Photo Controls

If you tap the screen once, some useful controls appear. They remain on the screen for only a couple of seconds, so as not to ruin the majesty of your photo, so act now.

  • Album name. You can return to the thumbnails page by tapping the screen once, which summons the playback controls, and then tapping the album name in the upper-left corner.

  • Photo number. The top of the screen says, "88 of 405," for example, meaning that this is the 88th photo out of 405 in the set.

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  • Send icon. Tap the icon in the lower left if you want to do something more with this photo than just staring at it. You can use it as your iPhone's wallpaper, send it by email, or use it as somebody's headshot in your Contacts list. All three of these techniques are described in the next section.

  • Previous/Next arrows. These white arrows are provided for the benefit of people who haven't quite figured out that they can flick to summon the previous or next photo.

  • Slideshow () button. Flicking is fun. But starting an automatic slideshow has charms all its own. Its gives other people a better view of the pictures, for one thing, since your hand stays out of their way. It also lets you use some very cool transition effects—crossfades, wipes, and Apple's classic rotating-cube effect, for example.

    Just tap the button to ...

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