Although Apple has design the iPhone , iPod soupcon , and iPad to be simple to acquire , sometimes you may want a priming coat on the staple . Here ’s a breakdown of the major multitouch gestures , pilotage , household screen tips and trick , and multitasking feature you ’ll need to master your iOS gimmick .

Gestures and Techniques

If you ’ve never before owned a multitouch gadget from Apple , you may be unfamiliar with crazy idiom like pinch - to - soar and the difference between flick and swipe . Have no concern : While some of these gestures may have odd name , they ’re easygoing enough to pick up .

you may tap to give apps , bring up controls , make alternative from menus , and more .

Tap : As clicking is to a desktop computer , so is tap to an iOS twist . tap is the most common and canonic gesture .

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You can tap to open apps, bring up controls, make choices from menus, and more.

duple - water faucet : Tap an aim double in taking over to set up a bivalent - tap . dual - taps are primarily used for zooming in or out on text .

Tap , handgrip , and drag : For some functions , such as highlighting text , copying and pasting , or delete and moving apps , you ’ll need to tap and hold down on the screen . When you do this on a piece of text , it will play up in blue , and editing handgrip — vertical bank line with aristocratic dots — will appear on either side of the highlighted area . you could tip , detention , and , while holding down , embroil your digit to increase or decrease the selection . Dragging also comes into shimmer for moving object in apps , draught , and swiping and flick .

get behind your finger across the CRT screen , up , down , left , or right , to purloin .

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Drag your finger across the screen, up, down, left, or right, to swipe.

Flick and swipe : Swiping is one of your elemental navigational prick : You habituate a remaining or right swipe to move through app pages on your Home CRT screen or images in the Photos app ; you expend an up or down swipe to read textual matter in Safari , iBooks , Newsstand , or elsewhere . It ’s one of the prosperous motion to instruct . A flick is just like a swipe , only faster : Your gadget support inertial scrolling , which means that the quicker or slower you move your finger , the faster or slower content will move . If you require to get to the bottom of a page chop-chop , just flick your fingerbreadth upwards in a fast motion .

One greenback of caution : All flicking and swiping on your machine is inverse , meaning that when you move your fingerbreadth down ( in other Bible , swipe down ) , you ’re actually moving whatever is on the screen upward . This progress to perfect sense in the actual world , but coming from a computer , where scroll down on a trackpad or mouse actually scrolls the windowpane down , it can be a bit disorient at first . Why make the clearing ? In this book , we refer several times to “ swiping right ” to get up a remaining - helping hand navigational bar — which can be confusing to parse , if you do n’t know about inverse gestures .

To zoom in or out , you ’ll employ the hint gesture ( also referred to as pinch - to - zoom ) .

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To zoom in or out, you’ll use the pinch gesture (also referred to as pinch-to-zoom).

Pinch : To zoom in or to give something , place your thumb and index finger , pinched together , on screen and diffuse them apart . To soar up out , do the reverse : Start with your thumb and index fingerbreadth outwards , and then pinch them together .

Rotate : you’re able to even rotate some component with two or more fingers . Just place two fingers on the screen and make a rotary gesture , clockwise or counterclockwise .

iPad 2 - specific multitasking gestures : If you own an iPad 2 hunt down iOS 5 , you’re able to use additional gestures to multitask on your equipment , which admit a four- or five - digit swipe and pinch . ( you could read more about the iPad ’s multitasking gestures on Macworld.com . )

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Tap and hold on an app icon to enter edit mode, where you can rearrange apps, add them to folders, and delete third-party programs from your device.

Now that you ’ve taken your first stair into the iOS world with multitouch gesture , it ’s time to read how to navigate your equipment . We ’ll go over where your apps are stash away , how to organize them , look for for them , and cancel them .

The Home screen : When you first turn on your gadget , you ’re brought to the Home filmdom . Here , you ’ll see an categorization of ikon group into run-in , and several more ikon grouped in the silver Dock along the bottom of the sieve . The Home projection screen is where your apps subsist , and where you’re able to launch them . Because only 16 apps will fit out on one Home CRT screen ( 20 on the iPad ) , you’re able to have multiple app pages or covert for organizing your apps ( up to 11 ) . Above the Dock , you ’ll see a serial of dots , with one highlighted in snowy ; these dot signify the number of app pages you have . Swipe left or good to go from page to page .

The pier : The eloquent translucent bar along the bottom of your menage screen is called the Dock . If you ’ve tried swiping between app page , you ’ll note the ikon in the Dock do n’t change . That ’s because the Dock is for apps you most frequently expend ; alternatively of having to sneak from page to paginate to discover an app , you may drop it flat into the Dock for easy access . you could store up to four apps in the Dock .

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Drag an app icon on top of another app icon to create a folder.

Search in Spotlight : you could search for every email message , webpage , and app on your gadget , or seek through Google or Wikipedia , by swiping decent on your Home screen until you reach Spotlight . ( If you ’re on the first house sieve pageboy , pressing your family release also marshal the Spotlight screen door . ) To search , just typewrite your inquiry in the schoolbook corner at the top .

Open and close an app : Want to launch an app ? To open up it , all you have to do is bug its ikon . Once it ’s open , you may retrovert to the Home cover at any time by press the Home button .

Tap and oblige on an app image to get into edit style , where you may rearrange apps , bring them to folder , and delete third - party programs from your twist .

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You can rearrange your apps, add folders, and remove programs through iTunes.

Rearrange and delete apps : To rearrange the decree of your picture , tap and carry any icon on the dwelling screen . After a few second , all your app icons , including the one you ’re holding , will pop to wiggle , and a modest blackened X will pop up in each icon ’s top left-hand corner . Once they do this , you may rearrange any apps on the Home filmdom , or even sweep up them into or out of the Dock . If you ’ve installed a third - party app you do n’t want any longer , you could tap the X to delete it ( you could not erase the apps that came preinstalled on your machine ) . When you ’re finished , contract the Home push button , and your picture will cease wiggle and stay in their young location . you’re able to also rearrange your icons and Home screen door pages through iTunes when you connect your gadget to your computer .

observe that you ’re not able to delete the progress - in apps that fall with your iOS equipment . These include Camera , Photos , YouTube , Clock , Weather , and the all - Modern Newsstand folder , among others . You ’ll be able to distinguish which apps you ca n’t blue-pencil — they do n’t sport the black X. You are able to move around these built - in apps to your liking , however .

utilize folders : have a caboodle of apps scattered on your domicile screen is o.k. if you do n’t have too many , but when you start amassing a solicitation , you may apply app pamphlet . A folder is a group of apps , represented by a single ikon , on your Home screen . Each pamphlet frolic miniature icons represent the apps inside , along with an overall name . When you tap a folder , the Dock fades and slides down , make room for a view of the folder ’s content . Within , you ’ll get hold the name and icon for each app . rap any app to found it , or tap anywhere outside the booklet to repay to the Home screen door .

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Double press the Home button to pull up your device’s multitasking bar.

Drag an app icon on top of another app icon to create a brochure .

To create a folder , start by tapping and holding any app icon to inscribe edit mode ; after the icons start to joggle , drag an app on top of another app . When you release the app , you ’ll produce a folder , which will spread out and exhibit both apps . By default the folder is list based on the App Store class for one of the first two apps in the folder . If you need to customize this name , just tap inside the subject ( while still in edit modal value ) and enter something new . When you ’re done , press the home plate clit to exit edit mode .

To add another app to the folder , reenter edit way and drop behind the desired app onto the pamphlet icon . repetition until you ’ve added all the apps you want ( up to 12 per folder on the iPhone or iPod touch ; 20 on the iPad ) , and then press the Home button to passing edit fashion .

To edit the folder itself , its name , contents , or the layout of the apps inside , you’re able to either enter edit mode and then tap the folder , or , while the folder is open , tip and hold any icon inside . you’re able to then tap the folder ’s name to change it , pull apps within the pamphlet to rearrange them , drag an app out of the folder to return it to the Home screenland , or tap an app ’s Delete button to totally delete it from your equipment . Unlike apps , folders do n’t have a Delete button ; to delete a leaflet , you must remove all the apps from it .

you could rearrange your apps , add together folders , and remove programs through iTunes .

care folders from iTunes : iTunes has long allowed users to deal install apps when sync , and you may delete your brochure too , using your mouse and keyboard . When your gadget is unite to your reckoner , the Apps tabloid in iTunes lets you choose which apps to synchronise , as well as decide how to organize these apps . Drag an app onto another app and , after a slight delay , a folder is created — just as if you ’d performed the same activeness on your machine . You get the same editable folder name , and you could rearrange icons within the folder . Since you ’re using a computer , you do n’t need to click and bear to enter the jiggling - icon edit mode ; you could tick and tangle anytime . likewise , to delete an existing folder , just twice - click it .

Multitask on your iOS device

Opening and close an app is prosperous : tapdance the app to spread out it , and then contract the nursing home button to close it . But when you go , you ’re not in reality close down the app : You ’re freeze it in stead , or air it to run in the ground . This means you could have multiple active apps running at any one time , and you could even switch between active apps without give to the Home screen .

Double press the plate button to pull up your gadget ’s multitasking bar .

quick-frozen apps versus background signal apps : Sometimes you need an app to keep doing something when it ’s not in the foreground . For that rationality , Apple allows apps to perform chore in the backdrop using several tools . One of these tools is the push - notification scheme ; another allows music apps to keep playing while the user switches to another app ; yet another allows tasks , such as photo uploads , to continue operate in the screen background even if you switch out of the program execute the upload . If your third - party app does n’t incorporate one of these background features , it will “ immobilize ” , which is to say it will remember whatever you were just doing when you re - open it , but will not process any data in the background .

The multitasking prevention : you’re able to quickly shift between apps by bring up the multitasking Browning automatic rifle . To do so , quick double - military press the Home button ; a bar below the Dock will heighten up from the bottom of the screen , showing off the apps most recently run . To switch to a unlike app , tap its icon .

Multitasking shortcuts : In gain to holding a tilt of your most latterly used apps , the multitasking bar has a couple of other neat shortcut for your machine . If you swipe decent , you ’ll add up a secondary circle of command . On the iPhone or iPod feeling , you may lock your machine ’s orientation course in portrayal mode and operate the music currently play on your machine ( it default to the Music app , but you may also hold medicine from third - party apps ) . Swipe to the right again , and you ’ll get a slider for controlling loudness . On the iPad , you could mesh orientation course , change your equipment ’s luminosity and book , and control medicine .

iOS 5