Chapter 4. Phone Calls & FaceTime
With each successive iPhone model, Apple improves the iPhone’s antennas, circuitry, speakers, microphones, and software, improving its calling ability year after year. Meanwhile, features like Siri, autoreply, and Do Not Disturb have turned Apple’s phone from an also-ran into one of the most useful gadgets ever to hop onto a cellular network.
Dialing from the Phone App
Suppose you’re in luck. Suppose the bars at the top of the screen tell you that you’ve got cellular reception. You’re ready to start a conversation. To make a phone call, open the Phone app. It’s usually at the bottom of the Home screen. (The tiny circled number, like
, tells you how many missed calls and voicemail messages you have.)
TIP
Using Siri is often faster. You get good results saying things like, “Call Casey Robin’s cell” or “Dial 866-2331.” Truth is, you don’t even need the verb. If you utter only a phone number to Siri, she’ll figure out what to do.
Now you’ve arrived in the Phone app. The icons at the bottom represent your voicemail (“Visual Voicemail”) and the four ways of dialing from here:
Favorites. Here’s the iPhone’s version of speed dial: It lists up to 50 people you think you call most frequently. Tap a name to make the call. (Details on building and editing this list begin on the next page.)
Recents. Every call you’ve recently made, answered, missed, or even ...