iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

The Now Playing Screen (Music)

Whenever a song is playing, the Now Playing screen appears, filled with information and controls for your playback pleasure.

For example:

• Return arrow. At the top-left corner of the screen, the fat, left-pointing arrow means, "Return to the list whence this song came." It takes you back to the list of songs in this album, playlist, or whatever.

• Song info. Center top: the artist name, track name, and album name. Nothing to tap here, folks. Move along.

• Album list. At the top-right corner, you see a three-line icon that seems to say, "list." Tap it to view a list of all songs on this song's album.

  Tip

  You can double-tap the big album art picture to open the track list, too. It's a bigger target.

  This screen offers three enjoyable activities. You can jump directly to another cut by tapping its name. You can check out the durations of the songs in this album.

  And you can rate a song, ranking it from one to five stars, by tapping its name and then tapping one of the five dots at the top of the screen. If you tap dot number 3, for example, then the first three dots all turn into stars. You've just given that song three stars. When you next sync your iPhone with your computer, the ratings you've applied magically show up on the same songs in iTunes.

  To return to the Now Playing screen, tap the upper-right icon once again. (Once you tap, that icon looks like the album cover.) Or, for a bigger target, double-tap any blank part of the screen.

• Album art. Most of the screen ...