6 Making Your iPhone Work for You

Your iPhone has many tools and options you can use to make it work for you the way you want it to.

Getting Started

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to employ a number of very useful elements of your iPhone, including the following:

• Notifications—There’s a lot of activity going on with your iPhone. Visual, auditory, and vibratory notifications enable you to be aware of that activity. At times, these notifications can be overwhelming. Fortunately, you can determine exactly how and when you receive notifications so that you’re informed about what is important to you and not be bothered with a lot of stuff that isn’t important.

• Do Not Disturb—Sometimes, we all want a little peace and quiet. When you put your iPhone in Do Not Disturb mode, it won’t bother you with notifications. You can even set Do Not Disturb to activate automatically, such as at night.

• Control Center—The Control Center provides quick access to a number of areas of your iPhone so that you can make changes with just a few taps. You can determine the controls that are on the Control Center so that it works even better for you.

• Widget Center—Many apps provide widgets, which are mini versions of those apps that provide key information or functionality. You can open the Widget Center with a swipe and then immediately get to the widgets you want to use. You can determine the widgets that are in the Widget Center and how they are organized.

• Keyboards—Typing is a fundamental task for emails, messages, notes, and much more. In Chapter 3, “Using Your iPhone’s Core Features,” you learn how to use keyboards to input text and emojis. In this chapter, you learn how to configure the keyboards available to you for all your typing needs.

• Accessibility Options—Not everyone sees, hears, or interacts with the world, or an iPhone, in the same way. Accessibility Options enable you to adjust the way your iPhone works to adapt better to how you see, hear, and interact with it.

Configuring and Working with Notifications

Your iPhone uses notifications to keep you informed of important (and at times, not-so-important) information. There are three basic types of notifications:

• Visual—Visual notifications appear on the iPhone’s screen. There are two basic types: Badges and Alerts.

  Badges, which appear as red circles on app icons, indicate the number of new events in an app, such as the number of new emails.

  Alerts are onscreen messages about specific activity. You can choose alerts to appear on the Lock screen, Notification Center, or as Banners (you can use any combination of these). Banners can be temporary, which means they appear briefly on the screen and then disappear, or persistent, meaning that you have to take action to clear the notification.

  When a banner appears, you can read its information and take action on it, such as responding to a text message.

• Sounds—Different kinds of sounds can indicate events that are happening. Obvious examples are the ringtone your iPhone plays when someone calls you, but you can configure auditory notifications for many other events including new emails or FaceTime requests. You can even have different sounds for events of the same kind, such a different ringtone for specific people.

• Vibrations (Haptic)—You can feel this kind of notification when the iPhone vibrates. Like the other types of notifications, you can configure the specific vibrations you feel for certain events.

As you learned at the beginning of the chapter, you can configure the notifications that your phone uses to tailor them to meet your preferences. This allows you to ensure your phone keeps you informed without being overly distracting or annoying.

Working with Visual Notifications

Badges appear on an app’s or a folder’s icon to let you know something has changed, such as new email, messages, or invitations.

Badges are purely informational, meaning you can’t take any action on them. They inform you about events so that you can take action, such as downloading and installing an update to your iPhone’s iOS software or reading new text messages.

When apps in folders have badges enabled, the badge you see on a folder is a total count of the badges on the apps within that folder. The only way to know which apps in a folder have badges is to open the folder so you can see the individual icons and badges.

Alerts appear when activity happens that you might want to know about, such as receiving email or a calendar invitation.

In addition to providing information for you, alerts enable you to take action related to the activity that generated the notification. For example, when you press on an email notification, you can read the entire message. If you swipe up, you see actions you can take, such as deleting the message.

When your iPhone is unlocked, banner alerts appear at the top of the screen. They provide a summary of the app and the activity that has taken place, such as a new email or text message. When a banner appears, you can view its information; if it is a temporary banner, it rotates off the screen after displaying for a few seconds; if it is a persistent banner, you need to do something to cause it to disappear. You can tap it to move into the app to take some action, for example, to read an email. You can swipe up from the bottom of the banner to close it. For some apps, such as Mail, you can press on the notification to open a menu of commands.

Alerts can also appear on the Lock screen, which is convenient because you can read and take action on them directly from that screen. If your phone is asleep, the alerts appear briefly on the screen and then it goes dark again (unless the phone is in Do Not Disturb mode, in which case this doesn’t happen); you can press the Side button or the Touch/ID Home button or raise your phone to see your alerts without unlocking the iPhone. You can swipe up or down the screen to browse the alerts.

To respond to an alert or take other action on it, press it to open it and then take an action, such as replying to a message. In some cases, you might need to unlock your phone to complete an action associated with an alert. In those cases, you’re prompted to use Touch ID, Face ID, or your passcode to proceed.

Working with the Notification Center

Alerts and other notifications appear in the Notification Center, which you can open by swiping down from the top of the screen when your phone is unlocked by swiping up on the Lock screen. The Notification Center opens and displays notifications grouped by day and the app from which they come. Notifications from the same app are “stacked” on top of each other so you can see more notifications on the screen.

Using the Notification Center can be efficient because you can see a lot of notifications at the same time without having to be bothered by a banner for each one.

You can read the notifications by swiping up and down the screen. You can work with the notifications on the Notification Center just as you work with individual notifications. For example, press on a notification to pop it open to read more of it or to take action on it.

When you tap a stack of notifications, they expand so that you can see each notification in the stack. You can work with the individual notifications in the stack or you can collapse the stack again by tapping Show less.

To clear notifications from a group, tap clear (x). Then tap Clear. The notifications are deleted from the Notification Center.

You can remove all notifications from the Notification Center by tapping clear (x) at the top of the screen and then tapping Clear. All the notifications are deleted and the Notification Center starts collecting new notifications as they come in.

When you swipe to the left on a notification or group of notifications, you can tap Clear or Clear All to delete the notifications. Tap View to open a notification. Tap Manage to configure notifications for the associated app (this is explained in “Configuring Notifications” later in this chapter).

If you swipe to the right on a notification, you open the app that generated it (if your iPhone is locked, you need to unlock it to move into the app).

To close the Notification Center when your iPhone is unlocked, move back to the Home screen by swiping up from the bottom of the screen (X models) or pressing the Touch ID/Home button (non-X models). When the iPhone is locked, just press the Side button to put the phone to sleep to hide the Notification Center.

Working with Sounds and Vibrations

Sounds are audible notifications that something has happened. For example, you can be alerted to a new email message by a specific sound. Auditory notifications can get your attention and provide some level of information. For example, if you have a specific ringtone for a person, you can tell he is calling you just by hearing his ringtone. You can’t take any action directly from auditory notifications, but they certainly can get your attention.

Vibrations are a physical indicator that something has happened. Your phone can vibrate using different patterns to indicate what has happened. For example, one pattern might indicate a new email while another indicates an incoming phone call. Vibrations can be useful when you don’t want to disturb others with sound, but you can’t see your iPhone’s screen.

You learn to configure the sounds and vibrations your iPhone makes in “Configuring Sounds and Vibrations.”

Configuring Notifications for Specific Apps

You can configure how apps provide notifications and, if you allow notifications, which type. You also can configure other aspects of notifications, such as whether an app’s notifications appear in the Notification Center or if they appear on the Lock screen. Apps can support different notification options; some apps, such as Mail, support notification configuration by account (for example, you can set a different alert sound for new mail in each account). You can follow the same general steps to configure notifications for each app; you should explore the options for the apps you use most often to ensure they work the best for you.

When you configure notifications for apps that support multiple accounts (such as Mail), you configure notifications for each account separately. For example, you might want a different sound for new email sent to your iCloud account than the sound you hear for new email sent to your Google Gmail account.

When you configure notifications for an app that doesn’t support different accounts, you configure all notifications for the app at the same time.

The steps in the following task show you how to configure Mail’s notifications, which is a good example because it can include notifications for multiple accounts and supports a lot of notification features; the notification settings for other apps might have fewer features or might be organized slightly differently. When you configure notifications for an app that doesn’t support accounts, you set all the options from one screen as opposed to using a different screen for each account used by that app. But configuring the notifications for any app follows a similar pattern as exemplified by the steps for Mail’s notification settings.

To configure notifications from the Mail app, perform the following steps:

Tap Settings on the Home screen.

Tap Notifications.

Tap Show Previews. As you saw earlier, alerts from an app can contain a preview of the information related to the alert, such as part of an email message.

To have alerts always show the preview, tap Always; tap When Unlocked to show previews only when your iPhone is unlocked; or tap Never to hide previews.

Tap Back (<).

Tap Siri Suggestions. Siri can suggest shortcuts for apps so you can speak a phrase to do something in that app. On the Siri Suggestions screen, you see the apps installed on your iPhone. The switch next to each app determines whether these suggestions can be made on the Lock screen.

Set an app’s switch to on (green) if you do want to see these suggestions on the Lock screen.

Set the switches to off for apps for which you don’t want to see shortcut suggestions on the Lock screen. (If you set an app’s switch to off, Siri still creates shortcut suggestions for the app; you just won’t see them on the Lock screen.)

Tap Back (<). In the Notification Style section, you see all the apps installed on your phone that can provide notifications. Along with the app name and icon, you see the current status of its notifications.

Swipe up or down the screen to locate the app whose notifications you want to configure. (The apps are listed in alphabetical order.)

Tap the app whose notifications you want to configure.

If you want the app to provide notifications, set the Allow Notifications switch to on (green) and move to step 13. If you don’t want notifications from the app, set the Allow Notifications switch to off (white) and skip to step 35.

Tap the account for which you want to configure notifications; if the app doesn’t support accounts, skip to step 15.

If you don’t want any notifications for the account, set the Allow Notifications switch to off (white) and skip to step 30. If you do want notifications for the account, set the switch to on (green).

Tap Lock Screen so it has a check mark if you want notifications to be visible on the Lock screen; if you don’t want to receive notifications on Lock screen, tap the Lock Screen icon so it doesn’t have a check mark.

Tap Notification Center so it has a check mark if you want notifications to appear in the Notification Center.

Tap Banners so it has a check mark if you want to see banner notifications (which appear at the top of the screen).

If you enabled Banners, tap Banner Style; if not, skip to step 22.

Tap Temporary if you want the alert banners to appear on the screen, remain there for a few seconds, and then disappear. Temporary banners keep you informed but don’t interrupt what you are doing.

Tap Persistent if you want the alert banners to remain on screen until you take action on them. For example, if the alert is for a calendar event, you might want it to be persistent so that it really gets your attention.

Tap Back (<). The specific label you tap to move back to the previous screen depends on where you came from. For example, if you’re configuring notifications for an iCloud account, the label is iCloud.

Tap Sounds.

Use the resulting Sounds screen to choose the alert sound and vibration for new email messages to the account (see “Configuring Sounds and Vibrations” later in this chapter for the details about configuring sounds and vibrations).

Tap Back (<).

To display the app’s badge (which shows the number of new items in that app or account), set the Badges switch to on (green). (If you set this to off [white] for an account, new items sent to that account won’t be included in the count of new items shown on the app’s badge.)

Tap Show Previews.

Tap Always (Default) if you always want previews to appear in notifications; When Unlocked if you want them to appear only when your iPhone is unlocked; or Never if you don’t want previews to be displayed at any time.

Tap Back (<).

Tap Back (<).

Configure notifications for the other accounts used in the app.

Configure notifications for VIP email, Favorite Mailboxes, and threads.

Tap Notification Grouping.

Tap Automatic if you want notifications grouped in the Notification Center automatically; tap By App if you want them to be grouped by the app they come from, or Off if you don’t want them grouped at all (they appear individually in the Notification Center, assuming you’ve enabled them to appear there in step 16).

Tap Back (<).

Tap Notifications (<).

Repeat steps 11 through 35 for each app shown on the Notifications screen. Certain apps might not have all the options shown in these steps, whereas others might have more options, but the process to configure their notifications is similar.

Swipe up until you reach the bottom of the screen.

Configure any special notifications you see. What you see here depends on the country or region your phone is associated with. For example, where I live in the United States, the GOVERNMENT ALERTS section includes three notifications. AMBER Alerts are issued when a child is missing and presumed abducted, whereas Emergency Alerts are issued for things such as national crises, local weather, and so on. Public Safety Alerts can be used to warn about events that might be a threat to life or property. You can use the switches to enable (green) or prevent (white) these types of alerts, but you can’t configure them.

Configuring General Sounds and Vibrations

Earlier, you learned how to configure the notifications (visual, sounds, and vibrations) that apps use to communicate to you. You can also configure general sounds and vibrations that your iPhone uses to get your attention (when an app-specific notification doesn’t override the general setting).

To configure your iPhone’s general sounds, do the following:

On the Settings screen, tap Sounds & Haptics.

Set the Vibrate on Ring switch to on (green) if you want your iPhone to also vibrate when it rings.

Set the Vibrate on Silent switch to on (green) if you want your iPhone to vibrate when you have it muted.

Set the volume of the ringer and alert tones by dragging the slider to the left or right.

Set the Change with Buttons switch to on (green) if you want to also be able to change the ringer and alert volume using the Volume buttons on the side of the phone.

Tap Ringtone. On the resulting screen, you can set the sound and vibration your iPhone uses when a call comes in.

Swipe up and down the screen to see all the ringtones available to you. There are two sections of sounds on this screen: RINGTONES and ALERT TONES. These work in the same way; alert tones tend to be shorter sounds. At the top of the RINGTONES section, you see any custom ringtones you have configured on your phone; a dark line separates those from the default ringtones that are below the custom ones.

Tap a sound, and it plays; tap it again to stop it.

Repeat steps 7 and 8 until you have selected the sound you want to have as your general ringtone.

If necessary, swipe down the screen so you see the Vibration section at the top.

Tap Vibration. A list of Standard and Custom vibrations is displayed.

Swipe up and down the screen to see all the vibrations available. The STANDARD section contains the default vibrations, and in the CUSTOM section you can tap Create New Vibration to create your own vibration patterns, as discussed in the “Sounding Off” sidebar at the end of this section.

Tap a vibration. It “plays” so you can feel it; tap it again to stop it.

Repeat steps 12 and 13 until you’ve selected the general vibration you want to use; you can tap None at the bottom of the Vibration screen below the CUSTOM section if you don’t want to have a general vibration.

Tap Ringtone.

Tap Back (<). The ringtone you selected is shown on the Sounds and Haptics (or Sounds) screen next to the Ringtone label.

Tap Text Tone.

Use steps 7–14 with the Text Tone screen to set the sound and vibration used when you receive a new text. The process works the same as for ringtones, though the screens look a bit different. For example, the ALERT TONES section is at the top of the screen because you are more likely to want a short sound for new texts.

When you’re done setting the text tone, tap Back (<).

Using the same process as you did for the ringtone and text tone, set the sound and vibrations for the rest of the events on the list.

If you don’t like the audible feedback when you tap keys on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, slide the Keyboard Clicks switch to off (white) to disable that sound. The keyboard is silent as you type on it.

If you don’t want your iPhone to make a sound when you lock it, slide the Lock Sound switch to off (white). Your iPhone no longer makes this sound when you press the Side button to put it to sleep and lock it.

Set the System Haptics switch to off (white) if you prefer not to experience vibratory feedback when you make changes to settings, such as when you make a selection using a date wheel.

Working with and Configuring the Control Center

The Control Center provides quick access to a number of very useful controls. It includes a number of tools by default, but you can also add, remove, or re-organize it so that it works even better for you.

Working with the Control Center

Open the Control Center by swiping down from the upper-right corner of the screen (X models) or swiping up from the bottom of the screen (non-X models). You can open the Control Center while you’re on any Home screen, on an app screen, or on the Lock screen. (If your iPhone is asleep, you need to wake it.)

In the top-left quadrant of the Control Center are icons you can use to turn on or turn off and configure important functions, which are Airplane mode, Cellular Data, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Orientation Lock, and Do Not Disturb mode. To enable or disable one of these functions, tap its icon, which changes color to show its status. When the function is enabled, the buttons have color, such as blue, orange, or green. To disable a function, tap the icon so that it becomes gray to show you it’s inactive. For example, to lock the orientation of the iPhone’s screen in the portrait orientation (vertical), tap Portrait Orientation Lock so it becomes white with a red icon. Your iPhone screen’s orientation no longer changes when you rotate the phone from vertical to horizontal. To make the orientation change when you rotate the phone again, tap Portrait Orientation Lock to turn it off again.

In the upper-right quadrant, you see the Audio Player. You can use this to control music, podcasts, and other types of audio that are playing in their respective apps.

Just below the Audio Player are the Brightness and Volume sliders. You can swipe up or down on these to increase or decrease the screen’s brightness or the volume of whatever you’re hearing on your phone. It’s handy to be able to get to either of these controls quickly. For example, when someone is scanning your phone’s screen, such as when you are boarding a plane, you might be asked to make the screen brighter so it can be scanned more easily. Just open the Control Center and swipe up on the Brightness slider and then tap outside the Control Center to close it. (Remember to lower the brightness again because having the screen very bright increases the rate at which battery power is used.)

Screen Mirroring enables you to broadcast your iPhone’s screen onto an Apple TV or a Mac computer.

The controls above the first row of four icons are always on the Control Center; you can’t change them in any way. However, below those is a section of controls you can change. By default, you see the Flashlight, Clock, Calculator, Camera, and others in this area. Like the icons toward the top of the screen, tap these icons to perform the associated action, such as using the iPhone’s flash as a flashlight, or opening an app—the Calculator app, for example. You can configure the controls that are in this area by adding, removing, and organizing them; you learn how in the next section.

When you press on some of the controls, you see additional options. You should try pressing the controls to see what options are presented to you; you might find some of these very useful. For example, when you press the Brightness slider, you see a larger slider and have access to the Dark Mode, Night Shift, and True Tone icons. You can swipe on the slider to change the brightness level or tap one of the icons to enable or disable the associated function.

When you’re done using the Control Center, tap anywhere on the screen except on one of its icons to close it.

Configuring the Control Center

You can configure the controls toward the bottom of the Control Center by performing the following steps:

Open the Settings app and tap Control Center.

To be able to access the Control Center while you’re using apps, set the Access Within Apps switch to on (green). If you set this to off, you need to move back to the Home or Lock screen to use the Control Center.

Tap Customize Controls. The Customize screen has two sections: INCLUDE shows the controls installed in your Control Center, whereas MORE CONTROLS shows controls that are available for you to add to the Control Center.

To remove a control from the Control Center, tap Unlock (–).

Tap Remove. The control is moved from the INCLUDE list to the MORE CONTROLS list. It no longer appears on the Control Center.

To add a control to the Control Center, tap Add (+). The control moves to the bottom of the INCLUDE list and is added to the Control Center.

Move a control higher on the Control Center by dragging its Order icon (three lines) up the INCLUDE list or move it lower by dragging its Order icon down the list. The top four controls on the list appear first in the customizable part of the Control Center; the next four are below those, and so on.

Repeat steps 4 through 7 until you have all the controls you want on the Control Center in the order you want them. The next time you open the Control Center, it reflects the changes you made.

Using the Do Not Disturb Mode

All the notifications your iPhone uses to communicate with you are useful, but at times, they can also be annoying or distracting. When you put your iPhone in Do Not Disturb mode, its visual, audible, and vibration notifications are disabled so that they don’t activate. For example, the phone won’t ring if someone calls you (unless you specify certain contacts whose calls you do want to receive while your phone is in this mode).

You can activate Do Not Disturb manually at any time. You can also configure your iPhone so that it goes into Do Not Disturb mode automatically at specific times.

Activating Do Not Disturb Manually

To put your iPhone in Do Not Disturb mode, open the Control Center and tap Do Not Disturb. It becomes purple and the Do Not Disturb: On status appears at the top of the Control Center. Your iPhone stops notifications. The Do Not Disturb status icon appears at the top of the screen so you know your iPhone is silent.

If you press Do Not Disturb, you see options, such as For 1 hour, Until this evening, Until I leave this location, or Until the end of this event. Tap an option to activate it. You can tap Schedule to set a Do Not Disturb schedule.

When Do Not Disturb is active, you see its current status on the Lock screen. On non-X models, you also see the Do Not Disturb icon on the status bar at the top of the screen.

To make your notifications active again, open the Control Center and tap Do Not Disturb so it turns gray; your iPhone resumes trying to get your attention when it’s needed, and the Do Not Disturb status message disappears from the Lock screen. Of course, Do Not Disturb turns off automatically if it’s set to do so, such as at a specific time or when an event ends.

Activating Do Not Disturb Automatically

You can use the following steps to configure quiet times during which notifications are automatically silenced:

Open the Settings app and tap Do Not Disturb.

To activate Do Not Disturb manually, set the Manual switch to on (green). (This is the same thing as tapping Do Not Disturb in the Control Center.)

To configure Do Not Disturb to activate automatically on a schedule, set the Scheduled switch to on (green).

Tap the From and To box.

Tap From.

Swipe on the time selection wheels to select the hour and minute (AM or PM) when you want the Do Not Disturb period to start.

Tap To.

Swipe on the time selection wheels to set the hour and minute (AM or PM) when you want the Do Not Disturb period to end.

Tap Back (<).

If the Do Not Disturb period is at night or at another time during which you really don’t want to be disturbed, set the Dim Lock Screen switch to on (green). In addition to calls and notifications being silenced, the Lock screen is also dimmed.

If you want notifications to be silenced during the Do Not Disturb period only when your phone is locked, tap While iPhone is Locked. This setting presumes that if your iPhone is unlocked, you won’t mind taking calls or having notifications even if it is within the Do Not Disturb period because you are probably using the phone. Tap Always if you want notifications to be silenced regardless of the Lock status.

Tap Allow Calls From.

Tap the option for the group of people whose calls should be allowed during the Do Not Disturb period. The options are Everyone, which allows all calls to come in; No One, which sends all calls directly to voicemail; Favorites, which allows calls from people on your Favorites lists to come through but calls from all others go to voicemail; or one of your contact groups, which allows calls from anyone in the selected group to come through while all others go to voicemail.

Tap Back (<).

Set the Repeated Calls switch to on (green) if you want a second call from the same person within three minutes to be allowed through. This feature is based on the assumption that if a call is really important, the person calling you will try again immediately.

Tap Activate in the DO NOT DISTURB WHILE DRIVING section.

To have Do Not Disturb activate automatically when you’re driving, tap Automatically to have this based on your iPhone’s motion (once the iPhone’s accelerometer detects that the phone has reached a particular speed) or When Connected to Car Bluetooth to have Do Not Disturb active whenever your iPhone is connected to your car’s Bluetooth system; to prevent this type of automatic activation, tap Manually.

If you use your iPhone with CarPlay, set the Activate With CarPlay switch to on (green) if you want Do Not Disturb to be on whenever CarPlay is active. (CarPlay enables some of your iPhone’s controls and information to appear on your car’s audio system so you can control your iPhone using that system’s controls.)

Tap Do Not Disturb (<).

Tap Auto-Reply To.

Configure to whom you want automatic replies to be sent when Do Not Disturb is on (regardless of how it was activated) by tapping No One to prevent automatic replies; Recents to send replies to people on your recent lists (such as calls you have recently received); Favorites to send replies to your favorites; or All Contacts to automatically reply to anyone on your Contacts lists.

Tap Back (<).

Tap Auto-Reply.

Type the message you want to be automatically sent.

Tap Back (<). During the Do Not Disturb period or based on the DO NOT DISTURB WHILE DRIVING setting, your iPhone is silent, except for any exceptions you configured. Automatic replies are sent according to your configuration. When the scheduled Do Not Disturb period ends, your iPhone resumes its normal notification activity.

Working with and Configuring the Widget Center

Widgets are “mini” versions of apps installed on your iPhone that you can access easily and quickly from the Widget Center. You can also configure the Widget Center so it works better for you.

Working with the Widget Center

You can open the Widget Center in a number of ways:

• Wake your iPhone and swipe to the right on the Lock screen.

• Move to a Home page and swipe all the way to the right.

• Open the Notification Center and then swipe to the right.

At the top of the Widget Center, you see the Search tool. If you open the Widget Center from the Lock screen, you see the current time and date under the Search tool; if you open it from a Home screen, you don’t see the date or time. Beneath that, you see widgets for apps installed on your iPhone. Swipe up and down the screen to browse your widgets.

Each widget provides information or functions based on its app. For example, you can use the FAVORITES widget to place phone calls using the Phone app or to make FaceTime calls to your contacts you’ve designated as favorites. You can see your daily calendar in the CALENDAR widget, get news in the NEWS widget, or listen to music in the MUSIC widget.

You can expand a widget to show all of its information or tools by tapping the downward-facing arrow or collapse it to a more minimal state by tapping the upward-facing arrow.

You can interact with widgets in several ways. Some widgets provide information that you can view within the widget, such as CALENDAR, STOCKS, or UP NEXT. Some apps provide options you can tap to perform specific actions; these include FAVORITES and MUSIC. When you tap something within a widget, the associated app opens and either performs the task you indicated or shows more information about what you selected.

Some apps even have multiple widgets. For example, the Calendar app has the UP NEXT widget that shows you the next events on your calendar and the CALENDAR widget that shows the events on the current date.

If you don’t move into an app from a widget, you can close the Widget Center by swiping to the left. You move back to the screen you came from, such as a Home screen. If you do move into an app from a widget, you work with that app just as if you moved into it from a Home screen.

Configuring the Widget Center

You can determine which widgets are shown in the Widget Center and the order in which those widgets appear on the screen; for example, you might want your most frequently used widgets to be at the top of the screen.

To configure the Widget Center, perform the following steps:

Open the Widget Center using one of the methods described in the “Working with the Widget Center” section.

Swipe all the way up the screen.

Tap Edit. You see the Add Widgets screen. This screen has two sections. At the top are the currently installed widgets; installed widgets have the Unlock (–) icon next to their icons. Toward the bottom of the screen, you see the MORE WIDGETS section that shows you available widgets that aren’t currently in your Widget Center.

To remove a widget, tap Unlock (–).

Tap Remove. The widget is removed from your Widget Center and moved onto the MORE WIDGETS list.

Swipe up the screen until you see the MORE WIDGETS section. Widgets that are new since the last time you viewed this list are marked with a blue circle.

To add a widget to the Widget Center, tap its Add (+) icon. The widget jumps up the screen to become the last widget on the list of widgets in the Widget Center. It appears at the bottom of the Widget Center.

To change where a widget appears in the Widget Center, drag its Order icon (three lines) up or down the screen. When it’s in the position you want, take your finger off the screen, and the widget is placed there.

Repeat steps 4 through 8 until the Widget Center contains the widgets you want to access, in the order in which you want them to be shown.

When you’re done making changes to the Widget Center, tap Done. You return to the Widget Center and see the results of the changes you’ve made.

Configuring Keyboards

As explained in Chapter 3, you use the iPhone’s keyboard to input text in many apps, including Mail, Messages, and so on. To make typing better, you can configure the keyboards available to you along with a number of preferences that determine how those keyboards work.

By default, you have access to one keyboard for the language you selected when you started your iPhone for the first time and the Emoji keyboard that you can use to insert images into your text. To change your keyboard configuration, perform the following steps:

On the Settings screen, tap General.

Swipe up the screen.

Tap Keyboard.

Tap Keyboards. At the top of the screen, you see at least two keyboards: One is based on the language you selected when you first turned your iPhone on. The other is the Emoji keyboard. You can activate more keyboards so that you can choose a specific language’s keyboard when you’re entering text.

Tap Add New Keyboard.

Swipe up and down the screen to browse the available keyboards. These are organized into two sections. THIRD-PARTY KEYBOARDS shows keyboards you have added to access their additional functionality. OTHER IPHONE KEYBOARDS are the default keyboards provided with the iPhone.

Tap the keyboard you want to add.

Tap the keyboard you added in step 7.

Tap the keyboard layout you want to use. (Not all keyboards support options; if the one you’re configuring doesn’t, skip this step.)

Tap Back (<).

Repeat steps 5–10 to add and configure additional keyboards.

Tap Keyboards (<).

Tap One Handed Keyboard.

To be able to use the one-handed keyboard (which squishes all the keys toward one side of the screen), tap Left to place it on the left side or Right to put it on the right side of the screen; tap Off if you don’t want to use the one-handed keyboard.

Tap Back (<).

To prevent your iPhone from automatically capitalizing as you type, set Auto-Capitalization to off (white).

To disable the automatic spell checking/correction, set Auto-Correction to off (white).

To disable the iPhone’s Spell Checker, set the Check Spelling switch to off (white).

To disable the Caps Lock function, set the Enable Caps Lock to off (white).

To disable the iPhone’s Predictive Text feature, set the Predictive switch to off (white).

To prevent the iPhone from automatically trying to correct your punctuation, set the Smart Punctuation switch to off (white).

If you don’t want to be able to slide your finger on the keyboard to type, set Slide to Type to off (white). You have to touch each character individually to type.

If Slide to Type is on (green) but you don’t want to be able to delete words by swiping the delete key, set Delete Slide-to-Type by Word to off (white). You have to tap the delete key to delete text.

To prevent the character you type from being shown in a magnified pop-up as you type it, set the Character Preview switch to off (white).

To disable the shortcut that types a period followed by a space when you tap the space bar twice, set the “.” Shortcut switch to off (white). You must tap a period and the spacebar to type these characters when you end a sentence.

To disable the iPhone’s dictation feature, set the Enable Dictation switch to off (white). The microphone key won’t appear on the keyboard and you won’t be able to dictate text.

If you have enabled keyboards for more than one language and have dictation enabled, tap Dictation Languages.

Tap the languages in which you want to be able to dictate so they have a check mark.

Tap the languages in which you don’t want to be able to dictate so they don’t have a check mark.

Setting Accessibility Options

The iPhone has many features designed to help people who have hearing impairments, visual impairments, or other physical challenges to be able to use it effectively.

You can enable and configure the Accessibility features on the Accessibility Settings screen.

Open the Settings app.

Swipe up the screen until you see Accessibility.

Tap Accessibility. The Accessibility screen is organized into different sections for different kinds of limitations. The first section is VISION, which includes options to assist people who are visually impaired.

Use the controls in the VISION section to change how the iPhone’s screens appear. Some of the options include the following:

• VoiceOver—The iPhone guides you through screens by speaking their contents. To configure this, tap VoiceOver and set the VoiceOver switch to on (green) to turn it on. The rest of the settings configure how VoiceOver works. For example, you can set the rate at which the voice speaks, what kind of feedback you get, and many more options.

• Zoom—This setting magnifies the entire screen. Tap Zoom and then turn Zoom on. Use the other settings to change how zoom works, such as whether it follows where you’re focused on the screen or remains fixed.

• Magnifier—This feature enables you to use your iPhone’s camera like a magnifying glass. When you enable this, you can triple-press the Side or Touch ID/Home button to activate it. You also can add its control to the Control Center using the steps provided earlier in the chapter.

• Display & Text Size—These options change how your iPhone presents text and other information on the screen. For text, you can configure bold text, make text larger, change button shapes, and turn labels off or on. You also can increase the contrast on the screen, remove the reliance on color to differentiate objects, and use the two Invert options function to reverse the color on the screen so that what is light becomes dark and vice versa. The Color Filters tool enables you to customize how colors appear on the screen. The Reduce White Point switch, when enabled, reduces the intensity of bright colors. The Auto-Brightness switch controls whether the iPhone’s screen automatically dims.

• Motion—These controls enable you to reduce the motion of things on the screen and to have effects in messages and video previews play automatically.

• Spoken Content—Under the Spoken Content option, Speak Selection causes a Speak button to appear when you select text, and Speak Screen provides the option to have the screen’s content spoken. You can determine whether you hear feedback while you type, and you can configure the voices used, the rate of speech, and pronunciations.

• Audio Descriptions—This causes an audio description of media to be played when available.

Swipe up to see the PHYSICAL AND MOTOR section.

Use the controls in this section to adjust how you can interact with the iPhone. The controls here include the following:

• Touch—These controls help improve interaction when physical dexterity is limited.

  AssistiveTouch makes an iPhone easier to manipulate; if you enable this, a white button appears on the screen at all times. You can tap this to access the Home screen, Notification Center, and other areas. You also can create new gestures to control other functions on the iPhone. There are many other options you can use to change how you can physically interact with the phone to control it.

  When you enable Reachability, you can jump to the top of the screen by swiping down on the bottom of the screen.

  The 3D & Haptic Touch options control if and how you can press on the screen to perform 3D Touch actions.

  You can use the Touch Accommodations options to make it easier for you to use the touch screen. For example, you can change the amount of time you must touch the screen before it is recognized as a touch.

  Turn off Tap to Wake Set if you don’t want to be able wake the phone by tapping the screen.

  The Shake to Undo setting enables you to turn off the shake motion to undo a recent action.

  The Vibration setting enables you to enable or disable vibrations. It overrides the vibration settings in other areas, such as notifications.

  Use Call Audio Routing to configure where audio is heard during a phone call or FaceTime session. If you select Automatic, the iPhone chooses the routing based on how it’s configured. You can select Bluetooth Headset or Speaker to always use one of those options first instead. You also can have the phone automatically answer calls.

• Face ID & Attention—These controls can be set to emphasize someone looking at the phone before related action is taken.

• Switch Control—The controls on this screen enable you to configure an iPhone to work with an adaptive device so that you can control the iPhone with that device.

• Voice Control—This area enables you to configure the iPhone to be controlled by voice commands. This is similar to Siri, except instead of performing tasks, you can actually control the phone, such as navigating on it.

• Side Button—Use these controls to set the rate at which you press the Side button to register as a double- or triple-press. On non-X models, this is the Home button, but it performs the same purpose, which is to configure how pushes on the Touch ID/Home button are registered. You can also determine if holding the Side button activates Siri, Classic Voice Control, or is turned off. If you set Use Passcode for Payments, your passcode will need to be entered rather than using the Side button when making purchases.

• Apple TV Remote—Use this area to enable directional buttons on the iPhone Apple TV Remote instead of swipe gestures.

• Keyboards—Using these options, you can show or hide lowercase letters and change how the keys react to your touches.

Swipe up the Accessibility screen to see the HEARING section.

Use the controls in this section to configure sounds and to configure the iPhone to work with hearing-impaired people. The controls in this section include the following:

• Hearing Devices—When you activate this setting, you can pair an iPhone to work with MFi hearing aids and other devices. (You pair other types of hearing aids using Bluetooth.) You can also set the iPhone for maximum hearing aid compatibility.

• RTT/TTY—These controls enable you to use your iPhone with an RTT or TTY device.

• Audio/Visual—These control various audio and visual aspects of your iPhone.

  Mono Audio causes the sound output to be in mono instead of stereo.

  Phone Noise Cancellation turns noise cancellation on and off. Noise cancellation reduces ambient noise when you’re using the Phone app.

  Use the Balance slider to change the balance of stereo sound between left and right.

  When you set the LED Flash for Alerts switch to on (green), the flash flashes whenever an alert plays on the phone.

• Subtitles & Captioning—Use these controls to enable subtitles and captions for video and choose the style of those elements on the screen.

Use the controls in the GENERAL section to configure the following:

• Guided Access—Use the Guided Access setting if you want to limit the iPhone to using a single app at a time.

• Siri—Using these controls, you can enable or disable Type to Siri and choose when Siri provides voice feedback.

• Accessibility Shortcut—Use the Accessibility Shortcut control to determine what happens when you press the Side or Touch ID/Home button three times. For example, if you choose Magnifier, you can quickly magnify something by pressing the Side or Touch ID/Home button three times.