O'Reilly Media | iPhone: The Missing Manual

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If you had never seen all the videos and photos of the iPhone, and you just found it lying on someone's desk, you might not guess that it's a phone (let alone an iPod/Web browser/alarm clock/stopwatch/etc.). You can't see any antenna, mouthpiece, earpiece—and, goodness knows, there are no number keys for dialing.

It's all there, though, hidden inside this sleek black-and-silver slab.

For the rest of this book, and for the rest of your life with the iPhone, you'll be expected to know what's meant by, for example, "the Home button" and "the Sleep/Wake switch." A guided tour, therefore, is in order. Keep hands and feet inside the tram at all times.

On the top edge of the iPhone, you'll find a black plastic button shaped like a dash.

This button has several functions.

Sleep/Wake. Tapping it once puts the iPhone to sleep—that is, into Standby mode, ready for incoming calls but consuming very little power. Tapping it again turns on the screen, so it's ready for action.
On/Off. This switch can also turn the iPhone off completely, so it consumes no power at all; incoming calls get dumped into voicemail (page 53). You might turn the iPhone off whenever you're not going to use it for a few days.

To turn the iPhone off, press the Sleep/Wake switch for three seconds. The screen changes to say, "slide to power off." Confirm your decision by placing a fingertip on the red right-pointing arrow and sliding to the right. The device shuts off completely.

If you change your mind about turning the iPhone off, tap the Cancel button, or do nothing. If the iPhone decides that you're not paying attention, it dismisses the "slide to power off" screen automatically.

To turn the iPhone back on, press the switch again for one second. The chromelike Apple logo appears as the phone boots up.

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On the top edge of the iPhone, you'll find a black plastic button shaped like a dash.

This button has several functions.

Sleep/Wake. Tapping it once puts the iPhone to sleep—that is, into Standby mode, ready for incoming calls but consuming very little power. Tapping it again turns on the screen, so it's ready for action.
On/Off. This switch can also turn the iPhone off completely, so it consumes no power at all; incoming calls get dumped into voicemail (page 53). You might turn the iPhone off whenever you're not going to use it for a few days.

To turn the iPhone off, press the Sleep/Wake switch for three seconds. The screen changes to say, "slide to power off." Confirm your decision by placing a fingertip on the red right-pointing arrow and sliding to the right. The device shuts off completely.

If you change your mind about turning the iPhone off, tap the Cancel button, or do nothing. If the iPhone decides that you're not paying attention, it dismisses the "slide to power off" screen automatically.

To turn the iPhone back on, press the switch again for one second. The chromelike Apple logo appears as the phone boots up.
Answer call/Dump to voicemail. The upper-right switch has one more function. When a call comes in, you can tap it once to silence the ringing or vibrating. After four rings, the call goes to your voicemail.

You can also tap it twice to dump the call to voicemail immediately. (Of course, because they didn't hear four rings, iPhone veterans will know that you've blown them off. Bruised egos may result. Welcome to the new world of iPhone Etiquette.)

When you don't touch the screen for one minute, or when you put the iPhone to sleep, the phone locks itself. When it's locked, the screen isn't touch-sensitive. Fortunately, you can still take phone calls and control music playback.

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On the top edge of the phone, in the middle, is a tiny pinhole next to what looks like a very thin slot cover (see page 6). If you push a pin or an unfolded paper clip straight into the hole, the SIM card tray suddenly pops out.

So what's a SIM card?

It turns out that there are two major cellphone network types: CDMA, used by Verizon and Sprint; and GSM, used by AT&T, T-Mobile, and most other countries around the world. Your iPhone works only on GSM networks.(That's one huge reason that Apple chose AT&T as its exclusive carrier. Apple wanted to design a phone that works overseas.)

Every GSM phone keeps your account information—details like your phone number and calling-plan details—on a tiny memory card known as a SIM card (Subscriber Information Module). On some phones, though not the iPhone, it even stores your address book.

What's cool is that, by removing the card and putting it into another GSM phone, you transplant the iPhone's brain. The other phone now knows your number and account details, which can be handy when your iPhone goes in for repair or battery replacement.

Apple thinks that SIM cards are geeky and intimidating, and that they should be invisible. That's why, unlike most GSM phones, your iPhone came with the card preinstalled and ready to go. Most people will never have any reason to open this tray, unless they just want to see what a SIM card looks like.

You can't use any other company's SIM card in the iPhone—it's not an "unlocked" GSM phone. Other recent AT&T cards will work, however, but only after you first activate them. After inserting the other card — it fits only one way, with the AT&T logo facing up—connect the iPhone to your computer and let the iTunes software walk you through the process.

If you were curious enough to open it up, you close the tray simply by pushing it back into the phone until it clicks.

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The tour continues with the top-left corner of the iPhone. Here's where you plug in the white earbuds that came with your iPhone.

This little recessed hole is no ordinary 3.5-millimeter audio jack, however. It contains a secret fourth pin that conducts sound into the phone from the microphone on the earbuds cord. Now you, too, can be one of those executives who walk down the street barking orders to nobody in particular. The iPhone can stay in your pocket as you walk or drive. You hear the other person through your earbuds, and the mike on the cord picks up your voice.

Incidentally, the tiny microphone nodule on the cord is more than a microphone; it's also an Answer/Hang Up clicker. See page 32 for the full scoop.

In theory, you can use any standard headphones with the iPhone — a welcome bit of news for audiophiles who don't think the included earbuds do their music justice.

The catch, however, is that the molding around the iPhone's audio jack prevents most miniplugs from going all the way in. You may be able to get your headphones to fit by trimming its own plastic collar with a razor blade—or you can spend $10 for a headphone adapter (from belkin.com, among others) to get around this problem.

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The touch screen is your mouse, keyboard, dialing pad, and note pad. It's going to get fingerprinty and streaky, although it wipes clean with a quick rub on your sleeve. You can also use it as a mirror when the iPhone is off.

Geeks may enjoy knowing that the screen is 320 by 480 pixels.

But what about scratches? Fortunately, Apple learned its lesson on this one. The iPhone screen is made of optical-quality, chemically treated glass—not polycarbonate plastic like the iPod's screen. It's actually very difficult to scratch glass; try it on a window pane some day.

If you're nervous about protecting your iPhone, you can always get a carrying case for it. But in general, the iPhone is far more scratch-resistant than the iPod. Even many Apple employees carry the iPhone in their pockets without carrying cases.

Camouflaged behind the black glass above the earpiece, where you can't see them except with a bright flashlight, are two sensors. First, there's an ambient-light sensor that brightens the display when you're in sunlight and dims it in darker places. You can also adjust the brightness manually; see page 246.

Second, there's a proximity sensor. When something (like your head) is close to the sensor when you're using the phone functions, it shuts off the screen illumination and touch sensitivity. Try it out with your hand. (It works only in the Phone application.) You save power and avoid tapping buttons with your cheekbone.

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Here's a roundup of the icons that you may see in the status bar at the top of the iPhone screen, from left to right.

Cell Signal. As on any cellphone, the number of bars indicates the strength of your cell signal, and thus the quality of your call audio and likelihood of losing the connection. If there are zero bars, the dreaded words "No service" appear here.
EDGE Network. When this logo appears, your iPhone can get onto the Internet via AT&T's very handy, but very slow, EDGE cellular network (page 106). In general, if you have a cell signal, you also have an EDGE signal.
Airplane Mode. If you see the airplane instead of signal and Wi-Fi bars, the iPhone is in Airplane mode (page 110).
Wi-Fi Signal. When you're connected to a wireless Wi-Fi Internet hot spot (page 106), this indicator appears. The more "soundwaves," the stronger the signal.
The iPhone is locked—meaning that the screen and most buttons don't work, to avoid accidental presses—whenever it goes to sleep. See page 7.
2:34 PM. When the iPhone is unlocked, a digital clock replaces the Lock symbol. To set the clock, see page 249.
Play indicator. The iPhone's playing music. Before you respond, "well, duh!," keep in mind that you may not be able to hear the music playing. For example, maybe the earbuds are plugged into the iPhone but aren't in your ears. So this icon is actually a handy reminder that you're running your battery down unnecessarily.
Alarm. You've got an alarm set. This reminder, too, can be valuable, especially when you intend to sleep late and don't want an alarm to go off. See page 249 for setting (and turning off) alarms.
Bluetooth connection. The iPhone is connected wirelessly to a Bluetooth earpiece or hands-free car system, as described on page 188. (If this symbol is gray, it means that Bluetooth is turned on—and draining your battery—but it's not connected to any other gear.)

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Here it is. The one and only real button on the front of this phone. Push it to summon the Home screen, which is your gateway to everything the iPhone can do.

Having a Home button is a wonderful thing. It means you can never get lost. No matter how deeply you burrow into the iPhone software, no matter how far off track you find yourself, one push of the Home button takes you all the way back to the beginning.

Sounds simple, but remember that the iPhone doesn't have an actual Back button or End button. The Home button is the only way out of some screens.

The Home button also wakes up the iPhone if it's in Standby mode. That's sometimes easier than finding the Sleep/Wake switch on the top edge.

The Home button is also a "force quit" button. If you press it for six seconds straight, whatever program you're running completely shuts down. That's a good troubleshooting technique when a particular program seems to be acting up.

Some beginners forget that the Home button is a physical pushbutton—it's not touch-sensitive like the screen—and get frustrated when it doesn't respond. Give it a real manly push.

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Praise be to the gods of technology—this phone has a Silence All switch!

This little flipper, on the left edge at the top, means that no ringer or alert sound will humiliate you in a meeting, a movie, or church. When you move the switch toward the front of the iPhone, the ringer is on. When you push it toward the back, exposing the orange dot, the ringer is off.

Even when silenced, the iPhone still makes noise if you've explicitly set an alarm, as described on page 188.

Also, the phone still vibrates when the silencer is engaged, although you can turn this feature off; see page 245.

No menus, no holding down keys, just instant silence. All cellphones should have this feature.

With practice, you can learn to tell if the ringer is on while the iPhone is still in your pocket. That's because when the ringer is on, the switch falls in a straight line with the volume keys. By swiping your thumb across these controls from front to back, you can feel whether the silencer switch is lined up or tilted away.

Below the silencer, still on the left edge, is the volume control—an up/down rocker switch. It works three different ways:

On a call, these buttons adjust the speaker or earbud volume.
When you're listening to music, they adjust the playback volume.
At all other times, they adjust the volume of sound effects like the ringer and alarms.

Either way, a corresponding volume graphic appears on the screen to show you where you are on the volume scale.

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On the bottom edge of the iPhone, Apple has parked three important components, none of which you'll ever have to bother with: the speakerphone speaker, the microphone, and the 30-pin connector that charges and syncs the iPhone with your computer.

There's only one payoff for knowing what's down here: The speakerphone isn't very loud, because it's aimed straight out of the iPhone's edge, away from you. If you cup your hand around the bottom edge, you can redirect the sound toward your face, for an immediate boost in volume and quality.

On the back of the iPhone, the camera lens (page 100) appears in the upper-left corner. The rest of the back is mostly textured aluminum—all except the bottom, which is black plastic. That's where the antenna is. Cellphone signals have a hard time going through metal, which is why this one piece is made of plastic. Fortunately for people who fear cellphone radiation, the antenna is as far from your brain as it can be.

You may have noticed one standard cellphone feature that's not here: the battery compartment door.

The battery isn't user-replaceable. It's rechargeable, of course—it charges whenever it's in the white dock—but after 300 or 400 charges, it will start to hold less juice. Eventually, you'll have to pay Apple to install a new battery (page 277). (Apple says that the added bulk of a protective plastic battery compartment, a removable door and latch, and battery retaining springs would have meant a much smaller battery—or a much thicker iPhone.).

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Inside the minimalist box, you get the iPhone, its earbud/mike cord, and:

The charging/syncing dock. You charge your iPhone by seating it in this white desktop dock. Most people plug the dock's USB cord into a Mac or PC for simultaneous syncing and charging. (See .)
The AC adapter. When you're traveling without a computer, though, you can plug the dock's USB cable into the included two-prong outlet adapter, so you can charge the iPhone directly from a wall socket.
Finger Tips. Cute name for a cute fold-out leaflet of iPhone basics.
Two white Apple decals. Let your car window show that you're a phone-carrying member of the Apple cult.
A screen cloth. This little pseudo-suede cloth wipes the grease off the screen, although your clothing does just as well.

What you won't find in the box (because it wouldn't fit) is a CD containing the iTunes software. You're expected to have a copy of that on your computer already. In fact, you must have an iTunes account to set up and use the iPhone ().

If you don't have iTunes on your computer, you can download it from www.apple.com/itunes.

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The iPhone isn't quite like any machine that came before it, and operating it isn't quite like using any other machine. You do everything on the touch screen instead of with physical buttons. Here's what you need to know.

You'll do a lot of tapping on the iPhone's on-screen buttons. They're usually nice and big, giving your fleshy fingertip a fat target.

You can't use a stylus, fingernail, or pen tip; only skin contact works.

Well, OK—a Q-tip soaked damp with saline solution with a mild electric charge also works. But let's not split hairs here.

When you're zoomed into a map, Web page, email, or photo, you scroll around just by sliding your finger across the glass in any direction—like a flick, but slower and more controlled. It's a huge improvement over scroll bars, especially when you want to scroll diagonally.

In some situations, you'll be asked to confirm an action by sliding your finger across the screen. That's how you unlock the phone's buttons after it's been in your pocket, for example. It's ingenious, really; you may bump the touch screen when you reach into your pocket for something, but it's extremely unlikely that your knuckles will randomly slide it in just the right way.

You also have to swipe to confirm that you want to turn off the iPhone, to answer a call on a locked iPhone, or to shut off an alarm. Swiping like this is also a great shortcut for deleting email or text message.

A flick is a fast, less controlled slide. You flick vertically to scroll lists on the iPhone. You'll discover, usually with some expletive like "Whoa!" or "Jeez!," that scrolling a list in this way is a blast. The faster your flick, the faster the list spins downward or upward. But lists have a real-world sort of momentum; they slow down after a second or two, so you can see where you wound up.

At any point during the scrolling of the list, you can flick again (if you didn't go far enough) or tap to stop the scrolling (if you see the item you want to choose).

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Very few iPhone features have triggered as much angst, hope, and criticism as the on-screen keyboard. It's true, boys and girls: the iPhone has no physical keys. A virtual keyboard, therefore, is the only possible system for entering text.

The keyboard appears automatically whenever you tap in a place where typing is possible: in an outgoing email or text message, in the Notes program, in the address bar of the Web browser, and so on.

Just tap the key you want. As your finger taps the glass, a "speech balloon" appears above your finger, showing an enlarged version of the key you actually hit (since your finger is now blocking your view of the keyboard).

In darker gray, surrounding the letters, you'll find these special keys:

Shift(). When you tap this key, it glows white, to indicate that it's in effect. The next letter you type appears as a capital. Then the key automatically returns to normal, meaning that the next letter will be lowercase.

The iPhone has a Caps Lock feature, but you have to request it. In the Settings program, turn on "Enable caps lock" as described on page 252.

From now on, if you double-tap the key, the key turns blue. You're now in Caps Lock mode, and you'll now type in ALL CAPITALS until you tap the key again. (If you can't seem to make Caps Lock work, try double-tapping the key fast.)
Backspace (). This key actually has three speeds.

Tap it once to delete the letter just before the blinking insertion point.

Hold it down to "walk" backward, deleting as you go.

If you hold down the key long enough, it starts deleting words rather than letters, one whole chunk at a time.

. Tap this button when you want to type numbers or punctuation. The keyboard changes to offer a palette of numbers and symbols. Tap the same key—which now says ABC—to return to the letters keyboard. (Fortunately, there's a much faster way to get a period; see page 24.)

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The iPhone has a built-in, rechargeable battery that fills up a substantial chunk of the iPhone's interior. How long one charge can drive your iPhone depends on what you're doing—music playback saps the battery least, Internet and video sap it the most. But one thing is for sure: Sooner or later, you'll have to recharge the iPhone. (For most people, that's every other day or so.)

You recharge the iPhone by seating it in the white syncing cradle that came with it. You can plug the far end into either of two places to supply power:

Your computer's USB jack. Just make sure that the Mac or PC won't go to sleep or turn off while the iPhone is plugged into it. Not only will the battery not charge, but it may actually lose charge if the computer isn't turned on.
The AC adapter. The little white two-prong cube that came with the iPhone snaps onto the end of the cradle's USB cable and plugs into a standard power outlet.

If the iPhone is unlocked, the battery icon in the upper-right corner displays a lightning bolt to let you know that it's receiving electricity and charging the battery. If it's locked, pressing the Home button wakes it long enough to show you a battery gauge big enough to see from space.

In general, you can use the iPhone while it's charging. The one exception: If the battery charge is really low, it may have to soak in several minutes' worth of power before it can turn on.

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The biggest wolfers of electricity on your iPhone are its screen and its wireless features. Therefore, you can get substantially longer life from each battery charge by using these features:

Dim the screen. In bright light, the screen brightens (but uses more battery power). In dim light, it darkens.

This works because of an ambient light sensor that's hiding behind the glass above the earpiece. Apple says that it tried having the light sensor active all the time, but it was weird to have the screen constantly dimming and brightening as you used it. So the sensor now samples the ambient light and adjusts the brightness only once—when you unlock the phone after waking it.

You can use this information to your advantage. By covering up the sensor as you unlock the phone, you force it into a low-power, dim screen setting (because the phone believes that it's in a dark room). Or by holding it up to a light as you wake it, you get full brightness. In both cases, you've saved all the taps and navigation it would have taken you to find the manual brightness slider in Settings (page 246).
Turn off Wi-Fi. Tap Home→Settings→Wi-Fi→On/Off. If you're not in a wireless hot spot anyway, you may as well stop the thing from using its radio.

Or, at the very least, tell the iPhone to stop searching for Wi-Fi networks it can connect to. Page 242 has the details.
Turn off the phone, too. In Airplane mode, you shut off both Wi-Fi and the cellular radios, saving the most power of all. Page 110 has details.

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As you probably know, using the iPhone means choosing AT&T Wireless as your cellphone carrier. If you're a Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile fan, too bad. AT&T (formerly Cingular) has the iPhone exclusively at least until 2012.

Why did Apple choose AT&T? For two reasons.

First, because Apple wanted a GSM carrier (page 8). Second, because of the way the cellphone world traditionally designs phones. It's the carrier, not the cellphone maker, that wears the pants, makes all the decisions, and wields veto power over any feature. That's why so much traditional cellphone software is so alike—and so terrible.

On this particular phone, however, Apple intended to make its own decisions, and so it required carte-blanche freedom to maneuver. AT&T agreed to let Apple do whatever it liked—without even knowing what the machine was going to be! AT&T was even willing to rework its voicemail system to accommodate Apple's Visual Voicemail idea (page 53).

In fact, to keep the iPhone under Apple's cloak of invisibility, AT&T engineering teams each received only a piece of it so that nobody knew what it all added up to. Apple even supplied AT&T with a bogus user interface to fake them out!

Suppose you've already activated your phone (), and the "number of bars" logo in the upper-left corner tells you that you've got cellular reception. You're ready to start a conversation.

Well, almost ready. The iPhone offers four ways to dial, but all of them require that you first be in the Phone application (program).

To get there:

❶ If you're not already on the Home screen, press the Home button. You arrive at the Home screen.
❷ Tap the Phone icon. It's always in the lower-left corner of the Home screen.

The tiny circled number in the upper-right corner of the Phone icon tells you how many waiting voicemail messages you have. See page 53.

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Suppose you've already activated your phone (), and the "number of bars" logo in the upper-left corner tells you that you've got cellular reception. You're ready to start a conversation.

Well, almost ready. The iPhone offers four ways to dial, but all of them require that you first be in the Phone application (program).

To get there:

❶ If you're not already on the Home screen, press the Home button. You arrive at the Home screen.
❷ Tap the Phone icon. It's always in the lower-left corner of the Home screen.

The tiny circled number in the upper-right corner of the Phone icon tells you how many waiting voicemail messages you have. See page 53.

Now you've arrived in the Phone program. A new row of icons appears at the bottom, representing the four ways of dialing:

Favorites list. Here's the iPhone's version of speed-dial keys: It lists the 20 people you think you most frequently call. Tap a name to make the call. (For details on building and editing this list, see page.)
Recents list. Every call you've made, answered, or missed recently appears in this list. Missed callers' names appear in red lettering, which makes them easy to spot—and easy to call back.

Tap a name or number to dial. Or tap the button to view the details of a call—when, where, how long—and, if you like, to add this number to your Contacts list.
Contacts. Your master phone book. If your social circle is longer than one screenful, you'll have the distinct pleasure of flicking through it (page 17).

Or, if you're in a hurry to get to the T's, use the A to Z index down the right edge of the screen. You can tap the last-name initial letter you want (R, or W, or whatever). Alternatively, you can drag your finger up or down the index. The list scrolls in real time.

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When someone calls your iPhone, you'll know it; three out of your five senses are alerted. Depending on how you've set up your iPhone, you'll hear a ring, feel vibration, and see the caller's name and photo fill that giant iPhone screen. (Scent and taste will have to wait until iPhone 2.0.)

For details on choosing a ring sound (ringtone) and vibrate mode, see page 245. and for info on the Silence all switch, see page 12.

How you answer depends on what's happening at the time:

If you're using the iPhone, tap the green Answer button. Tap End Call when you both have said enough.
If the iPhone is asleep or locked, the screen lights up and says, "slide to answer." If you slide your finger as indicated by the arrow, you simultaneously unlock the phone and answer the call.
If you're wearing earbuds, the music nicely fades out and then pauses; you hear the ring both through the phone's speaker and through your earbuds. Answer by squeezing the clicker on the right earbud cord, or by using either of the methods described above.

When the call is over, you can click again to hang up—or just wait until the other guy hangs up. Either way, the music will fade in again and resume from precisely the spot where you were so rudely interrupted.

incoming calls pause and fade video playback the same way. in this case, though, hanging up does not make video playback resume. instead, the screen displays the list of videos. apple says it's a bug in version 1.0.

Don't forget, by the way, that the iPhone is a multitasking master. Once you're on the phone, you can dive into any other program—to check your calendar, for example—without interrupting the call.

If you're connected to the Internet via a Wi-Fi hot spot (page 106), you can even surf the Web, check your email, or use other Internet functions of the iPhone without interrupting your call. (If you're not in a hot spot, you won't be able to get online until the call is complete.)

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Whenever you're on a call, the iPhone makes it pitifully easy to perform stunts like turning on the speakerphone, putting someone on hold, taking a second call, and so on. Each of these is a one-tap function.

Here are the six options that appear on the screen whenever you're on a call.

Tap this button to mute your own microphone, so that the other guy can't hear you. (You can still hear him, though.) Now you have a chance to yell upstairs, to clear the phlegm from your throat, or to do anything else you'd rather the other party not hear. Tap again to unmute.

Sometimes, you absolutely have to input touch tones, which is generally a perk only of phones with physical dialing keys. For example, that's usually how you operate home answering machines when you call in for messages, and it's often required by automated banking, reservations, and similar systems.

Tap this button to produce the traditional iPhone dialing pad, illustrated on page 50. Each digit you touch generates the proper touch tone for the computer on the other end to hear.

When you're finished, tap Hide Keypad to return to the dialing-functions screen, or tap End Call if your conversation is complete.

Tap this button to turn on the iPhone's built-in speakerphone—a great hands-free option when you're caught without your earbuds or Bluetooth headset. (In fact, the speakerphone doesn't work if the earbuds are plugged in or a Bluetooth headset is connected.)

When you tap the button, it turns blue to indicate that the speaker is activated. Now you can put the iPhone down on a table or counter and have a conversation with both hands free. Tap Speaker again to channel the sound back into the built-in earpiece.

Remember that the speaker is on the bottom edge. If you're having trouble hearing it, and the volume is all the way up, consider pointing the speaker toward you, or even cupping one hand around the bottom to direct the sound.

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Remember that there are four ways to dial: Favorites, Recents, Contacts, and Keypad.

The Contacts list isn't the first icon in the row at the bottom of the Phone screen. But it's worth describing first, because it's the source from which all other lists spring.

Your iPhone's own phone number appears at the very top of the Contacts list. That's a much better place fAor it than deep at the end of a menu labyrinth, as on most phones.

Contacts is your address book—your master phone book. Every cellphone has a Contacts list, of course, but the beauty of the iPhone is that you don't have to type in the phone numbers one at a time. Instead, the iPhone sucks in the entire phone book from your Mac or PC; page 218 has the details.

It's infinitely easier to edit your address book on the computer, where you have an actual keyboard and mouse. The iPhone also makes it very easy to add someone's contact information when they call, email, or send a text message to your phone, thanks to a prominent Add to Contacts button.

But if in a pinch, on the road, at gunpoint, you have to add, edit, or remove a contact manually, here's how to do it.

❶On the Contacts screen, tap the button in the upper-right corner. You arrive at the New Contact screen, which teems with empty boxes for phone numbers, email addresses, and so on.

If your computer's address book has a Groups feature, which lets you add names to subsets like Book Club or Fantasy League Guys, you'll find that they've been synced over to the iPhone. (Mac OS X's Address Book program has groups, for example.) In that case, you have to tap the group name you want (or All Contacts) before you see the button.
❷ Tap the First Last box. The onscreen keyboard opens automatically, ready for typing.

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Truth is, you may not wind up dialing much from Contacts. That's the master list, all right, but it's too unwieldy when you just want to call your spouse, your boss, or your lawyer. The iPhone doesn't have any speed-dial buttons, of course, but it does have Favorites—a short, easy-to-scan list of the people you call most often.

You can add names to this list in either of two ways:

From the Contacts list. Tap a name to open the Info screen, where you'll find a button called Add to Favorites. (This button appears only if there is, in fact, a phone number recorded for this person—as opposed to just an email address, for example.) If there's more than one phone number on the Info screen, you're asked to tap the one you want to add to Favorites.

Each Favorite doesn't represent a person; it represents a number. So if Chris has both a home number and a cell number, add two items to the Favorites list. Blue lettering in the list lets you know whether each number is mobile, home, or whatever.
From the Recents list. Tap the button next to any name or number in the Recents list (see the facing page). If it's somebody who's already in your Contacts list, you arrive at the Call Details screen, where one tap on "Add to Favorites" does what it says.

If it's somebody who's not in Contacts yet, you'll have to put them there first. Tap Create New Contact, and then proceed as described on page 40. After you hit Save, you return to the Call Details screen so you can tap Add to Favorites.

To help you remember that a certain phone number is already in your Favorites list, a blue five-pointed star appears next to it in certain spots, like the Call Details screen and the Contact Info screen.

The Favorites list holds 20 numbers, max. Once you've added that many, the Add to Favorites and

buttons disappear.

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Like any self-respecting cellphone, the iPhone maintains a list of everybody you've called or who's called you recently. The idea, of course, is to provide you with a quick way to call someone you've been talking to lately.

To see the list, tap Recents at the bottom of the Phone application. You see a list of the last 75 calls that you've received or placed from your iPhone, along with each person's name or number (depending on whether that name is in Contacts or not) and the date of the call.

Here's what you need to know about the Recents list:

Calls that you missed (or sent to voicemail) appear in red type. If you tap the Missed button at the top of the screen, you see only your missed calls. All of this color-coding and separate listings is designed to make it easy for you to return calls that you missed, or to try again to reach someone who didn't answer when you called.
To call someone back—regardless of whether you answered or dialed the call—tap that name or number in the list.
Tap the button next to any call to open the Call Details screen. At the top of the screen, you can see whether this was an Outgoing Call, Incoming Call, or Missed Call.

What else you see here depends on whether or not the other person is in your Contacts list.

If so, the Call Details screen displays the person's whole information card. For outgoing calls, blue type indicates which of the person's numbers you dialed. A star denotes a phone number that's also in your Favorites list.

If the call isn't from someone in your Contacts, you get to see a handy notation at the top of the Call Details screen: the city and state where the calling phone is registered.

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The last way to place a call is to tap the Keypad button at the bottom of the screen. The standard iPhone dialing pad appears. It's just like the number pad on a normal cellphone, except that the "keys" are much bigger and you can't feel them.

To make a call, tap out the numbers—use the

key to backspace if you make a mistake—and then tap the green Call button.

You can also use the keypad to enter a phone number into your Contacts list, thanks to the little

icon in the corner. See page 44 for details.

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The iPhone is a quad-band GSM phone, which is a fancy way of saying it also works in any of the 200 countries of the world (including all of Europe) that have GSM phone networks. Cool!

But AT&T's international roaming charges will cost you anywhere from 60 cents to $5 per minute. Not so cool!

If you, a person in Oprah's tax bracket, are fine with that, then all you have to do is remember to call AT&T before you travel. Ask that they turn on the international roaming feature. (They can do that remotely. It's a security step.)

Then off you go. Now you can dial local numbers in the countries you visit, and receive calls from the U.S. from people who dialed your regular number, with the greatest of ease. You can even specify which overseas cell carrier you want to carry your calls, since there may be more than one that's made roaming agreements with AT&T.

See page 243 for details on specifying the overseas carrier. And see www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/long-distance for details on this roaming stuff.

If you're not interested in paying those massive roaming charges, however, you might want to consider simply renting a cellphone when you get to the country you're visiting.

The iPhone can even add the proper country codes automatically when you dial U.S. numbers; see page 255.

As for calling overseas numbers from the U.S., the scheme is simple:

North America (Canada, Puerto Rico, Caribbean). Dial 1, the area code, and the number, just like any other long-distance call.
Other countries. Dial 011, the country code, the city or area code, and the local number. How do you know the country code? Let Google be your friend.

Instead of dialing 011, you can just hold down the 0 key. That produces the + symbol, which means 011 to the AT&T switchboard.

These calls, too, will cost you. If you do much overseas calling, therefore, consider cutting the overseas-calling rates down to the bone by using

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Once you've savored the exhilaration of making phone calls on the iPhone, you're ready to graduate to some of its fancier tricks: voicemail, sending text messages, using AT&T features like Caller ID and Call Forwarding, and using a Bluetooth headset or car kit.

Without a doubt, Visual Voicemail is one of the iPhone's big selling points. On the iPhone, you don't dial in to check for answering-machine messages people have left for you. You don't enter a password. You don't sit through some Ambien-addled recorded lady saying, "You have...17...messages. To hear your messages, press 1. When you have finished, you may hang up..."

Instead, whenever somebody leaves you a message, the phone wakes up, and a message on the screen lets you know who the message is from. You also hear a sound, unless you've turned that option off (page 245) or turned on the Silence switch (page 12).

That's your cue to tap Home→Phone→Voicemail. There, you see all your messages in a tidy chronological list. (The list shows the callers' names if they're in your Contacts list, or their numbers otherwise.) You can listen to them in any order—you're not forced to listen to your three long-winded friends before discovering that there's an urgent message from your boss. It's a game-changer.

To access your voicemail, tap Phone on the Home screen, and then tap Voicemail on the Phone screen.

The very first time you visit this screen, the iPhone prompts you to make up a numeric password for your voicemail account—don't worry, you'll never have to enter it again—and to record a "Leave me a message" greeting.

You have two options for the outgoing greeting:

Default. If you're microphone-shy, or if you're someone famous and you don't want stalkers and fans calling just to hear your famous voice, use this option. It's a prerecorded, somewhat uptight female voice that says, "Your call has been forward to an automatic voice message system. 212-661-7837 is not available."

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Without a doubt, Visual Voicemail is one of the iPhone's big selling points. On the iPhone, you don't dial in to check for answering-machine messages people have left for you. You don't enter a password. You don't sit through some Ambien-addled recorded lady saying, "You have...17...messages. To hear your messages, press 1. When you have finished, you may hang up..."

Instead, whenever somebody leaves you a message, the phone wakes up, and a message on the screen lets you know who the message is from. You also hear a sound, unless you've turned that option off (page 245) or turned on the Silence switch (page 12).

That's your cue to tap Home→Phone→Voicemail. There, you see all your messages in a tidy chronological list. (The list shows the callers' names if they're in your Contacts list, or their numbers otherwise.) You can listen to them in any order—you're not forced to listen to your three long-winded friends before discovering that there's an urgent message from your boss. It's a game-changer.

To access your voicemail, tap Phone on the Home screen, and then tap Voicemail on the Phone screen.

The very first time you visit this screen, the iPhone prompts you to make up a numeric password for your voicemail account—don't worry, you'll never have to enter it again—and to record a "Leave me a message" greeting.

You have two options for the outgoing greeting:

Default. If you're microphone-shy, or if you're someone famous and you don't want stalkers and fans calling just to hear your famous voice, use this option. It's a prerecorded, somewhat uptight female voice that says, "Your call has been forward to an automatic voice message system. 212-661-7837 is not available." Beep!
Custom. This option lets you record your own voice saying, for example, "You've reached my iPhone. You may begin drooling at the tone." Tap Record, hold the iPhone to your head, say your line, and then tap Stop.

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"Texting," as the young whippersnappers call it, was huge in Asia and Europe before it began catching on in the United States. These days, however, it's increasingly popular, especially among teenagers and twentysomethings.

SMS stands for Short Messaging Service. An SMS text message is a very short note (under 160 characters—a sentence or two) that you shoot from one cellphone to another. What's so great about it?

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