Section 8: Introduction to Apps

Preinstalled Apps

Your iPhone comes preinstalled with a collection of built-in apps. Let's take a quick tour of all the apps that will automatically be on your device:

App Store: This is where you go to browse, search for, and purchase apps for your iPhone or iPad.

Books: Choose from a large collection of books—from classics to modern best-sellers—to download and read. Calculator: Use this handy tool for calculations on the go, whether you're figuring out a tip or balancing your checkbook. Calendar: Viewable by day, week, or month, the Calendar helps you keep track of and organize your busy schedule.

Camera: The Camera app lets you shoot HD, slow-motion, and time-lapse videos, as well as take pictures in regular, square, or panoramic format. If you have an iPhone with a dual or triple camera, then there's also a Portrait mode feature.

Clock: Check the time in cities around the world, set alarms and timers, or use the stopwatch.

Compass: Get your bearings with the help of the Compass, which shows the four cardinal directions with degrees.

Contacts: Store your contacts' names, phone numbers, email and mailing addresses, social media info, and more.

FaceTime: Make video or audio calls to other Apple users over a Wi-Fi or cellular connection.

Files: This is where all of your files live, allowing you to easily view and manage the files in your iCloud, on your iPhone, and in other third-party cloud storage services without needing to switch devices or open apps.

Find My: If you misplace your iPhone, this app is a lifesaver. You can use it to track your device and even remotely erase all its data.

Fitness: Formerly known as Activity, is an app for exercise tracking for users who have an Apple Watch paired to their iPhones.

Freeform: This brainstorming app lets users create boards displaying text, photos, links, etc, and even sketch or take handwritten notes while collaborating with other users in real-time.

Health: This app gives you a bird's-eye view of your health by pulling in nutrition and fitness information from third-party apps and devices.

Home: Use this app to control all of your HomeKit-compatible accessories all in one place.

iTunes Store: Shop for movies, TV shows, and past music purchases, and access your downloads on all of your Apple devices through iCloud.

Magnifier: Is an accessibility app that works like a digital magnifying class allowing users to use their iPhone camera to zoom in on information in front of them and take photos of the objects with filters that make them easier to see, read, or understand.

Mail: Send and receive emails from all of your accounts via Mail.

Maps: With Maps, you can find specific locations and then get turn-by-turn directions to help you get there. You can also mark & share locations, view weather and traffic info, and take flyover tours of major cities.

Measure: Use the Measure app to turn your iPhone into a level. For some iPhones, the Measure app can use the autofocus feature on the camera to measure how far away distant objects are, letting your iPhone serve as an approximate measuring tape.

Messages: Use Messages to send individuals text, audio, photos, and videos. They're free to send to other Apple users via iMessage.

Music: Play your iTunes music purchases or, for $9.99 a month, Apple Music grants you access to millions of songs, which you can then save to your device or stream online.

News: The News app lets you collect news stories based on the topics you're interested in—you can even save and share your favorite articles.

Notes: Jot down lists, information, or passing thoughts, and easily access your notes on any of your devices with iCloud. Phone: Fulfilling your device's original purpose, the Phone app lets you make calls, view contacts, track recent incoming and outgoing calls, and access visual voicemail.

Phone: The app that lets you make phone calls, view your caller history, and access voicemail.

Photos: In the Photos app, you can organize photos and videos by date, location, or album; edit shots and footage; and share images with other users via iCloud Photo Sharing.

Podcasts: This app lets you listen to podcasts. If you are looking for a great podcast about iPhones, check out our free iPhone Life Podcast.

Reminders: Stay on top of your to-dos by setting time- and location-based reminders, separated into lists you can share with family or friends.

Safari: Browse the web with unlimited tabs, add web pages to Reading List to read later, strip web pages of distracting contents with Reader Mode, and add your favorite web pages to your Home screen in the form of app icons for easy access.

Settings: This app is the key to adjusting settings and accessing important information (such as passwords and iCloud settings).

Shortcuts: Shortcuts lets you automate certain multi-step commands. It's powerful and offers lots of tools, but it can be complicated to set up.

Stocks: Stay up to date on the latest market news. Check charts and articles, or ask Siri for specific stock quotes. Tips: Here, you can find tips on how to use your iOS device (but our tips are the best, duh).

Tips: This app helps you learn more about your iPhone and is particularly useful after a new software update.

Translate: Translate between languages with Translate. You can even use it to translate text directly from a photo. Apple adds new languages and dialects with almost every software update.

TV: Watch all of your TV shows and movies all one convenient location. You'll find all of your iTunes purchases here, as well as pick up where you left off from apps like Netflix and Hulu.

Voice Memos: Record a memo to yourself when you can't type a note. It's also perfect for recording song ideas, interview clips, and more.

Wallet: This app allows you to keep important boarding passes, tickets, rewards cards, coupons, and credit cards all in one place, making travel and shopping super convenient.

Watch: Use this app to pair your Apple Watch with your iPhone or to peruse the different styles of face for Apple's wearable. If you are an Apple Watch fan, don't forget to check out our Apple Watch guide.

Weather: Check current weather conditions, accompanied by dynamic weather displays, as well as forecasts for up to six days.

Find New Apps & Games

Apple's built-in apps are great and all, but there's a whole world of third-party apps out there waiting to be discovered—and you will likely find some that you value more than Apple's option! To find third-party apps:

Open the App Store.
You'll see five tabs: Today, Games, Apps, Arcade, and Search.
The Today tab features stories and app recommendations which are super helpful for discovering new apps.
The Games and Apps tabs show you games and apps that are new, currently popular, related to the season, etc.
If you have an app in mind, you can search for it: tap the Search tab.
Tap the Search field at the top and enter your query.

Download an App

To download an app, simply tap on the app title from the App Store and then from the app's page, tap either Get (if it's free) or the price listed to the right of the app's icon. The app will begin downloading to one of your Home screens. Note: you will need to have a credit card set up with your account in order to purchase apps.

Update Apps

Apps may be software, not hardware, but they can still break down over time. The rea- sons are different, but an app, like an auto- mobile, requires maintenance. The engineers who design the app should work to maintain it on their own but to gain the benefit of their work, you have to update the app. Updating your apps is a small but important maintenance task to keep your iPhone working.

To update an app:

Open the App Store app.
Then tap your Apple ID portrait at the top right corner.
On this page, you can scroll down 3 to see apps that need to update, as well as apps that have been updated recently.
Tap the blue Update button next to 4 the app you want to update (or select Update All to update all of your apps). If all your apps are up to date, you’ll only see the section for Updated Recently, and instead of Update, the button will open the app.

If you want your apps regularly updated, I recommend enabling the Automatic Updates setting.

To turn on automatic app updates:

Open the Settings app and tap App Store.
Toggle on App Updates under Automatic Downloads.

Now your apps will automatically update when an update is available.

Reorganizing Apps

Your Home screen is like a sand box where you can reorganize and arrange things just how you like. I like to keep only the apps I use on my Home screen, and the rest in my App Library, but you can choose whatever makes sense to you. To reorganize apps:

Long press on an empty spot of the Home screen for a few seconds.
All the app icons and widgets will begin to jiggle, and an "-" appears in their top-left corners.
You will then be able to drag and place apps where you please.
Dragging an app on top of another app will create a folder.
The default folder name will be based on the app categories, but if you tap the name field, a keyboard will pop up, and you can rename it anything you like. You can put an unlimited number of apps in a folder.

Moving Apps to Another Page

You can have multiple pages of Home screens. To move your app to another Home screen page, or to create a new Home screen page:

Long press on an empty spot of the Home screen for a few seconds until the apps start to jiggle.
Touch and Drag the app to the edge of the Home screen.
This will take you to the next page, where you can drop the icon.

Deleting Apps

Long press on an empty spot of the Home screen for a few seconds until the apps start to jiggle.
Tap the X icon that appears in the upper right corner of the app.

Note that you can't delete a few of Apple's built-in apps, such as Settings and Camera. Any app you delete, you can also recover from the App Store if you later decide you want it back.

The App Library

As you swipe left and right to look at the different pages of your app icons on your Home Screen, you might notice that the last page to the right is different. This is your App Library, a place to find all the apps you've got installed on your iPhone, even if their icons aren't on your home screen. You can banish app icons to the library to clean up and organize your Home screen.

To banish an app to the app library:

Long press on an app icon until the menu appears, then select Remove App.
It will offer the options to Delete App, Remove from Home Screen, or Cancel. If you remove the app from your home screen, then it stays installed on your iPhone, but you won't see the icon unless you go to your App Library.

The apps in the app library are automatically sorted by categories, and for now, Apple has not given us the ability to modify the categories or sort them by hand. But, you can get a searchable, alphabetical list.

To view a searchable alphabetical list of your apps:

Navigate to the App Library by swiping through Home screens until you get to the last one on the right.
At the top, tap the title: App Library.
To scroll through the list more quickly, touch and drag on the tiny alphabet at the right.
To search, tap in the search field and type in your app. This is different from the normal spotlight search in that when you find an app this way, you can move out of the App Library and back to a Home Screen.

Multitasking & Closing Apps

To switch between apps you're using, you can open the App Switcher. This is super handy if you are in one app but need to reference information in another app. Opening App Switcher will vary depending on your iPhone model.

To open the App Switcher:

If you have an iPhone without 1 a home button (X or later), you open the App Switcher by swiping up from the bottom edge of your device and pausing in the center of the screen.
If you have the iPhone with a home button (iPhone SE, or 8 and earlier), you double-click the Home button.

To Close an App

Sometimes an App has frozen or is behaving badly. The solution might be to restart your iPhone, but before you do that, you can try closing the app and then reopening it.

To close an app:

Open the App Switcher.
Touch and drag up on one of the apps, like you're flicking a card out of the deck.

Generally, you shouldn't have to close apps unless they are misbehaving. Closing them does not usually save battery life: it takes more battery and processing power to reopen most apps than it does to leave them on in the background.

Using Widgets

A widget is a section of your Home screen devoted to showing off a particular app’s content or features, such as the images from the Photos app or the different clocks for different time zones in your Clock app.

To add widgets to your Home screen:

Long press on your Home screen until the apps begin to wiggle and the editing options appear.
Then tap the plus icon.
You’ll be given a selection of widgets. Tap on the one you want to add.
Select your widget display option (small, medium, or large).
Tap Add Widget.
The widget will be added to your Home screen. When you’re done adding Widgets, tap Done on the top right of your 6 screen and you will exit the menu.

To remove a widget from your Home screen, just hit the minus sign when the icons are wiggling. Voila! Your widget will now behave similarly to your apps (it’s just bigger).

Create Widget Stacks

You can stack multiple widgets on top of each other so you can access them more easily. To create a Widget Stack:

Long press the Home screen until the apps begin to wiggle.
Tap the plus icon.
Do this as many times as you like, continuing to add widgets to your Home screen.
Now, drag and drop the widgets on top of each other to create a Widget Stack.
Tap Done once you are finished.
Swipe up and down on your stack to access all of the widgets that have been placed within it.