iPhone For Dummies

Edward C. Baig is the personal technology columnist for USA Today. Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus is the tech columnist for the Houston Chronicle. The two have paired on all previous editions of this book as well as iPad For Dummies.

Introduction 1


About This Book 1


Foolish Assumptions 2


Icons Used in This Book 2


Beyond the Book 3


Where to Go from Here 3


Part 1: Meet Your iPhone 5


Chapter 1: Unveiling the iPhone 7


The Big Picture 8


The iPhone as a phone and a digital camera or camcorder 9


The iPhone as an iPod 10


The iPhone as an Internet communications device 10


Technical specifications 11


A Quick Tour Outside 12


On the top and sides 12


On the bottom 13


On the front 15


On the back 15


Status bar 16


Home Sweet Home Screen 18


The first Home screen 19


The second Home screen 20


The dock (all Home screens) 22


Chapter 2: iPhone Basic Training 23


Activating the iPhone 24


Turning the iPhone On and Off 26


Pointing a finger at Touch ID 27


Facing up to Face ID 29


Continuing the setup 30


Locking the iPhone 31


Understanding Pressure-Sensitive Touch 32


Mastering the Multitouch Interface 33


Discovering the special-use keys 35


One-handed keyboard 36


The incredible, intelligent, and virtual iPhone keyboard 36


Anticipating what comes next 37


Finger-typing on the virtual keyboards 37


Correcting mistakes 41


Choosing an alternative keyboard 42


Cutting, copying, pasting, and replacing 42


Multitasking 44


Navigating beyond the Home Screen 45


Organizing Icons into Folders 46


Proactive Searching 47


Notifications and the Today View 49


Chapter 3: Synchronicity: Getting Stuff to and from Your iPhone 53


A Brief iCloud Primer 54


The Kitchen Sync 56


First things first: About iPhone backups 56


Sync prep 101 58


Syncing Your Data with iTunes 62


Syncing contacts 63


Syncing calendars 64


Advanced syncing 64


Synchronizing Your Media 65


Music, movies, TV shows, and podcasts 66


Photos 68


Manual Syncing 70


Chapter 4: Understanding the Phone-damentals 73


Making a Call 74


Contacts 74


Favorites 76


Recents 78


Keypad 79


Visual voicemail 79


Recording a greeting 82


Voice dialing 82


Receiving a Call 83


Accepting the call 83


Announcing the caller 83


Rejecting the call 84


Replying with a text message 84


Blocking callers 85


Avoiding disturbances 85


Choosing ringtones 86


While on a Call 88


Juggling calls 90


Making conference calls 90


Handing off calls 91


Seeing Is Believing with FaceTime 92


Group FaceTime 95


Part 2: The PDA iPhone 97


Chapter 5: Taking Control of Your iPhone 99


Controlling Control Center 100


Summoning Siri 102


Figuring out what to ask 104


Siri shortcuts 105


Using dictation 106


Correcting mistakes 106


Making Siri smarter 106


Type to Siri 107


Chapter 6: Texting 1, 2, 3: Messages and Notes 109


Getting the iMessage 109


You send me: Sending text messages 111


Alert: You’ve got messages 112


Being a golden receiver: Reading and replying to text messages 112


MMS: Like SMS with media 115


Massive multimedia effects 116


Group messaging has never been better 120


Taking Note of Notes 120


Chapter 7: Ten Indispensable Utilities 123


Working with the Calendar 123


Year view 124


Month view 125


Day view 125


Week view 125


List view 126


Adding Calendar Entries 126


Letting your calendar push you around 130


Displaying multiple calendars 131


Responding to meeting invitations 131


Subscribing to calendars 132


Sharing a family calendar 132


Calculate This 133


Punching the Clock 134


World clock 134


Alarm clock 135


Stopwatch 136


Timer 137


Bedtime 137


Voicing Memos 137


Making a recording 138


Listening to recordings 138


Trimming recordings 139


Adding a title to a recording 140


Reminding me 141


It’s a Wallet 143


Dropping in on AirDrop 145


Controlling Lights, Locks, and More 146


Using the iPhone in the Car 147


Measuring Things 148


Keeping in Good Health 148


Part 3: The Multimedia iPhone 151


Chapter 8: Get in Tune(s): Audio on Your iPhone 153


Introducing Your iPhone’s Music Player 154


It’s music, just not your music 154


My Music Is Your Music 158


A library without library cards 158


Play it again, list 159


Share and share alike 162


Taking Control of Your Tunes 163


Customizing Your Audio Experience 166


Setting preferences 166


Setting a sleep timer 168


Using your voice to control your music 168


Shopping with the iTunes Store App 170


Chapter 9: “Smile”: Taking Pictures with Your iPhone 171


Taking Your Best Shot 172


Making Photos Come to Life 174


Keeping Things in Focus 175


From the front to the rear — and back 176


Firing up the flash 177


Using digital zoom 177


Two rear cameras are better than one 178


Applying filters 179


Binging on burst shooting 180


Using the self-timer 182


Tracking Down Your Pictures 182


Choosing albums 183


Making memories 185


Categorizing your pics 187


Searching for pictures 188


Sharing your photos 189


Admiring Your Pictures 191


Maneuvering and manipulating photos 191


Launching slideshows 192


Storing pictures in the (i)Cloud 194


Editing and Deleting Photos 195


Livening Up Live Photos 198


More (Not So) Stupid Picture Tricks 200


Chapter 10: Starring in a Blockbuster: Video on Your iPhone 205


Finding Stuff to Watch 206


Playing Video 207


Shooting Video 211


Going slow 214


Going fast 215


Capturing stereo 215


Editing what you shot 215


Sharing video 216


Watching video on TV 217


Augmented reality 217


Restricting video and other usage 218


Part 4: The Internet iPhone 219


Chapter 11: Going on a Mobile Safari 221


Surfin’ Dude 221


Exploring the browser 222


Blasting off into cyberspace 222


I Can See Clearly Now 225


Opening multiple web pages at a time 227


Looking at lovable links 228


Book(mark) ’em, Dano 229


Altering bookmarks 231


Viewing open pages on other devices 232


Letting history repeat itself 233


Launching a mobile search mission 233


Saving web pictures 234


Reading clutter-free web pages 235


Private Browsing 235


3D Touch and Safari 236


Smart Safari Settings 237


Chapter 12: The Email Must Get Through 241


Prep Work: Setting Up Your Accounts 242


Setting up your account the easy way 242


Setting up your account the less easy way 242


See Me, Read Me, File Me, Delete Me: Working with Messages 247


Reading messages 247


Filter mail 248


Managing messages 249


Threading messages 252


Searching emails 253


Darling, You Send Me (Email) 258


Makin’ messages 258


Settings for sending email 265


Setting your message and account settings 267


Special Mail options on 3D Touch models 270


Chapter 13: Tracking with Maps, Compass, Stocks, Weather, and Files 271


Maps Are Where It’s At 271


Finding your current location with Maps 272


Finding a person, place, or thing 273


Views, zooms, and pans 274


Timesaving map tools: Contacts, Recents, and Favorites 276


Smart map tricks 278


Contemplating the Compass 283


Taking Stock with Stocks 283


Adding and deleting stocks, funds, and indexes 284


Details, details, details 285


Charting a course 285


Weather Watching 286


Keeping Track of Documents with Files 287


Part 5: The Undiscovered iPhone 289


Chapter 14: Setting You Straight on Settings 291


Sky-High Settings 292


All about you 292


Airplane mode 293


Wi-Fi 294


Bluetooth 295


Cellular 297


Emergency SOS 298


Report, Sound, and Appearance Settings 299


Notifications 299


Control Center 299


Do Not Disturb 300


Privacy 301


Sounds 303


Happy Home button (iPhone 7 and 8 models) 303


Brightening up your day 304


Auto-lock 305


Wallpaper 305


In General 306


About About 306


Software update 307


Storage 307


Background App Refresh 307


Siri & Search 307


Handoff 308


CarPlay 308


VPN 308


iTunes Wi-Fi sync 309


Battery 309


Touch ID/Face ID & Passcode 310


iTunes & App Store 312


Wallet & Apple Pay 312


Screen Time 312


Date & Time 314


Keyboard 315


Language & Region 316


Dictionary 317


Accessibility 317


Reset 320


Phoning In More Settings 320


Promoting harmony through Family Sharing 320


Sorting and displaying contacts 321


Nothing phone-y about these settings 321


Find My iPhone 323


Chapter 15: Apps-O-Lutely! 325


Finding Apps 326


Browsing for apps 326


Finding more information about an app 327


Downloading an app 328


Updating an app 328


Deleting and Organizing Your Apps 329


Deleting an app 329


Organizing your apps 331


Books, Newspapers, and Magazines 332


Books (formerly iBooks) app 333


Newspapers and magazines 334


Chapter 16: When Good iPhones Go Bad 337


iPhone Issues 338


But first 338


Recharge your iPhone 339


Restart your iPhone 339


Reset (force restart) your iPhone 340


Remove your content 341


Reset your settings and content 341


Restore your iPhone 342


Renew your iPhone with Recovery mode 343


Problems with Calling or Networks 344


Sync, Computer, or iTunes Issues 346


More Help on the Apple Website 347


If Nothing We Suggest Helps 348


Dude, Where’s My Stuff? 350


Part 6: The Part Of Tens 351


Chapter 17: Ten Appetizing Apps 353


Shazam 353


Action Movie FX 355


Halide 356


Evernote 357


Bill Atkinson PhotoCard 358


IMDb 359


Libby 360


Waze 360


BeCasso Photo Editor 361


Dark Sky Weather 362


Chapter 18: Ten Helpful Hints, Tips, and Shortcuts 365


Do the Slide for Accuracy and Punctuation 365


Autocorrect Is Your Friend 367


Auto apostrophes are good for you 367


Make rejection work for you 367


Assault on Batteries 367


Tricks with Links and Phone Numbers 369


Share the Love and the Links 370


Choose a Home Page for Safari 370


Like a Time Machine for iPhone Backups 371


Create Ringtones for Free in GarageBand 372


Getting Apps out of the Multitasking Screen 375


Taking a Snapshot of the Screen 376


Index 379