Configuring an iPhone to Suit Your Preferences
- Customizing Your Home Screens
- Working with the Settings App
- Setting the Screens Brightness, View, Text Size, and Wallpaper
- Setting Keyboard, Language, and Format Options
- Choosing the Sounds Your iPhone Makes
- Setting Up Notifications and the Notification Center
- Configuring the Control Center
- Setting Do Not Disturb Preferences
- Setting Privacy and Location Services Preferences
- Setting Passcode, Touch ID, and Auto-Lock Preferences
- Setting Restrictions for Content and Apps
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
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There are lots of ways that you can turn an iPhone into your iPhone so that it works, looks, and sounds the way you want it to. Some examples include changing how text appears on the screen, creating and using text shortcuts, choosing the sounds your iPhone uses, configuring the notifications your iPhone displays and plays to keep you informed about what’s happening, and so on. One important customization that goes beyond just looks or sounds is to make your phone more secure by configuring and using a passcode/fingerprint and restricting access to content and apps; you should ensure your iPhone is protected with a passcode.
To do most of this personalization of your iPhone, you use the Settings app, which you’ve seen several times in the previous chapters. This app is not only the starting place for almost all of the customization you’ll do of the iPhone’s native software, but also of any apps you download and install.
You can also customize your Home screens, which is where this chapter begins.
Customizing Your Home Screens
The iPhone’s Home screens are the starting point for anything you do because these screens contain the icons that you tap to access the apps and web page icons that you want to use; you can also place icons within folders which also have icons on your Home screens. You see and use the Home screens constantly, so it’s a good idea to make them look the way you want them to.
In the background of the Lock screen and every Home screen is the wallpaper image. In the section called “Customizing the Wallpaper on the Home and Lock Screens,” you learn how to configure your iPhone’s wallpaper.
As you know, you can access apps and web page icons on your Home screens by tapping them. The Home screens come configured with icons in default locations. You can change the location of these icons to be more convenient for you. As you install more apps and create your own web page icons, it’s a good idea to organize your Home screens so that you can quickly get to the items you use most frequently. You can move icons around the same screen, move icons between the pages of the Home screen, and organize icons within folders. You can even change the icons that appear on the Home screens’ toolbar. You can also delete icons you no longer want.
Moving Icons Around Your Home Screens
You can move icons around on a Home screen, and you can move icons among screens to change the screen on which they are located.
- Press the Touch ID/Home button to move to a Home screen if you aren’t there already.
- Swipe to the left or right across the Home screen until the page containing an icon you want to move appears.
Tap and hold any icon. After a moment, the icons begin jiggling and you can then move icons on the Home screens. You might also see Delete buttons (an x) in the upper-left corner of some icons, which indicate that you can delete both the icon and app or the web page link (more on this later in this section).
Tap and hold an icon you want to move; it becomes larger to show that you have selected it.
Drag the icon to a new location on the current screen; as you move the icon around the page, other icons separate and are reorganized to enable you to place the icon in its new location.
- When the icon is in the location you want, lift your finger up. The icon is set in that place.
Tap and hold on an icon you want to move to a different page.
Drag the icon to the left edge of the screen to move it to a previous page or to the right edge of the screen to move it to a later page. As you reach the edge of the screen, you move to the previous or next page.
Drag the icon around on the new screen until it is in the location where you want to place it.
Lift your finger up. The icon is set in its new place.
- Continue moving icons until you’ve placed them in the locations you want; then press the Touch ID/Home button. The icons are locked in their current positions, they stop jiggling, and the Delete buttons disappear.
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Creating Folders to Organize Apps on Your Home Screens
You can place icons into folders to keep them organized and to make more icons available on the same page. To create a folder, do the following:
- Move to the Home screen containing two icons you want to place in a folder.
Tap and hold an icon until they start jiggling; the Delete buttons appear.
Drag one icon on top of another one that you want to be in the new folder together.
When the first icon is on top of the second and a border appears around the second icon, lift your finger. The two icons are placed into a new folder, which is named based on the type of icons you place within it. The folder opens and you see its default name.
To edit the name, tap in the name field.
- Edit the folder’s name.
- Tap Done.
Tap outside the folder to close it.
If you’re done organizing the Home screen, press the Touch ID/Home button. The icons stop jiggling.
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Placing Icons in Existing Folders
You can add icons to an existing folder like so:
- Move to the Home screen containing an icon you want to place in a folder.
Tap and hold an icon until the icons start jiggling and the Delete buttons appear.
Drag the icon you want to place into a folder on top of the folder’s icon so that the folder’s icon enlarges. (The icon doesn’t have to be on the same Home screen page; you can drag an icon from one page and drop it on a folder on a different page.)
- When the folder opens, lift up your finger. The icon is placed within the folder and you see its current location within the folder. (If you don’t want to change the icon’s location when you place it in the folder, lift up your finger as soon as the folder’s icon enlarges; this places the icon in the folder but doesn’t cause the folder to open. This is more efficient when you want to place multiple icons within a folder during the same time period.)
Drag the new icon to its location within the folder.
Tap outside the folder. The folder closes.
- When you’re done adding icons to folders, press the Touch ID/Home button.
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Configuring the Home Screen Toolbar
The toolbar on the bottom of the Home screen appears on every page. You can place any icons on the toolbar that you want, including folder icons.
- Move to the Home screen containing an icon you want to place on the toolbar.
Tap and hold an icon until the icons start jiggling and the Delete buttons appear.
Drag an icon that is currently on the toolbar from the toolbar onto the Home screen. This creates an empty space on the toolbar.
Drag an icon or folder containing icons from the Home screen onto the toolbar.
Drag the icons on the toolbar around so they are in the order you want them to be.
- Press the Touch ID/Home button to set the icons in their current places.
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Deleting Icons
You can delete icons from a Home screen to remove them from your iPhone. When you delete an app’s icon, its data is also deleted and you won’t be able to use the app anymore (of course, you can download it again if you change your mind). When you delete a web page’s icon (see Chapter 13, “Surfing the Web,” for information on creating web page icons), the bookmark to that web page is deleted.
- Move to the Home screen containing an icon you want to delete.
Tap and hold an icon until the icons start jiggling and the Delete buttons appear.
Tap the icon’s Delete button.
Tap Delete. If the icon was for an app, it and any associated data on your iPhone are deleted. If the icon was for a bookmark, the bookmark is deleted.
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