To use this guide you should familiarize yourself with the following points on your iPhone 3G.

• The button below your screen with a square on it is called the home button.
• The thin silver button located on top of you iPhone on the right hand side is referred to as sleep/power button.
• The hole next to the sleep/power button is where you insert your headphones.
• Taping or tap is when you use your finger to lightly touch something on the screen, the iPhone 3G does not have a conventional touch screen and there is no need to press hard, just a light tap will do fine.

Let’s get started.

1. Bigger keyboard

When you are browsing with Safari you can tip your phone sideways and the screen will rotate, now if you tap a line of space where you can type something, your keyboard will be substantially larger. Keep in mind that the iPhone screen will not rotate if you are already viewing your keyboard.

2. Accented characters

Another keyboard tip, if you’re using your iPhone’s keyboard and wish to type in an accented letter (such as the “e” in Cliché) touch and hold on the unaccented form of the letter you wish to accent, after a few seconds a grouping of accented forms of the letter you’re holding down will appear. Simply slide your finger onto the version of said letter you want and voila. This method can also be used when you’re entering a URL into Safari, if you hold down the .com button, you’ll get other options such as .net, .org, and .edu.

3. Home button shortcuts

There are two home button shortcuts that can be very useful, the first can be used almost at anytime simply double tap the home button and you’ll be transported to the favorites section of your contacts. However if you’re listening to music and you double tap the home button a small menu will pop up that gives the Name of the song currently playing its artist and the album it’s from. It also gives you the options to skip tracks back and forth, play and pause, and a button that takes your iPod menu.

4. Homepage organization

If you want to rearrange the icons on your home pages all you have to do is touch and hold the icon for a few seconds until they start to “dance” at this point you can drag icons around, rearrange your homepages and delete applications that aren’t built into your phone.

5. The iPhone Headphones

The head phones that came with you iPhone are more than just a device for listening to your tunes without other hearing, the iPhone headphones are four pronged instead of the usual three prongs. That extra prong allows the little tiny microphone on the wire of your right headphone to transmit your voice back to your phone, no more need to hold the phone close to your head; you can just leave it in your pocket. But it gets better; if you’re listening to some music and you get a call your music will nicely fade out you’ll hear your phone ringing in its stead. Now you could take your phone out of your pocket hit Answer call and then put it back into your pocket and talk through the microphone, but there is a better way, if you squeeze the microphone between your finger you should feel a small click, you can now go ahead and talk, pressing the microphone has the same effect as pressing the Answer call button. Another option is to press and hold you microphone button for a few seconds and that will send the call straight to your voice mail without having to wait the normal four rings. When you’re done your conversation you can either hang up by pressing the microphone button again or you’ll automatically hang up when the person you were talking to hangs up. Either way, you will hear your music gradually return and continue to play where it left off.

6. More on the iPhone Headphones

Much like the shortcut just mentioned, if you’re listening to music and wish to pause your tunes you can click your microphone button, to resume simply press it again. To skip forward a track press it twice in rapid succession, and to go back a track press it three times quickly.

7. Screen Captures

Your iPhone also includes a screen capture option. Very useful when you just want a quick picture of what going happening on your screen for future reference, just go to the page you want to photograph, make sure you can clearly see what you want your picture to be off then, while holding down the Home button and then press the power/sleep button on the top right side of you phone. The screen will flash white for a moment much like a camera’s flash and the picture has been taken. To view the picture simply go to your homepage, go to your pictures, and then visit the Camera Roll folder, your screen shot will be there, most likely at the bottom of the page seeing as how it was the most reason photo you took. You can also touch and hold on a picture while browsing with safari, a box will pop up and ask you if you wish to save this image, just tap yes and it’ll be saved in your Camera Role.

8. Writing Shortcut

This is a fairly simple one, when you are typing something and you want to start a new sentence you can double tap the space bar and it’ll put a period at the end of that sentence, a space, and then capitalize the next letter you type.

9. Browsing shortcut

Another tip, when you’re browsing with Safari and want to return to the top of the page, simply tap the grey bar at the top of the screen to be whisked all the way back to the top.

10. Little know iPhone facts

And finally let us finish off with a few delectable morsels of information about your phone. The iPhone has a GPS (Global Positioning System) built into it, but unlike the bulkier GPSs you can buy at a lot of stores these days the iPhone has no antenna so no way to view the ski, which is key in getting a good reading on your GPS. So the designers and engineers at Apple pulled out all the stops to try and make the GPS in the iPhone very sensitive to those satellite signals beaming down from space. One thing they did was to place a tiny ring of metal around the camera lens, and hook that to the interior workings of the iPhone and the GPS for a more accurate display of where you are on planet Earth.

Another interesting thing about the iPhone is its adaptability to all light intensities, if it’s bright out the back lights dim and if you’re in a darker room the backlights will glow all the brighter. The way is senses the changing light is with a small sensor in the top left hand corner of your phone, but the only way to see it is with a bright flash light. Directly beside the light sensor is another sensor, a proximity sensor to be precise. When you put you the phone to your ear to make a phone call you don’t want your cheek accidently tapping the End call button and have your conversation cut short. If this sensor detects that your face is close to the phone and that you’re in the midst of making a phone call it will freeze all the on screen options rendering them untapable until your head is well away from your phone.

And that concludes this guide. I hope you can make good use of the information I’ve provided and that you’ll be able get the most out of your iPhone 3G from now on.