Like millions of folks, you may have lately switched from your non-smart feature flip phone, your Blackberry, maybe even an Android, to an iPhone. And you either are "look, I have a new toy!" giddy about your purchase, or you pretend you're pleased to cover your anxiety about abandoning the comfortable and known for the new and daunting – or both.
It's understandable if you feel fearful of your new phone. You know iPhone is a powerful device, but it didn't come with a manual, and you're afraid to do anything with it except make phone calls or send a text.
I'm here to help. Here's a quick primer for all you trepidatious iPhone newbies.
Home
There's nothing you can do to your iPhone that will mess it up. Push, press, tap, flick, slide, whatever – just hit that concave Home button below the screen to start all over again, no harm done.
A caveat: if you've never used a touch screen before, you may feel like an idiot adjusting to iPhone's whole tap/flick/slide gestalt. You're not an idiot and iPhone's touch interface isn't stupid. Millions of other iPhone newbies far klutzier than you have gotten the hang of it – and soon wondered how they lived without it.
Apps
You've heard there's an app for that? They're not kidding.
A bunch of Apple's apps are pre-installed on your iPhone: Mail, Messages (text messaging), Safari (the Web browser), Calendar, Contacts, Camera, Photos (snaps you snap with the iPhone camera), Gallery (photos you sync – more on this in a minute), Music (the iPhone music player), iBooks (Apple's digital book store and e-reader app), Videos (movies and TV shows you've bought from iTunes or synced), Messages (text messaging), Maps, Newsstand (magazine and newspaper subscriptions), Weather, Reminders, and others.
Tap on any app to explore its functionality – remember, you can't hurt any of them or your iPhone. Think you screwed up? Hit Home.
You can buy apps right from the App Store app on your iPhone or through iTunes on your PC – it doesn't matter. Most apps are less than $2, a lot are free. And this isn't a case where you get what you pay for – there are some FAB-ulous free apps. Just check the stars and user reviews before you download.
App moving
Apps aren't nailed to their position on your iPhone's screen – even the four on the bottom row.
Push and hold down on an app's icon and, in a second or two, it and all the other app icons will start to jiggle. Release.
Don't tap the circled "X" that may appear on the upper right hand corner of the jiggling app – unless you want to delete it. (Don't worry if you do tap the "X" – iPhone will double-check with you if you really want to delete the app.)
Press and hold an icon again, and you can drag it around the screen or to other screens – just hold the app icon over the edge of a screen, and the screen will shift behind it. (This process is actually a bit easier to do when you sync, which we'll get to in a minute.)
To get out of this jiggle-move mode, just press the Home button.
App folders
In no time, you will acquire a LOT of apps – you won't be able to help yourself. Then you'll have screen after screen after screen of app icons, making it impossible to find the one you want.
Apps can be grouped together in folders; just put iPhone into jiggle mode, then drag an app icon on top of another app of similar functionality (say, the Photos and Gallery apps to create a Photos folder, or one game on top of another game to create a Games folder), and iPhone creates a folder to hold both of them.
Made a mistake? Tap the folder and drag the inappropriate app icon out of the folder.
iPhone creates a name for the folder once it senses what apps you've grouped together, but you can re-name the folder.
Once you have created your folder, you can drag-and-drop other similar apps into it. Before you know it, you can condense multiple screens to just one or two.
But perhaps iPhone's most important "app" is…
Damn, ran out of space! But come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you what iPhone's most important app is, as well as how to get your music and your photos onto your iPhone, in Part II of our iPhone primer.