❯❯ Apple EarPods with Lightning connector: Plug the EarPods into your iPhone 7 or 7 Plus for a free headset experience.
❯❯ Documentation (and I use the term loosely): This typically includes a small pamphlet, a sheet of Apple logo stickers, and a few more bits of information.
❯❯ Lightning to USB Cable: Use this cable to connect the iPhone to your computer, or use it with the last item in the box, the USB power adapter. If you own an iPhone 4s or earlier, you have the Dock Connector to USB Cable, a larger, bulkier, 30-pin connector.
❯❯ Apple USB power adapter: The power adapter attaches to the Lightning to USB Cable so that you can plug it into the wall and charge the battery.
❯❯ Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter: This adapter will allow you to connect your headphones with 3.5mm jacks to your iPhone 7 or 7 Plus.
That’s all there is in the box. It’s kind of a study in Zen-like simplicity.
Take a First Look at the Gadget
In this section, I give you a bit more information about the buttons and other physical features of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. Figure 1-3 shows you where each of these items is located.
Here’s the rundown on what the various hardware features are and what they do:
❯❯ (The all-important) Home/Touch ID button/sensor: On the iPhone, you can press this button to go back to the Home screen to find just about anything:
● The Home screen(s) displays all your installed and preinstalled apps and gives you access to your iPhone settings. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, press the Home button and you’re back at home base.
● You can also press the Home button twice to pull up a scrolling list of apps so that you can quickly move from one to another (Apple refers to this capability as multitasking).
● If you press and hold the Home button, you open Siri, the iPhone voice assistant.
● With iPhone 5s and later, the Home button contains a fingerprint reader used with the Touch ID feature.
❯❯ On/Off/Sleep/Wake button: You can use this button (whose functionality I cover in more detail in Chapter 3) to power up your iPhone, put it in Sleep mode, wake it up, or power it down.
❯❯ Lightning connector: Plug in the Lightning connector at one end of the Lightning to USB Cable that came with your iPhone to charge your battery, listen to audio with your EarPods, or sync your iPhone with your computer (which you find out more about in Chapter 4).
❯❯ Ring/Silent switch: Slide this little switch to mute or unmute the sound on your iPhone.
❯❯ Built-in stereo speakers: One nice surprise when I got my first iPhone was hearing what a nice little sound system it has and how much sound can come from the tiny speakers. The speakers in iPhone 7 and 7 Plus provide rich stereo sound, and are located on the bottom edge of the phone and at the top part near the earpiece.
❯❯ Volume up/down buttons: Tap the volume up button for more volume and the volume down button for less.
❯❯ Built-in microphones: Built-in microphones make it possible to speak into your iPhone to deliver commands or content. This feature allows you to do such things as
● Make phone calls using the Internet
● Use video calling services, such as Skype
● Work with other apps that accept audio input, such as the Siri built-in assistant.
Chapter 2
Exploring the Home Screen
IN THIS CHAPTER
❯❯ See what you need to use iPhone
❯❯ Turn on iPhone for the first time
❯❯ Meet the multi-touch screen
❯❯ Say hello to tap and swipe
❯❯ Display and use the onscreen keyboard
❯❯ Flick to search
I won’t kid you: You have a slight learning curve ahead of you if you’re coming from a more basic cellphone (but if you own another smartphone, you’ve got a head start). For example, your previous phone might not have had a Multi-Touch screen and onscreen keyboard.
The good news is that getting anything done on the iPhone is simple, when you know the ropes. In fact, using your fingers to do things is a very intuitive way to communicate with your computing device, which is just what iPhone is.
In this chapter, you turn on your iPhone, register it, and then take your first look at the Home screen. You also practice using the onscreen keyboard, see how to interact with the touchscreen in various ways, get pointers on working with cameras, and get an overview of built-in applications (apps).
See What You Need to Use iPhone
You need to be able, at a minimum, to connect to the Internet to take advantage of most iPhone features, which you can do using a Wi-Fi network (a network that you set up in your own home or access in a public place such as a library) or a 3G/4G connection from your cellular provider. You might want to have a computer so that you can connect your iPhone to it to download photos, videos, music, or applications and transfer them to or from your iPhone through a process called syncing (see Chapter 4 for more about syncing). An Apple service called iCloud syncs content from all your Apple iOS devices (such as the iPhone or iPad), so anything you buy on your iPad that can be run on an iPhone, for example, will automatically be pushed to your iPhone. In addition, you can sync without connecting a cable to a computer using a wireless Wi-Fi connection to your computer.
Your iPhone will probably arrive registered and activated, or if you buy it in a store, the person helping you can handle that procedure.
For an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, Apple recommends that you have
❯❯ A Mac or PC with a USB 2.0 or 3.0 port and one of these operating systems:
● macOS version 10.9 (Mavericks) or later
● Windows 7 or newer
❯❯ iTunes 12.5 or later, available at www.apple.com/itunes/download
❯❯ An Apple ID
❯❯ Internet access
Turn