How do you make the point that the iPhone has changed the world? The easy answer is “use statistics”—100 million sold, 500,000 downloadable programs on the iPhone App Store, 15 billion downloads…. Trouble is, those statistics get stale almost before you’ve finished typing them.
Maybe it’s better to talk about the aftermath. How since the iPhone came along, cell carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and so on) have opened up the calcified, conservative way they used to consider new cellphone designs. How every phone and its brother now have a touchscreen. How BlackBerry, Google (Android) phones, and Windows 7 phones all have their own app stores. How, in essence, everybody wants to be the iPhone.
The thing is, they’ll never quite catch up technologically, because Apple is always moving, too. In October 2011, for example, it introduced the fifth iPhone model, the iPhone 4S. It looks identical to the previous model, the iPhone 4—but the guts are quite a bit different. The processor is much faster, the camera is much better, and there’s speech recognition. Not just dictation—you can actually tell the phone what to do.
More importantly, there’s a new, free version of the iPhone’s software, called iOS 5. (Why not “iPhone OS” anymore? Because the same operating system runs on the iPad and the iPod Touch. It’s not just for iPhones anymore, and saying “the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch OS” takes too long.)
iOS 5 adds all kinds of new features people have been pining for: direct access to the camera from the Lock screen, a Notification Center that lists your messages, calls, and appointments with one finger-swipe, and so on.
Why is it so important? Because you can run iOS 5 on older iPhone models (the 4 and the 3GS) without having to buy the iPhone 4S. This book covers all three phones that can run the iOS 5 software: the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and the iPhone 4S.
So what’s the iPhone?
Well, it’s a cellphone, obviously. But it’s also a full-blown iPod, complete with a dazzling screen for watching videos. And the iPhone is also the best pocket Internet viewer you’ve ever seen. It shows fully formatted email (with attachments, thank you) and displays entire Web pages with fonts and design intact. It’s tricked out with a tilt sensor, a proximity sensor, a light sensor, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, a gyroscope, and that amazing multitouch screen.
Furthermore, it’s a calendar, an address book, a calculator, an alarm clock, a stopwatch, a stock tracker, a traffic reporter, an RSS reader, and a weather forecaster. It even stands in for a flashlight and, with the screen off, a pocket mirror.
But don’t forget the App Store. Thanks to the hundreds of thousands of add-on programs that await there, the iPhone is also a fast, wicked-fun pocket computer. All those free or cheap programs can turn it into a medical reference, a musical keyboard, a time tracker, a remote control, a sleep monitor, a tip calculator, an ebook reader, and so on. And whoa, those games! Thousands of them, with smooth 3-D graphics and tilt control.
All of this sends the iPhone’s utility and power through the roof. Calling it a phone is practically an insult.
(Apple probably should have called it an “iPod,” but that name was taken.)
For four years, the iPhone was exclusively an AT&T phone. But in early 2011, Verizon got the iPhone 4. Then, in the fall of 2011, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint got the iPhone 4S.
In general, these companies’ iPhone models look and work identically. There are just a couple of tiny differences to be aware of.
First, Verizon and Sprint rely on an older, more established cellular network type called CDMA. AT&T, on the other hand, uses a network type known as GSM.
Not many other countries use CDMA, but 220 countries and territories use GSM, including Europe. That’s why the Verizon iPhone 4 doesn’t work in most other countries.
The iPhone 4S, though, is a world phone. It contains both CDMA and GSM circuitry, so even the Verizon and Sprint models work in any other country.
If you want your iPhone to retain its usual phone number while you’re traveling, you can pay Verizon/Sprint/AT&T some steep roaming charges. Otherwise, you can temporarily replace your original SIM card with one you’ve rented in your new country. In both cases, you have to call your main carrier ahead of time to get the OK.
There’s one more GSM/CDMA difference to be aware of: You can’t talk on a CDMA phone (Verizon or Sprint) while you’re online. That is, if you’re on a call, you can’t simultaneously check a Web site or send email over the cellular network.
It’s not such a big deal. Continuing processes like downloads and GPS navigation resume automatically when you end your call. You can still send and get text messages when you’re on a call. And none of this applies when you’re in a WiFi hotspot; in that case, you can call and surf simultaneously, no problem.
By way of a printed guide to the iPhone, Apple provides only a fold-out leaflet. It’s got a clever name—“Finger Tips”—but to learn your way around, you’re expected to use an electronic PDF document. This PDF covers the basics well, but it’s largely free of details, hacks, workarounds, tutorials, humor, and any acknowledgment of the iPhone’s flaws. You can’t mark your place, underline, or read it in the bathroom.
The purpose of this book, then, is to serve as the manual that should have accompanied the iPhone. (If you have an original iPhone or iPhone 3G, you really need one of this book’s earlier editions. If you have an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4, this book assumes that you’ve installed the free iOS 5 software; see Appendix A.)
Writing computer books can be an annoying job. You commit something to print, and then—bam—the software gets updated or revised, and suddenly your book is out of date.
That will certainly happen to this book. The iPhone is a platform. It’s a computer, so Apple routinely updates and improves it by sending it new software bits. To picture where the iPhone will be five years from now, just look at how much better, sleeker, and more powerful today’s iPod is than the original 2001 black-and-white brick.
Therefore, you should think of this book the way you think of the first iPhone: as a darned good start. To keep in touch with updates we make to it as developments unfold, drop in to the book’s Errata/Changes page. (Go to www.missingmanuals.com, click this book’s name, and then click View/Submit Errata.)
Tip
Writing a book about the iPhone is a study in exasperation, because the darned thing is a moving target. Apple updates the iPhone’s software fairly often, piping in new features, bug fixes, speed-ups, and so on.
This book covers the iPhone’s 5.0.1 software. There will be a 5.0.2, and a 5.0.3, and so on. Check this book’s page at www.missingmanuals.com to read about those updates when they occur.
iPhone: The Missing Manual is divided into five parts, each containing several chapters:
Part 1, covers everything related to phone calls: dialing, answering, voice control, voicemail, conference calling, text messaging, MMS, and the Contacts (address book) program. It’s also where you can read about FaceTime, the iPhone’s video-calling feature, and Siri, the “virtual assistant” in the iPhone 4S.
Part 2, is dedicated to the iPhone’s built-in software programs, with a special emphasis on its multimedia abilities: playing music, podcasts, movies, TV shows, and photos; capturing photos and videos; navigating with GPS; reading ebooks; and so on. These chapters also cover app management: installing, organizing, and quitting apps—and, of course, the iPhone’s special version of multitasking.
Part 3, is a detailed exploration of the iPhone’s third talent: its ability to get you onto the Internet, either over a WiFi hotspot connection or via the cellular network. It’s all here: email, Web browsing, and tethering (that is, letting your phone serve as a sort of Internet antenna for your laptop).
Part 4, describes the world beyond the iPhone itself—like the copy of iTunes on your Mac or PC that can fill up the iPhone with music, videos, and photos, and syncing the calendar, address book, and mail settings. These chapters also cover the iPhone’s control panel, the Settings program; and how the iPhone syncs wirelessly with corporate networks using Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync—or with your own computers using Apple’s iCloud service.
Part 5, contains three reference chapters. Appendix A walks you through the setup process; Appendix B is a tour of accessories like chargers, car adapters, and carrying cases; and Appendix C is a master compendium of troubleshooting, maintenance, and battery information.
Throughout this book, and throughout the Missing Manual series, you’ll find sentences like this one: Tap Settings→Airplane Mode→On. That’s shorthand for a much longer instruction that directs you to open three nested screens in sequence, like this: “Tap the Settings button. On the next screen, tap Airplane Mode. On the screen after that, tap On.” (In this book, tappable things on the screen are printed in orange to make them stand out.)
Similarly, this kind of arrow shorthand helps to simplify the business of choosing commands in menus on your Mac or PC, like File→Print.
To get the most out of this book, visit www.missingmanuals.com. Click the Missing CDs link, and then click this book’s title to reveal a neat, organized list of the shareware, freeware, and bonus articles mentioned in this book.
The Web site also offers corrections and updates to the book; to see them, click the book’s title, and then click View/Submit Errata. In fact, please submit corrections yourself! Each time we print more copies of this book, we’ll make any confirmed corrections you’ve suggested. We’ll also note such changes on the Web site, so you can mark important corrections into your own copy of the book, if you like. And we’ll keep the book current as Apple releases more iPhone updates.
Get iPhone: The Missing Manual, 5th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
