Home Button
Posted on 11. Jun, 2009 by admin in The Guided Tour, The Phone as Phone
Here it is: the one and only real button on the front of this phone. (It’s identified
on the facing page.) Push it to summon the Home screen, which is your
gateway to everything the iPhone can do.
Having a Home button is a wonderful thing. It means you can never get lost.
No matter how deeply you burrow into the iPhone software, no matter how
far off track you find yourself, one push of the Home button takes you all the
way back to the beginning.
Sounds simple, but remember that the iPhone doesn’t have an actual Back button or End button. The Home button is the only way out of some screens.
The Home button has four other functions, depending on how and when you
push it.
Here we go:
- Wakes the phone. One push wakes up the iPhone if it’s in Standby
mode. That’s sometimes easier than finding the Sleep/Wake switch on
the top edge. - Opens your speed-dial list. Two quick pushes on the Home button
take you directly to your Favorites list (page 49). That’s a great shortcut,
because it lets you jump from any software program on the iPhone to
the phone-calling list without having to go Home first. - Opens your iPod. Two quick pushes on the Home button can, instead,
take you directly to your iPod screen (Chapter 4). Once again, Apple is
assuming that you might want a shortcut to such a frequently used part
of the iPhone. - Force quits a stuck program. The Home button is also a “force quit”
button. If you press it for six seconds straight, whatever program you’re
running completely shuts down. That’s a good troubleshooting technique
when a particular program seems to be acting up.
Some beginners forget that the Home button is a physical push-button—
it’s not touch-sensitive like the screen—and get frustrated when it doesn’t
respond. Give it a real manly push.
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