iPhone tips and tricks

I have been using the iPhone for almost 6 months now and I have learned few nice tips and tricks from various websites and also few on my own. I will summarize here the best of those tips and tricks. If you have any tips or tricks to share, add them in the comments.

• Home button : Click the home button once to return to your home screen from any screen. If you have opened an app, pressing the home button will close it and you will return to the screen from where you launched the app. Pressing the home button when you are on home screen will take you the search screen.
• Double-tap home button : You can configure the double-tap of home button to open search, phone favorites, camera or iPod. Go to Settings –> General –> Home to configure. When you are using iPod, double-tap home screen to get the controls to pause, forward or rewind. These iPod controls work even when the screen is locked.
• Scroll to the top : When you have scrolled down the pages in Safari or the list of songs in iPod or any page in any app for that matter, you can scroll to the top by just tapping on the top bar that shows time, battery and signal etc.
• Rearrange app icons : Press and hold on any app icon till all the icons start shaking. You can reorder your dock icons and also all other app icons by dragging them now. If you want to move icons from one screen to the other, drag them to the left or right edge.
• Double-tap space bar to insert a period followed by space : Whether you are tying an SMS or an email, just double click on that space bar quickly to insert a period and a space.
• Quickly type a number or symbol : When you are typing in ABC mode, if you want to insert just one number or symbol, tap and hold on the number key to get the numbers and symbols popup. Drag your finger to any number or symbol and release it to insert it and go back to the ABC mode in one shot.
• Enable caps-lock : Go to Settings –> General –> Keyboard to enable the caps-lock key. The up arrow on your keyboard now turns into a caps-lock.
• URL suffix : While typing a URL in Safari, you can press and hold on the “.com” to see more options such as “.org”, “.edu”. To enter “.org”, you have to slide to that key while holding down on the “.com”.
• Save images from Safari : Press and hold on any image in Safari to get a menu asking you to save the image.
• Double-tap in Safari to fit-to-page : Even though you can zoom in and out by pinching and dragging with two fingers, the easy way to make a specific section or picture to occupy the screen is to double-tap on it.
• Screenshot : Hold down the home button and press the sleep button once to take a screenshot that is automatically saved to your camera roll.
• Scientific calculator : Rotate your phone horizontally to turn your normal calculator into scientific calculator.
• Bigger keyboard : Rotate your phone horizontally while typing a mail or SMS to get the bigger sized keyboard.
• Customize dock icons in apps : In apps like iPod, YouTube and iTunes, there are other items under the more menu. If you want to swap icons on the dock with icons in more menu, click on edit and drag the icon to the dock to place it in the dock.
• Call from Safari or Notes : If you find a number on a website that you want to call or if you have some numbers stored in your notes, just tap the number and you will get a popup asking you if you wan to call that number. This works in most apps too.
• Turn-off spelling auto-correction : If you are tired of your iPhone converting your words to something else automatically, you can switch of the spelling auto-correction by going to Settings –> General –> Keyboard.
• Turn-on auto-fill : If you want the Safari to remember your usernames and passwords on websites and also auto-fill the forms, turn on the auto-fill feature by going to Settings –> Safari –> AutoFill.
• Check the numbers : You can check the number of songs, videos, photos and applications installed on your iPhone quickly by going to Settings –> General –> About.
• Delete custom words from dictionary : If you have mistakenly added few words to your dictionary, you can delete them by going to Reset menu at Settings –> General –> Reset –> Reset Keyboard Dictionary.

That’s a long list. Isn’t it ? But I’m sure there are more that didn’t make it to this list either because I didn’t find it yet or because I think it is easy for the people to figure out. But you can always add your favorites in comments.