a word to select it, and then drag the grab points or handles to select a larger block of text, as shown in Figure 2-7, top. (You can use the handles to contract selected text too.) After you’ve selected the text, tap Copy. (If you want to delete the text block, tap Cut instead.)
FIGURE 2-7: Drag the grab points to select text and tap Copy (top) and then tap Paste to make the selected text appear elsewhere (bottom).
Now open the Mail program (see Chapter 12) and start composing a message. When you decide where to insert the text you just copied, tap the cursor. Up pop commands to Select, Select All, and Paste, as shown in Figure 2-7, bottom. Tap Paste to paste the text into the message.
Here’s the pizzazz part. If you make a mistake while you’re cutting, pasting, replacing, or typing, shake the iPhone. It gives you the option to undo the last edit or action.
Or suppose that you notice a typo in what you’ve entered. Select the word, and you’ll see the Replace option we just mentioned along with the other options, as shown in Figure 2-8, top. Tap Replace and the iPhone serves up a few suggested replacement words, as shown in Figure 2-8, bottom. If the word you have in mind is shown as a substitute, tap it and the iPhone automatically makes the switch.
FIGURE 2-8: Tap Replace and then tap a substitute word to make a switch.
If the iPhone has already flagged a suspect word by underlining it, you need not go through tapping Replace first. Instead, merely tap the word and the iPhone will provide alternatives. Say you inadvertently typed Freek. When you tap the word, the iPhone presents alternatives such as Creek, Freak, and Freed.
Meanwhile, if you want to know exactly what a word means, double-tap the word and choose the Look Up option instead. The first time you tap Look Up, you’re presented with the option to download the dictionary. Look Up also shows suggestions from iTunes and the App Store, along with movie showtimes and locations. It ties into the search capabilities of your phone, about which we have more to say shortly.
Multitasking
Multitasking simply lets you run numerous apps in the background simultaneously or easily switch from one app to another. For example, music from a third-party app such as Spotify can play in the background while you surf the web, peek at pictures, or check email.
But that’s not all. If you use an Internet voice-calling app such as Skype, you’ll be able to receive notification of an incoming call even if you haven’t launched the Skype app. The multitasking feature also lets a navigation app employing GPS update your position while you’re listening to an Internet radio app such as Pandora. From time to time, the navigation app or Apple’s own Maps app will pipe in with turn-by-turn directions, lowering the volume of the music so you can hear the instructions.
Multitasking couldn’t be easier — and it has become a lot smarter through the years. Now your iPhone can anticipate your needs. If it detects over time that you tend to turn to your social networking apps around the same time every morning, it will make sure the feeds are ready for you and suggest those apps.
Double-press (not double-tap) the Home button on models with that button. On Face ID models, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and then pause for a moment.
In both instances, you’ll see preview pages, with icons and the names of the open apps associated with those preview pages, as shown in Figure 2-9, left. Scroll to the right or left to see more preview pages or the iPhone’s Home screen (see Figure 2-9, right). Tap the icon or preview screen for the app you want to switch to; the app remembers where you left off.
Apple insists (and our experience generally leads us to believe) that multitasking will not drain the iPhone battery or exhaust system resources. The iPhone conserves power and resources by putting apps in a state of suspended animation. Your phone will schedule updates only during power-efficient times, such as when your device is connected to Wi-Fi.
To remove an app from the multitasking rotation, swipe up the app’s preview. Poof, it’s gone.
FIGURE 2-9: Scroll to see previews of the apps you’ve recently used.
Navigating beyond the Home Screen
The Home screen, which we discuss in Chapter 1, isn’t the only screenful of icons on your phone. After you start adding apps from the App Store (see Chapter 15), you’ll likely have multiple screens.
Initially, you see three tiny dots above the Phone, Safari, Messages, and Music icons. Each dot denotes an additional screen, containing up to 20 additional icons on the original iPhone SE, and up to 24 on the iPhone 6 and later. The icons can represent apps, folders of apps, or (as you’ll learn later in this chapter) widgets. The middle dot, which is all white, represents the Home screen, or the screen you’re currently viewing. The next dot to the right, in gray, is the first additional screen on which you can park icons. You get to it by flicking right to left (assuming you’re on the first screen). You can have 15 screens in all; as you add screens, you add dots.
If you flick all the way right to left, you get to the today screen, which used to be part of Notification Center but is now out on its own. Flicking all the way to the right takes you to the new App Library, which we also get to later in this chapter.
The four icons in the bottom row — Phone, Safari, Messages, and Music — are in a part of the screen known as the dock. When you switch from screen to screen as just described, these icons remain on the screen, that is, unless the Today screen or Notification Center is in view or you’re inside an app.
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