How To Take The Back Off An Iphone 3g

Chapter 1. The Guided Tour

If you'd never seen all the videos and photos of the iPhone, and you found it lying on someone's desk, you might not guess that it's a phone (let alone an iPod/Web browser/alarm clock/stopwatch/voice recorder/musical instrument/compass). You can't see any antenna, mouthpiece, or earpiece—and, goodness knows, there are no number keys for dialing.

It's all there, though, hidden inside this sleek black-and-silver slab.

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. Keep hands and feet inside the tram at all times.

Sleep Switch (On/Off)

On the top-right edge of the iPhone, you'll find a button shaped like a dash. It's silver metal on the iPhone 3G and 3GS, black plastic on the original.

This, ladies and gents, is the Sleep switch. It has several functions:

• Sleep/Wake . Tapping it once puts the iPhone to sleep—into Standby 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, press the Sleep switch for 3 seconds. The screen changes to say, "slide to power off." Confirm your decision by placing a fingertip on the right-pointing red arrow and sliding to the right. The device shuts off completely.

  

  Tip

  If you change your mind about turning the iPhone off, tap the Cancel button, or do nothing. If the iPhone decides you're not paying attention, it dismisses the "slide to power off" screen automatically.

  To turn the iPhone back on, press the switch again for 1 second. The chromelike Apple logo appears as the phone boots up.

• Answer call/Dump to voicemail . The upper-right switch has one more function. When a call comes in, you can tap it once to silence the ringing or vibrating. After four rings, the call goes to your 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 that you've blown them off. Bruised egos may result. Welcome to the new world of iPhone etiquette.)

• Force restart . If your iPhone is really hosed, and no buttons work, and you can't even turn the thing off, the Sleep switch is also involved in force-restarting the whole machine. Steps for this last-ditch procedure are on Reset: Six Degrees of Desperation.

Locked Mode

When you don't touch the screen for 1 minute, or when you put the iPhone to sleep, the phone locks itself. When it's locked, the screen isn't touch-sensitive.Fortunately, you can still take phone calls and control music playback.

Remember, this phone is all touchscreen, so it's much more prone to accidental button pushes than most phones. 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 .

That's why the first thing you do after waking the iPhone is unlock it. Fortunately, that's easy (and a lot of fun) to do: Place your fingertip on the gray arrow and slide it to the right, as indicated by the animation.

Tip

The iPhone can demand a password each time it wakes up, if you like. See General. On the other hand, you can adjust how quickly the phone locks itself, or make it stop locking itself altogether; see General.

SIM Card Slot

On the top edge of the phone, in the middle, is a tiny pinhole next to what looks like a very thin slot cover (see Sleep Switch (On/Off)). If you push an unfolded paper clip—or the more refined, sterling silver "SIM eject tool" that comes with the iPhone 3G— 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 and T-Mobile—and most other countries around the world. Your iPhone works only on GSM networks. (One huge reason that Apple chose AT&T as its exclusive carrier is that Apple wanted to design a phone that works overseas.)

Every GSM phone stores your phone account info—details like your phone number and calling-plan details—on a tiny memory card known as a SIM card (Subscriber Information Module). On some phones, though not the iPhone, it even stores your address book.

What's cool is that, by removing the card and putting it into another GSM phone, you transplant the iPhone'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.

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 will never have any reason to open this tray, unless they just want to see what a SIM card looks like.

Note

You can't use any other company's SIM card in the iPhone—it's not an "unlocked" GSM phone (at least, not officially; there are some unauthorized ways). Other recent AT&T cards work, but only after you first activate them. Insert the other card—it fits only one way, with the AT&T logo facing up—and then connect the iPhone to your computer and let the iTunes software walk you through the process.

If you were curious enough to open it up, then close the tray simply by pushing it back into the phone until it clicks.

Headphone Jack

The tour continues with the top left corner of the iPhone. Here's where you plug in the white earbuds that came with it.

This little hole is 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. Now you, too, can be one of those executives who walk down the street barking orders to nobody in particular. 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.

Tip

On the iPhone 3G and 3GS, you can replace the white Apple earbuds with any standard headphones—welcome news to audiophiles. But on the original iPhone, the molding around the iPhone's audio jack prevents most miniplugs from going all the way in. You may be able to get your headphones to fit by trimming the plastic collar with a razor blade—or you can spend $10 for a headphone adapter (from Belkin.com, among others) to get around this problem.

The Screen

The touch screen is your mouse, keyboard, dialing pad, and notepad. It's going to get fingerprinty and streaky, although it wipes clean with a quick rub on your sleeve.

Especially on the iPhone 3GS; one of its best unsung features is its oleophobic screen. That may sound like an irrational fear of yodeling, but it's actually a coating that repels grease. You'll be amazed at how easily a single light wipe on your clothes restores the screen to its right-out-of-the-box crystal sheen.

You can also use the screen as a mirror when the iPhone is off.

Note

Geeks may enjoy knowing that the screen is 320 × 480 pixels.

But what about scratches? Fortunately, Apple learned its lesson on this one. The iPhone screen is made of optical-quality, chemically treated glass—not polycarbonate plastic like the iPod's screen. It's actually very difficult to scratch glass; try it on a window pane someday.

If you're nervous about protecting your iPhone, you can always get a carrying case for it. But in general, the iPhone is far more scratch-resistant than the iPod. Even many Apple employees carry the iPhone in their pockets without carrying cases.

Tip

Camouflaged behind the black glass above the earpiece, where you can't see them except with a bright flashlight, are two sensors. First, there's an ambient-light sensor that brightens the display when you're in sunlight and dims it in darker places. You can also adjust the brightness manually; see Brightness.

Second, there's a proximity sensor. When something (like your head) is close to the sensor when you're using the phone functions, it shuts off the screen illumination and touch sensitivity. Try it out with your hand. (It works only in the Phone application.) You save power and avoid tapping buttons with your cheekbone.

Screen Icons

Here's a roundup of the icons that you may see in the status bar at the top of the iPhone screen, from left to right:

• Cell signal . As on any cellphone, the number of bars 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 zero bars, the dreaded words "No service" appear here.

• or Network type . The means your iPhone is connected to the Internet via AT&T's very slow EDGE cellular network. In general, if you have a cell signal, you also have an EDGE signal. (If you see this one , that means GPRS, better known as "the even older, even slower Internet network," is in operation instead.)

  If you see the logo instead, get psyched; not only are you using an iPhone 3G or 3GS, but you're also in one of the cities where AT&T has installed a 3G network (much, much faster Internet).

• Airplane mode . If you see the airplane instead of signal and Wi-Fi bars, then the iPhone is in Airplane mode (Airplane Mode and Wi-Fi Off Mode).

• Wi-Fi signal . When you're connected to a wireless Wi-Fi Internet hot spot (A Tale of Three Networks), this indicator appears. The more "sound waves," the stronger the signal.

• The iPhone is locked—meaning that the screen and most buttons don't work, to avoid accidental presses—whenever it goes to sleep. See Locked Mode.

• 9:50 AM . When the iPhone is unlocked, a digital clock replaces the Lock symbol. To set the clock, see General.

• Play indicator . The iPhone's playing music. Before you respond, "Well, duh!" keep in mind that you may not be able to hear the music playing. For example, maybe the earbuds are plugged into the iPhone but aren't in your ears. So this icon is actually a handy reminder that you're running your battery down unnecessarily.

• Alarm . 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. See Alarm for setting (and turning off) alarms.

• Bluetooth connection . The iPhone is connected wirelessly to a Bluetooth earpiece or hands-free car system, as described on Pairing with a Bluetooth Earpiece. (If this symbol is gray, it means that Bluetooth is turned on—and draining your battery—but that it's not connected to any other gear.)

• TTY symbol . 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 Web site.)

• Call forwarding . You've told your iPhone to auto-forward any incoming calls to a different phone number (Call Forwarding). This icon, new in the iPhone 3.0 software, is awfully handy—it explains at a glance why your iPhone never seems to get calls anymore.

• VPN . You corporate stud, you! You've managed to connect to your corporate network over a secure Internet connection, probably with the assistance of some highly paid system administrator—or by consulting Virtual Private Networking (VPN).

• Syncing . The iPhone is currently syncing with some Internet service.

• Battery meter . When the iPhone is charging, the lightning bolt appears, indicating that the phone is charging. Otherwise, the battery logo "empties out" from right to left to indicate how much charge remains. (On the iPhone 3GS, you can even add a "% full" indicator to this gauge; see General.)

Home Button

Here it is: the one and only real button on the front of this phone. Push it to summon the Home screen, which is your gateway to everything the iPhone can do. (Details on the Home screen appear on The Home Screen.)

Having a 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 all the way back to the beginning.

Sounds simple, but remember that the iPhone doesn't have an actual Back button or End button. The Home button is the only way out of some screens.

In the iPhone 3.0 software, the Home button has become more saddled with functions than ever. It's become Apple's only way to provide shortcuts for common functions; that's what you get when you design a phone that only has one button. Some functions you trigger with two button presses; some by holding down the Home button for a moment. Here's the rundown.

One Quick Press: Wake Up

Pressing the Home button once wakes the phone if it's in Standby mode. That's sometimes easier than finding the Sleep switch on the top edge.

Two Quick Presses: Search, Favorites, Camera, or iPod

If you press the Home button twice quickly , it can perform one of four other functions. To specify which of these four functions you prefer, see General; in the meantime, here are your options:

• Search . Two quick pushes on the Home button can open up the new Spotlight (global search) feature described on Spotlight: Global Search. Honestly, though, you're better off using the two-slow-presses shortcut instead so that you can dedicate the two-quick-press thing to one of the other common features (read on).

• Opens your speed-dial list . Two quick pushes on the Home button can take you directly to your Favorites list (Dialing from the Phone App). That's a great shortcut, because it lets you jump from any software program on the iPhone to the phone-calling list without having to go Home first.

• Start up the camera . If you use the iPhone's camera a lot, you may prefer to dedicate the double-Home-button-press to starting up the Camera mode (Chapter 6).

• Opens your iPod . Two quick pushes on the Home button can, instead, take you directly to your iPod screen (Chapter 5). Once again, Apple is assuming that you might want a shortcut to such a frequently used part of the iPhone.

Tip

The Home button is also part of the force quit sequence—a good troubleshooting technique when a particular program seems to be acting up. See Reset: Six Degrees of Desperation.

One Long Press: Voice Control

The Home button has one final trick: If you hold it down for about 3 seconds, you open up the delicious new voice control feature. Here, you can dial by speaking a name or number, or control the music playback. Details are on Voice Dialing (iPhone 3GS).

Silencer Switch, Volume Keys

Praise be to the gods of technology—this phone has a silencer switch!

This little flipper, on the left edge at the top, means that no ringer or alert sound will humiliate you in a meeting, a movie, or church. When you move the switch toward the front of the iPhone, the ringer is on. When you push it toward the back, exposing the orange dot, the ringer is off.

Tip

Even when silenced, the iPhone still makes noise if you've set an alarm (Alarm); when you're playing iPod music; when you're using Find My iPhone (Find My iPhone); if you're using Voice Over (Talking Buttons—and Accessibility) for blind people; or, sometimes, when a game is playing.

Also, the phone still vibrates when the silencer is engaged, although you can turn this feature off; see Brightness.

No menus, no holding down keys, just instant silence. All cellphones should have this feature.

Tip

With practice, you can learn to tell if the ringer is on while the iPhone is still in your pocket. That's because when the ringer is on , the switch falls in a straight line with the volume keys. By swiping your thumb across these controls from front to back, you can feel whether the silencer switch is lined up or tilted away.

Below the silencer, still on the left edge, is the volume control—an up/down rocker switch. It works three different ways:

• On a call, these buttons adjust the speaker or earbud volume.

• When you're listening to music, they adjust the playback volume.

• At all other times, they adjust the volume of sound effects like the ringer and alarms.

Either way, a corresponding volume graphic appears on the screen to show you where you are on the volume scale.

The Bottom and the Back

On the bottom edge of the iPhone, Apple has parked three important components, none of which you'll ever have to bother with: the speakerphone speaker, the microphone, and, directly below the Home button, the 30-pin connector that charges and syncs the iPhone with your computer.

Tip

The speakerphone isn't very loud, because it's aimed straight out of the iPhone's edge, away from you. But if you cup your hand around the bottom edge, you can redirect the sound toward your face, for an immediate boost in volume and quality. That's the one and only payoff for knowing what's down here.

On the back of the iPhone, the camera lens appears in the upper-left corner. On the original iPhone, the rest of the back is mostly textured aluminum; on the iPhone 3G and 3GS, it's shiny hard plastic, in black or white. Cellphone signals have a hard time going through metal, which is why Apple switched to plastic. (All told, there are 10 different radio transceivers inside the iPhone: four each for the standard GSM frequencies; three for the three 3G frequencies; and one each for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.)

In the Box

Inside the minimalist box, you get the iPhone, its earbud/mike cord, and:

• The charging/syncing cable . When you connect your iPhone to your computer using this white USB cable, it simultaneously syncs and charges. (See Chapter 14.)

• 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. The one that comes with the iPhone 3G/3GS is especially tiny and compact.

  Note

  You may have noticed one standard cellphone feature that's not here: the battery compartment door.

  The battery isn't user-replaceable. It's rechargeable , of course—it charges whenever it's connected via the USB cable—but after 300 or 400 charges, it will start to hold less juice. Eventually, you'll have to pay Apple to install a new battery (Out-of-Warranty Repairs). (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.)

• Finger Tips . Cute name for a cute fold-out leaflet of iPhone basics.

• A screen cloth . This little pseudo-suede cloth wipes the grease off the screen, although your clothing does just as well. (The 3GS doesn't come with the cloth. It does come with Apple stickers. But don't use those on the screen.)

• A SIM eject pin . The iPhone 3G and 3GS come with a tiny, laser-cut, stainless silver tool that you can push into the SIM hole shown on Sleep Switch (On/Off). (Missed yours? It was attached to the black cardboard of the inner box "shelf.") Apple couldn't stand the thought of your using some ugly bent paper clip to pry out that card.

What you won't find in the box (because it wouldn't fit) is a CD containing the iTunes software. You're expected to have a copy of that on your computer already. In fact, you must have iTunes to use the iPhone (Chapter 13).

If you don't have iTunes on your computer, then you can download it from www.apple.com/itunes.

Seven Basic Finger Techniques

The iPhone isn't quite like any machine that came before it, and operating it isn't quite like using any other machine. You do everything on the touch screen instead of with physical buttons. Here's what you need to know.

Tap

You'll do a lot of tapping on the iPhone's onscreen buttons. They're usually nice and big, giving your fleshy fingertip a fat target.

You can't use a stylus, a fingernail, or a pen tip; only skin contact works.

Tip

Well, OK—a Q-tip damp with saline solution and charged with a mild electric current also works. But let's not split hairs.

Drag

When you're zoomed in to a map, Web page, email, or photo, you can scroll around just by sliding your finger across the glass in any direction—like a flick (see below), but slower and more controlled. It's a huge improvement over scroll bars, especially when you want to scroll diagonally.

Slide

In some situations, you'll be asked to confirm an action by sliding your finger across the screen. That's how you unlock the phone's buttons after it's been in your pocket, for example. It's ingenious, really; you may bump the touch screen when you reach into your pocket for something, but it's extremely unlikely that your knuckles will randomly slide it in just the right way.

You also have to swipe to confirm that you want to turn off the iPhone, to answer a call on a locked iPhone, or to shut off an alarm. Swiping like this is also a great shortcut for deleting an email or text message.

Flick

A flick is a faster, less-controlled slide . You flick vertically to scroll lists on the iPhone. You'll discover—usually with some expletive like "Whoa!" or "Jeez!"—that scrolling a list in this way is a blast. The faster your 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 the 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 programs like Photos, Mail, Web, and Google Maps, you can zoom in on a photo, message, Web page, or map by spreading.

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 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.

Double-Tap

Double-tapping is actually pretty rare on the iPhone, at least among the programs supplied by Apple. It's not like the Mac or Windows, where double-clicking the mouse always means "open." Because the iPhone's operating system is far more limited, you open something with one tap.

A double-tap, therefore, is reserved for three functions:

• In the Safari (the Web browser), Photos, and Google Maps programs, double-tapping zooms in on whatever you tap, magnifying it.

• In the same programs, as well as in Mail, double-tapping means "restore to original size" after you've zoomed in.

• When you're watching a video, double-tapping switches the aspect ratio (video screen shape); see Familiar iPod Features.

Two-Finger Tap

This weird little gesture crops up in only one place: Google Maps. It means "zoom out." To perform it, tap once on the screen—with two fingers.

Charging the iPhone

The iPhone has a built-in, rechargeable battery that fills up a substantial chunk of its interior. How long one charge can drive your iPhone depends on what you're doing—music playback saps the battery least, Internet ( especially 3G Internet) and video sap it the most. But one thing is for sure: Sooner or later, you'll have to recharge the iPhone. For most people, that's every other day or (if you use the 3G network) every night.

You recharge the iPhone by connecting the white USB cable (or, on the original iPhone, the syncing cradle) 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.

• 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's charging. If the iPhone is unlocked, then the battery icon in the upper-right corner displays a lightning bolt to let you know that it's charging. If it's locked, pressing the Home button shows you a battery gauge big enough to see from space.

Battery Life Tips

The battery life of the iPhone 3G and 3GS is either terrific or terrible, depending on your point of view.

If you were an optimist, you'd point out that when these phones are using AT&T's 3G network, they get longer battery life than any other 3G phone. You'd also extol the 3GS's even better battery, which goes about 20 percent longer than the 3G's.

If you were a pessimist, you'd observe that the 3G and 3GS get only 5 hours of talk time, compared with 8 hours on the original iPhone. And that if you're not careful, you might not even make it through a single day without needing a recharge.

So knowing how to scale back your iPhone's power appetite could come in extremely handy.

The biggest wolfers of electricity on your iPhone are its screen and its wireless features. Therefore, these ideas will help you squeeze more life out of each charge:

• Dim the screen . In bright light, the screen brightens (but uses more battery power). In dim light, it darkens.

  Note

  This works because of the ambient-light sensor that's hiding behind the glass above the earpiece. Apple says it tried having the light sensor active all the time, but it was weird to have the screen constantly dimming and brightening as you used it. So the sensor now samples the ambient light and adjusts the brightness only once—when you unlock the phone after waking 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, dim-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 full brightness. In either case, you've saved all the taps and navigation it would have taken you to find the manual brightness slider in Settings (Brightness).

• Turn off 3G . This is the biggie. If you don't see a icon on your iPhone 3G's status bar, then you're not in a 3G hot spot (A Tale of Three Networks), and you're not getting any benefit from the phone's battery-hungry 3G radio. By turning it off, you'll double the length of your iPhone 3G/3GS's battery power, from 5 hours of talk time to 10!

  To do so, from the Home screen, tap Settings→General→Network→Enable 3G Off. Yes, this is sort of a hassle, but if you're anticipating a long day and you can't risk the battery dying halfway through, it might be worth doing. After all, most 3G phones don't even let you turn off their 3G circuitry.

• Turn off Wi-Fi . If you're not in a wireless hot spot, you may as well stop the thing from using its radio. From the Home screen, tap Settings→Wi-Fi→Off.

  Or at the very least tell the iPhone to stop searching for Wi-Fi networks it can connect to. Carrier has the details.

• Turn off the phone, too . In Airplane mode, you shut off both Wi-Fi and the cellular radios, saving the most power of all. See Airplane Mode and Wi-Fi Off Mode.

• Turn off Bluetooth . If you're not using a Bluetooth headset, then for heaven's sake shut down that Bluetooth radio. In Settings, tap General and turn off Bluetooth.

• Turn off GPS . If you won't be needing the iPhone to track your location, save it the power required to operate the GPS chip and the other location circuits. In Settings, tap General and turn off Location Services.

• Turn off "push" data . 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, Microsoft Exchange (Chapter 16), or MobileMe (Chapter 15). It's pretty amazing to know that your iPhone is constantly kept current with the mother ship—but all that continual sniffing of the airwaves, looking for updates, costs you battery power. If you can do without the immediacy, then visit Settings→Mail, Contacts, Calendar→Fetch New Data; consider turning off Push and letting your iPhone check for new information, say, every 15, 30, or 60 minutes.

• Turn off the screen . Yes, you can actually turn off the iPhone 3GS's screen, rendering it totally black and saving incredible amounts of battery power. Of course, you now have to learn the VoiceOver talking-buttons technology to navigate and operate the phone; see Talking Buttons—and Accessibility.

Finally, beware of 3-D games and other add-on programs (Chapter 12), which can be serious power hogs. And turn off EQ when playing your music (Messages).

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 20 colorful icons against a black background.

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): Calculator, Maps, Camera, and so on. Tap one to open that program.

  Your iPhone comes with 20 or 21 icons preinstalled by Apple; you can't remove them. The real fun, of course, comes when you add to the starter set by downloading more apps from the App Store (Chapter 12).

• Badges . Every now and then, you'll see a tiny, round, red number "badge" on one of your app icons. It's telling you that something new 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 . As you install more and more programs on your iPhone—and that will happen fast once you discover the App Store—you'll need more and more room for their icons.

  The standard Home screen can't hold more than 20 icons. So where are all your games, video recorders, and tip calculators supposed to go?

  Easy: The iPhone automatically makes room for them by creating additional Home screens. 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.

  Tip

  The very first dot, at the far left, is actually a tiny magnifying glass. It represents the Spotlight (search) screen described on Spotlight: Global Search. It's always waiting for you "to the left" of all the other Home screens.

• The Dock . At the bottom of the Home screen, a row of four exalted icons sit on what looks like a metal mesh strip. This is the Dock—a place to park the most important icons on your iPhone. These, presumably, are the ones you use the most often. That's why Apple starts you off with the Phone, Mail, Safari (Web), and iPod icons.

  What's so special about this row? As you flip among multiple Home screens, this Dock never changes. You can never lose one of your four most cherished icons by straying from the first page, so they're always handy.

Rearranging the Home Screen

As you add new apps (icons) to your iPhone, it sprouts new Home screens as necessary to accommodate them all, up to a grand total of 11 screens. (That's 180 apps—and yet even that's not the maximum; read on.)

Until the iPhone 3.0 software came along, this multiple-Home-page business was getting a little unwieldy. People were spending way too much time hunting through their decks of Home screens trying to find the one app they wanted.

Nowadays, the Spotlight search feature can pluck the program you want out of your haystack, as described on Spotlight: Global Search.

In the meantime, however, it's worth taking a moment to arrange the icons on your Home screens into logical categories or a sensible sequence.

To enter Home Screen Surgery Mode, hold your finger down on any icon until, after about a second, the icons begin to—what's the correct term?— wiggle . (That's got to be a first in user-interface history.)

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.

At this point, you can rearrange your icons by dragging them around the glass into new spots; the other icons scoot aside to make room.

Tip

In iPhone 3.0, you can drag a single icon across multiple Home pages without having to lift your finger on each page and start a new drag. 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 can organize your icons on these Home pages by category, frequency of use, color, or whatever tickles your fancy.

When everything looks good, press the Home button to stop the wiggling.

Deleting an App

You may have noticed that, while your icons were wiggling, most of them also sprouted little red X's. That's how you delete a program you don't need anymore: Tap that X. You'll be asked if you're sure; you'll be asked if you want to submit a rating for that app before it says bye-bye; and then it says bye-bye.

(You can't delete one of Apple's preinstalled apps, so no X appears on those icons.)

Restoring the Home Screen

If you ever need to undo all the damage you've done, tap Settings→General→ Reset→Reset Home Screen Layout. That function preserves any new programs you've installed, but it consolidates them. If you'd put 10 programs on each of four Home screens, you wind up with only two screens, each packed with 20 icons. Any leftover blank pages are eliminated.

How To Take The Back Off An Iphone 3g

Source: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/iphone-the-missing/9780596806491/ch01.html

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