In India, people buy iPhones pretty much the way they would buy a BMW or a Jaguar – it’s a status symbol, a sign that you’ve arrived at a certain station in life. Very few people I know buy an iPhone for its features; they buy it because it’s cool to have one.
As a result, many of the phone’s features go unexplored and unexploited. I once knew of a lady who’d been using an iPhone for 4 years and she had never even heard of, much less used, spotlight search! Yet another gentleman I came across had an iPhone 6S Plus, and he had no clue it had Touch ID. I am sure you’ve known a few like these people.
When it comes to the younger generation, we’re pretty savvy with the iPhone. We’ve memorised the specs, the features, the resolution of the screen, and many such details. But, there are still a few things we may be unaware of.
Here are 7 gestures that can help control various functionalities of the iPhone. Some you may know, some you may not. If you know them all, congratulations. Now maybe you can share them with iPhone novices and get them to use their phones a bit more intelligently.
1. Pinch-to-zoom videos
That you can pinch-to-zoom pictures is common knowledge, but did you know that it can also be used on videos? While playing back videos, you can pinch-to-zoom and see the finer details in the video.
This gesture only works on videos shot on the iPhone and not third party videos, such as those you’ve added from an external source or downloaded from the web.
2. Quicksave drafts in Mail
While writing an email, you sometimes need to go back to the inbox to look up some other message. You can do that with just one gesture now. Simply swipe down on the screen to quickly save the email to drafts.
You can do this multiple times and all your drafts will be saved in the ‘Drafts’ folder of your Mail app.
3. Re-open closed tabs in Safari
How many times have you accidentally closed a tab in Safari and then kicked yourself because it was an important tab and now, you can’t remember the URL! Next time this happens, simply press & hold the New Tab button (the Plus symbol that appears at the bottom of the screen when you’re in the tab-view). This will show you a list of recently closed tabs. Select the one you want and you’re good to go.
4. Find hidden message details
A majority of chat applications (like WhatsApp and Hike) show us a time stamp alongside the messages. This tells us when the messages were delivered, read, etc. Unfortunately, this feature is missing in iMessages.
Or is it?
In any chat screen within iMessages, gently swipe to the left to reveal additional information about the messages. Depending on your iOS version, you’ll get to see different kinds of information about the messages. At the very least, you’ll get a time stamp.
5. Hide The Keyboard in iMessages
We love the iPhone keyboard, but sometimes it can take up a lot of screen space, which can be frustrating for some people. TO hide the keyboard momentarily, swipe down on your screen from just above the keyboard and it disappears from sight. It takes a little practice to do this perfectly, but it’s not that difficult either.
To get your keyboard back, simply tap the text field (where you type your message) and your keyboard will slide right back up!
Note: This is a native iPhone gesture, meaning that it will only work on iMessages (and a few other native iOS apps).
6. Make your phone talk!
We saved the best for the last (well, second last), but before you try out this one, you’ll have to tweak a few settings on your iPhone. Go to Accessibility > General > Speech > Speak Screen. Activate this feature and you’re good to go.
Now, whenever you’re on any screen that has text on it (like this AppleSutra post on your browser), just drag down with two fingers on the screen, and your iPhone will start reading out the text to you. A nice little floating widget will appear on your screen as well, allowing you to do things like adjust the reading speed and pause the reading.
7. The “Go Back” gesture
Android phones have a dedicated “Back” button, and that’s one feature we always felt was missing in the iOS. The latest versions of Apple’s software do offer a back button that pops up every now and then at the top left corner of your screen. However, you can also do the same with a special gesture.
All you have to do is swipe left to right on the screen to go back to the previous screen. This one’s again a “native gesture” so it will work mostly on native iOS apps like Mail and Safari. However, Apple has started opening their ecosystem to developers, and you might find that this gesture works on third-party apps as well. Experiment away!
So, how many of these shortcuts did you know already? Tell us which ones you find most useful.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more such tips and tricks.