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the background of the app or Home screen. In some situations, however, the background color changes behind the status bar when you’re engaged in one activity, such as a phone call, and begin another activity, such as opening Notes to jot down something your caller is telling you. These are what the different colors mean:

✔ Green: A phone or FaceTime call is active but you’re doing something else. You can continue to converse while you do the other activity; it’s helpful to put the call on speakerphone before opening another app.

✔ Red: Voice Memos or another recording app is recording while you’re doing other things. Tap the red bar to return to Voice Memos, or the recording app, and stop recording.

✔ Blue: Your iPhone is set up as a Personal Hotspot and its Internet connection is being accessed by another device.

Noticing notifications and badges

When iPhone wants to get your attention and tell you something, it communicates via badges and notification alerts (see Figure 2-4) and banners. These are different from alerts, alarms, and reminders that you set on your iPhone in that they contain information iPhone wants to give you.

Figure 2-4: Notification alerts often have buttons that give you a choice of actions to take.

A badge appears as a white number inside a red circle in the corner of certain app icons, such as Mail and Podcasts (refer to Figure 2-3). The number indicates how many unread messages or status updates await you in those apps.

Alerts require a response and appear when you want to do something but iPhone needs something else to happen before it can complete the task. Alerts appear in rectangular boxes in the middle of the screen and typically display buttons you can tap to respond to with a certain action. In the example in Figure 2-4, for instance, you have the choice o f acknowledging the alert by tapping Cancel, or by tapping Disable to turn off Airplane Mode.

Banners appear when you’re doing one thing – say, reading an article on a website – and another thing happens – say, you get an incoming email. You see a banner across the top of your iPhone’s screen. You can choose to respond or ignore it. You can ignore the banner, and it disappears in a few seconds, tap it to open the app that wants your attention, or in apps that offer interactive notifications, like Messages or Facebook, swipe down to respond. For example, an iMessage comes in while you’re reading the news on Safari; pull the banner down and a field opens so you can type your response, tap Send, and then return to the article you were reading, without ever having left Safari or pull down on a Facebook banner, tap Like or write a comment, and then return to what you were doing. iPhone saves notifications you don’t respond to in the Notification Center, which you can see by swiping down from the top of the screen. You choose which apps you want to see in the Notification Center and how you want to be notified in Settings, which we cover in Book I, Chapter 4.

When a new app has been installed or an existing app updated, a blue dot appears to the left of the app name under the app icon.

Making Connections

Your iPhone has the ability to connect to a variety of signal sources, which means you can be connected to someone somewhere all the time: to the Internet via your cellular carrier’s data network or via a Wi-Fi network, or to other devices like printers, keyboards, and hands-free headsets using Bluetooth, and to other iOS devices or Macs using AirDrop, which transmits over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. To help you understand all your iPhone’s many connection options, we’ve organized those options into three sections: cellular and wireless connections; Personal Hotspot, tethering, and AirDrop; and lastly, Bluetooth and GPS connections. You can manage these connections in the Settings app.

Cellular

When you activate your iPhone with a carrier, you gain access to that carrier’s cellular voice and data network. Without boring you with too many technical details, your iPhone typically connects using one or more of the following protocols:

✔ LTE/4G: Long Term Evolution is the most recent cellular communications protocol. Both GSM- and CDMA-model iPhones can access the LTE network where it’s available. This may be referred to as 4G when a GSM carrier accesses the 4G UMTS network.

✔ GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) models

• 3G/UMTS: 3G is the third-generation protocol standard that uses the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) cellular frequency. This protocol is faster than EDGE, but consumes more battery power. If 3G is on but unavailable, iPhone defaults to EDGE.

• EDGE: Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution is the first-generation protocol standard for connecting to the Internet over the cellular carrier network. EDGE often offers a more stable, albeit slower, connection than 3G because it offers wider network coverage.

• GPRS: General Packet Radio Service supports both second- (2G) and third-generation (3G) cellular telephony. Usage is based on volume rather than time. If neither EDGE nor 3G is available, iPhone defaults to GPRS.

• HSPA+: High-Speed Packet Access is a faster type of 3G.

✔ CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) models

• EV-DO: The Evolution-Data Optimized is a 3G or third-generation protocol, similar to UMTS for access speed.

• 1xRTT: 1x Radio Transmission Technology is an alternative 3G protocol.

Unlike GSM-model iPhones, if you have a CDMA iPhone and are actively transferring data over your carrier’s cellular network – to check your email or browse a web page, for instance – you cannot also engage in an active phone call while those data-related activities are underway. Any calls you may receive while using your cellular carrier’s data connection are sent directly to your voicemail. You can make and receive calls while doing those data-related things on your CDMA iPhone if you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network.

When your iPhone is connected to the Internet with one of these protocols, the associated icon appears in the Status bar, as mentioned earlier in this chapter.

If you happen to be outside your carrier’s network, you can try to access the Internet through another carrier. This is called Data Roaming and is enabled by opening the Settings app, tapping Cellular, and tapping the Data Roaming switch on.

Data roaming, especially if you’re out of the country, can rack up sizeable surcharges. Check with your carrier for data roaming fees before being surprised with a whopping bill at the end of the month.

If your cellular carrier contract has a data transfer limit, you want to keep track of how much data you’re consuming. Your carrier may have a dedicated website or app that tracks the information for you or you can monitor your cellular data usage by opening the Settings app and tapping Cellular. Scroll down the screen to see the Call Time and Cellular Data Usage, which indicate the number of days and hours you spent on your iPhone during that period and during the total span of your relationship with your carrier plan and the amount of data you’ve shuttled back and forth over your cellular carrier’s network. At the very bottom of the screen, you find the Reset Statistics button that resets the aforementioned stats so you can start tracking those figures.

You should tap Reset Statistics at the end of the month or on the day when your period renews. Using Wi-Fi for data access is an alternative if you have free or low-cost Wi-Fi service in places where you use your iPhone.

Wi-Fi

You may want to say that cellular is wireless, and you’d be right. But Wi-Fi is wireless, only better.

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