up passcode safeguards is a good idea, and it’s something we also touch on in Chapter 14 on Settings. But we also know that passcodes can be a hassle at times, such as when you’re holding an umbrella in one hand and tapping a passcode with the other. Apple has said in the past that about half the folks with an iPhone don’t even bother with passcodes, and we and the company think that’s unfortunate because you don’t want to let just anybody get at your personal information.
Enter the iPhones with Touch ID, a fingerprint scanner cleverly embedded in the Home button. With a gentle press of any designated finger, you bypass your passcode.
What’s more, you can use your own digit (not the numerical kind) to authenticate iTunes and App Store purchases. (Go to Settings under Touch ID & Passcode to make sure that the iTunes & App Store switch is turned on.)
The 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 7, and 7 Plus afford you another benefit, the ability to purchase stuff at retail (and online) by using a payment technology known as Apple Pay. By holding the phone in a store near a compatible contactless reader and keeping your finger against the Touch ID button, you can complete a purchase securely. Apple has forged partnerships with leading credit card companies, banks, and merchants, with more partners added all the time. Check out Chapter 7 for more on this feature.
Apple has also opened up Touch ID to third-party app developers.
You won’t have to use your fingerprint as a shortcut to enter web account names or passwords. A feature known as iCloud Keychain keeps your credit cards and passwords encrypted and saved on your iPhone and other approved devices, and handles the autofill chores on many of the websites you might visit.
To set up Touch ID, you must first let your iPhone get chummy with at least one of your fingers, though the system can handle up to five individual fingers, yours or anyone else’s with whom you share the iPhone.
The phone instructs you to press and lift your finger against the Home button repeatedly and from different orientations. Red lines fill an animated drawing of a generic fingerprint on the screen, giving you a sense of how far along you are. The process doesn’t take long, and if all goes smoothly, the iPhone will soon enough declare your efforts to be a success.
To add fingers after the initial setup, tap Settings ⇒ Touch ID & Passcode. Type your passcode, and then tap Add a Fingerprint. Then repeat the setup drill we just described.
Whether you choose to set up fingerprint authentication now, later, or not at all, you need to establish an old-fashioned passcode. You can go with a four-digit numeric code, a longer custom numeric code, or a longer alphanumeric code. In fact, if you do opt to go with Touch ID, you must set up a passcode as a backup should the iPhone fail to recognize your paw three times in a row. Hey, it happens. Maybe you’re sweating profusely, or you have a cut in the wrong place, or you’re wearing gloves.
In our experience, Touch ID has worked mostly like a charm from the beginning, but we recommend giving your pinky a try if you run into trouble, what with the small surface area of the phone and all. Apple improved Touch ID technology with its latest models, making it even faster. In any case, after we became accustomed to using Touch ID, going back and typing passcodes seemed antiquated. However, you still need to type a passcode when you first power up your phone after it has been turned off.
Your iPhone setup continues. You get to determine whether you want to call on Siri, your loyal loquacious iPhone genie. We tell you all about Siri in Chapter 5, so we’ll skip the details here.
Apple makes another couple of requests at this stage. Apple would love for you to have your iPhone automatically send the company daily diagnostic and usage data, including your location. Armed with such information, Apple says it can better improve the company’s products and services. We think the request is harmless. In addition, you can also assist app developers by permitting Apple to share with them crash data and statistics on how you use their apps. If you find either prospect unappealing, just say no – or to be more precise, choose Don’t Send or Don’t Share, respectively.
Thanks to the extra screen real estate on the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, 6s, and 7, and the 5.5-inch 6 Plus, 6s Plus, and 7 Plus (compared to the 4-inch SE), Apple includes another step to the setup process: You can choose a zoomed view (with larger text and controls) or a standard view that fits more items on the screen. Don’t worry too much about this setting at this stage. You can always change the Display Zoom setting later in Settings. (If you do, you must restart your phone.)
From then on, you’re pretty much good to go.
If you want to give your phone a quick nap, you can put it to sleep by pressing and quickly letting go of the sleep/wake button. To turn the device completely off, press and hold down the sleep/wake button until a translucent Slide to Power Off button appears at the top of the screen. Drag the button to the right. Tap Cancel (X) if you change your mind.
Locking the iPhone
Carrying a naked cellphone in your pocket is asking for trouble. Unless the phone has some locking mechanism, you may inadvertently dial a phone number. Try explaining to your boss why he or she got a call from you during your 4 a.m. jog. Fortunately, Apple makes it a cinch to lock the iPhone so this pocket-dialing scenario won’t happen to you.
In fact, you don’t need to do anything to lock the iPhone; it happens automatically, as long as you don’t touch the screen for one minute. (You can change this duration in iPhone Settings, a topic in Chapter 14.)
Can’t wait? To lock the iPhone immediately, press the sleep/wake button. To unlock it, you can press the sleep/wake button again. Or press the Home button on the front of the screen. Either way, press the Home button again to open your phone, a change that arrived with iOS 10. Prior to iOS 10, the words Slide to Unlock appeared near the bottom of the screen and to unlock the device, you dragged your finger to the right and then, in some cases, also entered a passcode, another topic reserved for Chapter 14. If you set up the iPhone to use Touch ID, you can merely press your finger against the Home button to unlock it.
The iOS 10 software upgrade brought another feature to the most recent iPhones: the capability to wake up the screen merely by raising the phone. The raise-to-wake feature, which you can turn on or off inside Settings, requires an iPhone with an M9 coprocessor or later, which as of this writing means the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 7, or 7 Plus. The 7 and 7 Plus have an Apple-designed A10 Fusion chip with an embedded M10 motion coprocessor.
The last few iterations of iOS software also brought refinements to Notification Center. In iOS 10, Apple separated Notification Center from the today view; we get to both later in this chapter. For now, know that you can view Notification Center by swiping down from the top of any screen. You can view the today view from the Lock or Home screen by swiping from the left. Worth noting: If you swipe from the right when on the Lock screen, you’ll summon the iPhone’s Camera app.
You can act upon notifications by swiping your finger or by taking advantage (on compatible models) of 3D Touch, which we also get to later in this chapter. We have more on the Lock screen in Chapter 9.
