iPhone 4S Tips and Tricks

With these simple tips and tricks, you’ll learn all the things your intelligent assistant, your remarkable camera, and your amazing iPhone 4S can do.

   

 See how to use Siri.

Press and hold the Home button, then tap “i.” You’ll see a detailed list of all the ways Siri can help you get things done.

Tell Siri who’s who.

Tell Siri about your relationships, such as “Erin is my wife” or “Rick is my dad.” Then you can say, “Text my wife” or “Call dad” and Siri knows who you mean.

Set your locations.

Tell Siri the address of where you live and where you work. That way, Siri can remind you to do things when you leave or arrive at either place.

Siri writes emails.

You can dictate a quick response to an email. Just say "Reply", then tell Siri your message.

iPhone 4S takes dictation.

Instead of typing an email, tap the microphone icon on the keyboard and start talking. Tap done, and your words will appear as text. Use dictation to write messages, take notes, and more. Dictation also works with third-party apps, so you can update your Facebook status, tweet, or write and send Instagrams.

Quick, take a photo.

The camera icon is always there on your lock screen. Just swipe up to open the Camera app.

See what’s up.

Notification Center lets you know about missed messages, calendar invitations, friend requests, and more. New notifications appear on top of the screen. Swipe down to see a summary of recent notifications.

Set Reminders.

Assign due dates to items on your to-do list and Reminders will send you alerts. Add locations, and you’ll get alerts when you leave or when you arrive. You can also choose priority levels and write notes.

Tweet it up.

Sign in once under Settings and tweet directly from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube, and Maps. Start typing a friend’s Twitter name and iPhone will autocomplete the rest.

Broadcast live with Airplay.

With AirPlay Mirroring, you can share exactly what’s on your iPhone 4S with your HDTV connected to an Apple TV. Just double-click the Home button, swipe all the way to the right, and select AirPlay Mirroring.

Customize your keyboard.

Create your own personal dictionary, including shortcuts for each word. So your keyboard not only autocorrects, but knows exactly what you want to say as you type. In Settings, tap General, Keyboard, and Add New Shortcut. From here, you can add new phrases and assign optional shortcuts to them.

Create an event fast.

Touch anywhere on the calendar to create an event. To change your schedule, just drag events around on the calendar. Tap for day, month, or list view. And rotate to landscape to see an entire week.

Everything has a tone.

Assign a specific tone for new mail, Calendar alerts, tweets, and Reminders. In Settings, tap Sounds to assign each tone. Tap Edit in a contact to assign a ringtone to that contact.

Locate your lost iPhone.

If you’ve lost your iPhone, Find My iPhone can help you locate it on a map and protect its data. Display a message on its screen, remotely set a passcode lock, or initiate a remote wipe to delete your data. Learn more about Find My iPhone

Save images
from the web.

In Safari, touch and hold an image to save it to your Camera Roll or copy it to paste into an MMS or email.

Choose your wallpaper.

In Settings, choose Wallpaper, tap the image of the Lock and Home screens, then tap one of your photo albums or tap Wallpaper for the Apple-designed images. Find the image you want, tap Set, and then choose whether to use it as wallpaper for your Lock screen, Home screen, or both.

Scroll to the top fast.

In Safari, Mail, Contacts, and many other apps, tap the status bar at the top of the screen — which displays the network information, time, and battery level — to scroll quickly to the top.

Lock the screen orientation.

Double-click the Home button to bring up the multitasking interface, then swipe from left to right. Now tap the portrait orientation lock once to turn it on and again to turn it off.

Drop a pin.

In Maps, touch and hold anywhere on a map to drop a pin so you can find an address, get directions, or see street view for that location.

Pinch to zoom.

In the camera app, pinch to zoom in and out of a scene up to 5x. You can also use the zoom slider.

Add PDFs to iBooks

From a Mail message or a web page, touch and hold the PDF icon or link, then select “Open in iBooks.”

Use the compass
with maps.

Tap the Location button in Maps twice to use the built-in compass to orient the map based on the direction you are facing.

Create web clips.

To add a website to your Home screen, visit the page in Safari and tap the Go To icon at the bottom of the Safari window. Tap Add to Home Screen.

Learn some keyboard
tricks.

• Tap the space bar twice, and iPhone adds a period and capitalizes the next word.
• To enter a number or symbol quickly, touch and hold
  , then select the key you want. Lifting your finger returns you to the alphabet keyboard.
• Touch and hold a letter to reveal a list of special characters.

Scrub through audio and video.

When you’re watching a video or listening to music or a podcast, the scrubber bar lets you skip to any point along the timeline. You can adjust the scrub rate from high-speed to fine scrubbing by sliding your finger down as you drag the playhead along the scrubber bar.

Keep your inbox clean.

In Mail, you can delete or move messages in batches. From your inbox, tap Edit, select the messages you want to organize, then tap Delete or Move.

Take a picture of your screen.

Press and hold the Home button, then press the Sleep/Wake button. Your screen flashes and the picture appears in your Camera Roll.

Create a playlist.

In the Music app, tap Playlists, then tap Add Playlist and give it a name. Now tap any song or video to add it to the playlist. You can add individual songs, entire albums, or all songs by an artist.

Tap to focus the camera.

While shooting video or photos, tap the screen where you want to focus. iPhone will also adjust the exposure and white balance automatically.

Swipe to delete.

Delete email and text messages without opening them. Delete voicemail without listening to them. And delete recent calls from your list. Just swipe across the message or number and tap the red delete button.

Print wirelessly from iPhone.

AirPrint makes it easy to print email and web pages right from your iPhone to your AirPrint-enabled printer. To print an email, just tap the Reply icon and select Print. To print a web page, tap the Action icon and select Print. You can also print photos, documents, and more.

Cut, copy, and paste.

Find the text you want to edit in a note, email, web page, or other app. You can select a word by double-tapping it, and select more or less text by dragging the grab points. Then tap to cut, copy, or paste. To undo an edit, shake iPhone, then tap the Undo button.

Display character count in text messages.

In Settings, tap Messages, then tap the Character Count switch. The count appears as you type when your message exceeds two lines. You may want to do this when carrier fees apply.

Place a call on hold.

On iPhone 4, touch and hold the Mute button to put a call on hold (GSM model only).

Get back to your draft.

In Mail, touch and hold the Compose button to switch to your last saved message draft.