Handhelds Questions about my iPhone 6

[Amy SF]

As those of you who read the chat thread know, I now have my first smartphone, an iPhone 6. I’ve been playing with it and bit by bit I'm learning more about it, but I have some questions that I hope other iPhone users can help me with before I ask Verizon Wireless for help. (They’re always busy down at the store.)

1. For some reason, messages are being sent from the iCloud email address I set up when I got the phone, not from my phone number. I went to Settings to try to fix it, but it won’t let me switch to the phone number listed. In fact, the phone number is grayed out. I notice that I can delete an address and then add an address. I thought maybe I could delete the iCloud email, switch to the phone number, and then add the email back. Will deleting the iCloud email address switch my setting to my phone number, or will it just screw things up even more? Is this something that has to be fixed by someone at the store?

2. I added some cities to the Weather app that was pre-installed on my home screen, but there seems to be no way to delete them. Is there a way to do that, or am I stuck with those cities?

3. I added a couple of internet icons to my home screen, but I can’t figure out how to delete them, or edit the name. Is there a way to do that? I was able to add those icons because there was an “add to home screen” option at the bottom of the screen when I had the sites open. However, when I opened Twitter and Facebook, I didn’t see that option. Can I add those sites to my home screen?

4. Also, when playing around, I added a “Favorites” icon in Safari on the search engine page, under the icons for Google and Yahoo and others. When I tap on it, it opens a specific website. Can I delete or edit this icon? By the way, can I add other search engines to this page?

5. I want to add apps for Twitter and other sites to my phone, but I don’t have wifi currently. I’m using cellular. I have to be careful not to use up too much data at the moment. I can’t play videos, for one thing, because that eats up too much data. Do I need wifi to install apps? If I use cellular to install apps, does that eat up too much data?

6. How do I send the photos I've already taken with my phone by email and text?

If these are best handled at the Verizon Wireless store, please let me know, but if anyone can help me, that would be good, too.

Thanks.

 

[ledboots]

Hi Amy, I am clueless on iphones, but do you have an Apple store near you? Those employees will show you stuff and set your phone up, they know way more than verizon peeps.

To download apps and stuff, you can use wifi from Starbucks, book stores, or wherever so you don't use your data.

 

[Second Summer]

Yes, it's generally not a good idea to download apps over the mobile / cellular network, especially if you're on a limited data quota. How much is your allowed quota? I have just 250Mb which is cheap, but not very much. We have wireless at home, though, so I use that a lot.

 

[FortyTwo]

1. The iCloud thing is a pretty common glitch in my experience. It happens kind of intermittently. The best way to stop it is to just delete the thread you have going and start another one, that should fix it. In practice it's not really that big of a deal but it gets kind of annoying. Don't trust me on this though, I don't have a lot of experience with managing individual accounts on the same phone or anything.

2. Hold your finger on the city and swipe left to reveal the red delete button, and then just tap it.

3. Adding internet icons to your homescreen is IMO a waste of storage and screen space - I personally find it a lot easier to just add pages to my favorites in Safari and access them from within there - but hey if it works for you, and you want to keep using them, then the way to get rid of specific ones is the way you delete any app. Hold your finger down on any app icon until they all start wiggling around. The apps that can be deleted (including added webpage shortcuts) will have a little X in the top right corner you can tap to get rid of them. Facebook and Twitter don't allow you to do this most likely because they want you to download their apps instead.

4. You can't edit the icon of a Favorite to my knowledge. To get rid of one or edit where the favorite itself goes, hold down on the icon and wait for the select menu with the options "Delete/Edit" to come up and tap either. As for search engines, you can change your default one by going into the pre-installed Settings app and clicking Safari > Search Engine, or add more to your favorites for easy access on the Safari home screen. (Remember, that's achieved by going to any website and tapping the little icon at the bottom that looks like a box with an up arrow, and then selecting the option "Add Bookmark" and specifying "Favorites" for the category)

5. If you're on enough of a data budget that you're avoiding videos, it'd be best to avoid installing apps as well. It does eat up a decent amount of data. You don't need wifi to install apps, but from the sound of it, you don't want to be doing that without it.

6. In the Messages app, tap the camera icon to the left of the text bar to add a photo. It'll give you the option to either take a new one or add one from your camera roll. To do the latter tap "Photo Library" or tap one of the recent photos above the two options that automatically comes up. In the Email app, when composing a message, tap (but don't hold) on the field of text and an option should come up for you to "Insert Photo/Video" right in there.

Hope I could help somewhat!

 

[RascalsMom]

From the image itself, you can hit the square with the up arrow on the Lower left hand corner. This will give you options to share - text, email, face book, etc.

 

[Amy SF]

Thanks to everyone who responded. I got rid of the apps I don't want from my home screen and cities I don't want from the Weather app. I still have to visit Verizon because I'm having trouble with the ringer. It wasn't working for messages and calls when I got the phone, but I played with the settings and got it working. But I kept playing with the settings, and for some reason I lost the ringer again. I keep missing calls because I can't hear the phone when someone calls. Damn.

 

[ledboots]

Thanks to everyone who responded. I got rid of the apps I don't want from my home screen and cities I don't want from the Weather app. I still have to visit Verizon because I'm having trouble with the ringer. It wasn't working for messages and calls when I got the phone, but I played with the settings and got it working. But I kept playing with the settings, and for some reason I lost the ringer again. I keep missing calls because I can't hear the phone when someone calls. Damn.

If you find a good Apple forum, you just have to search your question, and someone else has already asked and had it answered. I do this all the time on android forums.

I googled your problem.

"The iPhone has a hardware mute switch, which lets you quickly and easily turn the ringer off and put the iPhone into vibrate-only mode. It's located on the left side (facing the device) directly above the volume rocker. When the ring/silent switch is in-line with the volume rocker, the ringer is on. When the ring/silent switch is offset from the volume rocker, the ringer is muted (and only vibrate is on).

A bell will flash briefly on the screen when the ringer is on, a bell with a line struck through it will flash briefly when the ringer is muted.

(Note: the iPhone will still sound alarms, play iPod music, and allow apps like games to make sounds even when the phone is set to silent)."
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In case that isn't for the iphone 6,
Apple iPhone 6 Support | Verizon Wireless

"Turn Silent Mode On/Off - Apple® iPhone® 6 / 6 Plus
[Device-Specific Instructions]

From the top left edge of the device, flip the Ringer switch to turn on Ringer off (switch in red position) or off Ringer on.
Note The silent mode/ringer notification briefly appears on screen."

 

[Amy SF]

OMG THAT WORKED! THANK YOU! I must have somehow switched the mute on and didn’t notice. I'm finding that it’s ridiculously easy to accidentally turn something on or off with a smartphone. Now whenever I suddenly don’t hear my calls and messages, I’ll check that switch to make sure the mute isn’t accidentally switched on.

 

[KLS52]

You can do basic google searches for just about anything, I'm finding out. It's pretty amazing! And YouTube, too!