iPhone: The Missing Manual, 9th Edition

Chapter 12. Safari

The iPhone’s web browser is Safari, a lite version of the same one that comes on the Mac. It’s fast, simple to use, and very pretty. You see the real deal—the actual fonts, graphics, and layouts—not the stripped-down mini-web on cellphones of years gone by.

Safari on the iPhone is still not quite as good as surfing the web on, you know, a laptop. But it’s getting closer.

Safari Tour

Safari has most of the features of a desktop web browser: bookmarks, autocomplete (for web addresses), scrolling shortcuts, cookies, a pop-up ad blocker, password memorization, and so on. (It’s missing niceties like streaming music, Java, Flash, and other plug-ins.)

Tip

You don’t have to wait for a web page to load entirely. You can zoom in, scroll, and begin reading the text even when only part of the page has appeared.

Now, don’t be freaked out: The main screen elements disappear shortly after you start reading a page. That’s supposed to give you more screen space to do your surfing. To bring them back, scroll to the top, scroll to the bottom, or just scroll up a little. At that point, here are the controls, as they appear from the top left:

• (Reader view). In this delightful view, all the ads, boxes, banners, and other junk disappear. Only text and pictures remain, for your sanity-in-reading ...