Little Known Tricks for the iPhone

Using an iPhone 4/4S is a fun experience for nearly anyone, thanks to how easy it is to play with this device. While there are plenty of intuitive experiences on the smartphone, some of the more complex features of the iPhone may require a little bit of knowledge to take advantage of when setting up the device. Use the following tricks to get the most out of your Apple smartphone.

1. Setup Keyboard Shortcuts

Typing out the same phrase again and again can quickly become cumbersome on a small, touchscreen keyboard. Apple has a quick workaround for this common problem, allowing short phrases and words to serve as a trigger for a longer sentence. Typing in the shortcut causes the phone to automatically substitute a longer phrase in its place.

For example, if you frequently find yourself asking friends, “How are you?” via text, you may want to create a shortcut, “HRU.” Whenever the HRU shortcut is typed into your phone, “How are you?” will appear in the text field. This allows users to create their own personal dictionary of words and phrases.

It’s important to remember that if a shortcut has been created, the word will always trigger another phrase. For this reason, shortcuts that are not commonly used should be put in place, rather than common words. For example, “how” would likely be a poor shortcut for the question, “How are you?” as this would prevent “how” from being typed in any other context.

2. Lock the Screen Orientation

If you are accustomed to using your phone while in bed or turning the phone for viewing purposes, you may find it annoying to deal with the changing orientation of the phone’s screen. If you would rather use the screen in portrait mode at all times, you can easily lock the orientation of the phone. This will prevent the screen from turning whenever the phone’s physical position is adjusted.

To put this orientation lock into place, simply double-click the home button of the device. You will then use your finger to swipe the applications in the multi-tasking interface at the bottom of the screen to the right. This should show the orientation lock icon, which you can click on or off.

3. Display Character Count in Text Messages

While iPhone and other smartphone users don’t face the same character limits as other phones, users who still use more traditional cellular devices may be unable to receive long text messages. For this reason, some users choose to display the character count of texts they send. This makes it easy to guarantee that a recipient will be able to receive all of the text sent to them.

To turn this feature on, simply navigate to your phone’s settings and click messages. A small switch appears for character count, which can be flipped on at the user’s whim. Whenever the message typed exceeds the length of two lines, the character count will helpfully appear above the send button.

Using the iPhone is a daily learning experience, as each application has a myriad of different shortcuts and tricks that can be mastered. By learning some of these little known tricks for the iPhone in general, users can take advantage of the underlying operating system, making it easier to utilize all of the great features of their device. This in turn can compute to a more enjoyable overall experience on Apple’s smartphone devices.

Guest article written by: Kevin Moor who writes for virus-protection.us which inter alias are working to find best antivirus.

10 thoughts on “Little Known Tricks for the iPhone”

  1. I use the keyboard shortcuts quite a lot on my iPhone, ideal when I’m texting my local radio station and I want to put “Karen from Blazing Minds” I just use “kfbm”. It certainly saves that extra few seconds of typing in all the text 😉

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  2. I’ve never used keyboard shortcuts before but it’s a great idea, however it does take some getting used to.

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  3. Thanks a lot for the great tip on how to lock the orientation of the phone – I didn’t know at all about this simple trick and that’s really useful, because for certain apps I like to use the phone in portrait mode and it’s always annoying when the orientation changes, when you move the phone slightly.

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  4. Hello, this is my 1st visit in this blog, and I am quite impresses with this blog. The way you have maintained this blog is really commendable. Keep it up and thanks for sharing such nice and interesting articles with the readers. Keep it up – will make sure that visit back again. 🙂

    Reply
  5. My wife’s new iPhone 4S is something I consider a super phone what with the apps and the features that are way cool compared to the regular phones I’ve had before. My current phone is an older version iPhone and I accidentally had it ‘restored’ to its factory settings. Now I can’t get it to connect to any wifi zones. I’ll have to start saving to upgrade to the 4S. 🙂

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  6. I hate typing stuff on my phone and have actually never tried the keyboard shortcut feature.. i fear I may never remember the shortcuts, but it is pretty cool if you’re into a lot of texting. Thanks for sharing Kevin.

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  7. A lot of my friends and family members claim that iPhone4 s is one of the best phones ever made. I will be glad to share these little iPhone tricks to them.

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  8. The iphone 4s has a lot of tricks to be unfolded and you have provided some of them. I really like the short cut method. I find myself cumbersome typing commonly used sentences. Thanks for this informative post!

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  9. Hi Kevin, a very useful article you have written here! I kind of hoped you would have more points, but the three you did have were really useful 🙂

    I especially like the way you can see how many characters your text message has used, should help me avoid running into two!

    Thanks again Kevin 🙂
    Christopher – Technology Bloggers Admin Team

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  10. Awesome, glad their are people like you trying to help out newbies, I didnt? really understand the whole many characters your text message has used idea. But Thanks to you its definitely a lot clearer 🙂

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