Learn input secrets for any situation.

 

Keep a Bookmark on the Home Screen
 

If you frequently visit a website, add its bookmark directly from the Home screen. Go to the page in Safari, and tap the + symbol at the bottom of the screen. Select Add to Home Screen. Rename it if you want, but keep the title short to fit next to the other icons.

 

Save a Picture to Your Library

If you find a cool Image in Safari or the Mail application, just hold your finger on it for a moment to save it to the Photo Library. A menu will pop up. Select Save Image, and it’ll join the other pictures you took. You can even turn it into the wallpaper. Open Photos > Camera Roll, select the image, and tap the button in the lower-left corner.

 

Home Button Shortcut

The circular Home button on the face of the iPhone has a hidden secret; double-click to activate a command other than a trip to the Home screen. Go to Settings > General > Home Button. Set it to open your favorite phone contacts or the iPod app. If you leave iPod Controls active, the double-click even opens basic play and adjustment tools when the phone is locked. There’s no place like Home.

 

Set the iPhone to Turn Off After You Fall Asleep

While the iPhone has replaced plenty of watches—just whip it out and hit the Home button to see the time—it can do a lot more. Within the Clock application, you’ll find World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch, and Timer features. And the Timer can set the iPod to sleep, instead of sounding a chime. Tap When Timer Ends, then scroll to the top for the sleep option. It’s perfect for listening to music when you hit the hay.

 

Swap Between Letters and Punctuation

Tap the spacebar twice to automatically enter a period, end a sentence, and capitalize the following word, but reach for the punctuation keypad in the lower-left for other marks. You have two ways to quickly return to the letters. Tap Space to go back to the alphabet. Or initially hold your finger on the punctuation button, slide to the character you want, and let go.

 

Automate the Apostrophe

Some contractions look like words to the iPhone dictionary, so while it’ll automatically add an apostrophe if you type “wont,” it won’t for “were,” “well,” or “hell.” Make the typing corrector add that punctuation back in by including an extra letter, such as “welll,” “helll,” and “weree.”

 

Activate Hidden Secondary Keys

The .com button speeds up entering Safari URLs, but you can instantly add other top-level domains by just holding the button for a moment. In Mail, hold the period key for the same result. And hold certain, other keys to activate accent commands that are useful, especially in non-English languages: “?,” “!,” “A,” “E,” “I,” “O,” “U,” “C,” “L,” “N,” “S,” and “Z.”

 

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Snap Screenshots

If your iPhone is up-to-date, you can capture an image of anything on-screen. Just hold the Sleep/Wake button for a moment while you press and release the Home button. Your screen will flash white, and the photo will be saved in your Camera Roll in the Photos application. 

 

Shuffle Up Your Icons

Move icons around to create a new order. Simply hold your finger down on one for about two seconds, until they all start to wiggle. You can drag them around to whatever location you’d like, replace the icons that are in the dock, or tap the X to uninstall an app. To stop the wiggling and lock things in place, just press the Home button.

 

Extra Home Screens To The Rescue

Once you start adding application and bookmarking your favorite sites onto the home screen, you’re going to run out of room on your main Home screen. So what’s the solution? Just add more!

Hold down your finger on an icon to put the icons into the shuffle/wiggle dance, and then drag one off to the right side of the screen. The phone will create a new empty screen, and you can fill it up with whatever you want. If you look at the bottom of the screen as well, you’ll see a few dots, depending on how many Home pages you’ve created, up to nine total. Whichever one is bright white represents the screen you’re currently on. Drag all the stock applications you never use off to your last screen, that way they won’t get in the way.

 

We Have Contacts

The Contacts application hides lots of secret fields to store much more information than names, addresses, and phone numbers. When entering information, tap the name of the field to pull up many new choices. For example, tap mobile to choose from many other phone lines. But if that’ snot enough, scroll further down, and press Add Custom Label. When creating a contact, you can even tap Add Field at the bottom to create an entry for birthdays, job titles, and more.

 

Double-Tap to Zoom

Click image to embiggen

The iPhone screen doesn’t just respond to single taps. It likes double taps as well, and it can come in handy as a time-saver. If you’re using Safari, you can double-tap to zoom in on a block of text or a photo, and then double tap again to back out to the full page-view. Viewing a photo? Double tap will zoom you in to the center of the photo, and you can double top again to zoom back out. Plus, in the Maps application, double-tapping will zoom and center the view towards wherever you’re tapping, however if you tap with two fingers, it will zoom you back out. It’s much easier than pinching.

Check out our other iPhone University subjects:
Fine Photos - Shoot—or at least end up with—snappier pictures with the built in camera
Email Expertise - Manage, send, and receive messages easier than ever
iTunes - Make your music library and iPhone sing together.
Troubleshooting - If your iPhone acts up, here's how to take action.