How to: iPhone OS 3.0 home button tricks
By Ronald O Carlson
Pressing the home button has gotten more useful with the release of iPhone OS 3.0. In addition to waking your handheld or returning you to the home screen from any application or page, you can do other neat stuff like bring up Spotlight, control iPod music and video, or even custom configure what the home button does.
If you’ve installed the latest iteration of Apple’s mobile operating system on your iPhone or iPod touch, there are two primary ways to bring up device wide Spotlight search: 1.) from the home screen, swipe from left to right, and 2.) while on the homescreen, press the home button. Of course, pressing it again takes you back to the home screen.
For more iPhone OS 3.0 tips…
• iPhone 3.0 Home Button Tricks, iSmashiPhone
• News.com’s iPhone Atlas
• iPhoneHacks Tips & Tricks Pages
• iPhone Alley Tips Page
When playing music or video, double tapping the home button brings up playback controls regardless of which app you’re using at the time—very, very handy. Likewise, if you’re listening to music and your touch is locked, double tapping the home button will bring up the iPod controls without going through the rigmarole of unlocking, which is especially handy if you’ve configured your handheld to require a password in order to unlock.
Lastly, you can select which function— iPod controls when music is playing and iPod, Home, Search, Phone Favorites or Camera—double tapping the home button invokes. To change this setting, go to Settings -> General -> Home -> make your choice.
From the same settings panel, you can also configure where Spotlight does and does not search. Just go to Settings -> General -> Home -> Search Results.
Have a favorite iPhone OS 3.0 tip or trick? Share it and a link in the comments below…
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June 27th, 2009
Excuse me, but a larger portion of your article above demonstrates functions that were ALREADY in the 2.0 software.
The paragraph below which you wrote were functions that were ALREADY in previous versions of the iPod/iPhone software:
“When playing music or video, double tapping the home button brings up playback controls regardless of which app you’re using at the time—very, very handy. Likewise, if you’re listening to music and your touch is locked, double tapping the home button will bring up the iPod controls without going through the rigamarole of unlocking, which is especially handy if you’ve configured your handheld to require a password in order to unlock.”