These simple tips and tricks will help you travel from one destination to the next, learn how to use the new features in Maps and make the things you do every day even easier.
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.
Quick, take a photo.
The camera icon is always there on your lock screen. Just swipe up to open the Camera app.
Get there with Quick Route.
When Maps drops a pin on a location, you can get turn-by-turn directions to that location almost instantly. Just tap the Quick Route button next to the location’s name.
See up close with Flyover.
Switch to Flyover view in Maps by tapping the “3D” button. Now you can explore cities from the air as you zoom, pan and rotate around landmarks.
Tilt and rotate with two fingers.
As you’re looking at a map, use two fingers to tilt or rotate the view. Maps keeps the names of the streets and places where they belong. So everything’s easy to read, and you won’t get lost.
Head north in a tap.
Rotate a map a few times, and you could lose your north–south orientation. But it’s easy to get it back. Just tap the compass icon in the upper-right corner.
Refresh your inbox with a swipe.
Anticipating an important email? Refresh your mailboxes in an instant with a quick downward swipe.
Take websites full screen.
When you really want to see the whole picture, turn your iPhone to landscape and tap the full-screen icon to view web pages without distractions.
Get back to your draft.
In Mail, touch and hold the Compose button to switch to your last saved message draft.
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.
Customise your keyboard.
Create your own personal dictionary, including shortcuts for each word. So your keyboard not only autocorrects, it knows exactly what you want to say as you type. In Settings, tap General > Keyboard > 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 an alert.
Assign a specific tone or create a customised vibration for new mail, Calendar alerts, tweets and Reminders. In Settings, tap Sounds to assign each a tone or vibration.
Locate your lost iPhone.
If you’ve lost your iPhone, Find My iPhone can help you locate it. Just go to Settings > iCloud and turn on the Find My iPhone feature.
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.
Give your texts some character.
Access all sorts of smileys, animals, shapes and other peculiarities from your emoji-enabled keyboard. Just go to Settings > General > Keyboard and tap International Keyboards. Add a new keyboard and select Emoji. Now when you type, just tap the globe button and choose the emoji fit for the mood.
Turn on Do Not Disturb for peace and quiet.
In Settings, turn on Do Not Disturb to avoid dealing with all incoming calls and notifications. Enable it manually or schedule a recurring time. Or allow calls from your favourites or specific contact groups.
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.
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”.
Lighten the load.
In your wallet.
Passbook stores your boarding passes, gift cards, vouchers and more. So when you’re boarding at the gate or checking out at the café, just open Passbook, find the pass you need, and have it scanned — straight from your iPhone.
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 full stop and capitalises 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 organise, then tap Delete or Move.
Take a picture of your screen.
Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button, then press the Home 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.
Display the 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.
Print wirelessly from iPhone.
AirPrint makes it easy to print email and web pages straight 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.
Share from Notification Center.
Notification Center not only shows you what’s up with you, it can tell your social circle what’s up with you. Tweet or update your Facebook status straight from Notification Center.
Read the iPhone User Guide.
For more tips, tricks and instructions, tap the Bookmarks icon in Safari, then select iPhone User Guide.