How to iPhone
by Gerry Delval
In the previous segment, we looked at how to synchronize your iPhone(s) to your email account(s) in order to be able to make the most of your iPhone(s). This synchronization ensures that you can benefit from all of your devices without doing any extra work. In fact, you will find that your iPhone(s) is(are) a much more useful device than just being a portable phone.
In this segment, we’ll look at applying best practices to your emails, contacts, calendar(s) and notes. You may have to perform some cleanup activities, which will be described below, but I assure you that once this is done, you will reap the benefits.
Emails
This is a very straightforward topic. Many of you probably already read and compose emails on your iPhone. That is an excellent start. The default email app on your iPhone is the Apple app which I assume most of you use. It is easy to use and it is intuitive. You can also download the Gmail app from the Apple Store. It looks different from the iPhone email app but it otherwise functions the same way. It also looks different from the Gmail app on your computer. So, I see no incentive to use one over the other. But for those who wish to download the Gmail app, do the following. From the Main Screen, tap the App Store icon. In the new screen, tap the Search (magnifying glass) icon in the lower right and write Gmail in the text line at the top of the screen. You will get several choices. Select the one with what looks like a big red M on the back of an envelope. Tap the cloud icon with the arrow pointing down to the right of the M icon and wait for the download to complete. When you open the app, all your correspondence will be available. You can also delete the Gmail app at any time and you will not lose any mail.
I find that I manage perhaps as much as 90% of my correspondence on the iPhone simply because it is so convenient. I tend to focus my emails on a computer for bigger tasks, such as writing this article, because I get to use a proper keyboard. But for routine messages, it is all done on the iPhone. However, there is one deficiency with emails on the iPhone – that is group emails. One cannot send an email to a group that was created in Gmail. This applies to the Gmail app as well. And if you had created a group on your iPhone, it is not available on the computer app. This is a conflict between Google and Apple that neither company has any interest in recrifying. It is a mild inconvenience as I tend to send group emails from my computer anyway.
There are a few useful other settings that you can make regarding emails.
- You can choose to download emails only when you are connected to a WiFi that you are able to log in. I prefer to allow emails from my cellular data when I am not connected to a WiFi. Even with a relatively small data plan, downloading emails is not onerous on your data allocation. Also, for those with Shaw at home, I find that the free Shaw WiFi has too small a bandwidth that it is too slow and you are unprotected on it. To allow cellular data: from the “Settings” icon, scroll down to “Mail”, tap it and under “Allow Mail to Access”, make sure that the “Cellular Data” button is turned on.
- Depending on your screen size and your visual preferences, you can display as many or as few preview lines of unread messages. I show 2 unread lines per message but Christine likes to show more unread lines per message. So, I get to see more unread messages on the screen without having to scroll but Christine gets to see more of each unread message but she displays fewer messages. What do you like? To change the unread display: from the “Settings” icon, tap “Mail” and under the “Message List” heading, tap the “Preview” line and select what you want.
- There are two ways to organize your emails: chronologically or by thread. The latter is just another way to mean by conversation topic. Personally, I find organizing by thread to be annoying, so I prefer chronologically. But if you are one who would prefer to track conversations by thred, you can change the setting. From the “Settings” icon, scroll down to “Mail”, tap it and scroll down to the “Threadings” heading where you can make your choices.
- Ever notice how often you see messages from people that close with “Sent from my iPhone”? Maybe that is you too. Well, you can personalize this: from the “Settings” icon, tap “Mail” and under the “Composing” heading, tap the “Signature” line.You can personalize each of the accounts individually. If you only have one email account synched with your iPhone, then simply replace the default “Sent from my iPhone” line with your name and/or short message. If you have more than one email account synched to your iPhone, you can personalize each account signature the same way.
Contacts
How many address books (both paper and electronic) do you have in your household? You should have only one because more than one will create errors. If you synched your iPhones to your email accounts, all of your contacts from all of your email accounts will be available on any of your devices. You may, however, initially find duplicate contacts. One reason why is that you may have entered the same contact in different devices. Synching the devices will not merge the contacts automatically but when you do a search for a contact, this is when you may find duplicates. The easiest way to merge duplicates is with Gmail on a computer because the larger screen and full keyboard make it easier. Gmail walks you through the merge. Merging may end up revealing several phone numbers or email addresses for a particular contact. There are several reasons. One is that there may indeed be several legitimate email addresses and phone numbers. But if there are no legitimate duplicates, then it is likely because one entry is older and no longer valid. You will need to do some cleanup. But then you should always be performing this task regularly anyway. So, this is a great opportunity to do a cleanup task on your contacts. Don’t just focus on people. Note that your contacts are also businesses with which you interact. This includes your health providers, car dealership, etc. If you manage this properly, in time, you will find that you have a single correct and up-to-date contact list with no errors.
You should make a point to enter all of the information that you have about all your contacts. One compelling reason is that once you have registered a phone number, that contact’s name will appear whenever they call. This lets you know exactly who is calling. Our contacts are constantly updated so when we receive a call that does not display a name, we immediately suspect a fake call and we don’t answer. And with scam calls, we rarely ever end up picking up the phone for them. Another reason is that with the address, you can just tap it and can display the location on a map on the “Maps” app. You can even get GPS instructions on how to get there. It is ideal if you don’t have a GPS on hand or if you are on foot. It does however, consume data, so be careful how you use it.
Regarding scam and undesirable calls, you can block the number and you will never receive any future calls from that number. This is not 100% guarantee that you will never receive more of these calls because the scammers are smart and change numbers that they use. But we believe that we receive very few calls as a result of our blocking actions. To block a caller, tap the “Phone” icon, tap “Recents” at the bottom of the screen to display all the recent calls that your iPhone received, tap the “i” to the right of the number that you want to block, scroll to the bottom, tap “Block this Caller” and confirm the action. Don’t delete the number because that action will remove your blocking action. You can unblock a number the same way.
You should consider entering all of your contact phone numbers in the international format. This ensures that you will always dial the correct number from anywhere in the world without having to look up the country code and the proper way to dial the number. We find this very useful since we travel around Europe in our motorhome. My Canadian phone number is 778-677-XXXX but my international phone number is +1 778 677 XXXX. Our French phone number (when dialed in France) is 06 79 XX XX XX but its international number is +33 6 79 XX XX XX. The + replaces the zeros and other numbers that have to be entered to start a long distance call. The first number following the + is the country code. The subsequent numbers are the complete local phone number. But, you will notice that in the case of France, the leading zero is dropped in the international format. This type of action is typîcal for many countries. I know folks who buy a local SIM card when they arrive in Europe and switch it for their Canadian SIM card. If that is what you do, then by entering the phone numbers in the international format, you are automatically good to go anywhere all the time without ever having to worry what to do.
To finish off this segment for now, you can label some of your contacts as “Favourites”. There is more that can be done but we will save that for later. “Favourites” is simply a subset of your contacts and it allows you to select them without having to do a search. You should limit favourites to those that you contact most often such as spouse, children, grandkids, doctor …. otherwise you defeat the purpose of having favourites. To label a contact as a favourite, here’s what you do. Search for and select the contact in question. On the contact’s profile, scroll down partly and below the “Notes’, tap on “Add to Favorites”. There will be a drop down menu; select the telephone icon (ignore what is shown next to the telephone icon) and choose either “home” or “mobile” as needed. This contact is now a favourite. To retrieve a favourite, from the main menu, select the phone icon as you would usually do to place a call and tap the star “Favorite” icon at the bottom left and tap your favourite contact. To remove a contact from the “Favorites”, tap on “Edit’ in the top right corner. A red “minus” icon will appear to the left of every favourite. Select the favourite that you wish to delete by pressing the corresponding “minus” icon.
Calendars
Our 3 Phones display our activities on a shared calendar and our respective activities are colour-coded to each user account. This is also reflected in the Gmail version on our other devices but it has to be done separately. A shared calendar ensures that both of us can see what the other’s commitments are when having to make a new commitment and avoid a conflict that later means having to go back to make changes. We’ve also configured the calendar view to display the daily activities below the calendar so that we do not need to tap the day and scroll to find activities. So whenever we tap on a day in the month, all our scheduled activities are immediately displayed with a colour coded vertical bar between the time and the activity description.
To colour code each account, from the month view, tap the “Calendars” heading at the bottom of the screen. Your accounts will be shown. Check what you want to display on the calendar by tapping the choice button on the left. Note that you can also choose to display statutory holidays or not. Tap the “i” on the right and select the colour for the vertical bar. Press “Done” when you are finished.
To display the activities of the selected day, from the month view, simply tap the display icon on the top line just to the left of the magnifying glass. You can toggle this on and off to see the effect.
Notes
The “Notes” is simply an app that saves text files. Individual notes are automatically shared between your synched devices. However, each user has their own notes under their own account plus there is a joint notes account as well. For any new note, the first line that you type becomes the title of that particular text file. So, you can use this app to store as many text messages as you find convenient. We use it for our grocery list and we add items at any time during the week whenever we notice that we need them so we rarely miss items. This is really convenient during Covid because we make fewer trips to the shops and we buy from the list so we spend less time in the store. We also save our favourite recipes. This way, whether we are at home or on the road in our motorhome somewhere in Europe, we have our recipes ready. And they can be viewed on the laptop as well for a more conventional cookbook style. The best way that I have found to save the recipes or any long text is to email myself the text from my computer where it was generated and then copy it from the incoming message to the “Notes” app.
I hope that these best practices will be found useful. Feel free to write to me with specific questions at gerry.delval@gmail.com.
Gérard (Gerry) DELVAL
