probably because its owner hasn’t
made the Mac discoverable by AirDrop.
Instruct him to open the AirDrop window on his Mac. (Click AirDrop in
the sidebar of any Finder window.) See the small blue control at the bottom? It governs who can “see” this Mac for AirDrop purposes: No One,
Contacts Only (that is, people in the Mac’s address book), or Everyone.
Once that’s set up right, that Mac shows up in the iPhone’s AirDrop panel
(“David” in the picture on the next page). Send away.

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The receiving Mac displays a note like the one shown above at right.
Click Accept to download the incoming item to your Mac’s Downloads
folder (or Decline to reject it).
TIP: If the phone and the Mac are both signed into the same iCloud
account, then you don’t encounter that Accept/Decline thing. The
file goes directly into your Downloads folder without asking. You
do get a notification on the Mac that lets you know how many files
arrived, and it offers an Open button.
Apple figures that, since you own both the phone and the Mac, the
usual permission routine isn’t necessary. You’re probably not trying
to send yourself some evil virus of death.

Universal Clipboard
Now, this is magic—and useful magic, at that. You can copy some text, a
picture, or a video on your phone—and then, without any further steps,
turn to your Mac and paste it. Or go the other way. Somehow, the contents of the Clipboard transfer themselves wirelessly between the two
machines.
In this example, you copy something on the iPhone, in Safari (facing
page, top)—and then paste it instantly in Mail on the Mac.
There’s no on/off switch, no extra steps, no visible sign of this feature in
Settings or System Preferences. It just works. (Provided, of course, that

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you’ve obeyed the Three Laws of Continuity Setup: The Mac and phone
have to be on the same Wi-Fi network, both have to have Bluetooth
turned on, and both have to be signed into the same iCloud account.)
If you don’t paste within two minutes of copying, then whatever was
already on the Clipboard gets restored, so you don’t get confused later.

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The Corporate
iPhone

n its younger days, people thought of the iPhone as a personal
device, meant for consumers and not for corporations. But somebody at Apple must have gotten sick of hearing, “Well, the iPhone is
cool and all, but it’s no BlackBerry.” The iPhone now has the security and
compatibility features your corporate technical overlords require. (And
the BlackBerry—well…)
Even better, the iPhone can talk to Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
servers, staples of corporate computer departments that, among other
things, keep smartphones wirelessly updated with the calendar, contacts, and email back at the office. (Yes, it sounds a lot like iCloud or
the old MobileMe. Which is probably why Apple’s MobileMe slogan was
“Exchange for the rest of us.”)

The Perks
This chapter is intended for you, the iPhone owner—not for the highly
paid, well-trained, exceedingly friendly IT (information technology) managers at your company.
Your first task is to convince them that your iPhone is now secure and
compatible enough to welcome into the company’s network. Here’s some
information you can use:
• Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. Exchange ActiveSync is the technology that keeps smartphones wirelessly synced with the data
on the mother ship’s computers. The iPhone works with Exchange
ActiveSync, so it can remain in wireless contact with your company’s Exchange servers, exactly like BlackBerry and Windows Mobile
phones do.

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Your email, address book, and calendar appointments are now sent
wirelessly to your iPhone so it’s always kept current—and they’re sent
in a way that those evil rival firms can’t intercept. (It uses 128-bit encrypted SSL, if you must know.)
NOTE: That’s the same encryption used by Outlook Web Access (OWA),
which lets employees check their email, calendar, and contacts
from any web browser. In other words, if your IT administrators
are willing to let you access your data using OWA, they should
also be willing to let you access it with the iPhone.

• Mass setup. These days, iPhones may wind up in corporations in two
ways: They’re either handed out by the company, or you bring your
own. (When employees use their own phones for work, they call it
BYOD: “Bring your own device.”)
Most companies set up employee iPhones using mobile device management (MDM) software. That’s a program (for sale by lots of different security companies) that gives your administrators control over
a huge range of corporate apps, settings, and restrictions: all Wi‑Fi,
network, password, email, and VPN settings; policies about what
features and apps you can use, and so on; and the ability to remotely
erase or lock your phone if it gets lost. Yet MDM programs don’t touch
the stuff that you install on your own. If you leave the company, your
old employer can delete its own stuff, while preserving your personal
stuff.
• Security. The iPhone can connect to wireless networks using the
latest, super-secure connections (WPA Enterprise and WPA2
Enterprise), which are highly resistant to hacker attacks. And when
you’re using virtual private networking, as described at the end of this
chapter, you can use a very secure VPN protocol called IPsec. That’s
what most companies use for secure, encrypted remote access to the
corporate network. Juniper and Cisco VPN apps are available, too.
Speaking of security: Whenever your phone is locked, iOS automatically encrypts all email, email attachments, calendars, contacts, notes,
reminders, and the data of any other apps that are written to take
advantage of this feature.
• iOS improvements. You can encrypt individual email messages to
people in your company (and, with some effort, to people outside
your company; see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4979). When
you’re setting up a meeting, you can see your coworkers’ schedules

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in the Calendar app. You can set up an automatic “Out of office” reply
that’s in force until a certain date. (It’s in SettingsÆMail. Tap your
Exchange account’s name and scroll down to Automatic Reply.) Lots
more control for your IT overlords, too.
And what’s in it for you? Complete synchronization of your email,
address book, and calendar with what’s on your PC at work. Send an
email from your iPhone; find it in the Sent folder of Outlook at the office.
And so on.
You can also accept invitations to meetings on your iPhone that are sent
your way by coworkers; if you accept, these meetings appear on your
calendar automatically, just as on your PC. You can also search the company’s master address book, right from your iPhone.
The biggest perk for you, though, is just getting permission to use an
iPhone as your company-issued phone.

Setup
Your company’s IT squad can set up things on their end by consulting
Apple’s free setup guide: the infamous iOS Deployment Reference.
It’s filled with handy tips, like: “Data can be symmetrically encrypted
using proven methods such as AES, RC4, or 3DES. iOS devices and current Intel Mac computers also provide hardware acceleration for AES
encryption and Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA1) hashing, thereby maximizing app performance.”
In any case, you (or they) can download the deployment guide from this
site: www.apple.com/support/iphone/business.
Your IT pros might send you a link that downloads a profile—a preconfigured file that auto–sets up all your company’s security and login information. It will create the Exchange account for you (and might turn off a few
iPhone features, like the ability to switch off the passcode requirement).
If, on the other hand, you’re supposed to set up your Exchange account
yourself, then tap SettingsÆMailÆAdd AccountÆ Exchange. Fill in your
work email address and password as they were provided to you by your
company’s IT person.
And that’s it. Your iPhone will shortly bloom with the familiar sight of
your office email stash, calendar appointments, and contacts.

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Life on the Corporate Network
Once your iPhone is set up, you should be in wireless corporate heaven:
• Email. Your corporate email account shows up among whatever
other email accounts you’ve set up (Chapter 14). In fact, you can have
multiple Exchange accounts on the same phone.
Not only is your email “pushed” to the phone (it arrives as it’s sent,
without your having to explicitly check for messages), but it’s also
synced with what you see on your computer at work. If you send,
receive, delete, flag, or file any messages on your iPhone, you’ll find
them sent, received, deleted, flagged, or filed on your computer at the
office. And vice versa.
All the email niceties described in Chapter 14 are available to your corporate mail: opening attachments, rotating and zooming them, and so
on. Your iPhone can even play back your office voicemail, presuming
that your company has one of those unified messaging systems that
send out WAV audio file versions of your messages via email.
Oh—and when you’re addressing an outgoing message, the iPhone’s
autocomplete feature consults both your built-in iPhone address book
and the corporate directory (on the Exchange server) simultaneously.
TIP: Your phone can warn you when you’re addressing an email to
somebody outside your company (a security risk, and something
that sometimes arises from autocomplete accidents).
To turn on this feature, open SettingsÆMail. Scroll down; tap
Mark Addresses. Type in your company’s email suffix (like
yourcompany.com). From now on, whenever you address an
outgoing message to someone outside yourcompany.com, it
appears in red in the “To:” line to catch your eye.

• Contacts. In the address book, you gain a new superpower: You can
search your company’s master name directory right from the iPhone.
That’s great when you need to track down, say, the art director in your
Singapore branch.
To perform this search, open the Contacts app. Tap the Groups button in the upper-left corner. On the Groups screen, your company’s
name appears; it may contain some group names of its own. But
below these, a new entry appears that mere mortal iPhone owners
never see. It might say something like Directory or Global Address
Book. Tap it.

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On the following screen, start typing the name of the person you’re
looking up; the resulting matches appear as you type. (Or type the
whole name and then tap Search.)
In the list of results, tap the name you want. That person’s Info screen
appears so that you can tap to dial a number or compose a preaddressed email message. (You can’t send a text message to someone
in the corporate phone book, however.)
• Calendar. Your iPhone’s calendar is wirelessly kept in sync with the
master calendar back at the office. If you’re on the road and your
minions make changes to your schedule in Outlook, you’ll know about
it; you’ll see the change on your iPhone’s calendar.
There are some other changes to your calendar, too, as you’ll find out
in a moment.
TIP: Don’t forget that you can save battery power, syncing time, and
mental clutter by limiting how much old calendar stuff gets synced
to your iPhone. (How often do you really look back on your calendar
to see what happened more than a month ago?) Page 594 has the
details.

• Notes. If your company uses Exchange 2010 or later, then your notes
are synced with Outlook on your Mac or PC, too.

Exchange + Your Stuff
The iPhone can display calendar and contact information from multiple
sources at once—your Exchange calendar/address book and your own
personal data, for example.
Here’s how it works: Open your iPhone calendar. Tap Calendars. Now
you’re looking at all the accounts your phone knows about; you might
find separate headings for iCloud, Yahoo, Gmail, and so on, each with
calendar categories listed under it. And one of them is your Exchange
account.
You can pull off a similar stunt in Contacts, Notes, and Reminders.
Whenever you’re looking at your list of contacts, for example, you can
tap the Groups button (top left of the screen). Here, once again, you can
tap All Contacts to see a combined address book—or you can look over
only your iCloud contacts, your Exchange contacts, your personal contacts, and so on. Or tap [group name] to view only the people in your

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tennis circle, book club, or whatever (if you’ve created groups); or [your
Exchange account name] to search only the company listings.

Invitations
If you’ve spent much time in the world of Microsoft Outlook (that is, corporate America), then you already know about invitations. These are
electronic invitations that coworkers send you directly from Outlook.
When you get one of these invitations by email, you can click Accept,
Decline, or Maybe.
If you click Accept, then the meeting gets dropped onto the proper date
in your Outlook calendar, and your name gets added to the list of attendees maintained by the person who invited you. If you click Maybe, then
the meeting is flagged that way, on both your calendar and the sender’s.
Exchange meeting invitations on the iPhone show up in four places,
just to make sure you don’t miss them. You get a standard iPhone notification, a numbered “badge” on the Calendar app’s icon on the Home
screen, an attachment to a message in your corporate email account,
and a message in the Calendar app—tap Inbox at the lower-right corner.
Tapping Inbox shows the Invitations list, which summarizes all invitations

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you’ve accepted, maybe’d, or not responded to yet. Tap one to see the
details (below, left).
TIP: Invitations you haven’t dealt with also show up on the Calendar’s
List view or Day view with dotted shading (below, right). That’s the
iPhone’s clever way of showing you just how severely your workday
will be ruined if you accept this meeting.

You can also generate invitations. When you’re filling out the Info form
for a new appointment, you get a field called Invitees. Tap there to enter
the email addresses of the people you’d like to invite.
Your invitation will show up in whatever calendar programs your invitees
use, and they’ll never know you didn’t send it from some corporate copy
of Microsoft Outlook.

A Word on Troubleshooting
If you’re having trouble with your Exchange syncing and can’t find any
steps that work, ask your Exchange administrators to make sure that
ActiveSync’s settings are correct on their end. You’ve heard the old

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saying that in 99 percent of computer troubleshooting, the problem lies
between the keyboard and the chair? The other 1 percent of the time, it’s
between the administrator’s keyboard and chair.
TIP: You can access your company’s SharePoint sites, too. That’s a
Microsoft document-collaboration feature that’s also a common part
of corporate online life.
The iPhone’s browser can access these sites; it can also open Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF documents you find there. Handy
indeed!

Virtual Private Networking (VPN)
The typical corporate network is guarded by a team of steely-eyed
administrators for whom Job One is preventing access by unauthorized
visitors. They perform this job primarily with the aid of a super-secure
firewall that seals off the company’s network from the Internet.
So how can you tap into the network from the road? Only one solution
is both secure and cheap: the virtual private network, or VPN. Running
a VPN lets you create a super-secure “tunnel” from your iPhone, across
the Internet, and straight into your corporate network. All data passing
through this tunnel is heavily encrypted. To the Internet eavesdropper, it
looks like so much undecipherable gobbledygook.
VPN is, however, a corporate tool, run by corporate nerds. Your company’s tech staff can tell you whether or not there’s a VPN server set up for
you to use.
If there is one, then you’ll need to know what type of server it is. The
iPhone can connect to VPN servers that speak PPTP (Point-to-Point
Tunneling Protocol) and L2TP/IPsec (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol over
the IP Security Protocol), both relatives of the PPP language spoken by
modems. Most corporate VPN servers work with at least one of these
protocols.
The iPhone can also connect to Cisco servers, which are among the most
popular systems in corporate America, and, with a special app, Juniper’s
Junos Pulse servers, too.
To set up your VPN connection, visit SettingsÆGeneralÆVPN.
Here you may see that your overlords have already set up some VPN
connections; tap the one you want to use. You can also set one up yourself, by tapping Add VPN Configuration at the bottom.

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Tap Type to specify which kind of server your company uses: IKEv2,
IPsec, or L2TP (ask the network administrator). Fill in the Server address,
the account name and password, and whatever else your system administrators tell you to fill in here.
Once everything is in place, the iPhone can connect to the corporate network and fetch your corporate mail. You don’t have to do anything special on your end; everything works just as described in this chapter.
NOTE: Some networks require that you type the currently displayed
password on an RSA SecurID token, which your administrator
will provide. This James Bondish thing looks like either a credit
card or a USB drive. It displays a password that changes every
few seconds, making it rather difficult for hackers to learn “the”
password.

VPN on Demand
If you like to access your corporate email or internal website a few times
a day, having to enter your name-and-password credentials over and

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over again can get old fast. Fortunately, iOS offers a huge timesaving
assist with VPN on Demand.
That is, you just open up Safari and tap the corporate bookmark; the
iPhone creates the VPN channel automatically, behind the scenes, and
connects.
There’s nothing you have to do, or even anything you can do, to make
this feature work; your company’s network nerds have to turn it on at
their end.
They’ll create a configuration profile that you’ll install on your iPhone. It
includes the VPN server settings, an electronic security certificate, and a
list of domains and URLs that will automatically turn on the iPhone’s VPN
feature.
When your iPhone goes to sleep, it terminates the VPN connection, both
for security purposes and to save battery power.
NOTE: Clearly, eliminating the VPN sign-in process also weakens the
security the VPN was invented for in the first place. Therefore,
you’d be well-advised—and probably required by your IT team—
to use the iPhone’s password or fingerprint feature, so some evil
corporate spy (or teenage thug) can’t just steal your iPhone and
start snooping through the corporate servers.

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Settings

he Settings app is like the Control Panel in Windows or System
Preferences on the Mac. It houses hundreds of settings for
every aspect of the iPhone and its apps.

Almost everything in the list of Settings is a doorway to another screen,
where you make the actual changes.
TIP: Settings has a search box at the top! You don’t need a photographic
memory (or this chapter) to find which screen holds a certain
setting you’re looking for.

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In this book, you can read about the iPhone’s preference settings in the
appropriate spots—wherever they’re relevant. And the Control Center, of
course, is designed to eliminate trips into Settings.
But so you’ll have it all in one place, here’s an item-by-item walk-through
of the Settings app and its structure in iOS 10.

Three Important Settings Tricks
The Settings app is many screens deep. You might “drill down” by tapping, for example, General, then Keyboard, and then Text Replacement.
It’s a lot of tapping, a lot of navigation.
Fortunately, you have three kinds of shortcuts.
First, you can jump directly to a particular Settings screen—from within
any app—using Siri (Chapter 5). You can say, for example, “Open Sound
settings,” “Open Brightness settings,” “Open Notification settings,” “Open
Wi‑Fi settings,” and so on. Siri promptly takes you to the corresponding
screen—no tapping required.
Second, you can jump directly to the four most frequently adjusted
panels—Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Cellular, and Battery—by hard-pressing the

Swipe to
go back

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Settings app icon on the Home screen (6s and 7 models). The shortcut
menu offers direct access to those panes.
Finally, on any model, you can swipe to go back. Once you’ve drilled
down to, say, GeneralÆKeyboardÆText Replacement, you can “drill up”
again by swiping across the screen to the right. (Start from the edge of
the screen.)

Airplane Mode
As you’re probably aware, you’re not allowed to make cellphone calls on
U.S. airplanes. According to legend (if not science), a cellphone’s radio
can interfere with a plane’s navigation equipment.
But the iPhone does a lot more than make calls. Are you supposed to
deprive yourself of all the music, videos, movies, and email that you
could be using in flight, just because calling is forbidden?
Nope. Just turn on airplane mode by tapping the switch at the top
of the Settings list (so the switch background turns green). The word
Cellular dims there in Settings (you’ve turned off your cellular circuitry);
but the Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth switches are still available, though turned
off—meaning that you’re now welcome to switch them back on, even in
airplane mode.
Now it’s safe (and permitted) to use the iPhone in flight, even with Wi‑Fi
on, because its cellular features are turned off completely. You can’t
make calls, but you can do anything else in the iPhone’s bag of tricks.
TIP: Turning airplane mode on and off is faster if you use the Control
Center (page 46) or Siri (“Turn on airplane mode”). Same for
Wi‑Fi, described next.

Wi‑Fi
This item in Settings opens the Wi‑Fi Networks screen, where you’ll find
three useful controls:
• Wi‑Fi On/Off. If you don’t plan to use Wi‑Fi, then turning it off gets
you a lot more life out of each battery charge. Tap anywhere on this
On/Off switch to change its status.
TIP: Turning on airplane mode automatically turns off the Wi‑Fi
antenna—but you can turn Wi‑Fi back on. That’s handy when you’re
on a flight with Wi‑Fi on board.

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569

• Choose a Network. Here’s a list of all nearby Wi‑Fi networks that the
iPhone can “see,” complete with a signal-strength indicator and a
padlock icon if a password is required. An Other item lets you access
Wi‑Fi networks that are invisible and secret unless you know their
names. See page 435 for details on using Wi‑Fi with the iPhone.

• Ask to Join Networks. If this option is on, then the iPhone is continuously sniffing around to find a Wi‑Fi network. If it finds one you haven’t used before, a small dialog box invites you to hop onto it.
So why would you ever want to turn this feature off? To avoid getting bombarded with invitations to join Wi‑Fi networks—which can
happen in heavily populated areas—and to save battery power. (The
phone will still hop onto hotspots it’s joined in the past, and you can
still view a list of available hotspots by opening SettingsÆ Wi‑Fi.)

Bluetooth
Here’s the on/off switch for the iPhone’s Bluetooth transmitter, which
is required to communicate with a Bluetooth fitness band, earpiece,
keyboard, or hands-free system in a car. When you turn the switch
on, you’re offered the chance to pair the iPhone with other Bluetooth
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equipment; the paired gadgets are listed here for ease of connecting and
disconnecting.
TIP: The Control Center (page 46) has a Bluetooth button. It’s faster
to use that than to visit Settings.

Carrier
If you see this panel at all, you’re doubly lucky: First, you’re enjoying a
trip overseas; second, you have a choice of cellphone carriers who have
roaming agreements with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint. Tap your
favorite and prepare to pay some serious roaming fees.

Cellular
These days, not many cellphone plans let you use the Internet as much
as you want; most have monthly limits. For example, your $50 a month
might include 2 gigabytes of Internet data use.
Most of the settings on this screen are meant to help you control how
much Internet data your phone uses.
• Cellular Data. This is the on/off switch for Internet data. If you’re traveling overseas, you might want to turn this off to avoid racking up
insanely high roaming charges. Your smartphone becomes a dumbphone, suitable for making calls but not for getting online. (You can
still get online in Wi‑Fi hotspots.)
• Roaming. These controls can prevent staggering international roaming fees. Enable LTE lets you turn off LTE—just for voice calls, or for
both voice and data—for situations when LTE costs extra.
TIP: Every now and then, you’ll be in some area where you can’t connect
to the Internet even though you seem to have an LTE signal; forcing
your phone to the 4G or 3G network often gives you at least some
connection. Turning LTE off does just that.

On AT&T or T-Mobile, you can turn off Data Roaming (when you’re
out of the country, you won’t get slapped with outrageous Internet
fees). On Verizon and Sprint, once you tap Roaming, you have separate controls for Data Roaming and Voice Roaming. Turning off the
last item, International CDMA, forces the phone to use only the more
common GSM networks while roaming; sometimes you get better call
and data quality that way, and you may save money.

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• Personal Hotspot. Here’s the setup and On/Off screen for Personal
Hotspot (page 439). Once you’ve turned it on, a new Personal
Hotspot on/off switch appears on the main Settings screen, so you
won’t have to dig this deep in the future.
• Call Time. The statistics here break down how much time you’ve
spent talking on the iPhone, both in the Current Period (that is, this
billing month) and in the iPhone’s entire Lifetime. That’s right, folks:
You now own a cellphone that keeps track of your minutes, to help
you avoid exceeding the number you’ve signed up for (and therefore
racking up 45-cent overage minutes).
• Cellular Data Usage. The phone also tracks how much Internet data
you’ve used this month, expressed in megabytes, including email
messages and web page material. These are extremely important
statistics, because your iPhone plan is probably capped at, for example, 2 gigabytes a month. If you exceed your monthly maximum, then
you’re instantly charged $15 or $20 for another chunk of data. So
keeping an eye on these statistics is a very good idea.

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(The Current Period means so far this month; Current Period Roaming
means overseas or in places where your cell company doesn’t have
service.)
Now, your cellphone company is supposed to text you as you get
closer and closer to your monthly limit, too, but you can check your
Internet spending at any time.
• Use cellular data for: This list offers individual on/off switches
for every single Internet-using app on your phone. Each one is an
item that could consume Internet data without your awareness.
You can shut up the data hogs you really don’t feel like spending
megabytes on.
• Wi-Fi Assist. Thousands of iPhone fans know about the old Flaky
Wi‑Fi Trick. If the phone is struggling and struggling to load a web
page or download an email message on a Wi‑Fi network, it often
helps to turn off Wi‑Fi. The phone hops over to the cellular network,
where it’s usually got a better connection.
That’s why Apple offers Wi-Fi Assist: a feature that’s supposed to
do all that automatically. If the phone is having trouble with its Wi‑Fi
connection, it hops over to cellular data all by itself. (You’ll know when
that’s happened because of the appearance of the cellular-network
indicator on your status bar, like 4,or 9, instead of the ∑ Wi‑Fi
symbol.)
If you’re worried about this feature eating up your data allowance,
you can, of course, turn Wi-Fi Assist off. Apple notes, however, that
Wi-Fi Assist doesn’t kick in (a) when you’re data roaming, (b) for
background apps (it helps only the app that’s in front), or (c) if large
amounts of data would be consumed. For example, it doesn’t kick in
for audio or video streaming or email attachments.
• Reset Statistics resets the Call Time and Data Usage counters to zero.

Personal Hotspot
Once you’ve turned this feature on (page 439) in Cellular, this switch
appears here, too—on the main Settings screen for your convenience.

Notifications
This panel lists all the apps that think they have the right to nag for your
attention. Flight-tracking programs alert you that there’s an hour before
takeoff. Social-networking programs ping you when someone’s trying to

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reach you. Instant-messaging apps ding to let you know that you have a
new message. It can add up to a lot of interruption.
On this panel, you can tailor, to an almost ridiculous degree, how you
want to be nagged. See page 59 for a complete description.

Control Center
The Control Center is written up on page 46. There are two settings
to change here. If you turn off Access on Lock Screen, then the Control
Center isn’t available on the phone’s Lock screen. No passing prankster
can change your phone’s settings without your password.
And if you turn off Access Within Apps, then you won’t land in the
Control Center by accident when you’re playing some game that involves
a lot of swiping.

Do Not Disturb
This is one of iOS’s most brilliant and useful features. See page 128.

General
The General pages offer a huge, motley assortment of settings governing the behavior of the virtual keyboard, the Spotlight search feature, and
about 6 trillion other things (facing page, left).
• About. Here you can find out how many songs, videos, and photos
your iPhone holds; how much storage your iPhone has; techie details
like the iPhone’s software and firmware versions, serial number, model,
Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth addresses; and so on. (It’s kind of cool to see
how many apps you’ve installed.)
At the very top, you can tap the phone’s name to rename it.
• Software Update. When Apple releases a new software update for

your iPhone, you can download it directly to the phone.
You’ll know when an update is waiting for you, because you’ll see a little number badge on the Settings icon, as well as on the word “General” in Settings. Tap it, and then tap Software Update, to see and install
the update (facing page, right). (If no number badge is waiting, then
tapping Software Update just shows you your current iOS version.)

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• Spotlight Search. Here you can turn off iOS’s Siri Suggestions screen
(page 101). And you can control which kinds of things Spotlight
finds when it searches your phone. Tap to turn off the kinds of data
you don’t want it to search: Mail, Notes, Calendar, whatever.
• Handoff. Handoff is for people who own both a Mac and an iPhone;
it automatically passes half-finished documents between them when
you come home, as described on page 551. This is the on/off
switch.
• CarPlay. Certain car models come equipped with a technology called
CarPlay, which displays a few of your iPhone’s icons—Phone, Music,
Maps, Messages, Music, Podcasts, and Audiobooks—on the car’s
dashboard touchscreen. The idea is to make them big and simple and
limited to things you’ll need while you’re driving, to avoid distracting
you. Here’s where you connect your phone to your CarPlay system
and, if you like, rearrange the icons on the CarPlay screen.
• Home Button appears only on the iPhone 7 models. The Home button
on these phones, believe it or not, doesn’t actually move. It doesn’t
actually click. Instead, a tiny speaker makes the button feel as though
you’ve clicked it by producing a little twitch vibration. That helps with
the iPhone 7’s water resistance, of course, but it also permits features
like this one: You can actually specify how big the phony click feels,
using the settings Apple calls 1, 2, or 3 (and then try it out, right on
this screen).
• Accessibility. These options are intended for people with visual, hearing, and motor impairments, but they might come in handy now and
then for almost anyone. All these features are described in Chapter 7.

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• Storage & iCloud Usage. This screen is proof that the iPhone is an
obsessive-compulsive. You find out here that it knows everything
about you, your apps, and your iPhone activity.
The Storage section shows how much of your phone’s storage space
is currently used and free. Tap Manage Storage to see a list of every
single app on your iPhone, along with how much space it’s eating up.
(Biggest apps are at the top.) Better yet, you can tap an app to see
how much it and its associated documents consume—and, for apps
you’ve installed yourself, there’s a Delete App button staring you in
the face.
The idea, of course, is that if you’re running out of space on your
iPhone, this display makes it incredibly easy to see what the space
hogs are—and delete them.
The next section, iCloud, also reports on storage—but in this case, it
shows you how much storage you’re using on your iCloud account.
(Remember, you get 5 gigabytes free; after that, you have to pay.) If
you tap Manage Storage, you get to see how much of that space is
used up by which apps. iCloud Photo Library and Backups are usually
among the biggest offenders.
• Background App Refresh. The list that appears here identifies apps
that try to access the Internet to update themselves, even when
they’re in the background. Since such apps can drain your battery,
you have the option here to block their background updating.
You can also turn off the master Background App Refresh switch.
Now the only apps that can get online in the background are a standard limited suite (music playback and GPS, for example).
• Restrictions. This means “parental controls.” (Apple called it
“Restrictions” instead so as not to turn off potential corporate customers. Can’t you just hear it? “ ‘Parental controls?’ This thing is for
consumers?! ”) Complete details appear on page 618.
• Date & Time. Here you can turn on 24-hour time, also known as military time, in which you see “1700” instead of “5:00 PM.” (You’ll see this
change everywhere times appear, including at the top of the screen.)
Set Automatically refers to the iPhone’s built-in clock. If this item is
turned on, then the iPhone finds out what time it is from an atomic
clock out on the Internet. If not, then you have to set the clock yourself. (Turning this option off produces two more rows of controls: The
Time Zone option becomes available, so you can specify your time
zone, and a “number spinner” appears so you can set the clock.)

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• Keyboard. Here you can turn off some of the very best features of
the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. (All these shortcuts are described in
Chapter 3.)
It’s hard to imagine why you wouldn’t want any of these tools working
for you and saving you time and keystrokes, but here you go: Keyboards lets you add keyboards suited to all the different languages
you speak. Text Replacement is where you set up auto-expanding
abbreviations for longer words and phrases you type often.
Auto-Capitalization is where the iPhone thoughtfully capitalizes the
first letter of every new sentence for you. Auto-Correction is where
the iPhone suggests spelling corrections as you type. Check Spelling,
of course, refers to the pop-up spelling suggestions. Enable Caps
Lock is the on/off switch for the Caps Lock feature, in which a fast
double-tap on the Shift key turns on Caps Lock.
Predictive refers to QuickType, the row of three word candidates that
appears above the keyboard when you’re typing. Character Preview is
the little bubble that pops up, showing the letter, when you tap a key.
The “.” Shortcut switch turns on or off the “type two spaces to make
a period” shortcut for the ends of sentences, and Enable Dictation is
the on/off switch for the ability to dictate text. (If you never use dictation, turning this switch off hides the ß button on the keyboard, giving
the space bar more room to breathe.)
• Language & Region. The iPhone: It’s not just for Americans anymore. The iPhone Language screen lets you choose a language for
the iPhone’s menus and messages. Region Format controls how the
iPhone displays dates, times, and numbers. (For example, in the U.S.,
Christmas is on 12/25; in Europe, it’s 25/12.) Calendar lets you choose
which kind of calendar system you want to use: Gregorian (that is,
“normal”), Japanese, or Buddhist.
• Dictionary. Which dictionaries (which languages) should the phone
use when looking up definitions and checking your spelling?
• iTunes Wi-Fi Sync. You can sync your iPhone with a computer wirelessly, as long as the phone is plugged in and on Wi‑Fi. Details are on
page 510.
• VPN. See page 564 for details on virtual private networking.
• Profile (or Device Management). This item shows up only if your
company issued you this phone. It shows what profile the system
administrators have installed on it—the set of restrictions that govern
what you’re allowed to change without the company’s permission.
• Regulatory. A bunch of legal logos you don’t care about.

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• Reset. On the all-powerful Reset screen, you’ll find six ways to erase
your phone.
Reset All Settings takes all the iPhone’s settings back to the way they
were when it came from Apple. Your data, music, and videos remain
in place, but the settings all go back to their factory settings.
Erase All Content and Settings is the one you want when you sell your
iPhone, or when you’re captured by the enemy and want to make
sure they will learn nothing from you or your phone.
NOTE: This feature takes awhile to complete—and that’s a good thing.
The iPhone doesn’t just delete your data; it also overwrites the
newly erased memory with gibberish to make sure the bad guys
can’t see any of your deleted info, even with special hacking tools.

Reset Network Settings makes the iPhone forget all the memorized
Wi‑Fi networks it currently autorecognizes.
Reset Keyboard Dictionary has to do with the iPhone’s autocorrection
feature, which kicks in whenever you’re trying to input text. Ordinarily, every time you type something the iPhone doesn’t recognize—
some name or foreign word, for example—and you don’t accept the
iPhone’s suggestion, it adds the word you typed to its dictionary so it
doesn’t bother you with a suggestion again the next time. If you think
you’ve entered too many misspellings into it, you can delete from its
little brain all the new “words” you’ve taught it.
Reset Home Screen Layout undoes any icon moving you’ve done on
the Home screen. It also consolidates your Home screen icons, fitting
them onto as few screens as possible.
Finally, Reset Location & Privacy refers to the “OK to use location services?” warning that appears whenever an iPhone program, like Maps
or Camera, tries to figure out where you are. This button makes the
iPhone forget all your responses to those permission boxes. In other
words, you’ll be asked for permission all over again the next time you
use each of those programs.

Display & Brightness
Ordinarily, the iPhone controls its own screen brightness. An ambient-light sensor hidden behind the glass at the top of the iPhone’s face
samples the room brightness each time you wake the phone and adjusts
the screen: brighter in bright rooms, dimmer in darker ones.

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When you prefer more manual control, here’s what you can do:
• Brightness slider. Drag the handle on this slider to control the screen
brightness manually, keeping in mind that more brightness means
shorter battery life.
If Auto-Brightness is turned on, then the changes you make here are
relative to the iPhone’s self-chosen brightness. In other words, if you
goose the brightness by 20 percent, then the screen will always be 20
percent brighter than the iPhone would have chosen for itself.
TIP: The Control Center (page 46) gives you a much quicker road to
the Brightness slider. And, of course, you can also tell Siri, “Make the
screen brighter” (or “dimmer”). This version in Settings is just for
old-timers.

• Auto-Brightness On/Off. Tap anywhere on this switch to disable the
ambient-light sensor completely. Now the brightness of the screen is
under complete manual control.
• Night Shift. Here’s the beating heart of Night Shift, the feature that’s
supposed to pose less disruption to your sleepiness by dialing back
blue colors in the screen near bedtime; see page 49.
Yes, it’s much quicker to use the Control Center to turn Night Shift on
or off. But here’s where you set up an automatic schedule for it—and
adjust the color temperature (yellowness) of the screen when Night
Shift kicks in.
• Auto-Lock. As you may have noticed, the iPhone locks itself (goes to

sleep) after a few minutes of inactivity on your part, to save battery
power and prevent accidental screen taps in your pocket.
On the Auto-Lock screen, you can change the interval of inactivity
before the auto-lock occurs (30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, and so
on), or you can tap Never. In that case, the iPhone locks only when
you click it to sleep.
• Raise to Wake. This is the on/off switch for a new iOS 10 feature
(available only on the iPhone SE, 6s, or 7). it makes the phone light up
when you pick it up—no button-pressing required. The ramifications
are huge, because the Lock screen now has many more functions
than it did before. There’s a lot you can accomplish on the iPhone
before you enter your password to unlock it; see Chapter 2.
• Text Size. As you age, small type becomes harder to read. This universal text-size slider can boost the size of text in every app on your
phone.

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Technically, what you’re seeing is the front end for Apple’s Dynamic
Type feature. And, even more technically, not all apps work with Dynamic Type. But most of the built-in Apple apps do—Contacts, Mail,
Maps, Messages, Notes, Phone, Reminders, and Safari Reader—and
other software companies will follow suit.
TIP: If the largest type setting here still isn’t big enough, you’re not out
of luck. Hiding in the Accessibility panel described on page 215,
there’s an option called Larger Text. Tap it and then turn on Larger
Accessibility Sizes to make the large end of the type-size scale
twice as big. Now you can read your phone from the moon.

• Bold Text. If the spindly fonts of iOS are a little too light for your reading tastes, you can flip this switch on (see page 215).
• Display Zoom. The iPhone 6, 6s, and 7 models have bigger screens
than the iPhones that came before them. The question here is: How
do you want to use that extra space? If you tap View and choose
Standard, then icons and controls remain the size they always were;
the bigger screen fits more on a page. If you choose Zoomed, then
those elements appear slightly larger, for the benefit of people who
don’t have bionic eyes.

Wallpaper
Wallpaper can mean either the photo on the Lock screen (what you see
when you wake the iPhone up), or the background picture on your Home
screen. On this panel, you can change the image used for either one.
It shows miniatures of the two places you can install wallpaper—the Lock
screen and the Home screen. Each shows what you’ve got installed there
as wallpaper at the moment.
TIP: You can tap either screen miniature to open a Set screen, where you
can adjust the current photo’s size and positioning.

When you tap Choose a New Wallpaper, you’re shown a list of photo
sources you can use as backgrounds. At the top, you get three categories worth noticing.
• Dynamic wallpapers look like soft-focus bubbles against solid backgrounds. Once you’ve installed the wallpaper, these bubbles actually
move, rising and falling on your Lock screen or Home screen behind
your icons. Yes, animated wallpaper has come to the iPhone.

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• Stills are lovely nature photographs. They don’t move.
• Live wallpapers (iPhone 6s and 7), once installed as your Lock screen,
behave like the Live Photos described on page 276: When you
press the screen hard, they play as 3-second movies. (It’s not immediately clear what that gains you.)
Note that live wallpapers play back only on the Lock screen (not the
Home screen).
TIP: You can install your own Live Photos as Lock-screen backgrounds.
They, too, will play their little 3-second loops when you hard-press
the Lock screen.

Scroll down a little, and you’ll find your own photos, nestled in categories like All Photos, Favorites, Selfies, My Panoramas, and so on, as shown
above at left.
All these pictures show up as thumbnail miniatures; tap one to see what
it looks like at full size.

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TIP: Complicated, “busy” photos make it harder to read icons and icon
names on the Home screen.

Once you’ve spotted a worthy wallpaper—in any of the flavors described
already—tap it. You’re offered a choice of two installation methods:
Still, which is what you’d expect, and Perspective, which means that
the photo will shift slightly when you tilt the phone, as though it’s several inches under the glass. (If you’ve chosen a Live Photo, you’ll see a
third choice, Live Photo, meaning that it will “play” when it’s on the Lock
screen and you hard-press the glass.)
Finally, tap Set. Now the iPhone wants to know which of the two places
you want to use this wallpaper; tap Set Lock Screen, Set Home Screen, or
Set Both (if you want the same picture in both places).

Sounds (or Sounds & Haptics)
Here’s a more traditional cellphone-settings screen: the place where you
choose a ringtone sound for incoming calls.
• Vibrate on Ring, Vibrate on Silent. Like any self-respecting cellphone,
the iPhone has a Vibrate mode—a little shudder in your pocket that
might get your attention when you can’t hear the ringing. There are
two on/off controls for the vibration: one for when the phone is in
Silent mode and one for when the ringer is on.
• Ringer and Alerts. The slider here controls the volume of the phone’s
ringing.
Of course, it’s usually faster to adjust the ring volume by pressing the
up/down buttons on the left edge whenever you’re not on a call or
playing music or a video. But if you find that your volume buttons
are getting pressed accidentally in your pocket, you can also turn off
Change with Buttons. Now you can adjust the volume only with this
slider, here in Settings.
• Sounds and Vibration Patterns. The iPhone is, of course, a cell
phone—and therefore it sometimes rings. The sound it makes when it
rings is up to you; by tapping Ringtone, you can view the iPhone’s list
of 25 built-in ringtones; 25 more ringtones from iOS versions past (tap
Classic to see them); 27 “alert tones”; plus any you’ve added yourself.
You can use any of them as a ringtone or an alert tone, no matter how
it’s listed.
Tap a ring sound to hear it. After you’ve tapped one you like, confirm
your choice by tapping Sounds to return to the Sounds (or Sounds &
Haptics) screen.
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NOTE: Remember, you can choose a different ringtone for each listing in
your phone book (page 115).

But why stop with a ringtone? The iPhone can make all kinds of other
sounds to alert you: to the arrival of a voicemail, text, or email; to the
sending of an email message, tweet, or Facebook post; to Calendar or
Reminders alarms; to the arrival of AirDrop files; and so on.
This is a big deal—not just because you can express your individuality through your choice of ringtones, text tones, reminder tones, and
so on, but also because you can distinguish your iPhone’s blips and
bleeps from somebody else’s in the same family or workplace.
For each of these events, tap the light-gray text that identifies the
current sound for that event (“Tri-tone” or “Ding,” for example). On
the resulting screen, tap the different sound options to find one you
like; then tap Sounds to return to the main screen.
On that Sounds screen, you can also turn on or off Lock Sounds (the
sounds you get when you tap the Sleep switch) and the Keyboard
Clicks that play when you type on the virtual keyboard.

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Meet Haptics
If you have an iPhone 7, there’s one more switch at the very bottom:
System Haptics. Haptics are the tiny, click-like vibrations that Apple has
scattered throughout iOS to accentuate the animations that make the
iPhone fun to use.
These little bumps mark the maximum positions for things like pinch
zooming, sliders, and panels that slide onto the screen (Control Center,
Spotlight search, Notification Center). You’ll also feel these clicks when
you spin the “dials” that specify times and dates (in Calendar, Clock,
and so on), when you turn a Settings switch on or off, when your icons
start wiggling on the Home screen (page 44), and when you send or
receive iMessage screen effects like lasers and fireworks (page 188).
Haptics are subtle but effective—but if you disagree, here’s where you
turn them off.

Siri
Here’s the master on/off switch for Siri, and the on/off switch for the
hands-free “Hey Siri” feature. Both are described in Chapter 5.
Also on this panel: a choice of languages; a choice of speaking voices
(including both male and female voices—and a choice of accents, like
American, British, or Australian); an option to have Siri’s responses read
aloud only when you’re on a headset (so you don’t disturb those around
you); and an option to choose your own Contacts card, so Siri knows, for
example, where to go when you say, “Give me directions home.”

Touch ID & Passcode
Here’s where you set up a password for your phone, or (if you have an
iPhone 5s or later) where you teach the phone to recognize your fingerprints. Full details start on page 53.

Battery
This panel offers these goodies:
• Low Power Mode. See page 39.
• Battery Percentage. Instead of just a “filling-up-battery” fuel-gauge
icon at the top of your screen, how would you like a digital percentage readout, too (“75%”)?

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• Battery Usage. Here’s the readout for all your apps, showing their
battery appetite over the past day or week; see page 594.
TIP: Tap R to see exactly how much time you wasted using that app
over the given time period—either the past 24 hours or past 7 days.

• Usage, Standby. These stats show you how many hours and minutes
of life you’ve gotten from your current battery charge. (Usage = you
using the phone. Standby = phone asleep.)

Privacy
By “privacy,” Apple means “the ability of apps and Apple to access your
data.”
Many an app works better, or claims to, when it has access to your
address book, calendar, photos, and so on. Generally, when you run such
an app for the first time, it explicitly asks you for permission to access
each kind of data. But here, on this panel, you have a central dashboard—
and on/off switches—for each data type and the apps that want it.

Location Services
Suppose, for example, that you tap Location Services. At the top of the
next screen, you’ll find the master on/off switch for all Location Services.
If you turn it off, then the iPhone can no longer determine where you

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are on a map, geotag your photos, find the closest ATM, tell your friends
where you’re hanging out, and so on. Below this master switch, you’ll find
these options:
• Share My Location. Apple has designed plenty of ways for you to
broadcast your phone’s location—and, by extension, your own. For
example, Find My Friends, Messages, and Family Sharing all have features that let certain other people see (with your permission) where
you are right now.
Here’s the on/off switch for the whole feature. If it’s off, nobody can
find you right now. If Share My Location is on, then you can tap From
to see every iPhone you’ve ever owned, so that you can specify which
one should be transmitting its location (the one you’re carrying now).
The Family section lists any members of your family with whom
you’re sharing your location; similarly, the Friends list identifies anyone else who has permission to track you. These are handy reminders—and you can tap a name to reveal its Stop Sharing My Location
button.
• App Store, Calendar, Camera…. This screen goes on to list every single app that uses your location information, and it lets you turn off
this feature on a by-app basis. You might want to do that for privacy’s
sake—or you might want to do that to save battery power, since the
location searches sap away a little juice every time.
Tap an app’s name to see when it wants access to your location. You
might see Always, Never, or While Using the App (the app can’t use
your location when it’s in the background). On the same screen, you
may see a description of why the app thinks it needs your location.
Why does the Calendar need it, for example? “To estimate travel times
to events.”
The little ˜ icon indicates which apps have actually used your location data. If it’s gray, that app has checked your location in the past 24
hours; if it’s purple, it’s locating you right now; if it’s hollow, that app
is using a geofence—it’s waiting for you to enter or leave a certain
location, like home or work. The Reminders app uses the geofencing
feature, for example.
• System Services. Here are the on/off switches for the iPhone’s own
features that use your location.
For example, there’s Cell Network Search (lets your phone tap into
Apple’s database of cellular frequencies by location, which speeds
up connections); Compass Calibration (lets the Compass app know
where you are, so that it can accurately tell you which way is north);

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Location-Based Apple Ads (advertisements that Apple slaps at the
bottom of certain apps—or, rather, their ability to self-customize
based on your current location); Setting Time Zone (permits the
iPhone to set its own clock when you arrive in a new time zone); and
so on.
Under the Product Improvement heading, you also get Diagnostics
and Usage (sends location information back to Apple, along with
diagnostic information so that, for example, Apple can see where calls
are being dropped); Popular Near Me (the section of the App Store
that lists apps downloaded by people around your current spot);
Routing & Traffic (sends anonymous speed/location data from your
phone, which is how Maps knows where there are traffic tie-ups); and
Improve Maps (sends Apple details of your driving, so it can improve
its Maps database).

Contacts, Calendars, Reminders…
This list (on the main Privacy screen) identifies the kinds of data that
your apps might wish to access; we’re going way beyond location here.
For example, your apps might want to access your address book or your
calendar.
Tap a category—Contacts, for example—to see a list of the apps that are
merrily tapping into its data. And to see the on/off switch, which you can
use to block that app’s access.

Twitter, Facebook
Similarly, new apps you download may sometimes want access to your
Facebook and Twitter accounts. Lots of apps, for example, harness your
Facebook account for the purpose of logging in or finding friends to play
games with. Tap Twitter or Facebook to see which apps are using your
account information.

Diagnostics & Usage
Do you give Apple permission to collect information about how you’re
using your phone and how well the phone is behaving each day? On this
screen, you can choose Don’t Send or Automatically Send. If you tap
Diagnostic & Usage Data, then you can see the actual data the phone
intends to send. (Hint: It’s programmery gibberish.)
Share With App Developers gives the phone permission to send non-
Apple app writers the details of any crashes you experience while using
their apps, so that, presumably, they can get busy analyzing and fixing
the bugs. Improve Activity and Improve Wheelchair Mode share your
activity and (if you have an Apple Watch) wheelchair-motion data with

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Apple, for similar reasons. Deciding whether to share this data all boils
down to where you land on the great paranoia-to-generosity scale.

Advertising
The final Privacy option gives you a Limit Ad Tracking switch. Turning it
on won’t affect how many ads you see within your apps—but it will prevent advertisers from delivering ads based on your interests. You’ll just
get generic ads.
There’s a Reset Advertising Identifier button here, too. You may not
realize that, behind the scenes, you have an Ad Identifier number. It’s
“a non-permanent, non-personal device identifier” that advertisers can
associate with you and your habits—the things you buy, the apps you
use, and so on. That way, advertisers can insert ads into your apps that
pertain to your interests—without ever knowing your name.
But suppose you’ve been getting a lot of ads that seem to mischaracterize your interests. Maybe you’re a shepherd, and you keep seeing ads for
hyperviolent games. Or maybe you’re a nun, and you keep getting ads
for marital aids.
In those cases, you might want to reset your Ad ID with this button, thus
starting from scratch as a brand-new person about whom the advertisers
know nothing.

iCloud
Here’s where you enter your iCloud name and password—and where you
find the on/off switches for the various kinds of data synchronization that
iCloud can perform for you. Chapter 16 tells all.

iTunes & App Store
If you’ve indulged in a few downloads (or a few hundred) from the App
Store or iTunes music store, then you may well find some settings of use
here. For example, when you tap your Apple ID at the top of the panel,
you get these buttons:
• View Apple ID. This takes you to the web, where you can look over
your Apple account information, including credit card details.
• Sign Out. Tap when, for example, a friend wants to use her own
iTunes account to buy something on your iPhone. As a gift, maybe.

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• iForgot. If you’ve forgotten your Apple ID password, tap here. You’ll
be offered a couple of different ways of establishing your identity—
and you’ll be given the chance to make up a new password.

Automatic Downloads
If you have an iCloud account, then a very convenient option is available
to you: automatic downloads of music, apps, and ebooks you’ve bought
on other iOS gadgets. For example, if you buy a new album on your iPad,
then turning on Music here means that your iPhone will download the
same album automatically next time it’s in a Wi‑Fi hotspot.
Updates means that if you accept an updated version of an app on one
of your other Apple gadgets, it will be auto-updated on this phone, too.
Those downloads are, however, big. They can eat up your cellphone’s
monthly data allotment right quick and send you deep into Surcharge
Land. That’s why the iPhone does that automatic downloading only
when you’re in a Wi‑Fi hotspot—unless you turn on Use Cellular Data.
Hope you know what you’re doing.

Wallet & Apple Pay
This panel, available on the iPhone 6 and later, sets all the preferences for
Apple Pay (page 536). You see any credit cards you’ve enrolled, plus
Add Credit or Debit Card to enroll another.
Double-Click Home Button is the on/off switch for one of the ways to use
Apple Pay—the method by which you can prepare the phone for payment before approaching the wireless cashier terminal, as described on
page 537.
Allow Payments on Mac is the on/off switch for the option to use your
iPhone’s fingerprint reader to approve purchases you make on the web
using your Mac (an option on sites that offer Apple Pay online). Finally,
Transaction Defaults sets up the card, address, email account, and phone
number you prefer to use when buying stuff online.

Mail
Here you set up your email account information, specify how often you
want the iPhone to check for new messages, how you want your Mail app
to look, and more. (Yes, in iOS 10, Apple finally broke up the unwieldy
Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings page into three separate ones.)

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Accounts
Your email accounts are listed here; this is also where you set up new
ones. Page 475 covers most of the options here, but one important
item is worth noting: Fetch New Data.
The beauty of “push” email is that new email appears on your phone
immediately after it was sent. You get push email if you have, for example, a Yahoo Mail account, iCloud account (Chapter 16), or Microsoft
Exchange account (Chapter 18).
Having an iPhone that’s updated with these critical life details in real time
is amazingly useful, but there are several reasons why you might want
to turn off the Push feature. You’ll save battery power, save money when
you’re traveling abroad (where every “roaming” Internet use can run up
your cellular bill), and avoid the constant “new mail” jingle when you’re
trying to concentrate.

And what if you don’t have a push email service, or if you turn it off? In
that case, your iPhone can still do a pretty decent job of keeping you up
to date. It can check your email every 15 minutes, every half-hour, every
hour, or only on command (Manually). That’s the decision you make in

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the Fetch New Data panel. (Keep in mind that more frequent checking
means shorter battery life.)
TIP: The iPhone always checks email each time you open the Mail app,
regardless of your setting here. If you have a push service like iCloud
or Exchange, it also checks for changes to your schedule or address
book each time you open Calendar or Contacts—again, no matter
what your setting here.

• Preview. It’s cool that the iPhone shows you the first few lines of text
in every message. Here you can specify how many lines. More lines
mean you can skim your inbound messages without having to open
many of them; fewer lines mean more messages fit without scrolling.
• Show To/Cc Label. If you turn this option on, then a tiny, light-gray
logo appears next to many of the messages in your inbox. The j
logo indicates that this message was addressed directly to you; the
k logo means you were merely “copied” on a message primarily
intended for someone else.
If there’s no logo at all, then the message is in some other category.
Maybe it came from a mailing list, or it’s an email blast (a Bcc), or the
message is from you, or it’s a bounced message.
• Swipe Options. Which colorful insta-tap buttons would you like to
appear when you swipe across a message in a list? See page 488
for details.
• Flag Style. You can flag messages to draw your own attention to
them, either with the old-style flag icon—or, for visual spark, with an
orange dot. Here’s where you choose.
• Ask Before Deleting. Ordinarily, you can delete an open message
quickly and easily, just by tapping the T icon. But if you’d prefer to
encounter an additional confirmation step before the message disappears, then turn this option on.
NOTE: The confirmation box appears only when you’re deleting an open
message—not when you delete a message from the inbox list.

• Load Remote Images. Spammers, the vile undercrust of lowlife society, have a trick. When they send you email that includes a picture,
they don’t actually paste the picture into the message. Instead, they
include a “bug”—a piece of code that instructs your email program to
fetch the missing graphic from the Internet. Why? Because that gives
the spammer the ability to track who has actually opened the junk

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mail, making those email addresses much more valuable for reselling
to other spammers.
If you turn this option off, then the iPhone does not fetch “bug” image
files at all. You’re not flagged as a sucker by the spammers. You’ll see
empty squares in the email where the images ought to be. (Graphics
sent by normal people and legitimate companies are generally pasted
right into the email, so they’ll still show up just fine.)
• Organize by Thread. This is the on/off switch for the feature that
clumps related back-and-forths into individual items in your Mail
inbox.
• Most Recent Message on Top. In iOS 10, the messages in a conversation appear chronologically, oldest at the top. That’s a switch from
previous versions, where the newest message would appear at the
top—but Apple thinks it makes more sense the new way. (The latest
message still appears when you click the thread’s name.) If you prefer
the old way, then turn off this setting.
• Complete Threads. What if, during a particular back-and-forth, you’ve
filed away certain messages into other folders? Should they still show
up in a conversation thread? They will, if this switch is on. (The moved
messages are actually sitting in those other folders; they just appear
here for your convenience.) Now your conversations seamlessly combine related messages from all mailboxes.
• Always Bcc Myself. If this option is on, then you’ll get a secret copy
of any message you send. Some people use this feature to make sure
their computers have records of replies sent from the phone.
• Mark Addresses. See the Tip on page 536.
• Increase Quote Level. Each time you reply to a reply, it gets indented
more, so you and your correspondents can easily distinguish one
reply from the next.
• Signature. A signature is a bit of text that gets stamped at the bottom of your outgoing messages. Here’s where you can change yours.
• Default Account. Your iPhone can manage an unlimited number of
email accounts. Here you can tap the account you want to be your
default—the one that’s used when you create a new message from
another program, like a Safari link, or when you’re on the All Inboxes
screen of Mail.

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Contacts
Contacts gets its own little set of options in Settings:
• Sort Order, Display Order. How do you want the names in your
Contacts list sorted—by first name or by last name?
Note that you can have them sorted one way but displayed another
way. Also note that not all the combinations make sense.
• Short Name. When this switch is on, the Mail app may fit more email
addressees’ names into its narrow To box by shortening them. It may
display “M. Mouse,” for example, or “Mickey,” or even “M.M.”—whatever
you select here.
• Prefer Nicknames is similar. It instructs Mail to display the nicknames
for your friends (as determined in Contacts) instead of their real
names.
• My Info. Tap here to tell the phone which card in Contacts represents
you. Knowing who you are is useful to the phone in a number of
places—for example, it’s how Siri knows what you mean when you say,
“Give me directions home.”
• Default Account. Here again, the iPhone can manage multiple address
books—from iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, and so on. Tap the account you
want new contacts to fall into, if you haven’t specified one in advance.
(This item doesn’t appear unless you have multiple accounts.)
• Contacts Found in Apps. The iPhone does some intelligent inspection of your email. It notices when you email the same group often, or
when you use the same subject line often, and proposes filling in all
the recipients’ addresses automatically the next time (page 499). It
also examines your email in hopes of finding a matching phone number, so that Caller ID works better.
Of course, no person is looking through your email—but if these features give you the privacy heebie-jeebies, you can turn them off here.
• Import SIM Contacts. If you came to the iPhone from another, lesser
GSM phone, then your phone book may be stored on its little SIM
card instead of in the phone itself. In that case, you don’t have to
retype all those names and numbers to bring them into your iPhone.
This button can do the job for you. (The results may not be pretty.
For example, some phones store all address book data in CAPITAL
LETTERS.)

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Calendar
Your iPhone’s calendar can be updated by remote control, wirelessly,
through the air, either by your company (via Exchange, Chapter 18) or by
somebody at home using your computer (via iCloud, Chapter 16).
• Time Zone Override. Whenever you arrive in a new city, the iPhone
actually learns (from the local cell towers) what time zone it’s in and
changes its own clock automatically.
So here’s a mind-teaser. Suppose there’s a big meeting in California at
2 p.m. tomorrow—but you’re in New York right now. How should that
event appear on your calendar? Should it appear as 2 p.m. (that is, its
local time)? Or should it appear as 5 (your East Coast time)?
It’s not an idle question, because it also affects reminders and alarms.
Out of the box, Time Zone Override is turned off. The phone slides
appointments around on your calendar as you travel to different time
zones. If you’re in California, that 2 p.m. meeting appears at 2 p.m.
When you return to New York, it says 5 p.m. Handy—but dangerous if
you forget what you’ve done.
If you turn on the Override, though, the iPhone leaves all your appointments at the hours you record them—in the time zone you specify with the pop-up menu here. This option is great if you like to record
events at the times you’ll be experiencing them; they’ll never slosh
around as you travel. If you, a New Yorker, will travel to San Francisco
next week for a 2 p.m. meeting, write it down as 2 p.m.; it will still say
2 p.m. when you land there.
• Alternate Calendars. If you prefer to use the Chinese, Hebrew, or
Islamic calendar system, go nuts here.
• Week Numbers. This option makes Calendar display a little gray
notation that identifies which week you’re in (out of the 52 this year).
It might say, for example, “W42.” Because, you know, some people
aren’t aware enough of time racing by.
• Show Invitee Declines. You can invite someone to a meeting, as
described on page 362. If they click Decline (they can’t make it),
maybe you don’t need your phone to alert you. In that case, turn this
switch off.
• Sync. If you’re like most people, you refer to your calendar more often
to see what events are coming up than to see the ones you’ve already
lived through. Ordinarily, therefore, the iPhone saves you some syncing time and storage space by updating only relatively recent events
on your iPhone calendar. It doesn’t bother with events that are older
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than 2 weeks, or 6 months, or whatever you choose here. (Or you can
turn on All Events if you want your entire life, past and future, synced
each time—storage and wait time be damned.)
• Default Alert Times. This is where you tell the iPhone how much
warning you need in advance of birthdays and events you’ve put on
your calendar. Tailor it to your level of absent-mindedness.
• Start Week On. This option specifies which day of the week appears
at the left edge of the screen in the calendar’s Day and Month views.
For most people, that’s Sunday, or maybe Monday—but for all iOS
cares, your week could start on a Thursday.
• Default Calendar. This option lets you answer the question: “When
I add a new appointment to my calendar on the iPhone, which
calendar (category) should it belong to?” You can choose Home,
Work, Kids, or whatever category you use most often.
• Location Suggestions. You may have noticed that if you enter the
location for a calendar appointment (page 360), iOS 10 now proposes a list of full street addresses that match what you’re typing.
That’s to save you data entry, and also to calculate travel times. Here’s
the on/off switch.
• Events Found in Apps. As described on page 494, the iPhone
mines your email for proposed calendar events. You can turn off that
helpful feature here—if you’re weird.

Notes
Notes can sync with various online services: iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, and
so on. Tap Accounts here to specify which ones should show up in the
Notes app; tap Default Account to indicate which account you use
mainly—the one that should contain any new note.
And now that Notes comes with ready-to-use type styles like Title,
Heading, and Body, you can also use the New Notes Start With option
here to choose which of those is the first line when you create a new
note. If you usually start with a title for your note “card,” then choose
Title, for example.
Password is the command center for the new locked notes feature
(page 407). You can change your password here, or create an additional one—or allow your fingerprint to unlock your locked notes.
You can take photos right from within Notes. If you turn on Save Media
to Photos, then you’ll also get a copy of those shots in your Photos app,
just as though you’d taken them with the Camera app.

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Finally: Most people use Notes with online accounts like iCloud, Gmail,
Yahoo, and so on, so that their notes are always backed up and synced to
their computers. But if you turn on On My iPhone here, then you’ll have
another option: Creating notes that live only on your phone, and aren’t
transmitted, synced, or backed up. Handy if you have deeply personal
information, or you just don’t trust those online services.

Reminders
Hey, it’s the preference settings for the Reminders app!
• Accounts. The app can show you to-do lists from iCloud, Yahoo,
Exchange, Gmail, and so on. Which of those accounts do you want to
see?
• Sync. How far back to you want Reminders to look when showing
you reminders? At All of them? Or only those up to 6 months old?
(Or 3 Months, 1 Month, or 2 Weeks?) It’s a question of storage and
lifestyle.
• Default List. Suppose you’ve created multiple Reminder lists
(Groceries, Movies to Rent, To Do, and so on). When you create a new
item—for example, by telling Siri, “Remind me to fix the sink”—which
list should it go on? Here’s where you specify.

Phone
These settings have to do with your address book, call management, and
other phone-related preferences.
• My Number. Here’s where you can see your iPhone’s own phone number. You can even edit it, if necessary (just how it appears—you’re not
actually changing your phone number).
• Announce Calls. Cool—the iPhone can speak the name or number
of whoever is calling you Here, you can turn that feature on or off,
or specify that you want it to happen only when you’re using headphones or in the car.
• Call Blocking & Identification. You can block certain people’s calls,
texts, and FaceTime video calls.
This isn’t a telemarketer-blocking feature; you can block only people
who are already in your Contacts. It’s really for blocking harassing
ex-lovers, jerky siblings you’re not speaking to, and collection agencies. Tap Block Contact to view your Contacts list, where you can

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tap to choose the blockee. (You can also see and edit this list in the
Messages and FaceTime panels of Settings.)
• Wi-Fi Calling. This glorious option lets you place great-sounding calls
even with a crummy cellular signal, as described on page 434.
• Calls on Other Devices. Here’s the on/off switch for Continuity, the
ability to make phone calls from your Mac (page 546). In iOS 10, you
can even specify which gadgets talk to your iPhone in this way.
• Respond with Text. This feature is described on page 127; here’s
where you can edit the canned “Can’t talk right now” text messages.
• Call Forwarding, Call Waiting (AT&T and T-Mobile only). Here are
the on/off switches for Call Forwarding and Call Waiting, which are
described in Chapter 4.
• Show My Caller ID (AT&T and T-Mobile only). If you don’t want your
number to show up on the screen of the person you’re calling, then
turn this off.
• Change Voicemail Password. Yep, pretty much just what it says.
• Dial Assist. When this option is turned on, and when you’re calling from another country, the iPhone automatically adds the proper
country codes when dialing numbers in your contacts. Pretty handy,
actually.
• SIM PIN. Your SIM card stores all your account information. SIM cards
are especially desirable abroad, because in most countries, you can
pop yours into any old phone and have working service. If you’re worried about yours getting stolen or lost, turn this option on. You’ll be
asked to enter a passcode.
Then, if some bad guy ever tries to put your SIM card into another
phone, he’ll be asked for the passcode. Without the passcode, the
card (and the phone) won’t make calls.
TIP: And if the evildoer guesses wrong three times—or if you do—then
the words “PIN LOCKED” appear on the screen, and the SIM card is
locked forever. You’ll have to get another one from your carrier. So
don’t forget the password.

• [Your carrier] Services. This choice opens up a cheat sheet of handy
numeric codes that, when dialed, play the voice of a robot providing
useful information about your cellphone account. For example, *225#
lets you know the latest status of your bill, *646# lets you know how
many airtime minutes you’ve used so far this month, and so on.

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TIP: The button at the bottom of the screen opens your account page
on the web, for further details on your cellphone billing and features.

Messages
These options govern text messages (SMS) and iMessages, both of which
are described in Chapter 6:
• iMessage. This is the on/off switch for iMessages. If it’s off, then your
phone never sends or receives these handy, free messages—only regular text messages.
• Show Contact Photos. Do you want to see the tiny headshots of your
conversation partners in the chat window?
• Text Message Forwarding is the text-message element of Continuity;
it’s described on page 548. You get an on/off switch for each gadget that you might want to display your phone’s text messages.
• Send Read Receipts. If this is on, then people who send you iMessages will know when you’ve seen them. They’ll see a tiny gray text
notification beneath the iMessage bubble that contains their message.
If you’re creeped out by them being able to know when you’re ignoring them, then turn this item off.
• Send as SMS. If you try to send an iMessage to somebody when
there’s no Internet service, what happens? If this item is on, then the
message goes to that person as a regular text message, using your
cell carrier’s network. If it’s off, then the message won’t go out at all.
• Send & Receive. Here you can enter additional email addresses that
people can use to send your phone iMessages.
This screen also offers a Start new conversations from item that lets
you indicate what you want to appear on the other guy’s phone when
you send a text: your phone number or email address.
• MMS Messaging. This is the on/off switch for picture and video messages (as opposed to text-only ones).
• Group Messaging, Show Subject Field, Character Count. These
options are described starting on page 198.
• Blocked. Here’s another way to build up a list of people you don’t
want to hear from, as described on page 199. .
• Keep Messages. You can specify how long you want Messages to
retain a record of your exchanges: 30 days, a year, or forever.

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• Filter Unknown Senders. This new iOS 10 feature gives you a sliver of
protection from bombardment by strangers. It prevents you from getting notifications of iMessages from anyone who’s not in Contacts. In
fact, you’ll also see two tabs in Messages—one that lists chats for people you know (and regular non-Apple text messages), and the other
labeled Unknown Senders.
• Audio Messages. You can now shoot audio utterances to other people just as easily as you can type them. Under Expire, you can set
them to autodelete after 2 minutes. Why? First, because audio files
take up space on your phone. Second, because you may consider
them spoken text messages—not recordings to preserve for future
generations. This is also where you turn on Raise to Listen.
The audio-texting feature lets you send and receive audio messages
without looking at the screen or touching it; see page 184.
• Low Quality Image Mode. New in iOS 10: this way to save a huge
amount of cellular data when sending photos. See page 200.

FaceTime
These options pertain to FaceTime, the video calling feature described
on page 137. Here, for example, is the on/off switch for the entire feature; a place to enter your Apple ID, so people can make FaceTime calls
to you; and a place to enter email addresses and a phone number, which
can also be used to reach you.
The Caller ID section lets you specify how you want to be identified
when you place a call to somebody else: either as a phone number or an
email address.
Finally, here yet again is the Blocked option—a third way to edit the list of
people you don’t want to hear from.

Maps
The expanded Maps app has an expanded set of settings:
• Preferred Transportation Type. Do you mainly drive, walk, or take
public transport? By specifying here, you save yourself a tap every
time you plot directions.
• Driving & Navigation. Here’s where you tell Maps that you want your
plotted courses to avoid Tolls or Highways; turn a Compass display
on or off on the map; specify the Navigation Voice Volume; and direct

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playback of any spoken entertainment (like podcasts or audiobooks)
to Pause whenever the Maps voice is giving you an instruction.
• Transit. Which modes of public rides do you want Maps to show you
when proposing routes? Bus, Subway, Commuter Rail, and/or Ferry?
• Distances. Measured in miles or kilometers, sir/madam?
• Map Labels. Would you like place names to appear in English—or in
their native spellings?
• Extensions. Now that Maps can incorporate other apps (see
page 402), which ones should it show you?
• Show Parked Location. You wouldn’t turn off this cool new Maps feature, would you (page 399)?
• Issue Reporting. When you report a problem with Maps’ still-buggy
database of the world, may Apple technicians get back to you by
email?

Compass
You wouldn’t think that something as simple as the Compass app would
need a Settings page, but here it is: an on/off switch called Use True
North. (True north is the “top” point of the Earth’s rotational axis. If you
turn it off, then Compass uses magnetic north, the spot traditional compasses point to; it’s about 11 degrees away from true north).

Safari
Here’s everything you ever wanted to adjust in the web browser but
didn’t know how to ask.

Search
• Search Engine. Your choice here determines who does your searching
from the search bar: Google, Bing, Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo (a limited
search service famous for its refusal to collect your data or track your
searches).
• Search Engine Suggestions. As you type into Safari’s search box, it
tries to save you time in two ways. First, it sprouts a list of common
search requests, based on what millions of other people have sought.
This list changes with each letter you type. Second, Safari may auto-

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complete the address based on what you’ve typed so far, using suggestions from your History and bookmarks list. This switch shuts
off those suggestions. (It’s here primarily for the benefit of privacy
hounds, who object to the fact that their search queries are processed
by Apple in order to show the suggestions.)
• Safari Suggestions. Safari searches (Chapter 3) can find matches
from the iTunes, iBooks, and App stores; from databases of local businesses, restaurants, and theaters; and from the web. Unless you turn
this off.
• Quick Website Search. You can search within a site (like Amazon
or Reddit or Wikipedia) using only Safari’s regular search bar, as
described on page 454. If, that is, this switch is on.
• Preload Top Hit. As you type into the search box, Safari lists websites
that match. The first one is the Top Hit—and if this switch is on, Safari
secretly downloads that page while you’re still finishing your search.
That way, if the Top Hit is the page you wanted, it appears almost
instantly when you tap.
But here’s the thing: Safari downloads the Top Hit with every search—
which uses up data. Which could cost you money.

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General
• Passwords, AutoFill. Safari’s AutoFill feature saves you tedious typing by filling in your passwords, name, address, and phone numbers
on web forms automatically (just for the sites you want). It can even
store your credit card information, which makes buying things online
much easier and quicker.
The AutoFill screen lists the different kinds of data that Safari can
autofill for you: your contact info, website account names, and passwords. (Open the Passwords page to see the complete list of the
passwords it’s memorized; tap Edit to delete certain ones.) You can
also see your credit cards. (Tap Saved Credit Cards to see or delete
the memorized cards.)
• Frequently Visited Sites. As you know from page 450, when you
have nothing open in Safari, it likes to offer a page full of icons representing sites you visit often. Turn off this switch if your privacy concerns outweigh the convenience of this feature.
• Favorites. As described on page 450, your Favorites in Safari are
just ordinary bookmarks in an extraordinary folder. Here you can
choose a different folder as the home of your Favorites.
• Open Links. When you tap a link with your finger, should the new
page open in front of the current page—or behind it? Answer here.
• Show Tab Bar. A row of tab buttons appears in landscape orientation
(Plus models only).
• Block Pop-ups. In general, you want this turned on. You really don’t
want pop-up ad windows ruining your surfing session. Now and again,
though, pop-up windows are actually useful. When you’re buying concert tickets, for example, a pop-up window might show the location
of the seats. In that situation, you can turn this option off.

Privacy & Security
• Do Not Track. If you turn this on, then websites agree not to secretly
track your activity on the web. The problem is, of course, that this
program is voluntary—and the sleazy operators just ignore it.
• Block Cookies. You can learn all about cookies—and these options to
tame them—on page 470.
• Fraudulent Website Warning. This option makes Safari warn you
when you try to visit what it knows to be a phishing site. (Phishing is a
common Internet scam. The bad guy builds a fake version of Amazon,

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PayPal, or a bank’s website—and tries to trick you into “logging in.”
You therefore unwittingly give up your name and password.)
• Check for Apple Pay. Some websites let you buy stuff with a quick
touch of your fingerprint (Apple Pay)—but only if you let them offer
you those controls by leaving this on.
• Clear History and Website data. Like any web browser, Safari keeps
a list of websites you’ve visited recently to make it easier for you to
visit them again: the History list. And like any browser, Safari therefore exposes your activities to any suspicious spouse or crackpot colleague. If you’re nervous about that prospect, then tap Clear History
to erase your tracks. This feature deletes all the cookies that websites
have deposited on your “hard drive.”
• Use Cellular Data. The Reading List feature (page 459) is wonderful. But because it downloads entire web pages to your phone—and
then syncs them to all your other Apple gadgets—it uses a lot of data.
If you fear going over your cellphone plan’s monthly data allotment,
then turn this off. You’ll be allowed to save sites to your Reading List
only when in a Wi‑Fi hotspot.
• Advanced. Safari recognizes HTML5, a web technology that lets websites store data on your phone, for accessing even when you’re not
online (like your Gmail stash). In Website Data, you can see which
web apps have created these databases on your phone and delete
them if necessary.
JavaScript is a programming language whose bits of code frequently
liven up web pages. If you suspect some bit of code is choking Safari,
though, you can turn off its ability to decode JavaScript here.
The Web Inspector is for website programmers. You connect your
phone to a Mac with a USB cable; then, in Safari on the computer, you
choose DebugÆiPhoneÆ[the name of the website currently on the
iPhone’s screen]. You’ll be able to examine errors, warnings, tips, and
logs for HTML, JavaScript, and CSS—great when you’re designing and
debugging web pages or web apps for the iPhone.

News
Page 402 describes the News app. Here’s where you indicate whether
it’s allowed to tailor your news to your Location, whether it can bug you
with Notifications about news stories, whether it’s allowed to fetch news
in the Background (at some cost to battery life), and whether it can fetch
new news over the Cellular Data network (at some cost to your data
allowance).

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And you can turn off the Story Previews (where the first couple of lines
of each news story appear right in the app).

Music
What you see here depends on whether you’ve subscribed to the
$10-a-month Apple Music service (Chapter 8).
• Show Apple Music. When this is off, the new tabs (For You and New)
disappear from the Music app. Which makes sense if you’re not a subscriber, since they’re doing you no good.
• Genius. This control doesn’t actually do anything, since as of iOS 10.2,
the old Genius song-suggestion feature no longer exists. Oopsie!
• iCloud Music Library (which appears only if you use Apple Music) is
described on page 235.
• Show Star Ratings. Turn this on if you’d like to rate the songs in your
music collection from one to five stars. Note that this option doesn’t
appear until you’ve rated at least one song, either by clicking in iTunes
(on your computer) or by telling Siri, “Rate this song five stars” (for
example) while one of your songs is playing.
• Cellular Data lets you guard against having your streaming music eat
up your monthly cellular data allowance. If it’s off, then you can download and play back music only over Wi‑Fi.
• Downloaded Music lets you see how much of your storage space is
devoted to songs you’ve acquired.
• Optimize Storage shows up only if you’re an Apple Music subscriber
and you’ve turned on iCloud Music Library. As you download more
songs from Apple Music, if your phone becomes full, this feature
deletes the downloaded songs that you’ve played the least. (The
Minimum Storage indicates how much music you get to keep before
the autodeleting begins.) Of course, you’re always welcome to listen
to them over the Internet, or download them again.
• EQ, Volume Limit, Sound Check. See page 249.
• Home Sharing. Conveniently enough, you can access your iTunes
music collection, upstairs on your computer, right from your iPhone,
over your home Wi‑Fi network. Or at least you can if both machines
are signed into the same Apple ID. Here’s where you enter the Apple
ID that matches your iTunes setup.

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TV
This is what you can adjust for the new TV app:
• Use Cellular Data for Playback. A safeguard against eating up your
cellular data with videos. Leave off to stream videos only over Wi-Fi.
• Playback Quality. When you’re watching videos over Wi-Fi, do you
want the best possible picture, even if that uses up more data? (Yes,
some people also have to worry about how much Wi-Fi data they use
every month.) You get the same choices for cellular data.
• Purchases and Rentals. When you’re on the road and want to
buy or rent a video from Apple, do you want it in High Definition
or Standard? (High Definition looks better but takes forever to
download.)
• Home Sharing. You can also access your video collection in iTunes on
your computer, as described a few paragraphs ago. Same deal here.

Photos & Camera
Here’s a motley collection of photo-related settings:
• iCloud Photo Library. See page 323.
• Optimize iPhone Storage, Download and Keep Originals. See
page 323.
• Upload to My Photo Stream. Every picture you take will be sent to all
your Apple gadgets (see page 316).
• Upload Burst Photos. Recent iPhones can snap 10 photos a second
when you hold your finger down on the shutter button. That’s a lot of
photos, which can fill up your iCloud storage fast. So Apple gives you
the option to exclude them from the uploads.
• iCloud Photo Sharing is covered on page 318.
• Summarize Photos. In the Photos app, the Years and Collections
screens generally display one tiny thumbnail for every single photo.
This feature makes those displays more manageable by displaying
fewer, but representative, thumbnails. (You won’t see any difference
unless you have a pretty huge collection of photos.)
• Show Holiday Events. You know the new Memories feature
(page 299)? It can create auto-slideshows based on the holidays

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in your country, if you want. If you’d just as soon not be reminded of
these stressful times, then turn this off.
• Preserve Settings. New in iOS 10: The Camera app can remember the last mode you selected when you last used it—Video, Photo,
Panorama, or whatever—instead of always starting with Photo.
It can also remember the last Photo Filter you used (page 275) and
whether or not you had Live Photo turned on (page 276).
• Grid turns the “Rule of Thirds” grid (the tic-tac-toe lines) on or off on
the camera’s viewfinder screen.
• Record Video. This option, exclusive to the iPhone 6 and later, controls the frame rate and quality of the video you shoot. The first
number in each option (like 720p, 1080p, or 4K) controls the resolution of the video (how many pixels make up each frame—and how
correspondingly huge the video files are). The second, fps, controls
the frames per second. Normal TV video is about 30 fps, so choosing
60 fps creates bigger files but smoother playback.
A weird additional option appears here if you have an iPhone 7 Plus:
Lock Camera Lens. The 7 Plus, of course, has two lenses (page 269).
Under certain lighting conditions, if you zoom while recording video,
a little video hiccup results as the phone switches from one lens to
the other. If you turn on this option, then you’ll get no such glitch,
because the phone will use only one lens the whole time. (You can still
zoom—but it’s a digital, fake zoom, and the image will slightly degrade as you do so.)
• Portrait Mode: Keep Normal Photo. See page 279 for this iPhone 7
Plus option.
• HDR: Keep Normal Photo See the Tip on page 272.

iBooks
Why, it’s every setting imaginable that pertains to the iBooks ebook reading app. They’re all described starting on page 387.

Podcasts
These settings affect the Podcasts app described on page 411. They
govern how often the app auto-downloads new episodes, and how
many; whether it can do so using cellular data (or only Wi‑Fi); and
whether you want the app to autodelete podcasts you’ve already heard.

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Game Center
For millions of people, the iPhone isn’t a phone—it’s a mobile game console. In fact, until iOS 10 came along, there was even an app called Game
Center. It was a way to compare scores with friends and challenge buddies to games. In iOS 10, the Game Center app is gone; now you’re supposed to invite players and see your place on leaderboards right inside
each individual game app.
There’s still this Game Center page in Settings, though. Once you’ve
logged into it with your Apple ID, you can allow Nearby Players to invite
you to multiplayer games wirelessly, and you can create or edit your
Game Center Profile (your player name). And when you get good and
fed up, you can Remove all Game Center Friends—the nuclear option.

Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Vimeo
These pages let you enter your name and password just once, in this one
place, for each of these popular web services—so that the iPhone and its
apps can freely access those accounts without having to bother you.

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Each of these panels also offers an Install button (previous page, left),
making it quick and easy to download the official Twitter, Facebook,
Flickr, and Vimeo apps.
The Twitter and Facebook options offer some additional choices:
• Twitter. The Update Contacts button adds your friends’ Twitter
account names to their cards in Contacts, saving you that tedious
data entry.
• Facebook. Tapping Settings summons some options that, by now,
should be familiar: You can give it permission to know your location
when you post to Facebook; you can tell the phone how to alert you
when new Facebook posts arrive (Notifications); you can limit the
app’s updating itself in the background; and you can prevent it from
using Cellular Data. You can also limit Facebook video recordings to
standard definition, to avoid massive data charges.
The Allow These Apps items let you control which built-in apps can
access your Facebook account; for example, turn off Calendar if you
don’t want to see your Facebook friends’ birthdays on your calendar.
Finally, Update All Contacts is the powerful button that adds photos
and Facebook account names to the corresponding friends’ cards in
your Contacts app, as described on page 114.

TV Provider
As noted on page 254, the new TV app is designed to let you watch
all the shows you’re paying your cable or satellite company for—on your
phone. At the outset, alas, very few major cable companies are playing
ball with Apple. You can sign in here if you have an account from DirecTV,
Dish, or a few obscure cable companies. But if you have, say, Comcast,
Time Warner, or another big one, you’re probably out of luck.

App Preferences
At the bottom of the Settings screen, you see a list of apps that have
installed settings screens of their own (previous page, right). For example, here’s where you can edit your screen name and password for the
AIM chat program, change how many days’ worth of news you want the
NY Times Reader to display, and so on. Each one offers an assortment of
changeable preference options.
It can get to be a very long list.

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5
PART FIVE

Appendixes
Appendix A
Signup & Setup
Appendix B
Troubleshooting & Maintenance

Signup & Setup

ou gotta admit it: Opening up a new iPhone brings a certain
excitement. There’s a prospect of possibility, of new beginnings. Even if you intend to protect your iPhone with a case,
there are those first few minutes when it’s shiny, spotless, free of fingerprints or nicks—a gorgeous thing.
This chapter is all about getting started, whether that means buying and
setting up a new iPhone, or upgrading an older model to the new iOS 10
software that’s described in this book.

Buying a New iPhone
Each year’s new iPhone model is faster, has a better camera and screen,
and comes packed with more features than the previous one. Still, “new
iPhone” doesn’t have to mean the iPhone 7 ($650, either up front or
spread out over 2 years) or 7 Plus ($770). You can still get an iPhone 6
for $550, or the SE for $400. (Thank heaven, the U.S. carriers no longer
obscure the true price of the phone in 2-year contracts.) And, of course,
you can get older models dirt cheap, used.
In any case, once you’ve chosen the model you want, you also have to
choose which cellphone company you want to provide its service: AT&T,
Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint. Each has something to offer.
Verizon has the best U.S. cellular coverage, and by far the most 4G LTE
(high-speed Internet) areas. AT&T’s high-speed Internet networks are
faster than anyone else’s. T-Mobile’s plans cost the least in many ways
(free texting and Internet when you’re overseas; unlimited music and
video without using up any of your data allowance; no 2-year contract;
they’ll pay off the early-termination fee if you switch from a rival carrier),
but its phone network is the second smallest.
Research the coverage where you live and work. Each company’s website
shows a map of its coverage.
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You can buy your iPhone from a phone store (Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile,
AT&T), an Apple Store, from a retail store (RadioShack, Walmart, and so
on), or from the Apple website. You can buy the phone outright, or you
can opt to have the price spread out in monthly payments. Or you can
lease it.
All right then: Here you are in the store, or sitting down to do some
ordering online. Here are some of the decisions you’ll have to make:
• Transferring your old number. You can bring your old cellphone or
home number to your new iPhone. Your friends can keep dialing your
old number—but your iPhone will ring instead of the old phone.
It usually takes under an hour for a cellphone-number transfer to take
place. During that time, you can make calls on the iPhone, but you
can’t receive them.
NOTE: Transferring a landline number to your iPhone can take several
days.

• Select your monthly calling plans. Signing up for cellphone service
involves more red tape than a government contract. In essence, you
have to choose three plans: one for voice calls, one for Internet service, and one for text messages. The variations are complicated, but
a quick web search (“iPhone 7 plans compared”) can help you make
sense of them.
The plan offerings change all the time, but here are some examples:
For unlimited calling and texting, plus 4 gigabytes a month of Internet use, Verizon charges $70 plus fees, AT&T charges $80. T-Mobile
and Sprint offer unlimited talk, text, and data (for $70 and $65,
respectively).
Of course, the problem with fixed data allotments is this: Who has any
idea what 2 gigabytes of data is? How much of that do you eat up
with email alone? How much is one YouTube video?
As you approach your monthly limit, you’ll get warnings by text
message, but you can also see your data usage on your phone (see
page 572). Yes, it’s a pain to have to worry about data limits, but at
least monitoring them is fairly easy. If you use more than your allotted
amount, some carriers automatically bill a surcharge—for example, $15
for each additional gigabyte.
All four cell companies offer unlimited free calls to other phones from
the same company. All but the cheapest plans offer unlimited calls on
nights and weekends.
And all iPhone plans require an “activation fee” (ha!).
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TIP: The choice you make here isn’t etched in stone. You can change
your plan at any time. If you have AT&T, for example, visit
www.wireless.att.com, where you can log in with your iPhone
number and make up a password. Click My Account, and then click
Change Rate Plan to view your options.

As you budget for your plan, keep in mind that, as with any cellphone,
you’ll also be paying taxes as high as 22 percent, depending on your
state. Ouch.

Setting Up a New Phone
In the olden days, you couldn’t use a new iPhone at all without hooking
it up to a computer. Now, though, the setup takes place entirely on the
phone’s screen.
You don’t need a computer to back up your phone, because iCloud
backs it up. You don’t need a computer to store your music and video
collections, because the App Store remembers what you’ve bought and
lets you re-download it at any time. You don’t need a computer to download and install iPhone software updates, because they come straight to
the phone now. You don’t even need a computer to edit photos or to create mail folders; that’s on the phone, too.
The first time you turn on a brand-new iPhone—or an older one that
you’ve erased completely—the setup wizard appears. Swipe your finger where it says slide to set up. Now you’re asked about 15 important
questions:
• Language; Country. You won’t get very far setting up your phone if
you can’t understand the instructions. So the very first step here is to
tell it what language you speak. When you tap a language, you’re next
asked to tell the phone where in the world you live. (It proposes the
country where you bought the phone. Clever, eh?)
• Wi-Fi Networks. Tap the name of the Wi‑Fi network you want, enter
the password if required, and tap Join.
Or, if there’s no Wi‑Fi you can (or want to) hop onto right now, then
tap Use Mobile Connection.
• Location Services. The iPhone knows where you are. That’s how it can
pinpoint you on a map, tag the photos you take with their geographic
locations, find you a nearby Mexican restaurant, and so on.
Some people are creeped out by the phone’s knowing where they
are, worrying that Apple, by extension, also knows where they are. So

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here’s your chance to turn off all the iPhone’s location features. Tap
either Enable Location Services or Disable Location Services.
• Touch ID. If you have an iPhone 5s or later, you’re now invited to teach
it your fingerprint, for the purposes of unlocking it without having to
type a password. See page 53 for more on registering fingerprints.
(You can also tap Set Up Touch ID Later. When the time comes, you
can revisit this process in SettingsÆTouch ID & Passcode.)
• Passcode. Whether you opted to store a fingerprint or not, you’re
now asked to make up a six-digit passcode (password) for unlocking your phone. You’ll need it whenever the phone won’t accept
Touch ID—for example, after you’ve restarted the phone.
TIP: You don’t have to accept iOS’s proposal of a six-digit passcode. Tap
Passcode Options to reveal more choices, like Custom Alphanumeric
Code (any password you like, any length, any characters), Custom
Numeric Code (any number of digits), or 4-Digit Numeric Code (like
in the old days).

• Apps & Data. If you’ve owned an iPhone before, or if you backed
up this phone and then erased it, you don’t have to load it up with
all your apps and settings by hand. This screen offers to reload all
your stuff from your most recent backup. (See chapters 15 and 16 for
details on iPhone backups.)
Tap Restore from iCloud Backup (if your backup was on iCloud) or
Restore from iTunes Backup (if your backup was on your computer).
If you’ve never owned an iPhone before, you can choose Set Up as
New iPhone to start fresh.
There’s even an option here—sneaky, Apple!—called Move Data from
Android. You download a companion app on your old Android phone
(called Move to iOS). When you open it, the app (on Android) asks
you to enter a number code that’s offered by your iPhone at this
stage. Then the Android phone asks what kinds of data you’d like
copied to your iPhone: your Google account (email, calendar, and so
on), web bookmarks, text messages, contacts, and photos (Camera
Roll). When you hit Next, the transfer begins, wirelessly and automatically.
• Apple ID. A million features require an Apple ID—just about any transaction you make with Apple online. Buying anything from Apple, from
a song to a laptop. Using iCloud (Chapter 16). Playing games against
other people online. Making an appointment at an Apple Store.
If you already have an Apple ID, tap Sign In with Your Apple ID and
enter it here. If not, tap Create a Free Apple ID. You’ll be asked to
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Appendix A

provide your name, birthday, email address (or you can create a new
iCloud email address), a password of your choice, and answers to a
few security questions (you’ll have to get them right if you ever forget
your password). You also get to decide if you’d like the honor of receiving junk email from Apple.
Signup & Setup

615

(You can tap Skip This Step if you don’t want an Apple ID, at least for
now. You can get one later in Settings.)
• Terms and Conditions. On the screen full of legalese, tap Agree, and
then Agree.
• Apple Pay. Next up: If you have an iPhone 5s or later, you’re now
invited to store your credit cards, for the purpose of turning on Apple
Pay. The process is described on page 536.
If you don’t want to use Apple Pay, or don’t want to set it up now, hit
Next anyway, and then hit Set Up Later in Wallet.
• iCloud Keychain is a terrific feature. It stores all your web user names
and passwords—and even credit card numbers—so you don’t have to
memorize them and type them in over and over. It’s all synchronized
across all your Apple machines (iPhone, iPad, Mac, and so on).
If you take this opportunity to set it up, you’re asked what you want
to use as your iCloud Security Code. That’s yet another passcode,
which you may need someday to recover all your passwords if you
have a really lousy day and lose all your Apple gadgets. Fortunately,
the iPhone offers to use your iPhone passcode (the one you’ve already set up) as your iCloud Security Code, so you don’t have another
code to remember.
On the next screen, you’re supposed to enter a phone number—yours
or that of “someone you trust”—which Apple will use as a secondary
way to verify your identity if you have to recover your iCloud Keychain
without having any of your Apple gadgets available.
• Siri. Here’s your chance to set up Siri, the greatest phone advance in
15 years. If you want to be able to use the “Hey Siri” hands-free mode
(page 148), you’re supposed to speak a few sample sentences so
that Siri learns your voice. Tap Set Up Siri to do that now, or hit Turn
On Siri Later if you don’t want Siri at all, or want to do the setup later
(in SettingsÆSiri).
• Diagnostics. Behind the scenes, your iPhone sends records back to
Apple, including your location and what you’re doing on your iPhone.
By analyzing this data en masse, Apple can figure out where the
dead spots in the cellular network are, how to fix bugs, and so on.
The information is anonymous—it’s not associated with you. But if the
very idea seems invasive, here’s your chance to prevent this data from
being sent.
• Meet the New Home Button. On the iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, this screen
appears to introduce the clickless Home button (page 7)—and to
invite you to choose how hard its click feels (page 575).

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Appendix A

• Display Zoom. On bigger-screened phones like the iPhone 6, 6s, and
7 models, you get this choice. It asks how you want to exploit the
larger screen. If you choose Standard, you’ll see more stuff (icons,
menus, lines of text) per screenful than on smaller iPhones. If you
choose Zoomed, then you’ll see the same amount of stuff, but bigger. (The one exception: You may not get as many extra buttons on
the widescreen keyboard described on page 78.) You can always
change your mind in SettingsÆDisplay & Brightness.
• Welcome to iPhone. Your phone is set up. Tap Get Started to jump to
the Home screen.
NOTE: A new iPhone no longer asks if you want to turn on Find My
iPhone. It’s turned on automatically; see page 530. It also no
longer asks if you want to download the free iCloud Drive app
(page 351)—but you should.

Upgrading an iPhone to iOS 10
If you bought a new iPhone SE, 6s, 6s Plus, 7 or 7 Plus, great! iOS 10 (or
one of its successors, like iOS 10.2) comes on it preinstalled.
But you can also upgrade an older or used iPhone to this new software in
any of three ways:
• Upgrade it wirelessly. Upgrading means installing iOS 10 on top
of whatever is already on your iPhone. You don’t lose any data or
settings.
This is the easiest way to upgrade. You’ve probably already seen the
little red number on your Settings app icon (see page 44), and on
the word “General” inside it; the phone is trying to tell you that iOS 10
is ready to download. Tap SettingsÆGeneralÆSoftware Update to
see the iOS 10 info; tap Download and Install. (You have to be on a
Wi‑Fi network, and it’s wise to have your iPhone plugged into power.)
• Upgrade it from iTunes. If you wish, you can also perform the
upgrade using the iTunes program on your computer. This method
takes less time but, of course, requires being at your computer.
To begin, connect your iPhone and click its icon at top left (see
page 510). On the Summary tab, click Check for Update, and then
click Download and Update.
• Restore it. This is a more dramatic step, which you should choose
only if you’ve been having problems with your phone or if, for some

Signup & Setup

617

other reason, you would like to start completely fresh. This step backs
up the phone, erases it completely, installs iOS, and then copies your
stuff back onto the phone.
Connect the phone to your computer, open iTunes, and then click
Restore iPhone.
The updating or restoring process takes awhile. You’ll see the iPhone
restart. When it’s all over, the PC-free setup process described on the
previous pages begins automatically.

Software Updates
As you’re probably aware, phone software like the iPhone’s is a perpetual
work in progress. Apple constantly fixes bugs, adds features, and makes
tweaks to extend battery life and improve other services.

Updating Directly on the Phone
One day you’ll be minding your own business, and you’ll see a red numbered badge appear on the Settings app’s icon on the phone. Open
SettingsÆ GeneralÆSoftware Update to read about the new update and
install it. Note, though, that unless it’s plugged into a power source, your
phone won’t install an iOS update unless its battery is at least half full.

Install Updates from Your Computer
Maybe you’re not that adventurous and you’d prefer to install your software update the old-fashioned way.
No problem: Connect the iPhone to iTunes, wirelessly or not
(page 510). Then click the iPhone’s icon in iTunes; on the Summary
pane, tap Check for Update.

Restrictions and Parental Controls
If you’re issuing an iPhone to a child, or someone who acts like one, you’ll
be gratified to discover that iOS offers a good deal of protection. That’s
protection of your offspring’s delicate sensibilities (it can block pornography and dirty words) and protection of your bank account (it can block
purchases of music, movies, and apps without your permission).
To set this up, visit SettingsÆGeneralÆRestrictions. When you tap
Enable Restrictions, you’re asked to make up a four-digit passcode that
permits only you, the all-knowing parent, to make changes to these set-

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Appendix A

tings. (Or you, the corporate IT administrator who’s doling out iPhones to
the white-collar drones.)
Once you’ve changed the settings described on these pages, the only
way to change them again (when your kid turns 18, for example) is to
return to the Restrictions page and correctly enter the passcode. That’s
also the only way to turn off the entire Restrictions feature (tap Disable
Restrictions and correctly enter the passcode). To turn it back on, you
have to make up a passcode all over again.
Once Restrictions is turned on, you can put up data blockades in a number of different categories.

Allow
For starters, you can turn off access to iPhone features that locked-down
corporations might not want their employees—or parents might not want
their children—to use, because they’re considered either security holes,
time drains, or places to spend your money: Safari (can’t use the web at
all), Camera, FaceTime, Siri & Dictation, FaceTime, AirDrop, or CarPlay

Signup & Setup

619

(Apple’s specialized connection for certain car models, in which your
iPhone’s relevant icons appear on the car’s dashboard screen).
A second list of options lets you block access to iTunes Store, iBooks
Store, iMusic Connect, and News—and turn off the option to download
Podcasts. You can stop your kid from Installing Apps or Deleting Apps,
too. And you can turn off In-App Purchases so that your offspring won’t
be able to buy new material (game levels, book chapters, and so on)
from within an app that you’ve already bought.
Many of these restrictions work by removing icons altogether from the
iPhone’s Home screen: Safari, iTunes, and Camera, for example. When
the switch says Off, the corresponding icon has been taken off the Home
screen and can’t be found even by Spotlight searches.

Allowed Content
Here you can spare your children’s sensitive eyes and ears by blocking
inappropriate material.
Ratings are a big deal; they determine the effectiveness of the parental
controls described in this section. Since every country has its own rating
schemes (for movies, TV shows, games, song lyrics, and so on), you use
the Ratings For control to tell the iPhone which country’s rating system
you want to use.
Once that‘s done, you can use the Music, Podcasts, News, iTunes U,
Movies, TV Shows, Books, and Apps controls to specify what your kid
is allowed to watch, play, read, and listen to. For example, you can tap
Movies and then tap PG-13; any movies rated “higher,” like R or NC-17,
won’t play on the iPhone now. (And if your sneaky offspring try to buy
these naughty songs, movies, or TV shows wirelessly from the iTunes
Store, they’ll discover that the Buy button is dimmed and unavailable.)
For some categories, like Music, Podcasts & News, and Siri, you can turn
off Explicit to prevent the iPhone from playing iTunes Store songs that
contain naughty language, or speaking them.
Websites lets you shield impressionable young eyes from pornography
online. It offers these settings:
• All Websites. No protection at all.
• Limit Adult Content. Apple will apply its own judgment in blocking
dirty websites, using a blocked-site list that it has compiled.
That doesn’t mean you can’t override Apple’s wisdom, however. The
Always Allow and Never Allow controls let you add the addresses of
websites that you think should be OK (or should not be OK).

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Appendix A

• Specific Websites Only. This is a “whitelist” feature. It means that the
entire web is blocked except for the few sites listed here: safe bets
like Disney, PBS Kids, Smithsonian Institution, and so on. You can add
your own sites to this list, but the point is clear: This is the web with
training wheels.

Privacy
These switches can prohibit the unauthorized user from making changes
to the phone’s privacy settings, which are described on page 585.

Allow Changes
These items (Accounts, Cellular Data Use, Background App Refresh,
Volume Limit) are safeguards against your offspring fiddling with limits
you’ve set.

Game Center
These controls let you stop your kid from playing multiplayer games
(against strangers online), screen recording in games, or adding
game-playing friends to the center.

Cases and Accessories
The iPhone has inspired a torrent of accessories. Stylish cases, speakers,
docks, cables—the list goes on forever.
Just be sure you’re buying something that fits your phone. For example, the Lightning connector (where the charging cable connects) on the
iPhone 5 and later doesn’t fit any of the charging accessories that came
before it—at least not without the help of Apple’s $30 adapter (or the
$40 adapter that has an 8-inch cable “tail”).
Accessory companies have been busy introducing Lightning-compatible
gear. But for now, buyer beware—or buyer stock up on $30 adapters.
So what might you add to your iPhone?
• Cases. It’s the iPhone Paradox: People buy the thinnest, sleekest
smartphone in existence—and then bury it in a bulky carrying case.
There’s just something so wrong about that. On the other hand, this
thing is made of glass; the instinct to protect it is understandable.
Hundreds of cases are available. If you’re worried about droppage,
choose a silicone rubber case; it does a better job of protecting your
phone than hard plastic cases. You can also get cases with built-in
battery backups, credit card slots, and even speakers.

Signup & Setup

621

• Everything else. Speaker docks. Bluetooth speakers. Headphones
and earbuds, wired and cordless. Credit card readers. Car
cigarette-lighter adapters. Alarm clocks. Video-out cables. Stylish
styluses. Touchscreen-compatible gloves. Tripods. Panorama stands.
Kickstands. Car mounts. Activity monitors. Lenses. You Google it,
you’ll find it. The iPhone is, without a doubt, the most accessorized
phone in the world.

622

Appendix A

Troubleshooting
& Maintenance

he iPhone is a computer, and you know what that means:
Things can go wrong. This particular computer, though, is not
quite like a Mac or a PC. It runs a spin-off of the macOS operating system, but that doesn’t mean you can apply the same troubleshooting techniques.
Therefore, let this appendix be your guide when things go wrong.

First Rule: Install the Updates
There’s an old saying: “Never buy version 1.0 of anything.” In the iPhone’s
case, the saying could be: “Never buy version 10.0 of anything.”
The very first version (or major revision) of anything has bugs, glitches,
and things the programmers didn’t have time to finish the way they
would have liked. The iPhone is no exception.
The beauty of this phone, though, is that Apple can send it fixes, patches,
and even new features through software updates. One day you’ll glance
at your Home screen’s Settings icon, and—bam!—there’ll be a badge indicating that new iPhone software is available.
So the first rule of trouble-free iPhoning is to accept these updates when
they’re offered. With each new software blob, Apple removes another
few dozen tiny glitches.
And sure enough: Within the first few weeks of iOS 10’s existence, software updates 10.1 and 10.2 came down the pike. And more will come.

Six Ways to Reset the Phone
The iPhone runs actual programs, and as actual programs do, they actually crash. Sometimes, the program you’re working in simply vanishes

Troubleshooting & Maintenance

623

and you find yourself back at the Home screen. Just reopen the program
and get on with your life.
If the program you’re in just doesn’t seem to be working right—it’s frozen
or acting weird, for example—then one of these resetting techniques usually clears things right up.
NOTE: Proceed down this list in order! Start with the easy ones.

• Exit the app. On an iPhone, you’re never aware that you’re launching and exiting programs. They’re always just there, like TV channels,
when you switch to them. There’s no Quit command. But if a program
starts acting glitchy, you can make it quit.
To do that, double-press the Home button to bring up the app
switcher. Find the “card” that represents your balky app, and then flick
it upward to quit it. Try reopening it to see if the problem has gone
away.
• Turn the phone off and on again. If it seems something more serious
has gone wrong, then hold down the Sleep switch for a few seconds.
When the screen says slide to power off, confirm by swiping. The
iPhone shuts off completely.
Turn it back on by pressing the Sleep switch for a second or two.
• Force-restart the phone. If you haven’t been able to force quit the
program, and you can’t shut the phone off either, you might have to
force a restart. To do that, hold down the Home button and the Sleep
switch for 10 seconds.
NOTE: On the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, hold down the Volume Down key (on
the left edge) and the Sleep switch. (Why not the Home button,
as on earlier models? Because the Home button isn’t actually a
moving button anymore—and when your phone is crashed and
locked, it won’t do anything.)

Keep holding, even if the screen goes black or you see the “power off”
slider. Don’t release until you see the Apple logo appear, meaning that
the phone is restarting.
• Reset the settings. Relax. This procedure doesn’t erase any of
your data—only the phone’s settings. From the Home screen, tap
SettingsÆ GeneralÆResetÆReset All Settings.
• Erase the whole phone. From the Home screen, tap SettingsÆ
GeneralÆ ResetÆErase All Content and Settings. Now, this option

624

Appendix B

zaps your stuff—all of it. Music, videos, email, settings, apps, all gone,
and all overwritten with random 1’s and 0’s to make sure it’s completely unrecoverable. Clearly, you’re getting into last resorts here.
Of course, you can then sync with your backup (iTunes or iCloud) to
copy all that stuff back onto your iPhone.
• Restore the phone. If none of these steps solve the phone’s glitchiness, it might be time for the nuclear option: erasing it completely,
resetting both hardware and software back to a factory-fresh
condition.
TIP: If you’re able to sync the phone with iCloud or iTunes first, do it!
That way, you’ll have a backup of all those intangible iPhone data
bits: text messages, call logs, Recents list, and so on. iTunes will put
it all back onto the phone the first time you sync after the restore.

If you backed up to iTunes: Connect the phone to your computer, as
described in Chapter 15. In iTunes, click the iPhone icon and then, on
the Summary tab, click Restore.
The first order of business: iTunes offers to make a backup of your
iPhone (all of its phone settings, text messages, and so on) before proceeding. Accepting this invitation is an excellent idea. Click
Back Up.

Troubleshooting & Maintenance

625

If you backed up to iCloud: You can restore your phone this way only
if your iPhone is completely wiped empty. If it’s not, manually erase it
using iTunes first.
During the setup screens described on page 613, tap Restore from
iCloud Backup. You’re shown the three most recent backups; tap the
one you want. The phone goes right to work downloading your settings and account information. Then it restarts and begins to download your apps; if you’re in a hurry for one particular app, tap its icon
to make iCloud prioritize it. At any time, you can check the restore
process’s status in SettingsÆiCloudÆStorage and Backup.
When that’s all over, you can get to work downloading your music (if
you’re an Apple Music subscriber).

iPhone Doesn’t Turn On
Usually, the problem is that the battery’s dead. Just plugging it into the
USB charger or your computer doesn’t bring it to life immediately, either;
a completely dead iPhone doesn’t wake up until it’s been charging for
about 10 minutes. It pops on automatically when it has enough juice to
do so.
If you don’t think that’s the trouble, try the force-restarting trick
described earlier. And if even that doesn’t work, read on.

The Force Restore
If your phone gets stuck starting up at the Apple logo, or it just stays
black, then something more serious may have happened. Phones, like the
best of us, sometimes get confused.
The solution is the drastic, but effective, force-restore process (known to
techies as the Default Firmware Update mode).
Open iTunes on your computer. Connect the iPhone with its white USB
cable. Now hold down the Sleep switch and Home button (Sleep switch
and Volume Down key on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus) simultaneously for
10 seconds—then release only the Sleep switch.
Keep the Home button (or volume key) pressed until iTunes tells you
that an iPhone in Recovery mode has been detected; click OK. (If you
see anything but blackness on your iPhone’s screen—an Apple logo, for
example—then the process didn’t work. If the problem has not, in fact,
gone away, then you should start again.)

626

Appendix B

iTunes tells you again that you’re in Recovery mode and offers only one
button: Restore iPhone. Click that, and then confirm by clicking Restore &
Update. The process of reinstalling the latest, fresh copy of iOS begins.
TIP: Every now and then, the cycle of backing up and restoring goes
amiss. You find yourself stuck at that Restore iPhone button—but
you don’t want to wipe it empty! There’s stuff on it that hasn’t been
backed up!
In that case, download the free program called RecBoot (for Mac)
or TinyUmbrella (Mac or Windows). (You can download them from
this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.) They
have one tiny purpose in life: exiting Restore mode without erasing
your phone.

Once everything’s running fine, you can restore all your apps and settings
from the latest backup as described on page 625.

Battery Life Is Terrible
If your battery seems to drain faster after you’ve installed iOS 10, it might
be because the Photos app is busy scanning and categorizing all your
photos so that it can use its object and facial recognition.
Or maybe it’s just you using the phone more, checking out the cool new
features.
If neither of those is the problem, then consult the battery-saving tips on
page 39.

Out of Space
It happens all the time. You couldn’t imagine filling up 64, 128, or 256
gigabytes of storage, so you saved some money by buying an iPhone
with less. And now you can’t even take a video or a photo, because your
phone reports that it’s full. You’re frozen out until you have the time and
expertise to delete some less important stuff.
The biggest space hogs on your phone are video files, photo files, apps,
and music files. Heck, deleting just one downloaded movie or TV show
could solve your storage crunch instantly.
Fortunately, iOS makes it easy to see what’s eating up your space—and
to delete the fattest ones to make the most room with the least effort.

Troubleshooting & Maintenance

627

The key is to visit SettingsÆGeneralÆStorage & iCloud UsageÆManage
Storage.
The list here shows what’s using up your space, biggest first; by tapping
the ’ button, you can see the details and, in most cases, make some
deletions on the spot.

Delete Photos and Recorded Videos
This display shows how much space your Camera videos and photos
take up, but unfortunately it doesn’t let you delete them. To purge your
photos, the quickest method is to hook up to iTunes, import the photos,
and take advantage of the option to delete the freshly imported photos
from the phone (page 520).
Turning off your Photo Stream can give you back an instant gigabyte, too
(page 316).
And if solving the problem is worth a few bucks, don’t forget that you
can have Apple store all the full-size copies of your photos online, leaving
only screen-sized versions on the phone for showing off—a sure way to
ease your storage crunch. Details on page 323.

628

Appendix B

Delete “Other” Items
You know the colored graph of what’s on your phone that shows up
in iTunes (page 511)? Often, the biggest item here is the mysterious
Other category. What is that stuff? It’s caches (Internet data stored on
the phone to make repeated visits faster), backups, partial downloads,
and data from iOS’s built-in apps—all your text messages and email, for
example. Here’s how you clean them out:
• Delete the web browser cache. The phone saves web pages into its
own memory so they’ll appear faster the next time you try to visit
them. If you’ve had your iPhone awhile, those cache files can really
add up. Open SettingsÆSafari; tap Clear History and Website Data.
You may get a speed boost as a side effect.
• Delete text messages. In the Messages app, you can delete individual
texts or entire conversations (page 179); because they frequently
include photo, audio, or video files, you can reclaim a lot of space.
• Delete email attachments. Files downloaded with your email take
up a lot of space, too. The solution is to delete the email account
(SettingsÆMailÆ[account name]; scroll down and tap Delete
Account)—and then add it again.
In the process, you’ll vaporize all the attachment files and message
caches that you’ve ever downloaded and opened on your phone.
When you add the account back again, those files will still be online,
ready to download—but only when you need them. (This trick works
for most account types—just not for POP3 accounts.)
• Delete voice memos, music files, and ebooks. Audio files and iBooks
eat up a lot of space, too. Consider purging the recordings, books,
and songs you can do without (from within the Voice Memos, iBooks,
and Music apps). You can re-download them later from the App,
iTunes, or iBooks stores—no charge—whenever you like.
• Delete offline reading and saved web articles. Open Safari’s Reading
List and delete any pages you have already read or no longer need.
Do the same with saved articles in the News app.

Phone and Internet Problems
How can the phone part of the iPhone go wrong? Let us count the ways:
• Can’t make calls. First off, do you have enough cellular signal to make
a call? Check your signal-strength dots. Even if you have one or two,

Troubleshooting & Maintenance

629

flakiness is par for the course, although one bar in a 3G, 4G, or LTE
area is much better than one bar in a slower area. Try going outside,
standing near a window, or moving to a major city (kidding).
Also, make sure airplane mode isn’t turned on. Try calling somebody
else to make sure the problem isn’t with the number you’re dialing.
If nothing else works, try the resetting techniques described starting
on page 623.
• Can’t receive calls. If calls seem to go directly to voicemail and the
phone never even rings, check to make sure Do Not Disturb isn’t
turned on (page 128).
• Can’t get on the Internet. If you’re not in a Wi‑Fi hotspot (there’s no
µ at the top of the screen) and you don’t have cell service (no G,
˝, 3, 4, or 9 logo at the top of the screen), well, then, you’re in a
“No Service” area, or the phone thinks you are. (In the latter case, try
turning the phone off and then on again.)
• Can’t send text messages. Make sure, of course, that you’ve signed
up for a texting plan. Also, make sure you haven’t turned on Show
Subject Field (page 198) and forgotten to fill out the body of the
message.

Warranty and Repair
The iPhone comes with a one-year warranty and 90 days of phone tech
support. If you buy an AppleCare+ contract ($100), you’re covered for a
second year.
TIP: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon tech support is free for both years
of your contract. They handle questions about your iPhone’s phone
features.

If, during the coverage period, anything goes wrong that’s not your fault,
Apple will fix it free. In fact, AppleCare+ covers damage even if it is your
fault—if you drop the phone or something—at a rate of $30 for screen
damage and $100 for other damage, plus tax. Maximum: twice.
If you don’t have AppleCare+, the repair fee depends on the type of
phone you have but will probably set you back around $300.
You can either take the phone to an Apple Store, which is often the fastest route, or call 800-APL-CARE (800-275-2273) to arrange shipping
back to Apple. In general, you’ll get the fixed phone back in 3 business
days.

630

Appendix B

NOTE: Sync the phone before it goes in for repair. The repair process
generally erases the phone completely—Apple very often simply
hands you a new (or refurbished) iPhone instead of your original.
In fact, if you’re worried that someone at Apple might snoop
around, you might want to back up and then erase the phone
first. (Use the Restore option—page 625.)
Also, don’t forget to remove your SIM card (page 26) before
you send in your broken iPhone—and to put it back in when you
get the phone. Don’t leave it in the loaner phone. The carrier can
get you a new card if you lose your original, but it’s a hassle.

Out-of-Warranty Repairs
Once the year or two has gone by, or if you damage your iPhone in
a way that’s not covered by the warranty (backing your car over it
comes to mind), Apple charges $200 to repair an iPhone (it usually just
replaces it).

The Battery Replacement Program
Why did Apple seal the battery inside the iPhone, anyway? Everyone
knows lithium-ion batteries don’t last forever. After 300 or 400 charges,
the iPhone’s battery begins to hold less charge (perhaps 80 percent of
the original). After a certain point, the phone will need a new battery.
How come you can’t change it yourself, as on any normal cellphone?
Apple’s answer: A user-replaceable battery takes up a lot more space
inside the phone. It requires a plastic compartment that shields the guts
of the phone from you and your fingers; it requires a removable door;
and it needs springs or clips to hold the battery in place.
In any case, you can’t change the battery yourself. If the phone is out of
warranty, you must send it to Apple (or take it to an Apple Store) for an
$79 battery-replacement job. (As an eco-bonus, Apple properly disposes
of the old batteries, which consumers might not do on their own.)

What to Do About a Cracked Screen
Keeping your iPhone in a case may lower the chances of your dropping
it or scratching it—but it can’t prevent bad luck. An incredible number of
iPhone screens meet an untimely end, even with cases on.
Apple will happily replace your phone’s screen for $130 to $150, depending on the model. It’ll do it the same day if you take the phone into an
Apple Store, or you can mail it in and get a replacement in 3 to 5 days.

Troubleshooting & Maintenance

631

(If you’ve bought the AppleCare+ extended-warranty service, then a
replacement is $50 to $100, depending on the model.)
There are plenty of other companies that can repair a cracked screen,
though. The reps from iCracked.com, for example, send a technician to
you and perform the fix on the spot.
And then there’s the do-it-yourself technique. You can buy a screen-
replacement kit for about $60 online, complete with the special tools
you need to open the iPhone and do the job yourself. It requires care,
patience, and some dexterity (Google can help you find the step-bysteps), but it’s a good option if you’re technically savvy.

Where to Go from Here
At this point, the iPhone is such a phenomenon that there’s no shortage of resources for getting more help, news, and tips. Here are a few
examples:
• Apple’s official iPhone User Guide. Yes, there is an actual downloadable PDF user’s manual for iOS 10. help.apple.com/iphone/10
• Apple’s official iPhone help website. Online tips, tricks, and tutorials; troubleshooting topics; downloadable PDF help documents; and,
above all, an enormous, seething treasure trove of discussion boards.
www.apple.com/support/iphone
• Apple’s service site. All the dates, prices, and expectations for getting
your iPhone repaired. Includes details on getting a temporary replacement unit. www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/faq
• iMore blog. News, tips, tricks, all in a blog format. www.imore.com
• iLounge. Another great blog-format site. Available in an iPhone format so you can read it right on the device. www.iLounge.com
• MacRumors/iPhone. Blog-format news, accessory blurbs, help discussions; iPhone wallpaper. www.macrumors.com/iphone

632

Appendix B

Index

1xRTT networks 433–434
3G networks 24, 434
speed of 436
4G networks 434. See LTE network
speed of 436
4K video 283
30-pin connector 31
911 calls 52

A
abbreviation expanders 81–83
AC adapter 32
accented characters 80–81
accessibility 203–230
AssistiveTouch 218–221
audio typing feedback 214
bold text 215–216
color filters 213–214
dictation 88–95
double-tap timing 207
filters for color blindness 213–214
grayscale screen 213
Guided Access (kiosk mode) 226–228
hearing assistance 224–225
increasing screen contrast 217
increasing text size 215
Irlen syndrome 213–214
LED flash on ring 225
Magnifier 211–212
monaural mode 225
phonetic feedback 207
Reduce Motion feature 217
Rotor 206
routing calls to speakerphone 223
Screen Curtain 204
shortcut to features 229–230
Sticky Keys 222–223
subtitles 226
switch control 217–218

touch accommodations 221–222
TTY 224–225
typing feedback 207
typing in Braille 205
typing options 206–207
using phone with hearing aids 224
video descriptions for the blind 226
VoiceOver 204–208
white-on-black mode 213
word highlights for dyslexia 214
zooming the screen 208–211
accessories 621–622
AC adapter 32
Bluetooth 142–144
EarPods 32
Lightning connector 31
Lightning-connector compatible 621
Activation Lock 533
Add Call. See conference calling
address book. See Contacts app
address/search bar 445–446, 449–454
Quick Website Search 454
typing web addresses 449–451
advertising
iAds location privacy 587
limiting tracking 588
removing from web articles 467–469
Airbnb 196
AirDrop 348–351
between a phone and a Mac 553–554
defined 348
in Control Center 48
step by step 349–350
turning off 351
who can see you 350–351
airplane mode 42–43, 438–439
controlling by voice 150
controlling from Control Center 438
settings 569
vs. Do Not Disturb 128

Index

633

AirPlay 259–260
peer-to-peer AirPlay 260
switching among speakers 249
AirPods 29
AirPrint 346–347
alarm clock 368–370
alarm labels 369
choosing a song 369
controlling by voice 151
deleting or editing alarms 369
status bar icon 24
turning off 370
Amazon
buying with a fingerprint 56
Kindle app 379
Kindle book reader 343
searching within 454
use of cookies 470
Android phones
texting animations to 190
transferring data from 614
animations
in Messages 188–190
answering calls. See Phone app
antennas 31–32
AOL
mail accounts 475–476
syncing with Notes app 410
Apple ID
acquiring during setup 614–616
creating for a child under 13 541
forgotten 589
signing out 588
viewing account information 588
Apple Music 234–235
Beats 1 radio 234
Connect service 235
controlling by voice 159–160
free trial 234
iCloud Music Library 235
Apple Pay 536–540
fingerprint access 55–56
participating retailers 536–537
security of 539
settings 589
setting up 537–538
shopping with 538–540
using online 540
Apple TV
4K video 283
and AirPlay 260
Apple Watch app 427
apps 327–353. See also App Store
Airbnb 196
Apple Watch 427
automatic updates 341, 589

634

Index

Back button 346
Background App Refresh 576
Calculator 355–357
Calendar 357–366
Camera 261–287
Circle Pay 196
Clock 366–373
Compass 373–375
compatible with Siri 165–166
defined 327
deleting 334–337
Doodle 196
ebook readers 379
Fandango 196
finding settings 340
Find My Friends 430
Find My iPhone 530–533
folders 337–340
force quitting 345
free Apple apps 342, 429–430
free re-downloading 534–535
Health 375–377
Home 377–378
how to buy 331
iBooks 378–388
iMovie 430
in-app purchases 620
iOS 10 upgrades 10–11
iTranslate 196
iTunes Store 251–254
iTunes U 430
Kayak 196
keyboards 83–84
Keynote 430
location-tracking controls 585–587
Mail 475–505
MailShot 155
manual updates 341
Maps 388–402
Messages 173–201
Music 233–251
News 402–404
Notes 404–410
Numbers 430
opening with Siri 149–150
OpenTable 196
organizing 333–337
Pages 430
Pandora 246
photo editors 296
Photos 287–326
Podcasts 411–413
preferences settings 608
QuickTime Player 260
Reflector 260
Reminders 414–420

restricting 619–620
running in the background 345–346
Settings 567–608
Siri App Suggestions 101–102
Stocks 420–422
storage report 576
switching among 19–20
texting add-ons 195–196
third-party calendars 366
Tips 422
troubleshooting 624
turning off automatic updates 41
updates 340–341
Venmo 196
Voice Memos 423–425
Wallet 426–427
Weather 427–429
Yelp 196
App Store 327–333. See also apps
App Details page 330–332
Apple starter apps 342
auto backups 332
defined 327
file-size limit 331–332
finding good apps 341–343
for Messages 195–196
in-app purchases 620
re-downloading 332
searching 329
shopping from iPhone 328–333
shopping in iTunes 333
troubleshooting 332
app switcher 19–20, 343–345
accessing without Home button 220
Back button 346
background apps 345–346
force-quitting an app 345, 624
Handoff icon 552
summon on the 6s and later 344
arrow notation 4
aspect ratio 293
AssistiveTouch 218–221
AT&T
data network speeds 433–434
EDGE network 433–434
GSM network 26
HSPA+ network 434
LTE network 434
personal hotspot 442
using the iPhone overseas 27–28
vs. other carriers 611
attachments
deleting 629
opening 493–494
photos or videos 501
saving graphics and pictures 494

viewing in Messages 182
.zip files 494
audiobooks
iBooks read aloud 386–387
in CarPlay 575
managing in iCloud 534–535
managing in iTunes 518
Skip settings 388
audio texting 184–186
deleting messages 186
turning off 185
auto-brightness controls 579
auto-capitalization 577
autocorrect 74–75
abbreviation expanders 81–83
make it stop replacing certain words 82
turning off 577
AutoFill
passwords and credit card numbers
462–464
settings 602
automatic app updates 341

B
Back button
gesture 34, 242
in apps 346
in Safari 446–447
background apps 345–346
Backspace key 72–73
Back to My Mac 526
backups 522–524
automatic app backups 332
deleting 524
Encrypted iPhone Backup 522
iCloud-based 530
iCloud Drive 351–353
preventing a backup 512
restoring from backup 523–524
banners 64
Barnes & Noble
eReader app 379
battery
battery usage screen 43–44
brightness settings 578–580
charging 38–39
improving battery life 39–44
replacement program 631
settings 584–585
status bar icon 25
turning off automatic app updates 41
turning off Location Services 392
using airplane mode 42–43
using Bluetooth LE 144
what’s new 6

Index

635

Bcc
Always Bcc Myself option 592
defined 500
Beats 1 radio 234
bedtime controls 370
Bing 161
black-and-white photos 290–291
blindness. See vision assistance
blocking calls and texts 596–597
Bluetooth 142–144
4.0 144
address 574
AirDrop 348–351
Bluetooth LE 144
connecting a physical keyboard 86–87
controlling by voice 150
pairing 248–249
pairing a car kit 143
pairing an earpiece or speaker 142–143
pairing a watch or band 144
settings 570–571
setting up a Personal Hotspot with 441
speakers and headphones 247–249
status bar icon 25
turning off to save power 42
bold text 215–216
bookmarks
creating 455–456
defined 454
editing 456–457
favorites icons 450–451
folders 456
iCloud syncing 529
in iBooks 384
in Maps 396
in Safari 454–457
Braille keyboard 205
brightness controls 578–580
adjusting by voice 150
in iBooks 383
in Maps 399
burst mode 273–274
buttons. See also icons
Home 18–22
silencer switch 22
Sleep switch 15–18
volume keys 22

C
Calculator app 355–357
memory function 356
scientific calculator 356
Calendar app 357–366
alerts 362–363
alert time defaults 595

636

Index

alternatives to 366
color-coded categories 364–366
controlling by voice 155–156
Day view 358
editing and deleting events 363–364
Exchange syncing 561
Facebook integration 365
iCloud syncing 529
invitations 362
limiting past events 594–595
location suggestions 595
making an appointment 359–364
Month view 358
notes 363
Outlook invitations 562–563
quick actions 35
repeating events 361
searching appointments 366
setting default category 595
settings 594–595
sharing calendars in Family Sharing
544
showing week numbers 594
special views in the Plus iPhones 359
starting a week on any day 595
subscribing to online calendars 359
time zones 594
travel time settings 361–362
Up Next widget 66
Week view 358
Year view 358
caller ID 136
FaceTime settings 599
hiding yours 597
calling. See also Phone app
911 52
Blocked list 199
calling plans 612–613
dumping calls to voicemail 17
from a Mac 546–548
noise cancellation 225
overseas call settings 597
routing calls to speakerphone 223
troubleshooting 629–630
call waiting 134–135
in FaceTime 142
camcorder. See video camera
camera 25–26. See also Camera app,
video camera
features 261
LED flash 26, 267
optical zoom on the 7 Plus 269–270
screen flash 268
what’s new 6

Camera app 261–287. See also camera,
Photos app, video camera
burst mode 273–274
exposure 265–266
exposure lock 266
face detection 264
filters 275–276
flash 267–268
focus lock 266
front camera 274, 284
geotagging photos 324–326
high dynamic range feature 271–272
Live Photos 276–278
Lock Camera Lens option 606
macro mode 265
Memories feature on/off 605
opening 262
optical zoom (7 Plus only) 269–270
overview 261–263
overview of modes 262–263
panoramas 280–282
portrait mode (7 Plus only) 278–280
quick access to 49
quick actions 35
reviewing a photo 272–273
Rule of Thirds grid 270–271
screen captures 326
self-timer 275
sharing and using photos 308–316
Square mode 280
still photos 263–276
taking the shot 272–273
Time-Lapse mode 285–286
True Tone flash 267
Video mode 282–285
volume-key shutter 272
white balance 264–265
yellow box 264–265
zooming 268–269
Camera Roll. See also Photos app
saving to 317
vs. All Photos 323
capitalization
Caps Lock 72, 577
keyboard shortcuts 80
when dictating 93–95
Caps Lock
using to simplify VoiceOver commands
207
carpenter’s level 374–375
carriers
calling plans compared 612–613
choosing while overseas 571
compared 611
information 597–598

cars
car-based reminders 418
CarPlay technology 575
parked car finder 399–400
Cc
defined 500
viewing names 496
CDMA networks
antennas 32
calling features on 132–134
defined 26
SIM cards 26–28
switching to GSM while roaming 571
cellular data
cellular triangulation 392
for iBooks videos 388
managing 571–573
networks 24
on/off switches 573
signal status bar icon 23
turning off to save power 42
cellular networks 433–435
1xRTT network 433–434
3G 434
4G LTE 434
CDMA vs. GSM 26–28
EDGE network 433–434
HSPA+ 434
settings 571–573
Wi-Fi Assist 573
character preview 577
charging 38–39. See also battery
with AC adapter 39
with Lightning connector 31
with USB cable 39
children
Family Sharing 540–544
Guided Access mode 226–228
parental controls 618–621
word highlights for beginning readers
214
Circle Pay 196
Clipboard
copy between Mac and phone 554–555
Cut, Copy, and Paste 96
Clock app 366–373
alarm clock 368–370
auto-time zone on/off 587
Bedtime tab 370
controlling by voice 152
opening the timer 49
quick actions 35
settings 576
stopwatch 371–372
timer 372–373
world clock 367–368

Index

637

color blindness 213–214
colors
camera filters 275–277
choosing a markup color 192
iPhone finishes 5
legibility filters in Magnifier 212
Magnifier’s filters 212
of iBooks highlights 385
photo editing 290–292
photo markup 294
Reduce White Point 214
screen color filters 213–214
screen improvements 6
Compass app 373–375
level 374–375
orienting a map 392
settings 600
true north vs. magnetic north 373
conference calling 132–134
GSM vs. CDMA phones 132
merging calls 133–134
swapping calls 133
Contacts app 109–119
adding contacts from email 493
adding photos 113–114
adding photos from Facebook 114–115
adding someone quickly 118
assigning relatives 113
blocking calls and texts 199, 596–597
controlling by voice 152–153
defined 109
deleting someone 118
designating VIPs 484–485
editing contacts 111–119
Facebook groups 111
favorites 104–107
groups 110–111
iCloud syncing 529
import contacts from SIM 593
importing from Twitter 115
linking names 117–118
My Info 593
navigating list of contacts 109–110
personalizing fields 116–117
searching your company’s directory
560–561
settings 593–600
sharing contacts 118–119
sort order 593
using to address email 498–499
vibration patterns 115–116
Continuity 197, 545–555
AirDrop 553–554
calling from a Mac 546–548
Instant Hotspot feature 550
setting up 545–546

638

Index

texting from a Mac 548–550
universal Clipboard 554–555
contrast 217
Control Center 46–51
AirDrop 48
airplane mode 47, 438–439
audio source controls 50
Bluetooth 47–48
calculator 49
camera 49
closing 50
disabling 51
doesn’t open on first try 50
Do Not Disturb 48
gesture to open 34
LED flashlight 49
music information 50
Night Shift 49
playback controls 50
rotation lock 48
screen brightness 48
security 68
Timer 49
what’s new 8
Wi-Fi 47, 438
cookies 470
copying 95–97
copy key 79
from one email to another 500–501
photos 303, 313
text messages 182
universal clipboard 554–555
without formatting 96
corporate features 557–566
accessing SharePoint sites 564
accessing your company’s directory
560–561
calendar syncing 561
email 560
Exchange ActiveSync 557–558
invitations 562–563
mobile device management 558
Outlook Web Access (OWA) 558
perks of using 557–559
security 558
setting up Exchange ActiveSync
559–561
troubleshooting 563–564
virtual private networking 564–566
credit cards
and Apple Pay 536–540
filling in info automatically 462–464
sharing in Family Sharing 540–544
storing in Keychain 529
using the camera to enter 464
cropping photos 292–294

D
data speeds 24
date 576
deafness. See hearing assistance
deleting
all content and settings 578
apps 334–337
audio messages 599
AutoFill information in Safari 602
calendar events 363–364
cities in Weather app 428
contacts 118
email 491–492
person from Family Sharing 543
favorites 107
favorites icons 450
Home screen folders 339
mailboxes 478
miscellaneous items 629
phone backup file 524
photo albums 304
photos and videos 307, 628
photos from iCloud Photo Stream 322
photos from Photo Stream 317–318
podcasts 412
recent calls 109
reminders 417
RSS feeds 459
Safari bookmarks 456
Safari history 458
saved Safari passwords 463
space-hogging apps 576
stocks 421
text messages 179–180
tickets from Wallet 427
VIPs 484
voicemail messages 122
voice memos 424
diacritical marks 80–81
dialing 103–104
keypad 119–120
touchtones 131–132
with Siri 150
dictation 88–95
capitalization 93–95
correcting errors 90
limitations of 89
punctuation 91–93
dictionary
definitions 97–98
iBooks 385
resetting 78
resetting keyboard suggestions 578
spelling 77–78
using Google as 454

Digital Touch 192–195
doodling 192–193
drawing on a photo or video 193–194
sending lips, hearts, etc. 194–195
dimming the screen 40, 578–580
shortcut 228–229
directions 396–397
voice control 156
disabilities. See accessibility
Dock 45–46
Do Not Disturb 128–131
allowing special callers through 130
controlling by voice 150
defined 128
Emergency Bypass option 115
in Messages 181–182
repeated calls 130
Silence option 130–131
status bar icon 24
turning on or off 129
Doodle 196
double-tapping 33
downloads
automatic app updates 589
blocking 620
deleting from Mail 629
email attachments 493–494
hard-press to cancel 332
in iCloud 534–535
in iTunes 252–253
in the TV app 254–260
iOS 10 617–618
iOS user’s manual 632
music 235–236
over cellular network 252
turning off automatic 41–42
viewing downloaded music 604
dragging 33
drawing. See also emoji
Chinese or Japanese characters 84
Digital Touch feature in Messages
192–195
Messages whiteboard 188
on notes 406
on photos 294–296
DuckDuckGo 454
Dynamic Type 215
dyslexia 214

E
earbuds
answering calls with 125–126
audio source controls 50
balance slider 225
dumping calls to voicemail 127

Index

639

EarPods 32
limiting volume 250
playback controls 237, 238, 240
triggering Siri 147
turning on mono audio 225
using volume clicker as shutter 272
ebooks. See also iBooks app
managing in iTunes 518
EDGE network 24, 433–434
speed of 436
editing
calendar events 363–364
Contacts 111–119, 118
iTunes Store icons 254
photos 287–296
playlists 242–243
ringtones 136–137
Safari bookmarks 456
Safari Favorites page 450–451
Safari passwords 463
typed text 73–74
Up Next list 244
video 286–287
voice recordings 425
email. See also Mail app
Exchange syncing 560
free account with iCloud 533–534
syncing with Notes app 410
turning off push data 41
virtual private networking 564–566
emergency calls 52
emoji
in QuickType suggestions 76
jumbo 187
keyboard 86
texting 186–187
Encrypted iPhone Backup 522–524
enterprise features. See corporate
features
ePub files 379–381
EQ (equalization) 249
erasing the phone 578
Exchange ActiveSync 557–566
data sources 561–563
setup 559–561
syncing with Notes app 410

F
Facebook 443–444
account settings 443
alert sounds 583
app 443
calendar integration 365
Contacts groups 111
importing names from 114–115

640

Index

posting photos to 311–312
posting with Siri 164
privacy 587
settings 607–608
Share button 444
sharing web links 458
FaceTime 137–141
audio calls 141–142
call waiting 142
capturing a screenshot 139
ending a call 140
initiating a call 138–139
muting audio or video 140
on/off switch 599
rotating the screen 139
settings 599
switching to 134
switching to back camera 139
video calls 137–140
facial recognition 301–302
Family Sharing 540–544
appointments, photos, and reminders
544
approving purchases 543–544
defined 540–541
hiding your purchases 544
locating family members 544
removing someone 543
setting up 541–543
using 543–544
Fandango 196
favorites
deleting 107
in Contacts 104–107
in Maps app 393
in News app 403
on Today screen 67
rearranging 106
web bookmarks 450–451
filters 275–276, 291–292
Find My Friends 342, 430
controlling by voice 161
using with Family Sharing 544
Find My iPhone 530–533
Activation Lock 533
defined 530
displaying a message 531–532
Lost Mode 531–532
remote wipe 532
Send Last Location 533
tracking the phone 532
fingerprint security. See Touch ID
flagged email messages 485–487
flash 25–26, 267–268
as video light 284–285
for rings and notifications 225

LED flash 267
screen flash 268
flashlight 26
and the Magnifier 211
controlling brightness 36
improvements in iPhone 7 family 6
turning on quickly 49
Flash plug-in 445
flicking 33
Flickr
posting photos to 311–312
settings 607–608
FlightTrack 5 342
Flyover and Flyover Tours 400–402
folders
creating and editing 337–339
creating in iTunes 339–340
deleting 339
moving 338–339
renaming 339
fonts
bigger or bolder text 215–216
for photo markup 296
increasing type size 579–580
in iBooks 383–384
in Reader view 468
subtitles 226
force-quitting apps 345
force-restarting 17, 624
force-restoring 626–627
Force Touch 35–38 See also hard-pressing
Force Touch keyboard 87–88
peek and pop features 37–38
quick actions 35–37
forwarding
calls 135–136
email 490–491
text messages 180
front camera 274
flash for 268

G
Game Center
parental controls 621
settings page 607
geotagging 324–326
defined 324
photos 303
gestures
backspace in Calculator 356
basics 32–35
customizing in Mail 488
double-tapping 33
dragging 33
flicking 33

force-pressing 35–38, 87–88
in AssistiveTouch mode 220
in Mail app 487–488
in Maps 390
in VoiceOver 204
magnify sections of a web page 447
peek and pop 37–38
pinching and spreading 33–34
punctuation with one gesture 79–80
quick actions 35–37
rightward swipe 479
scroll up or down in Safari 448
selecting text in Safari 96
split tap 204
swipe to go back 569
swiping 33
swiping from left edge 242
swiping in from the edge 34–35
tapping 33
working with photos 298–299,
304–306
zooming 208–209
getting online. See Internet
GIFs
adding to texts 196
turning Live Photos into 278
Gmail
setting up account 475–476
setting up push email for 478
Syncing with Notes app 410
using to avoid spam 505
Google. See also Gmail
Google Maps 388–389
Google Mobile 342
search 161, 452
GPS 391
alternatives to 391–392
geotagging 324–326
location-based reminders 417–419
Maps app navigation 397–398
status bar icon 25
turning off to save power 42
graphics
adding to notes 405–406
fetched images in email 591–592
in Messages 188–197
opening in Mail 493–494
remote images in email 591–592
saving in Safari 462
sharing in Mail 494
groups
in Contacts 110–111
in Do Not Disturb 130
in Mail 499
in Messages 198
MailShot app 155

Index

641

GSM networks
calling features on 132–134
defined 26
importing contacts on 593
SIM cards 26–28
switching to while roaming 571
Guided Access (kiosk mode) 226–228

H
Handoff 551–553
compatible programs 552
settings 575
setting up 553
haptics
defined 584
settings 584
hard-pressing. See also Force Touch
Control Center icons 36
for playlist options 239
in Calendar app 358
new iOS 10 features 8–9
notifications 60
Safari links 461
Settings icon 568–569
to answer texts 177
to call up app switcher 35
to cancel app downloads 332
to clear Notification Center 62
to play live photos on Lock screen 581
to preview email messages 487
to rename folders 339
to select text 87–88
to send text animations 188
to view icon options 35–37
to view text drawing colors 192
to view widgets 68
vs. long-pressing 37
hashtags 444
headphones 247–249
headphone jack 28–30
limiting volume 250
what’s new 5
Health app 375–377
and Fitbit 375
fitness device compatibility 375
medical ID information 376–377
setting up 375–376
hearing assistance 224–225
adjusting stereo mix 225
LED flash for alerts 225
mono audio 225
noise cancellation 225
subtitles 226
TTY 224–225
using phone with hearing aids 224

642

Index

“Hey Siri” feature 148
and battery life 39
setup 616
turning off 172
hiding
Apple Music tabs 233
Caller ID on outgoing calls 597
dialing keypad 132
email header details 496
Facebook friends from Contacts 115
flagged email folder 486
mailbox folders 481
microphone button 577
photos from collections 304
purchases from Family Sharing 544
Quick Type typing suggestions 77
sharing options 348
texts from Lock screen 200
unwanted Apple apps 337
highlighting. See also selecting
in iBooks 385–386
History list 457–458
clearing 458, 603
Home app 377–378
Home button 18–22
accessibility 21–22, 229–230
activating Siri 19
adjusting click feel 575
app switcher 19–20
defined 18–19
double-click speed 223
gets sticky 220
non-mechanical 7
Reachability feature 20–21
Rest Finger to Open feature 18
triple-press 228–230
waking the phone 19
what’s new 7
HomeKit. See Home app
Home screens 44–46
adding and viewing widgets 68
background 46
badges 44–45
Dock 45–46
folders 337–340
icons 44
navigating 45–46
organizing your downloads 333–337
quick actions 35–37
Reduce Motion feature 217
resetting layout 578
restoring 337
Home Sharing
playing music from your computer 250
HTML5 603
hyperlapse video 285–286

I
iBackup Viewer 183
iBooks app 378–388
adding bookmarks 384
adjusting screen brightness 383
alternatives to 379
changing page appearance 384
creating collections 381–382
defined 378–379
dictionary 385
downloading books 379
downloading cover art 381
ePub files 379–381
finding free books 380–381
free re-downloading 534–535
highlighting 385
making notes 386
organizing your library 381
PDF files 379–381
reading books 382–384
saving PDFs of photos 313
searching 384
settings 387–388
syncing bookmarks and collections 388
type size 383–384
using as audiobook reader 386–387
using scrolling view 384
viewing table of contents 383
iCloud 525–544. See also iCloud Drive,
iCloud Keychain, iCloud Photo
Library, iCloud Photo Sharing
automatic app updates 589
automatic backups 526
Back to My Mac 526
backups 530
defined 525–527
email account 533–534
Find My iPhone 530–533
free music, video, apps storage
534–535
iCloud Music Library 235
reminders syncing 414
restoring from a backup 626
sharing calendars 366
signing up 525
storage prices 535–536
syncing 527–530
syncing web tabs 467
syncing with Notes app 410
viewing storage 576
VIPs 485
iCloud Drive 351–354
accessing 352–353
turning on 351

iCloud Keychain 529–530
initial setup 616
iCloud Photo Library 323–324
accessing your photos 324
iCloud Photo Sharing 318–323
creating an album 318–320
editing an album 322–323
receiving an album 321–322
settings 320–321
sharing albums publicly 320
subscriber posting 320
technical requirements 318
icons 44
adding outlines 216
Control Center 47–50
Dock 45–46
for Internet connections 435
hard-pressing for options 35–37
top strip of Home screen 23–25
IMAP email accounts 476–478
iMazing 183
iMessages. See also Messages app
advantages 175–176
animations 188–190
audio texting 184–186
Blocked list 199
defined 174–177
finding chat transcripts on the Mac 183
on/off switch 197, 598
read receipts 198
settings 197–201
sharing contacts 118–119
vs. text messages 173–177
iMovie for iPhone 287
in-app purchases 620
Instagram 342
Square mode 280
Instant Hotspot 550
international calling 27–28
Internet
3G networks 434
connection icons 435
EDGE network 433–434
iCloud 525–544
Instant Hotspot 550
parental controls 618–621
Personal Hotspot 439–442
Safari settings 600–603
Safari web browser 445–473
search web by voice 161
speed 24
troubleshooting 630
Twitter and Facebook 443–444
VoLTE 434–435
Wi-Fi 435–438
Internet calls 141–142

Index

643

invisible ink 189
invitations
AirDrop 350–351
in Calendar 362
on corporate networks 562–563
to Family Sharing 542
to join Wi-Fi networks 570
to shared calendars 366
to shared notes 406–407
to shared photo albums 321–322
iOS 10. See also what’s new in iOS 10
battery issues 627
design 215–217
Lock screen 17–18
quick actions 35–37
texting enhancements 190–196
troubleshooting 623–632
updates 618
upgrading to 617–618
version covered in this book 3
what’s new 7–12
iPhone
accessories 32
antenna band 31–32
as phone 103–144
basic gestures 32–35
calling plans 612–613
camera and flash 25–56
cases and accessories 621–622
charging 38–39
complexity of 12
defined 1–3
erasing 578
finding basic stats 514–515
finding your phone number 109
finishes 5
headphone jack 28–30
Home button 18–22
information about 574
intro to 1–3
Lightning connector 31
locking and unlocking 17–18
Lock screen 17–18
microphone and speaker 30
powering off 624
prices 7
pricing 611
renaming 574
resetting 623–626
sales statistics 1
screen 22–25
sensors 26
serial number 574
settings 567–608
setting up 613–617
SIM card slot 26–28

644

Index

sources for news, tips, and tricks 632
status bar icons 23–25
storage statistics 576
troubleshooting 623–632
turning on and off 16–17
upgrading to iOS 10 617–618
using overseas 27–28
volume controls 22
waking 19
iPhone 5, 5s, and 5c
antennas 31
LTE networks 24
screen resolution 23
iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
Apple Pay 536–540
display zoom options 580
expanded keyboard 78–79
finding the Sleep switch 16
price 611
radio tranceivers 31
Reachability feature 20–21
screen resolution 23
special calendar views 359
VoLTE 434–435
zoom style 617
iPhone 6s and 6s Plus
3D Touch feature 222
Apple Pay 536–540
display zoom options 580
expanded keyboard 78–79
finding the Sleep switch 16
Force Touch 35–38
hard-pressing 87–88
hard-swipe to summon app switcher
344
Live Photos 276–278
pop-up magnifying lens 210
price 611
radio tranceivers 31
Raise to Wake 17–18
Reachability feature 20–21
screen flash 268
screen resolution 23
special calendar views 359
zoom style 617
iPhone 7
3D Touch feature 222
display zoom options 580
expanded keyboard 78–79
finding the Sleep switch 16
force restarting 624
Force Touch 35–38
hard-pressing 87–88
headphone jack 29–30
Home button settings 575
Jet Black finish 5

Live Photos 276–278
Live Photos as wallpaper 581
pop-up magnifying lens 210
price 611
radio transceivers 31
Raise to Wake 17–18
Reachability feature 20–21
screen flash 268
screen resolution 23
swipe to summon app switcher 344
VoLTE 434–435
what’s new 5–7
zoom style 617
iPhone 7 Plus
3D Touch feature 222
display zoom options 580
dual lenses 6
finding the Sleep switch 16
force restarting 624
Force Touch 35–38
headphone jack 29–30
Home button settings 575
Jet Black finish 5
Live Photos 276–278
Live Photos as wallpaper 581
Lock Camera Lens option 606
optical zoom 269–270
pop-up magnifying lens 210
portrait mode photos 278–280
price 611
radio transceivers 31–32
Raise to Wake 17–18
Reachability feature 20–21
screen flash 268
screen resolution 23
special calendar views 359
swipe to summon app switcher 344
VoLTE 434–435
what’s new 5–7
zoom style 617
iPhone SE
finding the Sleep switch 16
Live Photos 276–278
price 611
radio transceivers 31
Raise to Wake 17–18
screen resolution 23
iPhoto
preventing automatic opening 520
iPod features. See Music app, Videos app
Irlen syndrome 213–214
iTranslate 196
iTunes 509–524. See also iTunes Match,
iTunes Radio, iTunes Store, iTunes
U, Music app, syncing
creating smart playlists 516–517

downloading 32
Encrypted iPhone Backup 522
erasing the phone 624–626
On My Device options 521
organizing apps 334–335
playlists 240–244
restoring from a backup 625
syncing contacts and calendars 521
tabs 513–521
turning off autosyncing 512
upgrading the iOS 617
iTunes Match 235
iTunes Radio 245–247
controlling with Siri 159
custom stations 246–247
defined 245
free stations 246
Siri voice commands 247
subscriber stations 246
iTunes Store 251–254
defined 251
editing icons 254
free re-downloading 534–535
More tab 253–254
Not on This iPhone 252
Purchased Items list 252–253
Redeem button 251
ringtones 253
searching 252
settings 588–589
syncing to Mac or PC 254
iTunes U 342

J
Java 445
JavaScript 603

K
Kayak 196
keyboard 71–87. See also typing
alternatives to Apple’s 83–84
auto-capitalization 577
autocorrect 577
Backspace 72–73
Caps Lock 72, 577
connecting a physical keyboard 86–87
cursor keys 78–79
Force Touch keyboard 87–88
installing the emoji keyboard 86
international 84–86
numbers layout 73
QuickType suggestions 75–77, 577
repeating keys 222
resetting dictionary 578

Index

645

Return key 73
settings 577
Shift key 72
spelling checker on/off 577
Sticky Keys 222–223
switching among keyboards 84
typing shortcuts 577
Typing Style options 206–207
widescreen mode 78–79
Keychain. See iCloud Keychain
keypad 119–120
inputting touchtones 131–132
kiosk mode. See Guided Access (kiosk
mode)

L
language
dictation 88–95
for video subtitles 257
initial setup 613
international keyboards 84–86
settings 577
Siri’s languages 146, 172
LED “flash on ring” 225
letterbox bars 258–259
level 374–375
Lightning connector 31, 621
light sensor 26, 40–41
LinkedIn 165
links
in email 489
link-tapping tricks 461
settings 602
Shared Links 458–459
sharing 472
useful options 450
Live Photos 276–278
defined 276–277
reviewing 277
sharing 277–278
taking 276
using as wallpaper 581
location 585–587
how the phone knows where it is
391–392
location-based reminders 417–418
resetting warnings 578
setting up Location Services 613
Share My Location feature 586
sharing in Messages 181
turning Location Services on and off
586
locking
auto-lock settings 579
notes 407–408

646

Index

phone 17
Lock screen 17–18, 57–58
dealing with notifications 60–61
missed calls and texts 57
opening camera from 57
security 68–69
showing notifications on 63–64
sleep settings 579
swiping up, down, left, or right 57–58
Lost Mode 531–532
loupe 73–74
LTE network 434
disabling 571
Lyft 397
calling with Siri 165

M
macro mode 265
Macs
AirDrop 553–554
calling from 546–548
finding chat transcripts on 183
Handoff 551–553
Instant Hotspot 550
projecting iPhone screen to 260
texting from 548–550
universal Clipboard 554–555
magic wand button 288
Magnifier 211–212
controls 211–212
legibility filters 212
open with a triple-click of the Home
button 211
Mail app 475–505
adding senders to Contacts 493
addressing email from Contacts
498–499
addressing groups 499
Always Bcc Myself 592
ask before deleting 591
attaching photos or videos 501–502
avoiding spam 504–505
Cc and Bcc 499–500
collapsing messages 500–501
composing and sending messages
498–504
deleting single messages 491–492
downloading messages 478–483
filing messages 487–488, 491
filters 483
flagging messages 485–487
flag style 591
formatting text 502–503
forwarding messages 490–491
free accounts 475–476

gestures 487–488
Load Remote Images 591–592
managing accounts 505–506
marking email as unread 496
message preview 505
opening attachments 493–494
POP 3 and IMAP accounts 476–478
push email settings 590–591
quick actions 36
quote level (indentation) 503
reading messages 488–489
replying to messages 489–490
reply notifications 491
saving graphics and pictures 494
searching messages 497–498
selecting batches of messages 492–
493
selecting the sending account 500
setting default account 505, 592
setting lines to show in preview 591
settings 589
setting up your account 475–478
sharing attachments 493
showing the To/Cc label 505
signatures 503–504
subject line 500
swipe gesture options 591
switching to a phone call 504
threading 481–483, 592
To/Cc badges 591
unified inbox 480–481
unsubscribing from junk mail 495–496
using live links 489
viewing header details 496
VIP list 484–485
voice control 154–155
Maps app 388–402
cellular triangulation 392
checkered past 388–389
controlling by voice 156
defined 389–390
extensions 402
finding your parked car 399–400
finding yourself 392
Flyover and Flyover Tours 400–402
getting directions 396–399
GPS 391
location cards 395–396
Maps Destinations widget 67
Navigation mode 397–398
Night mode 399
orienting yourself 392
pinning locations 394–395
quick actions 35
recent and favorite searches 393
searching 392–394

settings 599–600
traffic reports 400
transit features 397
view options 391–392
Wi-Fi positioning 391–392
Memories tab (Photos) 299–300
merging calls 133–134
Messages app. See also iMessages,
texting
addressing and sending texts 184–190
animations 188–190
autodeleting audio texts 599
Blocked list 199
blue and green text bubbles 176
character count 199
deleting texts 179–180, 629
Digital Touch drawing features 192–195
Do Not Disturb feature 181–182
emoji 186–187
forwarding texts 180
group messaging 198
hiding texts from Lock screen 200
highlighted words 187
iMessages on/off 598
invisible ink 189
list of conversations 179–180
marking texts as read 180
Messages app store 195–196
MMS on/off 598
notification settings 200–201
Photos picker 191–192
preserving texts 182–183
quick actions 36
QuickType 75–77
read receipts on/off 598
receiving texts 177–179
repeat alerts 200
respond to voicemails by text 127–128
saving texts with an app 183
searching texts 179
sending low-quality photos 200
settings 197–201, 598–599
sharing photos and videos 310
sharing your location 181
showing subject line 198–199
stickers 196
switching to a phone call 180
texting defined 174
texting from a Mac 548–550
text messages vs. iMessages 173–177
tips and tricks 178–179
tones for each person 116
troubleshooting 630
viewing attachments 182
voice control 153
whiteboard 188

Index

647

microphones 30
hiding the keyboard microphone button
577
noise cancellation 225
second mike for noise canceling 29
micro-SIM cards 28
Minuum keyboard 83
missed calls 108
Missing Manuals 3–5
MMS messaging 198. See also Messages
app
on/off switch 598
saving incoming photos or videos
182–183
mobile device management 558
Move Data from Android 614
movies. See also videos
Fandango 196
free re-downloading 534–535
from the iTunes Store 251–254
in the TV app 254–260
projection with AirPlay 259–260
subtitles and captioning 226
trivia and showtimes from Siri 162–163
viewing library 517
multitasking
app switcher 19–20
background app refresh 576
getting online while on a call 126
music. See also Apple Music, music app,
ringtones
creating smart playlists 516–517
headphone jack 28–30
identifying songs 160
managing in iTunes 515–517
monaural mode 225
Music app 233–251
sending via text 196
storage 516–517
Music app 233–251. See also earbuds,
headphones, iTunes Store, music,
speakers
adding album art 237
Apple Music service 234–235
Beats 1 234
Browse tab 245
controlling by voice 159
controlling from earbuds 237, 238
equalization 249
finding Shuffle, Repeat, and What’s
Next 238
For You tab 244–245
iTunes Match 235
iTunes Radio 245–247
Library tab 235–236

648

Index

lyrics 239
options panel 238–239
playback control 236–240
playback while locked 240
playing from your computer 250
playlists 240–244
scrubber 237
settings 604
Sound Check 250
Up Next list 243–244
volume limit 250
mute switch 22, 131
My Photo Stream 316–318
deleting photos from 317–318
iCloud syncing 528
on/off switch 528, 605
saving photos from deletion 317
turning on 316–317

N
nano-SIM cards 28
navigation 397–398
networks
cellular 433–435
resetting settings 578
speeds 24
status bar icons 23–24
News app 402–404
For You tab 403
searching 403
settings 603–604
setting up 402
using offline 404
Night Shift 49
settings 579
noise cancellation 29, 225
No Service 630
Notes app 404–410
adding photos 405–406
compatibility with email programs 410
controlling by voice 157–158
defined 404–405
Exchange syncing 561
formatting notes 405–406
iCloud syncing 529
locking notes 407–408
organizing notes 408–410
quick actions 35
saving links to 473
searching notes 409
settings 595–596
sharing notes 406–407
syncing notes 410
viewing attachments 409–410

Notification Center 61–62. See also notifications
clearing messages 62
defined 62
gesture to open 34
opening 62
settings 573–574
notifications 59–65
alerts 64
banners 64
customizing 62–64
defined 59
hiding from Lock screen 69
Notification Center 61–65
on the Lock screen 60–61
opening 60, 61
repeat alerts in Messages 200–201
responding to 60
spoken 207
turning off 64
numbers layout 73

O
oleophobic screen 23
on/off switch 16
OpenTable 196, 396
optimizing iPhone storage 324
Outlook
calendar invitations 562–563
Outlook Web Access (OWA) 558
setting up email account 475–476

P
pairing
Bluetooth settings 570–571
car systems 143
earpiece or speaker 142–143
fitness device 144
headphones or speakers 248–249
keyboards 87
Mac 548–550
panoramas 280–282
parental controls 618–621
blocking inappropriate material
620–621
blocking websites 620–621
Game Center 621
Guided Access (kiosk mode) 226–228
in-app purchases 620
restricting apps 619
Safari 471
parked car finder 399–400

passcodes and passwords
Encrypted iPhone Backup 522
Erase Data option 52
forgotten Apple ID 589
for parental controls 618–619
Keychain 529
letting Safari create 469
memorized in Safari 602
other options 614
saving in Safari 462–464
setting up 51–53
PDF files
reading in iBooks 379–381
zooming 384
PDFs
converting photos to 313
opening email attachments to iBooks
493
printing from the phone 346–347
peek and pop 37–38
link-tapping tricks 461
peer-to-peer AirPlay 260
Personal Hotspot 439–442
defined 439
fee for 440
turning off 442
turning on 440
using 442
via Bluetooth 441
via USB cable 442
via Wi-Fi 441
phishing 602
Phone app 103–109. See also Contacts
app, phone features
answering calls 124–126
Blocked list 199
caller ID 136
call forwarding 135–136
calling from Contacts list 110
calling from Recents list 107–109
calling while using Wi-Fi 126
call waiting 134–135
dialing with Siri 103
dumping calls to voicemail 127
FaceTime audio calls 141–142
FaceTime video calls 137–140
Favorites 104–107
keypad 119–120
merging calls 133–134
putting someone on hold 134
quick actions 35
Remind Me Later option 128
Respond with Text option 127–128
silencing the ring 126–127
using earbuds 125–126

Index

649

phone features
accessibility 203–230
caller ID 136
call forwarding 135–136
call waiting 134–135
conference calling 132–134
hiding your number on outgoing calls
597
merging calls 133–134
muting 131
noise cancellation 225
speakerphone 132
storage statistics 576
tracking call time and data usage
572–573
Visual Voicemail 120–124
phone number
transferring 612
where to find 109
photos. See also Photos app
adding to notes 405–406
assigning to contacts 113–114
attaching in Mail 501–502
deleting 628
iCloud Photo Sharing 318–323
sending low-quality in Messages 200
sharing in Family Sharing 544
syncing to a computer 519–520
syncing to the phone 518–519
text messaging tricks 191–192
Photos app 287–326. See also Camera
app, My Photo Stream, photos
adding favorites 308
adding images to your collection 314
Albums tab 301–303
assigning photos to Contacts 315
auto-enhance button 288
black-and-white photos 290–291
color and light controls 288–291
cropping and straightening 292–294
deleting photos 307
Details screen 308
duplicating photos 313
editing photos 287–296
excluding bursts from iCloud 605
facial recognition feature 301–302
filters 275–276, 291–292
Finger Browse gesture 299
flicking, rotating, zooming, panning
304–306
hiding a photo 304
iCloud Photo Library 323–324
markup feature 294–296
Memories tab 299–300
moments, collections, years 297–299
My Photo Stream 316–318

650

Index

organizing albums 303–304
organizing photos 297–308
Places feature 303
prevent automatic opening 520
Recently Deleted folder 303
red-eye removal 292
saving photos to iBooks 313
saving your edits 296
searching 306–307
searching with artificial intelligence 306
selecting photos 309
settings 605–606
sharing and using photos 308–316
texting photos and videos 310
using third-party editing apps 296
wallpaper 315
pinching and spreading 33–34
photos 304–306
Pinterest
searching with Siri 165
playback controls 236–240
in Control Center 50
mini-player 236–237
Now Playing screen 237–238
previous/next 237
scrubber 237
switching among speakers 249
video 256–257
volume keys and silencer 22
playlists 240–244
creating on the phone 241–242
defined 240
editing or deleting 242–243
Up Next list 243–244
using 242–243
Podcasts app 411–413
and CarPlay 757
defined 411–412
managing podcasts in iTunes 518
playing a podcast 413–414
settings 412
streaming vs. downloading 412
subscribing to series 412
POP3 email accounts 476–478
Popular Near Me 587
pop-up blocker 469, 602
printing. See AirPrint
privacy
advertising settings 588
blocking calls and texts 596–597
by app 587
Do Not Track 602
hiding texts on Lock screen 200
hiding Today screen 68–69
Location Services settings 585–587
Lock screen 68

notifications 69
private browsing 470–471
Safari settings 602–603
settings 585–588
turning off search engine suggestions
600
processor
in Low Power mode 39
what’s new 7
projecting 260
pronunciation
correcting 215
teaching Siri names 171
proximity sensor 26
punctuation
dictating 91–93
typing shortcuts 79–80
“push” email
defined 478
turning off to save power 41

Q
quick actions 35–37
QuickType keyboard 75–77
emoji suggestions 76, 187
hiding 77
information suggestions 187
quick capitalization 77
settings 577
Quick Website Search 454
quitting 20

R
radio
Beats 1 234
iTunes Radio 245–247
radio signals 31–32
Raise to Wake 17–18
settings 579
Reachability feature 20–21
Reader mode 467–469
reading. See iBooks app
Reading List 459–461
read receipts 598
turn on and off for individual contacts
182
Recents list 107–109
defined 107
deleting calls 109
Reddit
searching 454
Redeem button 251
red-eye removal 292

region
non-English keyboards 84–86
settings 577
relationships
recording in Contacts 113
teaching to Siri 170–171
Reminders app 414–420
adding a new task 417
car-based reminders 418
controlling by voice 156–157
creating new lists 415
creating reminders with Siri 414
defined 414
Details screen 417–419
iCloud syncing 529
location-based reminders 417–418
organizing lists 414–416
quick actions 36
Remind Me About This feature 419–420
Remind Me Later feature 128
Scheduled list 416
setting default list 596
settings 596
sharing reminders in Family Sharing
544
timed reminders 417
Remind Me About This 419–420
Remind Me Later 128
renaming your iPhone 574
repair service 630–631
resetting
all settings 578, 624
erasing the phone 578, 624–626
force restarting 624
force restoring 626–627
location warnings 578
restoring the iPhone 625
troubleshooting steps 623–626
Wi-Fi networks 578
resolution 283
Respond with Text 127
editing default messages 597
restaurants
finding in Maps 395–396
information from Siri 158–159
OpenTable 196
reservations 396
Yelp 196
restoring the iPhone 523–524
restrictions. See parental controls
Retina display 23
Return key 73
ringer
settings 582–584
volume 582

Index

651

ringtones
creating your own 136–137
different for each person 115
for text messages 116–117
from iTunes Store 253
managing in iTunes 518
settings 582–584
silencing 22, 126–127
Vibrate on Ring 582
Vibrate on Silent 582
vibrate, then ring 137
vibration patterns 115–116
roaming 571
rotating
photos 305–306
rotation lock 25, 48
Rotor 206
RSS feeds 458–459
Rule of Thirds grid 270–271

S
Safari 445–473
address/search bar 445–446
Back button 446
bookmarks 454–457
clearing cache 629
clearing History list 603
cookies 470
favorites icons 450–451
full-screen mode 448–449
graphics 462
History list 457–458
iCloud syncing 529
link-tapping tricks 461
memorized web passwords 602
memorizing contact information
462–463
overview 445–447
parental controls 471
passwords list 602
password suggestions 469
phishing warning 602
pop-up blocker 469, 602
privacy settings 602–603
private browsing 470–471
Quick Website Search 454
Reader mode 467–469
Reading List 459–461
Reload button 446
RSS feeds 458–459
saved passwords and credit cards
462–464
saving links to Notes 473
search engine choice 600
searching 451–454

652

Index

security 469–471
selecting text 96
settings 600–603
Stop button 446
Suggested Sites 452
switching to desktop sites 451
tabbed browsing 465–466
Top Hits 451–452, 601
typing a web address 449–451
using the loupe 73–74
web clips 472–473
Web Inspector 603
zooming and scrolling 447–448
saving
audio texts 186
email attachments 494
graphics 462
passwords and credit card info 462–
464
photos 314
texted images to Photos 182
texts 183, 199
to iCloud Drive 351–353
screen 22–25
3D Touch feature 60
auto-brightness 41
brightness settings 578–580
color filters 213–214
dimming to save power 40
how glass is made 23
increasing contrast 217
invert colors and grayscale 213–214
projecting to a Mac 260
protecting 23
Reduce Transparency 217
repairing 631–632
time to auto-lock 579
trick to dim instantly 228–229
turning off 43
turning off while using VoiceOver 204
what’s new 6
zoom style for larger phones 617
Screen Curtain 204
screenshots 326
scrolling
Contacts list 109–110
drag gesture 33
flicking gesture 33
in Safari 447–448
old texts 178–180
scrubber
music 237
videos 256
searching. See also Spotlight
App Store 329
bookmarks and history 453

calendars 366
email messages 497–498
iBooks 381, 384
in Safari 451–454
maps 392–394
News app 403
notes 409
photos 306–307
Quick Website Search 454
search settings 575
settings 567
text messages 179
turning off Safari suggestions 600–601
your corporate directory 560–561
security
Activation Lock 533
clearing History list 603
Control Center 68
cookies 470
corporate concerns 558
emergency calls 52
fingerprint access to apps 55–56
locking notes 407–408
Lock screen 68–69
notifications 69
of Apple Pay 539
online parental controls 471
parental controls 618–621
passcodes and fingerprints 51–56
password suggestions 469
phishing warning 602
pop-up blocker 469, 602
private browsing 470–471
Safari 469–471
saved passwords and credit cards
462–464
Send Last Location feature 533
setting a SIM card PIN 597
setting up a passcode 51–53
Siri 166
Today screen 68–69
Touch ID 53–56
selecting
email messages 492
iBooks 381
photos 309
text 95–96
text messages 179–180
with Force Touch 87–88
selfies. See front camera
Send Last Location 533
sensors 26
serial number 514–515
settings 567–608
AirDrop controls 350–351
airplane mode 569

app preferences 340
Battery 584–585
Bluetooth 570–571
Carrier 571
Cellular 571–573
change with Siri 150
Compass 600
Control Center 46–51, 574
Date & Time 576
Diagnostics & Usage 587–588
Display & Brightness 578–580
Do Not Disturb 574
Facebook 587, 607–608
FaceTime 599
Flickr and Vimeo 607–608
Game Center 607
General 574–578
haptics 584
Home button 575
iBooks 387–388
iCloud 588
iTunes & App Store 588–589
Keyboard 577
limiting background apps 345
Location Services 585–587
managing storage space 627–629
Maps 599–600
Messages 197–200, 598–599
Music 604
News 603–604
Night Shift 579
Notes 595–596
Notifications 62–64, 573–574
online privacy 602–603
on/off labels 217
passcode 51–53
Personal Hotspot 573
Phone 596–598
Photos & Camera 605–606
Podcasts 412, 606
Privacy 585–588
Raise to Wake 579
Reminders 596
Reset screen 578
resetting all settings 624
Restrictions (parental controls) 576
Safari 600–603
save Camera’s last setting 606
searching 567
Siri 171–172
Sounds (& Haptics) 582–584
Spotlight 575
Touch ID & Passcode 584
TV 605, 608
Twitter 587, 607–608
Wallet & Apple Pay 589

Index

653

Wallpaper 580–582
Wi-Fi 569–570
setting up a new phone 613–617
shake to undo 97, 223
shared photo streams. See iCloud Photo
Sharing
Share My Location 586
SharePoint 564
sharing
AirDrop 348–351
bonus buttons in the Share panel
471–473
contacts 118–119
email attachments 493
hiding options 348
iBooks highlighting and notes 386
iCloud calendars 366
Live Photos 277–278
More button 313
music 239
notes 406–407
photos from texts 182–183
photos to Notes 311
photos via Mail 311
photos via Messages 310
Shared Links listing 458–459
Share sheet 348
to Twitter and Facebook 444
URLs 458
voicemail messages 122
voice memos 424
Shift key 72
shopping. See Apple Pay, App Store,
iTunes Store
shortcuts. See also Force Touch,
hard-pressing, peek and pop
abbreviation expanders 81–83
finding old texts quickly 178
in Settings 568–569
opening the camera quickly 262
opening things from the Control Center
46–51
quick actions 35–37
triple-press Home to dim the screen
228–229
turning on/off keyboard tricks 577
typing “.com” 446
signatures 503–504
silencer switch 22
Vibrate on Silent setting 582
SIM card 26–28
protecting with a PIN 597
Siri 145–172
alarm clock 151
Apple Music 159–160
booking restaurants 158–159

654

Index

business lookups 159
changing settings with 568
changing voice gender 172
checking your calendar 155–156
clock 152
Contacts lookup 152
defined 145–165
dialing by voice 150
dictation 88–95
driving directions 156
email 154
Facebook and Twitter 164–165
finding facts 163–164
Find My Friends 161
fixing name comprehension 171
funny things Siri says 167–170
gender of 147
hands-free 148
“Hey Siri” feature 148
history of 146
how to trigger 147
identifying songs 160
in AssistiveTouch mode 219
iTunes Radio 247
language and accent 146, 172
LinkedIn 165
making to-do lists 414
movie info 162–163
music playback 159–160
notes 157–158
opening apps 149–150
opening Settings panels 150
Pinterest 165
relationships 170–171
Reminders 156–157
searching Twitter 165
security 166
settings 171–172
Siri App Suggestions 66–67
sports scores 161–162
Square Cash 165
stock lookups 161
texting apps 166
text messages 153
timer 151–152
troubleshooting 167
Uber and Lyft 165
using 147–148
voicemail 151
weather 160–161
web searches 161
what to say 149–165
Wolfram Alpha 163
Skype 9
one-tap calling 104
Siri control 166

sleeping aids
bedtime controls 370
sleep timer 372
Sleep switch 15–18
slow-motion video 285
smart playlists 516–517
smileys. See emoji
SMS messages. See Messages app
SoundHound 342
sounds
alarms and alerts 582–583
audio source controls 50
settings 582–584
spam 504–505
unsubscribing 495–496
speakerphone 30, 132
routing calls to 223
speakers 247–249
AirPlay 249
switching among 249
volume keys 22
speech 214–215. See also dictation, Siri,
VoiceOver
Alex voice 205
choice of voice 214
correcting pronunciations 215
dictation 88–95
iBooks reads to you 386–387
speaking rate 215
Speak Screen command 214
Speak Selection command 98–99, 214
typing feedback 214
spelling
AutoCorrect 74–75
dictionary 77–78
spelling checker 78
sports trivia 161
Spotlight 99–102
how to use 99–101
Siri App Suggestions 101–102
Spotlight Suggestions 100
spreading and pinching 33–34
Sprint
CDMA network 26
data network speeds 433–434
LTE network 434
personal hotspot 442
using the iPhone overseas 27–28
Square Cash
Messages add-on 196
paying with Siri 165
square photos 280
status bar 23–25
airplane mode 24
battery meter 25
call forwarding 25

cell signal 23
clock 24
GPS 25
network speeds 24
network type 23–24
padlock 25
syncing 25
Teletype mode 25
VPN 25
Wi-Fi signal 24
step counter 375
stickers 196
Sticky Keys 222–223
Stocks app 420–422
controlling by voice 161
customizing portfolio 421–422
landscape view 420–421
stopwatch 371–372
storage 516–517
freeing up space 627–629
iCloud Drive 351–353
storage statistics 576
what’s new 7
straightening photos 292–294
subject line
in Mail 500
in text messages 198–199
smart suggestions 499
subtitles 226
setting language 257
swapping calls 133
SwiftKey 83–84
swiping 33, 34–35
Switch Control 217–218
Swype 83–84
syncing 509–524
contacts and calendars 521
Continuity 545–555
defined 511
drag and drop 513
ebooks and audiobooks 518
Handoff feature 551–553
iBooks bookmarks 388
manually 512–513
movies and TV shows 517
multiple iPhones 522
music 515–517
notes 410
overview 511–512
photos 518–520
podcasts 518
reminders to iCloud 414
ringtones 518
turning off autosyncing in iTunes 512
using iTunes tabs 513–514

Index

655

via cable 510
via iCloud 527–530
via Wi-Fi 510–511
with Exchange ActiveSync 557–566
with multiple computers 521–522

T
tabbed browsing 465–467
opening a new window 465
switching among windows 466
syncing with iCloud 467
teletype 25, 224–225
tethering. See Personal Hotspot
text
hard-pressing to select 87–88
making screen fonts bigger or bolder
215–216
selecting 95–96
selecting with a hard press 87–88
size in iBooks 383–384
zoom style for larger phones 617
texting
free with third-party apps 201
text messages vs. iMessages 173–177
using non-Apple apps with Siri 166
text to speech. See speech
third-party keyboards 83–84
installing 84
limitations 84
threading email 481–483
settings 592
time. See Clock app
time-lapse video 285–286
timer 372–373
controlling by voice 151–152
opening quickly 49
sleep timer 372
time zones 594. See also Clock app
auto-set on/off 587
Tips app 422
T-Mobile
free international texting and Wi-Fi 28
GSM network 26
personal hotspot 442
using the iPhone overseas 27–28
vs. other carriers 611
Today screen 65–69
adding favorites to 104
editing 66
sections of 66–68
security 68–69
Siri App Suggestions 66–67, 101–102
widgets available 66–68
to-do lists 414–420

656

Index

Touch ID 53–56
access to apps and websites 55–56
adding a fingerprint 53–54
initial setup 614
renaming or deleting fingerprints 55
troubleshooting 55
where fingerprints are stored 55
touchtones 131–132
traffic reports 400
transferring your phone number 612
transit navigation 397
transparency 217
troubleshooting 623–632
App Store 332
battery life 627
battery replacement 631
calling problems 629–630
Continuity 545–546
cracked screen 631–632
diagnostics preferences 616
Diagnostics & Usage settings 587–588
erasing and restoring the phone
624–626
Exchange ActiveSync 563–564
force restarting 624
force restoring 626–627
installing updates 623
Internet problems 630
phone won’t turn on 626–627
preventing photo program from opening 520
RecBoot program 627
resetting settings 624
resetting the phone 623–626
restoring from backup 523–524
restoring the phone 617–618
running out of memory 627–629
Siri 167
text messages 630
TinyUmbrella program 627
Touch ID 55
warranty and repair 630–631
Web Inspector 603
True Tone flash 267
TV app 254–260. See also movies
AirPlay 259–260
aspect ratios 258
descriptions for the blind 226
earbuds clicker 257
letterbox bars 258–259
navigating 256
playback controls 256–257
playing videos 256–258
projecting iPhone screen to Mac 260
scrubber 256
settings 605, 608

subtitles 226
TV output 259
viewing episode library 517
zooming 258–259
Twitter 443–444
account settings 443
alert sounds 583
apps 342, 443
defined 443
hashtags 444
importing contacts 115
posting photos to 311–312
posting with Siri 164
privacy 587
searching with Siri 165
settings 608
Share button 444
Shared Links button 458–459
special keyboard 444
typing. See also keyboard
abbreviation expanders 81–83
accented characters 80–81
audio feedback 207, 214
autocorrect 74–75
“.com” shortcut 446
Copy, Cut, and Paste 95–97
correcting spelling 77–78
emoji 86
keyboard repeat 222
loupe (magnifying glass) 73–74
period shortcut 74
punctuation 79–80
QuickType suggestions 75–77
Reachability feature 20–21
resetting dictionary 78
selecting text 95–96
tips and tricks 73–83
turning shortcuts on and off 577
Undo 97
web addresses 449–451

U
Uber 397
calling with Siri 165
UDID 514–515
Undo 97
unified inbox 480–481
universal Clipboard 554–555
Update All Contacts button 114
updates 574–575, 618
to apps 340–341
turning off automatic app updates 41
why you should accept 623
upgrading
via a restore 617–618

via iTunes 617
wirelessly 617
Up Next list 66, 243–244
defined 243
editing 244
USB cable 32

V
Venmo 196
Verizon
CDMA network 26
data network speeds 433–434
LTE network 434
personal hotspot 442
using the iPhone overseas 27–28
vs. other carriers 611
vibrations 223
for text messages 116
haptics settings 584
individualized patterns 115–116
settings 582–583
vibrate, then ring 137
video calling. See FaceTime
video camera 282–285
changing focus 283
resolution 283
Slo-Mo mode 285
taking a still photo while filming 284
Time-Lapse mode 285–286
zooming while recording 284
videos. See also Camera app, movies, TV
app
attaching in Mail 501–502
deleting 628
editing 286–287
free re-downloading 534–535
posting to YouTube and Vimeo 312–313
slow-motion 285
storage 516–517
subtitles 257
syncing to a computer 519–520
syncing to the phone 518–519
texting 310
text messaging tricks 191–192
time-lapse 285–286
Vimeo
playing videos in Messages 178
posting videos to 313
settings 607–608
VIPs 484–485
vision assistance
audio movie descriptions 226
Braille keyboard 205
VoiceOver 204–208
voice control. See Siri

Index

657

voicemail 120–124
call details 123–124
changing password 597
controlling with Siri 151
defined 120
deleting messages 122
dialing in for messages 124
recording your greeting 123
sending calls to 127
sending calls to voicemail 17
setting up 120–121
sharing messages 122
using 121–124
Voice Memos app 423–425
defined 423
deleting recordings 424
editing recordings 425
making recordings 423–424
sharing recordings 424
syncing to iTunes 423
VoiceOver 204–208
Alex voice 205
gestures 204
Navigate Images options 207
on/off with Home button triple-click
229–230
phonetic feedback 207
pitch change 205
Rotor 206
simplifying commands 207
speaking rate 205
typing in Braille 205
voice recognition. See dictation
voices. See speech
VoLTE 434–435
volume
limit 250
of Maps’ spoken instructions 599
of ringer 582
Sound Check 250
turning off volume keys 582
volume keys 22
using as camera shutter keys 272
VPN (virtual private networking)
564–566
status bar icon 25
VPN on Demand 565–566

W
waking the phone 16
walkie-talkie. See audio texting
Wallet app 426–427
iCloud syncing 529
settings 589

658

Index

wallpaper 315
animated 580–581
turning off motion 217
with Live Photos 581
warranty 630–631
battery replacement 631
Weather app 427–429
adding new cities 428–429
controlling by voice 160–161
web browser. See Safari
web clips 472–473
websites. See also links, Safari
about the iPhone 632
bookmarking 454–457
browsing history 457–458
favorites 450–451
full-screen mode 448–449
MissingManuals.com 4–5
Reading List 459–460
requesting desktop version 451
searching 453–454
sending photo albums to 320
sharing 458–459
to find good apps 341
WeChat
Siri control 166
WhatsApp 9
one-tap messaging 104
Siri control 166
what’s new in iOS 10 7–12
Announce Calls feature 596
bedtime controls 370
bold text 215–216
car-based reminders 418
collaboration in Notes 406–407
correcting the phone’s pronunciation
215
Details screen in Photos 308
Digital Touch drawing in Messages
192–195
Emergency Bypass option in Do Not
Disturb 115
emoji updates 76, 186–187
filters in Mail app 483
Filter Unknown Senders feature 599
individualized read receipts 182
invisible ink in Messages 189
locking feature in Notes 407–408
Low Quality Image Mode in Messages
200
lyrics in Apple Music 239
Maps app extensions 402
marking up photos 294–296
Memories tab in Photos 299–300
Messages animations 188–190
Messages app store 195–196

Messages whiteboard 188
more options in Favorites 104
multipage Control Center 8
Music features eliminated 233
options to preserve camera settings
263
parked car finder 399–400
Photos picker in Messages 191–192
preserve photo filter settings 276
QuickType data suggestions 187
Raise to Wake feature 17–18
removal of headphone jack 5
Rest Finger to Open feature 18
saving photos PDFs to iBooks 313
screen color filters 213–214
search intelligence in Photos app 306
second page of Control Center 46
sharing photos to Notes 311
Siri App Suggestions 101–102
TTY features 224–225
universal Clipboard 554–555
using Siri in non-Apple apps 165–166
Magnifier 211–212
word highlights for dyslexia 214
what’s new on the 7/7 Plus 5–7
audio improvements 7
battery improvements 6
camera improvements 6
faster processor 7
life without a headphone jack 29–30
new buttons for force restart 624
optical zoom on the 7 Plus 269–270
portrait mode on the 7 Plus 278–280
revamped Home button 7
screen improvements 6
water and dust resistance 5
whiteboard 188
white cable 32
widescreen keyboard 78–79
cursor keys 78–79
widgets. See also Today screen
viewing on Home screen 68
Wi-Fi 435–438
address 574
airplane mode 438–439
Ask to Join Networks 570
commercial hotspots 437–438
controlling by voice 150
controlling from Control Center 438
defined 435–436
finding hotspots 435
hotspot connection data 437
hotspot invitations 437
initial setup 613
Instant Hotspot feature 550
list of hotspots 437, 570

printing with AirPrint 346–347
sequence of connections 436–437
settings 569–570
speed of 436
turning off 42, 438–439
using while on a call 126
voice calls over the network 24
Wi-Fi Assist 573
Wi-Fi Positioning System 391–392
wireless syncing with iTunes 510–511
Wikipedia 9
in Spotlight results 100
searching 454
searching from iBooks 384
searching with Siri 161
Windows AutoPlay 520
wireless speakers and headphones
247–249
Wolfram Alpha 163
world clock 367–368

Y
Yahoo
searches 161
setting up email account 475–476
syncing with Notes app 410
Yelp 196
YouTube
playing videos in Messages 178
posting videos to 312

Z
.zip files 494
zooming 208–211
camera digital zoom 268–270
Follow Focus command 210
gestures 208–209
in Safari 447–448
menu 209
on larger-screened phones 580
on/off with Home button triple-click
229–230
photos 305
Show Controller command 210
type size in iBooks 383–384
video 258–259

Index

659

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