New to iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and wondering what tips and tricks you really need to know to get started? Have friends and family that are new to iPhone and would love to have a handy link to send them? Look no further. Carefully curated below are TiPb's top 10 tips and tricks for new users -- everything you need to know to get going now.
Note: If you're really brand new, check out our New User Guide first, the fastest way to get up and running and enjoying your new device.
How the Home button works: Navigation, Multitasking, Accessibility, Restart, Reboot, Recovery, and DFU
Because the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad have only a few buttons, the Home button does a ton of different things. So many, it can be confusing. A single click can move you around the home screens, a double click can put you into the Fast App Switcher, a triple click can launch Accessibility, a click and hold can start Voice Control on iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 and Siri on iPhone 4S, and clicking and holding in combination with the Sleep/Wake button can restart or reboot your device, or put it into recovery or DFU (device firmware update) modes.
- How the Home button works
- How to re-Spring, restart, or reset your iPhone or iPad
- How to put your iPhone or iPad into Recovery Mode
- How to put your iPhone or iPad into DFU Mode
Typing tips and keyboard shortcuts for iPhone and iPad
Wish you had a faster way to insert punctuation or get to caps or numbers on the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad virtual keyboard? Or a way to type just a few letters to get a whole word or sentence? iOS has a variety of time saving features built in to do just that.
How to protect your iPhone or iPad with a Passcode Lock
Your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad can store a lot of personal information, including your contacts, pictures, and personal messages. You can set up a simple 4-digit pin or a strong alphanumeric password to protect them.
How to take a screenshot with iPhone or iPad
Taking a screenshot is really easy with iOS and lets you quickly record or share a picture of anything and everything on your device -- a video game high score, a cool feature in an app, a funny FaceTime moment, a bug you want to report. Just snap it and it goes right into your Camera Roll with all your other photos.
How to share a photo or video with iPhone or iPad
The only thing better than a great picture, an awesome video, or even a killer screenshot is sharing it with friends and family. Thanks to the action button, iPhone and iPad make this really easy.
- How to email a photo or video
- How to tweet a photo or video with Twitter
- How to upload a video to YouTube
How to setup iMessage and FaceTime on iPhone or iPad
If your friends and family also have iPhones, iPads, or iPod touches, you can avoid using your minutes, and get around costly SMS/MMS fees by using Apple's free FaceTime video call and iMessage text and picture services.
How to use Siri on iPhone 4S
Siri is Apple's new artificially intelligent virtual assistant and it can help get more done, more easily, on your iPhone 4S. While basic commands are great, Siri also understands context and relationships, and becomes even more powerful when you start putting together combinations.
- Basic Siri commands
- How to get Siri to pronounce names properly
- How to define relationships for Siri
- Secret Siri commands
How to tether to your iPhone Personal Hotspot
If your data plan allows it, you can tether your Windows or Mac laptop, or even your iPad to your iPhone's Personal Hotspot and get them on the internet even when you're away from Wi-Fi.
How to watch Flash videos on iPhone or iPad
Apple doesn't support Adobe Flash video on iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Often this won't matter and the video website will realize you're on an iPhone or iPad and send you H.264/HTML 5 video instead, or if it's for a TV network, you'll be able to find an app in the App Store that does it directly. However, for smaller sites that aren't compatible and don't have their own apps, there are also several App Store apps that transform the Flash video to Apple-supported H.264 video on their servers, then send it to your iPhone or iPad so you can watch it.
How to update or restore your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad software
Roughly once a year Apple releases a new version of their mobile operating system, like they've just done with iOS 5. Eventually, they'll release a few minor enhancements, for example, and upcoming iOS 5.1. In between, they'll likely release several bug fixes and performance improvements, for example, an upcoming iOS 5.0.1 or 5.0.2. Once that's done, you can get future updates over Wi-Fi. If anything goes wrong, you can also easily restore (re-install) either from backup, or as a new device.
Because battery life problems are one of the biggest reasons people resort to restoring, here are some tips on troubleshooting that as well.
- How to fix battery life problems
- How to restore your iPhone or iPad
- How to update to iOS 5 with iTunes.
- How to do over-the-air (OTA) updates on your iPhone or iPad
Your top tip?
There you have them, TiPb's top 10 tips and tricks for new iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users. Did we miss any of your favorites, or not cover anything you'd really like to know? If so, add them to the comments! Meanwhile, here are some more of our favorite top 10s!
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